Address—G.H. Hayhoe
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Like to turn tonight to the 12TH chapter of Hebrews.
Hebrews, chapter 12.
Beginning at the first verse.
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 he sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
For consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be worried and feigned in your minds. He have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin, and ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children. My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him. For whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.
If he be, if he and your chastening God dealeth with you as with sons, For what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not? But if he be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye ******** and not sons?
Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh, which corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?
For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but He for our profit, that we might be partakers of His Holiness. Not 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 fornicator or profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected. For he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.
Well, in the Epistle to the Hebrews we know that it's bringing before us how much.
Better everything is in Christianity than it was under the old order of things in the law. And then when we come to the 11TH chapter, we see how there were those who walked by faith all through the history of God's dealings with man begins with Abel and goes right on to those through that time who walk by faith. And that's what is spoken of in this chapter as the Great.
Cloud of witnesses now that is those who honored God walked by faith because without faith it is impossible to please him and faith is simply taking God at his word. I believe we could say the simplest definition of faith in the Bible is found in John chapter 3 for there it says.
It says.
He that hath believed God's testimony has set to.
Seal that God is true. If you tell me something and I need some other proof than your word, then I don't have confidence in you. But God has spoken and faith believes what God has said. And so Abel believed God, Noah believed God, Abraham believed God. They were those who walked by faith. And it tells us in the second in the 5th chapter of Second Corinthians, we walk by faith not.
By sight. And so how important it is that we see and that the Christian pathway is a pathway of walking by faith.
It's not something that we can see because it goes on in this 12TH chapter to show us that what is before us is the heavenly Jerusalem. We haven't seen that, but faith lays hold of it. Faith makes the promises good to the soul. And so we have a great cloud of witnesses, all those in the past who walk by faith, some of them laid down their lives for Christ.
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Suffered all kinds of things because.
They had faith that looked beyond this present scene. They counted upon God. They had the assurance of His word. And now I believe what is brought before us in this chapter is that God uses 2 means in His dealings with us. First, He would occupy us with the Lord Jesus as the object for our souls. But if we don't have Him before us as the object for our souls, how often He has to use chastisement?
In order to bring us back to himself. Isn't it true with ourselves, with our children, we know that we love to have our children do things just simply out of love for us. We ask them to do things. How encouraging it is when they just desire to please us and when they respond in love to the things that we ask them to do. But if they don't, sometimes we have to use the rod, don't we? And it's, it's.
It's for their good. And you know, God deals with us in this way too. And I believe this is brought before us in this chapter. So we see that in the opening part of the chapter. It's looking unto Jesus. And the second part that we read, it's when God has to deal with us as with sons, but he loves us too well to let us go our own way. Someone has said the worst of all chastisement is that God should leave us to our own ways.
Many of us really want Him to leave us to go our own way, not to interfere. Oh no, it's His love that interferes. But He does desire to constrain us by His love, as it says in 2nd Corinthians 5, The love of Christ constraineth us. And it tells us in the Old Testament with Israel too, that He drew them with cords of love. But then it says in Hosea that He had to.
Beset their pathway with thorns.
Was it for their good? Yes. He even besetting their pathway with thorns was to do them good and bring them back to himself.
So we have this great cloud of witnesses, but it tells us that we have hindrances, and there are two different hindrances. There are things that are spoken of as weights, and then it says, and the sin which dost so easily beset us.
You know, there are weights. There are things that are not positively wrong in themselves. Perhaps we might say, well, what's wrong with this and what's wrong with that? But there are many things not wrong in themselves. But if we allow them to become a hindrance to us in following Christ, then they should be laid aside. They are wrong because we have allowed them to hinder us, as I've often said.
There's nothing wrong with a heavy pair of boots, but if you're going to run a race.
Than you expect to win, you'll probably throw them aside. There's nothing wrong with those boots, but they're a hindrance in winning the race. And if you really want to win the race, why you throw aside the things that are going to hinder you. And I believe there are many weights in our Christian life, things that we might say what's wrong with this and what's wrong with that? But we know very well in our inmost hearts.
That they're hindering us from following Christ.
