Address—R. Thonney
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Every side.
Shall we pray?
I like to turn to Hebrews chapter 12.
Begin with verse one.
Hebrews 12/1 Wherefore.
Seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.
Looking unto 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, for consider him that endured such contradiction.
Of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.
You have not yet resisted unto blood striving against sin.
And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children.
My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord.
Nor faint when thou art rebuked of him for whom the Lord loveth.
He chasing it and scourge us every sun moon he receiveth.
If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you, as with sons.
For what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not?
But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all our partakers?
Then are ye ******** and not sons? Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh.
Which corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?
For they verily for a few days chastened us.
After their own pleasure, but he for our prophet.
That we might be partakers of His Holiness.
Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous nevertheless. Afterward it yielded the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down in the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way.
But let her rather be healed.
Follow peace.
With all men and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.
Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God.
Lest any root of bitterness bringing up trouble you and thereby.
Many be defiled lest there be any fornicator or profane person.
As Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.
For ye know how that afterward when he would have inherited the blessing.
He was rejected, for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.
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For ye are not coming to the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire.
Nor unto blackness and darkness, and Tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, which voice that they heard.
They that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them anymore.
For they could not endure that which was commanded. And if so much as a beast touched the mountain, it shall be stoned or thrust through with a dart.
So terrible was the sight that Moses said I exceedingly fear and quake.
But ye are coming to Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the General Assembly and Church of the first born which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect.
And to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.
See that you refuse, not him that speaketh, for if they escape, not who refuse.
Him that spake on earth much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven?
Whose voice then shook the earth. But now he hath promised, saying yet once more I shake not earth only, but also heaven.
And this word yet once more signifies the removing of those things that are shaken.
As of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.
Wherefore we receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved.
Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire.
Just read the whole chapter because I want to get the picture that we have presented to us in this chapter.
The book of Hebrews is a very precious book in which the.
We believe that it was the Apostle Paul, although his name is mentioned, writes to the Hebrew believers.
Trying to draw them away from the system that they were acquainted with in Judaism.
They were so attached to, and yet it was to that system that the Lord Jesus had presented himself and he had been rejected.
And crucified. And now God was calling them out of that religious system. And so he presents in this epistle the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus is the one who is presented as the apostle in the book of Hebrews. He is the sent one of God. We had those first three verses of the book read this morning. And the breaking of bread, meeting about the Lord Jesus, the brightness.
Of His glory, the express image of His person.
Who upholds all things by the word of His power?
And when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, what a tremendous picture we have presented to us, how it should capture our hearts, the person of Christ presented, and that's the drawing power. When God's people are in one thing or another, that is a hindrance to Him, it is Christ.
That is the drawing power to bring them out of such a system. Oh brethren, sometimes we speak of system in other areas of Christendom, but sometimes I feel we need to be exercised that we do not fall into system ourselves.
May the Lord give us graciously to be exercised in His presence. We are not.
In a system of religion, in Christianity, it is a glorious person.
That is Christianity. Christianity is Christ in all his glory.
In all his beauty, and the heart and the soul of the believer drawn after him, Judaism was characterized as a.
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As a fold, something that had.
A perimeter to it. Christianity is characterized as a flock, a center of attraction, and that's what we desire to understand as we read this book of.
Hebrews, that it's Christ that must be livingly before our souls continually, brethren, all the way home to glory. And in this chapter we're exhorted by the apostle Paul to run the race with patients looking unto Jesus. Oh, how those words come as a fresh challenge each time I read them.
To my own soul, brethren, we have a tremendous reason to take courage and to go on.
We are living in the last days. There are lots of discouragement around.
And we don't, we don't want to ignore the fact that there are real serious difficulties on every hand in whatever aspect of life you look at it, in this world there are serious problems. We cannot ignore that.
But brethren, we have even more reason to take courage to run the race with patience that is set before us. That word patience is endurance. It is a long distance race. It is a race that lasts the whole life long of the believer. It's not just 100 yard dash that you put all your.
