A Prescription for Spiritual Weakness (Hebrews 12:12-13)

Kootenai Church

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Hebrews chapter 12, we will turn to read that here in a moment, but let's bow in prayer before we begin.

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Our Father, it is with great expectation that we can come to You every time we open up Your Word, for we believe that You will speak to us in the pages of Scripture, in our understanding of Your Word, that You will illumine our hearts and our minds.

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We pray that You would sanctify us by the truth, that You would strengthen us to apply every grace and every means of grace to our hearts in our walk and in our lives, that we may pursue holiness and pursue

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You and enter into the joy that is ours in our fellowship with You. We pray

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Your blessing upon this time and strengthen a strength for us and the open eyes and open hearts that You might be glorified in and through Your people.

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We pray this in Christ's name, amen. In almost any gathering of Christians of any size, you're going to find mature and immature believers.

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You're going to find believers who have been Christians for a very short period of time and people who have been believers for longer periods of time.

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In fact, you're going to find people who have been Christians for a short period of time but have grown to a remarkable level of maturity.

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And then you're going to find people who have been believers for a long period of time who have grown very slowly and acquired a very low level of maturity.

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Some in any congregation are going to have a great degree of understanding and there are going to be those without that degree of understanding.

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Some are going to grow slowly and some will grow quickly. Some will be in the midst of suffering and others will not be in the midst of suffering.

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You're going to have strong believers and weak believers and anyone who steps into a pulpit and teaches in any gathering of God's people has to be aware that there are all of those kinds of people gathered on a

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Sunday morning. And I am certainly, I am certain, I know for certain, without a doubt that in this congregation of this size,

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I have described probably everybody in here. Because we have such a varied mix of people from different backgrounds and different stages and ages of life, we are going to have inevitably some that are weak and to borrow the metaphor of Hebrews 12, verses 12 and 13, we're going to have people with weak hands and feeble knees and limbs which are lame and those are metaphors for spiritual strength or better, spiritual weakness.

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Sometimes the weakness of certain believers is self -inflicted. Because of apathy or indifference, because of disobedience or pride, because they have neglected the means of grace, because of sin or sloth, because they make excuses or justifications, they're spiritually weak.

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And it seems like they inflict that condition upon themselves simply because they will not apply the means of grace and they will not walk in obedience and they just approach all of life, particularly their spiritual life, with a degree of apathy and indifference.

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Sometimes weakness is a result of a natural state in which they seem to be wired.

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For whatever reason, there are people who are just constitutionally weaker than others. We'll get to that here in just a moment.

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And sometimes spiritual weakness is due to a lack of sound teaching or discipleship.

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Some believers, for whatever reason, spend years of their life sitting under teaching that is vapid and shallow and benign.

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It is absolutely banal and empty and devoid of any content, utterly benighted.

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Pastors skip over briefly passages of Scripture, not allowing their people to even sit and gaze upon the text for any period of time before they're off onto the next hobby horse, the next series of the next topical tripe that they want to indulge in.

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They haven't fed their soul, they have neglected their duties as pastors, and they neglect to feed the souls of their sheep.

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And for whatever reason, sitting in an environment like that seems to appeal to some Christians, maybe those who are born constitutionally or spiritually weak in the faith.

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They just like that. They hunger after it. But others are led astray into those environments. And those environments, unfortunately, but inevitably, foster a degree of spiritual weakness.

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After the discourse on discipline in Hebrews chapter 12, in verses 12 and 13, the author turns his attention to encourage the weak among that congregation.

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Read with me verses 12 and 13. Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.

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There is in this passage, from verse 12 all the way down to the end of verse 17, there is here encouragement to these brand new believers in the faith.

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Some of them were weak, some of them were strong, some of them were tempted to go back to their old paths of life.

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But now they have come into the Christian faith, they are enduring hostility and reproach from their neighbors.

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They have suffered the loss of things, their property has been seized, they have accepted this joyfully.

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The author is honest about their afflictions back in chapter 10 where he describes them at the end of chapter 10.

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And now the author turns in chapter 12 to remind them that the afflictions and hostilities that have come upon them, these are in fact

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God's methods of training His children, disciplining them and cultivating in them the very things that are necessary for their spiritual strength.

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And now we get to the end of this passage on discipline after verse 11, and the author, listen carefully, though he is changing his focus, he is not abandoning his previous subject.

