Turn with me in your Bibles to
Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12. Our topic today is a continuation
of the subject that we spoke on last Sunday, whom the Lord
loveth, he chasteneth. And as the writer here continues
that topic, he's now telling us, encouraging us, how to endure
chastening, how to endure chastening. So let's read this text together.
Hebrews 12, 12 through 15 says, wherefore, and that's what I've
titled the message, wherefore, wherefore lift up the hands which
hang down in the feeble knees and make straight the paths,
make straight paths for your feet. lest 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
can look, 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. These verses are admonitions
from our Lord. They're encouragements from our
Lord in order to teach us, to help us know how to endure chastening. It tells us in the previous verses,
no chastening for the present time is joyous, but it's grievous. It's grievous when it happens.
It's not joyous, it's grievous. So he says here, wherefore, lift
up the hands which hang down in the feeble knees and make
straight paths with your feet, lest you be lame, lest that which
is lame be turned out of the way, but let it rather be healed. Well, how do you do that? Well,
you follow peace. Follow peace. And then he says,
follow holiness. And then he says in verse 15, looking diligently,
or who are you looking to? He told us in the last part of
the previous chapter, the Lord. That's who we look to. That's
who we look to. Now these are, these admonitions
are given in times of trial, times of trouble, times of chastisement. That's what trials and troubles
are for the believer. And we shouldn't be surprised
that we have troubles, that we have trials. As a matter of fact,
we were warned. We were warned that we would
endure persecution. We were warned that the life
of the believer is not, I know there's an expression called
easy street. You ever heard that one? It's
not easy street. It's not sunshine and rainbows. That's another
expression. No, it is a life of the Lord causing us to have
no confidence in our flesh over and over again, and a life causing
us to look to him over and over again. Now, everything he's encouraging
us on here, lifting up our hands and strengthening our feeble
knees, He's talking about how the chastisement is burdensome
to the flesh. He's talking about how the chastisement
is burdensome to the flesh. Then he tells us how to strengthen
the feeble knees and how to lift up the hands. And I'm reminded
of the story of Moses. A couple places this happened,
but one place in particular, his sister and his brother, were
on each side of him because in order for them to win the battle
that they were facing against the Lord's enemy, Moses' hands
had to remain upstretched in the air. You can imagine a battle
doesn't last a short time. There's no battle that's been
fought that we know of that lasted just a few minutes. The battles
could last days and weeks, couldn't they? And so his arms, I'm not
sure how long it was that day, but it was almost, it was a day
at least. And he was, had his arms outstretched, and he began
to get tired. His arms began to get tired.
So what did they do? Well, Miriam held up one, and
Aaron held up the other one. And what's that a picture of?
We can't hold up our arms on our own. Is that not goodness
and mercy that holds up our arms? Is that not righteousness and
truth that holds up the Lord's people's arms? Is that not the
Lord Jesus Christ giving us peace and joy? And these things hold
up our arms. Well, how do we obtain those
things? We look to Christ. We look to him as he says right
here, verse 15, looking diligently, lest any man fail of the grace
of God. If one lives a life that's not
attended by troubles, by sorrows, by affliction and by chastisement,
it's proof that they are not the children of God. If you live
a life that is not full of sorrows and afflictions and troubles
and trials, and especially chastisement, it's evident you're not one of
the Lord's children. I'm not one of the Lord's children. Because
he says, look at verse six, for whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth,
and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. Now don't misunderstand.
I gave the definition of this last week. Don't ever read that
word chastisement and think that it's punishment from God for
anything that you've done. You can listen to that. I don't
want to reiterate too much from last week, but you can listen
to that message. Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth. That word
chasten means to correct, but also to teach and to lead. The Lord is my shepherd, he leadeth
me, he maketh me, he causeth me. That's that's the message.
That's what chastisement is. He teaches me not to look to
myself or have confidence in my flesh, but look to him and
have confidence in him and his finished work, his finished work. Then he says in verse seven,
if you endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons.
