Good Old Days

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Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

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I've got. I've been teaching through the book of Hebrews, as you know, and I want to talk a little bit about this section today for those people who are going through difficult times.

I like what the book of Hebrews says in regards to this. In Hebrews 10, at the end of the section before the faith chapter, in Hebrews 11.

If you have theological questions, by the way, you can write us, info at nocompromiseradio .com.

I'd say we answered thousands of questions over the years, but these days, not very many questions come in.

I think probably when we were on the radio, we got more questions, and probably there's only so much you can take of me, and then that's it.

Then you're off to other things, other people, which is fine. I can be a gateway drug to R .C.

Sproul or somebody like that, Sinclair Ferguson. You ought to be listening to Abound in Grace Radio with Pastor Chris, Chris Gordon.

I'm always encouraged when I listen to that. Listen to a few other podcasts as well, 1 .5

Speed. Now with the weather getting bad, it's hard to get out there and listen to as many podcasts.

I want to try to encourage you today that if you're going through a difficult season in life, what's the best response?

How do I make it through? What should I be thinking?

Of course, for all of us, there are times like this, and some of you might be having a good season now, an easy season, and it might just seem like things are falling into place well, and others of you have a hard time.

How do you walk through life as a Christian when times are tough?

What the book of Hebrews does, it gets you to think properly. For a long time, he's been talking about who

Jesus is, and he wants them to think properly about him. Then he's going to give us these exhortations in Hebrews 10, 32 through 39, about perception and looking and thinking about things the right way.

Therefore, I'm going to tell you to keep your eyes peeled. Now, even when

I said that, I thought, peeled, peeling your eyes. What does that mean? I mean, it's pretty self -explanatory, right?

Keep your eyes peeled, keep them open. But I found there from the internet, there's two options.

Option one, I don't think is as good. It derives from an old word pill, which means to plunder.

We would get pillage for that. From the Latin root, pillare, which means to pluck or to take the hair off and to remove something.

So figuratively, keeping alert by removing the covering of the eye so that you can see.

That's the peel. That's not appealing to me. The other option that I want to be true,

I don't know if it is true, to keep your eyes peeled. And it still means figuratively to be alert.

1820s, Britain, Sir Robert Peel. And we're not talking about the music in the 70s and Peel, John Peel.

We're talking about Sir Robert Peel. And he organized the police force first to do it.

And they were supposed to be observant and keep their eyes peeled, named after their founders' orders.

So there you go. The officers were known as peelers or bobbies.

And so of course the word bobby survived today, not peelers. I think we used to have a schwinn, a bicycle, a lemon peeler, peel out.

Do we still peel out? What does peel out mean? That would be a good show. From the word plari, to plunder, to pluck, to remove, to strip.

All right. So keep your eyes peeled. And not just because there's trouble, but you're going to have to do this because our society, there's trouble built in within the society.

You look at 2 Timothy 3, difficult days will come. People, lovers of self, lovers of money, et cetera.

It's hard to see things clearly when you are going through a trial, but that's what we're after.

Proper perception to have less distortion so you can think about things. What is biblical?

What is not? How do I need to walk through this and work through this to keep your eyes peeled, to be on your toes, to have heads up, all kinds of language, figurative language we could use.

And Hebrews 10, 32 through 39 has the word endured and endurance found there.

To endure and to have endurance. That's really how we'll kind of have this section discussed.

That is how to endure in difficult times. That makes it as generic as possible.

Probably sounds like some sermons you've listened to at your old seeker sensitive church. Just, you know, how to stay up when life's got you down, right?

How to get up when you're down for the count. Now, there's nothing wrong with pragmatism, if you're training a dog, and there's nothing wrong with practical things.

But remember, we're parachuting in today in the show at 10, 32, and he's been talking about Jesus and his greatness from 1, 1 of Hebrews through 10, 18.

And then 19, he tells you to believe. 23, he tells you to keep believing. 24 and 25, serve other believers.

Then 26 through 31, he'll warn you. And then now he, like a good pastor, wants to encourage, see things clearly.

So with kind of like trifocal lenses, this is what we're going to look at today. And then next show, look back, look forward, look to Jesus.

Okay? That's what I think is a good outline for Hebrews 10, 32 through 39.

Look back, look forward, look to Jesus. And you may be saying to yourself, how can this 2 ,000 -year -old advice be relevant?

People are still image bearers, are they not, of the Lord God today? God's truth is relevant today because God is relevant.

Trials, are your trials relevant? Yes. And therefore, like I said before, like a good pastor, he moves from warning to consolation.

He moves from be careful to be encouraged. As a matter of fact, I'm going to write that down.

Be careful, be encouraged, or I could say comforted, could

I not? He did the same thing in chapter six, if you remember. A very stern, severe warning.

Don't be an apostate. And then he said, by the way, you can have confidence that God keeps his promise.

