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Guide us, O thou gracious Savior, 276.
Bread of Heaven.
Feed us now and evermore.
Guide us so thou praise Angel, and I don't forget the freedom of life.
We are. We are.
Blinded for us when I fall.
Man.
217.
3 something.
Like that?
So great hiding.
So real hard you.
Forgot.
Uh-oh.
My dream of God the Lord gave us a great thy way.
I have to read a few words that David spoke and the Psalms.
719.
From 33 to 40.
Teach me, alert the way of thy statutes, and I shall keep it unto the end.
Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law. Yeah, I shall observe it with my whole heart.
Make me to go in the path of Thy commandments, for therein do I delight.
Incline my heart until thy testimonies, and not too covetousness.
Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity, and creaking thou me in thy way.
Establish thy word unto thy servant.
Who is devoted to thy fear?
Turn away my reproach, which I fear, for Thy judgments are good. Behold, I have longed after thy presence. Quick me in thy righteousness.
Yes.
I'd like to suggest that we might read Hebrews chapter 12, brethren. They'll mention it in his address this morning, but it was on my heart even before that.
00:05:11
If that is suitable.
That would be very good, Bob.
Hebrews chapter 12 will begin with verse one.
Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which dost 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 it set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Or consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself.
Must she be wearied and faint in your mind?
He has 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 chasteneth, and scourges every son whom he receiveth.
If he endure chastening, God deals 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 Spirit, 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, lest 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 any man fail of the grace of God.
Lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled. Lest there be any fornication or profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of me 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 unto blackness, and darkness, and Tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words which voice they had, they that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. For they could not en 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 the sight that Moses said I exceedingly fear and quake.
A year come unto 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 escaped 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.
00:10:17
Whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.
For our God is a consuming fire.
Chapter 12 follows Chapter 11, in which we have the list of the faithful witnesses of the Old Testament times enumerated. And so when it begins here, it says, Seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight in the sin.
Which does so easily be set as and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.
Our race is a race of faith as well as it was for them in the Old Testament. The exercise of faith and faith is based not on things which are seen, but on the Word of God. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. How wonderful, brethren, to be challenged and to be exercised in our faith and, uh, the race that is set before us.
It's not anything down here. The goal is Christ in glory. And so, so often we get distracted by things down here and we're tired. We're told about.
Weights and we're told about the sin that the census. Those are things that distract us and how important it is to be.
Challenge in view of the tremendous calling to which we have been called, that heavenly calling to eternal glory. And yet so often we get distracted by things down here. The Lord help us.
Yes, it seems that the believers here in, uh, Judea and in the general area where?
Jewish believers were, and of course we know they were in some cases scattered around, but they were on the receiving end of an awful lot of persecution.
First of all, in Chapter 11, the Lord reminds them that the pathway of faith had always been like that. It had never been easy. And right from the beginning it had been necessary to exercise faith right from Abraham on down. And of course even prior to that, all the way back to Abel and Noah and men like that. But it's interesting here that the writer doesn't focus on the persecution they were suffering.
First of all.
He looked first of all at those things that came from within.
There were the weights, the things that are necessary in our lives down here, we might call them the cares of this life, and yet things which can be, shall I say, taken further than they need to, and then they become a weight.
And so the Lord Jesus himself warns us in his ministry.
About the cares of this life and the deceitfulness of riches. But it's always been of interest to me that the cares of this life came first because they are a necessary thing.
And so certain weights.
In that sense, maybe necessary things, but at the same time they aren't to be carried too far. But real weights that hold us back are those things that we don't need. That is, things of this life that are carried beyond food and covering, and then we find that they hold us back in a race, don't they? And then of course, there's the sin, as Bob has mentioned, that easily besets us.
00:15:29
And that has to be dealt with as well.
So God always looks at the things that are within, the things with which we have to deal with individually ourselves from within, before those things that come at us from without, which of course are in the next few verses.
You can see how we can draw up an allergy in today. I'm thinking speaking more to the young people, we, we can picture running and in today's time, you know in our days when you want to run, you just put your shorts on and a T-shirt and you go outside to run. Today you want to run. You have to have the proper gears. Would you be picture those gears, they are very light. You don't carry excess weight.
