Don’t Forsake The Assembly (Hebrews 10:24-25)

Kootenai Church

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Turn, if you will, please, to Hebrews chapter 10, because we're going to be referring to a number of things in this context this morning.

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We're gonna read, beginning at verse 19, through the verses that we're going to be looking at in verses 24 and 25, all the way through to the end of the chapter.

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Beginning at verse 19 in Hebrews 10. 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 heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

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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.

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For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.

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Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.

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How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the son of God and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and has insulted the spirit of grace?

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For we know him who said, vengeance is mine, I will repay. And again, the Lord will judge his people.

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It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But remember the former days when after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated.

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For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one.

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Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.

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For yet in a little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay, but my righteous one shall live by faith.

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And if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him. But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the persevering of the soul.

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Will you stand with me as we pray? Let's bow our heads.

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Our Father, we do delight and take joy in the fellowship that we enjoy here as a church body. We are thankful that you have called us out of darkness and into the church of Christ, the body of Christ.

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We thank you that your word gives us instructions on how to live together, how to serve one another, and how to live together in this body of Christ.

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And we are grateful for all the clarity that is there in scripture regarding that. We're thankful for the fellowship that we enjoy with our brothers and sisters around the world and across this nation, everywhere who worship and gather before you.

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And we are grateful to be part of the church universal and the church triumphant, that church that spans all of the ages and all of the nations.

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And so many more have already passed on from before who have preceded us. And we get to simply follow in their footsteps and live lives of obedience and submission and holy righteousness before you.

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And so we thank you for this work of your spirit in our hearts. And we pray today for those brothers and sisters who are facing the reproaches and the sufferings and the tribulations described in this passage.

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Those are not new because there is nothing new under the sun and everything that transpires and everything that happens in your church here locally, in the churches around the world, all of it is appointed by your good and sovereign and gracious hand.

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And so we pray that in the midst of those afflictions and suffering that you would strengthen our brothers and sisters in Christ to give adequate and clear testimony to the gospel of your grace and to the saving and redeeming power of Jesus Christ.

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And that you would give them strength and grace to endure under those trials and tribulations that they may honor and glorify you.

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Thank you that our hope is not in this world, but that our hope is outside of this world. It is yet future, our confident expectation we still wait for.

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And we know that you will accomplish all of your good pleasure and you will fulfill all of your promises in your word.

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And we pray that you would strengthen us to be faithful until you do so. We ask these things in Christ's name.

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Amen. ♪

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Jesus Christ our Lord ♪ ♪ She is resurrection ♪ ♪

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God wanted and sought her to be his wife ♪ ♪

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From every nation kept on her with toil and tribulation ♪ ♪

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And to the dark she waits the consummation of peace ♪ ♪

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Forevermore, filled with the vision of eternal life ♪ ♪

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In church victorious shall be the church at rest ♪ ♪

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And communion with God the free in one ♪ ♪

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And mystic sweet communion with those whose rest is won ♪ ♪

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O happy ones and joyous can be the...

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♪ This is three through six, it says.

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Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we would be holy and blameless before him in love by predestining us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will to the praise of the glory of his grace which he graciously bestowed on us in the beloved.

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We're gonna end this part of our worship service singing the song we introduced last week, O Fount of Love. ♪

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Fount of love divine that flows ♪ ♪

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From my Savior's bleeding side ♪ ♪ Where sinners stray their beauty rides ♪ ♪

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For his righteousness supply ♪ ♪

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Mercy cleft in every stain ♪ ♪ Now rushing o 'er us like a flood ♪ ♪

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But rich, the rich and finest ones ♪ ♪ Stand adopted in his blood ♪ ♪

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Fount of grace to thee we plead ♪ ♪ From the law has set us free ♪ ♪

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And for all on Calvary's hill ♪ ♪ Love and justice shall agree ♪ ♪

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Praise the Lord, the price is paid ♪ ♪ The curse defeated by the

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Lamb ♪ ♪ He who once were slaves by birth ♪ ♪

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Sons and daughters now we stand ♪ ♪

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Of joy his might has betrayed us forevermore ♪ ♪

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The ancient foe is laid to rest ♪ ♪

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Hallelujah, Christ is king ♪ ♪ Alive and reigning on the throne ♪ ♪

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Our tongues employed with hymns of praise ♪ ♪

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Glory be to God alone ♪ ♪ Christ is king, alive and reigning on the throne ♪ ♪

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Our tongues employed with hymns of praise ♪ ♪ Glory be to God alone ♪ ♪

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Our tongues employed with hymns of praise ♪ ♪ Glory be to God alone ♪

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You should have your Bibles open to Hebrews chapter 10. And now that you do, let's bow our heads in prayer before we begin.

