Address—G.H. Hayhoe
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The 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 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.
Joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest she be wearied and faint in your minds. He have not yet resisted unto blood striving against them, 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 rebuked of him.
For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not?
But if he be without chastisement were of all our partakers, then are ye ******** and not sons. Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh, which corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but He for our prophet, that we might be partakers of His Holiness.
Now no chastening for the Presence 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, as 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, three 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 you're not common to the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor with unto blackness and darkness, and Tempest.
And the sound of the trumpet and the voice of words, which voice they that heard and treated that.
The word should not be spoken to them anymore. They could not endure that which was commanded. And if so much as a beast touched the mountain, it shall be stoned or thrust through with a dart. And so terrible was the sight that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake. But ye are common to the 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 justice, 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 evil. Well, I read this portion of God's word here tonight because I believe it's a very precious thing for our hearts to know that the Lord desires our company. We know that when sin entered the world.
The very first words that God spoke were.
Adam, where art thou? God became a seeking God, and the cross of Calvary shows that not only.
As God in his wondrous grace delivered us from coming judgment, but he has prepared a way that we could enter into all that was in his heart for us. As one has sometimes said, when man forfeited all of God intended for him in the Garden of Eden by God made the promise of a coming Redeemer. And in reality what he was saying is you've spoiled this world, but I have something better for you than what you've spoiled and at great.
To himself, the redemption was far greater than creation. He provided a way.
That you and I could have a place in that coming glory, in the nearest possible place of relationship that His love could provide. Oh, how wonderful when we get hold of this, because I say again, it shows to us that what God desires is our company.
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We find that the Lord walking in the garden and the cool of the day was just to show Adam.
But he didn't just want him to enjoy all that his hand had provided those good things in the garden, He wanted him also to enjoy his company. But Adam, as we know, hid from him, and man's been doing the same ever since. He's been running away and hiding from God. And how wonderful if someone has put it.
The difference between a Sinner and a St. is that a Sinner hides from God and a St. hides in God. The Sinner runs away, where for us your life is hid with Christ in God. But you know, Lord, the Lord has provided this wonderful future for us where we're going to enjoy His company forever on the ground of redemption.
Because in that coming day, it tells us, the triumphant voice in heaven says.
Behold, the Tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and God himself shall be with them and be their God. That's the eternal state. That's the fulfillment. Shall I say of all the purposes of God that we should enjoy not only the wonders of new creation, but that we should enjoy the company of the one who made it all and who provided a way in grace that we could be there? But Brandon, the reason I read this chapter is.
Because I believe this shows us that he also wants us to enjoy himself and his company on the way. You know, you can, you can go to see a friend and you can have a very happy time in the friend's place, but a very miserable time getting there. But the Lord not only wants us to have a happy ending to the journey that's assured through the work of Christ, but He also wants us to have a happy journey there.
The Christian is the only person who really has a right to be happy.
The man of the world doesn't. If he only knew what's ahead of him, he couldn't be happy. It's only because the God of this world hath blinded the minds.
Of them that believe not that people of the world can be happy. They don't realize the awful future that's ahead of them.
But isn't it also true that we who know this glorious future are often not in the enjoyment of our portion? We're not walking as we should in the company of the Savior. Oh, you say it's a difficult day. So it was an Enochs day. But Enoch walked with God. That's what Enoch enjoyed even in a day when in ungodliness was filling the earth. Violence and corruption previous to the.
Enoch walked with God someone wrote a little poem he walked with God could grander words be written not much of what he did or said was told not where or what he wrought was even mentioned He walked with God brief words of faithless gold what a marvelous thing in the midst of it all here was a man who walked with God and I might say for those who are parents, but it's very interesting to notice that the.
He began to walk with God was after he begot his first boy, Methuselah and then it tells us that after he had had his first child, he walked with God for the rest of his life, 300 years. And so, you know, sometimes the Lord teaches us things in this way. He brings us his parents to feel a different sense of responsibility when we enter into family life. Well, in Enoch's case it was.