For what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if you be
without chastisement, wherefore all are partakers, then you are
bastards and not sons. So Lord's telling us here, if
you don't have these chastisements, we're none of his, we're none
of his. Wherefore, wherefore? Look to Christ, lift up your
hands, strengthen your knees. So how do I do that? Look to
him. Is he not our strength? Is it not him that said, in your
weakness, my strength is made perfect? In weakness, my strength
is made perfect. That's what he told Paul. Paul
said, Lord, I have this thorn in the flesh. I sought the Lord
three times to remove it. I said, Lord, you're gonna have
to take this from me. I can't bear this thorn. And the Lord
said, my grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made
perfect in weakness. Look to Christ, look to Christ. Now the chastisements, they are
grievous brethren to the flesh and our natural tendency, our
humanity is to fold under pressure, is to throw in the towel, is
to quit or to give up. But I'm thankful we have a good
shepherd that keeps his people. He doesn't let us. He doesn't
let us. When things get hard, things
get discouraging, the Lord's people have received the same
prayer that Peter received. The Lord said to Peter, Satan
hath desired to sift thee as wheat, that he may have you.
But I have prayed for you, Peter, that your faith fail not. That
was the difference between Peter and Judas, wasn't it? And that's
the difference between the Lord's people now and those that are
not. The Lord prays for his people that their faith fail not. Therefore,
our hands may grow feeble, our knees may grow feeble, but they're
not going to give out. Why? The Lord's going to keep them.
Our hands may grow heavy, but the Lord's not gonna let them
falter and fail all the way down. We're not gonna be able to quit
believing the gospel. Why? Because the Lord keeps his
people looking to him. He promised not to do but good
for his people. He's the good shepherd, isn't
he? The good shepherd, and he keeps his sheep well. He promised
never to leave his sheep, never to leave or forsake his people,
but to go with them all the way even to the end. He promised
to provide for them. He promised protection for them.
Now, the Lord tells us clearly, fear not man, which can harm
the body, but fear God who can destroy both body and soul in
hell. And oftentimes we are afraid
of men. We do have a lot of fear of man. But the Lord said, don't look
at them. Don't look at them, look to Christ to order and provide. Trust him, trust in what you
can't see. Don't trust what you can see. And that's what faith
does is it looks to the Lord Jesus Christ. I like the verse that says he's
a very present help in the time of trouble. You know what that
very present means? He's always there. He's always
there. He's a very present help in the
time of trouble. He's able to do exceeding abundantly
above all that his people ask or think. Exceeding abundantly. Exceeding abundantly all that
we ask or think. Wherefore, look to him, the one who is seated
as the successful redeemer, the one who is king of kings and
Lord of lords. Don't look to circumstances,
don't look to self, and don't look at the chastisement as,
and he actually talks about bitterness here. He says, don't let the
root of bitterness spring up in you. Well, how do we do that?
Well, we look to the Lord. We look to the Lord and we say,
Lord, don't allow this root of bitterness to spring up in me.
Cause me not to become bitter or frustrated or, want to give
up because of whatever this circumstance may be. Because sometimes brethren,
the things that we are facing can be extremely grievous, extremely
grievous. And I'm not sure why the Lord's
purposed us to be here. I trust that he's gonna bless
his word as he always does. But this is what he's talking
about here. Whatever you're facing, the grief that you have, the
disappointment, the discouragement, feeling overwhelmed, feeling
afraid, whether it be the salvation of your family or your, Whether
it's health, whatever it may be, if you're His, He's doing
that for your good. The impossible part for the flesh
is to believe God and look to Him and say, yep, everything's
gonna be okay. No, that's what the new man does. And that's
what the Lord's saying here. That's the lifting up of the
hands and strengthening of the feeble knees is looking unto
Jesus, looking unto Him. That's what we need to be reminded
of is it's finished. He didn't make any mistakes.
He didn't make any mistakes. He successfully redeemed and
he's not gonna lose one sheep. He's not going to leave us to
ourself. He's never gonna forsake us, his people, he promised. And he cannot lie. He cannot
lie. I understand something. These words
here, they're not an escape. A lot of preaching is done in
a way to say, okay, this is what you do and this will fix that.
