Book of Hebrews - Ch. 12, Vs. 1-17 (06/27/2021)

Park Meadows Church

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Okay. Good morning. We're going to continue with our study of Hebrews 12.

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What I intend to do this morning is start back at the very beginning and do a quick read of the early part, the part that we covered last

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Sunday. And that will begin then with verse 1. Chapter 12, verse 1 of Hebrews.

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Wherefore, seeing we are all so compassed about, with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and sin which doth so easily beset us, looking unto

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Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

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Let us pray. Most gracious Heavenly Father, we come to You this morning to honor

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You, to glorify You, to worship

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You, to love You. We love You because You first loved us.

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We honor You because You are God. And You deserve honor.

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We thank You for all of the things that You have given us, including

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Your Holy Scripture and Your Holy Spirit that will allow us to better understand what the

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Holy Scripture says. And most of all, we thank

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You for giving us Your Son, who came in our place to bear our sins, to take our sins upon Him so that we would not have to pay for them ourselves.

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Bless us and keep us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So now we are to verse number three.

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For consider him that endured such contradiction. You can take that to be the same as opposition or badly spoken of.

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I'm just going to read it that way. For consider him that endureth such opposition of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your hearts, in your minds.

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So what's He saying? Look at what Jesus endured, compare it to what you're enduring, put that in perspective.

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He's bearing all of your penalty. You've got really nothing to worry about.

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We should consider the opposition Christ faced, and that will give us a better perspective of our problems.

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Now He goes on to say in verse four, Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.

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Now you notice that word, yet? What does that imply? Not only could it happen in the future, it's going to happen in the future.

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He's not minimizing the turmoil, the pain, the suffering that they've already experienced, and that they are experiencing.

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He's just prophesying or predicting that the worst is yet to come.

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And so we're going to need all of this as the time gets so that we need to call on the things that He's taught us.

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Verse five, And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as children.

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My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him.

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For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

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Now I've got two words I want to contrast today. And I want you to think about the difference of these two words if you think there is a difference.

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Discipline and punishment. Just think about that a second. The difference between discipline and punishment.

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The difference between rebuke and wrath.

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The rebuke of God and the wrath of God. Okay, what do you think?

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Is there a difference between discipline and punishment? And what do you think the difference is?

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Now I would just barely disagree with you. I think there is a great difference between discipline and punishment.

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I know for a fact, you don't have to tell me I know for a fact that you have disciplined

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David. In the past, maybe not lately. You get punished by your master, whatever he is.

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You get disciplined because he wants to correct your behavior.

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And the person that is punishing you doesn't really care that much about you.

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He is not trying to change your behavior. They care about the rule.

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They care about the fact that you have harmed them. And they want to get even.

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Or that's not the case with God. But it is in a little bit of a way the case with God.

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Now two more words that I'm going to contrast. Rebuke and to be rebuked by God and to face the wrath of God.

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What's the difference between being rebuked and facing the wrath? Rebuke is in love and is intended for correction.

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And wrath is what? Punishment and in God's case, just punishment for what you have done to offend

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God Himself. So when you read about Christians not facing the wrath of God, I think

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I could at this point in my life, I can totally 100 % agree with that. No Christian will ever experience the wrath of God.

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Now I can also think I can say this. Every Christian will be rebuked by God.

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Every Christian will be disciplined by God. Every non -Christian will be punished by God.

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So there's a difference, a big difference.

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Yes, sir. If I'm being asked for an answer, my answer is that is exactly what

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I think. But that doesn't mean it's true. It's exactly what I think. Yes. And then someone else said, and this is what changed the future.

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Now, say that again. I think I agree with that too. They say discipline changed the future.

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Okay, but now both discipline and punishment would be with regard to past behavior, but one would lead to a changed future behavior, and the other one has no interest in that, is the way

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I would see that. Okay, so going on. Well, the writer of Hebrews is going to tell us this.

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For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

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Now, what's he doing? He's disciplining. If you endure chastening,

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God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?

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What kind of son is it that he has that he doesn't discipline? Well, I'll ask you,

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Mr. Dave Huber. You should know. Do you discipline

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Ben's children? Well, and maybe in some sense we do, and I think that's a broader thing that when we see one of our children misbehaving, yes, we can discipline, but not nearly as well as he can discipline, and I'm sure he doesn't discipline yours in the same sense that you don't discipline his.