Thing when that first child arrived, it evidently created a stir in his heart and he began to walk with God. Well, how important that this should be so well, as I say, this chapter brings before us, if I could put it in this way, the two means that God uses to draw our hearts after himself. And I believe this is a very serious and yet blessed thing for us to consider first of all.
He seeks to draw us after the Lord Jesus.
Looking unto Jesus, he seeks to draw us, as the Scripture says, with cords of love.
Just as He did with Israel just before they were carried into captivity, He entreated them. In these words I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee. In other words, He wanted their hearts to respond to His love and be drawn by those cords of love after Himself. But we know that it wasn't always so. And if we're honest, we have to confess it isn't always so with us.
We're not always responding to His love like we should. And so it tells us in Hosea that he said, therefore I will hedge up their way with thorns. Why did He do that? If he loved them? Why did he hedge up their way with thorns? Well, it was to make them realize that they had left Him out and that they had made all their plans and done all their arrangements without Him. And isn't this sometimes true of us?
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We lose sight of the Lord like Peter we seek, we start to follow a far off and then the Lord does just that with us. He hedges up our way with thorns. A lot of things crop up in our lives and we begin to be concerned why this and why that? But why has it been allowed? Well, it tells us here whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth. And if you read the prophet Hzea, why?
You see that the book closes with Israel saying, Take us words and let us return unto the Lord.
Yes, after hedging up their way with thorns them he used these trials and already passed them through to bring them to the point where they would say I'll come and let us return unto the Lord, for he has smitten and he will heal us. And so there was a return to the Lord and they said we'll what have I to do anymore with idols? And then he says.
We'll offer to to the Lord the calves of our lips.
That is what set them free from these things. Well, now, it should have been the attraction of His love, but instead the Lord had to use thorns, the thorns of the wilderness. And I say again, He often has to do this with us. But as dear Mr. Darby once said, He said the worst of all chastisement is that the Lord should leave us to our own ways, to leave us alone.
In a path that is not for His glory and for our blessing.
Would not be a real kindness any more than it would be a kindness to a parent for a parent to leave their child uncorrected. The scripture says he that loveth his child chased nothing be times it's love that leads him or that should lead him to bring about correction. Now no parent ever wants to do that. Every parent desires that the child would be attracted to them and drawn to them by love. But.
Sometimes the other is necessary. And so this is what is brought before us in this very interesting chapter. I believe the two ways that God uses, and I believe we ought to realize them. And first of all, isn't it nice? The chapter doesn't begin with the chastisement side. It begins with with what I might call the objective side, setting an object before our hearts, setting the one before us who is the one who has run the path of faith.
Has walked the path of faith perfectly as our example, and who loved us enough to go to Calvary for us. So when he begins here by saying, wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses. Let us lay aside every weight. Well, this cloud of witnesses, I believe, refers to what we have in the 11Th chapter.
We're all quite well acquainted, I think, with the 11Th chapter of Hebrews.
We often call it the faith chapter and traces from Abel downward, and shows a number of names of man who before had walked the path of faith, and often in very, very difficult days, days when all was against them, but they went on in the path of faith, and God has been pleased to record that, and He calls that a cloud of witnesses.
Just as if you were going to go on a road for the first time.
And you said, can I find anybody that's gone on this road before? They'll tell me a little bit about it. And a dozen people come up and say, well, I can bear witness. I've been over that road before. I know what it's like and I'm sure it's a good Rd. Well, that's what God has done to us. There's a great cloud of witnesses behind us. There are those from Able downward who blocked that path of faith and they have found it to be a blessed path. There's no one that ever sought to go on for the Lord.
Life that at the end of his life ever said, I'm sorry I did it. I wish I had chosen a path of self will. No, not one Christian will speak in that way. And so we have that great cloud of witnesses, so to speak, from the past. Certain names are recorded here, but certainly not all. And perhaps we can think of people even in our generation who are part of a cloud of witnesses who walked in that path of faith and bear witness to the blessedness of it.
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I believe Mr. Darby once said the path of faith is worthwhile if it were 1000 times harder than it is. And he also said another thing. There are joys in the path of faith only known to those who walk in it. Because you can describe a rod, but you never really know it full well until you've been over it yourself. And so there are joys in the path of faith that we can only know and experience by walking in it. And so.