That's not what we really preach here because it kind of is. We say, look to Christ because
he's the solution, but we can't really do that unless he enables
us to do that. Does that make sense? But yet
we still declare it because the Lord puts it in our heart as
a desire. Well, I want to look to him. I want to see him. I
want to trust him. Do we not? And so that's the
message that goes forth. It's not necessarily a work that
you do in your flesh, though. That's the point. Looking is
passive. Looking is something that's been given by grace alone.
That's a gift unto eternal life. Something that we don't produce
that he enables us to do. So these words are not necessarily
an escape, but they're an encouragement to continue to keep going. to keep enduring the pressure,
to keep enduring the trial, to not quit or to give up. Paul
put it this way. He said, run the race with patience
that's set before you. Boy, that word patience, I tell
you what, I've worked in many different places and dealt with
many different people. And some people have zero patience,
I'm confident. And some people have some patience.
But this is not just having a little bit of patience for a short time.
This is the patience that comes from the Lord, the patience that
causes us to rest in the Lord Jesus Christ alone, regardless
of the circumstances. This is by faith, believing Him. If the Lord gives you faith to
believe Him, you're going to have patience to endure whatever
it may be. Our issue is unbelief, isn't
it? That's our issue. Our issue is unbelief. Our issue
is seeing what's presently in front of us and wanting to do
something about it or wanting it to be fixed immediately. And
as you all know, we live in an instant gratification society. I bought something on the internet
the other day, and it said it would be there in like a week.
Well, then it was delayed. And so now they're saying it's not going
to be a month. And I'm like, should've went with Amazon, man. It'd been here next day
or today. You know what I'm saying? And so we have instant gratification
mentality in a lot of ways because of that. It doesn't work that
way with our Lord. The Lord operates in his eternity. He does things in our time, but
it's all his time. Do we see that? He owns the time.
He made the time. It's for his glory and for his
honor and time will cease one day. So even though we're running
out of time, he's not. He owns all of it. He owns all
of it and he can do whatsoever he will with whosoever he will
when he wants to in time. That's the good news of the gospel
is he chose to save sinners in time. Paul says, run the race
with patience that's set before you. Press towards the mark.
Solomon echoes this. We've been studying Proverbs
chapter four. What does he say? He tells us, look straight on. Don't look to the left, don't
look to the right. And I find it interesting that
what the admonition is here is the same thing Solomon's talking
about in Proverbs right now. Why is that? Well, if you turn
to the book of Psalms and read some of the things that David
went through, you'll find the same words. This is the life of each
believer. You'll find the trials and tribulations
of each believer's life. Some died, and they even mentioned
that. Chapter 11 talks about the ones that they died, they'd
give their life for the gospel. That was their persecution. We
see throughout all of that, was it their strength that mattered?
Was it their abilities that mattered? Was it their dedication that
mattered? Was it their Was it their anything particular that
mattered, or was it God's grace that mattered? It was his grace,
wasn't it? His grace was sufficient to bring
them through. It was his power they were kept by. It was his
word that kept them and caused them to look to him. It wasn't
that they promised God, I'm gonna do this if you do this. It was
that God said, I will and you shall, and David, came out called
man after God's own heart. That's amazing, isn't it? Man
after God's, after all the things he did, he was called a man after
God's own heart. Let's read this again. Verse
12 through 15. Wherefore, lift up the hands
which hang down and the feeble knees and make straight the paths
for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the
way, but let it rather be healed. Follow peace with all men and
holiness, which no man shall see the Lord. Look diligently,
lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness
springing up in you, and thereby many be defiled. So when he says
that first, let's see, I gotta find that. That word straight,
verse 13, and make straight paths with your feet. How do we do that? You notice
the Lord always describes the way of him as the straight way,
as the narrow way, few there be that find it. It's not crooked,
it's not confusing, it's just one direction. And you know,
that's something our flesh don't like doing sometimes. We're easily
distracted. Have you ever been shopping at
Walmart and actually thought about your steps when you're
walking through it, or any sort for that matter? Actually, where
do you go, like, if you're like my wife and I can talk about
her, she's not here right now, I might regret it later. But
I was thinking about making a diagram. When she goes to Walmart, it
looks like this. And she's going down each aisle.