Your energy into it and then it's done in a few seconds. No, it's the whole life long. It's endurance that it's important. In connection with this race, the other day at school, my boys school, I was there to watch them run some races and they were running a group of them, the mile. It was interesting to watch. They had quite a group of them. They had them all run together. I don't know how they kept them all sorted out, but.
Anyhow, they were all running together and I noticed one girl that was running.
She was a pretty good runner, it looked like, and she took off and for about.
Half of the first lap she was way out ahead but she finished third from the last.
That's what we need now is to go on, brethren, to go on, not in a religious system, but after Christ, to be drawn after his glorious person.
So the apostle in this first verse speaks of a great cloud of witnesses.
He's referring to the 11 Chapter. We've been speaking in our readings a little bit about Abraham.
Abraham figures as probably the major figure in Chapter 11.
They are witnesses of faith. You can go back to the Old Testament and read their stories in detail.
They have their ups and they had their downs as well. They had their problems, they had their sins.
You'll see the whole story there in the Old Testament. But they went on.
They had faith, they were witnesses, and they're put there to encourage us.
There's times when I get discouraged and I have to go back and read the story of those.
Old Testament witnesses of faith, and it encourages me.
He says here, being surrounded by, compassed about, with this great cloud of witnesses.
He said let us lay aside every weight and the sin.
Which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience.
The race that is set before us. Just wanted to stop here a moment. In a race there is a prize and we don't have it mentioned here so much as perhaps we do in the book of Philippians chapter 3 where it speaks of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Why do people race? Because they want to win a prize?
And they are willing to make every kind of sacrifice.
They go to all sorts of expense to win the prize.
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And depending on the race they run, the prize of times is quite a handsome sum of money.
Brethren, what are we running after? Let me seriously ask you, dear young person, what are you running after?
Is it something down here in this world?
If it is, I want to say to you.
You're going to be disappointed, you will.
Be disappointed because nothing down here.
Can satisfy the heart of a believer. I have seen many who have gained.
Pinnacles in the business world, then.
Amazing. They've been totally.
They thought this would be the greatest.
To have that position and they have been disillusioned.
Again, I say if your object, the thing you're running after, is something down here in this world, you're going to be disappointed. We need to have our sights set further afield. We need to set our sights in that eternal day that's coming. We've been called to His Kingdom and glory, not to anything down here. Nothing down here is worthy.
Of a Christian's objective.
Oh dear brethren, we need to have our sights set there to get a glimpse of that prize.
That lies before the soul. And here again, as we were mentioning yesterday, I want to.
Stop and press at home to each heart here this afternoon.
Because I know a lot of you young people probably sit there and say it's all well and good for those older fellows to talk, but my life's a little different. I say it's not different. If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus. This is the goal that God sets for you. Don't settle for any goal that's less than the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Some start out real fast, maybe in the race, and then later on they get tired and they they drop off to the side and they can't run anymore.
I want to lay before our hearts a little bit this afternoon that price that your heart might feel drawn again, the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Once you get that before your soul, every other thing in your life will be related to that.
We have what are called weights mentioned in this first verse.
Weights are not necessarily bad things, they're just things that don't let you run like you ought to run as a believer. That's all it is. And there's lots of things in this world that in themselves perhaps we can't tack down and say they're sin, but they are definitely weights.
And we see believers that have perhaps a nice desire.
But you know, a desire is not enough.
It's not enough, Proverbs said. Says the sluggard desires and has nothing. Sure the sluggard has a desire too. Desire is not enough. David said one thing, have I desired that will I seek after? There must be purpose of heart as well as desire, purpose to go after.
You know, there are things in light as we were mentioning that our positive weights that don't let us run.
Like we need to run and I want to encourage my younger brother and sisters.
In Christ, all of us really want to encourage to live simply in this world. We're pilgrims here. Is that just a doctrine that really doesn't apply to our lives? No, brethren, let's make it practical. Let's be simple in our lifestyles as much as is possible. Sure, we live in the United States and we can't live like they do in South America. I'm not saying that we have to be aesthetics, but what I'm saying is that we can be simple in our way of life.
