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So easily be set up, and let us run with patience the race of respect before us, looking unto Jesus the author furniture of our faith, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the change, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Or consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself.
Lest he be wearied and faint in your minds.
You have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin, and you have forgotten the expectation that 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 chasten it, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
If he is your chastening God, healeth with you as with stunts. For what son is he in the Father chasing it not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye ******** and not sons? Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh, has corrected us, and We gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?
For they verily, for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but he for our prophet, that we might be partakers of His Holiness.
Now no chastening for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous nevertheless afterward it yielded the peaceful fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised their lives. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight ties for your feet, lest that which is lain 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 he saw, proved, 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.
For ye are not come unto the mouth that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness and darkness and Tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, which voice made that heard and treated, that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. For they could not endure that which was commanded. And if so much as a beast touched the mountain, it shall be stoned or thrust through the dark.
And so terrible was the sight that Moses did I exceedingly, exceedingly fear, and plain.
But the heart come to Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels.
The General Assembly and Church of the first born, which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new Covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel, see that he refused not him, but speaketh.
Or if they escape not, who refused him that spake on earth. Much more shall not be escaped if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven.
Voice and then shook the earth. But now we have promised saying yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.
And this word, yet once more signifies the removing of those things that are taken as the things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore we receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire.
There's a person that's epistle, as we know, is addressed to the Hebrew believers, and they had a form, an order of worship given to them of God. God had picked out that particularly favored nation and had given them a partial revelation of himself. He had given a way of approaching to His presence, but it wasn't perfect. It was only a picture of that which is to come. And now the Lord Jesus had come.
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There was no longer just the partial revelation of God. All the glory of God shines out in the face of Jesus Christ.
A perfect way of access into His presence has been given, and so the characteristic word in Hebrews is better.
Because everything in Christianity is better. Just as to see a person is much better than having a picture of them and saw. The Old Testament was like the picture, The New Testament, the revelation of God in Christianity is the reality. The Lord Jesus the Son has come and saw. God spoke by the prophets, now He's spoken by his Son.
There was a high priest in Israel. Now the Lord Jesus is the great high priest. There were sacrifices. The Lord Jesus is the one perfect sacrifice. There was the holiest of all, a physical thing. But now you and I come right into the very presence of God and all His Holiness. We have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. And so he outlines all after. And then in the 11Th chapter he shows us.
All through from Abel, downward blessing was always not through ordinances, not through something. They went on in an outward way.
But it was by faith. So it's by faith we understand how the world's are made, not by tracing it out scientifically, but just simply that God has said that things that are made were not made of things that do appear.
Those who walk to please God in the Old Testament, they walk by. Faith wasn't following a system of ordinances, although that was important, and a picture and a shadow. But God valued the faith that was identified with that and not the actual things themselves.
And so when we come to this chapter, he says, we have a great cloud of witnesses. All these Old Testament were these whom God accounted men of faith. They walked by faith and they are a testimony to us that no matter how difficult the day was for it was very difficult in those times to be misunderstood. Making the ark was very difficult, called it and Moses time to be rejected by his own people and to even be the spoke of stoning him. It was difficult to go on was difficult for Joshua.
For those who walk by faith, it was not an easy path. So if we think our pathway is hard, there are others that have walked the path before us that have gone through all the similar difficulties that we might have to go through. But above all, brethren, there's one God's beloved Son who came down into this world, who was the fulfillment of all the types and shadows in whom all the fullness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell.
Whom the Father could address and say now it my son today have I begotten thee.
Whom he could say, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. And he came down.
He walked through this world. He passed through everything a righteous man could go through that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest. Finally, he's gone up on high, and he's there. Now see if at the right hand of God, and he's the object for our hearts, and he's brought before us, rather than in this chapter, as the one who is the object, the one who has walked the path others have indeed, And we get cheered as we hear of the faith of others.
But there's only one who did it perfectly. And this chapter, I believe, brings this before us. And perhaps I could just make one more comment. I believe we have two sides of the truth brought before us, but we sometimes call the objective and the subjective. The objective is to have an object for our hearts. The subject is when we have to, at times, look in and judge something in ourselves, That's a hindrance, and God allows things.
