Reading
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Read the 12Th chapter of Hebrews. The 12Th chapter of Hebrews. Read it for us, please. Hebrews, chapter 12. 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, as to be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood striving against sin, and you 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 reduced of him.
For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth, if he endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with Son.
For what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not? But if he be without chastisement, whereof all our partakers, then are you ******** 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 and 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 yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet. But that which is lame be turned out of the way. But let it rather be healed. Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord, looking diligently lest.
Fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled, as there be any fornicator or profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For you 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.
For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire.
Nor into the blackness and darkness, and Tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, which voice they that heard and treated, 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 the dart. And so terrible was a sight that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake, But ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God.
The heavenly Jerusalem into 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 justice man 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 refused 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 the earth only, but also heaven. And this word yet once more signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as the 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. Well, I was thinking, brethren, how that in this chapter we have.
Two things specially brought before us. How first of all, God withdrawed our hearts by occupying us with His beloved Son, looking unto Jesus, so that that would be, as it was prayed, the all absorbing object of our hearts. But if it's not so, if we lose sight of Him, if we're not in the enjoyment of Himself, then it may be necessary for Him to use the chastening rod. But it's all in love. It's all.
Back so we really have the two things, and in this nice order that God would seek, first of all, to attract our hearts to Christ just by himself and all that He is and what He has done for us and the pattern for us. If that absorbing object doesn't fill our hearts, then He must use the other. But it's with the same end in view. And then in the end of the chapter He shows us that He's not the principle of law to which we have been brought.
00:05:11
But rather, God has a glorious future ahead of us where love and light will be supreme. And so he sets those two things before us in the end of the chapter. The negative side, what we're not called to, that is Mount Sinai with the thunderings of law.
But instead, a glorious future when we're going to be with and like Christ. And the thought of this not to produce a response so that we serve Him acceptably with reverence and godly fear. Well, I just mentioned these thoughts in connection with this chapter because I believe that's what is necessary for all of us, especially in these last days of the church's history.
In connection with suffering and trial.
He never did feel the suffering though, that we may suffer because of our sins, because He didn't know any sin.
He was not in connection with sin like we are because of our fallen nature. I know it's thought otherwise today, but the Lord Jesus did not have a fallen nature. You'll find this being taught all around us. But the Lord Jesus was without sin. He knew no sin.
But he did does feel with us in that which we go through.
In connection with our trials and difficulties. In fact, these trials and difficulties are all appointed of God for us, are they not? And they have a very definite end in blessing, as we notice here.
And so that we need to remember that if we pass through a trial, it isn't all of because there's sin connected with it. It may be because there's something He wants to bring about in our lives that'll be for our eternal good, no matter what it may be.
Now in the case of of Job, you know, he wasn't taking up the question of sin with Job. There was no doubt sin there, but that wasn't what he was taking up.
Wanted to bring Job into his presence so that he would know himself as God sees him.
And Joel went through deep trials until he found in the presence of God what he was.
Then the blessing came. Before that he was apprehensive.
Not not at liberty in the presence of God. And we were singing that little hymn this morning.
In heavenly love abiding, that's our true position now. We can't enjoy that if we have a feeling all the time that God is against us.
And so God wants us to realize what we are in his presence, and all that we've done is forgiven. We're new creatures in Christ Jesus. When we learn this, we're at liberty in his presence. And that's part of the lessons we have in this chapter in Hebrews, I believe.
It's been remarked that when trials overtake us, as our brother has just mentioned, they may not be trials to which we can definitely point a finger.
The tendency with us is to.
To God that He would remove the trial, and I suppose each of us has experienced that as to our reaction to a trial. But really our prayer should be show me what is to be learned by this trial. Then we are in the path of His blessing being manifested to us.
The 11Th chapter sets before us those of the past who walk the path of faith.
Not perfectly, each one whose name is mentioned there did not walk the path perfectly, but there was much that was an example like we have in the last chapter, whose faith followed, considering the end of their conversation. So that we can be encouraged by the faith of others. But we have a tendency sometimes, brethren, to follow their failures as well.
But we should only follow their faith. But we are compassed to vote with a great cloud, that is.
We have this testimony of those in the past who walked that path and it wasn't easy for them, as it has been remarked. They had many trials and difficulties, but they walked that path and God honored their faith and makes them an example for us. But there's only one that we can look at and see perfection in Him, in everything that He went through in His blessed pathway here He perfectly and fully.