She's going, oh, I need to go over here, too. And she comes
back here. I'm more like a one-track kind of guy. I walk in. I get
what I need. And then sometimes I get distracted,
too. I might grab something else. Oh, that's shiny. I might grab
that. But for the most part, if I've got to go in, go out,
I'm there. I get it. I go. See, that's how we are
by nature. We go in and we're looking and
we're distracted by all these things. That's how our human
nature is because normally. As we're going through this life,
there's so many shiny things around us and everything distracts
us from, well, from the truth, from the Lord's truth. We're
just easily just drawn away from it, just easily drawn away from
it. And it's by His grace. He just keeps bringing us back
and keeps bringing us back. That's why it has to be a straight
path. Can't be crooked. If it was crooked, there'd be
too many things that would distract us. It's a straight path. It's
a straight path to Him. So He says, make the path straight. Make the path straight. Lift up the hands which hang
down and the feeble knees and make straight paths for your
feet. Lest that which is lame be turned
out of the way and let it rather be healed. So now he's talking
about the feet being lame. Brethren, the Lord is the only
one that can heal the lame. He's the only one that can cause
the blind eye to see. He's the only one that can make
that path straight. This whole admonition is saying
the exact same thing. Christ is our path. Christ is
our strength. Christ is our peace. Christ is
our holiness. Christ is our righteousness.
Look to him. Look to him, no matter the circumstance. Somebody said, well, you don't
know what I'm going through. I don't have to know what you're going
through. You don't know what I'm going through either. And you don't
have to know what I'm going through. But I know the remedy. I know
the solution. The Lord Jesus Christ is the solution. He is
the remedy. He is the remedy. Wherefore, look to the everlasting
I am to order and provide according to his will. Look to him, order
and provide according to his will. Look to the unseen, not
the seen. And the good news of the gospel is every child of
God will be made to trust in him and not self. Made to trust
in him and not self. And it's interesting, the older
that you get, I'll say I've been told by several, The less strength
you have, the less strength you have. You're not as strong the
older you get. Your body loses muscle mass and your ability
to be strong. So you can't trust in your strength
anymore. That's why the scripture talks about the glory of an old
man and his gray hair rather than his strength. Glory of a
young man's strength. So what that means is, is the
old man should have wisdom, should have wisdom or more knowledge.
And so he's able to glory in that more than his strength anymore.
But the point, some men lose their mind too, and that doesn't
work either. The point I'm making is the Lord's going to make it
to where we have no confidence in us to do anything spiritually,
because doing anything spiritually is just dead works. He's going
to have to do it. He's going to have to do it. He's going to make us trust him. In the book of Daniel, Daniel
prayed. Daniel prayed for three straight
weeks. That's 21 days of praying. And
at that time he said, no pleasant food came to my mouth, nor no
pleasant drink. That means he probably ate unleavened
bread and drank water. But he prayed unto the Lord.
Why was he praying? Well, he was burdened because of the captivity
of Israel in Babylon. He was burdened for His people.
He was burdened for their deliverance, their salvation. They desired
to worship the Lord. You remember the persecution
Daniel had because all he did was pray unto the Lord three
times a day. They threw him in the den of lions. They tricked the king. to sign a petition that said,
anybody that doesn't bow down and pray to you, or praise to
any other God, or anything else, be thrown in the dental lines.
