<style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }</style>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="CENTER">“<b>TWO
ARE BETTER THAN ONE” MINISTRIES</b></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="CENTER"><b>Jim
& Marie Watt</b></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="CENTER"><b>Tel:
<a href="tel:253-517-9195" target="_blank">253-517-9195</a> - Email:
<a href="mailto:jmbetter@gmail.com" target="_blank">jmbetter@gmail.com</a></b></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="CENTER"><b>Web:
<a href="http://www.2rbetter.org/" target="_blank">www.2rbetter.org</a></b></p><p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="CENTER">April 10, 2012</p><p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="CENTER">
<br></p>
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<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="CENTER"><b>2012-04-09
- “THE SON - MORE THAN THE PROPHETS”</b></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="CENTER"><b>(From
“The Holiest of All” - An Exposition of the Epistle to the
Hebrews -</b></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="CENTER"><b>by
Andrew Murray</b></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="CENTER"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none" align="CENTER">
<font face="Palatino Linotype, serif"><b><span style="font-style:normal">HEBREWS</span>
SUMMARY: THE ABSOLUTE PRE-EMINENCE OF CHRIST</b></font></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none" align="CENTER">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none" align="CENTER">
<font face="Palatino Linotype, serif"><font style="font-size:8pt" size="1">A.
1:1-2:4 THE SOBER IMPORTANCE OF THE WORDS OF GOD'S SON</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none" align="CENTER">
<font face="Palatino Linotype, serif"><font style="font-size:8pt" size="1">1.
1:1-4 GOD FULLY BACKS UP HIS SON'S WORD TO US</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none" align="CENTER">
<font face="Palatino Linotype, serif"><font size="3"><b>:God, having
spoken of old to the fathers in the prophets</b></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none" align="CENTER">
<font face="Palatino Linotype, serif">Po-lu-meR<u>O</u>S <font style="font-size:8pt" size="1">[4181]</font>
kai po-luTROp<u>o</u>s <font style="font-size:8pt" size="1">[4187]</font>
PAlai <font style="font-size:8pt" size="1">[3819]</font> ho TheOS,</font></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none" align="CENTER">
<font face="Palatino Linotype, serif"><font size="3"><b>by different
portions and in different manners,</b></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none" align="CENTER">
<font face="Palatino Linotype, serif">laL<u>E</u>sas tois paTRAsin en
tois proPH<u>E</u>tais <font style="font-size:8pt" size="1">[4396]</font>,</font></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none" align="CENTER">
<font face="Palatino Linotype, serif"><font size="3"><font style="font-size:8pt" size="1"><span style>2
</span></font><b>has at <i>the</i><span style="font-style:normal">
end of these :days spoken to us in a Son,</span></b></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;text-decoration:none" align="CENTER">
<font face="Palatino Linotype, serif">ep' eSCHAtou <font style="font-size:8pt" size="1">[2078]</font>
t<u>o</u>n h<u>e</u>-meR<u>O</u>N TOUt<u>o</u>n eLAl<u>e</u>-sen
h<u>e</u>MIN en hui<u>O</u>,</font></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="CENTER">
<font face="Palatino Linotype, serif"><font size="3"><b>whom he
appointed heir of all, through whom also he made the ages;</b></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="CENTER">
<font face="Palatino Linotype, serif"><font style="font-size:11pt" size="2">hon
Eth<u>e</u>-ken <font style="font-size:8pt" size="1">[5087]</font>
kl<u>e</u>-roNOmon <font style="font-size:8pt" size="1">[2818]</font>
PANt<u>o</u>n, di' hou kai ePOI<u>e</u>-sen <font style="font-size:8pt" size="1">[4160]</font>
tous ai<u>O</u>nas <font style="font-size:8pt" size="1">[165]</font>;</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="CENTER">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="LEFT">
<font face="Palatino Linotype, serif"><font style="font-size:11pt" size="2">We
all know that there are two Testaments - the Old and the New. These
represent two dispensations, two modes of worship, two sorts of
religions, two ways in which God has intercourse with man, and man
draws nigh to God. The one was provisional, preparatory, and intended
to pass away. What it gave and wrought was not meant to satisfy, but
only to awaken the expectation of something better that was to come.