00:10:13
God his Father, he could say, I do always those things that please him.
So the Lord Jesus felt what it was to be hungry and thirsty and weary. He felt even a reproach of men. Reproach has broken my heart, He said. I'm full of heaviness. The reproaches of them, That reproach thee fell on me. It's not wrong for us to feel things, but it is wrong when they create resentment in us. That's the problem with us. When we feel things, there's a tendency to.
Resentment that the Lord Jesus passed through every form and kind of suffering a righteous man could endure, but never was there anything but perfect submission to his Father. Indeed, the only time that we read of him rejoicing in spirit was at a time that to us would have been a time of great disappointment. Those cities where he had preached had rejected him. But he looks up and rejoiced in spirit and said, I thank the Father, Lord.
Heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. And this is so precious, Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. This is the one who is the beginner and the finisher of the path of faith. This is the One who is the object for our souls. It's not so much to what He did to put away our sins, blessed as that is, but rather His blessed path as a pattern for us.
Suffering that he endured in such perfection, well, the joy that was set before him then was going to the presence of the Father as a man.
Having completed the work that the Father had given him to do, now in the fourth in the second chapter of Hebrews, we read of four things that he came to do.
A sin of the Father.
He came, that is four things connected with his death, the reason he died and one was to fulfill all the counsels of God.
But then also that he might make atonement.
Then that he might set those free who were under the power of death ourselves.
But lastly, which gives us more the thought of of Hebrews in general?
Came as a faithful and merciful High Priest.
So that he might be able to succor those who are tried and tested. Now those are the reasons he came to die and to glorify God down here. And so in going back to the Father.
It was that joy that was before him, the approval of his Father, of the finished work, a work that no one but the Son of God could do, and He glorified God in it fully.
So that God is seen by his preacher now in a very different light, not simply as God dwelling in thick darkness as in the Old Testament, His father not only to the church, but in varied relationships, like the nations. In the coming day come ye blessed of my father, so that the Father has been introduced.
As to his authority in general in the universe in a new way.
As we get in Ephesians so that the Lord Jesus has glorified God to the fullest extent. And now going back to the Father, it was joy that was before him.
With that, let's read Acts 2 and verse 28. It expresses that quite well what her brother has brought before us. Acts 2 we'll read 27 and 28. Because that will not leave my soul in hell. Neither wilt thou suffer, thine Holy One, to see corruption. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life.
Then this expression, Thou shalt make me full of joy.
With thy countenance, that's what our brother was saying, His joy to return to the Father's house with the work all done that he had been sent to do as to redemption.
00:15:01
So our our second verse expresses that.
Who, for the joy that was sent before him, endured the cross?
He had that joy before him all through his pathway of returning to the Father's house.
With the work done. But I believe it carries with it the joy of bringing us in, because in the second chapter of Hebrews it says it became Him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain their salvation perfect through sufferings. And that involves what her brother was saying about his priesthood. He served that way too.
A perfect priest for us, but he looks on, I believe, to bringing us in to share in that joy which he has already gone into when he returned to the Father's house. Notice in our our chapter verse 22, it says ye are come now. This is looked at it seems to me.
As something that we are already come to and yet we're waiting for as to an experience.
All this belongs to us. These eight things that follow what we are come to, they belong to us. They are ours in Christ. But as an actual experience we will be there. So I believe the joy the Lord had all through His pathway, where He was a perfect example of a man of faith, was the return to glory with the work done.
And the bringing us there also.
Not rather the fact of our being brought there as children rather than the assembly in Hebrews.
That is, we probably don't realize the importance of that in Hebrews, that we're brought there as children before God.
We don't have the church mentioned in Hebrews, but twice, and that's by reference. It's it's children or fellows as we have in the first chapter, and that's a very blessed aspect of that relationship we have.
Now because of the work of the Lord Jesus were brought before the Father as children and to enjoy that place as children and the liberty that children have it it's not so formal perhaps some expressions that we we have the liberty of children in the heavens.
We're at ease, we're at home there because we're children. It's a blessing thought and also companions in Hebrew to think that not only are we children before the Father, but we will forever be the companions of the Lord Jesus in the glory. Now those are blessed. Bless the truth. I'm not saying that they're more blessed than the thought of the Church. We know that's not true, but still they're blessed the truth and they.
Should be distinguished, would you say, Brother London, that perhaps the expression in Isaiah 53.
He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied with the incorporated in your thoughts. Yes, I believe so.