Discipline in his ways.
In order to cause us to judge those hindrances, lay aside the weights and hindrances, and press on. Not to Mount Sinai, where there was only condemnation to that glorious home, the Zion above the home that awaits us, where the Church of the first born will be, and all the redeemed. And so, as I say, I believe there's no two sides of the truth brought before us here.
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First, the objective that's always so in the ways of God sets Christ before us.
As our Savior and as our object, our example. And then if we fail, He may have to deal with us so that we look in and judge ourselves, but not to rate ourselves and say we're good Christians, but just to own anything. That's a hindrance to having Christ as our object.
It's interesting that there are two chapters in Hebrews that begin with this word, Wherefore this one, and as you've explained, it goes back and connects with those heroes of faith of the 11Th chapter who in their little measure.
Walked their little course of faith, And so we are to think of them. And then either access to the perfect one the other chapter begins with. Therefore is the third one we might just.
Touch on that because it connects rather well with our third verse of our chapter.
In the third chapter it starts square 4.
Holy Brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, that's where we're called to heaven. Then it says, Consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus immediately directs us to that blessed One who is spoken of as the Apostle.
And then the high priest, and that was the order. He came down on earth as an apostle.
A set. One set of the Father. No person has ever had a mission like Christ had. The Father set the Son to be the Savior of the world. He came. He served. He ministered. He He thought.
And then he finished the work on earth, and he's gone up on high, and he is a high priest in heaven. And so we're directed as holy Brethren. We don't have to be afraid of that. That's the work of Christ that has put us in that position as holy brethren. Now think about him.
No higher object can there ever be for us to consider than that one who came down, who finished his work on Earth as.
Shed his precious blood and our him spoke about the cost of it. And I'll just mention in our 12Th chapter that there are eight things beginning with verse.
22.
That faith brings us to and the ultimate one. The last one, the 8th one, is the blood of sprinkling.
It's put there, I suppose, because it's basic. It's supreme importance. May we ever consider and think of the cost of our redemption. So he has bought us. He has come down and finished his work. He's given his life. His blood has been shed to cleanse us.
And now he's gone up on high and he's serving us up there. But our chapter takes up more of his sufferings down here. When we get to the word consider in verse three of our chapter, it's him and his ministry down here, and his suffering and the one that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself so that you and I can look at Christ and no one has ever been tested like he was. He suffered everything that a righteous man can suffer.
From mankind. And then last of all, He suffered for our sins from the hand of a righteous God. So He's the one that put before us in this epistle.
And these few verses at the opening he's particularly brought before us as a pattern. We look unto him as the one who endured such contradiction of sinners against himself. Because, as we've been saying, the ones that are mentioned in the chapter before, many of them had difficult paths, but none of them were perfect. If we look at the names that are mentioned there, we can recognize from Old Testament records that they were not perfect, even although those failures are not mentioned here.
They walk by faith, but there was one if you and I get our eyes upon one another.
We may say that's a godly brother or a godly sister, but we can't follow that godly brother or that godly sister in everything, because we'll find that everyone has something in which he or she comes short. The psalmist could say I have seen an end of all perfection, but thy commandment is exceeding broad. So while we can be encouraged by reading and hearing of the faith of others, we need to have one supreme object.
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And that is this Blessed One who is mentioned here as Jesus. In the first chapter we find the glory of his person.
But here that's as man walking through this world, glorifying God.
In every step trotting the path of faith perfectly, and I believe rather than that.
Those are the two things in our lives now. That is God would occupy us with Christ to make us Christ like.
Then if we begin to depart, he has to cause us to almost things that are the hindrance in order to be restored. And so we have chastening brought before us, but first of all the objective side that what she delights. If we always had Christ as our object, as someone has said, a dependent man will not fall, but Satan tries to get us away from the path of dependence, gets us looking perhaps at our brethren instead of at the Lord.
Looking at the ways like Peter when he was walking on the water. Then he began to sing.
Lonely that we have this one brought before us and so we're told. Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us. I believe there are two things here, weights and sins. There are some things that are not wrong in themselves. They're just weights. If you're going to run a race, a pair of heavy shoes are not wrong, but they would be out of place if you expect to win the race.