They're keeping us from making him the true object of our souls. And God desires that the one who fills his heart would fill our hearts. There's nothing in this world that can really feel and satisfy, but the Lord Jesus can. And if there's anything in your life or mine that's hindering us from making Christ our object, it may not be something that's positively wrong, but it may be a weight.
I remember reading.
Someone gave this definition as of a weight.
He said. The first sign is we argue for it against conscience and the second person, the second one was that we go about seeking people's advice, whether we can keep it without wrong. And then we're a little bit uneasy about it. And I think that's true. If you stop to think maybe there's something in your life and you say I don't see anything wrong with it, but you do feel a little bit uneasy about it, don't you?
You and then you argue for it and try to prove there's nothing wrong with it, but your conscience all the time is telling you it is a hindrance and you know it. It's keeping you from following Christ. And then if you can only get a few Christians that tell you it's all right, oh how you feel a lot better about it then. Because these people gave your advice, their advice that you could keep it and there was no harm in it, but all the while you were uneasy.
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Knew that it was hindering you from following Christ. Let us lay aside every weight. So if there's anything in your life or mine that is hindering us from following Christ, let us just set it aside. Isn't it worthwhile that Christ should be the absorbing object of our hearts and of our lives? Does He intend to really rob us of happiness? Has He laid down things in His Word to rob us? Do you think He would have prepared heaven with all its eternal joy?
And then told us that he was going to rob us of all the things that make us happy down here. Never He desires our happiness. When he made this world, it says his delights were with the sons of men, and He was rejoicing in the habitable parts of his earth.
So we have weights here, and then it says, and the sin which does so easily beset us. Well, I realize there are different thoughts about what this sin is. Perhaps in the Epistle to the Hebrews it particularly is unbelief. But I like to apply it in a different way. And that is, I believe that to every one of us there is some sin that is a particular snare to us.
Something that we can say that is my weakness.
That is the thing that I have to constantly meet in my life. It may be many, many things may be different with you than it is with me because we all have different tendencies. And so he says, the sin which does so easily beset us. And perhaps you are thinking of something and I can think of something else that is a particular snare in my life. It's something that's wrong. But it just seems that this.
Nature within us is always giving us the urge in that direction. Well, what a sad thing it is when we give way to it, when we allow something like this to rob us of fellowship with God, hinder our growth in the things of God. And you know, these things often start very small.
Why when a weed starts in your garden when it first begins, it may be a very, very little thing, but if you don't.
Don't pull out that weed. It gets larger and larger and first thing you know, it may choke out your whole garden. And that's why in the 19th Psalm it says.
It says, cleanse thou me from secret faults, those little shoots that you hardly notice that are beginning to grow. And then it says, well, perhaps we'll turn to it just so I quote it right.
Psalm 19.
And the 12TH verse, Who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults, keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins.
Let them not have dominion over me. Then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression. Notice secret faults. Presumptuous sins have dominion over me and then the great transgression. Doesn't that make you think of a weed that's growing the secret fault? And then what is a presumptuous sin? Something that's wrong and you know it's wrong and you still do it.
It becomes a presumptuous sin and then.
It gets dominion over you instead of as the Lord says, sin shall not have dominion over you. For ye are not under the law, but under grace. Now this thing, because we have allowed it, it becomes something in our lives that has dominion over us. And then it leads to some sad act that may break our fellowship with God and perhaps be the ruination of our Christian life and testimony. But it began.
By some little thing.
That was very small, sacred sins, and so there's a warning here about the sin which does so easily beset us. Let us learn the habit of practicing self judgment in little things so that they won't grow into those great things, those things that we see in our hearts that we know are displeasing to the Lord.
Well, then it goes on to say, and let us run with patience or the proper word in the original is let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. You know, it's sort of easy to make spurts in our Christian life and to sort of go to a general meetings and kind of make a little spurt for a while. But then we flagged down we we sort of get discouraged and we slow down again. But the Christian life is 1 of.
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It's one of going on constantly, and that is it isn't reading 5 chapters today and none tomorrow. It's going on each day, reading a portion of God's Word, prayer, getting to the meetings. It's endurance. It's going on steadily in our Christian life. I know that the one who puts on a spirit may go a great deal faster, but it doesn't last. When we were at school, why you could run.