We have that cloud of witnesses to the blessedness of the path of faith. And now he begins this exhortation. Let us lay aside every weight. Well, we've often said there are two things in this verse. There are weights and there are sins. Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us.
There are many things in life that are not wrong in themselves.
There are many things that we could say. I don't see anything wrong in that, but we also find that they're a hindrance to us in following Christ. They're not wrong in themselves. As I've illustrated. Sometimes if you were going to run in a race and you have on a heavy pair of boots, you throw off the boots and someone says what's wrong with the boots. They say there's nothing wrong with them, but I want to run the race and these are only going to hinder me running the race.
And so there are things that we can argue up and down, There's nothing wrong with them, but they're hindering us perhaps from following Christ. They're hindering us because they come between US and the Lord. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. And so there are so many little things like this in life that can be called weights, hindrances, and.
Someone said that a weight has three marks. We argue for it.
Against conscience, we are uneasy about it and we go about seeking people's advice if we can keep it without harm.
I thought that was very well defined. We argue for it, and yet our conscience says, yeah, but you shouldn't be doing that. And we're uneasy whenever we think about it. We just don't feel thoroughly at peace doing it. But we're still trying to prove to ourselves there's no harm. And then if we can only find one godly Christian who says there's nothing wrong with it, then we think, well, that must be all right because so and so said it was all right.
We we know that it's a hindrance right from the start. It's a weight. Well, the apostle here writing this epistle says, let us lay aside those kind of things, those things that we know hinder us in following the Lord Jesus because to walk in his company, to run with patience, the race that is set before us is truly the only happy path.
And then it says, And the sin which does so easily beset us.
Now I know there are many that take this to refer to the sin of unbelief, and I'm sure that is a very, very serious sin, the besetting sin of Israel, because it tells us they didn't enter into the land because of unbelief. But could I apply it in another way? Because I think this statement is true, that every person has some besetting sin. He has some weakness that he perhaps himself is quite well aware of something that he knows.
Own life that is springing up. It could be a lot of different things, and so I don't intend to enumerate them, but there could be a lot of things. And what might be a snare to you, perhaps is not to me. But every one of us has something, and it just seems that every once in a while this thing crops up in our lives. We really have to get before the Lord to judge it. Or as it says in the 19th Psalm, if we don't judge it then.
It has dominion over us, it gets the upper hand in our lives and we can spoil our whole life and testimony because.
We didn't judge it when it was small. Just like in our garden, if we don't pull out the little weeds then they grow into big ones and they choke out the whole garden. But if you pull out the little ones, the garden prospers. And if we watch ourselves to be in self judgment about little things, they will not grow into the great things that hinder our Christian life. So we have weights and sins and then let us run with patience. The real word here is.
Endurance. Endurance because that's what we need in the Christian life.
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We all know that very well. We're not living in Canada in the days of what we might call the martyrs.
When in the days of the martyrs, why they were often brought up before the council and they had to make one decision. They had to say yes or no as to whether they were going to be loyal to Christ. If they said yes and they were taken out and burned at the stake or beheaded. And it was a, shall I say, one supreme and wonderful decision that they would rather die than deny their Savior. But you know, we're living in days of endurance.
We are living in days, brethren, when it takes a lot of endurance. You don't just say no.
Once or twice it's day after day the thing springs up and you seek to be faithful. And as you hear young people say, I can't always be saying no. Well, we need insurance. We need insurance, our precious Savior. And that's what it means when it says you have not yet resisted on the blood striving against sin. Now the Lord Jesus would rather die than disobey.
And his whole pathway was one of pleasing his Father, and over and over again, as he met different situations in life, his supreme desire was to do his Father's will. And so I say the Christian life today is one of endurance. And you know that yourself as well as I do. You know very well that especially as we get near the end, the pressures become greater.
And the tricks of the enemies seem more subtle.
And we just, we just feel that we have to be constantly cast upon the Lord that we would have the grace to be faithful. I believe that's why I might just mention here in passing that there are different crowns mentioned in the scripture and there there's only one crown that's mentioned twice and that is the crown of life. In Revelation chapter 2, it says.
Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.
And then in James it says, blessed or happy 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. Now why is that crown mentioned twice? Well, I say again, you might say, well, that's one crown. I don't suppose there's any possibility of us getting here in Canada, because we.
Don't really expect that we'll have to be martyred for Christ.
But what the apostle James is saying, Oh yes, you can have that crown. You may not be like the martyr who makes the one time decision and is burned at the stake. But to go on day after day with all the pressures of life, with all the pressures that are brought to bear so constantly, and look up to the Lord in these new temptations day after day, and say, Lord, help me not to yield to this, but to please thee.
The apostle James rather says.
Well, if you're faithful, I'll give you the martyrs crown, the crown of life. Oh, how blessed it is. Then to see how the Lord values it says which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. Why does it say them that love him? Well, because if we love a person, we don't want to displace them.
If you really love somebody, you just feel very badly when you displease that person because you love them. And so that is the desire of the heart of the one who's in communion with the Lord, and that he wants to please the Lord. He loves him. He'd rather say no to a friend than say no to the Lord. So he endures temptation in order that he may be faithful. And so it tells us here, let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.
Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher, you have a margin in your Bible. You notice it says the beginner and finisher and it says of our faith. It's really of faith. The thought in the verse is that these that have been mentioned in the 11Th chapter, many of them walked the path of faith, but some of them began well and didn't finish so well. Others didn't begin so well but finished well. And so there was one.
Who began well and finished well because he walked it perfectly. And this is what it means. Because if you look at someone like me and why, then you may get disappointed because we've often looked at somebody and they started well but didn't end so well and then we get let down. But there's one person that we can look to. He began and he finished. The path of faith God has set before us a perfect example for our pathway.
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The beginner.
Share the path of faith. Let's not make any other brother or sister our example. Let the Lord Jesus be the pattern and example for our pathway. So we're looking under Jesus the author or the beginner and finisher of faith, proof of the joy that was set before him. And I believe the thought here, the joy that was set before him primarily refers to his joy.
In doing his father's will, it gave him joy.
He said the good pleasure of thy will is my delight. It was really his joy. He didn't do it out of the sense of Judy. He did it because he loved his father and he wanted to please his father. And that's what it's brought before us in the opening part of this chapter, that he's drawing us with cords of love.
And so the Lord Jesus, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame. We don't despise the shame, we really hate the shame. We hate to be put to shame before our friends and before others. We hate to have other people reproach us and look down on us. But the Lord Jesus endured shame. He was despised and rejected of men. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. They laughed into scorn. They.
They did everything they could to show their not only their enmity, but how they despised Him and he endured the shame. But where is He now? Oh, he sat down at the right hand of God. Where did the path of faith end? Oh, it ended there, in the full approval of His Father, because when he returned back as the one who had fully done his Father's will, even to the cross.
Then tells us in another place that will make me full of joy.
With thy countenance, that is, as He returned, as the one who had glorified His Father in every step, and glorified Him about the question of sin. Father's countenance was fullness of joy, and He was made full of joy with the Father's countenance. What a blessed thought. And so this is the example that set before us. This is the one.
He sat down now at the right hand of the throne of God.
Or consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest she be wearied and feigned in your minds. I'm sure all of us have experienced something of this. We're living in days when there's a tremendous amount of discouragement. People just are discouraged because we're looking around and we see in ourselves and in others so much in these last days to cause discouragement. But he says, consider.
Consider him a last she. Be wearied and faint in your minds next time. You and I just feel that discouragement, that depression, as we see how everything is breaking down and we find a lot of coldness in our own hearts. Let's think about him. He was the one who did his father's will in an exceedingly difficult day.
When the nation was out about its lowest ebb, and when the leaders all gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ.
When even the disciples were supplement fled, what discouragement as you looked at people, as you looked at the condition of the nation. But what an example, I say, for our hearts to have the Lord Jesus before us, lest we be wearied and faint in our minds. Or let us keep our eyes upon him like David, when things went so badly for him, and says, but David.
Encouraged himself.
In the Lord his God.