Yes, he's going to see the results of all his work. Then again, in the second chapter of this book we have that expression, Behold, I and the children which God hath given me, that expresses what we have just heard. Perhaps our introduction into that scene will be those very words in terms of the Father and says here they are. Because of all this, because of all this, we're encouraged in these opening verses.
Run the Christian race with an object before us. There is One who has gone along in that path perfectly, and now He is set before us as the one who is the object. But there are hindrances in the race. The precious Savior in His pathway never allowed anything to hinder Him in doing His Father's will, but He suffered. He suffered more than any of us will ever know. And so if we find the path difficult.
More difficult it was for him, the one who is the object of our faith. And so this first verse tells us, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience. The real word here is endurance. It's a path of endurance, brethren. It's not just, as we might say, starting out with a dash and because we've enjoyed a little time together and starting out, but.
00:20:07
A thing of endurance, it's going on from day-to-day seeking to live to please the Lord. And how many things there are that we could consider our weights. We often say, well, what's wrong with that or what is the harm in that? But no person would think of having a pair of heavy boots for a race. Not that heavy boots are wrong, but just because they would hinder him in the race. And I think when.
We look at our own lives. There are things that we could consider weights, things that we allow to hinder us from following Christ, and we argue for those things and say there's nothing wrong with them. But in the bottom of our hearts we know that they're really hindering us from following Christ. And so if we're told here to lay those things aside, the runner throws off those heavy shoes and says I can't, I can't run with those heavy.
I want to go on in the race and I want to win. And so that's the first thing. And then secondly, there are things that are positive sin now sometimes when it uses the word descend.
It's taken up as the sin of unbelief and I believe that is probably the greatest sin and lies at the root of all our failure. I believe all our failures springs from unbelief of the goodness in the heart of God.
But may I suggest this, that I believe everyone of us have some different thing that is a particular snare to us. What might be a snare, a sin that besets you might be a different one from what besets me. Every one of us have something that we know we have to be constantly watchful about things that we know could easily creep into our lives, dishonor the Lord, and hinder us from following Him.
So we not only need to set aside the weights, but let us in the presence of God, allow him, like the psalmist could say, search me, O God, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. And those things how often a useful person has been hindered by allowing that weakness to.
Take over in their lives. We need to be constantly in self judgment that we don't allow this.
It's so important, brethren, because as it's just been remarked, the joy of the Lord Jesus had when he had completed his journey to have. I think it's beautiful the way it's worded there in the second of Acts, in the 16th song from which it's quoted, it says in my presence is fullness of joy, but in the second of Acts it's rather another side, it says.
Thou wilt make me full of joy with thy countenance, and that is the Father's joy in receiving the Son back as the one who had so perfectly glorified Him.
In his pathway and in the atonement that he made, well, I believe, brethren.
When you and I stand at the judgment seat of Christ, there will be nothing more wonderful to us than to think that there was something in our lives that was pleasing and glorifying to the Lord. And I believe we can have that joy. I believe the apostle had that joy as he came to the end of the race and had the thought of soon being with the Lord. And if you and I would have that prospect before us, we need to be watchful. Every one of us. We have weaknesses.
We have things that could easily hinder our enjoyment of the Lord and our testimony. Well may the Lord give us grace to take this exhortation to heart. And then remember it's only possible by looking under Jesus, not by looking at ourselves or our brethren.
But that Blessed One, who did everything for us and who now lives for us to supply grace to health and time of need.
The work of the Lord Jesus was perfect, and when he went home to the Father's house, he went home.
In in that perfection of that work, and I mentioned this because that our position with Christ rests upon that perfection. And when we get home to glory, we will be in a scene where all is perfect. And it'll be because of this that we are Speaking of this morning.
The work of the Lord Jesus in which He glorified God in every respect.
Redemption was the completion of that work, the fullness of it, and when he went home, the work was complete. Now we know that we still have our bodies.
00:25:11
Are not changed, but they will be changed. But He laid the foundation for it all. So in that day of glory, we'll be in a scene where all is perfect and all things are of God. And so when he went home to the Father's house.
He went home in the perfection of his work, and that's upon which our souls now rest and will rest for all eternity.
About the priesthood of Christ. And in the 7th chapter of Hebrews it says Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God, by him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for us. That verse isn't primarily the thought of saving our souls, it's the thought rather of saving us from paths that would dishonor the Lord or getting away from Him.