100 yards and you could put everything you had into it and run as fast as you possibly could. And perhaps the one who was running an endurance race for a half a mile or something wasn't going quite as quickly, but he was going on steadily. Now that's the thought here. Let us run with endurance, the race that is set before us. And so the Christian pathway is 1 of endurance.
Let us learn to be steady in our Christian life and to watch that we don't neglect.
Those things that are necessary to go on with endurance because there is a race set before us, there is a prize at the end. And the prize is the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus to be ushered into His presence and to have our lives pass into review. To find out what is pleasing to Him and to know that He valued devotedness to Him. And He is going to reward everything, even a cup of cold water given in His name.
So I say the Christian life then is 1 of endurance, and then there is one who is an example for us. We mentioned at the beginning of the meeting that in the 11TH chapter we have many others, and it tells us in the 13th chapter to imitate their faith.
Whose faith follow, or who imitate their faith?
Sad to say, we imitate people's failures. We say, oh brother, so and so does it, and so we imitate that person's failure. But the Scripture says imitate their faith. And if you see a failure in me, I hope you won't imitate it. And so when we see something in another Christian and that is failure, don't imitate that. But if you see something of faith, it's nice to imitate. It's nice to seek to follow on and be encouraged by the faith of others.
But never make any other person your object in your example, only Christ. He is the only one who is the perfect example for us, the perfect object for our hearts. The psalmist said I have seen an end of all perfection. And you know, if we're looking for somebody perfect to follow, we'll soon, sooner or later see an end of all perfection. We'll never find a person that's perfect but one asked the Lord Jesus.
And so here he says there are many others that have walked by faith. Some began well and didn't end well. Some didn't begin so well but ended very well. But there's one and the force of this expression, the author and finisher, if you have a margin, it says the beginner and finisher. Now that is, he's the one who began the path of faith and finished it perfectly.
He is the example for us. And so I say again, let's not get our.
Eye upon someone else as our example because we're sure if we do to fall into some trap or something because they will not be a perfect example for us, but there's one the Lord Jesus. What an example for our hearts, the beginner and the finisher of our faith or of faith. It's in other words, it's the pathway of faith that he walked his whole pathway was one of.
Praising God his Father, He could say, I do always those things that please the Father, and so instead of making someone else, for example, let's always have the Lord Jesus before us.
Who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross? I believe the joy that is spoken of here is particularly the joy of doing His Father's will. That is in His whole pathway here He did His Father's will, and it tells us in the 16th Psalm, Thou wilt show me the path of life in Thy presence is fullness of joy.
Or as it's quoted in the book of the Acts, it says.
And thou wilt make me full of joy with thy countenance. Just let me illustrate it like this. Here's your child, and you ask him to do something that's difficult to do, and he undertakes to do it. And all the while he's watching to see if you're pleased with what he's doing. And when it's all done, and he has pleased you in what he did, he comes back in. Your face just breaks out.
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In a smile of appreciation and approval and the boy feels rewarded for what he has done.
Isn't it lovely to think of the Lord Jesus coming into this world? What a pathway of suffering and sorrow, even to the cross, bearing our sins, glorifying God. But when he returned to glory, the Father's countenance was fullness of joy. And I can ask myself, and you can ask yourself, is this what we're seeking at the end of the journey? Are we thinking of the time when we appear in his presence and he will be able to say.
Of us in some little measure. Well done, thou good and faithful servant, I tell you. I believe his approval in that day will be full recompense for anything that we have done for him. And I believe this is the force of the expression. Who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross. And just like that boy, it's a hard job, and he works away at it. And then how pleased he is to have the approval of the One.
Whom he loved. And you and I live that way. Well, that was the pathway of the Lord Jesus. He despised the shame. Let the crowd stand around and spit in his face. Let the crowd say he saved others himself. He cannot save. He was looking up there. He was doing his Father's will. Oh how blessed. What an encouragement. And what is God's answer? He sat down now at the right hand of the majesty.
On high. So when it speaks of resurrection in first Corinthians 15, it says, wherefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. For as much as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord, let's not be moved about and give up because somebody doesn't say thank you or because somebody doesn't appreciate what we do. Let us think of the Lord and that's what really counts his approval.