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And you're thinking to yourself, Jim, you promised us last week or the week before that we were going to be off the subject of discipline soon.

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And we are actually off the explanation of discipline, but now we get to verses 12 through verse 17 and the author begins to give us some practical exhortations of things we ought to do in order to make right use of the discipline that God brings into our lives.

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So you see in chapter 10, he tells them that they are facing hostilities. In chapter 11, he gives to them examples of heroes of the faith who also endured hostilities and he reminds them it is by faith that you too will endure the hostilities of this world as you look forward to the reward that is to come.

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Then in chapter 12, 1 through 3, he says you are to run this race with endurance in the midst of the hostilities, understanding that the trials and the difficulties that come into your life are in fact

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God's moral formation. They are part of God's plan for you. He is making you fruitful and strong through the discipline, through the difficulties, and he explains to us the purpose of this discipline, that it is preparing us for the world to come, that it is shaping us and making us fruitful for God's purposes.

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He says that we are to endure this and we must be strong and run a straight race. But now in verses 12 through 17, the author gives a series of commands or imperatives, exhortations to you and I of things we ought to be doing, ought to be remembering, ought to be disciplining ourselves with so that we will make good use of the discipline that God brings into our lives.

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In verse 12, there are in verses 12 through 17, five imperatives or I should say commands.

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One of them is actually a participle that functions as an imperative, but there are five commands in the passage. Let your eyes wander over them as we read them.

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Verse 12, therefore strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble. Strengthen is the first imperative.

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In verse 13, make straight, that's the command. Make straight paths for your feet so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.

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The third command is verse 14, pursue peace with all men and the sanctification without which no one will see the

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Lord. Verse 15 is the fourth command, seeing to it, that's the participle that kind of functions as a command, seeing to it that no one comes short of the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble and by it many be defiled, that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau who sold his own birthright for a single meal.

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And then verse 7, for you know, that is you are to know that even afterwards, that is

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Esau, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected for he found no place for repentance though he sought for it with tears.

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Those are the five commands, strengthen, make straight, pursue, see to it, and know, in verse 17 is the last of them.

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Now each of these is addressed to our response to the sufferings of this life. Keep this in mind, we're not changing radically a focus.

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The author is addressing to us how it is that we are to address the sufferings of our lives, the affliction that comes into our life, which is

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God's discipline. In verses 12 and 13, we must strengthen our weaknesses and walk straight paths.

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In verse 14, we are to pursue holiness and peacefulness, peace with all men. In verse 15, we are to mortify the bitterness that defiles us and others.

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You recognize that bitterness is one of the possible responses to suffering, right? Affliction, that you could grow bitter.

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That's why the author brings that up in verse 15. And in verses 16 and 17, we are to guard against the fleshly lusts that rob us of the spiritual fruit.

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Like Esau, who was a godless and immoral person, Esau was driven by his lusts, driven by his passions, and he would rather satiate his immediate and temporal desire as appetite rather than endure and receive a much greater reward.

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Esau was the type of man who would exchange a long -term benefit for a short -term reprieve.

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And the author is warning us, don't be like Esau and think that you should be willing or could be willing to trade the long -term reward for some short -term reprieve from your suffering or your affliction.

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So each of these addresses real dangers that we face. The danger in verse 12, and again,

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I'm just giving you another outline. I'm actually giving you three outlines here for the passages. We've gone through it now three times.

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In verse 12, the danger that we face is that we would give out in weakness and not endure.

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In verse 13, the danger that we face is that we would trip and stumble and fall out of the race. In verse 14, the danger that we face is that we would miss the benefit of sanctification and trials.

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Why would you be struck and not profit from it? You don't want to do that. Don't let the discipline be in vain.

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At least benefit from it in some measure, that's verse 14. Verse 15, there's the danger that we would become bitter by our afflictions and defile others.

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And then in verses 16 and 17, there is the danger that we would trade our eternal blessings for temporal reprieve.

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These exhortations are widely applicable. They're applicable at all times. So listen, if you are in your

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Christian life and you're about ready to go into discipline, you're before discipline, you're not in suffering right now, there's no hostility in your life, there's no difficult times, everything for you is smooth sailing and nothing but blessings.

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This is applicable to you. Difficulty and afflictions and suffering are coming. I don't know when,

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I can't predict that, but they are coming, therefore, you should strengthen yourself and prepare yourself and know certain things and already fix in your heart and your mind how you will use those sufferings for your own benefit and for the glory of Christ.

