Hebrews chapter 12. We saw last time in the first
two verses, wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with
so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight
and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with
patience the race that is before us. looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before
him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at
the right hand of the throne of God. And then today we come
to verse 3, for consider him that endured such contradiction
of sinners against himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your
minds. This being weary and fainting
in our minds is the weight and sin which surrounds a believer
and takes its toll on a believer. This word wearied is what happens
when we become tired out, when you become tired out under a
heavy load. And this word faint is the result
of being tired out. It means to release, to let go. For the believer, this struggle
is in the mind or in the heart, in the spirit. This is a warfare
and a struggle of the heart. And only a believer truly knows
what it is to become weary and to struggle in the heart. A worldly
person grows weary at struggling and fighting with the sword of
the flesh. A worldly person's warfare is
carnal. It's temporal. It's worldly.
It's about worldly things. The mind is set on worldly things,
on getting our way and our will and gain from others and for
ourselves. That's the way of the world.
That's not what we're talking about here. That's not what wearies
the believer. That's not the thing that we're
talking about here at all. This is something that's far,
far more wearisome, far more toilsome to a believer. If you
look there at the end of verse 4, it says, You have not yet
resisted unto blood, striving against sin. That's what this
is. We're talking about striving
against sin. This is the sin which we see
ever more present in our own bodies. is sinful, selfish, fleshly desires
which would have us turn away from Christ to our own selves,
to fulfilling those desires, to fulfilling our wants, and
for that to be preeminent in our thoughts and in our minds
and in our heart. That's what our old nature wants,
is for us to run after those things, tamper this flesh, to
have what this flesh wants. whether we need it or not. But
the spirit within a believer longs to be with Christ, longs
to behold Him, longs to grow in faith toward Him, longs to
grow in repentance from this world toward God, longs to grow
in knowledge and understanding of Him. And it's a striving,
a constant striving, a constant warfare with these two natures
that are in a believer. They're totally against one another. And this world of sinners who
don't even know they're sinners, who don't even know what it is
to be an ungodly sinner, who don't even know what it is to
be ungodly, is all around us and it causes weariness to a
believer. It causes great weariness. The
carnal mind thinks the man that's born of the Holy Spirit is the
one who's not in his right mind. unbelief is so prevalent and
so full, this world is so filled with
it, that a person who begins to speak of Christ being in you
and of the work of faith being a work that God works in a sinner,
that God draws a sinner to believe on Christ and to trust Christ
and gives him faith and repentance, and that it's God who receives
the glory and not me, When a person begins to speak that way, a worldly man thinks, that's crazy
talk. That's just insane to think there's
a man seated in heaven, that there's a man seated at God's
right hand that is God. And they begin to say, you're
insane. But the real insanity is not believing Him and not
casting all our care on Him. That's the real insanity. But
because it's so prevalent to come in contact with people who
don't believe Him, when you find somebody who does, and it's so
rare, they're the ones who seems like they're off their rocker.
That person is crazy. And so for a believer, It's being
surrounded by folks who really think you're just insane. You're just crazy for believing
God, for trusting Him. And it's worrisome. The mind,
the corrupt imagination thinks God is love. And that's what
you'll hear. You'll hear someone argue. You
start talking about justice and mercy. You start talking about
long-suffering. And you start talking about grace
being totally irrespective of the recipient of it. And that's
what it has to be if it's grace. It has to be totally outside
of the recipient. It has to be totally unconditional
or it's not grace, it's works. But when you start talking about
grace and justice and mercy and the fact that we're sinners and
that justice has to be satisfied. And that God can't be merciful
to a sinner who is deserving of justice, unless justice is
first satisfied. And then he can be merciful.
You start talking about it and people start saying, yeah, but
God's love. Y'all just, you just, you're
just so narrow on it. God is love. That's a smoke screen. That's a smoke screen. That's
an idol of the imagination. That's a man that's never looked
into this word, never really heard what God said and heeded
what God said. Just think that if I just do
my best, if I just try to get along with folks, if I send a
nice, sentimental, spiritual sounding email to all my buddies
every now and then, God will just look on me and say, you
know, he did his best, he's alright. That's a sentimental, doting,
doddering, foolish idol that men conjure up in their mind.
That don't even resemble the God of this Bible. And that's
not love. That's not love. And it's wearisome
to the believer to be surrounded with this sin and this rejection
of God. And it bears heavy on a believer.
