Wednesday Evening Devotional, PRBC, 7/23/08

Hebrews 10 and the Warning Against Apostasy

If you'll turn with me, please, in your Bibles to the epistle to the Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 10. A very challenging text, of course, but we're not going to try to necessarily dig through all of the depths of this very rich text.

Instead, we want to look at a section of the chapter in a devotional way. Hebrews chapter 10, beginning at verse 32. But remember the former days when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated.

For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one. Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.

For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised. Here in these few words, we have an exhortation to a people who have, as earlier been said, they've not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood, but clearly persecution had been the lot of these individuals.

And notice that it says, remember the former days. This is a part of an exhortation to individuals who are in danger of going back. Remember always, whenever you open your Bible to the book of Hebrews, never forget the context of the epistle.

So much, almost all, of the misuse, misinterpretation, abuse of the book of Hebrews that I have ever seen has been rooted in forgetting the nature of the epistle itself. The writer is writing to Jewish individuals who are in danger of going back to the old ways.

Remember, even during the times of the Gospels, during the times of Jesus, they were putting out of the synagogues those who confessed that Jesus was the Messiah. The beginnings of the difficulties between Jews and Christians go very, very, very deep in that sense.

And so, once the Christian message begins to be proclaimed, those people who are Jews, who are following the ways of Moses, who embrace Christ, their families would, in essence, consider them to be dead.

Great pressure would be put upon them to commit the act of apostasy, to trample underfoot the name of the Son of God, to deny that Jesus' death was propitiatory, that it was, in fact, in God's plan, that He was the Lamb of God.

That is the great act of apostasy. And the book of Hebrews as a whole is this entire apologetic saying, There's nothing to go back to. There's nothing in Judaism to go back to. There's nothing that should be drawing you back to this system because Jesus is superior to every element of Judaism.

That's the argument of this particular book. And so, having very sternly warned people, having said that once we have learned these things, we go on sinning willfully, then there's no sacrifice for sins.

He's talking about people who've sat there. They know that Jesus fulfills the Old Testament prophecies. They know the law of Moses points to Him. They understand these things, but if they give in to their creature comforts, if they give in to family over against faith, how many times did Jesus talk about this very issue?

If they give in to that, there's no sacrifice for them in Jerusalem. Don't go up there and offer that lamb. Don't go up there and offer that sheep. Don't give that wave offering. There is no sacrifice left for sin.

Once you realize those sacrifices have been fulfilled in Christ, there's no sacrifice for sin for you. Very strong words. And so it's in the context of that that we have here an exhortation to press on.

Remembering the Former Days of Suffering

I think that's where we can really sort of plug in here and hear what is being said. Notice what's said first. But remember the former days when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings.

That's a command. Remember. Remember. It has the same root as anomnesis, that word when we do remembrance of Jesus. Do this in remembrance of me. This is the imperative form. Remember. And it's good, as Christians, to think back over what God has done for us.

Isn't it amazing how easy it is for us to remember bad things and how easy it is for us to forget good things? Ever notice that? Our minds are amazing things. And it's not just with age that you forget these things.

It just seems that certain things make more of an impression upon us. And we don't sing this one, at least I don't think we do. I doubt it's in the Trinity Hymnal. But in the circles that I came from, we had a song we sang.

And it was, count your blessings. Name them one by one. And there's some real wisdom in that. We have to take the time to remember. Remember in the Old Testament? They would sometimes put up a pile of stones as a monument, as a testimony.

One of our hymns speaks of, Here I raise my ebenezer. It's not ebenezer scrooge, for those of you who are confused about what that is. Here I raise my ebenezer. What in the world does that mean? Well, as I've said many, many times, ebenezer, stone of help in Hebrew.

And it would be a testimony. You're literally building something to remind you, God delivered me here. God gave me promises here. And every time you'd come back by, there it would be. And it would remind you.

Ah yes, God delivered me. Because it's amazing how fast we forget. There have been times in my life I've learned something, and I've been, wow, I really see the hand of God in this. And boy, this is just such a faith-building experience.

And I've seen the truthfulness of the Word of God here. And a decade later you're going, I have a vague recollection. What was that? I can remember disappointments a lot longer than that. We should take time to remember.

We should take time to bring back to our minds how many times God has been faithful to us. But notice what he says there to remember. Remember the former days when after being enlightened, you've endured a great conflict of sufferings.

Or even to remember the difficult times because it's in the difficult times, is it not, that we most often see the hand of God? In fact, it's interesting, the Greek term that's used here is athleison, from which we get athletics.

And athletics is supposed to be conflict. There's supposed to be the striving and the putting forth of a great deal of effort. But here it is a conflict of sufferings. And he's saying remember how when you first came to find out about this Messiah Jesus, and you first embraced this message, remember it wasn't easy.