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And that's what we need, because if you're going to run.
You don't want a lot of weights tied around you, you want to be as light as possible.
I think I've mentioned before and I just repeat it for perhaps some who haven't heard.
When we lived in Bolivia, a man who we became acquainted with, who was a mechanic.
And who also ran in the car races in Bolivia professed faith in the Lord Jesus. I believe it was real.
And.
We used to go for Bible readings from time to time in his home.
And he seemed to sense that, for some reason, I wasn't.
In agreement with car racing, I never told them that.
But one night when I stepped into his house and sat down and got talking, he says, what's wrong with car racing? I don't see anything wrong with it, nothing morally wrong with racing. I said no. I said that I would like to ask you a question, I said.
Supposing I was in the car race from.
Santa Cruz to Cochabamba, that's to the cities. They race between the cities over the roads of that country. Supposing I was in that race, would it be all right for me to stop and take some pictures along the way? Oh no, no, no, you don't do that, I said. Is there something morally wrong with taking pictures? No, nothing wrong with it, but you just don't do that when you're in a race, he said to me. That's just exactly the point. I said to him, there's a lot of things in this world that are not morally wrong.
But you just don't do them when you're on a race and once you get that goal before your soul, dear young person, dear older one too.
I say every single thing in your life, your house, your home, whatever you have in your home, your car, whatever is related to that goal. It's not a question of things down here that you want to attain. It's a question of a goal up there. You'll need a car. You'll need a home.
But that isn't your goal. Your goal is beyond.
Oh, how important to have our sights set right. And it seems to me when.
We get discouragement. We tend to lower our sights and our objectives.
The Lord encourages not to lose sight of the objective.
And he speaks here too of sin that so easily besets us.
Is there anyone that would say that's not the case with me?
Sin doesn't so easily beset me, brethren, I really believe we're going to have to admit.
It easily besets all of us. Let us be sensitive in the Lord's presence that there are things the Lord may want to speak to us about.
Sin easily besets the believer in the Lord Jesus. It may not seem like.
Such a serious thing. It may seem like a very small thing, a lie perhaps.
But it is a serious thing and needs to be laid aside.
So that we can get on to the goal.
Verse two says looking unto 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. Oh I love this.
Brethren were called to contemplate our Lord Jesus Christ.
We tend to be self-centered. That's the kind of world we live in.
It's a powerful current in this world.
We need to remove our thoughts from ourselves.
We need to consider the Lord Jesus. Verse three says consider him.
That endured such contradiction of sinners against himself. Lest you be wearied and faint in your mind, consider him the Spanish translation I love here. It says, Reduce your thoughts to him.
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Need to reduce your thoughts. Sometimes we start thinking of how I've been treated, how the problems I've had.
If that's the tendency in your case, I want to ask you to do just what it says here in verse 3.
Consider him. Reduce your thoughts to him.
He endured far more than you are enduring.
He went through situations far more difficult and trying than you could ever go.
Did he ever give up? Did he get discouraged? Did he say it's not worth it?
I'm not going to go any further. Did he ever get to that point? You know he didn't. He went all the way, even though it meant going to that cross and going down beneath that storm of the judgment of God on our sins that were laid on Him. He went through it all. Nothing turned him aside, absolutely nothing. Why? Because He had that joy that was set before Him.
Before his soul. What was that joy? It was the joy.
Of doing the Father's will. That was the Supreme.
Motivating power. There are other things I'm sure as well to have his bride with him.
But the supreme motivating power was to do the Father's will. Think of that joy that there was when, after He rose triumphant from the dead, He ascended into the right hand of God. Oh, I try to think of the joy of that moment when He took His place as a man at God's right hand.
Fully having fully completed the work that was given him to do. Now, brethren, the race remains for us. We're not. We haven't won yet. The goal is still before and the times are hard. The times are tough. We cannot ignore the fact in these next few verses. It speaks of the discipline of the Lord.
We cannot ignore the fact that God has.
His hand of discipline on his people.
