Not Neglecting To Meet Together

And it is my sincere desire that Roxy will allow the pastor to sit next to her. Hebrews chapter 10, once again, our study this evening. But before we look to God's Word, let us pray and ask for His blessing upon our time.

Our gracious Heavenly Father, once again we ask that you would be with us by your Spirit, that you would lift up our hearts and our minds to understand, Lord, that we would be encouraged by your Word as you give us understanding of your revelation.

We pray in Christ's name. Amen. Reformed Baptists are an interesting lot. I was just thinking as the pastor was describing one of their plans, he and Roxy want to travel around the world. Well, something to tell me they would do that in about six days, because he isn't gonna be missing church.

Just to do that, I can assure you. And as we think about people who go traveling, Reformed Baptists tend to be folks who attend church regularly. Now, is that a legalistic thing? I mean, it could be. I mean, there are certain groups that can be very, very pharisaical about that issue.

Or is it something about commitment to the fellowship and to the ministry of the Word? I'd like to think that that's what it is. It's a commitment to the fellowship and ministry of the Word. When I think back to the early church, I remember back in 1993, that I had the opportunity while Rich and I were up in Denver, Colorado, I was doing some debates.

This was during the papal visit, World Youth Day. Pope John Paul II was in Denver. And I was doing some debates on the papacy at Denver Seminary and at a Presbyterian church there in Denver. And we were also doing ministry work.

We were just out in the streets witnessing the hundreds of thousands of people that had come to Denver for that papal visit. And during that time, I had the opportunity. We were sitting, Rich and I were sitting at a health food place for breakfast called Winchell's.

And I was reading the, that was before I changed my diet, and I was reading the newspaper. And they were talking about the Papal Treasures Exhibit. And all of a sudden, I got very excited. And I wasn't excited about the gold tiaras and the diamonds and all the rest of that stuff.

That didn't really interest me at all. It said that there was a page from biblical manuscript P72 that would be displayed at this thing. I said, Rich, we're going. We're going. Because I knew that P72 is the earliest handwritten manuscript we have of 1 and 2 Peter and Jude.

And so we went, and it was one of the first things on display. It was in a glass case, and there was a description of it above. And I remember saying there, oh, I was just, I was in hog heaven, they say.

And I was translating. I said, oh, look at the Nomen Sacra. And people would walk up, and they'd sort of read the description. And they'd look over at me, and they'd look down at the thing. And they'd look over at Rich, and they'd say, can he read that?

And Rich would go, yeah. And they'd go, look at this, Harold. This man's reading this old thing. And people would start gathering around. And the security people are starting to look real strange. And so Rich would drag me off to go look at a crown for a while or something like that.

And then I'd go right back to it. Eventually, the security folks suggested that we keep moving on through the display. And I had to leave. Now, what was so wonderful and awesome to me about that scrap of papyrus, despite the fact that there is one of the earliest references to the deity of Christ and all the rest of the stuff, was here was someone who loved the Word of God so much that they had risked their life to make a copy of it.

And what had probably happened, I mean, we don't know. But what had probably happened, this may have been a person who was traveling. And as Christians would travel, even though it was dangerous to do so, they would seek out fellowship with other Christians.

They wanted to get together around the Word of God and to encourage one another in their faith. When you're under persecution, you really need encouragement. So here was someone, they probably came in and they brought out this book and they started reading from it.

This guy said, what's that? Well, those are Peter's epistles. We don't have that in our church. Can I make a copy? Because the handwriting, not so good. Wasn't the best scribe I've ever seen. And yet they love the Word of God so much that they're in the fellowship of the church.

They encounter this. He makes this copy. 1 ,800 years ago, someone who loved the Word of God. I've always asked audiences when I display this particular page on a screen, I say, you know, I wonder how many of us would have a complete Bible.

I wonder how many of us would have a complete book of the New Testament if we had to hand copy the thing to have one. And yet here was someone who loved the Word of God and they probably encountered it in the gathering of the people of God.

Well, here in Hebrews chapter 10, we now come up to the exhortation to not give up that gathering together as is the habit of some. Let's start again at verse 19, see what the context is and deal with these verses this evening.

Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he inaugurated for us through the veil, that is his flesh. And since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere or true heart, with full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near.

Amen. Now, we saw this morning that there are a few exhortations here. In verse 22, let us draw near. Verse 23, let us hold fast the confession of our hope. Then verse 24, let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds.

And we notice that the positive command on considering how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds was connected with a negative command, and that is not forsaking our own assembling together as is the habit of some.

And so what we have here is we've had the description of the attitude of the person who comes into the presence of God. And he is to come into the presence of God with a true heart, full assurance of faith.

