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If you will turn with me once again to Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10, I don't really have the ability to handle so many different topics as once as to do a New Testament in the morning and Old Testament in the evening.
I just have to stick to one thing. I'm a pretty simple man, so that's what we have to do. And we want to, I'd really like to be able to finish up this chapter this evening so that the next time we're together, Lord willing, we'll be able to launch into that 11th chapter of the book of Hebrews together.
So Hebrews chapter 10, and we read through a fairly large section this morning, so we will pick up with verse 32. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 32. 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.
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. 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. For yet in a very little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one shall live by faith.
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 preserving of the soul. Now, this morning we began looking through this section and we talked about the fact that these believers are being now exhorted and encouraged and that the first exhortation to them is to look back, look back as to what has already happened in their lives.
They had already experienced persecution and the fact that they had found God sufficient in their persecution, the fact that they had experienced God's grace was to be a means by which they were to recognize that they truly were amongst those who are not going to shrink back, that they truly had experienced grace and therefore God's love was focused upon their lives.
They had been made a public spectacle, some of them, through reproaches and tribulations. There had been some who had been publicly mocked and had then experienced tribulation, maybe the loss of their income, their jobs, their welfare in that way.
And partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated. And so there were others who maybe if they were slaves, there were many slaves in the early church, maybe their masters had not mistreated them for their confession of faith, but they had actually voluntarily become sharers with those who were so treated.
And I pointed out that the term sharers there is that term koinonia is the fellowship and they had become sharers, people in fellowship with those who had in fact experienced reproaches and tribulations.
And it says that they showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of their property. And so there were those who had shown sympathy and it is interesting that the Greek word for sympathy is sympathy.
That's where we get it from, it comes pretty much straight across and it is to, patheo is to experience emotion or suffering and so soon patheo, to enter into together, to experience sympathy, it comes really directly into our language.
And so they hadn't just looked from afar as their fellow believers had experienced this kind of public humiliation. They had entered into it, even if they may not have been able to run out and say, I too am a Christian.
To experience sympathy is to understand what another person is going through. And so they themselves had shown sympathy to the prisoners, which means they had been willing to expose themselves to the possibility of being imprisoned.
They had been willing to go and if you were seen going into the prison, that could damage your standing in society if you were one of those people who had possessions and some people had experienced that.
They had accepted joyfully the seizure of their property. Now, we don't know exactly what this involved. There's all sorts of discussion in the commentaries as to exactly where this particular community might have been located and there's different theories from scholars.
The text doesn't give us enough indication. Some people are very certain that it was the Christians, the Jewish Christians in Rome and we do know that at this time period and we see some indication of this in Paul's letters.
We know that at the beginning of the sixth decade, there was a split between the Jews and the Christians. Really, we know that before then, but one that became known to the public in essence and there was an imperial edict that cast the Jews out of Rome and the Christians were included in this because we see in Acts, for example, the Roman rulers don't want to make decisions between the Jews and the Christians.
It just sounds like some type of inter-religious squabbling to them and fulfillment of prophecy and stuff like that just left them rather cold, but the persecution begins to ramp up at this time and maybe that was what was going on.
I had a fairly long flight yesterday back from Boston coming back in this direction. It's about five hours and 40 minutes. So, I rented and watched once again that classic film Fiddler on the Roof. I like Fiddler on the Roof and Tevye and things like that and if you're familiar with the story, you know that at the end of the story, the Jews of Anatevka are cast out of their district by the rule of the Russian government and you see them gathering up their few possessions and on a cart and in the cold walking away from their little village which wasn't much to look at in the first place and you can't help but think of how many times that has happened.
If the Christians were cast out of Rome at a certain point in time, they wouldn't be given a whole lot of time to sell their homes or their property and so obviously as in Fiddler on the Roof, they're given three days.
Well, who's going to buy your home? They know you're going to be gone three days anyways. What kind of price are you going to be able to get for that kind of thing? And so, it was the beginning of literally over two centuries of persecution of Christians that is just now beginning at this point in time in the writing of the book of Hebrews and here you have at the start the seizure of your property.
