Keep sharing good news without ads.
Reading Hebrews 12:12-17 where we are reminded once again to hold fast to Christ and to help one another to attain to the inheritance that has been promised to us. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!
We've been through the Hall of Faith in Hebrews chapter 11. We saw these examples, these godly examples of holding fast to the promise. There's also godless examples that we should not be like when we understand the text.
This is When We Understand the Text, a daily study of God's Word that we may be filled with the knowledge of His will. For questions and comments, send us an email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.
Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.
Thank you, Becky. We're back to our study of Hebrews chapter 12. And picking up where I left off yesterday, I'm going to pick up in verse 12 and go through verse 17, reading from the Legacy Standard Bible.
Hear the word of the Lord. Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.
Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. Seeing to it that no one fall short of the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled.
That also there be no sexually immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears.
Remember our context here. This is all right after we've been through the Hall of Faith in Hebrews chapter 11. And so the preacher now turns to exhorting his hearers to hold fast to the gospel that was proclaimed to them at the first.
Hold fast to Christ. There is no other way to receive salvation but by faith in Jesus. We've had so many great examples, but the greatest thing that we've been given is Christ himself. So fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
That was back in verse 2. So that's the way we start Hebrews 12. Right after chapter 11, we come into this chapter with the preacher reminding the hearers to hold fast to Christ and pointing them directly to Christ.
And if they're feeling convicted over any of this, well, that is the discipline of God. And that is a good thing that you not be led off the path of righteousness, but he keeps you on the straight and narrow by disciplining you.
If you were not disciplined, you wouldn't be sons and daughters of God. But because we are his children, he who loves us is diligent to discipline us. And through that discipline, we will receive the eternal inheritance.
That was the lesson that we considered yesterday, verses 4 through 11. So here we are in verse 12 with, therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble. That is pretty much word for word, a statement that is taken right out of Isaiah 35.
And there, the Jews are encouraged to be strengthened in light of the Messiah who is coming. The heart that they had previously that felt like a wilderness, well, now it's going to be transformed into joy and singing.
Consider Isaiah 35. I'll start in verse 1. The wilderness and the desert will be delighted, and the Araba will rejoice and flourish like the crocus. It will flourish profusely and rejoice with rejoicing and shouts of joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They will see the glory of Yahweh, the majesty of our God. Now here's the line. Strengthen limp hands and give courage to the knees of the stumbling.
Say to those with an anxious heart, be strong, fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance. The recompense of God will come, but he will save you. Then the eyes of the blind will be open and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped.
Then the lame will leap like a deer and the tongue of the mute will shout for joy. For waters will break forth in the wilderness and streams in the Araba. And on and on it goes. So this wilderness that Judah had been subjected to is going to be the place of their delight.
It's going to be flowing with streams of water as they look toward the glory of Yahweh, the majesty of our God, the promise of this Messiah. So let that which was weak be strengthened. And here we have that line used in Hebrews 12, 12, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble and make straight paths for your feet.
That which was faint hearted, even kind of cowardly, you might consider it that way. You who were not bold in the gospel, be bold so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.
The areas where you've been weak, may they be strengthened by these reminders of the gospel that have been given to you. We all need to grow in our faith and by growing in our faith, we are strengthened.
And that's the encouragement, the exhortation that is being given to the hearers here in Hebrews 12, verse 14, there's this statement, pursue peace with all men and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.
Now there's another way that that is rendered. In most translations, you've probably heard it this way, pursue peace with all and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Both things would apply, but the word is more consistently translated here, sanctification rather than holiness, but holiness kind of gives us, I believe, a better clarification as to what's being said.
Although sanctification is the more accurate word, but what is, what's being encouraged here that we would grow in holiness, that we would be more Christ-like, that we would obey him and his word. So be at peace with all men, don't be striving, don't be at conflict with one another.
And in particular, this pertains to brothers and sisters in the Lord. The audience that this is directed toward is the church. So be at peace with one another. That's where our peacefulness should begin is with our brothers and sisters in the house of God.