There is to be a holding fast, a confession of our hope without wavering. These are descriptive of what the result of the theology we have seen, the finished sacrifice of Christ, should result in our lives.

But then there's also the necessity of addressing what it means to live together in the body of faith. Now, we live almost 2 ,000 years after this time period. We live in a different society. We live in a different context.

For example, if you were to, in these days, and I think that this book is written well before AD 70, some, we're going to get to a discussion of this toward the end of this chapter, there's some indication possibly there that this book was written somewhere in the early 50s.

So within about 20 years of the time of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, they didn't have cars back then. And the vast majority of the early Christians were poor people. They didn't have horses or chariots or anything like that.

And so to gather together would mean that you'd be gathering together with people that were pretty close nearby. You couldn't do what, well, most of us do. I mean, you know, we think of the poor broils and they come in from New Mexico.

And, you know, I think it's right at 10 miles is how far it is. I mean, that's not far. It only takes, you know, 20, about 20 minutes or so. But still, in those days, 10 miles, half a day's journey. It just wouldn't even be a possibility.

And so the church was much more the local church in that context, just simply because of the necessities of travel. And so you would frequently see your other Christians more regularly, I would assume, during your regular duties during the week because you were in a much smaller geographical area.

And at the same time, history tells us, and we can gather this from Paul's writings as well, that a large portion of the early Christians were not well off. Well, there were some who were, but the vast majority were not.

And external sources tell us that one of the things that the Romans looked down upon the Christian church for was the fact that it was made up mainly of slaves and the lower class, the poor, and they just have to have something to believe in, I guess, you know, the opiate, the masses, and all that kind of stuff.

But those individuals would have limitations on not only how far they could travel, but I'm sure there were times when, you know, your master says you go do this. Well, if you're a slave, you go do this.

And if your master says you can't go to that meeting, well, you don't get to go to that meeting. You didn't have the kinds of freedoms that we have. And certainly, there were many times when Christians would have been truly providentially hindered from gathering together.

And so, keeping all of that in mind, the writer has to address something. And he does so, first of all, positively. Let us consider, let us think about how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds.

And so, there is to be an effort on our part to think about how we can stimulate one another to love and good deeds. In other words, as Christians, as Paul said in Philippians chapter 2, we're not to be looking to our own things only, but to the things of others.

We're to be looking outside of ourselves. And so, there is to be thought, how can I stimulate my fellow brothers and sisters in the fellowship in which I'm in? The assumption of the text is Christians gather together and you know who other Christians are.

And there aren't any lone ranger Christians running around, just me and my Bible under a tree type thing. You know other Christians and you're seeking to stimulate them to love and good deeds. In other words, we should desire to make each other better Christians, better servants of Christ.

That means we're not always looking just to be served ourselves. I suppose some people might have the attitude, yes, well I like to be served by my fellow Christians because I'm helping them to be servants.

Well, I suppose that might be one attitude, but that's not the way the New Testament presents it. Now, it's interesting, this word stimulate one another. Most of the time it's used, even in the New Testament, and especially outside the New Testament, it's not a positive word.

In fact, the same word that describes the very strong disagreement that existed between Paul and Barnabas that eventually led to their splitting up in their ministry work. And so to stimulate here, not just to sort of suggest it, it would seem to have a fairly strong element to it to really exhort and encourage one another.

Here it's in a positive context, to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. Now, I hope that none of you who believe in the doctrine of justification by faith have developed an allergy to good deeds.

Sometimes we see the phrase good works, and especially when you've spent so much time dealing with people who are constantly trying to insert doing good works into justification and robbing God of his glory that you've been pulling so hard this direction for the truth that you can lose your balance.

If you ever have a problem there, remember the perfect balance is struck by the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 2. He talks about the fact by grace you've been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves is a gift of God, not of works any man should boast.

And don't ever stop there. Continue on to verse 10, for we are his workmanship, creating Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath foreordained that we should walk in them. I mean, you've got right there, God has foreordained, he has predestined that we should walk in good deeds.

But it comes about as the result of what God has done by his grace in saving us and in giving us eternal life. And so the Christian congregation should be known as a congregation where the brothers and sisters are engaged in actively seeking to stimulate one another to love and good deeds.

We should be encouraging one another. Encouraging one another, that's the very same term used in verse 25. That's the word that is found in John 14 and 16 of the parakletos, the pericle, the helper. And so the spirit in us can use us to be encouragers to one another.

And I've said many, many times, one of the main reasons I would suggest to you outside of just basic obedience, but one of the main reasons we know God calls us to be under the proclamation of his word, we need to hear regularly God's truth.