We had to honor his word, so he threw Daniel in there, but the Lord
delivered Daniel out of that, didn't he? So they desired to be free
to worship the Lord, to worship the Lord. And he prayed unto
the Lord, Lord, how long is this captivity gonna be? How long
is this captivity gonna take? For 21 days. Just as we have trials, Daniel
couldn't see the path in front of him, and neither can we. Now,
I would remind you, the children of Israel, when they crossed
the Red Sea, I looked up some information, I thought this was
fascinating, I wanna share it with you. It is estimated, and
I will preface it by saying it's estimated, that where the children
of Israel crossed the Red Sea, it's 2,500 feet deep. 2,500 feet deep. That's pretty substantial, isn't
it? I didn't know that the Red Sea was, it's almost 10,000 feet
deep in its deepest place. I didn't realize it was that
deep. I mean, that's a long ways down. 2,500 feet is where they
crossed at. Now, the Lord did not, we know
because of how our Lord, how he's operated. We know that their
path before them opened But they couldn't see the other side,
not all the way across. There's no way where they're
2,500 feet down. You imagine how dark it'd be
down there, first of all. Second of all, they can't see the other
side. As they moved forward, the water kept moving back. How
do we know that? Because that's our life. That's
why, that's our life. If we don't take the step forward,
if the Lord doesn't give us the ability to step forward unto
him, we can't continue in the right direction. Lord's not gonna
say, okay, if you do this, this is gonna happen. And then he
gives it to you and you say, well, I did my best and it didn't
happen. It doesn't work that way. He said, seek you my face,
trust me, come unto me. And so we walk towards him and
then we see the path unfold. Do we see that? That's exactly
what happened to them. That's exactly what happens to
us. Sometimes the Lord's answer to us and our prayers, our questions
is endure. My grace is sufficient for you.
Endure, I'm making you a vessel of the finer. I'm removing the
dross, the unbelief. I'm getting rid of the unbelief
that you have, causing you to believe me. Endure, my grace
is sufficient. We're not promised to come out
smelling like a rose or without pain. But oh, we are promised
that we'll be the better for it. It's for our good and his
glory. For when we are weak, his strength
is made perfect. At his appointed time, he promised
to save us out of trouble. Whether we're saved out of trouble
by the last breath that we draw and awaken his likeness, or we're
saved out of trouble with our physical circumstances changing,
the Lord will not lose one sheep. He promised he cannot lose one
sheep. Although we can't see him sometimes, remember he is
the storm and the first cause of all things. It is the Lord.
Wait on the Lord. Look to him. Well, when the Lord
finally came to give his answer to Daniel, the angel of the Lord
said, fear not Daniel, for from the first day that thou did set
thine heart to understand and to chase in thyself before thy
God, thy words were heard and I'm come for thy words. I heard
you the first time you prayed. Did not the Lord say your father
knows what you have need of before you even ask him." And then he
goes on to say, so ask him. Well, if he knows, I ain't got
to ask him, right? The Lord said, ask him. Asking you shall receive,
seeking you shall find, knocking it shall be opened unto you.
Somebody said, well, you're making this a work. No, not at all.
I'm just telling you the Lord's command. If you have a desire,
you will seek Christ. You will look to him. He will
enable you to do so. because he's the one that's put
that need there. He's the one that's put that need there. Lord,
teach me your ways, oh Lord. Teach me your precepts. Teach
me your thoughts. Teach me, create in me a clean
heart. Cause me to seek after your righteousness. Understand the beauty of the
gospel in this, brethren. He did not deliver the Lord Jesus
Christ on the cross so that we would be delivered. so that we
would be delivered. He did not deliver his son so
that you and I could be delivered from death and from hell and
from the grave. He became sin for us who knew
no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
He became forsaken of God on the cross. My God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me? He became forsaken of God so
that you and I would never ever ever be forsaken of God, ever. He was made a curse. Scripture
says he was made a curse on the tree. Cursed everyone that hangs
on a tree so that you and I would never be the cursed thing. He was stricken, afflicted of
God. He was smitten of the Father
so that you and I would never have to see one drop of wrath
One drop of wrath, he drank damnation dry. By his own blood, he purged
every sin of every person he was dying for that he might robe
us in his perfect righteousness on the tree. Do you think he's
gonna leave us to ourself now? No. He said, I'll never leave
you and I'll never forsake you. Why? Because I was forsaken so
that you don't have to be. So that you don't have to be.
This is why all God's chosen people can say are made to say,
come what may, our heavenly father knows what's best. He knows what's
best. We know that his loving hand
is guiding every bit of this. We know that he is the captain.