The other was the fulfillment of what had been promised, and destined
to last for ever, because it was itself a complete revelation of an
everlasting redemption, of a salvation in the power of an endless
life. </font></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="LEFT">
<font face="Palatino Linotype, serif"><font style="font-size:11pt" size="2">In
both Old and New Testament it was God who spoke. The prophets in the
Old, and the Son in the New, were equally God's messengers. God spoke
in the prophets no less truly than in the Son. But in the Old
everything was external and through the mediation of men. God Himself
could not yet enter and take possession of man and dwell in him. In
the New all is more directly and immediately divine - in an inward
power and reality and life, of which the Old had only the shadow and
hope. The Son, who is God, brings us into the very presence of God.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="LEFT">
<font face="Palatino Linotype, serif"><font style="font-size:11pt" size="2">And
wherefore was it that God did not, could not, from the very
beginning, reveal Himself in the Son? What need was there of these
two ways of worshiping and serving Him? The answer is twofold - If
man were indeed intelligently and voluntarily to appropriate God's
love and redemption, he needed to be prepared for it. He needed first
of all to know his own utter impotence and hopeless wretchedness. And
so his heart had to be wakened up in true desire and expectancy to
welcome the value what God had to give.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="LEFT">
<font face="Palatino Linotype, serif"><font style="font-size:11pt" size="2">When
God speaks to us in Christ, it is as the Father <i>dwelling in the
Son.</i> <b>“The words that I say unto you, I speak not from
Myself, but </b><i><b>the Father abiding in Me does the works.”</b></i>
Just as God's speaking in Christ was an inward thing - So God can
still speak to us in no other way. The external words of Christ, just
like the words of the prophets, are to prepare us for, and point us
to, that inner speaking in the heart by the Holy Spirit, which alone
is life and power. This is God's true speaking in His Son.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="LEFT">
<font face="Palatino Linotype, serif"><font style="font-size:11pt" size="2">It
is of the utmost consequence for our spiritual life that we should
rightly understand these two stages in God's dealing with man. In two
ways, not in one; not in more than two; in two ways has God spoken.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="LEFT">
<font face="Palatino Linotype, serif"><font style="font-size:11pt" size="2">They
indicate what, in substance, is God's way with every Christian. There
is, after his conversion, a time of preparation and testing, to see
whether he willingly and heartily sacrifices all for the full
blessing. If in this stage he perseveres in earnest effort and
striving, he will be brought to learn the two lessons the Old
Testament was meant to teach. He will become more deeply conscious of
his own impotence, and the strong desire will be awakened after a
better life, to be found in the full revelation of Christ as able to
save completely. When these two lessons are learned - the lesson of
despair of self and hope in God alone - the soul is prepared, if it
will yield itself in faith to the leading of the Holy Spirit, to
enter truly into the New Testament life within the veil, in the very
Holiest of All, as it is set forth in this Epistle.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="LEFT">
<font face="Palatino Linotype, serif"><font style="font-size:11pt" size="2">Where
Christians, through defective instruction, or through neglect and
sloth, do not understand God's way for leading them on unto
perfection, the Christian life will always remain full of feebleness
and failure. It was thus with the Hebrew Christians. They belonged to
the New Testament, but their life was anything but the exhibition of
the power and joy Christ came to reveal. They were far behind what
many of the Old Testament saints had been; and the reason was this -
they knew not the heavenly character of the redemption Christ had
brought. They knew not the heavenly place in which He ministers, nor
the heavenly blessing He dispenses, nor the heavenly power in which
He secures our enjoyment of these blessings. They knew not the
difference between the prophets and the Son; what it means that God
has now spoken to us in His Son. The one object of the Epistle is to
set before us the heavenly priesthood of Christ and the heavenly life
to which He in His divine power gives us access. It is this gives the