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Our Father, it is with great thanksgiving and affection toward you that we now turn our hearts and our attention to your word.

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We have sung to you in song, the praise and the worship that you are due, and certainly not all of it, but we have expressed the sentiments of our hearts now.

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And now we pray that you would speak to us through your word and give us grace to rightly understand it, to rightly see its meaning and its application, and that we may yield to you hearts of obedience and love and affectionate joy.

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And we pray this in Christ's name, amen. Well, the Christian life is not a life that can be lived faithfully or obediently in isolation from other believers.

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I say that again, the Christian life is not a life that can be lived faithfully or obediently in isolation from other believers.

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That cuts across the grain of modern evangelicalism. It cuts across the grain of our culture, and it certainly cuts across the grain of everything that we are familiar with in our area.

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That is a particularly unpopular sentiment in today's church, and specifically so in our area, because we live in an area of the country where people move to in order to be alone, to be left alone, and to leave other people alone.

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That's why people move here. Now, for those who might be listening online or watching the live stream, let me, you're thinking about moving to North Idaho, just let me say that this is a horrible place to live.

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Absolutely horrible. There is nothing here that is appealing. There is no natural beauty about any of it.

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My heartily, my heartfelt recommendation is to stay far, far away from North Idaho.

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And I think everybody here would agree with that. In fact, we could have a show of hands. Put your hand up or face church discipline, and we could pan out and get the entire, this is a horrible place.

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Now, Boise, on the other hand, is, Boise is magnificent, it's

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God's country, it's just this side of heaven, so it's easy to find. And you could buy property there, sight unseen, and probably should if you're planning to move to the state of Idaho.

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But here, not so much. People who move here want to be alone, they want to be left alone, and they want to leave other people alone.

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And I can appreciate that sentiment, especially in light of the abuse of power and the civic, commercial, and cultural rot gut that just seeks to overwhelm us almost like a tsunami.

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I am sympathetic to the notion that we would all just hunker in our bunker and let all of this pass over us.

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We can feel that. But that sentiment and that mentality has no place in the

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Christian heart in terms of our relationship to the church of Christ, to the body of Christ, and to other

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Christians. No place whatsoever. It's instinctive to respond to the culture that way, to respond to the civil government that way, to respond to all of the nonsense going around us that way, but it has no place in the

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Christian church and no place in the heart of a true believer. The Christian life is not a life that can be lived faithfully and obedient in isolation from one another.

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It's because we have moral duties to other people in the body of Christ. Moral duties and commands which cannot be obeyed and cannot be lived out in isolation from other people.

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These three exhortations that we find in Hebrews chapter 10, beginning in verse 22, let us draw near, verse 23, let us hold fast, and verse 24, let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and to good deeds.

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Those first two exhortations, drawing near and holding fast, are things that you can do while hunkering in your bunker, but considering how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, that is not something that you can do in isolation from other people.

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In fact, that's only one of the many one another commands that we find in scripture.

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We are also told to pray for one another and to encourage one another, to love one another, serve one another, submit to one another, give to one another, be considerate to one another, forgive one another, be kind to one another, be at peace with one another.

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There's a whole bunch of one another commands. Well, if you're isolated from one another, then there is no other to be one another with, and all you have is you, one, and not another, then you can't fulfill any of those biblical commands.

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So the Christian life is not a life that can be lived faithfully or obediently in isolation to other people.

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These commands and the ways in which they are to be fulfilled require us to be involved vitally and intimately in the lives of other people, and to live that body life out with other

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Christians, because other Christians need you, and you need other Christians, and if you think you don't need other people, you might feel perfectly comfortable hunkering in your bunker, but if you think that you do not need other people, you do not understand the way that God has created you to live and to be sanctified, and to be a sanctifying influence in the lives of other

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Christians. That requires us getting together. Now, last Sunday, we looked at the exhortation that's found in verse 24.

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Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, and just very quickly for review, that means that we are to intentionally take a lively interest in other people's lives for their spiritual benefit to the end that we would be producing in them love and good deeds.