That was a joy that was set before him, and there he is at the right hand of God, and God has exalted him to the highest place of honor. God also hath highly exalted him, given him a name which is above every name. It's God's answer to that perfect pathway here in which he glorified God his Father.
For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. I might say that the Christian pathway is difficult. I can't stand it to be misunderstood. I can't stand it to have people say things about me. Well, he says, consider the Lord Jesus. Think of all those who spoke against him, who laughed him to scorn.
And yet he went on steadily.
In His pathway, ever during his Father's will, ever seeking the blessing of man. What a blessed pathway of love, the one who was meek and lowly in heart.
And so it says here in the fourth verse, Ye have not yet resisted unto blood striving against sin. I believe the thought there is that he would rather die than disobey.
It doesn't matter what that pathway cost him, he would never turn aside from it.
He said, not my will, but thine be done. And so he went on in that pathway. He died. He shed his precious blood. He resisted unto blood. Satan could never, never turn him aside from the path of obedience. He was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. And when he says, ye have not yet resisted unto blood, he simply sang, Well, you may have found the Christian life difficult.
But you haven't yet died in loyalty to Christ. You haven't yet suffered martyrdom for his sake. Keep on, he says, no matter how difficult the pathway may become. And so we can see in these first 4 verses how God is seeking to touch your heart and mine in occupation with Christ. Because if we're truly occupied with Him and have our eyes upon Him, then we will go on in faith and faithfulness.
In the pathway. But alas, sometimes we deviate. We get discouraged, we faint in our minds, we don't lay aside the weights, we allow some sin to beset us. Is He then going to forsake us and leave us? Oh no. Then He does the Father's part, and that's what's brought before us in these verses that follow. He corrects us.
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And chastening is often necessary in our pathway, He sees.
That we need those things that He brings into our lives in order that He might bless us. I don't say that every trial that comes is necessarily in the form of chastening. I believe there are different reasons why God brings trial into our lives. Sometimes they may be preventative. It says every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. And that is.
Because he would have more fruit, and so he passes us through something to draw us nearer to himself.
Born in the flesh, not because he was exalted, but lest he should be exalted. But this chapter brings before us God's ways with us in chastening. And there's not one of us here tonight that can say if we're true children of God, that we never needed any of his chastening. What son is he whom the Father chasteneth not? And he said, if we don't have it, we're ******** and not sons. If we're in the family, we're going to have to have correction. And so.
I can safely say that every trial is not necessarily chastening. I must say that every one of us need his chastening hand. This Scripture shows us that every one of us need it. And so he tells us. He have forgotten. The exhortation which speaketh unto you Was unto children, my son, despise not thou.
The chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him.
And so he brings before us here in these verses.
Three different attitudes that we can take in chastening. In the fifth verse it says, Despise not the chastening of the Lord in the latter part of the verse, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. And then it says, in the end of the 11TH verse, It yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them, which are exercised thereby.
Now there are three different attitudes that we can take.
In chastening we can despise it now, that is, we can say when some trouble comes into our lives. Well, I guess everybody has trouble sometimes. I don't think the Lord has any purpose in this for me. We're actually despising the fact that He has laid upon us to teach us something. And you know, we shouldn't take this attitude because when the Lord brings trial, there is always as Peter tells us.
And needs be, it says.
Because if needs be, ye are in having us through manifold temptations. There is a needs be as well as a purpose of love. For it says whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth. So there is a needs be, there is also a purpose of love.
So here we are told, Despise not thou the chastening of the Lord. Now let's be careful that we don't become indifferent. And I do believe, brethren, that if we learn to take the little things from the Lord, that very often we could learn from the little things what He has to show us in the greater things in our lives.
That is, no parent likes to give his child a real hard chastisement. But if he won't pay any attention to the little corrections and perhaps the little tap on his hand, the parent may have to deal a little harder. And so God doesn't want to have to deal with us in such a way as it says in the 33rd chapter of Job.
It says that God speaks in a dream.
And if we don't listen to that still small voice, the reason it says a dream, it means some way, perhaps not very painful, but something that He is speaking to us in a gentle way. If we don't pay any attention to that, then as you go on in that 33rd chapter, it says he's chastened on his bed and the multitude of his bones with strong pain. His soul abhorreth meat. You can see from those verses that God is speaking.