And so as it's been remarked, that is the present work of the Lord Jesus for us now. And when it says save to the uttermost, some of us might say as we sit here, but you don't know the circumstances that I'm in, the temptations I'm surrounded with the pressure I have to meet the Lord looks down and says I fully understand he walked through every kind of thing situation in this world that it was possible.
Face and saving to the uttermost is there can't be too difficult a circumstance that he can't supply the grace needed. And so instead of failing, we might say, well, I couldn't help it because the pressure was so great and our precious Savior is our high priest that I would have supplied all the help you need if you had just called upon me. And that's what he's there to do for us to supply the grace to help.
And that's why we have him brought before us as the one. This second verse, when it says the author and finisher, I'm sure we all know that the margin is the beginner or the new translation, the leader. Now that is, he began the path of faith and completed it, and he's the captain of our salvation. A captain in the army might order some of his men into an engagement and he didn't know.
Those men were going to have to meet in that engagement. It might be far greater fire than he knew about, but not so if the Lord ever asked you and I to do something, He knows what it costs beforehand, brethren, he knows the difficulty. And he says I'm there as the captains of supply all your need. So the apostle could say, no man goes to work for at his own charges. We don't have to go at our own charges, our own strength, our own.
But we have one who is able to supply all that's needed, and there he lives all the time for us until that day when the journey is completed, and then he'll call us home.
Encouraging to think of the Lord Jesus.
As the one who walked perfectly here for God's glory in the path of dependence, so tracing his pathway in the gospel.
Is really tracing one who walked by faith and dependence?
As that man Christ Jesus, that pathway was perfect from beginning to end. Well, for ourselves we are called to walk as well and to live by faith. And perhaps we can understand that this is difficult.
Perhaps easy to trust the Lord for our salvation, but just to walk constantly aware of His loving care and calling us to a path that.
Hasn't really that which directs us as to right here, as to the man who sees things as they are in this world and is governed by that, but rather looking on beyond.
This light and trusting the one who is overall so looking unto Jesus is connected with faith, isn't it because He walked the path of faith here, even though as the Son of God, He was that perfect man and that perfect example for each of us in the school of God.
00:30:08
So we have lessons and these lessons he is teaching us.
Because he has gone before us, and in the Gospels we can trap, we can trace every step that has been taken by the Lord Jesus in the light of marking that path out, that you and I in some small way might be called to walk here. Lord Jesus always walked by the precepts of Scripture.
That's what it means to walk by faith.
I'm glad that's brought out because we speak of faith and we don't sometimes realize what it means.
Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God.
The Lord Jesus always acted on the precepts of Scripture, and He often used them in connection with his ministry. Referring back to he would say, Isaiah said, and so on, using the various parts of Scripture in his ministry.
But he himself walked by those Scriptures, even though he is the perfect Son of God, and he could say in the eighth of John, I am altogether that which I say unto you. Still He himself in perfect obedience. The brothers call her attention to in the gospel He walked always.
Using the precepts of scripture as the basis now, what is the difference between precepts and Law?
You find that both in the 100 and 18119 centimeters well.
There's a difference in the precepts of Scripture. It's supposed that one is waiting upon God for his mind.
That's really a precept.
We know that's true too, to the new newborn soul of the law, but in the special sense.
The new nature desires the mind of God to walk by, and those are the precepts of Scripture by the which the Lord Jesus Himself walked by.
I delight to do thy will. He's waiting for the mind of God. And he would say.
I do all of those things that please Him. He waited for a word from God before he would speak or act, and that was complete dependence, but dependence in the sense that he received it from the word of God himself.
Might say, but I'm not perfect, I'm not like him, but I think it's very important for us to see, brethren, that God has given to every believer the very life of Christ.
It tells us in Colossians 3 when Christ, who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. So we possess the life of Christ. And one is often said, God will never ask you as a Christian to do anything that the new man does not delight in doing. We have the very life of Christ, brethren. We're not going to have a different new life even when we get to heaven.
Than we already possess right now. Oh, but I might say I have an old nature beside.
Well, He has provided the power so that that man, that old man, might be kept in the place of death. The Holy Spirit of God indwells us, and it tells us in John three, God giveth not His Spirit by measure. That is, the Spirit of God is a divine person. It's true that we may not be using the power that's there. Many of us have automobiles. We're not always using the power that's there under.
