Joshua and Judges: Crossing the Jordan - Obeying God's delegated authority, part 30. Jos 1:16-18; survey of Heb.Title: Joshua and Judges: Crossing the Jordan - Obeying God's delegated authority, part 30. Jos 1:16-18; survey of Heb.
Announcements /opening prayer:
Heb 12:1 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us [not looking but gone before us], let us also lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
Heb 12:2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Heb 12:3 For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart.
Heb 12:4 You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin;
Next the writer reminds his listeners of the instruction they had already learned about divine discipline. It must be that some of them did fail in faith and God's divine discipline was added to their undeserved persecution. When they deserted the faith they might have been relieved of persecution only to find the experience of another type of suffering. So that they wouldn't fall into complete despair the writer reminds them that if they are experiencing divine discipline it is from the love of God because God is their Father and they are sons and what son does not receive discipline from their father? Those who are trained by it, it produces the peaceful fruits of righteousness.
Heb 12:5 and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, "My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, Nor faint when you are reproved by Him;
Heb 12:6 For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He scourges every son whom He receives."
Heb 12:7 It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?
Heb 12:8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
Heb 12:9 Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live?
Heb 12:10 For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness.
Heb 12:11 All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
This leads us to our sixth and final passage in Hebrews.
Heb 12:12 Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble,
Heb 12:13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.
He is using an athletic figure of speech referring to exhaustion. Some of their number were feeling very discouraged and disinclined to make the necessary effort to keep pressing on.
Isa 35:3 Encourage the exhausted, and strengthen the feeble.
Isa 35:4 Say to those with anxious heart, "Take courage, fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance; The recompense of God will come, But He will save you."
The NASB diverges from the Hebrew a bit, but enough that you might not know our writer is quoting it.
Isa 35:3-4 Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, "Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you." NIV
He is using an athletic figure of speech referring to exhaustion. Some of their number were feeling very discouraged and disinclined to make the necessary effort to keep pressing on.
Isaiah encourages Israel that God is coming. Our writer has done the same - "for in a very little while, He who is coming will come." (Heb 10:37)
Heb 12:12 Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble,
Heb 12:13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.
Fear and anxiety cripple (make lame) the spiritual life. Gone on long enough the injury will be unrecoverable (put out of joint).
The fear and anxiety from the suffering they have gone through has made lame their spiritual lives, and if they continue for too long in their despair over the troubles of life they are in danger of having their spiritual lives put out of joint, referring to an unrecoverable injury. We imagine that any believer can return to God from any depth of apostasy, but the Bible warns that there is a place of no return, and as a result, all should be on their guard to it.
1Pe 5:6-7 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety upon Him, because He cares for you.
1Pe 5:8-9 Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world.
The weary believers can and should be encouraged by their brethren, especially those who are also experiencing tribulation or have in the recent past, but in the end it must be their own personal faith that strengthens the weary spiritual life. They must remember the instruction of verse 2 and fix their eyes on Jesus as the pioneer and perfecter of faith. They must approach the throne of grace to find grace and mercy to help in time of need. They must be reminded by the instruction of the word of God that this is the very purpose of their lives and that there is nothing more precious and good in life than pressing forward in the plan of God.
And so, despite the persecution and even if there is divine discipline as well, they must keep pursuing. In specific he mentions two things - agape love and practical sanctification.
Heb 12:14 Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.
Peace - a state of freedom from anxiety and inner turmoil; soul prosperity; harmonious relationships between men, between God and man; a sense of rest and contentment.
He leaves the athletic metaphor and straight forwardly stresses peace amongst all. Pursue, dioko, means to run swiftly in order to catch someone or something. It means to press on. The peace they are to run swiftly after is the offering of peace with all men. If it is unbelieving Jews or Gentiles who are persecuting them for their Christianity; if it is weak believing Jews who are returning to a life of Judaism in order to avoid persecution; if it is those who have fallen away and have found themselves becoming antagonistic with those who continued on - all must pursue peace. Peace is a fruit of the Spirit and so a part of agape love. The believer is not to quarrel or ever to be the instigator of strife but to always extend his hand in peace through the power of his agape love. This does not guarantee that the persecutor, unbeliever, or backslidden believer will accept it, but that does not bar the believer from the clear command to extend it. The Lord promised that such a believer would be blessed or happy. Mature believers will always have peace between them.
Mat 5:9 "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Rom 12:18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.
The persecutory may reject peace, but the believer must always love, forgive, pray for, and be gracious to all, even his enemies.
It may not be possible to be at peace with certain people. Those who persecute may not accept a plea to peaceful coexistence with the persecuted believer, though he has true agape love and offers it with complete forgiveness. However, that does not bar the believer, though persecuted, from maintaining peace in his own soul as a fruit of the Spirit and so to love his enemy with the agape love of God. He is to pray for his persecutors as well as exhibiting graciousness. The believer is to never be the instigator of strife.
Mar 9:50 "be at peace with one another."
Added to the pursuit of peace is the pursuit of sanctification, separation from the world. Without this no man shall see the Lord in time.
This is practical sanctification in time, set apart from the world system and sin nature and unto the plan of God. Without this no man shall see the Lord.
Mat 5:6 "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
This vision of the Lord isn't some extra special blessing of the spiritual life, it is the spiritual life; it's essence.
Mat 5:8 "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Sanctification came to us by faith at salvation and experiential or practical sanctification of life comes in the same way. There is a way of life in Christ and it is the spiritual life that follows it. The believer who chooses the life that is Christ chooses to be a student of the word of God and chooses to depend upon God the Holy Spirit to teach him, guide him, and to empower him. He chooses to put his faith in the word and the Spirit and so pursues the place that the word and Spirit will lead him, which is the life that is Christ.
If he chooses this life set apart unto God the promise is that He will see the Lord, not an actual vision, but seeing Him through the eyes of the heart and coming to know Him intimately.
1Th 4:1 Finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that, as you received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that you may excel still more.
1Th 4:2 For you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.
1Th 4:3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality;
1Th 4:4 that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor,
1Th 4:5 not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles [ethnos - multitude] who do not know God;
1Th 4:6 and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you.
1Th 4:7 For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification.
1Th 4:8 Consequently, he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.
The writer of Hebrews states the same thing with the same warning about a life of fleshly lust that takes precedence over the spiritual life. |