You have not yet resisted unto blood striving against sin.
It simply means that the Lord Jesus would rather die than disobey. He resisted unto blood. He would rather die on Calvary's cross than disobey His Father. He knew fully what it would cost, but He was obedient unto death.
Brings us to the second point that I spoke of, and that is another way that the Lord has to speak to us. First, in the beginning of the chapter, He sets before us this blessed object for our hearts, this One who began and completed the path of faith, who went to Calvary out of love for us. He sets Him before us as our example.
But then, as I said at the beginning, sometimes we lose sight of him.
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Sometimes we get our eyes upon the waves. We look at the things that might discourage.
And then the Lord has to begin to bring trials into our lives to draw us back. He brings in situations and difficulties that would ensure that. And He 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. I don't mean to suggest in reading this that every trial that comes into our lives is necessarily.
Chastisement. But I do say this, and I believe it's good for us to bear in mind.
That every trial that comes into our lives ought to produce an exercise. It is allowed for a purpose. Absolutely nothing happens by chance. All things work together for good. And so, as I say, I'm not saying that every trial is necessarily chastisement.
Scripture speaks of how the Lord might deal with us to prune us or to prevent something in our lives, or He might deal with us for correction, but it's all to do as good at our latter end. And so when these trials do come, there are three different ways in which we can accept them. We can despise them, we can faint under them, or we can be exercised by them if we despise them.
It's just like as if we're saying, well, trouble comes to everybody and I suppose I have to have my share.
And if we take that attitude, we get no profit from the things that come. We just look upon them as the ordinary ups and downs of life. That's what Job felt when the trial came and he was missing the blessing because he said this. If the scourge slay suddenly he will laugh at the trial of the innocent. He said God isn't now, God isn't dealing any special way with me. And all this he said if one thing happens, why it happens to everybody. If there's a scourge, comes like a.
An earthquake or something, Well, it might strike me, it might strike my neighbor. It's just sort of a matter of chance.
Oh no, Eli, you said, John, you ought to ask God why this came, not just say that this was something that came by chance. And brethren, I think it's very easy for us to take that attitude in trial, and that is to despise the chastening of the Lord, not to see his hand in it, not to see that God allows it for our good when Job.
Realized the purpose that God had in it, and I say in his case it wasn't for something that he had done.
But it was to correct something that was altogether wrong in his heart, and that was a lot of unjudged pride. And there may be something in us that God sees that we don't see ourselves. And so God saw this. And it was no accident that the civilians came or that the wind came from the wilderness. God had his hand in that. It tells us when that the Lord said that he's the one that says to the snow, be thou on the earth.
And he says that he orders the place where lightning strikes. But he was really telling us is.
That these things don't happen by chance. And so let us not despise the chastening of the Lord. Oh, but you say I have more than my share that's fainting when we're rebuked of him. Sometimes a child will get that attitude and there's nothing that a parent feels more badly about than when the child feels it's getting an over amount of correction. The parent who's seeking the good of the child feels broken hearted. When the child feels, well, he's got to pick on me and.
What we're really seeking is they're good and we feel badly and can I say it, bread? And the Lord feels grieved.
When we kind of take that attitude to we faint, we get discouraged. We say, I have more than my share. And so he says, don't despise it, don't faint under it. Who gets the blessing from it? It yields the peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Now that is, God intends us to be before him, and to see his hand in every circumstance in great.
And small to see that he's behind the scenes and everything is allowed of him for a purpose. And so I see again if he has in some way brought something into your life or mine. May we have grace to be exercised thereby.
In jobs cases, I say it wasn't something he had done and that was what was hard for Joel because he searched his life and and he said.
He said I'll hold fast my integrity as long as I live. My heart will not reproach me. He he he looked over his life and he thought he was all right. But the Lord saw something in job as I say that he was seeking to correct. And when Joel humbly took the place and said, well, he asked the Lord that he would teach him he'd been.
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Saying a lot of things himself, and then when he said to the Lord.
Teach thou, may thou. Then he began to get the blessing, and so here we find that it's the ones who are exercised thereby. And the sixth verse says, for whom the Lord loveth, he chasten us. I never undertook to chasing any of the other children on the street.