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If you are in the midst of discipline, enduring the affliction, then here's the counsel to you. Strengthen yourself.

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Strengthen the hands that are weak. And make good use of others in your lives who will strengthen your hands that are weak.

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And if you're on the other side of difficulty and affliction and you're not in the current time suffering, I have some good news and some bad news for you.

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Suffering is coming, so if you're on the other side of suffering, there is more affliction that is yet to come, so strengthen your hands that are weak and your knees that are feeble and make straight paths for your feet.

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This is applicable no matter where you are at in the suffering and affliction spectrum. It's also applicable not just to us as individuals but also to all of us as the body of Christ.

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What is my responsibility as an individual in the midst of suffering, before suffering and after suffering?

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It's to strengthen the hands that are weak and to make strong and straight paths for my feet. What is our body, the body of Christ, what is their responsibility corporately toward those who are suffering affliction and who are weak?

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We need to strengthen the weak and the feeble knees and we need to make straight paths for their feet. See, this is applicable individually, it is applicable corporately as a body.

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It's also applicable in a number of different ways. You see, I must address these things in myself and you must address these things in yourself and then we also must be aware of how we can help others address those things in their lives, come alongside them and help them in this struggle.

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So our text today is verses 12 and 13, correction, our text today is verse 12.

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You're going to notice two commands in our passage in this sentence, a command in verse 12 and a command in verse 13.

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The command in verse 12 is to strengthen something, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble.

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The command in verse 13 is to make straight paths for your feet. So we have something to strengthen and something to straighten.

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Now that is the makings for a great preaching outline, something to strengthen and something to straighten.

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And it just gets better. What we are to strengthen is our weaknesses and what we are to straighten is our ways, our paths.

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So we make strong those things that are weak, our weaknesses, and then we make straight paths for our feet.

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So let's look first of all, well, let's just look at, we must strengthen our weaknesses, verse 12, not first of all, because first of all implies there's going to be a second of all and you know me well enough to know that I'm not going to waste a good outline like that on one

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Sunday, I'm going to stretch it out over two. So we must strengthen our weaknesses, verse 12. Notice what is weak in the passage, the hands that are weak, the knees that are feeble.

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Verse 13, he mentions feet and limb. These are parts of a body, they are obviously metaphors for elements of our lives that get weak and feeble and lame.

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And I don't think that the author's intention here is for us to say hands represent work and feet represent this and limbs represent that and etc.

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He doesn't intend for us to take this allegory and try and flush out every element of the metaphor.

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He is in fact returning back to the metaphor that he began this chapter with, which was running. What do you need in order to run well?

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You need hands, you need feet, you need knees, and you need limbs, correct?

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You need all of those things. So he is returning back to the athletic metaphor that he started in verses 1 through 3.

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He's coming back full circle to that because all of these elements that he mentions are weak are things necessary for running a good race.

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If you just think in terms of the athletic contest, hands must be strong and those hands must be strong and arms must be strong because central to a runner's ability to run is the ability to use his hands well in timing with the rest of his body.

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No runner can run the 40 yard dash in five or six seconds with his hands at his side hanging down.

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You have to get the hands in motion, so the hands have to be strong. The feet have to be strong. The knees cannot be feeble.

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They have to be strong. So in order to run our race well or walk out our Christian life and persevere to the very end, we have to be strong in certain areas and in suffering and enduring affliction.

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Well, weakness is the result not only of the afflictions but also sometimes of our makeup.

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We have to be aware of what causes us to be weak. The arms and the feet and the knees all must be strong to run well.

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And in fact, these are the very things that he identifies were weak in them. And again, it is a metaphor for spiritual weakness that he is describing.

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If a runner is weak in these areas, he cannot run well. He will never finish his race and he will fall out of the way.

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Notice the description, therefore strengthen the hands that are weak. There's two very interesting words there.

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The word weak and the word feeble. Hands that are weak, that word weak that the author uses there is a word, it's translated weak here, but it means weakened or it means to fall to the side or to fall off the side.

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It was used of something that would slip off the side or fall off or drop beside something else.

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It was used figuratively to describe avoiding work. We talk about something that sort of falls away, sort of falls off to the side.