But notice that it says here, peace with all men. So there's a peacefulness that we should have with those even outside the church. We're not out there causing trouble and stirring things up. As Paul said to the Thessalonians, mind your own business and work with your hands just as we told you to do, to avoid quarreling.
That was Paul's instruction to Timothy, have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies. You know that they breed quarrels and quarrels don't help anything but ruin the hearers. So be at peace with everyone and pursue the sanctification, pursue the holiness that we all need, without which no one will see the Lord.
There is a script that I've been working on. I already have it done. I think I've recorded it even, but I've never done the video anyway. One of the what videos that I was working on had to do with the podcast program, The Holy Post.
I don't know if you've seen this or not. It's Phil Vischer's program. Phil Vischer, who's the creator of VeggieTales, along with Sky Jatani and some other women that they will bring in, their faces often change.
But anyway, this is their program. It's primarily Phil and Sky. And whatever you might have thought about Phil in the past, as a creator of VeggieTales, as the creator of what's in the Bible or Jelly Telly or any of those things, Phil is a completely person, a different person now.
I don't know what happened to the man. Well, I have a pretty good idea. He got persuaded by worldly philosophies, just like critical race theory and intersectionality. So he's gone very worldly in his thinking.
VeggieTales was not deep theologically to begin with, but at least you could let your kids watch it. It was family friendly, and it certainly wasn't something heretical. I don't think that's where Phil is anymore.
He's fallen down the heresy hole and really has become an accuser of the brethren. It's very, very sad to see. But the way that, you know, the kind of tone that this program, The Holy Post, has taken on, it's like their hobby to make fun of Christians.
That's the entire program. Every episode that I've listened to, and I've listened to more than 20, they just make fun of Christians. It's what they do. It's amazing to me they have any audience at all.
But of course, the audience is going to be the same kind of people that think like them. Anyway, they're just making fun of Christians, making fun of Christianity. And one of the things that I said in the script, in the video that I was making, it was kind of warning about The Holy Post being a false teaching ministry.
One of the things that I said in there is that there's nothing holy about The Holy Post. When we read in Hebrews 12, 14, "...pursue peace with all men and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.".
There's nothing about The Holy Post that encourages you to have peace with all men or to pursue holiness without which no one will see the Lord. I don't know that I've ever listened to a single episode where they encourage anyone toward holiness.
In fact, some of the things that they say kind of leans toward, you can sin like this and that's okay. Anyway, I won't go into all of that, make this a whole episode opposing The Holy Post. It's just very sad the way they take that expression, holiness, and don't encourage holiness.
I don't see how anyone can listen to The Holy Post and believe that through that program they'll see the Lord. Are they teaching anyone anything that is helping someone to see Christ? And here's what Scripture says, we must pursue peace with all and holiness.
You can't just become a convert and just sit there twiddling your thumbs, okay, I've got my belief in place, I believe in Jesus, I've punched my get out of hell free card, and now I'm going to stay out of everybody's business.
I'm just going to keep to myself and that way not do anything too risky in which I might lose my salvation, just do all this on my own, and eventually I'm going to get there. We cannot be sanctified on our own.
As I've heard Tim Challey say, and I've repeated on this program before, sanctification is a community project. It's something that we have to do together. You cannot follow the one and others in the New Testament without there being others to fulfill those commands with.
When it says love one another, you actually have to have people to love. You can't go off in the wilderness and be a hermit, just me and my Bible by myself. To grow in sanctification, to grow in love for God and for his people, you actually have to be with God's people.
So we do this together. The peace that we have with one another and the growth in sanctification, we all need to help one another in this, and together we will see the Lord. Blessed are the pure in heart, Jesus said in the Beatitudes, for they will see God.
Verse 15, seeing to it that no one falls short of the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled. This is very collective language here, exactly what I've been talking about with regards to how we help sanctify one another.