We are under such constant attack, and our worldview is constantly being torn down by the world. The world has so much time to tear away at us, and we give so little time to God to build us up. We need to be here.

But you need to recognize, sometimes in light of how we gather and things like that, sometimes you just sit, you know, I just sit here in the pew, and yeah, I sing some hymns, and I bow my head. But you know, I just sit here and somebody else does everything.

I hope you realize that you have a ministry right now where you are. Yes, it's a ministry to the world that you're here, that you're not out doing what the world would say would be more fun. But you have a ministry to the person behind this pulpit.

Because you know what, if there are only two of you out there, it would be a little bit harder to do what I'm doing. If you consider the number of hours that you spend in preparation, if there were two of you there, I'd still preach the same message.

But I'm a human being, and if nobody showed up, or if we had a hundred people here and Pastor Fry preaches, and then when I preach, there's two people here, I'd get the message eventually. I think I can figure it out really good.

You have a ministry to those who minister the Word to you. And when you are here, and when you are attentive, I mean, you know, if Brother Dave was sitting in the back throwing paper airplanes across to somebody on the other side, that, you know, you might be here, but I'm not sure how helpful that would be, would it?

When you're attentive, when you're focused, when you're listening, you have a ministry to the person here. But I suggest you have a ministry to everyone else too. Because when we gather together, we are saying, we are gathering under the Lordship of Christ.

And we are gathering as fellow believers. And even in our gathering, especially in the Lord's Supper, but in all of our gatherings, there is a confession of faith that we all together follow the Lord Jesus Christ.

And we are encouraged in that. How many times have I talked about how encouraging it is? When I see people, and you know, after you've been around for a few decades, you know, you start thinking about, I've seen that person.

And over the years, you know, well, Wednesday night, someone had some pictures, Fast Friday had some pictures of himself and Brother Ed. And, you know, I'm sitting here looking at my gray, and Brother Ed, you didn't have much gray in that picture.

In fact, I didn't see any at all. That was what? 1989, I think. And we look at that and we go, we sort of laugh and go, wow, time's passed. But you know what I think about when I see that is, wow, 1989.

So that was a number of years ago. And that's a lot of faithfulness from God that's passed by, because we're all still here. God's faithfulness over time. Even through the midst of all the trials and difficulties we've gone through, the fact that we are here, that we gather together, it's part of our ministry.

And so the author says, not forsaking our own assembling together. Now there's a bunch of discussion about the Greek term that is used here. And what is interesting is the fact that it's the term sunagoge, from which we get synagogue.

And it has a preposition, epi, attached to it. And so there are some people who come up with a theory that, well, what the author is really concerned about here is that there are people that are still in the synagogue, and they're worried that they're going to be drawn away by that, and that they want to separate themselves in the synagogue and only gather with the Christians.

Even Calvin came up with a rather interesting take on the term here. But when you examine all of them, the simplest, most basic, and I think clear meaning of the text is that Christians gather together as Christians for the worship of God and the proclamation of his truth.

And what the author is saying is that there are some, and it's interesting, as is the habit of some is the ethos. Ever heard someone talk about the ethos of something? That's a direct transliteration of the Greek that is used here.

A habit, a way of life. And so Paul, the writer, just sort of in passing says, as is the habit of some. He doesn't mention who. He doesn't say why. He leaves that to us, I'm afraid, because, well, to be honest with you, after you've been an elder for a while, you encounter lots of reasons why certain people decide that you know what?

It's just too much of a bother. I don't get enough out of it. I've never talked to anyone who said I wasn't getting anything out of it, where if you honestly ask them, so talk to me about the preparation you made to come into the presence of God.

How much thinking went into that? How much prayer? Reading a scripture? Well, so people come to church and expect to get blasted by the blessing bomb when they walk in and their spirits aren't prepared and their hearts aren't prepared and their minds are set on all sorts of worldly things and then they don't hear much of what's said and they walk out and it's, well, it's all the fault of the guy behind the pulpit.

I guarantee you that. I've heard that one more than once. But these folks, see, if you're coming in and you've been given consideration on how to stimulate brothers and sisters to love and good deeds, that means you've been making some preparation.

But there are some, the author says, it's their habit to forsake. Now, you don't forsake something you haven't made a commitment to. I mean, the very term to forsake it would seem to indicate that there's been a commitment to this gathering together, this assembling together.

So the writer says, don't do it. Do not forsake our own assembling together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near. You can't encourage people when you're not around people.

I mean, the commandment is to love the brethren. Love the brethren. That is so easy to sit in your comfy chair, in your comfy house and say, I love the brethren. As long as you don't have to be around them, it's easy to love them.