Joyfully accepted the seizure of your property. There is a pastor in Europe who recently was fined many thousands of dollars for simply having preached from the book of Leviticus about homosexuality. Another in Canada had to fight for years, cost him many, many thousands of dollars to defend himself legally because of what he had said concerning the subject of homosexuality.
The day is coming when our enemies will utilize, if the Lord does not grant repentance, will utilize the power of government and the power of civil suits and things like that to literally seize our property if we are faithful to the Word of God.
And how will we respond to that? Well, let's be honest with ourselves. There is a need of a supernatural intervention in our lives to joyfully accept the seizure of your property. Now, obviously, if it is an illegal seizure, if it is injustice, if it is wrong, there is a recognition, a crying out to God as we see in the Psalter, Lord, justice, justice needs to be done and we should rightfully fight for justice.
But when the time comes when it is simply because you have professed faith in Christ and we stand against you and we are doing this because of your profession of faith in Christ, these individuals, these people who had just recently been enlightened, they had just come to really know the truth, not only did they show sympathy to the prisoners who would have been their fellow believers, but they joyfully accepted the seizure of their property.
What could allow that to happen? And what should you and I be considering as being something, you know, some people say, how should we prepare? I mean, is there some way that we could prepare ourselves if we see persecution coming?
And unless you're doing this number, look across the pond, look at Europe, look at our brothers and sisters under Islamic rule. I'm not sure who's going to get to us first, the Muslims or the secularists.
But you see it coming. And unless there is revival in the land and unless God restrains madness, I think there's something we need to think about in verse 34, because I don't know that I would be very joyful if someone took away my earthly belongings.
Unless, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one. You see, if someone takes from you your physical possessions so as to persecute you in Christ, what are they saying about themselves?
They have nothing that will ever abide. You think about those people that were persecuting the Christians and you if you step back, if you can step back away from your own personal feelings, you can look at it from a biblical perspective.
What's really going on? You have people here who abide under the wrath of God at any moment. It can break out upon them at any moment. They can enter into eternity without Christ under his wrath, experience eternal punishment and have nothing to take with them at all.
Total loss, total separation from God. And what are they doing? They're taking things from people who have eternal life. Things that once we're dead, we've got no use for them. Things that in most instances fall apart way before they should anyhow.
Things that promise us a lot more than they can really deliver in fulfillment. They're taking little things from us and they think that this is doing something for them and they're standing on the rotting wood of the bridge over the precipice of hell.
Knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession. Do you know that? Do I know that? Let's be honest with ourselves. We live with so much stuff and we spend so much of our time thinking about stuff and maintaining stuff.
Do we really know that we have in the sense of superior to, of a completely different kind? It's better in the sense that there's nothing in this world that can even begin to compare to the possession that you and I have.
But what possession do we have? Well, we certainly have the abiding promises of God. And as believers, we know we've already been seated in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus and we've received forgiveness of sins.
And we possess as a present possession, eternal life, which can never be taken from us. And so when you think about people taking from us our possessions and trying to make us poor and mocking us and you saw what these early Christians went through.
And even at this point in time, they hadn't started going through what they were going to go through. How can they put up with that? How can believers today in foreign lands experience such suffering?
And yet they do so with joy. They joyfully accept the seizure of their property. They joyfully accept the fact that the world hates them. That's one of the things that is just so absolutely disgusting.
Disgusting about the perversion of the gospel. Called the prosperity gospel, the word faith message. It is such an insult to the truth. God wants you healthy, wealthy and wise. And if you don't have it, it's because you don't have enough faith for it.
What foolishness. Just throw the Bible away if you're going to teach something like that. See, these people, we look around today and we see people in foreign lands and they have a joy and a contentment that let's be honest, we rarely see in our own land.
We rarely see it because we are so distracted. And we may know up here that we have a better possession, a lasting one. But there's an 18 inch difference between here and here. And the true ground of Christian contentment is only to be found when we take the time to contemplate, to meditate upon the tremendous benefits that are ours in Christ Jesus that the world can never touch, that we've never deserved and can never deserve.
And yet have been given to us completely by. That's why the scriptures really show little patience to believers who whine and complain to God, because a person like that really is not thinking about what's truly important and about what has been given to us in Christ.