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Our goal is to be so lively, interested, and involved in the lives of our brothers and sisters in Christ that we are there as a stimulating and sanctifying influence to provoke them in the best way possible to live lives of obedient faithfulness and submission to the

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Lord Jesus Christ, and that would produce in them love and good deeds. Now, that was the exhortation.

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Today, we're looking at the explanation, which is in verse 25, and then there is the motivation, which we will get to next week.

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The exhortation is to let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. The explanation of that is that we are to do this, how?

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Not forsaking our own assembling together as is the habit of son, but rather encouraging one another, and then the motivation for this is that we are to do this all the more as we see the day approaching.

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There is an external motivation to this that ought to inspire us and captivate our hearts with this command to go after this aggressively.

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So, we looked at the exhortation. Now, here's the explanation. How are we to do this? We are to do this not forsaking our own assembling together.

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You'll notice that the explanation is stated in negative terms. It's stated later at the end of verse 25 in positive terms, but encouraging one another, that's the opposite of not forsaking the assembling of yourselves together.

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We are to do this, consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. We are to do this not forsaking our gathering together, but instead, we are to do this by encouraging one another and all the more as we see the day approaching, but it's interesting that he states this in the negative about how we are to do this, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.

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Now, this is obviously had become the habit of some, as the text says, but you'll notice that the previous exhortation also had an explanation that was stated as a negative.

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We are to hold fast the confession of our hope and how are we to do this? Not wavering, without wavering.

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You remember that word means to bend or to drift in one direction or another. We are to do this by not doing this.

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How do you hold fast your confession of hope? By not wavering one iota or bending one bit at all to the whims and will of the world.

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Likewise, we are to consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds and we are to do this by not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, which means that this command to consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, this command is uniquely in this text tied to the gathering of Christians in gathering together, the assembly of Christians in gathering together.

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We are to not forsake. Now I don't know what your particular translation has there for that word, but that word forsake is as strong as the original language might suggest.

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To understand exactly what the author is describing here, we need to be careful that we understand what the word forsaken means, what the word assembly means, and what the word habit means.

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And when we understand all of those three things, then we can rightly apply this text to our lives. So what is this forsaking?

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It is the word that means to quit, to cease, or to leave behind. It is, in a more forceful way, it means to abandon or to forsake, to desert or to leave somebody in the lurch or to leave in a strait, to walk away from somebody when they need it and to leave them helpless, that's what the word means, to turn your back on them and to leave them behind.

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The author here is obviously not just describing the occasional missing of a worship service, he's describing an attitude toward the assembled body where you turn your back on them and you leave them behind, you abandon them or desert them and leave them in the lurch, helpless, that's what the word describes.

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Let me give you a sense of how it's used in Scripture. It's used in the Gospels twice, both times, one in Matthew and one in Mark, in parallel passages that deal with the crucifixion of our

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Lord. When Jesus was expressing the pain and the suffering and the affliction that he felt on the cross in his human terms, quoting

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Psalm 22, and expressing how it is that he felt at that moment that he bore our sin, he said, my

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God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That's the word that is used there for forsaken, abandoned or left in the lurch. Now, as an aside, the

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Father did not forsake the Son on the cross, we dealt with this in the Gospel of John. It's not what Jesus meant by that because the rest of that Psalm, Psalm 22, actually describes how the

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Father came to the aid of the one who cried and heard him. So that's not what Jesus, Jesus was describing his anguish, his physical anguish and affliction, suffering on the cross.

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And he uses that term of feeling like he has just completely been abandoned and left helpless in the lurch. It's also used in 2

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Corinthians chapter four, Paul described a feeling or expression of being almost totally abandoned, but not quite forsaken.

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He says, we are persecuted, but we are not forsaken. We are struck down, but not destroyed. And there, Paul uses that word to describe it being completely abandoned all by himself.

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He said, the Lord has persecuted us or allowed us to be persecuted, but he has not left us helpless. He has not left us in the lurch.

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Hebrews 13, verse five is another reference that uses this word, and there, it is actually translated as forsaken, but there is the promise that God will never leave us or forsake us.

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It's used of Christ's resurrection in Acts chapter two, in Acts, twice in Acts chapter two, two verse 27 and two verse 31, because you will not abandon my soul to Hades.

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That's the word translated forsaken or desert. You will not forsake my soul to Hades, nor allow your

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Holy One to undergo decay. And then it is used most poignantly of Paul in describing himself being abandoned by his friends.

