I want you to turn back with
me to Hebrews, this time chapter 12. We just read from a chapter
11. I'm going to make some references
to that. We want to say that we're glad to see this
morning. Francine has brought her husband
Greg and Y'all introduce yourselves to him. I've titled this message this
morning, Preserving Faith. Read back in chapter 11, you
don't have to turn, I'll read it to you. The first verse said,
now faith is a substance. As I said, what upholds our hope. Faith upholds our hope. There's two types of faith. One is a temporal or carnal faith,
which we have in this earth and practically everybody has it.
The second is a spiritual faith of God through the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now this temporal faith, it's
not a lasting faith. And let me give you an example.
Of course, I'm retired now, but I worked. I worked a job and
we, I, and most of you are probably in this position who have worked,
got paid every two weeks. But during that two weeks, I
worked day by day, day by day, without pay. Come the end of
the day, I didn't get paid. Worked two weeks. Why? Well,
there was a faith there. If you see what I'm saying, there's
a faith there that the end of two weeks, I was gonna be paid. And that faith exists throughout
all of human nature. We trust. people to do certain
things. But sadly, that faith is not
lasting. Things change. We see that all
the time in the newspapers. People put their trust in people
and they let them down. But that's not so with spiritual
faith given by God. That faith is everlasting. It
never changes. And we read that in chapter 11,
I'll read this to you, you don't need to turn, but it gives an
account of the believers in this whole scripture of the men and
women of God who possessed faith and who persevered in that faith. The scripture says in chapter
11, by faith able, we read that, by faith Inc. did such and such. By faith, Noah, being warned
of God. By faith, Abraham, when he was
called to go out into a place which he should after receive
for inheritance, obeyed. By faith, Isaac, did such and
such. By faith, Joseph. By faith, Moses,
and we read this, all through the scriptures. And then in chapter
11 it says this, and what shall I more say? And this is also
Paul writing, what more shall I say? For time will fail me
to tell of Gideon and of Barak and of Samson and of Jephthah,
of David and Samuel and of the prophets, who through faith subdued
kingdoms wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the
mouth of lions. And then it further says, and
others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover,
of bonds and imprisoned. They were stoned, they were sawed
asunder, they were tempted, were slain with a sword, They wandered
about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, and
tormented. Now, let's go to our text in
chapter 12, verse number one. The apostle says, wherefore,
seeing we are compassed, means surrounded, about was so great
a cloud of witnesses. And this whole scripture, from
Genesis to Revelation, is a witness of God's faith toward his people. Wherefore, seeing we also are
encompassed about was so great a cloud of witnesses, let us
lay aside every weight, and the sin which so doth easily beset
us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. 1 Corinthians 10, 11 says this,
now all these things, the things I just wrote about, all these
things happened unto them for examples, and they are written
for our admonition, that is, to call attention to the faith
and the grace of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now our text says,
let us lay aside every weight. Now there are certain weights
that we can't lay aside. God has commanded us that we'll
earn our bread by the sweat of our brow, working, that's a weight. day in and day out, the humdrum
of working to earn your keep, a roof over your head. That's
a way of taking care of those problems. I don't believe he's
talking about that here, though. He's talking about us adding
things to our life that weighs us down, that takes away from
the worship of God. And we're all guilty of that.
I'm the first one to confess that I do it. And I've done it,
taking on things in our life that takes up our time. It's a burden, it's a weight. These people that we read about, they suffered,
they suffered danger, physical danger, but they had faith. But
we in this generation are actually suffering a greater danger than
they did. And that is the danger of prosperity. We're not going through what
they went through. We're not being beaten. We're not being
persecuted in this country. And so prosperity brings many
things upon us that just weighed us down. That old nature within
us, there's an old man, and Marvin's pointed this out time and time
again. There's two natures. There's the nature that God has
given, and there's that old man that cleaves to this earth. That's what David said. My soul,
he says, cleaves to the dust. That old nature loves the things
of this life. We love to do things. And we
take on things and we do things that take up more and more time.