Loudly, and it says, his soul draweth nigh unto the grave.
And his life to the destroyers now that is God often has to speak to us in a very serious way. And it's a good thing for us to always seek to take these things and not just take that they're a matter of chance. They don't come into our lives by chance. All things work together for good to them that love God. And God knows just exactly what each one of us need in order to bring us to.
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To come into his presence and get closer to him that we might be partakers of His Holiness, I was very pleased to hear.
Marjorie Fiedler say that as perhaps many of us know, she has been afflicted and sitting in a wheelchair and she said I wouldn't have missed these last two years in my life for anything. Well, she's not despising the chastening of the Lord, she's not fainting, but she is receiving a blessing through it. It's lovely when we.
Take that attitude and you know there are many different ways.
That God may speak to us. And God spoke to Job in the sickness that he had. He spoke to him by the loss of his family and his wealth. He even spoke to him through the false accusation of his friends. It was all part of God's dealings with him. And all this was necessary and finally was used of God.
To bring Job to repentance, he.
In one sense, on one occasion he actually despised the chastening of the Lord because he said this. If the scourge slays suddenly, he will laugh at the trial of the innocent. In other words, he was saying, well, when there's a scourge comes, well, it doesn't matter who you are, whether you're doing right or wrong, it just falls indiscriminately.
But Elihu said, Oh no, Job, God has a purpose. Ask God what He is trying to show you. It says, it is meet to be said unto God, I have borne chastisement that which I see not teach thou me. And so were not to despise the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him. We can get very discouraged under His chastening hand, and you know he doesn't want us to be discouraged.
I've, we've had children and you know, we, we always felt very sad if our correction of them discouraged them. That always made us feel badly if they got discouraged and thought we were trying to be too hard on them. And here he's telling us not to faint because even as parents, sometimes we might be too easy, we might be too harsh, but not so is God our Father.
He knows just exactly what each one of us needs.
The trial that came in Job's life might have seemed harsh, but it wasn't too hard. It was necessary. And God blessed the latter end of Job more than the beginning. He really looked back upon that and got a real blessing. But it certainly was not an easy thing to go through. And so we're not to faint when we're rebuked of him and the reason given for whom the Lord loveth he.
Face nothing and it's always in love. Whatever he allows to come into our lives, it's in love. It says all things work together for good to them that love God to them who are the called according to his purpose, and then the next verse tells us what he is doing with us. It says for whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son that he might be.
The first born among many brethren. What is he trying to produce in your life and mine conformity to Christ. He is seeking to make us like Him. And just as it tells us in I believe it's the prophet Malachi, it says he will sit as the refiner and purifier of silver.
And So what does the refiner and purifier of silver do? Well, the ancient custom was that they put this into a Crucible and then they.
He watched and he would look into this Crucible and when all the impurities were removed, then he saw a perfect reflection of his own face in the Crucible. There was nothing to hinder that reflection. And what is God trying to do with us? Well, there's a lot of things. There's a lot of dross to consume in US, and so he passes us through things until.
There is that reflection of himself in us, as the scripture says.
That the life of Jesus. Well, I'll quote the whole verse.
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We which believe, or we would deliver all we delivered unto death for Jesus sake, that the life of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. And so we see how that God passes us through these things in love.
And he doesn't do this with unbelievers. He tells us that if we are without chastise.
Whereof all are partakers, then are ye ******** and not sons. Sometimes people will say, well, Christians seem to have more trouble than unbelievers. Well, that's because we're in the family.
If there's a difficulty and my child and another child are involved in the problem, why I may not have anything to say to my neighbor's child? It's not my child. I don't undertake to correct that child. It's not mine. But I do have something to say to my own, and perhaps I might even punish my own because it's my own. I let the other go Scott free.
And the rich man in the 16th of Luke apparently had a very easy life.
He was told in a lost eternity, he was told thou in thy lifetime receiveth thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things. Yes, that rich man probably had a good life, maybe had good health, maybe things that he did prospered. And maybe people looked on and says, how's that? That fellow there, He's so selfish and yet everything seems to come his way and here's this man and he fears God and why is it that he's in trouble?