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2 Timothy four, verse 10, for Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.

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Later on, the same chapter, chapter four, verse 16, at my first defense, no one supported me, but all deserted me, may it not be counted against them.

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Can you hear the emotion of that? Demas loved the world and he forsook me, left him in the lurch.

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Paul was in prison and Demas was having his fun in the world, having abandoned Paul in the midst of his suffering.

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And then Paul says at my first defense, when he first stood before Nero, he said, no one supported me, he was all alone. That's what the word forsaken here means.

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Now what does it sound like the author is describing here? Does it sound like the author is describing erratic attendance at worship?

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Showing up once a month, twice a month? CEO Christians, Christmas and Easter only?

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Does it sound like the author is describing the occasional absence from the gathered church body? Does it sound like he is describing a cavalier attitude toward the assembly?

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And sometimes I go there, sometimes I don't. If we had gathered here on any given Sunday morning, all of the people in Bonner County who consider this their home church, we would be knocking out this wall to mirror the sanctuary.

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I meet people who say, that's my home church, so I'm like, I don't even know your name, like you've been here, what, twice, three times? I don't even,

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I just don't even know that. Does he sound like he's describing that, a cavalier attitude towards the church assembly?

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He's not describing any of those things. Not describing erratic attendance, not describing occasionally missing it because you're on vacation, you're sick.

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He's not describing a cavalier attitude toward the Christian assembly. No, in fact, verse 26 kind of sheds some light on it.

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He says in verse 26, for if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.

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Verse 26 begins the warning passage. The warning passage that follows this is a warning to apostates. And verse 26 begins with that word for, for, and that is what commentators call an inferential conjunction.

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Now, I don't call it that because I don't use big words like that, but an inferential conjunction means that the author in the warning passage toward apostates is working out for them the inferences, the implications, the next logical step of forsaking the assembling of yourselves together.

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He's not describing occasionally missing church. He is describing a forsaking and an abandoning and a turning your back on your brothers and sisters in the lurch and turning around and having nothing else to do with that.

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That's what he is describing, which is why he begins in verse 26 with this inferential conjunction where he says the next logical step of this, of forsaking the assembly is this apostasy.

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And if you go this route, there no longer remains a sacrifice for your sins. So he goes on to describe that apostate as those who go on sitting and trample underfoot the son of God and regard as unclean the blood of the covenant by which

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Christ was sanctified and they insult the spirit of grace. They had turned their back on the assembly of believers and thus they had turned their soul over to destruction, the destruction that is mentioned in verse 39.

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This is why it is the fiery wrath that is promised in the apostate passage beginning in verse 26.

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That fiery wrath is promised not to Christians who occasionally miss a church service. It is promised to those who demonstrate their unsaved character and unsaved unredeemed state by turning their back on the assembly of believers and walking away and going back to the world just like Demas did from the

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Apostle Paul. That's what he is describing. The ordinary beginning of full and final apostasy is the forsaking of the assembly.

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That's the first step. That's the first step. So this is not describing occasionally missing church or an apathetic attitude toward worship or an erratic attendance at church services or not really hanging out with other

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Christians very much except on a Sunday morning. It's not describing any of those. Now some of you might think, well, man, that's good because when you read that this morning,

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I thought you were gonna get on me for my erratic attendance, my apathetic attitude, and hardly ever being with Christians. No, that's not what this passage is describing.

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You have other issues that this passage is not describing, but that's not what this passage is describing. So let's just be clear on what we're talking about here in this passage.

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The apathetic attitude and erratic attendance, there's a short road between that and forsaking the assembly.

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There is an even shorter road between forsaking the assembly and outright apostasy. When you begin over here with those attitudes which will eventually lead you to turn your back on the truth, then it's just the next step is apostasy, which is why the author gets right into that beginning at verse 26.

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We are to draw near and hold fast and consider how to stimulate one another's love and good work and not forsake the assembling of ourselves together because these are the preventative measures against apostasy.

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The author wants us to avoid this turning away from the truth. Well, the things that you do to not turn away from the truth is you draw near, you hold fast, and you don't forsake the assembling of yourselves with other saints.

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Now, he obviously also has in mind here the unique Christian assembly of saints that he is describing.

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It is our own assembly. Now, he says, let us not forsake our own assembling together and you might suspect or maybe expect,

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I should say, that the word assembly there would be the word for church, ekklesia in the Greek, that we should not forsake the gathering of the church or the church coming together, but that's not the word that the disciple, that the author uses.