And I don't know about you, but I don't know about you, but it gets pretty messy when you have to be around them. It gets pretty messy because you know what? We don't all have the same personality. And sometimes you find people in the local church and they actually have a personality that sort of rubs you the wrong way.

And sometimes there are some people and we're at different levels, different places in our sanctification. How intense it is. And you know, I've talked to people that left the church. Well, the pastor walked right by me because he didn't say good morning to me once.

Well, you know, if you thought that maybe he'd had a really bad week himself or maybe he was rushing someplace because there was a problem in the church or maybe there was a phone call about someone had been in a car accident.

I mean, there's all sorts of reasons, but oh, it's so easy to get your nose out of joints. And therefore, I don't want to be around the brother. And yet, if we look, the positive command is exhorting one another to love and good deeds and encouraging one another.

And all the more as you see the day drawing near. Well, what is that day? Almost always it's the coming of the Lord. Now, every generation looks forward to that. And very frequently, the experience we have of that day is our day.

And he's going to say later on in this epistle, you've not yet striven to the point of shedding blood, but the time would be coming very, very soon. And when you think about when this epistle was written, there was a solid two centuries of persecution right around the corner.

That means there was a real need for encouragement. When you think about what it was like, especially between about 260 AD and 313, that time period was the worst. Worst persecution. So many people died.

We think about that happening in our world today. And what do those people who are in jail, what do those people who are beaten, what do they want? They want the fellowship of the saints. They want to be around other Christians.

So here the author, knowing what is needed, says don't fall into that habit of some forsaking the assembling together, because you just can't fulfill the commands of Christ to be an encourager, to be an exhorter, to fulfill the ministry that has been given to you when you're sitting in your front room and you're not amongst the brethren.

You're not there for the ministry of the Word. In fact, it really strikes me that there's a tremendous danger of pride in the heart of a person who can think, you know what? I don't need to hear what that guy has to say to me.

I think I know the Word pretty good. No one ever knows the Word well enough not to hear what other people, what other spirit-indwelt teachers of the Word have to say. Nobody ever gets to that point. And if you think you've gotten there, well, I'm not sure you're listening real well.

So not forsaking our own assembling together. But some people want to say, now, it's not dangerous in our day, but I've used the illustration many, many times. And I think it's a good illustration. Unfortunately, it's becoming more and more of an illustration that might have relevance to us.

But I've asked the question many times, what if there was a guy standing outside the door there and he just had, I used to say, a clipboard? Now I'd say he has an iPad. And as you come in, he says, name, social security number.

And by walking through that door, you have a different tax form to fill out than somebody else. And you know that the government will take more of your money than the person who doesn't walk in here. What would happen to a large majority of the megachurches in our land if that happened?

You could hear the crickets chirping. But we have to ask ourselves a question of our own hearts. Because that is exactly what did happen after the Islamic expansion between 632 and 732 after Islam takes over.

If you're one of the Al-Kitab, the people of the book, you now have to pay the jizya tax. Walking into that church, it's not going to be good for your advancements in society. And back then, well, they hadn't yet striven to blood, but they would soon.

And so it was dangerous. That man that wrote P72, that wrote that thing out, what if he had gotten caught? Because he wrote it during a time of persecution. What if he had gotten caught trying to find that Christian assembly?

And yet Christians kept trying because they recognized there was something about the gathering of the saints in worship now that actually reflects the worship that will be ours in eternity. How much do we really value what we have here?

The freedom? It's not one of us that's eyeing that door real closely. None of you are right now going, James, what if someone's listening? Nobody's saying that. And you know what? We're sort of spread out across the room here.

We're not gathered around just one or two or three copies of the Bible because that's all we have. We're not like many people where we only have portions of the scripture. I'll bet every person in this room has access to multiple copies of the Bible.

We just leave them sitting on the pews. We have freedoms. We're not sitting here fanning ourselves or freezing. We have lights by which to read. So many blessings. And then we have the Word of God. And very often when we try to help support pastors and other lands, what is it that they want?

They want books. They want commentaries. They want resources. Pastor Fry and I have got pretty decent libraries in comparison to most men in the world. And we like our libraries. He likes his to be old and stuff like that.

Likes to open up those books. And me, I've got about 20 ,000 volumes on this snazzy piece of equipment in front of me. Same stuff. And we had the opportunity of going to school. Studying Greek and Hebrew.

There's so many people in other lands. Oh, they wish they had the opportunities that we have. And yet how often? Let's be honest with ourselves, brothers and sisters. How often do we take it for granted?

