Remember Those That Are Bound

Hebrews 13 and the Move from Doctrine to Exhortation

Turn with me, please, to the book of Hebrews, chapter 13. Back to the book of Hebrews, chapter 13, where we once again wrestle with this wonderful epistle. Let us begin our time with a word of prayer.

Our gracious Heavenly Father, once again, as we look to this, Your Word, we ask that You would be with us by Your Spirit, that You would give us guidance, direction, most importantly, that by Your Spirit You would give us understanding, that You would apply Your Word to our hearts.

We might be better servants of Jesus Christ. For it is in His name that we pray. Amen. For those of you who are visiting with us this morning, we have been, at least in the times when I am standing behind this pulpit and preaching, been working through the book of Hebrews for quite some time now, and we enter into the last 25 verses.

Yes, there are only 25 verses left in the book of Hebrews. We have been studying this book for a number of years, and the end is in sight. But we have completed now the primary theological aspect of the book.

The argument has been made, the argument that we have seen from the beginning, which addressed to the Jewish believers in Christ was, there is nothing to go back to, even though your family, your friends, your community has put great pressure upon you to go back, to offer sacrifice, to abandon the profession of faith, and this man, Jesus Christ, to offer that sacrifice, and by so doing, trample underfoot His blood, and to say that His death was not a sacrifice for sins, even though that is the great pressure that has been put upon them.

And it was a pressure that is difficult for us to understand, because we stand with 2 ,000 years of history behind us. We stand with the great men of the faith, the great women of the faith, and we struggle to understand what it would have been like in that day to be a part of a small, struggling, despised minority.

Even though we may experience that in the not-too-distant future, to be a small and despised, struggling minority. We may understand, may have greater insights into the context of certain of the passages of Scripture than we have had in the past, but it is difficult for us to really grasp hold of that, and to understand what it would have been like to not have all that history behind us, and the force of the arguments.

And so, this sermon put into the form of a letter has been provided to these Hebrew Christians, and now the argument has been made, and made with great power, but there is nothing to go back to, that Jesus Christ is the one who was prophesied by all of the prophets of old.

His work is completed. We have peace with God through what He has accomplished. And that argument has now been made and completed. And so, what happens in most of our New Testament books, when you have that completion of the overarching argument, there follows, in almost every one of those epistles, we can see this in Romans and other of the New Testament books, there follows a section of exhortations or commands that are based upon the completed theological foundation that has been laid.

And that's what we have here in chapter 13. It's only 25 verses long. There aren't a lot of exhortations. There are not as many, for example, as we will see in the book of Romans, as the pastor gets into the same section there, where you have, now that you understand the truth that God has revealed, this is how it should have application.

It's not quite as full, but it certainly will provide us some very, very important exhortations to understand. So, let's take a look at what chapter 13 has to say, and then we'll try to make some headway in looking at each of these particular verses.

Brotherly Love, Hospitality, and Remembering the Bound

Let love of the brethren continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember the prisoners as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body.

Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled, for fornicators and adulterers God will judge. Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have, for he himself has said, I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you, so that we confidently say, the Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid, what will a man do to me?

Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you, and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever. Not be carried away by varied and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods through which those who were so occupied were not benefited.

We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat, for the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin are burned outside the camp.

Therefore, Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people through his own blood, suffered outside the gate, so let us go out to him, outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come.

Through him, then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips to give thanks to his name. And do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

Obeying Leaders, Prayer, and the Eternal Covenant

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you. Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a good conscience, desiring to conduct ourselves honorably in all things.

And I urge you all the more to do this, so that I may be restored to you the sooner. Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever.

Amen. But I urge you, brethren, bear with this word of exhortation, for I have written to you briefly. Take notice that our brother Timothy has been released, with whom, if he comes soon, I will see you.

Greet all of your leaders and all the saints. Those from Italy greet you. Grace be with you all. Amen. And so we come to the end of this great epistle. And in that process, we have a number of imperatives here at the beginning of chapter 13.