And yet despite how difficult it was, despite how hard it was, and I'm standing here about the word-faith movements, and remember after being enlightened and your right leg grew the same length as your left leg and your teeth were whitened and your hair thickened up and your finances got great and your wife looks more beautiful than ever.

No, that's not what it says, is it? Instead, it connects that being enlightened with you endured that. You did so with patience. You did so with patience. You endured it. It didn't just happen in one day.

And how many times a new convert comes to Christ and oh, there is opposition. And what does the mature person in Christ say? Stay steadfast. Oh, but I need deliverance from God. Well, how many times have we seen from the Psalter on Wednesday nights?

Deliverance from God is not always something that happens on our schedule. In fact, it happens only on a perfect schedule, a schedule that we don't know. And I think that's why there are some psalms in the Psalter where the psalmist cries out and no answer is recorded for us.

Because sometimes it takes endurance, a period of time, sometimes a long period of time, especially for the microwave generation. You endured a great conflict of sufferings. Well, how did they endure it?

Did they adopt the attitude of those who just make sure everyone knows you're going through a tough time? You put on that look on the face that communicates to everybody, oh, I'm going through rough times.

But I'll get through it, I guess. You can commiserate with me if you'd like. Did they let everybody know? How did they endure? Well, they were active in their endurance. Notice it says they endured it partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated.

Now again, it's interesting the term that's used here is the term for which we get theater. A public spectacle. Like you would go, of course in our day, you'd go to a movie theater, but in that day you went to a physical structure where you would have an amphitheater or one in the round, and you would have the actors down there.

There's no place to hide down there. And so here are new converts, they're going through sufferings, and part of the way they endured is by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations.

This was not done in a corner, especially those who experienced being put out of the synagogue. That wouldn't be done in a corner because the synagogue, it was cultural. I mean, that's where you grew up.

Once someone was excluded from that, they told everybody about it, and you weren't just being excluded. It wouldn't be a situation like we're in today where, well, you know, they don't want me to go to that church anymore, so I'll go to the one down the street.

Everybody in your circle of influence, everybody in your culture knew. Your friends and your relatives. It could be really dangerous because in those days, you know, life was disease and food and things like that.

Your entire support system gets cut off. You can see why the early Christians had to band together because they had to take care of each other. And so a public spectacle, reproaches, tribulations, being cut off from your family, being reproached, being said, you've joined a cult.

It's just a little cult, this Christianity thing. And they endured these things. Publicly. But notice, it also says, and partly by becoming shares with those who are so treated. Let's say you don't any longer live anywhere near your family, or you've just moved into a particular area or something like that, you were traveling around, you're a Roman soldier, whatever it is, business person, and so there might not have been necessarily for you the experience of the public reproaches that there were for the Jewish converts that were there in that community and therefore were put out of the synagogue and so on and so forth.

But you didn't just stand back and go, well, hey, sorry for you. There was a joining in. There was a koinonia. You've heard the term before? Fellowship, community. That's a term that is used here as well.

You became sharers with those who were so treated. So even if you didn't experience it, you entered into the sufferings and tribulations of those who were experiencing it. It certainly reminds me of what comes just a couple chapters later when in Hebrews 13 .3 we are commanded to remember those who are bound in chains as if we are bound together with them.

Same concept here. There's a body. The body is connected together. And part of the way that these folks endured and that they're being told to remember was remember how you became sharers with those who were so treated.

Remember the times where the body of Christ has come together and you've experienced that kind of fellowship. So we have a command here. It's a command that doesn't make a whole lot of sense if we don't realize that earlier in this same chapter, we were told not to forsake the gathering of ourselves together.

Lone ranger Christianity cannot make sense out of these words because there's a community here. There's gathering together. There's a shared common faith. It's not just me and my Bible out under a tree in the woods.

There's a community. And they are commanded to remember back, remember those former days. Verse 34, For you showed sympathy... Sympathy is to suffer, to experience deep emotion. To feel it together. Sympathy is not just going, aww.

Sympathy is to join into someone's experience. For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted with joy the seizure of your property knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one.

So these are people who knew what it means to count the costs. These are people who have not only shown sympathy to the prisoners and so they were going to prison even at danger to themselves. And they're sharing of their own selves with these individuals and they're giving of themselves.

And there's again this koinonia, this fellowship that's going on. But that would also result in some of them getting in trouble. And so they accepted joyfully the seizure of their property. There are people who had lost everything to follow Christ.

They may have had much in this world. They may have had little in this world. It's not how much you have, it's how much you love it. It's how attached you are to it. And here are people, here are people who love something more than they love their possessions.

Here are people who had discovered that possessions can never, ever, ever truly fulfill the longings of your heart. These are people who recognized that though someone might seize my property now unjustly, unrighteously, out of hate, they could accept this joyfully.