But it is there for us to use, and if we stall on the hill, it's our own fault that we didn't use the power that was supplied. And God has given us a new life, and that life is the life of Christ. And so when God sets his Son before us as a pattern, then he has given us the very life of his Son so that we might follow him as a pattern when we find within us all that horrible old fallen nature that.
Man, God says, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. The old man was crucified with him, and although he is there, he has no rights in our body at all. We're not to yield our members as instruments of righteousness and unrighteousness to sin, that is, we're to yield ourselves to God.
00:35:14
As those who possess this new life and the power has been supplied.
Well, I say this because there might be some here who would say, well, I know the Lord is a perfect example, but I'm just a poor thing and I have so many evil tendencies. Well, that God has given you the life of Christ. He has given you the Holy Spirit. And so he never makes excuse for our failure, but He does make provision for it. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ.
Righteous, When we have sinned, we can come and confess it and be restored. But let's never excuse ourselves for sin. We have this object before us sufficient to fill our hearts, and He has given us His life. And so this is set before us here as an encouragement with our eyes upon Him. Like Peter walking on the water, we can be above the waves and all that's below.
Our brother has brought before us that.
He walked according to the word of God, and I believe we see that.
This in his beginning of his ministry, he said, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. We also find that connected with the children of Israel in the light of the instruction given in Deuteronomy, because he quotes from Deuteronomy and that.
In the very early chapters of Deuteronomy, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Now we know that truth is liberty. Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. And there is enlargement in that path of liberty, isn't there? And this is what really is for us as a child of God.
We have been brought to liberty and to access, and both of these things come before us in the book of Hebrews, and here we are called to run a race.
Not only has.
It happened through grace that we have been saved, but we've been called to run a race and connected with that race. God has given to us an object looking unto Jesus.
But God would give us to realize that there is something before us which the Lord Jesus was looking onto in the light that He says for the joy.
That was set before him and it's been mentioned that endurance is connected with this, and a heart must have an object, and the only object that can satisfy our heart really is Jesus, the Lord Jesus, and the great joy is the joy of seeing Him in the glory.
Face to face and if we're going to endure.
We must have for our hearts that object and that glorious day before us.
When not only that He comes for us, but we are going to come with Him in His glory.
Verse 15. As for me, I will behold thy faith in righteousness.
I shall be satisfied when I await with thy likeness. He will be satisfied when he sees the traveller. Peace, soul. And we will also be satisfied when we are awake.
With His likeness and seek His face in righteousness. He wants His Saints to have an abundant entrance, does he not?
I was thinking of those verses in second Peter there, where it says He hath given us all things that about us, and that pertain to life and godliness. So the Lord has made every provision for us, and you think in Ephesians how it speaks of that power toward us, and in US and with us.
00:40:09
So the Lord has made every provision that we might go on to his glory, and it says.
In kind of a little divine formula here, if you do these things, you shall never fall. So the Lord wants us to be kept, and He wants us to finish our course with joy and be to his praise and glory.
That expression of her brother Alan Collins is not the Psalm 17, the word righteousness there.
It's it's not always perhaps understood the way the word righteousness is used.
It's not speaking there exactly of a righteousness that we have because we've trusted in Jesus.
But it's like it is in Peter two Peter the 1St chapter will need to turn to it. But there we find that we have through the righteousness of God in the sense that God is now righteous, righteous and completing all of his promises.
That's the thought you get that in the Psalms. God is going to complete everything that he said.
And Peter says in the first chapter of First Peter, why he says this is the salvation of your soul promised before. So God is righteous, proved righteous in the New Testament as to what he had promised in the old It's all being fulfilled. And the Lord Jesus goes on high in a completed work. I shall behold thy face in the righteousness.
In chapter 63, that comes before me.
Seeing that we are imperfect, we are in a place that's imperfect, but we do walk.
Helped by a perfect love.
And the perfect wisdom.
In Isaiah 63 and verse 17 there is a verse that perhaps would tell us of the.
Real bottom of the exercise, the greatest depth of exercise that Israel.
Will region perhaps is the one for us because.
We know God loves us.
We know he's in control.
We know he's the author of our circumstances.
So when we have not followed after him and he has not absorbed our hearts.
And we have erred from his ways.
Here is the question before us.
O Lord, why hast thou made us to air from thy wake?
Author of our circumstances.
And harden our heart from thy fear.
What is it? What was the weight or sin that he saw that I didn't see that he wants to show me so that I can go on with him?
For my joy and His joy.
We should always rest. Should we not have been heard in that love that never fails?