An imperative is a command. It is in the command mode. And so having established what our relationship with God is, it is, I think, very important for us to recognize, very important for us to be able to point out to others, that it is a biblical truth that once God establishes us in the faith and in the truth, he then provides to us clear guidelines as to how we are to live our lives in such a way as to glorify him.

If after thinking about all that God has done, if recognizing the centrality of the cross, and the resurrection, and the fulfillment of all of the old covenant promises, and the establishment of the new covenant, and the perfection that comes through Christ, if anyone can think about all those things, and go, that's really neat, so now how can I fulfill all my lusts and desires?

Well, such a person obviously has not truly understood anything about what they have been hearing, and what they've been reading, or what they've been hearing preached to them. And so clearly, if we do not recognize that God has done all of these great things, and therefore now he has a purpose that he is going to work out in our lives, we've missed the New Testament message.

And yet, sadly, I once again warn us against the prevalence of false teaching on this very issue throughout evangelicalism, where there are those who would actually say that you can know Christ without repentance, that true saving faith can not have that element of repentance to it, and that discipleship, well, discipleship is just for super-Christians.

All you've got to do is nod the head, make a certain confession, you get your ticket punched, you're on your way to heaven, and all the rest of the stuff, that's good stuff to do, but you just don't understand it.

You don't need to do all that stuff. You're going to be good no matter what you end up doing. That kind of a teaching is so far removed from the mind of any of the inspired writers, that it's shocking that it has such prevalence in our day.

But in the same way, for the large majority of people that I have discourse with, the idea that the theology of the cross, the theology of the gospel, should be absolutely foundational to a Christian worldview, and that therefore there should be a way in which we look at all the world, in which we interact with what the world says, in which we should view, as we're going to see here, marriage and behavior and morals and ethics and sexuality, and how government works and everything else, all of a sudden, in so many people in our nation, there is this clear distinction, well, this is the religious part of my life over here, and then here's the secular part, here's the Monday through Wednesday afternoon, Thursday morning through late Saturday night part of my life, and the religious part is the Sunday part, and a little bit on Wednesday night part.

There's no way to consistently be able to construct a worldview that has that kind of a perspective within it. Instead, what we see is that the biblical message is, if you understand what God has done in Jesus Christ, then you will also understand that it's his purpose to conform you to the image of Christ, and here are the clear guidelines as to what that's going to look like.

It's not a cookie-cutter type thing. I'm very thankful that it's not a cookie-cutter type thing. I'm very thankful that the exhortations and the morality and ethics provided to us in the New Testament can transcend any cultural barrier, any time barrier, any language barrier.

I'm thankful for all of that, but at the same time, it just does seem that for many people who call themselves Christians, these sections sort of just don't end up being in the favorites part of our study of the Bible.

So, let's look at a couple of these commands. Notice, in the very first verse, you have let, it's only three words in Greek, and I normally don't do this, but you're going to find this interesting. Hey, Philadelphia, Minetto.

Philadelphia. No, this is not a directions. This is not a GPS thing, how to get to Pennsylvania. Actually, Philadelphia got its name from, well, right here, and it's the love of the brethren. We all knew what Philadelphia meant.

We all, well, maybe you didn't. I spent six years in school in Pennsylvania, and so we sort of did a little, we actually studied geography back then. It doesn't seem that's a real popular course of study anymore, but we did, and so we had to know where the term Philadelphia came from.

Well, there it is. Let love of the brethren continue. It's a command. Then, in the next verse, you have another phyla that is found there, and that is literally love of strangers, or translated as hospitality to strangers, and there you have that.

Do not neglect love of strangers, or hospitality to strangers, and then, in verse three, you have remember, and so you have these commands, and that command mode continues all the way down into verse four, where you have the command to honor the marriage institution, which we'll look at a little bit later on.

So, now we have commands. We have direct instruction being given to Christian people. It's interesting. I remember listening to an individual about six years ago now. He had converted to Islam. He had been a part of what I would call black cultural Christianity, which, unfortunately, very often has very little biblical teaching involved with it.