And the true strength of the suffering church is that we know what the world can never know. So if you want to be prepared to joyfully accept the seizure of your property, then you need to know. You need to know, believe, accept, recognize, have made a part of your daily thought that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one, better and more lasting than anything you have, anything you've worked toward.
You can tell I'm not my wife's not, but I'm in that middle age time and actually just about to step into that sixth decade. You know, that's when they buy all the black balloons and all the stuff like that.
It's just skip it. Don't worry about it. Give me a bottle of Geritol. I'll be all right. But there comes a time in a person's life, in a man's life where God has given you enough hints in how your body works or isn't working as well as it used to.
Enough hints and recognizing that your children are grown up and when you attend your kids' weddings and all sorts of things like that, that you're not a young man anymore and eternity is approaching and you start thinking about what you're going to leave behind.
What kind of impact am I going to make in this world when I'm gone? Will the church be bettered by my service to her or not? When the text talks about an abiding one, a possession that remains, how much do we invest in thinking about that?
In thinking about what we're going to leave behind. The value of our being servants of Christ should be something I think that takes up far more of our thought than it does. But the speed I'm going, we're not getting anywhere near chapter 11 at this rate.
As we know this morning, therefore, do not throw away your confidence. Confidence comes from recognizing that God has been at work in my life. When people ask me, I just don't know if I'm safe. Have you seen God working in your life?
Have you seen an increase in godliness? Have you seen how many times God has kept you out of those situations that otherwise you would have brought great disrespect upon the gospel? There's great confidence in looking back upon what God has done in our lives.
And it has a great reward that again, the world cannot begin to take away from us and cannot really even begin to understand. But notice the exhortation, you have need of endurance. You have need of endurance so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.
Two words for young Christian people today, for all Christian people, especially as I look at the next generation's endurance, I think they're directly related here. You have need of discipline. You have need of endurance.
So many people that start off with a flash. So many people that can make a good, they can talk a good talk. But again, because of the snow on the chin in a few decades of ministry, I know Pastor Fry will tell you the same thing.
There's a lot of people that come in and oh, can they talk and they know their doctrine and theology. But we sort of want to see them for a while. There's something about consistency. There's something about discipline.
There's something about endurance. It makes all the difference in the world. Most of you know, you all expected, I'm sure as soon as you saw the word endurance, he's going to find a way to give an illustration for bicycling.
Yeah, well, what can I say? What can I say? A few weeks ago, I decided to do something really weird. The same day that I did a debate with an Oxford scholar on the phone over in London, I spent 10 hours and 37 minutes on a bike, 186 miles, 300 kilometers.
Now, back in the 90s, some of you remember, I was sort of skinny back then and I rode then too. I could never do it back then. I could never do it. It was beyond me. I'd get six, seven hours into a ride and I would start feeling horribly sick.
My stomach said, that's enough. Forget it. And honestly, I just decided that was the way God made me. And so I was just never going to be able to ride more than about 105, maybe 110 miles. The absolute best.
Just wasn't able to do it. I just accepted it. Well, I got back on the bike in 2005 and, you know, honestly, it never even crossed my mind. I'm never going to go that far again anyways. It doesn't really matter.
And I got back into shape and I started going, man, I wonder why that is. So I started doing some reading and I found out there were certain things I was doing that weren't right. There were certain foods I was eating.
My stomach was betraying me because I was putting stuff in it that it didn't want to have in there when it was trying to work the way it was trying to work. And I, I changed what I was taking in. And at the end of 10 hours and 37 minutes, I was hungry.
My stomach was working just fine. In fact, it was almost bothering me. I was so hungry by the time I got done. I've found a way around and now I can, I can go for a long time. Why did I do that? Because I wanted to, I had a desire to be able to demonstrate an endurance in that particular sport, but I had to be disciplined about it.
Some of the times the food I have to eat isn't the tastiest stuff, but you know, it takes discipline. It all depends on how much you want it. And the writer says to his audience, you need endurance. You don't be a, you can't be a flash in the pan.
True godliness demonstrates itself over time. When people say, what do you think about this movement? All of you heard about the newest thing. Boy, there's something exciting going over here. Think of all the things we've heard about just over the past number of decades.