You don't bring your lunch box with you when you want to run. You want to minimize everything possible so you can have an edge as if it were to run that race. So here I, I, we have to look and say what are the things that can weigh us down? And I'm thinking back as we mentioned this, refer to those of faith. So I was thinking on the 11Th chapter, the two, the first two men mentioned, perhaps bring us back to the basic bill. I was thinking of your stories there.
How you said that man said we need to go back to basic first because if we don't, we can do the questions at end. So the first person mentioned in Chapter 11 of Faith is able. Well, what's so special about Abel's state? Well, Abel learned to offer a sacrifice that was acceptable to God. So is that something that we have to learn as well?
That do we want to do things our way or do we learn that we have to do things acceptable to God? And then we find the 2nd man was Enoch. He walked with God, he learned to walk with him and there was special blessings with Enoch. He was translated out of this world. What a wonderful things when we go back to the basic and learn that we have to learn to do things acceptable.
And learn to walk with God first.
Not just the patients, I believe the translation have it is that we will have the endurance to run that race.
The question of waste is a one we need to continually evaluate rather, and I think it is keeping the goal before us. Eternal glory is before us.
Are the things that we have in life distracting us from that? And so a runner considers constantly if he's running, whether it's going to help him to get to his goal, and we need to do that. I I still remember our brother Lundeen making a statement.
Pilgrim living is.
Simple living and it impressed me and we need to in view the fact that we're going to be called at a moment's notice into the glory. Just think of it brethren who set before us here is the Lord Jesus and how simply he lived in this world. He did not have material things to his name and like Bill has mentioned, it's not wrong.
To have things that deal with the cares of this life. We all have that and we as a father of a family is to be responsible to provide for his family. But sometimes we take it further than it needs to be taken. When the Lord Jesus was here, what did he have? Materially speaking? The only thing I can come up with was the clothes on his back.
00:20:11
Just was impressed the other day in reading through John's gospel again, the end of Chapter 7. All the others went to their own homes and Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. He did not have a place to lay his head and I think he must have spent many nights under the stars. Is it wrong to have a home? I don't think so, but it's the point that he.
Did not feel the need of that. He had come from the Father's house and there was nothing that he was interested in having. And so, brethren, may the Lord help us to evaluate everything in view of that coming eternal glory that we've been called to.
It's important to recognize that.
Many of the people in Chapter 11.
Who were examples to us, witnesses to us of a life of faith weren't running a race.
For 1500 years, most of those people weren't in a race. If you had talked to Abraham, if you had talked to David and so on, and you said are you in a race, I don't think they would have known what you were asking.
Their home, given to them by God, was earth.
And the book of Hebrews had people who started life with this earth as the Center for them, a blessing and life. And if you'd ask them where they wanted, what they wanted, they would say, oh, I'm looking for the Millennium. I'm looking for when this place on earth is really a happy place to live.
What we're taught is back in Chapter 10.
It says the just shall live by faith, and they were treated of God by their faith as just people. And every man of every generation from Adam onward has been put before God to live in trusting God, in obedience to him in faith. But now there's a huge change for these people because they have been given a different hope.
Their hope isn't on earth, their hope is glory in heaven in the presence of the Lord Jesus. But he uses the example to teach them they need to live by faith. And then in our chapter he gives them the supreme example of the life of faith. You have all these witnesses that you can look back at and learn from the examples of their life, but then he turns their attention away from all that.
After benefiting from it and says in verse 2.
Looking unto Jesus. Why? Because he is the perfect final example of a life of faith. That's what's being emphasized in verse two. We look under Jesus in the glory as a man that has run the race and finished it, and now he's given to us as the perfect and prime example for a life that is suited to.
The destiny for him life also is very complicated in some ways because he was the Messiah to Israel and after he was rejected and so on, his mission changed, uh, in some ways. But here he's looked at as his own life. He had to live it with an, an object that gives him joy that was set before him.
And that was heaven. That was the presence of God. And so with that fixed in his soul, he endured everything through which he passed, uh, including the cross, including the shame and why he's now finished the race. And he sat down, as it says here at the right hand of the throne of God and.
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We look at him there, we gaze upon him there, but we learn from his life here as the perfect one to look at, to see what it is that the pattern that should characterize your life and mind and because.
This is not home. The ver uh, the hymn we sang. I didn't get very well past the second line of the hymn because the second line of the hymn used the words barren land.
Is the United States barren land to you?
You live in Canada. Is Canada barren land to you? If that's what you think about when you get up in the morning, that you're in a barren land.