It's always going to be there. It's always going to be there. It's not till maybe in God's providence, we go someplace else and there aren't any Reformed Baptist churches nearby. There aren't any really good churches nearby.

There are places like that that we realize we've been given a tremendous blessing to be able to be in this place and to encourage one another and to have the consistent ministry of the Word of God. And so it's not overly difficult for us in general to fulfill this command.

And we want to be encouraging to one another. And we desire the encouragement of others. But I would suggest to you that even in light of that, we should examine our own hearts. You know, Thanksgiving has just passed and hopefully we're still thinking about being thankful.

And I know every year as I experience that day, I think about the world and how... Have you noticed that Thanksgiving is becoming less and less and less of a focus in our society? It's being eaten up by Black Friday.

Now it's becoming Black Thursday night. You notice that? And I can't help but think one of the reasons for that is in a secularized society, what does thanks mean? Who do you give thanks to? In a society of entitlement mentality where you're owed everything anyways, shouldn't everybody be thanking me for being such a wonderful person?

The idea of truly giving thanks, well, it requires an understanding of who we are and God's role in our lives. And that's something only Christians really can understand. But what that means is Christians likewise, when we see the blessing of the fellowship of faith, we should truly be filled with thanksgiving that we have the opportunity of gathering together and experiencing the fellowship that comes from our common commitment to the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ.

I hope you derive much encouragement. Yes, from the ministry of the Word, but from the fellowship of the saints as well. If there is anything that we might be able to sort of point the finger at Reformed Baptists is we sometimes contend to be a little separate, a little standoffish.

We need to recognize that when we assemble together, we have a ministry to one another and we are to encourage one another. All the more as you see the day drawing near. Now, you might say, well, how can that be?

I mean, those individuals back 2 ,000 years. We don't know the day of the coming of the Lord, but we know that we might experience that coming in our own death. That is, we enter into his presence and every day that passes, that's one day closer.

Eternity is right around the corner for all of us, even those of you who are young people who think that you will never die. We have no guarantee of getting home this evening. We thank the Lord that he has looked over us for so long, but we should never, ever forget that eternity could be right around the corner for any one of us.

And as such, we should be encouraging one another to be prepared, to be in the presence of the Lord, encouraging one another to love and good deeds, encouraging one another to live a life that is honoring and glorifying to God.

And note one more thing before we close. Those are the last words right before the most strong, serious warning passage in the book of Hebrews. Two biggies. Hebrews 6, 4 -6, 4 -8. And now starting with Hebrews 10 -26.

Is that a coincidence? I don't think so. Most of the commentaries that I consulted agreed that the proximity of this, the fact that you have this positive exhortation, don't forsake the assembling together, is the last thing you have right before.

For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins. And then the incredible words about trampling underfoot the blood of the Son of God.

I think observationally, I know I've heard the pastor say it more than once, and I've seen it myself. The people who want to be here, the people who want to serve, they're not the ones to worry about.

But the people that don't want to be in the fellowship and are frequently forsaking the assembling together, well, those of us that have been here a while, we can think back over the years and think about the people that aren't with us anymore and where they are in the world right now.

It seems there's a connection between verses 25 and 26. There's a connection between those who go off into the world and whether they had a true desire, a heart-based desire to enter into worship with the people of God.

And so there is a connection that is to be found there. And as we prepare to enter into that section, I think there is a clear message that's consistent with the rest of the book, but it's a heavy section.

There's no two ways about it. We must recognize that one of the ways the writer seeks to keep a person from experiencing that warning and the danger of that warning, do not forsake our own assembling together.

It's not that it's some religious sacrament. It's that when the Spirit of God is within you, you desire to be amongst those in whom likewise the Spirit dwells. It's just that simple. And what a privilege has been given to us to be able to do that with freedom.

Freedom to preach the Word and freedom to encourage one another to love and good deeds. Let's pray together. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we do indeed thank you for the tremendous privilege that is ours to be in this place.

You have joined us together. And Lord, open our eyes if we have become apathetic to this great blessing. May we pray for the ministry of this church. May we encourage one another to love and good deeds.

May we be a people who love one another and encourage one another and stand with one another. And may we recognize that as we're faithful in being in your house with your people, faithful to the attendance of your worship, that we are glorifying you and we are fulfilling the ministry you've given to us.

A ministry to one another and to you. We thank you for the church. We thank you for the fact you continue to build it. We thank you for the fact that there are those this night who are a part of that very same church, that body of Christ, who are faithful even under persecution.

We thank you for them and we pray for them as they pray for us. May we remember them. And may we, because we realize their faithfulness, be all the more faithful ourselves. We pray in Christ's name, amen.