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You discipline your children. He disciplines his. Oh, well, we have a whole new focus now, don't we?

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I think I would disagree with that. You're just not around enough.

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If you endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?

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But if he be without chastisement, without discipline, whereof all are partakers, what all is he talking about?

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All of his sons, all of his children. I'm going to read that again. But if he be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then you are bastards and not sons.

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You're illegitimate. You're not the son of the father. It's not his son that he is failing to discipline.

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Furthermore, and now he's going to go back and move away from God and his discipline to men and their discipline to men like Brother David Huber and Ben and Brother David Mitchell.

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These all have done this. We have had fathers of our flesh, which corrected us, and we gave them reverence.

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So if your children, if you discipline them, and you will always say, this hurts me more than it hurts you, and all of that kind of, and in some ways that's true, in some ways it's not, but they will always, they always know that you're doing with a loving mind.

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And that's the difference. Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh, which corrected us, and we gave them reverence.

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Shall not we much rather be in subjugation unto the father of spirits, and live?

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For they verily for a few days chasteneth us after their own pleasure. You discipline your child because of what you want to accomplish in your children, and Brother David did for his, and Ben did for his, but God the father disciplines for our need.

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He knows what we need, and he disciplines for his need. For verily they for a few days chasteneth after their own pleasure, but he, that's the father, for our profit, that we may be partakers in his holiness.

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And we remember what holy means, don't we? Set apart, set apart to do the work of God.

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Okay, now we're just something new. That was all kind of review from last time. Verse 11.

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Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous.

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Whether we're disciplined or whether you're disciplining your child, no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous.

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Nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness.

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Now, at this point we're talking about the chastening of God. And what does the chastening of God afterward yield?

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The peaceable fruit of righteousness. What is that? That is our salvation.

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If we have salvation, it will be because of the fact that we are forced to conform to what the

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Lord wants us to be. And what does he want us to be? He wants us to be separated for his work.

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Nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.

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So, this was going to be my first question. Who are chastened? Who are disciplined?

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God's children are disciplined. And we have a passage in 2 Timothy. You don't have to go there.

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I'll just read it. Just one sentence. 2 Timothy 3 .12 says, Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.

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If you're going to attempt to live godly in Jesus Christ, you shall suffer persecution.

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You shall is more amplified than you will.

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That's an English thing. If you say you will do something, but if you say you shall do something, you're raising the level.

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So, if you will live a godly life, you shall suffer punishment.

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If you live a godly life in Jesus Christ, you shall suffer persecution.

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That persecution though is not discipline. It's not wrath.

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It may be the wrath of the world. It may be the wrath of Satan, but it will not be the wrath of God.

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What's its intent? Its intent is to correct you. The other question is, who are not chastened?

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Who are not chastened by God? Which are

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Satan's children. We'll just put it blunt. Satan's children are not chastened by God.

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Sometimes they're chastened by Satan, but they're never chastened by God. We read that just a second ago.

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I'm going to re -read it. Hebrews 12, 8. But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then ye are bastards and not sons.

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You're not the son of God if you're not facing chastisement of God. You're Satan's children.

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We might go so far as to say that if one is not chastened, then he is not truly a child of God.

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He is instead a child of Satan. Okay, now we're going to change directions in the stream.

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Up until now, Hebrews has been laying out truth after truth after truth, passage after passage of divine truths.

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Now, as I've looked forward through the rest of this chapter and even into the next chapter, the theme kind of changes.

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It goes from a laying out of divine truths into an exhortation of believers to act on the divine truths that are laid out in the previous passages.

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He has been laying out divine truths, and now he's got to the point where he's going to tell us what it is that we need to do.

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Now, there's something we need to consider as we proceed. Truth that is known but not obeyed eventually becomes a judgment, not a blessing.

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If you have been made aware of the truth and you fail to act upon it, what does

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God do to his children? He disciplines them.

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He disciplines his children, and at some point, his children will make the decision that they want to follow

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God's way. It's like Brother Otis used to say, you do what you want to do. If you belong to Jesus, if you belong to God, at some point, he will make you want to follow him.