And I just like to meditate in these next verses because I know that it weighs heavily on many hearts, the fact that the Lord is disciplining His people. But I want to encourage you. I want to lift up your hands. I want to strengthen your knees, as I trust you'll do to me as well when I need it.
Brethren, it is love that takes the rod to punish.
Whom the Lord loveth, He chasing us and scourge us. A very strong word. Every son whom he receiveth.
Scourge it.
Oh, have you felt if you are a true believer in the Lord Jesus?
I'm sure individually you have felt that in your individual life.
There is such a thing as God scourging his people in a collective way as well We have.
Time after time of that mentioned in the Old Testament where God.
Allowed a scourge to come in because of things he saw that he didn't approve of.
Brethren, there are three reactions.
Recorded in this chapter that result.
From this discipline, this chastisement, this scourging.
Number one in verse five we are told not to despise it.
And then later in that same verse, nor faint.
That's the second reaction, and the 3rd and proper reaction.
To His discipline is what we have in verse 11.
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Being.
Exercised by it. Oh, these are important.
Things and we all fall into these categories.
Either we despise the Lord's chastening, or we faint under it.
Or were exercised by it. Remember, we don't belong to ourselves now.
We belong to God. He has paid an awful price.
To make us his own.
And you and I cannot walk as we choose in this world.
He will have the last word with everyone of his children.
You can't get away with anything when you belong to God.
He will have the last word, but I just want to press home that fact again.
That his chastening is because he loves.
When the father is punishing his child, it is because his child is near him.
Or he is near his child and when God is disciplining, chastening us.
It's because he's near, brethren. He loves us. He loves us so much, He's not going to allow us to continue.
To go on like we are.
Whom the Lord loves, he chases. But I fear sometimes that there is a tendency to despise His chastening. What does that mean? Means to not really pay attention. Not really pay attention?
We think the problems that take place amongst God's people.
It's because of a certain sector of God's people.
Are we listening to what the Lord is speaking to us?
Or are we pinning the blame over in some other direction?
We need to listen if we're pinning the dream over in some other direction and not taking it.
No matter for ourselves, we really believe that is what despising the chasing of the Lord is.
We need to be careful not to do that.
The Lord give us.
Not to despise the chastening of the Lord, nor the other extreme, is nor to faint under his rebuke.
The thing is to just get totally discouraged. Neither he that despises nor he that faints gets the blessing ready. When God allows trouble and problems, He means it for the good of His people.
And our place is not to be looking as much as sometimes we do at one another. It is to be looking to Him who wants our attention because He has something to say to us.
No wonder in the seven churches of Revelation, two and three, everyone, he says.
He that hath an ear to ear, let him hear the very last church Laodicea, which is very characteristic of the Christian testimony. In the day we live, where is the Lord Jesus? On the outside of the door knocking says, If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in stuck with him, and he with me.
Isn't that terrifically sad on the outside of that door?
The proper response under discipline is what we have in verse 11 was already mentioned.
It yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them which are exercised thereby.
It doesn't seem joyous. It seems grievous.
I think we all can ascend to that.
But it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby.
What does it mean to be exercised by his discipline? It means to reflect.
To try to be alert to what the Lord is trying to say to us.
In such times of discipline.
I'd like to share, brethren, a few things that I feel in my own soul. I'm just going to share them as what I feel.
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God is saying to me in these times.
Or not. I'm sure what the Lord is viewing.
His ways are unsearchable, his judgments are unsearchable and.
Who can tell all his ways? No, I wouldn't dare to stand up here and try to tell you what God is trying to teach us. But in the exercise of my own soul, I'd like to share with you some things that I really believe the Lord has brought to my own.
Exercise.
One of the things that has really come before my own soul is.
The fact, brethren, that so many of our problems.
Are due to a lack of understanding of the very basic principles of the Gospel.
Repeat.
A lot of our problems are a lack of understanding of the very basic principles of the gospel.
What do I mean?
In the gospel we preach.
Man's total ruin.
The gospel we preach God's complete provision.
In our ruin. Those are in brief.
Two of the main principles in the Gospel.