And when that happens, it takes away from our reading of the
scripture. It takes away from our prayer
life. It even takes away from sometimes
of our attendance with the brethren here on a church. These are weights. And this is
dangerous, like I said, we're in a time, let's confess, let's
just be honest, we take on stuff. We just take on stuff that we
don't need to. I'm guilty, I'll be the first
to admit that. I do things, little things here,
well this won't hurt, and this won't hurt. First thing, you
got everything going, and your whole day's taken up, and little
is thought about God and things of heaven. Proverbs, let me read
you this in Proverbs 39. Proverbs, I'm sorry, chapter
30. Proverbs chapter 30, verse eight
and nine. It says this. King David says, remove far from
me vanity and lies. Give me neither poverty, nor
riches, feed me with food convenient for me." Let's talk about the
gospel. Why? Lest I be fool and deny
thee. Now he's not speaking there just
downright denying, but it's just, we forget about God. All these
things, prosperity, we forget about God. That's human nature. That old nature, in us doesn't
want anything to do with God. It loves the things of this life,
and it's easily, very easily, as we shall see, to be taken
up with the things of this life. Verse nine in that text, chapter
30, he said, lest I be fool and deny thee and say, who is the
Lord? Or lest I be poor and steal and
take the name of my God in vain. In 1 Kings, let me read this
to you. 1 Kings. Chapter 11. Verses four and five. Solomon. King Solomon, the wisest
man that ever lived apart from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The richest man that possibly
has ever lived. He had wealth, and think about
this, so much wealth that the man had 700 wives. Why in the world would a man
have 700 wives? Because of prosperity, because
he could afford them, because he could, he wanted to. That
old flesh took that desire of his and fulfilled it. Now it says here in four and
five, it says, and here's what prosperity does to us. For it
came to pass when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away
his heart after other gods. You think about this. Here's
a man that God spoke to and blessed greatly. And the scripture says
God loved him. He was a believer. Can we fall
away and fall into such things? Solomon did. Am I any better
than him? God dealt with him openly. For
it came to pass when Solomon was old that his wife turned
away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not perfect
with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. Listen to this, for Solomon went
after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidians, and after Milcom,
the abomination of the Amorites. And Solomon did evil in the sight
of the Lord and went not fully after the Lord as did David his
father. Isn't that something? A believer. This man was a believer,
greatly blessed of God. So prosperity is dangerous, very
dangerous. And like I said, we live in a
time of prosperity. This whole country lives in a
time of prosperity. I don't see anybody here, including
myself, that's hurting for food and shelter and a decent car
to ride in and so forth. But it's when we take these other
things is when we are apt to forget God. Now back in our text,
it says, Let us lay aside every weight
and the sin which doth so easily beset us. What believer would
say that's not a true statement? My thoughts, my words, my deeds,
come like that sometimes. Where did that thought come from
in my head? A sinful thought, a rebellious
thought, You read in scripture that that occurred all the time.
Old Job, under affliction, he had wrong thoughts of God. That was sin. And we're given to that. You think about all the things
that we do, and here's the thing. A believer that has been given
a new heart of God is the only one that can look
inside and really see the depth of his own wickedness. When I
look inside myself, I see nothing but darkness. Isn't that right,
David? I see nothing but darkness. I
think, why am I the way I am? If I am a believer, why am I
the way I am? Now, back in our text, the sin so easily besets us,
and listen to what Paul says, and let us run with patience
the race that is set before us. Paul, in his writings, compared
the Christian life to a race. In 1 Corinthians, he told them
in chapter nine, verse 24, he says this, no you not, that they
which run in a race run all. Everybody runs. The marathons
we see on television, there's a lot of people running. But
one receiveth the prize. So run that ye may obtain. Run the race. And this Christian
life, what he's saying is, we ought to be running and walking
and seeking after the things above, like we're the only one
in the race that's gonna win it. Just imagine this whole world,
this whole world is religious and everybody is seemingly running
in the same race, but only one can receive that prize of eternal
life. How should you run? How should
you run? That's what he's talking about.
Let us run like we're the only ones gonna win this thing. That's
how serious we should be. Now in this race, in Corinthians
9.25, the very next verse, he says, and every man that striveth
for the mastery, that is to win that race, is temperate, that
is self-restraint. He shows self-restraint in all
things. Now, they do it to obtain a corruptible
crime, but we are incorruptible. You watch these men run these
marathons. A guy or a woman that's really
serious about winning a marathon is going to do everything he
can to prepare for it. His weight is going to be right.
He's going to watch what he eats. Certainly he's not going to wear
clothing like I have on this morning to run a race. He's not
going to weight himself down with things that will slow him
down. And that's what it talks about
a being temperate. Don't load yourself down. Don't
load yourself down for this race. because it's gonna hinder us.