Well.
If you have the world as having a pull on your heart, it's not a barren land, but in the measure in which it's no longer home and there is a home and it's set before you in the glory, then it's a race. It's something that to be endured until the end to the joy that's set before us. And so it's a challenge.
To the soul to recognize what this chapter is going to say to us. The weights that are going to have it and so on are not really going to matter very much in our souls in a practical way unless we firmly recognize that this is not home and that we truly are, like the children of Israel, were on a journey from a world that God rejected God.
To a promised land which is heaven.
To be like God. The Lord has moved the Gold Coast to a, to a better place. All the Old Testament Saints live for this earth and the future blessing that was here on earth. They didn't know anything about heaven. But when the Lord Jesus came and was rejected and he hoped opened up a whole new sphere and he umm.
Noticed at the end of chapter UH 11.
Versus 39 and 40, all these.
And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise.
God, having provided some better things for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.
Hello. Those died in faith not knowing where.
Their goal was going to end up at what kind of a resurrection they were going to be raised in where that was, was it only on earth?
We hear, we hear, see that the Lord, the author and finisher of faith has opened up a whole new sphere in the book of Hebrews is about that. It's about heavenly things. And so they it's so wonderful to have more clearly before us where we're going.
Abraham had a vision of heavenly, a heavenly country, didn't he? He was looking for a city whose foundations, uh, were uh, verse 10 city which have foundations as builder and maker is God. And then in verse UH-16, it says now they desire a better country that is in heavenly. So you must have had some glimpse and I think that's why.
Even though he was a man that had over 300 servants, he was quite a wealthy man. You never find Abraham living in a house, he always lived in a tent and I think it was because he had that before him. Although like you say, I don't think they had it very clear like we do now.
So it is beautiful to see that we are called to greater things, brother, and especially now that we have the full revelation of the Church and it's heavenly calling. What a wonderful thing.
00:30:04
I'd like to ask the question in verse one. What is the sin of that so easily besets us?
Well, I suggest, Bob, that it's different for each one of us, perhaps because we all have been setting sins, and what's a temptation to one may not be to the other. And so it's whatever happens to be the particular sin, or in some cases more than one, that the devil knows very well he can use against us. And he tends to focus, doesn't he, on that particular thing which he knows will tempt us.
I remember reading in our written ministry and I thought it was very good. Of course, this is based on Victorian terminology, but he said a ribbon in a store window may be all that he needs. But on the other hand, if necessary, Satan can up the ante all the way to all the kingdoms of this world. So whatever he feels is needed, Satan will use.
In seeking to tempt us, and very quickly he learns what will tempt you, what will tempt me. So I don't know that we could focus on anyone sin and claim that it is the one sin that besets us, but.
I suppose there are certain things that rise above the individual sins that perhaps could be set us all in a certain way, like pride and self centeredness and so on. But the way I've looked at it is that it's not named here because it varies from individual to individual. Is that commend itself? Yeah, I'm sure that we're all different in our personalities, so that would be the case. Umm, I would like to read a verse in the third chapter.
That perhaps, uh, maybe in a more general way, at the end of the third chapter it says, so we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. And sometimes it suggested that the sin that easily besets is the sin of unbelief. And it is true rather than that that is a problem with us when we have the word of God before us.
There's always a questioning, and perhaps some of us have more of that problem than others, but.
Oh, to simply believe God. Who is it that said that?
If it was a brother, he said that why I might have questions about it, but if it is clear in the word of God that that's what it says.
Brother let's the simple in believing it and if we don't, it can lead to problems in our ongoing race in the in the calling that which words we've been called with.
Translation, last phrase and sin which so easily entangles us.
And that's the character of Sin, especially if you're trying to run a race.
Sin easily entangles and in such way it automatically introduces hindrances to making progress going forward.
And some of us here are old enough to remember a brother who used to emphasize to us just what Bob has been saying. And I certainly appreciate it that.
All are failure, whether as sinners or as Saints, ultimately stems from our unbelief of the goodness that's in the heart of God. Do you remember that saying, Bob? Yes, I do.
And uh, so yes, in that sense, unbelief is the root of all our failure because God wants to bless, and man thinks he'll be happier doing his own will and enjoying the fruit of that rather than the blessing that God has.