But when I see the reactions that take place amongst God's people.
Seems to me we have not been convinced in our souls of these basic principles of the Gospel.
We're not saying that we don't preach the gospel. We do, I'm sure, and I want to encourage to continue to preach the gospel when we need the gospel.
You know, brethren, not only to explain the gospel to our children.
That are growing up and into our young people but to press home those vital issues to their heart.
Into their conscience. The ruin of man I remember in my own growing up.
Hearing the gospel each Lord stay evening. But I remember the time came distinctly.
For me, you would have asked me. I would have sent it to the fact in a mental way. Yes, I know there's no good in me.
But I remember when the Lord showed that to me, really laid it on my heart and conscience.
Not that I'm not continuing to learn it, brethren, but.
We need to have those basic things burnt into our souls, pressed into the heart and conscience. It's not a matter of mere intellect, it's a matter of the heart and the conscience. And I really fear that many places there are a group of young people growing up who have never heard the gospel pressed home to their consciences and to their hearts.
And I fear without any life towards God knowing all the answers.
But not got these basic issues settled in their souls.
Second issue God complete provision.
Oh, the preciousness of knowing it, brethren, we have in Christ, in His precious Word, complete provision.
I was given a book recently.
That was written by a Christian man, supposedly Christian man. I was shocked by a statement that he made, he said.
In connection with dealing with a certain problem.
He said. We find that the Scriptures are not enough in this difficult situation.
I was shocked.
Is God not left us sufficient, brethren?
We see in the world around us today a movement that is fostered in.
The liberty of democracy. Thank God for the liberty we have here, but it is the self movement, self esteem, self love, self worth.
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Brethren, it is not Christianity. It is not Christianity.
When we start Speaking of healing of self and building up of self esteem, we're talking about what we were as men in the flesh. But in Christianity we are dead, buried, risen again with Christ.
We are delivered from that we need is not healing is deliverance from that very principle.
And we have it in Christianity.
But, brethren, why do these things come in?
I really.
Honestly believe, and this is what I want to challenge your heart about, that we can teach these things mentally, we understand them, to put it out clearly in a mental way, but we're not living in the reality of what it means to be dead, buried and risen again.
Why do I say that the reactions that take place when difficulties arise, brethren, show.
That we don't know the reality of it in our lives.
I have. That was the first thing I have. I have a little list here that I wrote out my things. I'd like to share three others if time permits.
Second matter, her brother spoke yesterday.
In first John, chapter one of Fellowship.
Precious fellowship. And in the third verse of that first Epistle of John in the first chapter.
It says.
That truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.
To go on down in the chapter, the seventh verse says if we walk in the light.
As he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.
You notice the order. Fellowship with God as Father and with the Lord Jesus is first.
His first brother fellowship with one another is second.
I really feel that in what God is allowing, He's manifesting that we've got these two things turned around.
We have set fellowship one with another, so important.
The Lord has taken the second place.
And then, when troubles come in, to fellowship amongst believers.
We're thrown for 350 loops and don't know which ends up any longer.
Brethren, let's get back to the simplicity of fellowship with God the Father and with the Lord Jesus Christ.
We've been called into that fellowship to know what it means to walk.
Day by day, side by side with the Lord Jesus, in whatever circumstance of life.
That you may have your life thrown into. He is there.
We mentioned yesterday he has promised never to leave us or to forsake us. He's there. How much do you talk to him through the course of a day? Do hours go by and you never say a word to it?
Does that happen? What would happen if I was walking?
A full day visiting some brother and you notice that the brother talked to me.
But I never paid any attention to what he was saying and I never even responded a word the whole day.
Or even a couple hours. You saw that to be the case. Is something's wrong. Wouldn't you say that that would be right? The Lord is there.
And his words should be living in our hearts, brethren, what he's saying to us, and we should be speaking to him. We don't have to close our eyes, always in our heart. We can speak to them, says pray without ceasing. It should be something that's continual with us.
I really believe, brethren, that those two matters have been turned around. We've put fellowship with our brethren in such an important plane, and fellowship with the Lord Jesus is taking second place, the Lord.