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If you never do that, if you know the truth, if you've been exposed to the truth and you never obey it, then the discipline ceases to be discipline and becomes judgment.

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It ceases to be an attempt to correct and an act of punishment.

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It's a punishment, not a blessing. Now what does he tell us to do?

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The first thing he tells us to do is to begin preparing ourselves for the task ahead.

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I'm going to read verse 12. Wherefore, lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way, but let it rather be healed.

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Now, when experiencing the inevitable trials of life, the believer can and will endure.

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If he's a believer, he will endure and he will eventually come to the point that he's conformed to Christ.

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Now there's two things. One thing is to endure and the other thing says make straight paths.

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What's he talking about? We should be doing things not necessarily to make the path straight for ourselves, but to make the path straight for those who are still wavering.

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If you're in a congregation with many people, some will be believers.

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Some will be doing the best they can do to follow Christ. We all will make mistakes and God will discipline us all, but what we want to do is to do those things that we can do to make life more available, not less available to those that are on the fence, those that have seen the truth and are not yet obeying it because after all they may be what we like to call lost sheep, not goats.

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So the thing we can do is make straight paths for your feet and all other feet.

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Lest that which is lame be turned out of the way, but let it rather be healed.

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Follow peace with all men and holiness, without which no man shall see the

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Lord. Well, that lays it out pretty clearly, doesn't it? Follow peace and holiness.

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Draw near to God with full faith and a cleansed conscious and understand that a genuine acceptance of Christ as the

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Savior and as the sacrifice for sin is necessary to bring a sinner into fellowship with God.

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Now the unbeliever, the non -elect, they will not be drawn to accept

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Christ and they will never therefore be allowed to draw near to Him.

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Verse 15. I read this verse and I thought because I'm getting old and my glasses are not too good,

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I thought that said fall from grace and I read it again.

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It doesn't say fall from grace. It says looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God.

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It doesn't say fall from grace. One cannot fall from grace.

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One cannot lose his salvation. It doesn't mean you fall from grace. It does mean if you fall from grace, well, you didn't fall from grace.

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You never had grace to start with. You had some grace. God puts some mercy on all people even those that are not

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His own. Even Satan's children receive some mercy.

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It means you came too late and were left out. Kind of like the people on the outside of the boat after the

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Lord sealed it in and the water started coming and the rain that they'd never seen before started raining. I can just imagine everybody running down to the boat to get in and saying,

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Noah, Noah, let us in. Noah says, I don't have control of the door.

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The Lord locked the door. If you're in, you're in, and if you're out, you're out.

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You came too late. Had they come two days earlier, would they have been on the ark?

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Well, I don't know how to answer that question. They didn't come two days earlier because they didn't want to come two days later, earlier, and therefore they weren't on the boat, and they never had any desire to be on the boat until they were about to drown.

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And then they flail out and say, help us. But they're already gone. This is

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Dr. MacArthur speaking. He says, This is but another mention of the intellectually convinced Jews in that assembly.

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Remember, whoever he's writing to, the Hebrews, it's a lot of people he's writing to. Some of them were intellectually convinced.

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They knew the gospel. They were enamored with Christ, but they stood on the edge of apostasy.

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Now, the writer of Hebrews couldn't know which was which, but God knows. God knows which were on the edge of apostasy that will never accept him and those that will draw back to him.

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Looking diligently, lest any man fell of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled.

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Now, that root of bitterness is the attitude of the apostates within the church who are corrupted and corrosive influences.

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Don't be misled by those that are on the fence. He's saying, there are people calling us to go back under the law.

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Don't be influenced by that. And then he goes on to deal with a profane person.

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I'm going to get it. A profane person. Lest there be any fornicator or profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.

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Everybody remembers the story where you're going to be disciplined by me reading it one more time.

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Isaac. This is Genesis 25 beginning at verse 21.

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We could have gone to a lot of places. But Genesis 25, 21. And Isaac entreated the

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Lord for his wife because she was barren. And the Lord was entreated of him.

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And Rebekah, his wife, conceived. And the children struggled together within her.