They're far too heavy, they're a hindrance and so we often look at things and say are they right or wrong?
But here, first of all, let us lay aside every weight. Is it a hindrance? Is there something I'm not going to say? And the scripture doesn't necessarily say that thing is wrong, but if it's hindering following Christ, it's best to lay it aside. And so we have laying aside every weight.
And then there are positive sins, things that we know are wrong, things that are disobedience, things that are expressions of self will. We need to judge those things because they also hinder in the race. So he says, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us. I just like to suggest this little thought, the sin which does so easily beset us. I know it's often been spoken of as the sin of unbelief, and that is the root cause of every failure.
But I believe, brethren, we can apply it very practically, that everyone of us have some particular weakness that we have to guard against. Your weakness may be different from mine, and every one of us can say there's one thing that seems to constantly crop up that I have to be so watchful about. And so we ought to be aware of this, because Satan knows our weak points, brethren, and he's going to attack us on that point.
The same which doth.
Easily beset us.
We might notice the way in Psalm 19 sin.
Seems to grow. What you have here weights that might become a sin.
And sometimes they do.
But it's rather interesting. There are five steps, I believe in Psalm 19 about that.
In the 12Th and 13th verses that read this way, who can understand his errors? Well, we don't think of errors as very much.
They probably wouldn't be ready to sin.
And then it says, Cleanse thou me from secret faults.
Well, they're there, but they're not known.
Then the next step is keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins. Now the thing has developed and the will is at work. Presuming to be what it's not going its own way.
Let them not have dominion over me. Now sin gets the mastery and Romans 6 I think it is says sin shall not have dominion over you.
And then it goes on and says, Then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the.
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Great transgression. That's the full development of sins.
Just like a weed, isn't that it starts small. If you pull it out, it won't spoil your garden, but if you allow it, maybe choke out the whole garden. So it's so true, isn't it, that big sins in our lives never come suddenly? They're the result of the neglect of little things, aren't they? We here in Illinois, we have a primary demonstration of what you're saying. It fits with a verse that's farther down, but since you've mentioned it, we have.
A week that's called Johnson grass and before the chemist got to work on it and had.
Herbicides that would control it. It was almost impossible to get it out. And the route would go down and the plant will spring up from the smallest little node that's left in the earth. And so when we get down to that chapter, looking diligently in our chapter, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, there is a sin. That's been there a long time and it hasn't been fully taken out. And it just defiles. So these are very important things we.
We should never sin. There's never any suggestion that a Christian should sin.
And we should not. But when we do, like our brother said, confession is the way.
There's not 100 yard dash race we're on, is it? It's a race of endurance.
Israel was tested for 40 years. They are an example I think.
Of every believer's course down here.
Saved, saved out of Egypt, saved, sheltered by the blood of the lamb and found in the world which is a wilderness. And you might have 80 or 90 years to run, and myself a little less and some maybe just a few years. But it's a whole course for every one of us to be tested and we have the faithful and merciful high priest to go with us the whole course and.
It's a long race.
Kind of glad I don't expect to live as long as Adam, who was a hundred 930 years old.
But still, it's a race of patience and you don't graduate from it until the Lord comes, so we're going to be running this race as long as we're here.
If that word endurance is very important, the word patience here translated endurance. It is really a race of endurance. I sometimes said there's only one of the crowns that are mentioned in the Bible as rewards for believers. There's only one that is mentioned twice and that is the crown of life. And the way it is used in Revelation chapter 2, it says be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life.
It is mentioned again in James chapter one and it says, blessed is the man that endureth temptation. For when he is tried he will receive a crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. You know the martyr makes a one time decision. He says I'll not bow down to that image or I'll not deny my Lord. For that he pays his life. He's going to get the martyrs crown, the crown of life.
But life in America is not like that. It's saying no 1000 times in all the dear young people know that too well, that you can refuse something once, but it doesn't stop there. It's a question of endurance, being able to just stand, that continual pressure of somebody pressing you at work or elsewhere or at school saying, oh, why don't you give in, why don't you do it just once? And that is the way the enemy works today.