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Get us to set our priorities right in this matter.
3rd matter I'd like to just speak of briefly.
Is the matter of Speaking of the place.
Of gathering.
Thank God for the scriptures that we have that show clearly.
God's principles of gathering.
But sometimes I think, brethren, we focus so much.
On a place that we forget about the person.
And I think this has been a snare we need.
To focus more on is the glorious person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Those whose hearts are right will be drawn. But if I Speaking of the place.
Refer to people outward, visible.
Buildings or whatever it may be that it is associated.
And souls come and they see problems. They're going to.
They stumble.
Brethren, we can't see the place unless we see Christ.
And the principles of his precious word.
That's the only way we can see it close.
But sometimes I fear that over the course of time we associate the place with a group of people, a certain group of people.
And the outward externals of what is visible.
Brethren, in Christianity we have nothing visible.
We have Christ, the center of attraction, and not even He is visible to our natural eyes.
It's by faith we apprehend these things.
We need to be careful, brethren. Again, I say, I'm not discounting the precious principles of the Word of God.
As to gathering of his people, but I'm saying let's be careful that we do not so focus on the place that we lose sight of the person is the Lord Jesus.
Just like to briefly give you something that was shared with me and I enjoyed.
In the book of Malachi, where everything was in ruin.
And where there was terrific indifference as to what was due to the Lord's glory.
You find in the third chapter a little group of some who spoke often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard, and a book of remembrance was written.
They didn't do any great feats. They just spoke one to another. They encouraged one another.
And it seems like in spirit, they came down through those 400 years.
Until the Lord Jesus appears in Matthew's Gospel and Luke's Gospel.
And there you find a little group of them there that really feared the Lord.
Joseph and Mary and Simeon and Anna and.
And.
Zacharias and Elizabeth Six that are mentioned. I believe there were perhaps others.
And they seem to correspond to that little group.
But there was a vast multitude in Jerusalem extremely zealous for the place.
That they had no idea that the person was walking right there.
Brethren, is there something that corresponds to that in our day?
Really, in my own soul I say I feel there is. I just present it to you for your consideration.
I do not want to undo the precious truth of gathering of God's people.
That the scripture teaches, but what I'm saying is let's not.
Make the place so visible that we can't see the person.
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One other matter that has exercised me, brethren.
We were enjoying yesterday about Elijah in the Old Testament and how he got discouraged. Tremendous servant of God that he was, and in his discouragement he spoke against God's people.
And God told him then after he repeated his complaint the second time.
To anoint his successor Elisha. The Lord help us, brethren.
Not to speak against God's people.
There are many dear believers great gifts.
That God has given that do not gather.
Together with us.
Sometimes the remarks that are made in meetings.
I don't say that this is meant to be so, but sometimes it seems to me they give a negative impression about others of God's people.
Remember, they are God's people and He loves them.
They may not be gathering the way we see things. They may not see things the way we do.
But we should love them. We should pray for them.
Even though we may not be able to walk with them in fellowship, that should be always evident in our speech about such persons. Thank God for everyone of God's beloved people.
Those are four things, and I just leave them with you, dear brethren, I want to go on to.
Stay here in this chapter. It speaks in verse 15.
Looking diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God. What does this mean?
Brethren, we stand before God on the ground of His sovereign grace. That does not mean that God's standards are let down to the ground. No, it means no less.
A pure standard of holiness than in the Old Testament it's the same.
The very state, the God of Sinai, is the God of Mount Zion in this chapter.
The same guy.
But we do not stand on the ground of law obligation.
And legislation. We do not stand there, brethren. We stand on the ground of grace. And grace is and will be the power to draw us on to serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. And we need to be alert.
The scripture tells us looking diligently doesn't mean to be suspicious one another.
But to look diligently, lest we depart from that principle of grace, because that is what touches the heart, and the heart is the mainspring of Christian life.
Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God. Verse 28 just to end wherefore.
We receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire. That's just breakfast.
Gracious Father.
Bless thy precious word.