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You keep moving it to the back burner and then to another back burner and pretty soon it just falls off the stove entirely. And it's kind of your way of avoiding doing certain tasks.

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That's sort of the word that is used here. It means at the side or dropping beside or hanging down.

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It literally means you're drooping hands, hands so weak that they hang down. Like a boxer who, if you ever watch a boxing match that goes on for nine, 10, 11, 12 rounds, you see those boxers that put their hands, it comes to a point where they have a hard time even lifting their hands up to compete anymore.

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Same thing with a runner. You can get so weak that your hands just hang down at the side and it pictures somebody who has gone on so long and so hard and given their everything that now they've reached a point of utter exhaustion and they can't even lift their arms up and run like they should with their hands.

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The strength is gone because they let them hang down. The ESV translates this phrase, lift up your drooping hands.

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The New King James, strengthen the hands which hang down. That's the idea. They've fallen down to the side and they're that weak.

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And the person so weak and can't even, isn't even willing to lift up their arms again. The word that is used to describe the knees here is the word feeble.

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Paraloo -o is the word. You can hear our word paralysis or paralyze in there. Paraloo -o.

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It describes being weakened or tottering. It is difficult to run a race with paralyzed knees, isn't it?

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Sometimes, for those of you who know our friend Justin Peters, who's been here before, sometimes he'll say to me when we're at an event or something, he'll say,

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I'm just going to go run and do this. And I'll look at him and say, come on now. I've seen you walk.

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I know you're not running anywhere. And he enjoys that kind of repertoire back and forth, but it is very difficult to run if your knees are paralyzed, if they're loosened, and if your arms are hanging down at the side.

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So this describes somebody who has reached a point of spiritual weakness, somebody who is in the race.

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We're not talking about unbelievers here. We're talking about people in the race, but they have been weakened to a point where they're not able to run well, if at all.

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It's a metaphor for spiritual weakness. Now what causes this condition? Some people are born, as I said earlier, born spiritually weak, constitutionally weak.

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And I don't mean that they have a weak understanding of the Constitution. I mean that they are born constitutionally weak.

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That is their makeup. Some people are wired weakly. They're spiritually born that way.

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Just as you have babies that are born brawny and babies that are born scrawny, and it's the grace of God that those two words rhyme.

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So you have people born into the kingdom of God who seem almost instantly spiritually strong. They have a grasp of truth and discernment and a theological understanding and an ability and a willingness to pursue

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Christ passionately and quickly, and they grow quickly. They seem spiritually robust right out of the spiritual womb, as it were.

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They're ready to go. They're strong. They're strengthened. They're wise beyond their years, and it seems like you can just give them things and they're able to handle them and adapt quickly and grow quickly.

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And other people are born spiritually scrawny. They're weak and their limbs are just flesh, skin over bones, and it seems as if they're never able to strengthen themselves.

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They're never able to grow strong in the faith, and you can come along those people and try and help them in their condition, in their situation, but it's always a difficulty.

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It's always a challenge. To describe this person, I'm just going to quote to you Charles Spurgeon because I could not describe this condition or situation any better than he can.

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Spurgeon said this, and this is a more extended quote, but it's worth your time. There are some believers with strong and vigorous faith, soaring high they can mount up with wings as eagles, fleet of foot they can run and not be weary, or with steady progress they can walk and not faint, but all are not so highly privileged.

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Some of these people of God who are compared to lame sheep seem to have been so from their birth.

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Their lameness is in their constitution. Do you not know some friends of yours who naturally incline to despondency?

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They always look at the dark side of everything, and if there be no dark side at all, they have a very fine imagination, so very soon they'll conjure up some difficulty or trouble.

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They appear to have been born with a propensity to read black -letter literature and nothing else.

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Illuminated missiles are not for them. They cannot bear the fine colors which delight our eyes. They seem to prefer the dark points.

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If they turn to the Bible, they seem naturally to fall upon the threatenings, or if they read the promises, they shake their heads and say, oh no, those are not for us.

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They make heavy troubles out of the common cares of life, and it is only carrying out the same spirit which causes them to grieve and fret over the whole course of their

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Christian pilgrimage. For them, the road is always rugged, the pasture is unsavory, and the water is turbid.

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You'll find such unhappy souls in all our churches, people who seem from their very confirmation to be lame as to their faith, timorous, trembling, and full of doubts and fears.

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Besides, have you ever noticed a constitutional tendency in some professors of Christianity to stumble and get lame?