And it's a race of endurance to be able to look to the Lord and everyone of those have often said, people say I'll try anything. Once Adam did that too. He tried something once. It ruined his whole life. It ruined the human race. Don't try it even once if it's them.
It's a race rather not endurance going on and being able to stand faithfully for the Lord, Well we need that as we have here looking unto Jesus. You cannot do it in your own strength. You just get weary in well doing. As the Bible says, be not weary in well doing for due season we shall reap if we faint. Not every time look to the Lord because our brother's been saying the Lord Jesus who is the object for us is also.
00:25:15
A merciful and faithful high priest.
Who walked through this world? Every step of His blessed pathway was one of obedience and dependence.
He's marked out that path. Others have failed in it. As we see, these witnesses of the 11Th chapter were not perfect.
But it says looking under Jesus, the author or the beginner and finisher of the path of faith, he began the Path of Faith perfectly. He finished the Path of Faith perfectly. And he is the object that's set before us and the strength is supplied by our great High Priest, whoever lives to make intercession for us. And the reason it says in the 7th chapter that he's a merciful and faithful High Priest. And it says such a high priest became us who is holy, harmless.
Undefiled separate from sinners.
And made higher than the heavens. Why does it say there is such a high priest became us? Because that's exactly the kind of help we need. You might go to a friend and say to a friend, well, there's so much pressure being put on me. And the friend might say, well I don't blame you. Sometimes you have to give him, might be well-intentioned friend that'll say that. But you go to the Lord and he says, I know how difficult it is, but I'll give you all the strength that you need. That's the kind of health.
Your friend may let you down at a point when you need them the most, but this friend, our great High Priest, never will.
He ever lived. So such a high priest became us, whose wholly harmless, undefiled, separate from the from sinners, and made higher than the heavens. And so that's why it goes on here, looking under Jesus. The proper word is the author and finisher, or the beginner and finisher.
That is, he began the path of faith perfectly. It was perfect as a child who was perfect in his manhood. It was perfect in every step to that cross of Calvary. What an example for us was that a sad and unhappy path. So there was a joy that was set before him. And brethren, there is a joy, a joy, as another has said, that's only known in the path of faith and obedience.
Peter has some very good words that go along with what's been said in first Peter 4. Let's read the first Peter 4 verses one and two. Same kind of truth and it puts Christ before us. First Peter, four, one and two.
For as much then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh.
Arm yourselves likewise with the same mind, the same mind that Christ had to always do what pleased the Father. For he that has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that is.
In the example here, when the temptation comes and you or I don't give in to it, the flesh doesn't get what it wants.
But then we don't sin either, that he should no longer live the rest of his time in the flesh.
To the lusts of men, but to the will of God to do his will and sin not is the.
Provision and the expectation for every believer. And then, as you were speaking, about the crown of life.
For those who are going on in life and enduring as James brings it before us, let's look at Romans chapter 12 and verse one where I think a similar truth there that is God is not looking to you and I to get a dead sacrifice from us. No, He wants a living sacrifice and that's that's victory over sin and that's doing the will of God and well.
Clearly put Romans 12/1. I beseech you, therefore.
By the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable under God, which is your reasonable service. So that fits, I believe, is what James says as enduring and getting the crown of life and not sinning.
In the same portion in Peter that you mentioned, Clem going back just two chapters, the second chapter, and we find there that it says Christ who suffered for our sake, leaving us an example.
That he should walk in his steps, who did no sin when he was reviled, reviled not again. When he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him who judges righteously. Well, we've been Speaking of a pattern of a an example of one to follow. Well, Peter says, here's the one to follow. He died for you, and he left you an example to follow. And as our brother Gordon was saying, we certainly can't do it in our own strength.
00:30:19
There's not one step of the pathway that a Christian can walk for God's glory by himself. It's an impossibility. He must do it in the strength that is only from above, and that's.
Walking with Christ and for Christ, with Him as our guide, there's another thing that comes in. In verse two we didn't say anything on that which is of great importance for us, and it was before the Lord. In the second verse it says looking under Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, and it says for the joy that was set before him endured the cross.
Now that tells us that the Lord was looking beyond the cross as he went up to the cross.