00:35:01
On the one hand, we are reminded about the weight of sin that can entangle us and then we can see verse one ends with a comma. It's like the thought continue on. But here we can look unto Jesus. He's the beginner of and the finisher of our faith. But when we look on him, is it only for health? No, we look on him for help and also for example too, don't we? So it tells us how he was the one who.
That's a joy that was set before Him and there it give us some sense of what is to come, that if we are to follow Him, there will be hardship, there will be those that like they despise. And he despised the shame. And we too probably will find out when we process the name of our Lord Jesus, when we stand up for our Lord Jesus Christ, we too will be despised and rejected by this world.
And we should be prepared for that. But anyway, I was thinking when the Lord first commissioned his 12 disciples at the mouth, he told them something very interesting. Uh, let's turn to Luke's Gospel chapter 6, just for a very brief moment. I don't want to take too much time on this there.
In the 6th chapter he he chose his 12 to Commission with Him, and then he spoke to them as if he was preparing them because He knows he wants them to follow him. Let's look at verse 20. And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples and said, now notice here He didn't address the multitude, He was speaking to his own.
Continue on, he said. Blessed be E4I. Perhaps I'm not a good reader and I would admit that I always thought it's a blessed other four, but here it says blessed.
VE 4 For yours is the Kingdom of God. I believe he's saying to them, you're going to be poor. If you follow me, you'll be poor in this world. You think of Simon Peter, He gave up his fishing fleet as if it were to follow the Lord.
You think of Matthew one who did very well as he was able to skim up the money from the taxation, but giving it all up to follow the Lord. He said you're going to be poor, but he said for yours is the Kingdom of God. Your blessing is with the Kingdom of God. Not only are you going to be poor, it says verse 21 plus that are ye the hunger now and then they go on and tell them that they're going to weep now and so on.
So he was preparing them for the Kingdom or for the the commissions to come that they could be and maybe poor, they may have to suffer hunger, they may have to suffer weeping due to the circumstances, but they have the Lord. So we here get encouraged by this thing looking unto Jesus.
Here I believe it is an example for us, isn't it? This is the practical side of Hebrews.
Three more times in the book of Hebrews, the Lord is referred to as being seated or having sat down on the at the right hand of God. And in all three cases I believe He does it in virtue of who He is and what He has done. But here He's an example for us, and we notice that the Scripture is very careful not to carry the wording all the way to the atoning sufferings of Christ.
It mentions the cross, it mentions the shame and so on. And we can follow Him there. We may be called to do that if the Lord leaves us here. And at least in many parts of the world today, many are being called. But you and I have the privilege of following Christ in a pathway of rejection. But.
It's his example that goes before us, and we have the same end of the pathway as he did at the right hand of God.
What carried him through it all was the joy that was set before him.
And because of that joy that was set before him.
00:40:00
He endured the cross, despising the shame.
And it's often been mentioned, the joy that was set before him.
Primarily was to go back into the presence of God into be able to say, Father, I have finished the work that thou gave us me to do. That was the primary thought. But then is also he shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied when he sees the fruit of his work all his redeemed.
That will be the tremendous effects of the work of redemption. What a joy that was to him as well. Because of that. It carried him through the time of the cross, the awfulness of the shame, the pain, the suffering that it meant. And it's what will keep us too.
This life, brethren, is not meant to be an easy time. It's hard.
Everywhere I go I find people that tell me of their problems and I don't have most of the time. Any suggestions how to deal with it?
It's hard.
But it's not meant to be easy, brother. It's a race, and it means us to be focused on the goal and to use our energies in getting down to that goal.
Sometimes when we don't know how to go somewhere but somebody else has been there before and knows the way, they will say to us, follow me.
And so they become the one we follow. They're the leader, if you will, and we follow them to the destination. That's really the thought here when it says of looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, He's the leader.
He is the one who and the first one who ran the race that is described in this chapter. And so he ran the race himself. He finished the race. He shows us the destination of it and as it were, we're told now follow him. Put your eye on him sometimes when it's not a, you know, if you're trying to follow somebody.
Sometimes I've had people supposed to follow me in a car and I get nervous and not too happy with them, to be honest, because they start lagging farther and farther behind and so easily lose track and maybe not make a right turn when they should and so on. But we have one who has run the race to the end. Now the instruction to us is put your eye on that leader.
Who has run that race and keep it there? Don't get distracted, don't stop and sightsee. Don't let certain things hinder you. Just keep going and uh.