But the boat don't even have a steering wheel on it. It's
just going exactly as he's purposed it. It doesn't have sails on
it. He don't need wind. It's moving without wind. Can
you explain that? No, but that's exactly what it's
doing. It doesn't have a motor. He is the motor. He's everything
on it. That's exactly what it is. He's
ever leading his people to the glorious substitute surety, the
Lord Jesus Christ. You know, there's some things
that we know. There's some things that we know,
and one thing we know We know all things work together for
good to them that love God, to them that are thee called according
to his purpose. We know that. And we say with
the father of the child that was sick, Lord, I believe help
thou mine unbelief. Lord, I believe help thou mine
unbelief. Above all, brethren, when we
are persuaded Above all, we have been persuaded
that no matter our circumstances, no matter the chastening, no
matter the trouble, no matter the trial, nothing can change
the relationship God has with his elected people. I love that. You mean I can't do something?
that upsets God and it changes my relationship with Him? No,
you can't. Because He sees the blood. He
sees His Son. So you can bank on, if you want
to put it that way, you can count on the fact that whatever's happening
in your life is for your good because he sees the blood. There
is now therefore no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.
There's no more punishment. There's no more wrath. There's
no more justice to be satisfied. It's been satisfied. There's
no judgment. Christ endeared all of it for
his people and put it all away. So that now you and I are the
adopted sons of God whereby we cry Abba Father. Although chastisement can be
painful, we have an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast
who entered into that which within the veil where you and I could
not enter to and place the blood upon the mercy seat. And that's
all that remains for the child of God is mercy and grace and
peace. Now, in closing, let's read this
one more time. Verse 12, wherefore, lift up
the hands which hang down in the feeble knees and make straight
paths for your feet, lest 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. And we're gonna look at those
words next hour. lest any man fail of the grace
of God, lest any root of bitterness spring up trouble you and thereby
many be defiled. Lift up your hands which hang. He says, wherefore, wherefore
lift up your hands that hang and strengthen your feeble knees.
Walk the straight path towards him. He alone can heal the lame.
He's the only one that can heal the lame. Look to him. And he
tells us that's the solution. He says, so he tells us what
to do and he tells us how to do it. That's the interesting
part of the gospel, isn't it? So he tells us what to do. And
you and I know, well, I'm just a sinner. How am I supposed to
do that? Well, he tells you, looking diligently. Well, who
am I looking to? To myself? My strength? No, no,
not at all. That's wrong. Looking unto Jesus,
the author and finisher of faith. That's who we look to. He alone
can heal the lame. He alone can raise the fallen.
He alone is the balm of Gilead that can heal the sick. He alone
can call us into his glorious light out of darkness. He's the
strength for the weak. Matter of fact, his strength
is made perfect in weakness. Somebody said, I don't feel too
strong. That's a good place to be, even though it's painful.
It's a good place to be even though it's painful. When you
see your body given out or you see things around you that are
troubling, discouraging, it's a good place to be because if
you're his, you're going to cry out to him. That's what he's
making you do. Crying out to him more than ever now. Why?
I see my inability. I see my incapableness. I see
my dependency of him. I see my need for him. That's
called diligently looking. That's what he's telling us to
do here. Diligently look. Wherefore look diligently to
him who is seated. He can't make mistakes, he cannot
lie. He alone is our refuge in the time of storm. He is our
ark, he is our cleft of the rock. Flee to Christ, flee to Christ. That's why the scripture says
be not weary in well doing. We grow weary sometimes. The
Lord said, don't be weary in well-doing, don't be weary looking
to Christ. And he tells us why, Mark 13, and ye shall be hated
of all men for my name's sake. But he that shall endure to the
end, the same shall be saved. Well, how do you endure? Looking
to Christ. It's all the same, isn't it?
Looking to Christ. Looking to Christ is our righteousness. Wherefore, endure with patience.
and look to him alone as all your wisdom, all your righteousness,
all your sanctification, and all your redemption. That's how
you endure. That's what we look to him for. Let's pray. Lord, we pray that you bless
your word according to your will to our understanding. In Christ's
name, amen.