You know, the laughing revival, remember that, you know, and the Brownsville revival and this movement and that movement. Hopefully we've all gotten to the point now where you look at something like that and you go, yeah, give it time.
Give it time. People ask me, I'm hearing that there's just, there's all these people being converted to Christ because they're having visions of Jesus in a Muslim world. My response is, all has been the same.
Give it time. Let's see what comes of it. Do these people end up clinging to the word of God? Are they, they end up being orthodox? Do they end up having a faith that is truly grounded in the word of God?
Do they end up going off into all sorts of other weird religious experiences? Give it time. That's not what our society likes. We live in a day of microwave everything. I want to know now. I want to see the results now.
Endurance. You have need of endurance so that when you have done the will of God, you don't find out what the will of God is like. Young people obey God's commands and you'll find out what the will of God is.
The spirit of God will apply that in your life. And when you are serving Christ and you're doing what the word of God has revealed, young people always going, oh, I wonder what God's will for me is. God's will for you is your sanctification.
Man, I was looking for so like a Ouija board type answer. Well, there isn't any such thing. There isn't any such thing. You have need of endurance. So when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.
You want eternal life? You want the promised inheritance? You want that peace with God? Well, you have need of endurance. Need to do the will of God. Then he quotes from the Old Testament again. For yet in a very little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay.
But my righteous one shall live by faith and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him. Now, there are pages and pages and pages of commentary on exactly how the author is interpreting this text, because that's from Habakkuk.
And you've got the discussion of exactly how this is being understood and Paul's use of it and the just shall live by faith. And is this different than Paul's use of it? And some people interpret it as to the Messiah and things like that.
I'm not going to have time to get into all of that. You can look at the commentaries if you want to get into the different forms of the Greek Septuagint that are used and all these other things. There's a lot of discussion there, but let's just look at the overall message.
The message is, but my righteous one shall live by faith. Now, remember, chapter divisions are arbitrary in the sense that they didn't exist when the book was originally written and they were not introduced until well over a thousand years after these books were written and the final chapter and verse divisions of the New Testament were not introduced until 1551.
So, they're a relatively new thing. And so, keeping that in mind, if you allow your eye just to go down a little bit, we're getting close to chapter 11. And chapter 11 begins, it's a faith chapter, of course, and we know it begins, now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
And that word faith in verse 1 of chapter 11 is, of course, the same word that is used when it talks about believing, the same root. And so, he shall live by faith and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.
And so, what we're doing is we're getting chapter 11 becomes an illustration of the continuing faith that people have, the nature of faith and the necessity of faith and how faith marks out the people of God.
And so, here, this just one, my righteous one, shall live by faith and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him. And so, what's he saying? Well, he's talking again to the congregation. He's already given the warnings.
And if you shrink back, then you don't actually have faith. The righteous one will demonstrate that faith and that faith is going to endure. But the one who shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.
And so, the comment is made, but we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith, the preserving of the soul. Just as we had in chapter 6, where you had that strong warning, no repentance for those that fall away.
You then have this illustration afterwards that showed us exactly what the application was to be there. It talks about the rain falling upon the ground and then, but we're convinced of better things of you, things which accompany salvation.
Now, you have this strong warning passage, then you have some exhortation, you have the Old Testament citation and then you have, once again, the very same kind of statement. But we, notice the author joins with the people, we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.
So, what must we say the book of Hebrews perspective is upon those who go back and offer sacrifice? Those who shrink back, those who because of the opposition of the world, the call of the world, the pressure of the family, they went back and they offered sacrifice.
Or in our day, they go back because they love the world. The constant pressure of the world to conform, the lust of the flesh, what do we say about those who want that amongst us, but then they give in, they shrink back.
Well, they shrink back to destruction. I can't find any basis for this theology that exists amongst many people that says, well, you shrink back, you'll lose your rewards, but you're still going to heaven.
You got your ticket punched, you're on your way. Maybe there's a textual variance someplace right in the middle of verse 39 that I'm missing here, but I can't find that. There are only two groups here.
There are those who shrink back unto destruction and then there are those who have faith to the preserving of the soul. Now, again, I can understand why the theology developed, the ticket punched, you're going to heaven theology.