So see to it that no one falls short. See to it. Look out for each other. Help one another so that no one, no one among you falls short of the grace of God. These are not just instructions that are being given to individuals.
You individually need to do this. Like we're reading Hebrews by ourselves and seeing how it applies to just me. This was delivered to a church, so it's the whole body of believers together that are listening to this being read.
Well, in Paul's case, when he was preaching it, they're listening to it being preached. So they hear that each one needs to look out for each other. And this verse in particular, verse 15, begins and ends the same way.
See to it. So you're looking out for each other, because if a root of bitterness springs up, many will be defiled. So we have the many. See to it no one falls short, lest many be defiled. So if one person ends up falling short of the grace of God, and this goes back to statements about apostasy that we had read previously in Hebrews, chapter 10 being one of them.
But anyway, if somebody were to fall short of the grace of God, meaning that they don't obtain it, they may have professed faith in Jesus for a time, but then they fell away from it. Well, they did not obtain the grace of God.
So if a person does not obtain it, it doesn't just hurt that person. There are other people in the body that will be affected by that as well. We don't suffer as one. We don't rise as one. We don't fall as one.
When a person in the church suffers and falls, and when I say suffer, I'm talking about sin, but they give in to temptation and they sin and they fall. There are other people who are almost always affected by that as well.
No one sins as an island. When you sin, you do affect other people with your sin. And so the way it's being described here, a root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and many will be defiled by it.
So if a person fails to obtain the grace of God, it's going to have an effect on others. We're thinking of one another, we're considering each other's needs, and we're even looking out for the body of Christ by helping one another and making sure that no one fails, no one falls short of obtaining the grace of God.
Grace of God, you know, the mention of grace of God here, that can apply in so many different ways. If you profess to be a believer in Jesus Christ, you're under the grace of God. If you have brothers and sisters in the Lord all professing to be Christians, you should assume, unless there's some sort of evidence that indicates otherwise, you should assume that they are under the grace of God.
They have God's grace, they show God's grace. But if somewhere down the road, one of these professing believers walks away from the faith and what they demonstrate is they never had the grace of God in the first place.
Paul talks about this in Romans six as well. So see to it that no one falls short of the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble and by it, many be defiled. Now, now, what is this root of bitterness?
What does that make you think of when you hear the word bitterness? Like you're thinking of holding a grudge against somebody or despising them for something or being envious of them for something, like having resentment toward a particular person.
That's what we think of as bitterness. You won't forgive another person, you just hold grudges. That's not the meaning or the usage here. This is actually a reference back to a verse in Deuteronomy 29.
If you have a legacy standard translation or the New American Standard, then this statement here, root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, that's in all caps. And when a verse is in all caps, it's an Old Testament reference.
So this goes back to Deuteronomy 29, 18. And I'm going to go back up a little bit to verse 17, so you kind of hear the context. This is Moses addressing Israel, and he says, you have seen their detestable things, talking about the nations that are around them.
You have seen their detestable things and their idols of wood, stone, silver and gold, which they had with them. Lest there be among you a man or woman or family or tribe whose heart turns away today from Yahweh our God to go to serve the gods of those nations, lest there be among you a root bearing poisonous fruit and wormwood.
That's the root of bitterness right there. So it's turning away from God to other things. In so doing, there becomes a root of bitterness. It's going to produce bad fruit. Remember what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7, you will know them by their fruit.
A bad tree cannot produce good fruit. Good trees do not produce bad fruit. So when you see someone producing good fruit, then they are showing that they are rooted in Christ. But you see somebody producing bad fruit.
There's a root of bitterness there, a root of bitterness springing up, causing trouble and by it, many will be defiled. Again, how these sins infect or affect other people. Verses 16 and 17, as we kind of close out this section, that also there be no sexually immoral or godless person among you.
Now, if you remember to 1 Corinthians 5, where Paul is addressing the Corinthians about sexual immorality that is among them, what does he say for them to do? He says, purge the evil person from among you.