It's gonna hinder us. And I guess that's one thing
that we read back in chapter 11 of these who suffered affliction
had over us. They had nothing. They didn't
have prosperity. They didn't have anything. They
had nothing, no place to go but to Christ. And we, in this time
of prosperity, sometimes I wonder, Myself, if I'm running the race
as I should, I have doubts. I look at myself and I think,
why do I do this? Why do I feel this way? Why am I in this frame of mind? And I'll admit to you, I've been
struggling with this a lot lately. Because the older you get, for
you younger people, and you'll see this, you who believe, the
older you get, the more you see this battle within, this old
nature struggling to have its own head. That's just the way
it is. The more you learn, the more
you grow in grace and knowledge of Christ, the more your faith
grows, the heart of this old nature is gonna fight it. I guarantee
it. I see it. I see it. Now, Paul,
in continuing his talk about race, he further states that, listen
to this, I have finished my course. What course is that? That's that
race he was talking about. I'm running a race. He says,
I have finished my course. I have kept the faith, henceforth
there is a crown of righteousness laid up for me which the Lord
will give me at that day. The race we look for, the prize
we look for is a crown. Now it's not the crown and the
rewards the false religion is talking about, but this crown
is a crown of righteousness. That's what the believer wants.
The believer wants to be like the Lord Jesus Christ in perfection. I, and you want to be perfect. I'm tired of this sin. I'm tired
of myself. I'm weary. I'm weary. I'm looking for that righteousness.
And so we must run that race if we want that righteousness.
We must put forth an effort. It's not an idle thing. We're
not spectators in this Christian life. No man is. And the scripture
clearly points that out. And then back in our text, verse
two of chapter 12, it says, unto Jesus. In our previous verse, it said,
we're compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses. We're not
to look to them. Their testimony, the scripture
says, their witnesses, they testify of what God does for his people
in the way of faith. This faith that God gives is
a permanent faith. There's no change in it. Unlike
this natural faith, this carnal faith of this world, the faith
that the Lord gives never changes. It never changes. It may be of
little faith, that's what he told the disciples. It may be
of great faith, that's what he told a woman. Woman, great is
thy faith, but it's faith given of the Lord. But we must look
to the Lord Jesus Christ because he's about to tell us why we
need to look. Looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith. That word author there, I looked
it up, it means the leadership. He's the beginning, the alpha
and the omega, the first and the last. He began the faith,
he gives us faith. We don't experience the faith
of God by experience alone. If that was the case, we see
that in this whole world, God is good. He's been faithful to
his creation, but men don't believe that. They don't believe he has
faith. They don't believe he has faith.
They don't believe he's done anything for faith. They take
everything for granted. But Christ, Jesus, he purchased
the right on the cross. He purchased the right by his
life. From the time he was born till
he died on the cross, he was perfect. No sin in him. Sin on him, yes, but no sin in
him. And then our text, again, it
says, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher. That's a
blessed thought. I don't have to keep myself,
I can't keep myself. If God abandons me, I'm done. And our prayer constantly is,
Lord, don't leave me to myself. You leave me to myself and I
am going to perish. But he's the finisher. He ends
it. He's done it. He's completed
it all. He completed it before the world
every, yeah, he was the lamb slain before the foundation of
the world. The work is complete in him. And it says, for the joy that
was set before him endured the cross. What joy was that? What joy is that? Well, It was
the joy that the fathers promised him that all things are his,
all things will be his, that he sits at the right hand of
God, that he purchased redemption for his people, that he satisfied,
especially this, that he satisfied God's just demands. He honored
God. as a human being, as a man. He restored, the scripture says,
that which he took not away. He restored God's honor in the
cross, and that was his joy. Kind of hard when I read that,
I think. From the time he was born till
the time he died, he suffered. I often think Here was a perfect
child raised in an imperfect home. I often wonder how many
times he had conflict with his mother. Now we all being sinners
as children, we experienced that with our mothers and fathers.
There was often conflict. We didn't always do what they
wanted to do. But here the Lord was perfect.
And there's probably times that his mother wanted him to do things
that just wasn't right. And I can just only imagine the
conflict, the conflict he had with his peers growing up. We see a lot today in the news
about kids bullying in school. You can only imagine what he
must have went through growing up as a child with his peers. He was likely bullied. Young
man, growing up at the time when young men are prone to their
worst sinning, their teenage, 20s, 30s. Can you imagine his
contemporaries, those around him? He didn't do the things
he did, and they persecuted him. You know that. You know that
happened. But it all culminated on the
cross when he started preaching. Men didn't like to hear what
he had to say. Men, he was preaching the gospel that takes everything away from
man, as far as salvation goes, and lays it on Christ. Men don't
want to hear that. Men want to be their own boss.
Don't tell me. You just cross anybody. And we're
all guilty of that. Just cross me. Say something
I don't like. Or try to command something over
me. Try to command something over you. You're going to take
offense to it. And he did that all through his
public ministry. Bless God, I love it. It says
he didn't respond to him. When he was reviled, he didn't
revile again. He never said a word, a bad word
to him. Of course, you know, that would
just, that infuriates people. If you're gonna argue with me,
let's argue. But he wouldn't do that. He was
perfect in his ways. And that was the joy that was
set before him. He endured the cross. Now, here's
the thing, and it puzzled me when I read it a little bit.