His example Where does it lead him? Where did it lead him? To the right hand of God. And so it is. That's where it's going to lead you, and that's where it's going to lead me.
To be in his presence where he is at the right hand of God and, uh, the whole chapter really is the danger of stopping the race. And if it were, if it's only profession, never even getting there at all. Umm. And so we, we have many things that besides the first verse that we see in this chapter that can hinder us from going on.
Umm, even one another sometimes. The biggest hindrances we have are each other and we see failure in a brother and we don't react properly to it and it takes us out of the proper flow of the race.
Spice, the shame. Uh, I was just looking. I brought along, uh, vines, uh, lexicon.
00:45:04
And the spies can have the view of to discount something to view it as of no great thing to to to view it as umm, to underplay it, to downplay it. And so it's saying, in other words, our courts suffering what he experienced. We can have problems that we magnify. We can worry about little things. We can complain about little things. We can blow little things out of proportion. Our Lord did the opposite with that suffering on the cross and viewed it as something temporary, something to be accepted from his father's hand, to be endured, that he looked beyond that to the joy set before you. And that's the example for us.
You know, we can complain about every little thing or we can rejoice in things and we can do that with our own temptations, our own problems, problems with the Saints, trials of life. We can weave them out of proportion and worry about every little thing, or we can do that as nothing and look beyond it lives our Lord here. That's I think the mean of the word despise here.
Just buy something, not just in this context. I don't think to hate it. Sometimes the word we say, oh, I despise that we say. I hate it. I think here it's more the sense of considering it something minor or insignificant, considering it a small thing. I think it was in the Old Testament where we have, and I know it's in our English translation, and she looked upon him and despised him. In her heart. She just counted him insignificant.
And so when the Philistines had taken the Ark.
And they started to realize that it was gonna re lead to real problems like it had led to with the Egyptians. They concocted a scheme to send it back to Israel with the milk cart and the two milk cows. And they weren't sure whether this was really something happening to them from from God or not. So they put it on there and they sent it back and said, well, if it goes back to Bathsheba, if it goes back to Israel, we'll know that it's the hand of the Lord.
Otherwise, it's just a chance. And this is the challenge not to jump ahead, but that you and I have in our in our Christian life with respect to the privilege of instruction or chastisement is to count the Lord's wise and loving efforts with us to instruct us as just everyday common things. To take holy things and to treat them commonly is profanity. It's profane and so to take.
The the wise, loving, thoughtful way that God puts things in our pathway to instruct us for our blessing and growth as just everyday events is to lose spiritual context altogether and is to despise chastisement.
We have the sense of that in the 10th chapter. The apostle or the writer tells us that in the 10 shops we'll talk about the offerings. And what we saw was he said the Lord said, I come to do thy will. There's no detail about how he felt about the offering. He speaks of the burnt offering and the the peace offering and all these sin offering and so on. Well, all we read obviously said I come to do thy will, O God. And then he said, I take away the 1St.
That they may establish the second. Well, we know it. There's a lot to do with the offering that the the offering has the has to be killed. And we don't see that as it it was just passed over knowing that that must be done. And we see that in the case too of Abraham and Isaac. We find Isaac a picture of the son there. We, we thought he, we said that they, they had a knife. They had the fire and the wood with them. But then when Isaac raised the question to the father, he would say behold.
The fire and the wood.
The way is the land for the burnt offering. We don't see the knife being mentioned, but we know though that was the picture wasn't it, of the sun being offered up. So it wasn't as important as it were, but it was looking forward as if it were. So we found the book of Hebrews often speaks of the suffering first and then the glory to follow.
The.
He said to him to about pause as if it were all upon our Lord Jesus Christ to consider him is really a contradiction isn't how he would come to die for sinful man, but yet here what's interesting is that less EB weary and faint in your minds. I was thinking more. Perhaps we will read it in the opposite way and say well, how come we faint along the way at times.
00:50:17
Is it because we did not or we forget to consider our savior of what he has done And you know, fainting is in is interesting because if it's a physical painting, if someone sits here and all of a sudden we see this person fainted or passed out, we would notice we'll run up and do something or try to do something. But when we are fainting in our minds, no one knows that it's like our brother mentioned about this brother who hasn't read in a year and a half.
Well, outwardly we couldn't tell that we all look good.