This truth, the truth according to what God says is this, man
loves darkness. And this is that old nature in
a believer too. It loves darkness. And it loves
sin. And don't want to come out of
darkness and don't want to part with sin. The Lord said this. Most everybody can quote John
3.16. For God so loved the world He
gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him should
not perish but have eternal life. But right after that, what did
He say? This is the condemnation. Men
loved darkness more than light. And wouldn't come to Him because
they loved that darkness for fear that if they come out into
the light, man is going to have to confess what he is. Man is
going to have to confess his sin. And a man loves his darkness
and he will not part with it unless God makes him part with
it. And a man says, I love my will. You can't tell me I can
lay this down anytime I want to. Well, lay it down then. Just
lay it down then. You can't unless God, because
that will is just as dark and depraved and hateful towards
God as everything else about us is. And God's got to make
us part with it too. He's got to give us a new will
and a new understanding and a new heart and a new spirit that pants
after Christ Jesus. And until He does, Scripture
says that man's enmity against Him, just hatred against Him. Oh, not against that old God
whose love just loves everybody the same, indiscriminately. The Lord said, if I had not come
and spoken unto them, they had not had sin, but now they have
no cloak for their sin. That's the thing that men hate.
That's the thing that men hate. Well, the words that the Lord
Jesus spoke to his apostles is true of every chosen, believing
child of God. Look over at John 15 with me.
John 15. Hold your place there. We'll
come back to John 15. Look at what the Lord said here
to His disciples, to His apostles. This is true of every believer. He says, if you were of the world,
John 15, 19, if you were of the world, the world would love His
own. But because ye are not of the
world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the
world hateth you. Look over at John 17 in verse
14. This is what the Lord prayed
concerning His people. He said, John 17, 14, I have
given them thy word, and the world hath hated them, because
they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. So
this is an exhortation. Hold your place there in John.
We'll come back there. This is an exhortation to the
believer, lest you be wearied and faint in your minds, in your
spirit, as you strive against sin. Now, first of all, as you
strive against sin, consider him that endured such contradiction
of sinners against himself as he strove against sin. The Greek
word for consider. is translated in another place,
proportion, and it's a mathematical word signifying to compute by
comparing things together in their due proportions. Weigh
well who Christ was when he walked this earth, the place that he
took, the infinite perfection of his character and his deeds,
and then consider the base ingratitude the gross injustice, the cruel
persecution that men poured out on him. And then calculate and
estimate the constancy of the opposition that he encountered.
It was constant. The type of men who rejected
him, the variety and intensity of his trials, and the spirit
of meekness and patience with which he bore them. Think of
those things and then look at who you are and what you're suffering
and what you've gone through. And then think about these in
proportion to one another, in proportion to one another. Let's
consider Him. Who is He? Who is He? This is God. This is the Son
of God, the second person in the Trinity, the Lord of heaven
and earth. This is the Creator who created
heaven and earth. This is the Son of God, the Beloved
of the Father. And what is His relationship
to you? What's His relationship to you? He's the Believer's Redeemer. We're His possession. The Believer's
His willing bondservant, willing to serve Him and want delights
to serve Him in the inward man. And He's our Master. Why did
he suffer? Why did he suffer? He was called
on by God the Father to suffer here on earth in all points tempted,
just like we are, yet without sin. To suffer in the cause of
obeying God's law as our representative. The first Adam was your first
representative, whether you know it or not. Your first representative
was Adam. He's the first Adam, the federal
head of all mankind. And when he sinned in the garden,
what that means is this, whoever was born from Adam was going
to have Adam's nature, going to have the nature that Adam
had. When God created him, he could have communion with God,
he could spiritually enter into who God is and fellowship with
Him and commune with God. But when he sinned, when he rebelled
against God and sinned, he died spiritually and lost all connection,
was cut off from God. And so, and his nature was polluted. It was vile and corrupt. And
so everyone that's born from him after that was born of His
seed and came forth from natural generation with His nature. And
so we don't know God by birth. We don't know who He is. We don't
know how He saves. We can look into this Word. How
many times have you ever heard somebody go to a church service
with you and hear this gospel set forth and leave and go, well,
that's no different than where we worship over at the Catholic
Church. Well, it's the same. You have the Bible. You come
into a building. You sit down in chairs. You stand
up sometimes. You sit down sometimes. You sing.
Yeah, all that's the same. And that's about all the carnal
eye beholds. That's about it. The words that
go forth out of the mouth don't go into the heart unless God's
given us spiritual ears and eyes to be able to behold these things
in His Word. Until then, we have that nature that God says, when
He says, the carnal mind's imitating His God. We don't really want
to be here. We don't really want to be looking into His Word.