It says, despising the shame. What does that mean? Of course,
he was shamed. He was terribly shamed outwardly. But here's the thing. There was
no shame in him. There was no shame in him. Now that despising, when I look
that word up, it means to disesteem, disesteem. There was no shame
that could shake his determination. That's what it means. He despised
the shame. No shame that he experienced
would shake his determination of his work that the father had
given him. He says in Isaiah 50 verse six,
he says, I gave my back to the smiters and my cheeks to them
that plucked off the hair. I hid not my face from shame
and spitting. As I said, shame was upon him,
but no shame in him. Now we, as natural men, We hide from shame at all costs. That's our nature. We don't like
to be shamed. We don't want to be shamed, and
we'll hide from it at all costs. And so, in essence, what we do,
we esteem it. While he despised it, we esteem
it, so to speak. We give some credence to it.
We don't want to be shamed. That's human nature. If it wasn't
so with our Lord, no shame. could shake his determination. And then the scripture says,
verse two, he sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. There's his joy. There's the
joy he sought. Hebrews 1.3 says this, who being
the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person
and upholding all things by the power of his word, and speaking
of Christ, our Lord, our Savior, when he had by himself purged
our sins, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. When he had himself purged our
sins, he hung on that cross suspended between heaven and earth, God
forsook him, and man didn't want any part
of him, propped up between heaven and earth, rejected of the earth, rejected by God temporarily. He forsook him because sin was
laid on him, your sin. And when we think about that, when we think about what he's
done on our behalf and all the suffering we went through, why? Why do we burden ourselves and
take away the rightful worship that he deserves? And we do. Let's be honest. Human nature is going to have
its fill. This old man never changes in
us. It never changes. It's hated
God. Every man is born hating God. And that old nature in us hates
God to the day we die. Scripture says, for consider
him that endures such contradiction of sinners against himself. lest ye be worried and faint
in your minds. Whatever we may suffer in his
life, it's nothing compared to what he suffered. He suffered
untold agony, shame, through his whole life. You read through
the book of Psalms, and Psalm after Psalm, His prayer
is to God, to the Father, to help him because of what he's
suffering physically, not so much, but spiritually. The suffering
of his soul, someone said, is the soul of his suffering. So as I wind this down in closing,
our text is about our faith, our God-given faith. Faith that never fails. Faith
that never fails. And bless God, faith that grows.
As we live and experience the goodness of God and the faithfulness
of God, God's people's faith increases. We lean more and more
on him. because we look inside this old
flesh, and there's nothing there, nothing there. Our text is about
our faith. Jude 1 3 says this. Beloved,
when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common
salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort
you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was
once delivered unto the saints. That earnestly contend means
to struggle for. And let me ask you a question.
Where is your struggle? Where's my struggle? Is it out
here in the world? No. We're prosperous. Is it with
Satan? Partly. But where's the struggle? Where's the contention? Right
here. Here's where the contention is,
this old nature, this old nature within me. You don't want anything
to do with Bible study. How easy is it to put off Bible
study or reading the Word? Well, I'll do it later. See what
I'm saying? Here's the battle right here
in a believer. It's not out there. With these
people in chapter 11, the heroes, what they call the heroes of
the faith, they had outward afflictions, they did, but they had inward
afflictions too. Galatians 5.17 says this, for
the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. There's that battle within. And
these are contrary, the one to the other, so that you cannot
do the things that you would. Paul says, he sees a law. This old nature is a law. He
said, I see another law in my members. That is this body warring
against the law of my mind. He goes on to say, I am carnal. In other words, I am fleshly. sold under sin like a slave. I'm sold under sin. I can't get
free of it and never will in this life. That's why the battle
is so important that we work and we can't do it of ourselves.
No matter how much we try, we cannot whip up this ability to
fight this old nature. That's gonna come through prayer
and strength of the Lord himself. He has to give us strength, and
we have to ask him. If we don't ask, we don't receive. He says to ask and you will receive,
and that's gonna take prayer and his strength. Matthew 26,
41, and I'll close this out. He says, watch and pray that
you enter not into temptation. The Spirit indeed is willing.
God's given us a new spirit. He's given the believer a new
spirit. It's a willing spirit. It's a spirit that loves God
and that would do God's will, but the flesh is weak. So let us constantly be in prayer
that we be not led into temptation, but that the Holy Spirit would
direct our walk, our thoughts in honoring the Lord Jesus Christ
and God the Father. That is our duty. And with that, I'll close. I
pray it's been a blessing to our hearts and that it might
be for his honor and his glory. Amen. Brother Gary.