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It was a difficult pregnancy. And she said, If it be so, why am

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I thus? So she did what we all ought to do when we're troubled. She went to inquire of the

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Lord. And the Lord said unto her, Here's what's happening.

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Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels.

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And the one people shall be stronger than the other people. Okay, brother

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David. Which one is stronger? Ishmael's children?

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Wait a minute. Esau. I did that too.

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Esau. Esau's stronger. Okay. And the other.

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At least right now, and through most of history, the sons of Esau have been stronger than the sons of Isaac.

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I got it. See, it's contagious. Jacob. Yeah. And the one people shall be stronger than the other people.

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Now here is the kicker. And the elder shall serve the younger.

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Now who did God tell this to? Yes. He told it to Rebekah.

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He told this to Rebekah. Now Rebekah knows two things. She's got two children in her womb.

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Her oldest son's offspring are going to be stronger than her younger sons.

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But then she also knows something else. She knows that the elder

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Esau shall serve the younger. Jacob.

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Now, keep that in mind as we go forward. And when our days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb.

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And the first came out red, all over, like a hairy garment.

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So he was red, and he had red hair all over him. Looked kind of like Bigfoot on the

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TV commercials. See the TV programs showing Bigfoot? I kind of see

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Bigfoot when I see Esau. And they called his name Esau. And after that, his brother came out, and his hand took hold of Esau's eel, and his name was called

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Jacob. And Isaac was three score years old when she bared them.

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And the boys grew, and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man to the fill.

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And Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents. And Isaac loved

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Esau because he did eat of his venison. And Rebekah loved

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Jacob. Now, John MacArthur says something.

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I'm going to repeat what he says, and then I'm going to add something of my own. Here's what he says.

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The difference between the two sons manifested itself in several areas, one as progenitors.

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Esau was the father of Edom, and Jacob was the father of Israel. In disposition,

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Esau, a rugged, headstrong hunter, preferring the outdoors.

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And Jacob, a plain, amiable man, preferring the comforts of home.

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And in parental favoritism, Esau was favored by his father, and Jacob by his mother, the ingredients for the perfect storm, ingredients for conflict.

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Now, I want to ask you one more question. This is kind of off the... Why do you think that Rebekah favored

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Jacob? He was around the house all the time.

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He was in the tent. He dwelt around the house. He wasn't off hunting. He was pleasant. You think that's why she favored him?

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She knew he would be the one to rule. Who was, on man's plan, scheduled to rule?

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Esau. Did the

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Lord tell Isaac that Jacob was destined to be the ruler?

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Not that we know of. We know he told his mother, but we don't know he told his father. Could that have made a difference in the favoritism?

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Okay, now I've got another passage and I think I can get through this one. And Jacob sod partage.

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And Esau came from the field and was faint. And Esau said unto Jacob, Feed me,

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I pray thee, from that same red partage. Now, I want you to look the word sod up.

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I thought I had an idea of what it meant. Anybody know what that means? Sod. Well, that's what we would think it means now.

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If I said sod now, that's not what it meant at all. He's sodding partage.

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He's not pouring that on the ground. What's he doing? Have you ever made a soup?

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What do you do? You put it on a pot and you heat it and you bring it to a boil.

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So sod means boiled. So I've got a question.

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What was boiling? The soup?

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Could be. What about Jacob? What's Jacob boiling?

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I'm going to read it. Jacob, sod, partage.

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If the word sod is applied to the partage, it means to bring it to a boil. But if it's applied to Jacob, we have something absolutely new.

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You look the word up in the Strong's and it will say this.

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To boil up. To seethe. To act proudly. Wait a minute.

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What does that have to do with partage? To act presumptuously.

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To be presumptuously arrogant. To act rebelliously.

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To be rebelliously proud. My sister -in -law said maybe to act with jealousy.

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So why was Jacob... I picked the word seethe.

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To seethe. So why would Jacob seethe him? Apparently, his mother had told him that God told her

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Jacob, not Esau, would receive the birthright of the firstborn.

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So Jacob apparently was upset that Esau possessed something that he thought he ought to have because the

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Lord said it was his. Now, I may be wrong on that, but that is an interesting take.

