With these impressive words begins the epistle to the Hebrews, and we are taught that God it is who commands all history, and God who reveals himself by speaking through all the sacred history of Israel as also to the new Israel of God or body of Christ. The stress in the text is first of all on God who has all the initiative, and who brings about a continuity in old and new testament covenants because the same loving God brought all essential history to its real conclusion in the revelation of a Saviour who is Lord of all.

Our text also speaks of ways many and various. Two points are made: the frequency of God's utterance, and the variety of ways in which his message comes to the world. Let us try to illustrate that frequency and the many ways and modes.