And he had a joy before him, even as he was.
Walking those steps up to Calgary.
He knew everything that was going to come upon him. He set his face in the ravages like a Flint, and he went on and he finished his work, but he was looking beyond it. And the joy here, I think is best explained in Acts 2 in the 28th verse, where you see the Father sent the Son to be the Savior. Christ came out of heaven knowing what he was going to do.
The 88th Psalm in prophecy.
The Lord's words in the 88th Psalm, prophetically, are these. I am afflicted and ready to die for my youth up. They knew why he had come, and when he was left by his parents in the temple at 12 years of age, they came back looking for him.
Mary said, Thy father and I sought thee sorrowing. The Lord turned that around and said, wish me not that I must pray about my Father's business. The Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. The Son came. He knew what he had to do. He was ready for it from his youth. But he waited till he's a full grown man for various reasons. One of them is so that he could be a faithful and merciful High priest to know the feelings that.
Baby boys, children use, full grown men experience in a world that's completely opposed to us.
But in Acts 2 and the 20, let's begin and read.
Verse 25 is quoted from the Psalms.
For David speaketh concerning him. Now David was a prophet, and he spoke concerning Jesus.
We find out in this section that David was a prophet.
I foresaw the Lord always before my face.
Or he's on my right hand that I should not be moved. Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad. Moreover, also my flesh shall rest in hope, because that will not leave my soul in hell. Or Hades, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption.
Now this 28th verse thou hast made known to me the ways of life. Thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countless. That's the joy of the Lord had before him the joy of seeing the Father on his return after finishing the work he'd been sent to do. He had that before him as he walked through this scene and as he went to Calvary. He never forgot it. He knew he was going back to where he'd come from, and he knew he was going back with a finished work.
And he's going to see his father's countenance. He couldn't rest in that grave. He had power to lay down his life and to take it again. He's raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, quickened by the Spirit. And so his body didn't see corruption, and he did return. So he had that joy before him.
And then he endured the throne. He looked on to the end, and he had gone there. The one who has completed the race now, you and I and our little bit of temptation and trials here, need to look on into the glory and see the man in the glory and know that just as sure as he is there, So we shall be there. I think, if we can see that the temptations, the endurance will be a whole lot easier for us.
00:35:04
In a practical way, Paul applies that to himself. I believe in Two Corinthians chapter 5.
Where he says, wherefore we labor, that whether present or absent, we may be accepted of or agreeable to him. And that is Paul was looking on to the judgment seat of Christ when his life would pass into review. And what was his desire as he went on from day-to-day? You've mentioned about the Lord Jesus as he walked that path of obedience, and it cost him far more than it will ever cost us.
He resisted the blood. He went right into death, suffered for our sins, but it doesn't cost us that much. But the Lord Jesus looked beyond that, as you were saying, to the joy of returning as the one who had done his Father's will. Paul applies it in practical way. He said this should be our desire, brethren, as we live from day-to-day, that someday your life and mind is going to pass into review and just as the Father was so greatly satisfied.
And glorified by what is strong has done, the Lord Jesus could say, thou make me full of joy with thy countenance. So there will be a time when your life and mine will pass into review. And rather than we little realize how the Lord values that obedience have devoted us to him. The little hymn puts it some lot along those lines for how we'll recompense his smile the sufferings of this little. While we hold back, we say, oh, it's too difficult, I can't take that. But the Lord Jesus suffered more than we could ever. That's why it goes on to say, consider him.
Who endured such contradiction of sinners against himself? Lest he be worried and faint in your minds, ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. The Lord Jesus would rather die than disobey. It was his joy to do his Father's will, and all the joy of glorifying him about the whole question of sin, in order that the Father's heart might flow out without hindrance. And you and I might be supremely blessed. Oh brethren, it makes it so worthwhile for us as we press on.
With that example.
We do so little in comparison, but I believe if we're going to find out someday.
How much the Lord valued a cup of cold water, or a thought upon his name.
And listen to these wonderful words found in First Corinthians 4 and then.
Shall every man have praise of God when he picks out those things that have been done in our lives? Young people, children, older ones? Why, when he picks those out, it's going to please him so much that it says Then shall every man have praise of God? What an encouragement for the pathway of faith.