Only my own. And I did it because I love them. And so it is, you know, if the Lord puts his hand upon us, it's in love. It's because he loves us. And there's always that purpose of love, as my father used to often say, I need to be on our part and a purpose of love on God's part. And we need to always realize that when the children of Israel came to Mara and the waters were bitter.
Then the Lord told him to cast in the tree.
And when he cast in the tree, and then the bitter waters were made sweet. And perhaps it teaches us this, that there are times when we cannot perhaps see God's love in our circumstances, but we can always see it at the cross. If somebody does something and it seems like a mean act, and you look at that person and all that they've done for you before, and they've always been kind to you. They've always thought you're good. And something that you can't understand turns.
You say, well, I know that person well enough. They've always been kind to me. I don't believe they meant any harm by this. And so, you know, when we look at the cross, there's where we see God's love. The hymn writer put it like this. We cannot always trace the way that thou art gracious Lord dost take. But we can always surely say that God is love. We can say it because it's approved love if he loved.
To give His own son, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things whom the Lord loveth He chasing us.
And so he says, if we endure this, God deal us with us as with sons.
And then in the ninth verse, 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, chasing us after their own pleasure, but He for our prophet, that we might be partakers of His Holiness? You know, sometimes we as parents don't. We don't always correct our children for their good.
Sometimes, as it says here, we do it for our own pleasure. You know, sometimes you come home and you're feeling tired and children making a lot of noise. You tell them to be quiet. Well, that's not for their good. That's for your own pleasure. It's it's not very pleasant to have a lot of noise and say quiet them all down, but it's really for yourself. But isn't it nice that God, our Father never does this? He never does this. If he ever has to correct us, it's always for our profit. This exposes a little bit of.
How human fathers and what he is saying.
We respect our earthly fathers even though we know they're not perfect. We value the fact that they have done a lot of good things for us. We think of all the kindness and things they've done for us, but they weren't perfect. Well, if we do this to earthly parents, how much more to the Father of spirits, the one who knows all about us? I believe when it says the Father of spirits, it's rather bringing in the thought in the Scripture when?
The human is.
Spoken of in his three parts, spirit, soul and body, the spirit is the God conscious intelligent part of our being and just as we often say with our children, when we correct them we want them to understand why we have done it, that it's for their good. And so God wants us to see that he has a purpose and that we can intelligently.
Be before him about what he is trying to show us.
In the trials he is the father of spirits, and so as we accept these things from him.
Then it's that we might be partakers of His Holiness. 11Th verse now. No chastening for the present.
Seemeth to be joyous, but grievous nevertheless. Afterward it yielded the peaceable fruits of righteousness to them which are exercised thereby. Sometimes I've heard a a person say, a Christian say, Well, we should always be happy and buoyant and above things.
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Well, I believe this verse shows us that there are times when the Lord intends us to feel things just like it says here, no chastening for the presence seemeth to be joyous but grievous. Let me illustrate it very plainly and you'll see the point. If I punish my children, one of my children, and he turns around and smiles and says, Dad, that was fun. I know he missed the point altogether. He didn't get any good from it. And you know, the Lord does intend.
Sometimes feel things he doesn't intend that we should at once be above the circumstance, but my father's with the Lord and but I look back and I realize that things that he corrected in my life were for my good afterward afterward it yields the peaceable fruits of righteousness. Many of us as we grow older, we look back and we think, well, our parents really tried hard for our good, but at the time, perhaps it was hard for us.
See it. And so as we are exercised like the child that comes and perhaps afterwards and says to the parent, well, I know I needed it and I know you were trying to help me. Oh, how glad we are. At the time they couldn't say that because they didn't see it, but afterward. And so the Lord at the time puts his hand upon us. And at the time it's not joyous, it's grievous. We've all felt those things in our lives when things have.
Joyous. They were grievous, and the Lord wanted us to feel it so that we would turn to Him.
And then afterward, and I've often said too, it doesn't say after we have learned the lesson. It just says afterward, it yields the peaceable fruits of righteousness. Because sometimes, you know, I think we can weary ourselves trying to find out just exactly what the Lord had for us in it. But we can be exercised and get a blessing. I remember a brother said to me.