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If there's a slew, they fall into it. If there's a thicket, they get entangled by it. If there's an error, they run into it.

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Good people we trust they are, and they do believe in Jesus, but somehow or other, they do not see things clearly.

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Such persons go off at a tangent if anyone makes noise enough to attract their attention.

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Lo here and lo there are cries at the sound of which they go off instantly. Let some divine discover a novel doctrine, and they're on a new track at once, never thinking where it will lead them.

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Let a would -be philosopher suggest some fresh theory which clashes with the Word of God and the things of the

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Spirit, and their eager appetite is wetted, and they will leave the old fields of truth to wander in the barren wastes of science falsely so -called."

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It just describes some people. Now, I don't think that that kind of weakness is what the author is describing here primarily.

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He said, then, why would you spend this much time talking about this? Because I think that we need to be aware that some people have this tendency to be weak, and the remedy is the same.

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For those who are made weak by discipline, and those who just seem to be born spiritually weak and struggle to ever become strong, the remedy is exactly the same.

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These people who are born this way, they're not weary from the battle, they're weary from the beginning. It's a good way to remember it.

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There are people who are weary from the battle, and there are people who are just weary from the beginning. Now, we need to be careful with each kind.

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We need to be gentle with each kind. The prescription is the same. We need to understand that some people can be very strong at times and very weak at others.

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And by the way, weakness is not a virtue. It's actually a weakness. Spiritual weakness is not a virtue.

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There are people who approach their spiritual weakness as if it is a virtue, and they will use it as an excuse, their apathy, their indifference, their laziness, their lack of service, their lack of diligence and discipline, and they just simply say, well, that's just me, that's just how

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I'm wired, that's just how I am. That's using it as an excuse. Your weakness is not a virtue. If you know this about yourself, address it.

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Correct it. Say, this area is my weakness. Then attack that and get strong in that area, and don't let it ever be an excuse for apathy and indifference.

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1 Corinthians 16 .13, Paul said to the Corinthian church, I love this verse, be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men.

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Be strong. I wasn't suggesting that the Corinthian women cut their hair and put on pants and start speaking in a deep voice and taking on the outward characteristics of men.

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But the Apostle Paul was saying that there are certain virtues that men, by nature of their constitution, seem to have in greater abundance and more regularly than women.

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Can I say that without being accused of being sexist in our age? That there are certain things that men have by nature of their nature, they just have them because that is what they are by nature, a fortitude, a courage, an aggression, a natural strength.

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And he is saying that these things, spiritually speaking, if you are in the Corinthian congregation, act like men.

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Be courageous, have fortitude, address your weaknesses, be aggressive, grow up, and act like men.

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Not act like young men, not act like children, but act like men. In other words, pursue maturity and be strong.

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So if you have this weakness, if it's constitutional, or if it is the result of the battle that you're in, that's some good counsel.

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Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, and be strong. Address the weakness. Now, there are some, this is the second cause of spiritual weakness, there are some who are made weak by trials, tribulations, and afflictions, and especially protracted trials.

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The afflictions that go on for a long period of time become increasingly difficult to navigate and to deal with.

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That is a reality. And those prolonged difficulties have a way of taxing us and sapping our strength and draining us of our vitality.

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They tempt us to despair, they distract our focus, and they exhaust our resolve. And somebody who has endured afflictions for a long period of time, even though they may have started out spiritually strong, can become spiritually weak just as a result of being in the battle.

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And that really is the point of the training that God brings us through. It is to weaken us temporarily. Remember, the analogy in the context is that of discipline and training.

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The author is talking about those who have been trained by this discipline, and the word discipline itself means training.

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Now, there's an element of training when you are lifting weights or enduring something in a gym where you train yourself to the point where you feel weak.

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So if you're lifting to strengthen a certain muscle, you might lift that, you might train that muscle or attack that muscle to the point of failure or weakness.

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And when you first start lifting a weight, you can feel really strong, but then you continue to lift that and continue to lift that, and you do that over and over and over again for a long and protracted period of time.

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You can even, after the course of a lot of lifting in one session, lower that down to the point where you're lifting weights that would embarrass you had you started off with that amount, and they're difficult to weight, they feel like you're lifting a thousand pounds.

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Well, are the muscles after the protracted time of training, are the muscles weaker or stronger?