I understand, because if you believe that salvation is only by faith, if you believe in sola fide, but you don't believe in the sovereignty of God and salvation and you believe it's all up to man, then I'm the one that's got to work up faith within me.
Wow, it's not really a consistent or meaningful presentation to say that, well, it's all up to you. You got to work up that faith. And if you don't get enough faith going, then you can fall short. There's entire denominations, the entire worship service is wrapped around revving you up every week because God will get you from Sunday to Wednesday, then from Wednesday to Sunday, and from Sunday to Wednesday.
And it's like one of those flashlights. I've got one of those emergency flashlights, you know, and it's got the little thing on it. And for a while it works and then it starts getting really dark and you got to get going again.
Their entire denominations, that's why their worship is the way it is, because you got to rev it up and hope they can make it through. You know, by Wednesday morning, they're really getting dim because faith is something you work up within yourself.
You see, if we believed in that kind, if we believe that these texts were prescriptive, he who endures the end shall be saved. Therefore, here's the prescription. By your enduring to the end, you shall save yourself.
We believe that. We really couldn't believe it. The Bible teaches about so many other things, to be honest with you, certainly about the perfection of the work of Christ. But we recognize these things are descriptive and hence it all comes together as a unified whole and we are of those who have faith, the preserving of the soul.
It's not because I'm better than somebody else. It's not because I've got a bigger battery, a better crank. I somehow am better at producing that faith in myself. No. He who endures the end shall be saved because, well, Jesus has already promised to save all of those the Father gives to him.
So why do I endure? Because Jesus Christ is at work in my life. I cannot take any. I cannot boast in that. I have to boast in the Lord. There are those who shrink back. They shrink back to destruction.
If the writer had said anything else, then he would have emptied his warnings of any meaning. But what he's saying is that real faith doesn't do that. And people say, that's a cop out. You're saying they never really had faith.
But they said they did. How do you know what real faith is? It endures. Oh, that's not fair. You have to observe somebody for two or three decades. Yeah, for God, that's not really a problem. It might be for us.
We want instant answers. But you see, the real proof in the pudding is that long-term endurance, that consistency. The world can't understand it. The world can't understand how we can be so content with the Word of God and content with His grace and content with the message of the gospel.
But when a person really understands their own need, really understands the grandeur of God and His grace, how else could we be? How else could we respond to this glorious gospel? And so as we sit here today, I want to believe that each one in front of me is of those who have faith, the preserving of the soul.
But I cannot see into your hearts and you cannot see into mine. And so we listen to the warnings and we deliver them. Do not shrink back. There are people who contact me all the time and they've heard this argument or that argument.
They've experienced this thing or that thing. They've had this negative experience in a church or that negative experience. And they're questioning their faith. We can say to those people, do not be those who shrink back.
Because when you shrink back, the only thing to shrink back to is destruction. But certainly our prayer is that everyone, the sound of my voice is of those who have faith, the preserving of the soul. It's not I, however, who preserves the soul.
I am so thankful for the promise of my Lord Jesus. In that tremendous text in John chapter 6, He for that brief moment pulled aside the veil of eternity and He revealed to us the Father's will for Him.
And the Father's will for the Son is that He lose none of those that have been given to Him, but raise Him up on the last day. I'm so thankful that I don't have to look to myself. I look to a Savior who has all power in heaven and earth.
And He has promised He will lose none of those that have been given to Him. Now the question is, you say, oh, but how do I know if I've been given? Have you fled to Him? Do you see in Him the source of eternal life?
Do you look to anything else but Him? If you cling to Him and to Him alone, that faith which has been given to you will be to the preserving of your soul. You can have great confidence when you recognize the Savior who has given His all for us.
Let's pray together. Indeed, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we thank you that you have indeed given your all and that the faith we have, you are described in this very book of Hebrews as the author and finisher of it.
And so we thank you. We praise you. We love you. We will spend all of eternity expressing to you our thankfulness for all you have done. And now, Lord, as we prepare to serve you as your servants by your name in this coming week, may we do so by the power of your Spirit and to your honor and glory.
We do pray these things in Christ's name. Amen.