Well, the Lord deals with his own. The time has come. The judgment must begin at the House of God. It begins at the House of God. And so if the Lord doesn't deal with us, if I see a person who professes to be a Christian, a true child of God, and yet I see him go on in an evil way and nothing happens in his life, frankly I begin to wonder if he is a child of God at all.
Because whom the Lord loveth he?
Chasteneth he sends these things for our good, as it tells us.
It tells us in the ninth verse, we have fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence. But these very same fathers, it says in the 10th verse, chastened us after their own pleasure. I respected my father, and I hope you respected yours. The Bible says, honor thy father and thy mother, which is the first commandment with promise. But you know I was sometimes a selfish father. I sometimes told my children to be.
Quiet, not because they were doing anything wrong, but for my pleasure. I just didn't like the noise. It bothered me. And so I told him to be quiet. I did it for my own pleasure, and that's what he says. They verily, for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure. But God always does it for our prophet, that we might be partakers of His Holiness. Isn't this good that he sees something that we need, and so He does it for our profit?
Now that we might be partakers of His Holiness, that is, as we have remarked before, holiness is the abhorrence of evil with delight in good, and He would have us to be practically like that. We have fallen natures that love sin, but he wants us to manifest the character of the family of God. God our Father is a Holy Father, and if we're going to walk in his company.
Need to remember that our father is a Holy Father and just like here's my child and her clothes are dirty and her face is all dirty and I'm going down the street and I say, would you like to come along with me? And she says yes and I said, well you'll have to change your clothes. She says, don't you don't you love me with dirty clothes? Don't you love me with a dirty face Oh yes, I love her with a dirty face and I love her with dirty clothes. But if she's going to enjoy my.
Company. I want her to be suited to my presence as I go down the street and take her into the stars. And now God, my Father, is holy. He loves me even when I failed. He corrects me because He loves me. But if I'm going to enjoy his company, he is a Holy Father. He wants me to be, in a practical sense, a partaker of His Holiness. And so that's what he is telling us here is his purpose.
In the chastisement.
And then the 11TH verse says, now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous. I've heard some say, well, Christians should be happy all the time. Well, yes, and we shouldn't fail. But when we do fail, and sometimes it's not a good sign to see a disobedient Christian acting as though there was nothing between him and the Lord.
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I'd rather see him with his head down. I'd rather see him if he's going on, carry on carelessly.
Feeling that he is not walking in fellowship with God his father. If I punished my child and my child is laughed, I would say, well, I I didn't want him to take it that way. I wanted him to feel that I was really correcting him. But if he came the next day with a smile on his face and said, Dad, I know I was pretty rebellious. I needed that.
Then I am very thankful afterward. Afterward, it yields.
The paceable fruits of righteousness to them which are exercised thereby, and the Lord allows us to come under His hand and under the chastening. Why, we may not be able to be joyful, but when we have profited by it, then we can say, like the psalmist said, it was good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn thy precepts. And he said again before I.
Was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep thy word, so you can see that what the Lord is showing us here. And I say again the three attitudes, and that is to despise his chastening.
It is to feign under it, that is to get discouraged and say, well, I just seem to be in trouble all the time, or to be exercised and to profit thereby.
Now, I've been very instructed to notice that it doesn't say here that we necessarily learn some particular reason why it was allowed. It says it yields the peaceable fruits of righteousness to them which are exercised thereby.
And sometimes Christian may go through a trial. Perhaps I could say even about Marjorie Fiedler. If I said Marjorie, why did the Lord allow that? I don't suppose that she could say well.
It's something particular that I did. I hardly expect that, but I, I think I can say that we can see in her life the peaceable fruit of it, and we can see one drawn much nearer to the Lord. And she acknowledges that. And so sometimes a Christian may perhaps have to say, well, I don't know just exactly what purpose the Lord had in that, but at least it has drawn me nearer to himself.
It yields the peaceable.
Fruits of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. God's dealings with Job was not for anything particular that he had done, but there was something underneath. There was a self-confidence, a self righteousness that he needed to discover in the presence of God. And when he discovered that you see the peaceable fruits of righteousness in his life and the.
Beauty and loveliness of Christ was seen after he had gone through the trial.