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The answer is a little bit of both. The muscles get weaker in the short term, but you do that in order for the muscle to get stronger in the long term.

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So it is with discipline, the protracted training or discipline that the Lord brings into our lives can bring us a tremendous weakness, and we can feel that weakness.

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It saps us of our strength. And there has to be in us, as we're going through discipline, a recognition that that weakness is there.

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It does us no good to say, to not acknowledge where we are being taxed or where we are being sapped of our vitality, and to say, no, no,

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I'm not, I don't have any problem with this at all, I'm still strong, and to stand there with your head unbowed and your spirit unbroken and to say, no,

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I got it all under control. That is not what the author is describing here. There has to be a recognition that in this area,

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I am weak, or I feel exhausted by this trial, and here's how that weakness is showing up. It takes something of a little bit of self -awareness in the midst of difficulty to identify the weakness.

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And it takes some awareness amongst the other members of the body of Christ to identify that in others as well.

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I promise you that there are people here who are spiritually weak in many ways. One of the ways that those weaknesses are identified and strengthened is when the body of Christ does what the body of Christ does.

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And so, if you are strong and you know somebody who is weak, you can strengthen that person by doing the one another's for that person that Scripture mentions, praying for one another, encouraging one another, serving one another, loving one another, showing hospitality to one another, caring for one another, bearing one another's burdens, and forgiving one another.

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As the body does this with each other in its members, and you as an individual in the body of Christ intentionally do this in the lives of others, you will be strengthened by your strengthening of others, and other people will be strengthened by your strengthening of them.

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And then there will come a time, and maybe in the immediate, when their work for you in serving and loving and showing hospitality to you strengthens you for the race.

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But if you isolate yourself from the body of Christ and keep everybody at arm's length so that nobody gets close to you and nobody knows what's going on in your life, and you have no friends, and nobody is involved enough in your life to know when you are weak, and you're not involved in anybody else's life enough to know when they are weak, you will never be able to do that.

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There are far too many Christians who ostracize themselves from the body of Christ, cut themselves off from fellowship, have no friends, they're not close to anyone, they're not involved in anyone else's life, and then they get weak and they fall, and then they wonder how did this happen.

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There's no wondering how it happened. When you are close enough to other people in the body of Christ, and they are close enough to you, that's when you share those things.

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And you are strengthened by other people. So my question to you is, do you know a large enough number of people well enough to do that?

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My question is not, do you know everybody else in this room on a first -name basis? And have you had a meal with every other person in this room in the last week or two?

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See, that would just be impossible. But everybody in this room should know a large group of people in this room that you can go to and that you can be involved with.

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They can be involved in your lives, and you can be involved in their lives. Friends, look around you.

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This is where you are strengthened, in this environment, by this body. There's nothing magical about becoming a strong Christian.

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It's the work of the body. It's part of body life. It's what we do, it's why we do it.

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Now how is this done? The word strengthened begins verse 12. That word strengthened means to straighten up or to build up again.

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It means to set upright, to restore or to build. Interestingly, you might not know this, but this word is only used three times in the

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New Testament. You've read other words, other references to being strengthened or being strong in the New Testament.

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It's not this word. This word is used three times. It describes returning something to a former state.

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In fact, you can hear that when you hear how the word is used. In Luke 13, it is used when Jesus meets the woman who, because of the

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Spirit, is bent over, and she hasn't been able to stand upright and walk. And Jesus heals her.

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Verse 13 of Luke 13 says, He laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made erect again and began glorifying

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God. Made erect again. She was returned to her former state. Interestingly, in Acts 15, it's used of rebuilding the house of David, not his physical structure that he lived in, but the house in terms of his kingdom and his lineage and his posterity.

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Acts 15. 16 says, After these things I will return, and it's a prophecy from the book of Amos, and I will rebuild the tabernacle of David which has fallen, and I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it.

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I will strengthen it. I will return it to its former glory. That is a promise of the kingdom that is to come. So the three times in the

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Scriptures that it is used, it is used to describe returning to its former estate. Now the question becomes, how do we do this practically?

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What is my prescription for doing this? I'm glad you asked, and our time is short, so we'll have to go quickly. In Isaiah chapter 35, which we read earlier, there is a phrase there that the author uses in verse 12 when he says the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble.

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He is borrowing the language there from the Septuagint of Isaiah chapter 35. Let me give you some background for Isaiah 35, and then when

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I read some passages from that, you'll be able to see what the author is doing here by recalling to their mind the passage that is behind his exhortation here.