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He uses the word epi -synagogue, epi -synagogue. You hear the word synagogue in there?

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Because that word for synagogue just referred to a gathering or a collection of people and it was used two different ways in the first century.

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It was used, generally speaking, of a group of people assembled together and it didn't necessarily refer to a religious gathering or anything of that nature.

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It just simply referred to the assembly or the gathering together of a people. Well, the Jews used that word synagogue, that's a transliteration of that word, but they used that word to describe their unique gathering together in every city on the

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Sabbath day for the reading of Scripture, for the proclaiming of Scripture, for mutual edification, for the observance of different feasts and ceremonies, et cetera, as part of their

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Jewish customs. So the author does not here use the word for church. He uses the word that describes just generically an assembly of saints.

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Now, we use this, we use the word church to describe what we do here and this is, properly speaking, a church service.

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It is a service for the church. It is a service for believers and what we do here is for believers. And so this is the gathering or the collecting together of the saints, but it's not the only gathering or collecting of the saints that happens as part of Kootenai Community Church in any given week.

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I could abuse this passage and say, wow, that would be a warning against abusing the passage,

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I guess. I could abuse this passage and say that this refers to any time that the church gets together, you are to be there and there are people who have done that.

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But he's not obviously describing individual services of church people or individual services of Christians.

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He's describing the collection of the gathering out of the people of God. And the question really is, not do you attend every event that two or three or four people from Kootenai Community Church are at, but the question is, what is your attitude toward the assembly and the gathering together of God's people?

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That's really the heart attitude that is being addressed here. We are to not forsake the assembling of ourselves together.

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This word, epi synegoge, is only used two times in the New Testament. It's used once here. It's used, and I think this is interesting, in 2

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Thessalonians 2, verse one, where Paul writes, now we request of you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together with him.

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The only other time that this word is used in the New Testament, it describes us being gathered together with the Lord Jesus Christ.

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Church services ought to be a preview of what gathering together with him is going to be like.

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It's not perfect. It's not perfect because we're not perfect. But the gathering together of the people of God ought to reflect and give us a taste of what it is that we're ultimately going to anticipate, and that is being together and worshiping together and fellowshiping together and visiting with each other and serving one another.

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Loving one another. This expression that we have on earth, this is the taste of what we get to look forward to in heaven.

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Which ought to indicate to us that the church service is not to be done with unbelievers in view because there are going to be no unbelievers there.

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No impenitent unbelievers. And therefore, this ought to be a preview of that ultimate expression of our gathering together.

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We gather together here now because we will be gathered together with him ultimately. And so we gather together now in expectation of that, in longing for that, as an expression of that, and anticipating that, and every gathering of ourselves together here should make us just long a little bit more for that ultimately gathering to the

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Lord Jesus Christ. He describes this as we are to not forsake our own assembling together. And why would the author use the word for synagogue there, epi -synagogue, instead of ekklesia, which is the

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Greek word for church? Why use that? He's obviously writing to Jews who had come out of the synagogue. I think that that's one reason.

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He's also describing here our own assembly or our own gathering together. So he's using a uniquely Jewish word or Jewish concept to describe the gathering together of Christians.

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And we are not to neglect our own gathering together. Now, some people have suggested that that designation, our own, really was indicating that what is in view here was the collection or gathering in of a group of people that was somehow connected to the synagogue.

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In other words, the Christians would gather together kind of like a little clique inside the synagogue itself.

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So you had the operations of the synagogue, and then you had sort of the Christian synagogue that would meet in the midst of it. Like they would have their own

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Sunday school class while everybody else was meeting in the synagogue. Well, it wouldn't be Sunday, it'd be Sabbath schools. They'd have their own Sabbath school class, but you know what

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I mean. That's not what he is describing here. What he's describing here is a separate assembly together of the people of God.

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And the real danger for these folks was that they would feel the longing to go back to the sacrifices, back to the old covenant, back to that old way of doing things in the old synagogue.

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And so he distinguishes here between our own gathering together and that gathering together that you once were part of.

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And the danger is, and the warning is, if you go back to that, leave the new for the old, and go back to your old friends, your old family, and your own ways, and you forsake instead this gathering together in order to be part of this gathering together, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins for you.