We don't really believe His Word's true. We don't really believe
God is. The fool hath said in his heart, no God. And that's
what we all believe by nature. That's how we're born, is with
that nature. And it takes God giving us a
new heart and a new spirit to believe Him and see Him as He
is. But until then, it doesn't happen. But Christ came as God
commanded and entered into covenant with. to be the second Adam. And he was born, that's why he
wasn't born of a man. He couldn't be born of Adam's
seed. Because if he would, he'd have had our corrupt nature.
He's that holy thing formed in Mary's womb in a virgin from
the Holy Ghost. And so that he's without sin.
He's the Son of God. Holy. Perfect. Because he would
have been a sinner by conception if he'd have been born any other
way. So he had to be born of... created in the womb by God. And
so he comes forth. And he's born under the law.
Just like you and I are. Because he's going to walk and
fulfill that law and obey that law in thought, word, indeed
as the representative of his people. He's doing that because
they couldn't do it. And he came to do it for them,
to honor that law and to magnify that law. And he came and he
fulfilled everything that every prophet ever wrote about him.
He fulfilled it perfectly. He fulfilled every law. He fulfilled
all the precepts of the law he obeyed. He fulfilled all the
shadows of the law. He fulfilled it perfectly. And
then He went to the cross and He took the sin of His people.
Because He's a perfect substitute, a perfect Lamb. He can do it.
So He takes the sin of His people and He's made sin. And God, who
says the soul that sinneth must die, poured out His wrath on
Him in place of His people. And now the justice of His law,
the penalty of His law is satisfied toward them. And so now that
person is dead to the law. The law says when Christ died,
when He died, We died. The believer died. His elect
died when he died. And the law says, I have no more
claim on him. I have no more claim on him.
You take somebody who's committed a terrible crime and he has the
whole nation worked up and the whole nation is, they want to
see that person, they want to see justice carried out on that
person. If we were to capture Osama bin Laden, after what he's
done. We want to see justice served
on. We want to see him brought before justice, and we will see
justice served. And if somebody just finds him
and kills him, or if he dies of natural causes, the law says,
I can't touch him. He's dead. I can't do anything
to him. And we'd feel so let down. We'd
feel so let down that justice wasn't carried out on him. Well,
when Christ died, the law said they're dead. Everyone he represented,
dead. That's why it's a necessity.
It's an utmost necessity that God come then to these spiritually
dead sinners, dead in trespass and sin, and create life within
them so they can behold, you died to the law. Quit working. Lay down all your labors of wearying
and toiling trying to earn a righteousness before me. You died in Christ.
And when He rose, you rose in Him. When He sat down at my right
hand, you sat down and you're complete in Him. You're perfect
in Him. You're righteous to be accepted
of God right now, where you are. That's what he tells a sinner
in the heart when he comes in power. And until he does that,
that's insanity to fight against that. That's insanity to say,
no, I don't believe that's how it is. Because I want to be the
one who came to him on my own. You want to be God. You want
to be God's what you want to be. There's only one. And you're
not it. And I'm not it. We're going to
bow and realize we couldn't do anything to please this God.
Well, that's why he came, brethren. And this is what he said, the
word that I said unto you, the servant's not greater than his
Lord. If they persecuted me, they'll also persecute you. If
they kept my saying, they'll keep yours also. Believers don't
fight with one another. A believer is not going to persecute
one of the Lord's saints because he knows this is one for whom
the Lord died. His Redeemer died for this one.
I'm not going to harm him. If they've kept my sin, they'll
keep yours, the Lord said. But if they hate him, They'll
reject the preaching. They'll reject the people. They'll
reject everything about this God because they hate Him and
they persecute His people. I want you to consider what He
was accused of. I want you to look at a few Scriptures
with me. I'll hurry. John 7, verse 12. I'll make my point. Consider what He was accused
of. In John 7.12, there was much murmuring among the people concerning
him. Have you ever been in a place
where you stood for the gospel and you felt like there was much
murmuring concerning you? I tell you, there's people who
say two things about a believer who speaks the truth. Two things.
And here's what they are. For some said, he's a good man.
That's one thing they'll say. That's the truth, right? That's
the gospel. Here's the other thing. No. He deceives the people. He's a deceiver. Have you ever
had somebody say that about you? That's what they said about him.
He's a deceiver. In Luke 23, 14, Pilate said unto
them, You've brought this man unto me as one that perverteth
the people. That's another thing folks should
say. You're trying to pervert the people. You're deceiving
them and by your deception you're trying to pervert them. That's
what they said about the master. Then in Luke 15, 2, he was rebuked by the religious
folks for the company he kept. And the Pharisees and scribes
murmured saying, this man receiveth sinners and eats with sinners. You know what they were saying?
Well, that bunch down there, they don't keep the law. That
bunch down there is a bunch of antinomians. Don't have anything
to do with them now. I'm going to warn you about them.