Epistle its inestimable value for all time, that it teaches us the
way out of the elementary stage of the Christian life to that of full
and perfect access to God.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="LEFT">
<font face="Palatino Linotype, serif"><font style="font-size:11pt" size="2">Let
us grasp and hold firmly the difference between the two stages. In
the one, the action of man is more prominent: God speaks in the
prophets. In the other, the divine presence and power are more fully
revealed: God speaks in the Son, who bears and brings the very life
of God, and brings us into living contact with God Himself. In the
one, it is the human words that occupy and influence and help us to
seek God; in the other, the divine indwelling Word reveals its power
within. In the one, it is multiplicity of thoughts and truths, of
ordinances and efforts; in the other, the simplicity and the unity of
the one Son of God, and faith in Him alone.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="LEFT">
<font face="Palatino Linotype, serif"><font style="font-size:11pt" size="2">How
many have sought by study and <u>meditation</u> and acceptance of the
words of the Bible to find God, and yet have failed. They knew not
that these were but the finger-posts pointing to the living Son, -
words coming indeed from God, most needful and profitable, and yet
not sufficient; only yielding us their true blessing when they have
brought us to hear God Himself speaking in His Son.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="LEFT">
<font face="Palatino Linotype, serif"><font style="font-size:11pt" size="2"><b>1.
Let none of us rest content with the lower stage. Let us see that
personal fellowship with God, through the Holy Spirit, is what Christ
gives. God calls us to it: Christ lives in heaven to work it, through
the Spirit He gives from heaven.</b></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="LEFT">
<font face="Palatino Linotype, serif"><font style="font-size:11pt" size="2"><b>2.
One may know much of the Bible and the words of God, and yet remain
feeble. What one needs is to know the living Word, in whom God speaks
within, in life and power.</b></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="LEFT">
<font face="Palatino Linotype, serif"><font style="font-size:11pt" size="2"><b>3.
All the prophets point to the Son, as the true Prophet. Let us take
them very definitely as our teachers, to reveal God to us.</b></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="LEFT">
<font face="Palatino Linotype, serif"><font style="font-size:11pt" size="2"><b>4.
When I speak a word, I desire all its meaning and force to enter into
him whom I address. God has in these last days but one Word. He
desires to have all that Word is and means enter in and live in us.
Let us open our hearts, and God will speak into it that one Word,
“This is My Son,” in such a way that He will indeed be all our
own.</b></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal" align="LEFT">
<font face="Palatino Linotype, serif"><font style="font-size:11pt" size="2"><u><b>NOTE</b></u><span style="text-decoration:none"><b>:
</b></span><span style="text-decoration:none"><span style>The
above chapter by Andrew Murray lays out clearly the contrast between
OT prophets and our Lord Jesus; OT and NT; Old Covenant and New
Covenant. Murray wrote some 300 books and booklets during his
lifetime, some in Dutch that have not been translated.</span></span></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="LEFT">
<font face="Palatino Linotype, serif"><font style="font-size:11pt" size="2">His
book ministry has had an extraordinary effect throughout the whole
world; many in this area were not even aware of his specific ministry
in South Africa to the Dutch church.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal" align="LEFT">
<font face="Palatino Linotype, serif"><font style="font-size:11pt" size="2"><span style="text-decoration:none"><span style>George
Muller and Charles H. Spurgeon held similar views with Andrew Murray
concerning this relationship between Old and New Testaments. Because
the Jews addressed in the Book of Hebrews were unable to see this
clear distinction, they were unable to enter into the clear
exposition of the apostle Paul. It is for this reason that Andrew
Murray and George Muller so clearly set forth this contrast and
distinction. May we </span></span><u><span style>too</span></u><span style="text-decoration:none"><span style>
walk in this insight they failed to perceive. J.A.Watt</span></span></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
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</p>
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