So the person who's doing sexual immorality among you must be removed from your midst. This is kind of a discipline section here as well. In Hebrews 12, 16, make sure there be no one among you who is sexually immoral or godless.
So it's not just calling them to correction. Hey, if you're sexually immoral, you need to repent, although that would certainly be a self-check hearing that being said. And we'll hear that come up again in chapter 13, a reference and a warning about sexual immorality.
But this is a statement about anyone among you in sexual immorality. If there's someone among you who is immoral in this way, purge the evil person from among you. Same sort of a thing being applied here in Hebrews 12, 16.
Let there be no sexually immoral or godless person as other sins that Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 5 and 6 would fit under that category of godless. Not a person like Esau. Now, we don't typically think of Esau as sexually immoral, but he was.
He wanted a wife that his parents deeply disapproved of. He married pagan women and through those pagan wives that he had went after pagan gods. He had a root of bitterness springing up, causing trouble.
That was Esau. So he was sexually immoral and godless. He sold his own birthright for a single meal. You remember this story. This is in Genesis 25. Jacob had cooked a stew. Esau came from the field famished and he said, give me some of that stew.
Jacob makes a deal with him. You give me your birthright and I'll give you my stew. And so Esau does give him his birthright. Later on, Jacob even cheats him out of a blessing. And when Esau begs Isaac, his father, for a blessing, Isaac's got nothing to give because Jacob had the birthright and had received the blessing.
And even though Esau sought it with tears, he was rejected for he found no place for repentance. Now, he could not change his father who had just given a blessing to Jacob and gave the strength of the blessing to Jacob.
Esau sought a blessing from Isaac, didn't get much of a blessing, sought it more, father, give me something. And Isaac wouldn't give him any more than that. And so there was no place for repentance for him.
There was no place for him to be able to take it back. But it's still reflective of Esau's heart. Like lest anybody want to say, well, isn't that Isaac's fault? Couldn't he have given him a better place for Esau to be able to go, hey, what do I need to do to get a better blessing than that?
It's not Isaac's fault. All of this was still reflective of the heart of Esau, who really ultimately was opposed to his parents and opposed to God. So even though Esau is seeking a deeper blessing with tears, it's not genuine repentance.
He's not genuinely seeking the Lord. He's out for his own interests. He's seeking only himself. But if he had genuinely sought a deeper blessing, he would have been able to find it. Because the blessing is not dependent upon whatever Isaac says.
It would be dependent upon what God says. But he couldn't find it because Esau's heart was not truly for God. And this whole episode and the way that it plays out, even despising his own birthright, demonstrates that the heart of Esau was not for God.
It was for himself. So here's the warning. Remember, we had the whole hall of faith back in Hebrews 11. And now the preacher is saying, don't let anybody become like Esau, sexually immoral and godless, despising his own birthright.
How would this happen for us? How would we despise our own birthright? Well, if we despise the privileges that we have received in Christ, we renounce our faith. If we were to do such a thing, it would be impossible to recover that which has been lost.
How do we find salvation anywhere else? How would we find the forgiveness of sins? It would be nowhere. Esau did not find a blessing anywhere else, and neither will we. Even if we seek for it with tears.
The only blessing that can be found, the only blessing worth having, the only privileges that we can receive that lead to eternal life, is through faith in Jesus Christ. Let no one lose the truth of the gospel that has been given to us in Christ.
There are serious, eternal consequences for those who fall away from the faith. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we've read as we've been going through this chapter of Hebrews as we're getting closer and closer to the end of our study.
May these things reinforce in us a desire for Christ, knowing that it is only in Christ that we have the forgiveness of sins and the promise of everlasting life. We cannot find this anywhere else. Through the message of the gospel that we have been saved, and so it's this message that we must also share with the world.
For there is no other name under heaven that one can be saved by, except Jesus Christ. We ask for your strength that we may endure in these days. In Jesus' name, Amen.
You can find a complete list of videos, books, devotionals, and other resources online at www .tt .com. Thanks for listening!