I'm going to warn you about them. Don't go down there with them
now. They don't keep the law. They're sinners. Sinners. That's what they said about him.
He eats with sinners. And then he was accused of being
a lawbreaker. Scripture says they watched him.
They watched him. Not to hear what he said. Not
to even look at him as an example of righteousness in the way he
walked. They looked at him to see if he would break the Sabbath.
He is the Sabbath. He is the rest. And they looked
to see if he'd break that law. And he healed somebody on the
Sabbath day. And they railed on him because
he healed somebody and broke the law. Broke the Sabbath. He was accused of healing sinners
by the power of the devil. When the Pharisees heard, they
said, this fellow does not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub,
the prince of the devils. He was looked down upon as a
lowly, uneducated, uncouth Nazarene from Galilee. Others said, this
is the Christ. But some said, shall Christ come
out of Galilee? Surely you don't believe that
man knows the gospel. That uneducated, ignorant, nobody
from nowhere, that's what they said about the Master. This can't
be the Messiah. This can't be the one God, the
all-knowing, all-powerful, all-wise God anointed. Not somebody from
lowly Nazareth. He was called a glutton and a
winebibber. He was falsely accused of speaking
against Caesar. The Jews cried out and said,
if thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend. Whosoever
maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar. He didn't speak
against Caesar. Never did. He said, give Caesar
what's due to Caesar. He put Caesar where Caesar was.
He put him in charge where he was. So when we're reviled, when
we're rebuked, when we're treated spitefully by men, we quickly
become offended. we quickly become offended. And
all too often we're quick to let folks know why we don't deserve
to be spoken to in such a manner. We let them know that we're wise,
that we don't treat others in such a way and don't expect others
to treat us that way. And then after we've wrestled
with their words in our minds and we've gloated in how we told
them All we've done is weary ourselves to the point of fainting
from this gospel of Christ. We're somebody, aren't we? Somebody. Every grain of wisdom you and
I have is total darkness in proportion to the infinite wisdom of Christ
Jesus. Every good thought or deed you
and I have ever done has been full of enough wickedness to
send a million men to eternal hell. He was holy from conception
to the cross. We think we treat others the
way we want to be treated, but fact is our obedience makes the
golden rule look like unpolished brass. He left the riches of
heaven for you, believer. He gave everything, proportion
that to how much we've given. The very presence of every single
person He came into contact with just was a stink, an abomination
of sin to Him just by their very presence. And that's not to mention that
cruelness and the venom and the ignorance and the rejection that
foamed up out from beneath our tongues toward Him the entire
time He walked this earth. This is God. 1 Peter 2. Look at 1 Peter 2. For this is thankworthy, if a
man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it if when
you be buffeted for your faults, you shall take it patiently?
But if when you do well and suffer, you take it patiently. This is
acceptable with God. For even here unto where ye call,
because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example
that ye should follow his steps, who did no sin, neither was guile
found in his mouth, who when he was reviled, reviled not again. When he suffered, he threatened
not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously. We have enough guile and hypocrisy
in us that we deserve much worse than we receive. and he had none
and kept his mouth shut. We'd be better off just to keep
our mouth shut, wouldn't we? We're reviled and we upgrade
the other person right back, proving that all we are is reproach.
We suffer and we threaten. We do it to our closest relations,
even our spouse and our children. And yet when he was reviled,
he didn't do it back or threaten men when he suffered. He committed
himself to him that judgeth righteously. When our Lord said, Men ought
always to pray and not to faint." You know what he's saying? Men
ought always, constantly, continually be committing themselves unto
Him that judgeth righteously and faint not. That's where we
ought to always be continually. Do you see Him? We see him and
how he walked this earth and how wise he was and how that
he just was so faithful to commit himself to God Almighty. How
is it that I could talk back when somebody reviles me or that
old flesh rears up and wants to lash out again when I'm rebuked? Why? I deserve more rebuke than
that. I deserve more than what any
man's ever rebuked me. This what this is what the three
boys told the king if it be so our God whom we serve He's able
to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace and he'll deliver
us out of that hand. Oh king Hey, we know that don't
we just commit ourselves to him Are you disheartened by the hard
usage you receive from men from the religious world? Are you
fearful as you anticipate persecutions? Are you too ready to show resentment?
and consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners
against himself, and make our trifling trials seem so foolish,
make us blush for murmuring against him. Acts 20, 32 says, Now brethren,
I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able
to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all them
which are sanctified. That's what the Hebrew writer
is saying. Consider him. Lest you become weary and faint,
want to give up the fight, consider him. Think of what he endured.