And so we see here that God knows how to use these things in blessing. And I want you to notice the two things, and I think they're beautifully brought together in this chapter. First, that God seeks to occupy us with Christ, to cause us to run the race, the Christian life with Christ before us as our object, and be willing to endure anything and to give up anything in order that he might be the all absorbing object of our Christian.
Life but when he sees things in us that don't correspond to His Holiness and his mind, then in love he puts his hand upon us. But it's all for the purpose to do us good. It's all for our blessing. And so he goes on. Wherefore lift up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees. It's so we're so prone when a problem comes to say, I give up and let her.
Hang down and our knees become feeble, and to become discouraged. And so he has brought this line of truth before us here in this epistle to encourage us to show that we should lift up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees. Never allow any trial in your life or mine to cause us to give up and say it's no use. It is for a purpose of good and for blessing.
Because as the end of the chapter shows us, what is the future that's before us, the heavenly Jerusalem and that place where we're going to spend eternity, where all is bright and glorious, is set before us. That Kingdom that cannot be moved. This is what's ahead of us. And God is working out his own purposes and bringing us there.
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And then he says, And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way. But let it rather be healed. Now, that is, don't get discouraged, but let us make straight paths for our feet. We tend to make crooked paths because we get our eye off Christ.
Just like a man who's in the olden days when they used a plow and broke the furlough across with.
Horse in front of him why he had to fasten his eye upon a tree at the other side of the field and if he didn't keep his eye on that tree he made a crooked furrow and he needed to keep his eye constantly on that and go on with that before him and now that's what he's setting before us here. He says make straight paths for your feet have sometimes used the illustration up in our country we have deep snow and you know sometimes when you try to make a path through the snow.
Why? If you don't have your eye on an object at the other side of the field, why? It's amazing how crooked the path can be. Because you're just going and you're not. You don't have any object before you. Well, I sometimes use this illustration.
You start along and you realize you're making a crooked path. So then you get your eye on the tree or whatever on the other side of the field and you go on and you start breaking a straight path. And then, you know, you begin to think, I wonder how I'm getting along. And you look around to see how you're getting along and you start to compliment yourself on how well you're doing. There was that crooked part and that nice straight one where you had your eye on the tree.
And then you realize you had your eye off the tree while you were complimenting yourself and how well you're getting along. So you put your eye back on the tree, but you have a little sad discovery on the other side that there was a second crook where you were trying to pat yourself on the back. And you know we do this. And so he says, don't, don't get discouraged. Don't let your hands hang down, but get your eyes looking off unto Jesus.
Have your eye upon him.
And we make straight paths for our feet. And it says, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way, because very often.
Like Jacob, you know, after the Lord had dealt with him, then it tells us that he halted upon his thigh. Poor Jacob, he he was lame the rest of his life, and he halted upon his thigh. But he didn't give up. And the latter part of Job's life was the most fruitful part of his life.
Life. It tells us in the end of his life that he blessed the two sons of Joseph and worshiped leaning on the top of his staff. He didn't allow his lameness to turn him out of the way he went on and the latter end of his life was really a blessing to read as we see how he was restored. I've always been struck to how when he stole the blessing from his.
Brother and deceived his old father.
His father couldn't see, so he didn't know which boy he was blessing. But when Jacob came to the end of his life, his eyes were dim, and the two boys were placed before him, the two sons of Joseph. And even though he couldn't see, the Lord guided him, and he crossed his hands, and he blessed the right ones. It showed, you see, that he had learned in the school of God not to count upon himself at all, but to count upon the Lord, and with short.
Vision and with.
The staff to lean on. He blesses the right one, you know, it's so lovely to see how this to all turned out for profit.
And so he goes on follow peace with all men, and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. Isn't it beautiful the way these two things are brought together? Man would have peace at any price. Man would have peace at the expense of truth and holiness. God's peace is never at the expense of truth and holiness, but God's peace is always a holy peace. And so that's what He did at the cross. He didn't pass over my sins, He made a holy peace.
Pace Thou judged my sins according to what they deserved, but judge them in such a way that He could bless me and bless me so abundantly. So in our practical lives, it's good for us to see that peace and holiness are brought together, just as we have too in Ephesians 4. Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, and that is the unity of the Spirit, shows that it must be according to holiness.
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And according to God's mind, but it's also peace. And so isn't it blessed to see the two brought together?
Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God. And that is, we're never, never to forget that all God's ways with us are in grace. We don't get any good thing from God because we deserve it. I didn't get salvation because I deserved it. I didn't get anything in my Christian life because I deserved it.
It everything that he bestowed is on the ground of grace.
The moment we think that we have some right to claim something, then we take the ground that Job took.
Job said I lived a blameless life, thought oughta bless me. There's no reason here's other people. I lived lives that were wrong. It's all right. They should be judged, but not me. I lived a blameless life. I should be blessed on that ground. And what happened? Roots of bitterness sprung up in his heart. He began to speak against his friends and really what the Lord was trying to show Job.
That he was nothing and that he needed to humble himself. And then?
What blessing he bestowed upon him, it says that the latter end of Job he had twice as much as what he had before. O brethren, let us never lose the sense of grace. God bless us on that ground, and if he has in any wise blessed us and kept us all, we can just praise him. We can't say it was because of me, and it was because of anything in myself.
And so it says here.
As to any root of bitterness springing up trouble, you and thereby many have be defiled. The moment we get off to the ground of grace, well, then there's bitterness comes into our hearts. But when we realize that we deserve nothing, it's only His sovereign grace, then we see ourselves as trophies of His grace. We don't think that we're any better than other people. We just thank Him and praise Him. And I'm sure when we get home to glory, we're going.
You know, just marvel at how patient he was with us. We're just going to say how wonderful that he ever did bear with us in all our shortcomings and failures. Well, may he give us then to value that grace. We need to watch diligently that we don't get off that ground and think like Job that we can claim something. Peter thought that he could do something in his own strength whenever we get off that ground.
Then we get into difficulty. It's grace that saves, it's grace that keeps, and it's grace that is going to be brought unto us at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Now the next couple of verses.
Show us the course of Esau, lest 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. This is very solemn, because.
God is showing.
Us the end of the path. No true Christian will ever be allowed to go to the end of the path. God corrects us as his children and draws us back, but he shows us the end of the path. Here was Esau and all he was thinking about was the blessing. There was no thought of what was right before God at all.
He he didn't mourn because he had sinned.
And he just mourned because he lost the blessing when it says he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. It isn't that he sought repentance carefully with tears. What he sought was to get back the blessing that he had already sold to his brother. And so with King Saul, he was very sorry when he thought he was going to lose the Kingdom. But you never find him.
Acknowledging his sin before God and you know, a real Christian.
Who gets into the presence of God will always acknowledge what he has done as being something that has dishonored the Lord. Whereas if we a man of the world, he will be sorry if he's caught. He'll be sorry if he has brought some trouble on himself. But it isn't until we get into the presence of God that we're sorry because that we're dishonoring the one who has done so much for us.
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And so when it brings in Esau, it contrasts the feelings that arise in the heart of an unbeliever. Esau, as I say, he was only sorry that he had lost the blessing, and he was very upset and angry about it. And so when you and I think of God's ways with us, we ought to think first of how we have dishonored the Lord.
When Job came to the end of himself, he doesn't say, well, why did I lose?
My property, Why did I lose my family? Why did I have all this sickness? He just thinks about how he has.
Bought against what God was doing. And so he just simply says I repent and abhor myself in dust and ashes. He wasn't thinking about the lost blessing, but God restored to him twice as much. So I say again, there is a difference between that which takes place in the believer's heart.
Where he profits by the things that God brings into our lives. And then there's the attitude of the unbeliever. We've met many unbelievers like this. When trouble comes, they just rebel. They're not sorry that they have left God out of their lives, but they're just angry with God's dealings with them. And that was the case of Esau. And So what a sad end there was to Esau. I hope there's no one here tonight.
Who is a rejecter of the Lord Jesus? Who is refusing?
Wondrous grace because you might have an easy life, you might go on and be like the rich man and have good health and everything in this life that oh, I warn anyone here that's not saved if you die without Christ. The scripture says after death, the judgment, after death, the judgment, but with a believer, God is working these things out in our lives and let us.
Profit by what he brings before us here.
And know that all His ways with us are in love. And if He does have to correct us, and He does every one of us at times, now let us seek to profit thereby, and learn that He has a purpose of love in it, and that He is seeking our good in the trials that He passes us through.