We all know what to say and how to say it, but are there some? Are we? We cannot ask ourselves that questions. Are we actually thinking in our mind and need sustenance? We need the Word of God. We need to consider our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone can bear us up and lift us up.
The thought and wearied and fainting in our minds, I believe, is the thought of losing courage and losing heart.
I've sometimes thought of this. Maybe it isn't the best analogy, but it makes the point. For many, many years people tried to climb Mount Everest.
They made every possible attempt and they just couldn't seem to do it. But finally, back in the early 1950s, there was a man that did it. He made it. And what result did that have? It inspired many others who said, well, if one man could do it, then why can't I do it? Why can't more people do it? Now? I'm not talking about some of those.
Well seasoned Sherpas over there who probably have lost count as to how many times they've been up.
But the point is that.
Now you and I will lose heart. We will get discouraged unless we realize that there is one who has run the race. He has reached the goal and we have his strength.
Those people that tried to emulate the 1St man that climbed Mount Everest, they couldn't say we have his strength. They had to rely on their own strength, their own resources. And as we well know, some who tried it didn't make it.
But the point is there was one who had gone before, and you and I have his strength. And so it's a very big encouragement to our souls here. So look back, look at the Lord Jesus. Look at everything that was contrary to Him. No one, none of us will ever be called to walk in the pathway with everything against us.
As was the case with the Lord Jesus, we may be called to give up our lives, but the Hebrew believers are in verse four. Ye have not yet resisted under sin or unto death, striving against sin. You haven't had to give your lives up yet. It may come to that. Be prepared for it. Be ready to do so. But at the same time, suppose it does come to that.
It's a victory. It's not defeat. And how many dear believers there have been who have gone to their deaths and they have won the victory. Why? Because they went out of this world, Yes.
Hands of persecutors, but they went out not as criminals, but triumphantly.
Staring their persecutors in the face, praising God to the end, and giving a testimony of the strength that they had to face, in some cases the most awful tortures. And yet God gave it to them in order that it might clearly be seen that they weren't doing it in their own strength. They were doing it in the Lord's strength well.
You and I may not be called to do that, but as we well know from Scripture, it sometimes takes just as much courage, just as much strength as we get in James, to endure temptation day after day, week after week, month after month, and so on. And that's why every one of us can win that crown of life, even if we don't end up giving up our lives for Christ.
00:55:21
I enjoy, uh, the way the.
Spanish translation gives verse three. It's the old version in the Spanish translation says.
It translates to mean reduce your thoughts to him and it really is brother and consider him reduce your thoughts to him when you think of all that he endured.
We live in a culture that wants us to think of ourselves and our desires and our rights. It's not about us, brethren, it's about Him. And so reduce your thoughts to Him. When He was betrayed by His one of His disciples, did He give up? When He was denied three times by one, who said He would never deny Him?
Did he give up? Never. Didn't come into the picture. He went straight forward. All the terrible circumstances that he went through. And so to think about him, to reduce our thoughts to him is the way to continue this race, brother.
Like to notice something that, if I could put it this way, he didn't have when he ran the race, but we have.
Umm, I might hope I don't go too far in it because he did have the most important thing, which was the fellowship of his father all the way through the race. But I want to illustrate something. If you go back with me to Matthew's Gospel chapter 4 and I'll say consider him. We're going to look at him. We're going to consider him for a few moments as he is presented to us in his race.
In Matthew. In Matthew chapter 4.
Jesus public ministry begins and it begins in verse after he's tempted of the devil and found proven to be a suitable servant of God.
Uh, in verse 17 it says from that time Jesus began to preach and to say repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand. Not a popular message.
We have to be careful to recognize the very first word of the public ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ that's recorded for us is a message that is not popular. Repent and sometimes when this matter of shame comes up, I thought about it, have we ever been a little bit hesitant to pass someone attract?
With the unconscious at that moment thinking.
What if I do? What will they think of me?
Or will we despise that is think little of the shame of rejection Anyways, here in Matthew 4, he begins his public ministry and he preaches. We have the Sermon on the Mount which follows. Following that, we have him going from city to city, uh, showing the goodness of the heart of God and healing and doing good. And what's the end result, if you will, of it?
Go to Chapter 11.
By Chapter 11.
All his preaching and all his good works have come to the point of rejection.