And has an end in you. That love is working with us toward an end that we see what is hindering so we can go on.
To the enjoyment of these promises, which He is righteous to fulfill for us. And we know I would add here that God is not the author of evil.
But we see him in love, as the author of our circumstances, as allowing things in our past.
To bring us down and humble us, and we'd like to know why, so we can see it in his presence and judge it, and go on with Christ. What is the resisting unto blood in the fourth verse?
Perhaps you could say the Lord Jesus would rather die than disobey. And so we see him there in the Garden of Gethsemane, sweating as it were, great drops of blood falling down to the ground, and yet saying that my will but thine be done. There sometimes comes a time in our lives.
When there's a great decision to be made, it's going to cost us a great deal. And as we think of the cost, we hold back. We say, well, I just couldn't endure that. The loss of my job, the loss of a loved one, or perhaps even death itself, and loyalty to Christ, like many of the martyrs of the past. And so we have an example. Here was one, and death to him was.
00:45:05
So horrible as we think of what it meant to him to be made thin.
For us, death is what the believers servant, to be absent from the body and present with the Lord. So it's really an encouragement to one, even if it meant death itself, to do the will of God, to be faithful to Him. I sometimes commented, brethren, that it's interesting in the different crowns that are mentioned as being given to believers.
For faithfulness to Christ, there is only one that is mentioned twice.
And that is the crown of life in Revelation Chapter 2.
It's given to us as the martyrs crown. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. But in James chapter one it's given in another side of things. It says, Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he has tried, he shall receive a crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.
Perhaps we think, well, in this country of liberty, I'm not too likely to be faced with having to be a martyr for Christ.
But I know many, many and especially young people know what it is not just wants to say, I won't deny my Savior, but every day and perhaps a dozen times a day to have to say no, to take a stand for the Lord Jesus, to rather please him than have the approval of the world and perhaps even a promotion to be faithful, the Lord says.
You're being faithful unto death in another way.
I believe, brethren, that's what resisting and the blood is. So that person who continually, day after day and month after month, stands up faithfully and says no when there is a temptation presented is really going to be given the crown of life, just like the martyred.
Well, this ought to encourage us to go on faithfully for the Lord, and especially when we have such an example before us. For may I say again, if you or I should face death for Christ sake, what a glorious future just to be out of this world in a moment and at home with him. But to the Lord Jesus, death to him was those hours of darkness that forsaking.
That awful load of sin.
In order that he might glorify God his Father and do His will. So we have an example who endured far more than we could ever endure. What an encouragement for us to be faithful brethren in the little things that we have to meet in comparison.
It's really in a sense losing our lives for His sake, isn't it? The Lord says he that loveth his life shall lose it, but he that loseth his life for my sake shall find them. So to endure the temptation day by day and go on, in a certain sense we lose our lives. Whereas if we compromise in this world because of advantage, then that is indeed lost.
Endure is a keyword in this chapter.
If ye endure.
That's in the seven first.
But now in the fifth verse it says in here forgotten the excitation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, or faint when thou art rebuked of Him. For whom the Lord loveth He chastened, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. So we see here that there is a purpose.
In what the Lord allows in our lives.
And it will come out at our latter end. And I believe, brethren, even though we have sinned.
And we are suffering because of that sin. If there is faith in connection with it and a full repentance, I believe the Lord will use that very experienced for ultimate blessing for our souls. An interesting thing to see here that in the first part we have that Lord Jesus has the perfect example set before us. The object as soon as he begins to speak of chastisement. There was no example in the Lord Jesus of.
Because he always did his Father's will. So that he talks about what we can get through these things. Now, I'm not suggesting that every trial that believers have is necessarily chastisement. We know, as our Brother London remark, there are many things we go through as part of a groaning creation and other things that God may have to deal preventatively. And so there'd be more fruit. But the theme here is.
00:50:12
Chess has meant the Lord dealing with us for something.
So that we might lay aside the weight or the sin that hindering us. And I believe we could say here that there are three different ways that we can treat these situations. We can despise the chastening of the Lord, we can faint under it, or we can be exercised thereby. I believe to despise it means that we say, well, I seem to have more than my share of trouble.
I guess it's just that I seem to be one that has to go through all these things.
And we don't see any particular dealing of God in what He is passing us through. We really despise His hand, for He has a purpose. We find a little bit of that with Job, I believe, when he didn't see the reason God had. And so he said God wouldn't leave him alone till he swallowed down his fiddle. And he said that he had lived uprightly and he couldn't understand why it was happening. I believe that was the.
