Joshua and Judges: Crossing the Jordan - Obeying God's delegated authority, part 18. Jos 1:16-18; Heb.

Title: Joshua and Judges: Crossing the Jordan - Obeying God's delegated authority, part 18. JOS 1:16-18; Heb.   

 

Announcementsopening prayer:

 

 

MAT 10:32-33

"Everyone therefore who shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. "But whoever shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.

 

The context of this passage is not confessing Him in church were everyone agrees with you.

 

If Christian Jews in the Roman Empire boldly asserted the gospel of Jesus Christ, they were opening themselves up to persecution. If they continued to pretend to be Jewish they would not.

 

Their persecution would not just come from the state but also from their fellow Jews, who were the first great persecutors of the church.

 

As believers they were commanded and entreated to come out of the Jewish closet, though they would face persecution for it.

 

To them the epistle of the Hebrews was addressed.

 

We've studied HEB 2:2-4; 6:9-12, and we pick it up in our third passage in 10:19.

 

HEB 10:19 Since therefore, brethren, we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus,

 

This is given in contrast to the restrictions which surrounded entrance into the holy of holies in Israel's earthly temple.

 

HEB 10:20 by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh,

 

HEB 10:21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God,

 

HEB 10:22 let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

 

The high priest had to be ceremonially clean before he could enter the Holy of Holies and he had to offer a sacrifice for himself before he could offer another one for the people. In Christ believers are literally clean of heart as we possess perfect righteousness from God and eternal life. The pure water of the word of God makes this inner cleanliness an outward reality as we develop a conscience like our Lords and so develop honor and excellent behavior or intrinsic good.

 

HEB 10:23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful;

 

HEB 10:24 and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds,

 

The word "stimulate" also means to provoke. We usually look at provoke in a negative sense but here it is used in a positive sense. Here love is provoked in the sense of being stimulated in the lives of Christians by the considerateness and example of other believers in their fellowship or local assembly. We could say that love stimulates love in others who also know of it and walk in it. Just like God stimulates us to love we can influence one another through agape love, but if God is not the source of love in a believer's heart, then there will be nothing there to stimulate from the love of others.

 

If the Jews stay separated from the other Christians due to the persecution and they refuse to gather together with them, then there is no way in which they can stimulate another to love and good deeds.

 

In fact, if they are refusing to gather with them then they don't possess agape love in their own soul and so could not stimulate anyway.

 

HEB 10:25 not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more, as you see the day drawing near.

 

The "some" are the believers or professing believers who refused to gather with the other believers for various reasons. I'm sure there were some who refused because of such immature reasons as personality conflicts, failure to receive approbation, etc. But there were "some" who refused to gather because of the persecution from the community that came with it.

 

ROM 15:7

Wherefore, accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God.

During the times of persecution it is damaging to one's reputation to associate with other persecuted believers, as it was for the apostles' association with Christ. God will allow us to eventually be put in situations where our agape love is tested in this way. Will be accept our brother or will we reject him in deference to our reputation amongst men?

 

Harnack in his 1908 work Mission and Expansion of Christianity states:

"At first and indeed always there were naturally some people who imagined that one could secure the holy contents and blessings of Christianity as one did those of Isis and the Magna Mater [Cybele as she was known to the Phrygians, the Great Mother], and then withdraw. Or, in cases where people were not so short-sighted, levity, laziness, or weariness were often enough to detach a person from the society. A vainglorious sense of superiority, and of being able to dispense with the spiritual aid of the society, was also the means of inducing many to withdraw from fellowship and from the common worship. Many, too, were actuated by fear of the authorities; they shunned attendance at public worship, to avoid being recognized as Christians."

 

Only by remaining united could they preserve their faith and witness.

 

JOH 17:23

I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, that the world may know that Thou didst send Me, and didst love them, even as Thou didst love Me.

 

"but encouraging one another; and all the more, as you see the day drawing near." Every generation of the church is to believe that they are in the end times - immanency of the parousia.

 

The first generation of believers was passing away, along with the apostles; a new generation was growing up. At this point in time other shocks were in store for them: the rather sudden hostility of the imperial power and the destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem.

 

Before 70 A.D. those Christians who remembered and took seriously Jesus' prophecy of the destruction of the temple likely found it difficult to keep it distinct in their minds from the coming of the Son of Man to gather His elect.

 

This is good to remember as predictions are made about the end times of the church age. We look at historical trends and make predictions, but the timing of all things future, eschatology, are in the hands of the Father alone. And when it comes to predicting the discipline of America by God, we cannot know when the last and final discipline may fall, but no matter where we are in history, we should always be prepared for it. Ask yourself if you would be doing anything different if we were in the third to last, second to last, or final stage of God's discipline upon our nation.

 

MAT 24:1 And Jesus came out from the temple and was going away when His disciples came up to point out the temple buildings to Him.

 

MAT 24:2 And He answered and said to them, "Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here shall be left upon another, which will not be torn down."

 

MAT 24:3 And as He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?"

 

Verse three has three different questions. Christ answered these questions in turn, but not in the order that they were asked. After 70 A.D. it became easier to see that the destruction of the temple and His coming were the beginnings of two different epochs or dispensations. As a believer before then it was easy to put them together as the one, His return, would come right after the other, the destruction of the temple. After so many years, after completion of the canon, and after many years of interpreting the canon, hindsight is way in our favor. It turns out that every generation of believers looked for His coming, and rightly so.

 

When he writes, "as you see the day drawing near," may mean that the signs of the impending catastrophe in Judea were already visible to men and women of discernment.

 

The first full scale Jewish rebellion against the Romans began in 66 A.D. Vespasian invaded Galilee in 67 and proceeded to take town after town until 69 when his son Titus took over. Titus laid siege on Jerusalem in 70 and in 7 months took the city.

 

Any believer who took Jesus' prophecy seriously could see this approaching a full 4 years before it reached its fulfillment.

 

And indeed, after 70 A.D. knowing that Christ didn't return, the church continued to believe that they might be the last generation, and even if they weren't, they knew that they had already received heavenly citizenship and a kingdom that cannot be shaken.

 

Their hope was secure whether they were the Rapture generation or not, and so with that hope secure they held it by unswerving loyalty to Christ.

 

This is also revealed in Hebrews.

 

HEB 12:27 And this expression, "Yet once more," denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, in order that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.

 

HEB 12:28 Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe;

 

HEB 12:29 for our God is a consuming fire.

 

Our thanksgiving, reverence, and awe towards God should be true whether Christ is returning today or a thousand years from now.