It's more of a cultural type thing, and one of the things, he had an exchange with an individual who had come from a sect of Islam into Christianity, and so they had sort of a debate about their different paths that they had taken, and I remember two things about the young man's testimony that he said.

The first was, Christianity gives you no guidance, no rule, and no laws to hire to live. That was his experience. You're allowed to live as you wanted to live. There wasn't any law. There wasn't any guidance.

There wasn't any right and wrong. And then the other thing that I remember very clearly from what he said was what happened the last time he was in his church, and what caused him to realize that this can't be the worship of God, was when the pastor, in the middle of his sermon, reached under the pulpit and broke out a saxophone, and broke into a sax solo in the middle of his sermon, which, of course, then people joined in, and the band started going, and they really swung it out, and he just got up and walked out the back door and said, that's just not worshiping God, and ended up being a Muslim.

I remember those two aspects, and it is unfortunate that for many, while they might have understood the second part of that, the first part, they would have gone, yeah, yeah, that's right. We're under grace, not law.

As if that had some meaningful connection to the reality that Scripture does give us clear instruction as to what a soul that has been remade in the image of Christ, what is that spiritual being going to desire?

What is that spiritual individual going to want to do? Are they just going to be left without any guidance and just sort of do whatever you want to do? No. The Scripture gives us clear instruction and guidance.

And so the first, let love of the brethren continue. He doesn't say let it start. There is a natural, there should be a natural love that exists between individuals who confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Now, we can see that within the local body, but I know one of the things that has been very, very encouraging to me is I get to travel. Now, some of you have noticed that the two elders we have here in this congregation have some differences between them as to how they do things.

And I just don't get the feeling that Pastor Fry would like flying to South Africa. I just don't see him really enjoying 14-hour airline flights. I don't know. But one of the things that I've really gotten out of that is the last time I was there, and I think I've mentioned this to you before, Lord willing, we can get the funds put together.

They're going to do it again in October, is I get off the plane and I meet a young pastor who has just taken the bull by the horns and has put a tremendous amount of work into organizing all of this. And we walk through the airport a little ways.

We go to this one place that's open where I can get some food. It's been a long flight. And of course, there's jet lag and all that other fun stuff starting to kick in. And because I've flown from Heathrow down to Johannesburg.

And we sit there and we start talking. And there is a bond that is almost... It was pretty much immediate. A bond that formed there because we have the same passion and we have the same concerns. And we're talking about the state of the church in South Africa.

And I'm asking him all sorts of questions and why's and wherefore's. And he's just giving me all this information. And there is just such a unity between us. It didn't take a few days to sort of get on the same page.

We're on the same page immediately. That happened a few years earlier when I first flown over to London. And Pastor Roger Brazier, we refer to each other as long-separated brethren. I mean, as soon as we met, there was just that unity in the faith.

And this has happened when I've gone down to Sydney, Australia with my dear Anglican brother, David Old down there. He's just... Again, wherever I go... And how can that be? I mean, all these people are so different than I am.

Even when I go to Scotland, some of those people are even different than me in Scotland, believe it or not. And wherever it is, we have this unity. When I went to... I landed in Kiev back in February.

Meet this young man who's doing the translation for me. Once again, we had known each other before in Berlin. Unity, even with men with whom I can't speak the same language. There is a unity in our commitment to Christ and it transcends anything else.

So there is a natural Philadelphia because we are truly Adelphoi. We are truly brothers and sisters. And what creates that relationship? I would submit to you that when we look at Scripture, it's not the similarity of our dress or our customs or our language or anything like that.

It's the fact that if you are in the body of Christ, you're indwelt by the Spirit of God. Each has bowed the knee to the same Lord. And when you bow the knee in repentance and faith, when you've given your heart to the same One, there is going to be a connection that automatically is going to exist between each other.