Of despising it. And Elihu said to him, Surely it is meat to be said unto God, That which I see not teach thou me. If I have done iniquity, I will do it no more. And that is, if he didn't see what the purpose was. It wasn't a good thing to give himself a clean sheet and just say God was hard on him, but rather to ask God what he had for him in the trial, and a willingness to lay aside that.
Her weight so that he might go on. Then I believe to faint under it is just to get discouraged and feel we have too much and more than we can bear. But we have that beautiful verse that God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able.
But rather with the temptation make a way to escape that she may be able to bear it. That is, He's always able to give us what we need in these things.
And so let's not just faint under it. If my child is discouraged and says, well, I think my father's has a pick on me, he's always punishing me. He's going to miss the love the parent has in trying to do him good. And so we can faint under it and then we can profit thereby by exercise. May I just suggest this year to to them who are exercised thereby, I've always been.
The verse did not say find the reason for it because I don't believe we always do discover the reason, but by exercise we profit. And I'm sure all of us have spoken to others and they've gone through a trial. And you say, well, could you say you know just what the Lord had in it? No, I'm not sure, but it's drawn me nearer to the Lord. I can say that it's made me feel His presence in a way I hadn't felt.
So, brethren, we may not down here always learn, sometimes we do, but sometimes we don't. But we can always profit thereby. We can always be drawn nearer through the trial. And I believe he brings these three different attitudes, if I can use the expression in trial. And I believe they can speak to each one of us as we see the danger of the first two and the blessedness of the last one.
Man of the 73rd Psalm, he says. I was plagued and chastened every morning.
He had the entirely wrong outlook, and God had to deal with him in such a way that he realized that he had the thinking of the world, and he didn't get corrected in that until he came into the sanctuary of God. And so I believe, like in Romans 12, we need that renewing of our mind. I believe it is a daily exercise.
There is a difference between.
The chasing that comes because of our willfulness.
And that which comes because of a special work that the Lord is doing in our souls.
And even then sometimes.
As we get in, Job has been mentioned, we have, I think it's the 36th chapter, that in which he exceedeth. There is such a thing as going too far and God has to come in. Now with Job, there are two things in which he was tried 1St and that is that God took away everything that he had. He took away his all his goods, He took away his sons and daughters.
00:55:12
And Job answered.
Blessed be the name of the Lord. Lord has given. He's taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Well then, Satan had to try something else.
So then he brought upon him the boils and all the physical discomforts and trials.
Then Joel began answers that.
Blessed be the name of the Lord, He would not, He would not allow Satan to get anywhere.
Into his heart to turn away from the Lord. That was sure. But then the Lord has to use the third means. He has to reach into Job's heart.
Through his friends and his relatives, I don't think we realize how much is involved in the trials and testings of God's people. I believe there were seven things in connection with Joel. First of all, we had the angels, sons of God. The angels. Those are the ones who are doing God's bidding. They're always on hand. You got them in Hebrews.
In the first chapter, Ministering spirits.
But then we have Satan coming in to test Job.
Next we have the.
Kindred.
Then we have Job himself, the elect 1.
We have Jehovah's friends, someone who said they were used to heat the furnace for Job in his trial. But then we have also the.
They Eli knew who was the days men who came in.
And one among 1000 to bring before job what he needed.
And that is brought in the 33rd chapter I believe. Where?
Showing a man not his righteousness.
But the fact that he should repent is really the thought of that verse so that.
Elihu was the one who brought home the job, the the really the reason that God is dealing with him. And then we have the Lord at the end who actually brings Job on his face.
In two different ways to show job that.
What God is really doing in the book of Job was to give Job to see himself.
As God saw him in his presence, and it's been said and rightly said that many Saints have never been in God's presence.
Never realized what they were in God's presence, and I'm sure that most of us have never realized fully what we are in God's presence. But Job was brought into God's presence to discover what he was now before he said the thing which I feared has come upon me, but not afterwards. He was at liberty afterwards all over with.
But here he was going through life with some some fear upon him all the time he wasn't at liberty.
Until this trial came, but then he was set free and you see the end of the job.
Now he had twice as much at the beginning. It, of course, is not a picture of the church, but it's a picture of God's ways, whether it's the government down here.