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For to you to walk away from this, which is clearly revealed in Scripture and is clearly a new covenant community, and to turn your back on that is to trample underfoot the

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Son of God and to regard as unclean the blood that has put you in this new covenant relationship. It is to despise the very blood of that sacrifice that he shed, and instead to say,

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I would prefer to be under the blood of the bulls and the goats and the animals. That's the kind of apostasy that is being described here.

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And this apparently had become the habit of some. Now that word habit is also a word that is sometimes translated as custom.

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In fact, it's the same word used to describe the burial custom of the Jews, or what was customary. It describes something that had become a custom through repetition.

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In other words, this is a pattern of behavior. It is the things you do as a pattern. This is your custom. This is your normal way.

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It's your ritual, your precedent, your tradition, your routine, your ritual behavior, or your practice. It's something that develops over time, and it's something that develops over time because in doing it, it becomes the new routine.

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That's what's being described. By neglecting or forsaking the assembling of yourselves together, this had started off with an attitude, and over the course of time, the repeated turning away and drawing away and remaining away from the body of believers, the assembled

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Christians, this had become the new routine of some, the habit of some. It now was their new custom, whereas at one time, custom revolved around worshiping together with the saints of God and being part of that community.

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Now, the new custom, the new habit, the new routine is just to miss that assembly altogether. So this describes someone, some, whose routine now did not make room for worship, for the preaching of the word, for the observing of the ordinances, for teaching, for fellowship, for service, for accountability, for submitting to authority, or any of the other graces that God induces into our life through the means of the local body and the local church.

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So again, this is not, and it cannot be used to describe or condemn somebody who is absent from a worship service for a period of time because their job demands it, because that's their shift.

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And then they have to work Sundays for a period of time to cover other things, and so they are forced to miss worship, or they have to miss worship for a period of time.

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People sometimes say, you know, I've been two weeks. I don't wanna be forsaking the assembly and myself together with the saints. I've been absent for two weeks.

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One week, I was completely sick and on death's door, and the other week, I was on vacation with my family.

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That's two in a row, I'm forsaking the assembly. No, you're not. This is not describing things that come up and interrupt the normal routine of your life.

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This describes one whose normal routine is not worshiping. That's what's being condemned here.

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One whose normal routine used to include the gathering together with the saints, and now that normal routine does not include gathering together with the saints.

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Something had happened over the course of time through habitual practice that changed one custom into another custom, one habit into another habit, and so now their habit is that they have forsaken and turned their back on that gathering of Christians.

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So it's not describing you being on vacation for two weeks. It's not describing you recovering from illness or a surgery or because of some constraint that is forced upon you from outside where you have to care for a loved one or a sick one.

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It's not describing you unable to be here because of a physical frailty or because of an incapacity.

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Those things are all temporary interruptions into our routine. What's being described here is not,

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I missed a couple Sundays in a row. What is being described here is, I missed every

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Sunday in a row because it was football season, and I got to the end of January, and I just thought, that's my new custom.

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I'm just not going back. You say, what? An occasional interruption and a forsaking of the assembly.

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There is a distance between those two things. For some people, that's a short road. For some people, that's a long road. But the next step after you forsake the assembly is apostasy.

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That's what the author's warning about in verse 26. See, these things that I'm describing here, these are temporary interruptions, and they don't constitute the habit, but they can, they can.

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You say, well, how do I know if it's become the habit or not? You need to figure that out. That's a question you have to answer.

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How do I know if this is my new custom, if missing church for all of these other activities is my new normal?

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What in the lives of these early Christians created this forsaking? You have any idea what it might be?

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I think we get a clue to it down in verse 32, where he says, but remember the former days when after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated.

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You showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one.

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What had led to this? Why were some abandoning the church? Why had this become a habit in the lives of some?

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Because they were suffering affliction, persecution, hard persecution, and soft persecution. They were being reproached by their friends and their family, their coworkers, and their bosses.

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They were being abused verbally in the community outside of them, probably by the old synagogue, and all of that reproaching, and all of that pressure, and all of that persecution had made them think, you know what, it'd be a lot easier if I just didn't go gather together with those

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Christians. I had all my stuff taken from me last week. And now I'm supposed to go back again and gather with those

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Christians after I've had all of my property seized, and I'm being reproached, and spurned, and hated by everyone.

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You know what would make life a lot easier? What would make the suffering go away instantly is just to not meet with the

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Christians. So maybe if I do it less and less frequently, maybe if I have my part there less frequently than I used to, over the course of time, that affliction will stop.