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In Isaiah 35, there were faithful in the kingdom of David who had watched the

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Davidic kingdom dissolve. It had decreased in power and influence and prosperity. The kingdom was a shell of its former self, and there were many unfaithful in the land, many wicked people, and God's promise in chapter 34 is that He was going to judge all of the nations that surrounded

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Israel, and that judgment would fall even upon the wicked in the land of Israel itself. But that seems like little consolation or encouragement for the faithful in the land who have to deal with their recreation and wicked and greedy and selfish and idolatrous leadership.

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How are the faithful to be encouraged by the description that God is going to judge every one around them?

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What would happen to them? And so Isaiah chapter 35 verse 3 says, encourage the exhausted and strengthen the feeble.

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That's the language that the author is using. He is recalling to their mind something that God promised to faithful Israel who was living in the midst of an unfaithful nation, surrounded by unfaithful nations.

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They were being invaded. Those people were discouraged and downtrodden and despondent and troubled and vexed on every side.

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It sounds exactly like the first century Christians to whom the book of Hebrews was written.

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So he wants to encourage them, so he calls to their mind Jews back from Isaiah's day who were in very similar straits, and he says to them two things.

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I'm going to read to you the passage here in just a second. Listen for these two things. Number one, God's judgment is going to fall upon his enemies and ours.

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You can rejoice in that. It is not unchristian or immature to rejoice in God's righteous judgments.

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How do I know that? Because read the book of Revelation, the saints in heaven rejoice when the wrath of God is poured out on impenitent unbelievers on earth.

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There is great praise in heaven over the judgments of God poured out on wicked men. So therefore, if they can do that in heaven, obviously sinlessly, you and I can rejoice in God's just judgments in this world sinlessly.

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Second, he reminds them of the promise of the kingdom that was to come and all of the blessings that will come to them as a result of that kingdom.

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So Isaiah chapter 35, listen again for those two things, the promise of God's judgment and the promise of blessings of the kingdom.

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The wilderness and the desert will be glad and the Araba will rejoice and blossom like a crocus. It will blossom profusely and rejoice with rejoicing and the shout of joy.

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The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They will see the glory of the

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Lord, the majesty of our God. That encourages the weak, doesn't it?

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Verse 3, encourage the exhausted and strengthen the feeble. Say to those with anxious heart, take courage and fear not.

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Behold your God will come with vengeance. The recompense of God will come, but he will save you.

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Yes, God's going to pour out his wrath on all the peoples that surround it. He's going to judge the wicked, but he will save you, the righteous.

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That is how you strengthen the feeble and encourage the exhausted. Then the eyes of the blind will be open.

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This is a description of the kingdom that is to come. The eyes of the blind will be open. The ears of the deaf will be unstopped. The lame will leap like a deer and the tongue of the mute will shout for joy.

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For waters will break forth in the wilderness and streams in the Ereba. The scorched land will become a pool and the thirsty ground springs of water.

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In the haunt of jackals, its resting place, grass becomes reeds and rushes. A highway will be there, a roadway, and it will be called the highway of holiness.

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The unclean will not travel on it. That is to say the wicked will not come up to the city to which this highway travels. But it will be for him who walks that way and fools will not wander on it.

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No lion will be there. In other words, there'll be nothing to threaten your peace, your safety, your security. No lion will be there nor will any vicious beast go up on it.

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These will not be found there, but the redeemed will walk there. It's the promise. There's going to be a highway that goes through a lush

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Edenic garden to the city of our God and the righteous will travel that and they will go up and they will look upon God.

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That is the ultimate promise. You see how it is that Isaiah is encouraging the weak and the feeble?

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He is getting them to look past their current tribulations and the things that threaten them in the moment and focus upon the promise that he has given to the righteous in the future.

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And the ransomed of the Lord will return and come with joyful shouting to Zion with everlasting joy upon their heads.

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They will find gladness and joy and sorrow and fleeing will flee away. That is encouragement for the faint -hearted.

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That is a prescription for weakness. Strength comes to the weary when we realize that there is a prize to come, there is a kingdom to behold, there is a

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God upon whose face we will look in undiminished glory, unveiled faces we will behold him.