Now, I'm not saying that we don't see differences between us. I'm not saying that all of our differences disappear. I'm not saying that you're going to be... It's easy to get along with every other believer in Christ because that's not the case.

But there is a transcendent unity that is created by our common confession and by the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. And I know that there are friendships that people can have outside the faith.

But for me, outside the faith, it can only go so far. It can only go so far. That deep and abiding connection which doesn't have to be constantly propped up. It doesn't have to be constantly working on trying to keep it going.

That connection is a spiritual connection and it comes directly from our common confession of faith in Jesus Christ made alive in our hearts by the Spirit of God. And so, the first command is look to the unity within the body.

And the only way for there to be true unity to you in the body is to show love for one another. And we don't have time this morning, but I would just simply point you to Philippians chapter 2 if you want an example of what this is all about.

Don't look to your own things only, but look to the things of others. It's in service. And not service that, okay, I'm going to serve you, now you serve me. It's just in self-giving service that doesn't have you walking around the church building going, well, you know, I've now said greetings to five people, so I'm just going to stand here and wait until somebody does it to me.

And I'm going to need to get my five back. No, that should never be crossing our minds. This Philadelphia, this brotherly love is to continue. It is to be something that we recognize, that we find to be one of our greatest possessions.

It should be observable. And the author says, let love of the brethren continue. But notice the three. I showed you the imperatives, but notice what the three different groups are. In verse one, it's love of the brethren.

In verse two, it is love of strangers. And in verse three, you have the prisoners and those who are ill-treated. And so I think that that sort of ties together these three verses. And I'm going to try to get through these three this morning.

So the second verse is, do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers. For by this, some have entertained angels without knowing it. Now, Erwin, soon as an angel is mentioned, it's like, ooh, this could get interesting.

Well, sorry, but I think that the primary reference that the author has in mind to the entertaining strangers, angels without knowing it, are the two incidents, two of the incidents in the Old Testament.

First of all, Abraham with the three men that came to him by the Oaks of Mamre. And then we have the story in Judges where a couple likewise entertained angels and only afterwards found out what that was.

Now, we do need to understand that there is a cultural background, especially in the early portions of the Old Testament that reflects the very, very ancient world in regards to the idea of showing hospitality back then wasn't just, well, you know, get together once in a while and have a, you know, share a meal or have a church picnic or something like that.

In those days when you had a very small human population, showing hospitality was one of the highest moral goods because it was absolutely necessary to human survival and flourishing. I mean, you know, we're so used to, you know, driving down the road and if something goes wrong, my car, I got my cell phone and call AAA.

There was no AAA back then. And in fact, if you're traveling a long distance, there might not be any human beings and a whole lot of non-human beings, as in lions and tigers, oh my, between where you're going and where you are so that, you know, you couldn't stop at Circle K, believe it or not.

As long as they've been around, they're not that ancient. And so, showing hospitality was an absolutely necessary thing for anyone to be able to survive in that type of a context. And so, it's easy to understand why in light of the coming persecution and the undercurrent of persecution that exists, even within what we've already seen in the Epistle, to see why there would need to be an exhortation, do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, because if you are being persecuted, it's easy for you to draw back.

Now, we know, for example, when we're looking at 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, that in the early church, many people would be persecuted. And so, you would have to, they would be fled, they would flee to another town.

And obviously, the believers in that town would then try to want to help them and take them in. There would be that kind of hospitality that would need to be shown in light of persecution. There are also traveling evangelists, you can see.

So much so that it's interesting in one of the earliest non-canonical, non-inspired Christian writings called the Didache, that they had to establish rules because it would be really easy, honestly, and boy, do we see this even to this day, it'd be really easy to take advantage of these types of commands and just become an itinerant moocher.

You know, there's some people that just, they don't like staying in one place. And so, well, you're all supposed to show hospitality to me, so I'm just going to go from community to community and mooch off everybody.

And so, it's interesting in one of those earliest writings, there were rules that were set up and basically you only had a couple days. And if you stayed beyond a certain period of time, you're supposed to get kicked out because they recognize how easy it would be for people to take advantage of these situations.

