Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Please turn with me in your Bible to the letter to the Hebrews chapter 12.

While we’ll be focusing on verses 24-25, let’s read verses 18-29 to remind ourselves of the context.

Let’s now turn to and read verses 1-16.

Illustration | Susan: In C.S. Lewis’s The Last Battle he writes Susan’s tragic ending:

“My sister Susan,” answered Peter shortly and gravely, “is no longer a friend of Narnia.”

“Yes,” said Eustace, “and whenever you’ve tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says ‘Fancy your still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.’”

“Oh Susan!” said Jill, “she’s interested in nothing now-a-days except nylons and lipstick and invitations.”

“Grown-up, indeed,” said the Lady Polly.

“I wish she would grow up.

She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she’ll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age.

Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one’s life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can.”

Immediately following this tragic ending, Lewis describs the joy Peter, Edmund, and Lucy experience after they go through the door, out of Narnia and into Aslan’s country.

He describes it as a book where each chapter is better than the last.

But Susan, Susan is never mentioned again.

Why?

Because she stopped believing in Aslan and she stopped believing in Narnia.

Transition.

Transition: And while this is a fictional story, it is a small picture of an important spiritual truth the book of Hebrews is written to explain.

Exposition | Background on the Book: The author of our epistle is writing to a group of Jewish-Christians who were tempted to abandon Christianity and return to Judaism in the midst of Roman persecution.

In response to this, the author’s main point is this: Jesus is better than anything Judaism has to offer.

And he uses this truth to spur his audience on to further allegiance to Christ and his kingdom.

The first great Roman persecution of Christians.

Would end with the destruction of the Jewish temple.

He implores his audience, “don't cast away your faith in Christ.

Christ and his kingdom are eternal.

Don't forsake that eternal kingdom because of current events around you.

No matter what pressure you might feel from outside, the eternal benefits of staying faithful to Christ far outweigh whatever temporal comforts and pleasures are offered to those who forsake him.”

Look at the upheavals of nations in this earth through heavenly eyes.

Christ is building his everlasting kingdom.

Over and over again, the author presents both the glories of our heavenly inheritance and the graciousness of Jesus as admonition to continue to believe the gospel, no matter the consequences.

In our text today, the author encourages us towards further faith in the gospel by using the Old Testament account of Cain and Abel as a picture, an illustration of the graciousness of Jesus.

Why does he do this?

Because pictures and stories affect our emotions and awaken our affections.

And our author uses this specific story to awaken afresh our emotions to the incredible reality of our salvation, the graciousness of Jesus, and the incredible consequences if we, like Susan who loved this world more than Aslan’s Country, forsake out eternal inheritance for temporal pleasures.

Exposition | Setting the Context: The author describes the terror of God’s revelation at Mt. Sinai with words

Read: “But you have come to Jesus, the mediator of a New Covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

See that you do not refuse him who is speaking.

I could boil down what the author is telling us in these two short verses like this:

Prop: Jesus’ gracious intercession for us demands unwavering allegiance from us.

Our outline tonight will be simple:

First, in verse 24 we will see “His graciousness.

Second, in verse 25 we will look at “Our response.”

1) His Graciousness (24).

Explanation: After explaining one glorious truth of our salvation after another in this paragraph, the author highlights for us the sprinkled blood of Christ as the climax of these glories.

And he contrasts this blood to the blood of Abel from .

Explanation / Illustration | : As a quick reminder for us, in Cain and Abel both brought sacrifices to the Lord.

And while God accepted Abel’s offering, he did not accept Cain’s offering.

This caused Cain to be angry; so angry, in fact, that he killed his brother.

God then went to Cain and said to him “Where is your brother?

What have you done?

The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.

And now you are cursed from the ground which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.”

Cain responds to God that his punishment is more than he can bare.

Still, Cain is exiled from his family and from the presence of the Lord.

Transition: The author to the Hebrews notices similarities between the story of Jesus and the story of Abel.

And he wants us to reexamine with the story of Jesus’ crucifixion in mind.

He says that these stories are similar in key ways, yet different in one key way: Jesus’ blood speaks better than Abel’s.

Illustration: While we may not be used to reading the Old Testament like this, we make the same kind of comparisons every day between two things that are similar, yet one is clearly better.

For example, if someone had come here tonight with vegetarian bacon instead of real bacon, we’d say that while they both claim to be bacon, one is clearly better than the other.

Similar, yet different in one key way.

Or if someone said that they went to Kentucky Kingdom, but Disney was better.

We understand that both Disney and Kentucky Kingdom are amusement parks, but one is clearly better better than the other.

Your favorite sports team and your favorite sport’s team’s greatest rival.

I think we get the picture.

Sunergos and Starbucks.

So first, we need to examine how Jesus and Abel are similar, then we can examine how Jesus is better.

Illustration: Speaking Blood.

I can think of three ways in which Abel and Jesus are similar:

First, Abel was murdered by his brother.

And Jesus “came to his own, and his own did not receive him.”

He came to his brothers and they too became jealous of the favor he was receiving.

And this caused them to, like Cain, become angry, plot, and murder their brother.

Second, Abel was innocent and didn’t deserve to be killed.

Jesus too was innocent when he will nailed to the cross.

He was falsely accused of blasphemy by the religious leaders of his day and was innocent of the charges brought against him.

Third, Abel’s blood spoke and God heard it.

So with Jesus, his own blood also speaks and God hears it.

These are the ways in which they are similar, but our text today encourages us to look beyond how they are similar and examine how they are different.

How is the blood of Jesus better than the blood of Abel?

How is Jesus better than Abel?

I can think of five categories for how the blood of Jesus is better than the blood of Abel.

First, and most clearly, Jesus’ blood is better in what it says, both in what it says to God and in what it says to us.

First, what it says to God.

While Abel’s blood cried for vengeance, Jesus’ blood cries for mercy.

The cry of Abel’s blood was heard loud and clear by God in heaven “avenge me!” and “condemn him!” and “Revenge!”

And the blood of Jesus cries too.

God hears the cry of his Son’s blood from heaven and says, “What is it my Son, my beloved, my only-begotten is saying?”

He inclines his ear to listen and hears, not the cry of Abel, but he hears the voice of his Son, “Mercy!

Mercy!

Mercy!”

He says to God for us “father, forgive them.”

The old hymn said it like this:

But the blood of Jesus cries out a better thing concerning us.

Rather than crying our for our condemnation, Jesus blood cries out in heaven before the throne of God saying “Mercy!

Mercy!

Mercy!”

Five bleeding wounds He bears;

received on Calvary;

They pour effectual prayers;