Passed through quite a bit of trial and he said, well I don't know whether I could exactly say why the Lord.
Put all this upon me. But I know one thing. It has made me relax my grasp on some of the things here. Well, he didn't see some particular failure in his life that the Lord was dealing with, but he did see that it had turned to a blessing. And those who observed him saw the peaceable fruits of righteousness as he was exercised thereby. And so if there's something happened in your life and you don't perhaps know why it happened.
Lord shows us sometimes we may not find out until we get home to heaven, but it always, brethren, it always can result in blessing. It can cause us to be drawn nearer to Him. It yields the peaceable fruits of righteousness to them which are exercised thereby. And that's why He goes on to say, wherefore lift up the hands that hang down on the feeble knees. That is when trials come in our lives. It's so easy as we.
Saying just let her hands hang down and say has no use. I'm not going to do anything anymore. And we just kind of let our hands hang down. Our knees become feeble and first thing you know, we get utterly discouraged or more than this, but we might have an effect upon others too. It says and make straight paths for your feet last that which is lame be turned out of the way.
But let it rather be healed.
Now that is, we need to be exercised so that the result would be blessing. And we make straight paths for our feet because very often in a time when trial comes, perhaps in a home or in an assembly, a discouraged person will be turned aside and leave. And perhaps we, instead of taking it from the Lord, we contributed to that lame person being turned aside. Instead of being healed, instead of being drawn back, we.
Contributed to it and so it shows here that we need to be careful in these times that we don't become so discouraged that we ourselves give up and perhaps we discourage others too because you know it tells us in Romans it says no man liveth to himself and no man dies to himself. Our lives have an influence upon others when Daniel was faithful when he was.
Going to school in Babylon.
His life had a result, and three others were encouraged to take a similar stand with him and Janelle. I sometimes said that as I look back at even my father's life, I know there were trials that came. But perhaps one of the greatest blessings to me in observing his life was to see the way he met the trials, the way he met them. That that to me was real blessing to my soul.
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I perhaps didn't understand why the trial came.
Even as a boy, but I could see that the spirit in which he met it, and that was a blessing.
And so we need to be careful in these things, not only for our own sake, but there may be some weak brother, that which is lame, some weak brother or sister. And our attitude in the midst of the trial perhaps will cause them to be turned aside. Or it may have. And there's another sad thing that's brought in here. Roots of bitterness come in. This is sad too. Sometimes the lame person is turned, or perhaps some roots of bitterness spring up.
Because of things that are said and done well, how careful we have to be. I don't think there's any more dangerous time in our own lives than when trial comes or any assembly. When trial comes, there's no more dangerous time because if we take it from the Lord, there's a real blessing. If we don't, who can tell a sad results that can flow from such things. And so there's just a little warning here because.
Just as looking under Jesus, following him.
We're going to be an encouragement to others. That great cloud of witnesses encourages us to follow the Lord. We say, oh, no one knew all about this. Enoch knew all about this, so we're encouraged. But for those who left, their hands hang down and their knees become people and say what's the use? And not only get the scurries themselves, but they discourage others. They contribute to things that are a hindrance instead of a blessing in God's assembly. And so here we find that.
We failed and of the grace of God because.
All God's ways with us, brethren, are in grace. We didn't deserve anything but His judgment, His His mercy and His goodness is entirely undeserved. We deserve nothing, I say, but judgment from Him, and in His grace and His mercy he has dealt with us. And so it tells us here about Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright, if you know how, that afterwards, when he would have inherited the blessing he was rejected for, he found.
Place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. Now we know that Esau was not a believer, but I believe it's brought in here to show that.
To show how when this situation arose and Jacob was at fault, you know, Jacob didn't do the right thing at all, but it upset Esau and Esau turned aside. And then when he, when he wanted to come back, it says he found no place of repentance. It doesn't mean that God wasn't willing to receive him.
About what he really thought, as it says here, he sought it carefully. It wasn't repentance. He sought carefully.