In addition to the hope the Lord had of seeing his father's countenance returning.
I fully believe he associates those he's bringing there too. We go back in this book, chapter 2 of of Hebrews and just notice a couple of verses that associate.
The redeemed ones with the Savior, the saved ones with the Savior, brought in as the fruit of His work. He had that joy as well, and it puts us there in association, so we certainly do enjoy it. In the 10th verse of Hebrews 2 it says it became Him for whom are all things and by whom are all things in bringing many sons unto glory.
To make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that sanctifies. And they who are sanctified are all of one that is one in kind, for which 'cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren. So he brings it's it's the corner of wheat that fell into the ground and died that it wouldn't buy the loom. He goes in, and he brings in the fruit of his laborers, and he calls them brethren. And then the twelve person says, I will declare thy name unto.
My brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee.
I believe he leaves the singing today in the midst of the assembly, and that praise reaches right to the throne of God. And then he commits the keeping of his own to the Father and says, again, I will put my trust in Him. You'll find this, just hold this place and turn to John 17 and you'll find when the Lord did that, you see He came and made the Father known and particularly in John's Gospel.
00:40:10
And he's gone on high and he's committed.
The keeping of his own down here to the Father. Not only are is the Christ serving us as our High Priest, but the Father's looking out for his family down here in the world, answering to the prayer of Jesus and John 1711. And now I am no more in the world, But these are in the world. We're still here. John 1711 and I come to these. He's gone there. What does he say next?
The Holy Father keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are. I'm one of them. Don't you think the Father answers that prayer? Of course he does. Now if we go back to Hebrews 2 and get the last quotation.
From the Old Testament, in verse 13 he says, behold I and the children which God hath given me. This seems to be when he brings the family in, He's going to turn to say God and say, hear the children He sent me to bring in what a joy to him, He's there, he's going to bring us there. All this joy the Lord had before him before he went to the cross.
Now, if thoughts like that don't touch our hearts, then he has to use other means, just like he did with Israel. He drew them with cords of a man with cords of love. But they didn't come. And so it tells us he say he hedged their way with thorns. That is, he wanted them to feel their need of him. And sometimes the Lord has to allow things in our lives that teach us our need of Him, sometimes in health and when everything's going well.
Seem to be going very smoothly. We could just go along, not realizing our dependence, not realizing how much we need him every day and every moment. And so first of all, in this chapter is has been brought out. He sets before us the objective side of things that is looking under Jesus the perfect example their brother's just been saying the joy he's going to have in introducing the results of his toil and victory to the Father's house, Paul desiring that.
That were sold, there would be that in his life, which was to praise and honor and glory to the Lord.
But if those thoughts of his love don't constrain us, then he may have to use other means because he loves us too much to let us go our own way. As I believe Mr. Darby said, the worst of all discipline is that the Lord would leave us to our own ways. He checks us up because he knows how prone we are. And so he brings these in here now, giving quite a little talk about the way his dealing ways with us may affect us in different attitudes that we can take toward them.
We can faint under them. We can propify them. We can be. We can despise them. We can take different attitudes when trouble comes into our lives. The attitude he wants us to take is to profit thereby the siege, just as my father had to correct me. Why? Because he loved me and he wanted me to grow up a happy, obedient child. And so it was done in love. Well, parents aren't always perfect, but God. Our Father's correction is always perfect, As for God.
His way is perfect, so he sets this what we've just been talking about in the first.
I believe 4 verses and then reminds us that discipline is necessary in all our lives. There's no child that escapes it, it says. It says if you be without chastisement, we're of all our partakers. Then are ye ******** and not sons. We all need it. Some might need more, some might need less, but we all need it.
And it's always for our good.
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Perhaps the way we despise it is just to think we have more than our share. We can. This sometimes happens in a family. One of the children will think perhaps the father is making a little pick on that child and really the father sees a little more. Perhaps that needs to be corrected in that one child and the other and really loves them. If he's a wise parent, he loves them all and loves them all and desires their very best. But.