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Now, what does the birthright entail? Anybody know what the birthright entails? If you're the eldest son, what do you get?

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You get more of the inheritance. How much more?

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Twice as much. You get the double share. I don't think

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Jacob was concerned about the double share. He might have been because he was a selfish person.

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So he might have been. But there's something else that comes from the birthright. Are we under the law yet?

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I'm not talking about we, us, now, us. I'm talking about Jacob and Esau. Were Jacob and Esau under the law?

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I'll give you a hint. The law will come later on in this passage. Yes. It's not in the

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Hebrew. That's what

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I thought. I was going to say, if they didn't have the word potage in there, then all bets are off.

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We know what's boiling. It was Jacob that was boiling. And when you go on down, especially if you look for all the other meanings.

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All the other meanings relate not to the boiling of the pot, of the soup, but to the act of a person.

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You can't, the soup can't act proud nor presumptuously or be arrogant or rebellious.

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It doesn't do any of those things. It just boils. But Jacob could boil. And I think

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Jacob was boiling. I think he was seething. I think he was angry. Now, what other thing would he not be getting unless he had the birthright?

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We are not under the law. The law will come with what patriarch?

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Moses. Moses is after the at the end of the

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Egyptian. Jacob was before it.

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The whole Egypt experience happened, and then we have Moses, and then we have the law.

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So, who was responsible for the spiritual condition, the sacrifices at the time of Jacob?

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At this time, when Jacob and Esau are dealing with the birthright, who is the spiritual leader of the family?

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Isaac. Now, Isaac is going to die. And when Isaac dies, who's going to become the spiritual leader of the family?

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Esau thought he was. Jacob was told by his mother that he was. Esau was acting like he was the spiritual leader.

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Jacob thought he should be the spiritual leader. Conflict, conflict, conflict. Now, Jacob is a trickster.

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We know that from many occasions. And so, Jacob has his own plan. Would Jacob have had to have done anything?

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Would Jacob have had to have done anything to obtain this birthright? God promised it to him.

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It was his. He didn't have to be mad about it. It was his. But he was.

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And Esau came in from the field, and he was faint. And Esau said unto

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Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage. And that's in italics, so I don't think that was in the text either.

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Feed me from that same red pottage, for I am faint. Therefore was his name called

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Edom red. And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright.

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What did Jacob ask for? The pottage. He asked for the pottage, the birthright.

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You give me your birthright, I'll give you the pottage. And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die.

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That may have been a little stretch. And what profit shall this birthright do to me?

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And Jacob said, Swear to me this day. And he swore unto him, and he sold his birthright unto

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Jacob. And Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils.

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And he did eat and drink and rose up and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.

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He valued it less than a pot of beans or lentils, whatever lentils are.

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Back to Hebrews, verse 17. I'm going to finish with this verse and we'll pick up here next week.

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17. This is Hebrews talking about that same incident. Esau has the profane person that rejected his birthright.

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17. For you know how that afterwards, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected.

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For he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.

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Now here's what's happening. At this point, Esau desired God's blessings, but he didn't want

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God. That's kind of like we all are. I don't want to say we all are. That's kind of like a lot of people are.

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They want the blessings of God, but they don't want God. He regretted what he had done.

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He regretted that he had sold his birthright to his brother for a pot of beans. But he did not repent.

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Esau is an example of those who willfully sin against God and who are given no second chance because of their exposure to the truth and their advanced state of hardness.

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That was Dr. MacArthur speaking. I would like to go ahead and add this. We talked about making a decision and finding out it was now too late.

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What he has found out is now too late. There are many times when he could have changed what he had done if he wanted to.

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He didn't want to, but God didn't make him want to. This was always going to be the case, but there is now no second chance for him.

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Okay. Now we're going to pick up next week on verse 18 and maybe finish it.

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Any other questions or comments? I know we're running close to time or about time, out of time.

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If not, most gracious heavenly Father, thank you for this day that you put before us. Thank you for bringing us here to worship you and to listen to your

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Word, to read your Word, and to have the Holy Spirit guide us in our understanding of the

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Word. Let us all know that whatever you have for us, you will see that we as your children will get it.

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Bless us and keep us even through these hard times. We know that you are in control of all.