It was the missed blessing that he sought. He sought, he said to his father, haven't you got a blessing for me? He didn't say, Dad, I'm sorry he didn't say that. No, he said, haven't you got a blessing? That's what he was seeking after. And sometimes that can be the way with us, too. We're more concerned over missed blessings than telling the Lord that we're sorry. And so here we find that that has brought before us here, just as a warning, what happened between Jacob and Issa.
Now, I just read the end of the chapter, and I just mentioned a couple of points that I think are rather beautiful. In this end of this chapter, there are two mountains brought before us, Mount Sinai, that was where the law was given, and Mount Zion, and that's where the temple was established. When the people had failed under the law, failed under the judges, failed under the priesthood, failed under the Kings, everything had broken down.
And then God in grace.
Tells the Mount Zion that he loved and I think this is very beautiful. I believe there's a little lesson in the end of this chapter.
And that is that the way to correct these things is not to get back to Sinai with its thunders, not to get back and place ourselves or other people under law, but it brings before us what God has called us to, and that is grace.
And so when we have had trials and difficulties and they have come into our lives, how good it is to when we come back to know that we come to Mount Zion that the Lord meets us in grace. I think this is very beautiful to see how that he says you're not coming to the Mount Zion. If God dealt with any of us according to what we deserved. And that's what the law was God's requirements for man in the flesh in which.
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Utterly failed and couldn't produce any fruit for God. And it will might make us afraid if we thought of having to meet God at Mount Sinai. It even made Moses afraid. And if I thought of if I thought of how I had failed and Mount Sinai, boy, it would make me fear and quake. But isn't it very blessed to know that what he is bringing before us in this chapter.
Is God's grace is being brought before us?
And the way he deals with us, as I said, is to do us good at our latter end, because we have been called to Mount Zion. And so we know that in the coming day of glory, every one of the redeemed are going to be there. Every one. If the shout happened while I am standing here, faithful and unfaithful Christians would all be caught up. They that are Christ that is coming. We're going to be there because of the blood of sprinkling. That speaks better.
And that of Abel. But I say again, brethren, this is the point that I feel is in the chapter. God wants us to have a happy path on the way there. He wants us to have a happy path on the way there. And he has marked out a happy pass for us. He set an object for our hearts. He's given us a great cloud of witnesses. And when he sees a string, he puts out that.
Crook to correct us and bring us back because he hasn't called us to Mount Sinai.
Where it would be judgment, He's called us to Mount Zion, the city of the living God.
The heavenly Jerusalem, isn't it a wonderful end we're going to have? And the journey and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, the vast company of the angels not occupying the nearest place to the throne, but the Church of the first born, which are written in heaven. What a glorious scene opens up to us here. What a prospect we have before us. And when we think of the grace that has called us, I say again, not to Mount Sinai to condemn us.
The called us to Mount Zion in grace. Surely when we think of this.
By then it does touch our hearts and make us think of the wonders of His love and what He has done for us. So it says.
In the 24th verse, and to the and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speakers better things than that of Abel. That is, when God looked at Abel's blood, he said to Cain, The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. He was blood called for judgment.
But isn't it wonderful, Christ blood spilled upon the ground of this world, For the soldier pierced his side, and the blood flowed out, and the wire. And what did it call for? God looked upon that blood, and instead of calling for vengeance, he said, there's blessing, there's pardon. The little hymn says The very spear that pierced thy side drew forth the blood to save.
Well, may the Lord grant that as we meditate upon a chapter like this, it will speak to our hearts.
As I've said several times late and I lately and I feel oppressed in my mind it's only a little time that we have left. We only have the rest of our time and events in this world make us all think that the Lord's coming must be very near. And don't we want to be like Enoch walking with God as it tells us in another place that we ourselves might be likened on demand which.
Wait for our Lord.
And so in all that he sees fit to pass us through, may we realize his love, that He's doing us good. And then again, I wish to say.
May our lives also be an encouragement and blessing to others. Oh, how often some brother or sister, by his godliness, by his patience in the midst of a trial, has spoken loudly to our hearts and encouraged us to go on in the path of faith. Well, I say again, His coming is near.
May He keep us till that day.