Sometimes children despise the correction of their parents. Brethren, It's possible for us, too, to get so occupied with the troubles of the Way that we forget the loving hand that sends them.
I suppose we could say that the Lord is an example in the 1St 4 verses, but it stops there. Jesus is the example in the 1St 4 verses, but not at all in these next ones. It's the family of God. It's the Father with His children.
And we do need correction. He never. It's kind of important to notice that.
And we are not to despise it, nor are we to faint under it. It's like going down the road. We're not to drive off in the ditch on the left side and they're off on the ditch on the right side, But stay right on the course where the Lord has sent us and follow that guiding and.
I get the blessing that the Father who has all this wisdom.
Perfectly deals with his children and I had a wonderful father.
But I learned that he wasn't perfect. But I thank God for him, and he chastised after his own pleasures. It says down here that is as it seemed good to him. And we might just say that we who are fathers ought always.
To do what seems good according to the light that we have, and be guided by the Word of God, as to disciplining in our families.
And be very very thankful that.
The father that we have who is dealing with us as his children. While we're passing through the scene, everything that comes upon us is in perfect love as he and Wisdom knows what is good for us and then we can submit to what he brings versus our hard to fulfill sometimes. Like it says in everything, give thanks and then it says for everything give thanks.
The only way I can contemplate that is turning to a father who is dealing with me.
And it's all things work together for good to those that love. We know that verse so well and can quote it. But just to think of God, the perfect one, who is moving all things in the favor of his children in perfect love and the end of the Lord as we get that in. And James speaking about Job, you've seen the end of the Lord and we go to the 8th of Deuteronomy.
He led them those 40 years to the wilderness to prove them, to know what was in their heart, that he might do them good at their latter end. When we get the latter end before us, then the enduring comes a little easier for us.
I know our time is about gone, but just thinking a little bit on the context of what's going on here with these Hebrew Saints. As we look at some of the previous chapters, we see that they were suffering persecution for their faith, and there was that danger of turning back and going into Judaism that they had to be warned about. And sometimes too, after we suffer a lot of persecution individually in our lives, there can be that tendency to compromise what we know to be the truth of God.
So Paul, we believe, was the author here. By writing, by divine inspiration, I sought to encourage these believers, who would be discouraged because of the trials of their faith that they were going through, to go on for the Lord. And again, as has already been mentioned, he mentions the Lord Jesus as that perfect example. And he says, you have not resisted unto blood striving against sin. Remember a case where a servant of the Lord was very discouraged because of the persecution that he was enduring.
And so he told somebody about it. And the brothers comment back was, well, have they mailed you to a cross? Have they crowned you with thorns? Well, of course, the person hadn't suffered that much. What's good for us to remember these scriptures when we're going to trials? Difficulties, maybe at school, or in the workplace, or perhaps even in the assemblies where we're at when there's problems, remember that the Lord Jesus was faithful even unto death. And when we have him as our object, no matter what persecution, we might say so, even if it's coming from our own brethren.
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And we have the Lord Jesus as our object. We can be encouraged to go on and we can know then as we get past the 1St 4 verses that we.
This discipline that comes only serves to strengthen us in our Christian faith. That that's what James writes about in his his epistle. The proving or the trying of your faith worketh endurance. Same word that we have here run with endurance to the race. And so all discipline is not necessarily because we've done something wrong.
There is different kinds of discipline that we see referred to in Scripture, and so it might be preventative discipline to prevent something, prevent us from going astray if something was going to come up in our life that we don't even know about. You know, even in a case of a football player who would be training to play football or some sporting event, if he didn't go through all that painful process of working out and and being trained for that event, he would find himself.
Not strong enough to meet the task, and so the Lord allows.
Discipline for preventive measures. He allows it for punitive measures, and he allows it for preparatory measures to prepare us for something that we're going to face. And so all of these trials and afflictions that we're going through even now, are preparing us to serve the Lord in a greater and fuller way. There was a brother one time who went out into the Lord's work, and he was getting a bit of criticism, and so some brethren were talking about it, and one brother made the comment. He said, well.
It'll make a better servant out of them. And it's true that as these trials we face, and I know I'll probably get tested on what I'm saying right here. But as we go through these things and we keep the Lord Jesus as our object and accept this discipline from the Lord, then it will yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness and we'll all be the gainers and be blessed for it.