Not just with one of those fake plastic smiles, I better endure this to look spiritual. But they could accept this joyfully. Why? Knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession, one that abides and lasts.

And may I suggest to you that that better possession is outside the reach of any earthly authority. That better and abiding possession can never be taken from us by any human agency, any natural disaster.

That abiding and better possession redemption, eternal life, the promise of inheritance in the kingdom of light is something that no one can take from us. And here are individuals who though their friends were imprisoned, their friends had been mistreated, they themselves had lost so much of their worldly goods, and yet they were filled with joy because they knew they had real faith, they had true faith that they had a possession that the world could not touch and from which they derived joy that the world could not take from them.

Confidence, Endurance, and the Promise of Reward

Therefore, therefore, do not throw away your confidence. Again, who is this being written to? People who are under pressure to go back. People under pressure to abandon. We might say, well, I don't think any of our folks are actually former Jews.

What about our situation today? How many of us feel the pressure of the world to throw away our confidence? The world's constantly chipping away at the very idea that you can know anything for certain.

You young people. I know the Callahan brothers here are heading back to school. And, of course, Sarum will be going back here pretty soon and the young people are going to be going back into those situations.

And sadly, even at quote-unquote Christian schools, there can be those who present to us, present to our young people, argumentation, they're seeking to change their thinking, and of course, outside of those Christian schools, you have all sorts of folks who want to destroy your faith.

They want to cause you to throw away your confidence. There are people at work, people in the community, maybe your neighbors. They don't like your confidence in the faith because when you confess the faith, you are a means of causing conviction in their lives.

So the text says, do not throw away your confidence which has a great reward. God rewards those who are faithful. Now, we don't believe faith is something that we churn up inside of ourselves and all the rest of that stuff.

And yet, we need to recognize that we need to pray, Lord, help my unbelief. Help me to grow in faith. Faith is not abandoning one's mind. Faith always has the object and the object is the promises of God.

Help me to understand them better. Help me to see the fulfillment of them. Help me to accept what You've said in Your Word. Don't let me think like the world because the world is constantly putting pressure upon me to do so.

There is a great reward in confident faith. So we're told, you have need of endurance. Endurance. Patience. Same term used up in verse 32. You endure the great conflict of sufferings. You have need of endurance so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.

Jesus said, He who endures to the end shall be saved. Did He not? Sometimes we go, Oh, I don't know. I like that verse. Make me. Well, I've heard it misused a lot. Oh, so have I. If I get rid of every verse I've heard misused, my Bible will be very small.

That's going to be misused. Jesus is not saying that by your own self-created endurance, you will bring about your own salvation. But He is saying something about the work of God's Spirit in our lives that it endures.

It endures. And every time I hear people talking about, Oh, there's this great move of God over here. Thousands of people! I wouldn't have thought this when I first came here, but I'm afraid Pastor Fry finally got to me.

It took him almost 20 years. Now I hear stuff like that and I go, Oh, we'll see. Let's keep an eye on it. Let's see what's going on there in 10 years. Let's see what's going on there in 20 years. Let's see if that fruit abides.

Because how often have we seen people get all excited about things and it's only a matter of time later. Hey, what happened to that guy? What happened to that person? Oh, they're a Buddhist. Patient endurance.

You have need of endurance. Some of you know that I like to ride a bicycle. Right now, the equivalent of the Super Bowl is on for cyclists. It's called the Tour de France. And I got up this morning and I watched the tour because it was the toughest stage in the entire tour.

Three huge mountains finishing off the 21 hairpin turns of Alpe d 'Huez. And I watched these guys 133 miles, 40 ,000 feet of climbing in one day over 133 miles. I can't even imagine. And I watched a guy hit that last climb and he buried everybody else.

There's two minutes and 15 seconds up that hill. And you just watch that man. You go, there's somebody who has endurance. But you know what? This guy has been riding the tour for years. Came as close as I think fourth once.

But you know what they said, what the commentators said? This year, he hasn't ridden any other race. He's been right there in France training for this one race. And he's ridden up Alpe d 'Huez who knows how many times.

So when they turned that corner today, he set his face like Flint and he took off. And he has a good chance to win the whole thing. But he was focused, he was disciplined on this one thing. As a result, he had endurance that nobody else had.

Endurance doesn't come like this. Yes, it's the work of the Spirit of God, but the means he uses. There's a reason why endurance here is related in its root meaning to patience. Patient endurance. That's the exhortation given to the people of old.

That's the exhortation given to us. And notice the promise. For you have need of endurance so that when you have done the will of God, not when you've done it your way, but when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.

That's what our faith is. It's the promises of God. And we look back over the history of the church. We look back over our own lives. We look back over the history of the church. What do we see God's promises stand?

May God cause us all to have patient endurance.