In his earthly mission, in that sense, it's all now over. And from chapter 12 on it's the path of the cross. But what does he say to us? What does he say in his own heart? First in his path He says verse 25, after everything is over as far as his public ministry, and he's been fully rejected by those who came to say he says.
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And verse UH-25 At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for it so it seemed good in my sight, He accepts it.
And he doesn't fight against it, but he accepts it and says for it seemed good. And I sight father, but then he immediately turns around to us.
And verse 28 he says, Come unto me.
Come to the man that's rejected. Come to the man that just had his public ministry refused. Come to the man that said repent and there was no repentance and there was shame and envy and dishonor heaped upon him. The people who later on got their chance said we will not have this man. But here he says to us, you Labor, can I say, is the race hard or heavy? Come to me.
And I'll give you rest.
He tells us what so easily makes it difficult for us is he says I'm meek and lonely.
Where we don't despise shame is when we want our reputation. We want people to think well of us, and that's important to us. We don't despise that so easily. But the Lord didn't have that spirit. And he says, Well, you let my yoke be on you and learn to make, and you'll find rest for your soul. My yoke is easy and my burden is light. And if we were practically looked steadfastly upon him in his life here.
And where it ends, then we would be able to walk the path, you might say, in fellowship with him. And that's special to us because he didn't have anyone among men that actually understood. And that gave him the most difficult of all races. With you and I, we run the race, but we also run it or should run it with the conscious awareness that he's going through it with us.
The long distance race isn't that, it is not a 50 yard dash. It's uh.
Something that lasts our whole life long and so the.
As mentioned in verse one, the word patience could be rendered endurance.
Continue.
Keep on, don't give up.
And it's interesting, those that run marathons, they don't take a break and rest a while. That's not in the picture.
Keep on. And so they have to measure their way of of running. And so, brethren, keep on. Don't give up. It's so easy to get discouraged. What is the secret? Reduce your thoughts to him. He went through it all. Where is he now? He's at God's right hand. He won the race.
And so it's a doable race, and it takes concentration. Lord help us to endure.
I think it's good for us, brother, and to realize like Bill was mentioning, that there were in the history of this world those who actually resisted unto blood and to read their testimony. And brethren, it's not only in the past, it's going on today, our brothers and sisters and the Lord in many parts of the world.
01:05:05
Are giving up their lives for the Lord Jesus. I don't honestly know how I would last in that situation. Don't think we can. God has put us where we are and we are to endure where we are. But to realize that here this is something that our brothers and sisters in many parts of the world. I have heard that there were more martyrs.
In the 20th century than all previous centuries combined. And it's never, hardly ever mentioned in the press how many people are killed for their faith in Christ. But it's going on today. People are resisting. Brothers and sisters are resisting into blood.
Still remember Brother Bill, your father-in-law, mentioning the.
Moving story of A2 girls and I think this happened way back in the time of the persecution of the Roman Empire.
Two sisters that were charged with being Christians and condemned to death unless they would deny Christ.
And one was to be taken and burned at the stake first.
And they talked between themselves and said.
Uh, give some kind of a signal before you die.
To tell me if it's worth it.
And so that one was let out and tied to the stake first, and the fire was ignited and burned and burned and the one that was watching.
Wondered if she had already passed, but all of a sudden she.
Sucked up.
And it's worth it.
And then die.
Rather, it is worth it.
This is something that is real.
Right now, in today's world.
Some foreign persecution in this land probably is not as prevalent in other lands, but there's something just as difficult in this land that is to keep its word and not to deny this name.
And with all of these things, we have to remember that those who stood firm and are standing firm today.
As scripture says.
Our men and women too of late, passions as we are. And the Lord gives the grace for whatever circumstances He places us in, doesn't He? And so wherever He puts us, He will give us the grace when we need it to follow in whatever way He leads us.
To the right hand of God that is spoken of here, we can rely on that. These who gave their lives in a wonderful, victorious way. We don't in any way take away from the courage and from the strength that they had. Wonderful. And sometimes you read these stories as Bob was recounting, and you wonder how it could be possible.
Again, the Lord gave them the strength, but He gave it to them when they needed it. And He'll give us what we need too, for whatever path He leads us in.
The fourth in the back of the book gym #4 in the appendix is the victor's name, who fought the fight alone. Triumphant Saints no honor claim his conquest was their own. Hymn #4 in the appendix.
This is loving.
Your time of all the.