And when God swears, he swears by himself, so he's going to make it. And if you understand that the book of Hebrews is a sermon, and like pastors who have any clue at all, they realize some people in the congregation are

Christians, some are not. And on occasion, he'll address those people who are not. If you're not a believer, believe.

If you're a believer, keep believing. Let me tell you about Jesus. So either way, we're happy when we tell people about Jesus because the believer says, oh yes, that's my

Lord and Savior. And the unbeliever then is informed about the object of the one he must believe in, right?

This is who you must believe in. This is one with whom you have to do. Eyes peeled, trifocal like, lens one, look back, verses 32 through 34.

And he uses language here that sounds pastoral, does it not?

Verse 32, but recall the former days when after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings and sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction and sometimes being partners with those so treated.

And let's just stop. Well, should I read verse 34 or should I not?

Okay, I'll read verse 34 as well and I'll make that note. I'll read verse 34, for you had compassion on those in prison and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property since you knew that you yourselves had a better position and an abiding one.

How do I run this race in a difficult time? And he says, I want you to remember back to the day.

I want you to recall again. And it's a pretty intense word and I want you to really, really think about it.

And what he does here, it's good for us to know this. Here's a good theological practical lesson from the preacher to the

Hebrews. When you're going through a tough time to a Christian, go back in time and instead of remembering the good days, the fun days, the easy days, the enjoyable days, he says,

I want you to remember the hard days. Remember when you were first a Christian. And of course the context here in Hebrews is these people were professing faith and they went through some very difficult times.

Then there was probably some let up and now tough times are coming back. What do you tell those people?

And you tell them, remember when you first were saved? And you can probably remember that as well now, dear

Christian. And you were so happy. You were so joyful. You could not hardly stand it.

And you would jump up and down for joy, even if you were a stoic person from New Jersey or wherever stoic people are from, stoicisms, the land of stoics.

You were so excited. I know I was excited, free. I felt free, peace with God. Reminds me of the, is it the

VJ day, victory over Japan day in the forties and you've got people in Times Square, the bars were flowing with alcohol and that one sailor runs out and grabs that lady who he thought was a nurse, but she was really a dental assistant.

And he grabbed her and gave her a big kiss. And he just, he just couldn't, by the way, I don't know if you know this or not, but his girlfriend, uh, they had a first date.

She was standing right there watching the whole thing. They ended up getting married. And she said, uh, you know, in all the years of their marriage that George never kissed me like that picture.

And of course today people are saying that, you know, with the Me Too movement and she didn't like it, he didn't ask for permission and everything else.

And it was wrong at the time. She said, everybody was so excited about victory over Japan and we're not going to have to send any more men over there to fight and women over there to support that it was just acceptable.

You're just so excited. You just run up and just start kissing people. Now there was some other things going on in some other cities and people were, were vandals.

But anyway, my point is you're so excited when you got saved. And since that was kind of what was going on in your life, when you did get persecuted then when there were trials, then you saw those trials in light of your salvation and in light of eternity.

And so you look back, not at the easy times when you're going through a hard time now, you look back at the hard times and you think, you know what?

God was faithful then. I saw things rightly then. I saw things properly.

I remember those things and that's right. That was, that was a way that God was working on me.

Romans chapter five and developing in me perseverance and endurance. Isn't that what we're talking about here in the section anyway, endurance.

And he says, recall, I want you to keep remembering, don't forget. This memory is wonderful.

Put up like a little memorial stone. Remember in Joshua 4, 7, you shall then say to them, because the waters of the

Jordan were cut off before the Ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the

Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall become a memorial to the sons of Israel forever.

Those tough times when you were first a Christian should be a memorial to you now that you accepted them with joy and you realize that God was working in you.

You thought, you know what? We, we become Christians. We go through difficult times. God was faithful.

And the writer says, don't have amnesia. You need to have those as memorials, as memorial encouragements.

Additionally, you suffered all that then you don't want that to go to waste. Do you? And then doesn't count for anything. Cause now you turn your back on it all.

There's multiple pastoral, uh, what was

I going to say? I was, I was going to say riffs or rhythms or layers is what

I really wanted layers. I have been watching on YouTube. What makes this song great by Rick Beto, I think is his name.

And uh, anyway, songs that I don't even really like, but he breaks them down so that you end up appreciating the musical value, whether it's

Boston or I don't know, you know, I don't like journey, but journeys there, uh,

Led Zeppelin et cetera. So the layers, and so he'll pull out all the vocals so you can just hear harmonies or something like that and see what they do on the three beats instead of the four, blah, blah, blah.

He wants you to be encouraged. He did the same thing back in Hebrew six, as I said earlier, God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love, which you have shown toward his name and that you have ministered to the saints and do minister.

Your testimony, when you first got saved, you would suffer anything for the

Lord Jesus, the risen savior, right? You were glad you were happy.

And the writer says, now just go back and remember those days, go back and remember how much hope you had, how much courage you had.

You were so courageous. You had so much hope. It didn't matter what they threw at you. It didn't matter.