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And you know when the world will be happy with us not meeting together? When we don't meet together at all.

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Not once a month, that won't satisfy anybody. If the church gathered once every six months, the world would still hate it so long as it proclaimed the truth.

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The world will never be satisfied until the church is completely and totally extinguished. So this persecution that had struck this early church had caused some of them to begin to forsake the assembly of themselves together.

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And notice that the author does not promise that it's gonna get better. He doesn't say, no, you need to get together and keep worshiping together, because eventually this will lighten up, it'll get better.

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He doesn't promise them that. He doesn't say it'll get easier over time. He doesn't suggest that they should avoid church because of the dangers.

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And he doesn't even say in verse 38 that what they needed was for the persecution to stop. He said, what you need is endurance.

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Wait, I want verse 38 to say, but what you need is for the persecution to stop. That's what

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I want, sorry, verse 36. You have need of endurance. It's endurance that they needed, not an end to the affliction.

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It was endurance. The danger of gathering together as the assembled church of God made their assembly together as the church of God even more necessary.

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Do you catch this? Don't miss this. They were facing persecution. And the author doesn't say that, look, in light of the persecution, you should probably stop meeting for a while.

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Doesn't say that. In light of the fact that you've had your property seized, you probably should stop meeting for a while. He doesn't say that. Instead, he says, because this is going on, you need to make sure that you are even more diligent to not forsake the assembling of yourselves together because it is in the midst of that suffering, there is only one place where God's people are fed and encouraged and strengthened and fellowship and enjoy a taste of heaven and are reminded of the hope that we have that is to come.

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There's only one place that takes place. It's not in the theater. It's not in front of the television set.

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It's not out in the park. It's not on a mountaintop. There's only one place where that happens, and that is when God's people come together as the church to worship and fellowship with him.

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So the author doesn't say, look, just take a break for a bit and maybe the persecution will die down. He says, no, in light of the persecution, you need to be even more diligent to do this.

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Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together. Believers in every age, in every age of church history, have ventured their lives to gather together as the church.

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In every age, in every age somewhere on this planet, meeting as Christians meant a death sentence.

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There are areas of our planet today when meeting together is a death sentence. And do you know what the Christians there do?

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They meet together because they esteem the worship of God, the corporate worship of God, the proclaiming of his word, and the fellowship of the saints as more valuable than their very lives.

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That is how they view the function of the early church, of the church, of the worship of God itself, as so valuable that they are willing to risk their very lives to do it.

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We, in our age, have had it very easy in North America. Now, up in Canada, they're becoming a communist police state up there.

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We're on the crazy train. We're just a couple of cars behind Canada on this progression. We've had it very easy here.

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Christians all over the world have ventured their lives. And the author knows that they are not ignorant of the danger, he knows that they have reason to fear, and he knows that they are facing a threat.

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And yet he says, to borrow the words from the next chapter in chapter 11, he says that they are to esteem the gathering of the saints as more valuable than their lives, as more valuable than their possessions, and as more valuable than the danger, than anything that the danger might bring to them that might deter them from doing that, more valuable than comfort or convenience or even escaping the persecution that was to come.

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And so he quotes in chapter 11, verse 25, speaking of Moses, he says that Moses chose to endure ill treatment with the people of God rather to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin.

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Moses did this by faith. You and I likewise, as believers, are to choose ill treatment with the people of God over the safety and security and the ease and comfort of not gathering together.

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We're to choose ill treatment and persecution because we gather over the convenience and comfort and safety of not gathering.

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Look around you. These are the ill -treated people of God, reproached and spurned, and the world hates you because you heap reproach and scorn on everything that the world loves.

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And so they heap reproach and scorn on you in return. They hate you. Now look around you.

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This is your family. And in the midst of persecution, no matter how bad it ever gets or ever is, if it ever comes to this country or if we escape it by some act of grace of God, no matter how bad it is, this is more beneficial, this is better than all the ease and convenience of not gathering together.

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Esteeming together the worship of God, the preaching of his word, and the fellowship that we get to enjoy as the saints, it is better to enjoy that and receive ill treatment with the people of God than to escape that for all the comforts and pleasures that this world can provide.

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There are things that come up in life that interrupt our gathering together as God's people. I get that. We all know that. We all face it.

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This passage is not describing that. Those things in our lives, for those who are believers, they are unwelcome and sometimes unavoidable, but they are things that we avoid in this life that replaces what we do here as a church in our worship.