And oh, I could tell you, we've had folks show up here at the church and man, had they practiced the story they were going to tell. Oh, I mean, they had props and they had everything. Just amazing. I could tell you some amazing stories and I'm sure Pastor Frye could tell you a whole lot more amazing stories than I can.

But it's easy to see how those types of things could be abused. But obviously, within the local community where you know people, it would be a little bit easier to recognize who is and who is not a true person making a profession of faith.

But this says, do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers. Now, if you want to, I cannot disprove that the last portion of this verse is indicating that angels might drop by your house someday asking for a cold cup of water.

I can't disprove that. But like I said, I think the best, most compelling background to that is, as it's been throughout the book of Hebrews, references to the Old Covenant scriptures and to the description that is found there of the interaction of people with angels who only then later found out that they were actually not dealing with men, but were dealing with angels and had shown hospitality to them.

But I'll have to admit, I remember so clearly, so clearly, shortly after we moved here, this August will be 40 years. It'll be my 40th August. Actually, this will be my 41st. Anyway, 40 years ago, we moved here, came here from Pennsylvania, had no earthly idea what Arizona in August was like.

We got here on July 31st, not the best timing on our part. And after having come to the shocking realization that when you turn the knob with a C on it in Arizona, that's a joke. And in Pennsylvania, that works all summer long.

You turn the C, the cold water comes out. We even called the builder of the house and said, you mixed up the pipes. And they're like, you're not from around here, are you? No, no, no. If you want cold water, it comes out of the refrigerator.

It's like, oh no, what have we done? But I remember sometime within the first two or three years, this guy that came to our door and actually, he only asked to drink out of the hose. And I remember this verse.

And I got him a nice cold glass of water.

I never saw him again. He had long hair and he just disappears. I don't know, you know. It's possible.

I don't know. But I think the best way to take it is to see it in reference to those Old Testament texts. But I can't disprove it. So we have the first group, love the brethren. Secondly, do not neglect to show hospitality.

And it's the same root, love of strangers. For by the sun of entertained angels not knowing it. And finally, verse three, a text I preached on years and years ago and only have a matter of moments to preach on this morning.

But one that I would highly recommend to your regular recollection. I would seriously, very strongly urge every member of this church, if you have not memorized Hebrews 13 .3, please put it on your list.

Put it on your list. Remember the prisoners as though in prison with them and those who are ill-treated since you yourselves also are in the body. That first, it's literally the ones bound, the ones who are in chains as you yourself chained with them.

You yourself chained with them, together with them. I think that's such a beautiful picture that is provided to us by the scriptures here as to what should mark our remembrance of our persecuted brothers and sisters.

To remember those who are bound as if you were bound together with them. Maybe that's what's in mind at the end of the verse too. Because it says, and those who are ill-treated since you yourselves also are in the body.

There's two ways to understand that last phrase. Since you yourselves are also in the body. One way is to recognize, well, we are still living on this planet. We are still in this physical existence and hence we are always liable to the same ill-treatment.

We are always liable to being placed in bonds ourselves. And so the idea being, well, it's only by the grace of God that you have freedom. It's only by the grace of God that you're not being ill-treated if you're not being ill-treated right now for the profession of faith in Christ.

And that's certainly where most of us are, but how long that's going to remain that way is a very good question. So it's possible that that's what's referring to, that you are in the body. You are in the same realm that they're in and hence could suffer the same kind of ill-treatment.

Or it could be in reference to the body as in the whole body of the leavers. And therefore, just as Paul says elsewhere, when one part of the body suffers, the whole body suffers together, rejoices together, etc., etc.

So I'm not sure there's that massive of a difference in how you interpret that last phrase because it all comes down to the same thing. And that is that there is to be a true empathy. Not just a put-on show, not a, well, it's my duty to think about the persecuted church.

You know, I can see why that would be necessary. No, there needs to be a true empathy. Remember, think upon those who are in bonds as if bound together with them, as if, and everyone knew what that looked like.