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We'll see him as he is and we'll gaze upon that glory and every trial, every tribulation, every vexing, distressing hostility and suffering and affliction that this world has ever thrown at us will be adequately recompensed.

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Now, the author does this same way of encouraging the Hebrew Christians that Isaiah does.

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He does the same thing. Back in chapter 10, he says, you have need of endurance so that when you have done what you should do, you will receive what was promised.

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When you have done the will of God, you will receive what was promised. Then in chapter 11, remember Abraham who was looking for a city with foundations, who's architect and builder is

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God. He was looking forward to a heavenly country. Remember Moses who left all the pleasures and treasures of Egypt so that he might gladly embrace the reproach of Christ and all of the

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Abrahamic blessings that that pretended for him. Hebrews 10, verse 35, there are some who suffered torture and they refused release so that they might obtain a better resurrection.

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Faith is looking forward to those things which the eye of flesh cannot see and to behold with conviction what we cannot see with our physical eyes.

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It is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things that we cannot see. So what is it that we behold by faith that helps us get through the hostilities and the discipline of this life?

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We behold the kingdom that is to come, the king who is to return, and the reward that he brings with him.

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He says, my reward is with me to give to every man. And when we look upon his face, we will see that and we will receive that reward.

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We will enjoy that kingdom and delight in it. And so the prescription for spiritual weakness is to get our hearts and our eyes and our minds off of the affliction itself and onto the thing that is promised to us.

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It doesn't mean that we ignore them and pretend that they do not exist, but it does mean that we take all of that current circumstance, which is distressing and depressing, and we view it in light of the kingdom that is to come.

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And it's that that Paul is talking about when he says, the glory that is to be revealed as us is not even worthy to compare with the afflictions of this present age.

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All the way through Scripture, this is the key, the answer to our discouragement and our spiritual depression.

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It is to look upon the one whom we will see. That is what the author is pointing our focus back to.

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He does this at the beginning of this chapter, and now he's just come full circle again back to chapter 12, verses 2 and 3.

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Fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despised the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

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Consider him who endured such hostility against himself by sinners, so that you will not, what?

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Grow weary and lose heart. That's the key. He began the chapter with this, and now he's coming back to that.

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Are you spiritually weakened because of discipline, suffering, affliction, et cetera, that God has brought into your life?

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Do you feel like you're too vexed? And the author just recalls the fact that you're going to see a kingdom, you're going to receive a king, he's coming back, his reward is with him.

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So fix your eyes on Jesus and consider him who has endured that hostility, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

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Remember that your citizenship is in heaven. Fix and focus your mind and your heart upon Christ. Gaze upon him, consider him.

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Apply the means of grace that God has given to you in his word, amongst his body, to strengthen your souls as you look forward to the reward, and gather together with people, and encourage one another with these words.

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We have a king who is coming, he's going to establish a kingdom. We will enjoy all the benefits of that, and he's going to pour out upon us, lavish graces, and lavish blessing, and lavish rewards.

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Speak these truths to yourself and to others. And listen, you and I have to be diligent.

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As the world falls apart in crazy fashion around us, you and I have to be diligent to bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

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And when our focus is off of him, we need to grab our thought and bring it back to him, and speak this truth to our thought and to our emotion, and remind ourself of what is to come.

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Remind ourself of who we are. Remind ourself of what he is going to do. He is going to judge his enemies and ours, and he is going to establish his kingdom.

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Consider him who endured that hostility against himself at the hands of sinners, so that you will not grow weary, weak, and lose heart.

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We have to strengthen our weaknesses, and that is, my friends, is how it's done. That is nourishment for your souls to gaze upon him.

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Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for the encouragement of your word, and we thank you that your word directs us not to focus upon our present trials and difficulties, but to fix our hearts and minds upon Christ.

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So we just return ourselves and our eyes back to that now this morning, and pray that you would strengthen us through that resolve and through these reminders in your word.

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We pray that you would remind us in each and every moment when our thoughts and hearts stray and we become weary, to strengthen ourselves with your promises which we find in your word.

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It is by those promises that you have made us partakers of the divine nature. It is by those promises that you have made us your own.

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It is because you are a God who always fulfills your word that we can have hope in the glorious future that is to come.

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So we pray that you would strengthen our hearts, our hands, our minds, our affections, and our focus upon Christ and Christ alone.

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Give us, we pray, the grace and strength to diligently address our wayward hearts and minds when they are tempted to despair and to look within.