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They're unavoidable, but sometimes we have to skip church for one reason or another. That eventually becomes a habitual pattern, and that habitual pattern becomes the new custom, and that new custom then is forsaking the assembly, and that forsaking of the assembly is apostasy.

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You see, there's a road. Nobody steps off the cliff into apostasy, whether you're talking about Bart Ehrman or Joshua Harris or anybody else who's turned their back on the faith.

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There's a road. There is a progress. There is a forming of a custom. There is the shaping of a mind. There is the influencing of a heart that takes place over the course of time.

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These things are not instantaneous. It begins with a cavalier attitude, but it eventually becomes the routine practice.

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When we then begin to cut ourselves off from the grace of God in the preaching of his word, we cut ourselves off from the grace of observing the ordinances together, of fellowship, of worship, of praying with one another, of being involved in the lives of other people, having them involved in our lives.

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These are all means of grace that sanctify us and feed us and strengthen us, and you know when you need that feed and that strength the most?

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Right when you are in the midst of having your property seized and being reproached and scorned by the world. That's when assembling together is more essential than it ever has been.

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That's when you need it most. That's why he says to do this all the more as you see the day approaching. Things are getting bad.

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Yep, that's right. So double down, Christian. It's gonna get bad, and it will get bad.

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So double down on it, and let the world heap its scorn and reproach upon us. So what is your custom?

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Where am I at in this? Jim, are you suggesting that I'm not attending church enough? I don't take attendance here. I know some people do.

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I don't even see the attendance of what goes on here. So that's not what I'm talking about. We're not talking about counting heads. We're not talking about the elders coming to your house this week and saying, look, you have been at only nine out of the last 10 worship services, and that's unacceptable.

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We're not talking about any of that. So we don't do that. That's not what this passage is about. But here's the question.

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Are other things in your life, unwelcomed and avoided, that infringe upon your habit of gathering together for worship?

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Or is worship and gathering together with the people of God the unwelcome and avoided thing in your life?

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That's the question. What do you consider to be an interruption? Worship or the things that threaten to supplant worship?

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What's the interruption in your life? Is Sunday morning worship the interruption? Is gathering together with God's people an interruption?

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Is the spiritual activity the interruption? Is the activities of the church an interruption? Or are the other things that threaten to supplant those things the interruption?

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See, that's where the heart issue gets to. It's not a matter of counting heads or counting services or saying I'm there 90 % and having attendance.

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It's not about any of that. Really, it is about what is your custom? What are you accustomed to?

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And are you on a path that is going to form itself into a new routine, which will be to your spiritual danger? We have access to God, and we have a great priest over the house of God.

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Therefore, let us consider how to stimulate one another, to provoke one another to love and to good deeds in the best way possible.

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We do this by not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. You cannot provoke one another to love and good deeds if you aren't intimately connected in their lives in the body of Christ.

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And you cannot encourage one another if there's no another around you to encourage. So the author wants us to be busy about doing this because he knows that to not do this is to take that first step into apostasy.

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It is to turn from the truth and to isolate yourself from all of the means of grace that God has put into your life to strengthen and to feed you.

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And next week, we will look at the motivation, why we are to do this, all the more as we see the day approaching. What is that day and why and how should it motivate us?

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Let's pray. Father, we love you and thank you for your grace and for your word. Your grace is evident in our lives, not just in calling us out of the world and bringing us into the church of the living

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God, purchased by the blood of Christ. But your grace is evident in how you feed us from your word and encourage us together, how you use others in our lives.

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And we pray that you would fix within our hearts a love, a longing for, and a desire for the gathering together of your people for the worship and fellowship that comes as a result of what we do.

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We pray that you would use us as instruments in the lives of our brothers and sisters to be spurs to love and to good deeds, to encourage them and to strengthen them as a means of sanctifying them.

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And we pray that you would use others in our lives in that very same way, that as we mutually serve one another and love one another and fellowship with one another, we are built up and strengthened.

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And that is all according to your most holy plan. We thank you for this grace and for the church and for this church, for this body that is gathered here.

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We thank you that we are part of the body of Christ and we thank you for this local expression and for those who live and love and serve this congregation, for those who are here and leading it, we would just ask for your blessing upon them and may you continue to use each of us in the lives of all the rest of us to honor you, to glorify you, sanctify our brothers and sisters, to encourage them and to build them up to the glory of the