Notice that Joe didn't get complete deliverance until he had prayed for his brother. God won't have us harboring any ill feelings and bitternesses, especially when those things came upon Job for his own good. But his friends certainly didn't answer wisely. In fact, they speculated, and they got into very deep water. They didn't answer right as Joe did in the end.
But still, his attitude towards them must have been very bad and so there wasn't a complete deliverance until he prayed for his friends.
Brother Gladding giving a few thoughts on this verse and I made a note in my margin, he said.
Think of four words that begin with the letter P.
And the first was this verse speaks of preparation, it's preparatory discipline and how essential that is.
Dear young people, early in our lives, I rather think it was appropriate to put that word first, preparatory for the Christian life. We need to know this is a child needs to learn the discipline of its parents when it is young and it doesn't like that discipline, but as it grows older it looks back and is thankful for it.
01:00:21
So in the Christian we need that preparedness, and sometimes it comes.
With the chastisement of the Lord.
He said the word preventive.
And how the Lord graciously comes and intrudes, as it were, into a course of life which is not pleasing to Him, and He brings a chastisement that puts us aside, which.
Perhaps we can use the word duress. The duress of the Lord against us causes us to desist. It's preventive from our degenerating further away and withdraws back rather to Him.
But then there also is the thought Brother gave us of the word punitive. Now it's been brought to our attention already that we should never say to one who is in trouble while the Lord is speaking to you because you have done something that needs chastising.
But there are times when this does exhibit the grace of the Lord toward us, and we know His hand of punitive, a punishment for what we have done. And that's done in love as a father loves his child to correct the path and to bring him back into the joy of walking as children before gone.
And then the final one was productive. All these things speak to us of that which can be productive in our Christian life.
If we heed the admonitions of the Lord and.
Don't despise or resist them. Part of this chapter comes in because if we lay aside the weights and the sin which easily besets us, then this is not necessary. In other words, to put it simply, there are two ways to find out the stove is hot. Listen to the warning and not touch it. Or touch it and get your fingers burned and find out the hard way.
And I'm afraid many of us have to try the second one and learn by experience. We touch the thing and we get our fingers burned. Might have to bear the stars too. So it's very blessed that God does give us warnings, does give us the privilege of coming to Him and acknowledging our weakness and finding that grace to help in time of need. I was thinking, brethren, in connection with what our brother Lundeen was saying about Job, too.
There's one thing that I think there's a tendency in us all to resent, and that is false accusation because those friends of Jobs were doing just that. They were really falsely presenting his case, you know? But I think it's important for us to realize that we get, we learn more about ourselves from false accusations than true ones. When a brother falsely accuses me, the natural feeling in my heart is to.
Say, imagine him saying I do a thing like that. I never did a thing like that. I wouldn't think of such a thing. And what does that discover? Discovers just what it discovered in Job and in me. Pride. And that's exactly what God was trying to correct in Job was that pride. It was not for something that he had done, but that pride of his heart that he thought he was better. Just like Peter, he thought he was better.
And so if anyone says something about you or I and it's not true.
Let us say to ourselves, well, it could have been true, I was capable of doing exactly what that person said, and if I've been kept from it, it's only God's goodness and grace. And that humbles us and makes us think more of him because in his goodness he preserved us and He wants us to walk in that dependence. And I believe that's why in the end, Job had learned that dependence. So he prayed for his friends, his friends.
Had brought all these things, now he prays for them because he realizes that God had used them and he was actually no better than his friends in his heart. And if any of us have been preserved, we can only say, like the apostle Paul, by the grace of God, I am what I am.
Well, I believe if when these things come, we sought to take them from the Lord, it would be a real blessing to our souls and we would profit. Let's watch against that spirit of resentment that rises up. God allows it to show us what we are. For the two great lessons of our wilderness life are these, to learn what's in the heart of God and to learn the nothingness of ourselves and the poor, wretched things that we are in ourselves.
01:05:20
And we never fully learned this, but that's what God is teaching us for His glory and for our good. I suppose Joe went through the scourging, didn't he? That's the extreme of God's ways with his, with his children. We got the expression here of my son in verse 5.
Important to notice the relationship when God is dealing with his children. That's in the sense of love because of what he wants to bring out.
In our latter end, and the peaceable fruits of righteousness are in view, are they not?
So this was true in Job's end. There were the peaceable fruits of righteousness.
Seen here on the earth, they may not always be seen here, but there will be a fruit of righteousness as a result of the work in our souls. And so there may have to be the scourging, but it's the extreme. And if we don't learn by faith.
There may have to be discourages.