We don't see this very much. I suppose Sheriff Joe's chain gangs might look like this once in a while. But certainly those of you who are a little bit older, remember some of the older movies where you'd have chain gangs and each one would be chained to the guy behind them and you can only go so far and you were chained together.

And certainly that was very common in that day, especially under Roman occupation. You would see entire lines of slaves, defeated soldiers from other lands, etc., being marched into Rome or wherever, other major imperial cities and they would be chained together to one another.

And so the idea is, while you may have your freedom, while you may have your blessings and your happiness and your multiplied physical blessings, there are brothers, there are sisters who someday in the glory of heaven you will be closer to than anyone on this earth right now who are suffering in the name of Christ.

And in our day, we probably have more information and more knowledge of this than any preceding generation has ever had, which I'll admit can be sometimes difficult. I mean, I subscribe to a lot of persecution lists.

You've got Voice the Martyrs. You've got especially Barnabas Aid. Those are two really good organizations, especially Barnabas Aid. And I could spend a substantial part of every day just reading the stories of the persecution of believers around this world.

It is an amazing thing to recognize how many of our brothers and sisters are in bonds right now or are suffering. Sometimes the media almost begrudgingly will admit this. There is an incredible bias on the part of the mainstream media.

It's okay for Christians to suffer, for the secularists. In the back of their minds someplace, they sort of figure that's just you're getting what you deserve anyways, is sadly the case. But the reality is that there are tremendous systems of persecution out there.

We know right now in the news, ISIS is going through towns in Iraq and knocking on the door. If you don't open it, they kick it in, blow it up, whatever. And just simply asking, are you Muslims? And if you say we are not, you're Christians.

The men are shot. The women are often raped. This is happening this very day in dozens of towns and cities throughout Iraq and Syria where law and order has completely broken down and demonically inspired men are engaging in the most heinous acts and they target Christians.

The single greatest persecuting body of Christians in the world today is without a doubt the Islamic faith. There's no question of that. There are Christians languishing in Islamic jails in many, many nations.

In Pakistan, that barbaric rule against blaspheming Muhammad is used to grind the Christians in the gutter and to keep them in the lowest places. You can hardly even own property because if you have a Muslim neighbor and they want your property, all they've got to do is say that you were burning the Quran, that they heard you blaspheming Muhammad.

You're presumed guilty until proven innocent, but no one's going to even give you that much. Islam is by far the greatest persecutor of Christians in the world today. There can be no argument about that.

And I say that as a person who would say that there are Muslims who would call me friend and I would call them friend as well. I recognize there are different kinds of Muslims, but if they are honest, if the best of my Muslim acquaintances will simply be honest, they'll have to admit that what I'm saying is true.

But that's not the only source of persecution. Obviously, we know that in North Korea, in China, there is great persecution of Christians as well. So, there is political persecution of Christians recognizing that that system always does.

That loyalty to Jesus Christ will never fit within a communist system. There has to be ultimate fealty, ultimate loyalty to the state for that system to survive. And so, the communist system recognizes that Christianity is a fundamental threat because it speaks of freedom in Jesus Christ.

A freedom to a higher authority than the state can ever provide. But believe it or not, if you know India, you know that the Hindus in India can be extremely violent against Christians. And there is tremendous persecution of Christians in certain provinces, especially in India, by the Hindus.

This is going on. And in Central America, even Roman Catholics. Yes, indeed, those good old traditionalist Roman Catholics still remember the Inquisition and you will go into a heavily Roman Catholic area.

And if you are an evangelical and people begin to proclaim the gospel, there will be persecution, burning of churches, all sorts of things that take place in those areas as well. And so, all around the world, we have this going on.

But within Western culture, within Western culture, it is secularism. It is naturalistic materialism. And we're seeing this more and more and more. The attitudes hardening into absolute hatred of anyone who would even dare to be, I was talking to someone recently, dare to be so stupid as to believe what Christianity teaches.