Now, sometimes the language here in this verse could speak with, it has nothing to do with the

Bible, but some tradition that this is language of Christian baptism. After you were enlightened,

I don't think it has anything to do with baptism. Although if you did get baptized and then you were all fired up because you were obedient to the

Lord in baptism back in those days, but this is receiving the light. This doesn't have anything to do with Christian baptism,

I don't think. It has to do with you understood the gospel. God opened your mind and your heart and your eyes to see it.

And you just thought, wow, this is amazing. I heard the gospel.

I responded by the grace of God. And no matter what I went through, it was okay. God was faithful.

I'm here now. And it says in the text, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings. Remember back in those days?

A hard struggle with sufferings. It's where we get the word athletic contest, where you're fighting, where you're thrown in the ring, where there's this hard struggle and there were sufferings and tribulations and difficulties.

And it was all out war, metaphor of athletics, and you were forced into military service and you had to really struggle in this contest.

You know what? Remember back in those days? You did it. Your faith, even though it was immature, you struggled and you didn't go back.

The struggling wasn't the bad part, right? It's like Acts 5, then they left the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor of or for the name.

That's amazing. Immature faith. And you did that. Now that you're maturing in faith, keep going.

Don't do well as an immature person. And then now when troubles and trials come up, go back and remember, go back and remember, go back and remember when you first heard of the gospel, you're first saved, you're first enlightened.

One of the men said, who wrote some commentary on this verse, run over in your mind.

The word means one by one, the things you felt when you first came, how exciting, how fresh and how real and oh, how it seemed like maybe this was an answer to your problem in terms of believing in Christ.

And little by little, you grew cold and indifferent and began to fade. And even that, he says, remember that you even endured a great fight of affliction.

A great fight of affliction. You even got persecuted with the rest of us.

You were bold back in those days. The same writer says, they haven't learned to be cowards yet.

It takes a while. When they were first saved, they weren't cowards, but now are they thinking?

Are they thinking about going back? Verse 33, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction.

You were put on this theater. Publicly exposed is where we, the Greek word translated into those two

English words publicly exposed is where we get our word theater, theatrizzo.

And it means to parade up on stage and be mocked at. It means to be put up on stage where everyone can see you and then give you insults.

And you can be a public spectacle. You can, for the older people listening, you can be brought up on stage and Don Rickles can go after you and just insult you.

Paul talked like this in 1 Corinthians 4, 9, For I think God has exhibited us apostles last of all, as men condemned to death, because we have become a spectacle, a theater to the world, both to angels and to men.

They would take criminals back in those days and they would put them up on stage and people could just mock them, ridicule them.

Remember when you first got saved and you had to go through trials? You're like, I don't care. Insults, mockery,

I don't care. This idea is found in Acts 19, and when they heard this, they were enraged and were crying out, great is

Artemis of the Ephesians. So the city was filled with confusion and they rushed together into the theater, dragging with them

Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians who were Paul's companions and travel. But when

Paul wished to go in among the crowd, the disciples would not let him. They're bringing them in for the big theater, verbal abuse parade.

That's what they were going to do. Remember what Peter said, for you have been called for this purpose since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in his steps who committed no sin or was any deceit found in his mouth.

And while being reviled, he did not revile in return. While suffering, he uttered no threats, but kept entrusting himself to him who judges righteously.

You went through all kinds of things. Great many, tons of conflicts, tons of struggles, tons of athletic type of things where some of you maybe even got martyred.

Some of your friends got martyred, but you withstood it. You were publicly exposed to reproaches.

That's defamation and insults. I keep ready. I mean, the yawning here is just incredible.

Now I'm about ready to sneeze. I can tell in my nose a sneeze is coming up. You know how that works?

First time I think I've ever snows on no -compromise radio. I sneezed.

I snosed. I snored. This is disgrace.

This is insult. That's what this is. This is verbal abuse. The reproach of Christ, Moses thought that was greater than the riches of Egypt.

That's the same kind of idea. Hebrews 11. Remember what Jesus said, if the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you.

If you were of the world, the world would love its own, but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

Remember the word that I said to you, a slave is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.

If they have kept my word, they will keep yours also. But of all these things, there are all these things they will do to you for my namesake because they do not know the one who sent me.

Suffering loss. And you know what? They were even partners sometimes with those treated.

They even took the hit for their friends. Well, time is fleeting, so here's the scoop.

When you're in a trial, keep your eyes peeled by remembering what you went through and or were willing to go through, even if it wasn't much, when you first were a

Christian. You'd even go through things for another Christian because it was such a glorious thing to do.

Remember those things. Remember God was faithful. Remember God was working in your heart. Remember God was giving you perseverance and endurance.

And he was chipping away things. And remember, God's faithful. When you have trouble, don't think of the good old days.

When you have trouble, think about the very difficult days. And then ask yourself the question, where was the

Lord then? Was he faithful then? Was he working on you then? Was he glorifying you then? And that will give you a resolve for the present.

We'll look at the other ones next time. My name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston.

You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.