All the suffering the Lord Jesus went through was, of course, in perfect obedience to His Father's will. There was never anything that needed to be corrected in His blessed and holy life. So He endured everything for righteousness, sake, and His pathway for us. As you say, there are things that are otherwise. I believe here the subject is chastening. Paul's thorn in the flesh was preventative because it tells us, lest he should be exalted above measure. And so.
God saw that there was tendency in him, perhaps to be proud because of those.
Many revelations that he had received, And so he gave him some physical affliction that kept him down. That's necessary, and not necessarily because of some failure in our lives, but it is necessary because the flesh is there, because the flesh will always want to be exalted. And then too with what you're Speaking of, is pruning that we're the Lord. May it says in John chapter 15, every brace that beareth fruity purges it that may bring forth more fruit.
Every farmer knows that when he is going to get good fruit, there is a tendency, perhaps a little shoots that don't produce any fruit to grow up a lot of leaves, but not going to have any fruit. He cuts those off. And so there is that tendency with us. So there are those three things in God's ways with us. It could be, it could be preventative, it could be because he sees that we're going on for the Lord. But there's a mixture, there's something of self mixing with it and salt. He prunes us because he wants more fruit.
But that all of us need this positive chastening, this correction, there's something in everyone of us that needs to be corrected. And the Lord is perfect in it, and his ways are always perfect, but our attitudes are often so wrong, and so we don't get the blessing. And I believe these bringing that out here in a very searching way for all of us, and yelled at the peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. I've been struck by that, brother, that it doesn't say.
Those who learn the reason why, it just says those who are exercised thereby because sometimes the Lord allows something. Perhaps we don't see the specific reason, but it's drawn us nearer to the Lord. We weren't walking close to Him and it's run us nearer and the result is that there's a closer walk with Him. So I say that because I've heard Christians say, well, I went through a real trial. I don't really know why the Lord allowed it, but if you were exercised by it, there's a result.
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It deals the peaceable fruits of righteousness.
And I've often noticed that in a brother or sister, and perhaps would say, well, I don't know specifically why the Lord allowed it, but others looking on could say He. Certainly walking nearer to the Lord, since that trial has come into his life, he's learned something and so it covers everything, doesn't it? God's ways are always so perfect in all his dealings with us, and I believe that's the reason why it says in the ninth verse the father of Spirits.
The Father of Spirit says is the thought of the difference between the Lord creation and ourselves.
That is, the spirit in man is the intelligent God. Conscious part of our being, an animal doesn't have that. But you and I have. And the spirit beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And the spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the belly. And God knows there may be a spirit in me that I don't. I've heard it even said. And perhaps others notice in me. I see a spirit there that I don't like, and they He sees that sometimes our presidents see it. The Lord always sees it.
And he's the father of spirits. He sees that trend. Maybe we're doing something right, but our spirit in it isn't right. I think that's a lovely expression, The father of spirits. We we don't always know how to do that, even with our children. But God, our father's knowledge of us is so perfect, brethren, He knows the very hairs of our head. He counts them. What a father we have. And so it's brought before us in this chapter, as always, for our prophet and that we might be partakers of His Holiness.
Sing. 35 and depended.
Feed my sheep.
Feed my sheep.
Now the word that's used here for sheep in this verse and in the preceding verse.
Where it says feed my sheep at the end of verse 16 is a diminutive form. I have a little note in my margin that says it's a term of tenderness.
And endearment. Not just a small that has nothing to do with size, but a term of affection.
And tenderness and endearment. And the Greek word is PROB.
Ation. I just looked it up before this meeting and I suppose in Greek that's pronounced probation or probation or something like that.
But if you wrote it down and looked at it, you'd say, what, that's probation. That's probation. And so these these people are on probation. And the Lord is saying to John, John, these people are on probation, keep an eye on them so that they don't make any mistakes. Because when someone is on probation, they have to report into the probation officer. And the Lord was, sorry, Peter, I think I said John, Peter here, his probation officer, a probation officer today is a legal man, a man with legal authority.