Let us turn to God's Word in
that chapter where we read Hebrews chapter 10 and directing you
for our text the words that we have here in verse 23 Hebrews
chapter 10 verse 23 let us hold fast the profession of our faith
without wavering for he is faithful that's promised Let us hold fast
the profession of our faith without wavering for He is faithful,
that promised. I want us, with the Lord's help,
to consider something of God's faithfulness and the Christian's
faith. We live in days where there is
little faithfulness There was a time when it would
be said that an Englishman's words was his bond. But alas, those days are long
since past. There's little trust, I suppose,
now in business and commerce. Men only seek their own ends
in the main. And of course, when we come into
the domestic realm, we see how the marriages break up. people
forget those solemn vows that they make when they enter into
that covenant of marriage. Unfaithfulness is to be seen
on every hand. The whole world lieth in wickedness
as we read there at the end of the first general epistle of
John. And yet here in the text we are
clearly reminded of the great faithfulness of God in this parenthesis
that we have at the end this bracketed section for he is faithful
that promise first of all then to say something with regards
to this attribute of faithfulness that we see in God if we go back
to the books of Moses, those first five books at the beginning
of Holy Scripture, that first word that God was pleased to
utter through His servant Moses. We see there how God's faithfulness
is clearly revealed. For example, in Deuteronomy chapter
7 and verse 9, know therefore that the Lord thy God, He is
God's, the faithful God's. how this attribute is so conspicuous
in God. When we speak of His attribute,
of course, we're speaking of characteristic of God. It's the
very nature of God, that He will be true. True to Himself, true
to His words. When we come to the end of the
Old Testament, we have that word in Malachi chapter 3, for I am
the Lord, I change not. Therefore ye sons of Jacob are
not concerned." Our God is that one who is clearly unchanging. And interestingly, the great
Puritan Dr. Owen says, God's faithfulness
proceeds from the immutability of his nature. It is because
he is unchanging that he must be the God who is faithful. And when he declares himself
to Moses, as we know there at the burning bush in Exodus chapter
3, what is his name? He says, I am. I am that I am. He is that one who is ever the
same. He never changes. And then when
we come to the New Testament and we have the fullness of the
revelation of God, and we see God of course in the Lord Jesus
Christ, the image of the invisible God. What do we read concerning
Christ in this epistle to the Hebrews? And there at the end
in chapter 13 and verse 8, it is Jesus Christ the same, yesterday,
and today, and forever. And as the Lord Jesus Christ
is the unchanging One, the faithful One, so that reminds us that
He Himself is also clearly divine. He is God, and He is God manifest
in the flesh. or the unchanging Jesus. Our scripture then abounds with
this particular truth, revealing to us that God is that one who
is faithful. If we turn to the book of Psalms,
that great book of praises that we have here in the Old Testament,
look at the language that we find there in the 102nd Psalm. There at the end of that psalm,
of old as thou lay the foundation of the earth, and the heavens
are the work of thy hands, they shall perish, but thou shalt
endure. Yea, all of them shall wax old
like a garment, as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they
shall be changed, but thou art the same. and thy years shall
have no end." How God is ever the same, the unchanging Jehovah
the Great I am. And so again the psalmist when
he speaks to God makes mention of his faithfulness. Thy faithfulness
he says is round about God is surrounded by faithfulness. He is faithful. He is faithful
that promise. And so as God is unchanging,
we are to recognize that He is that One who is always true to
His words. The thing that He has said, that
is the thing that He will do. Paul says to Timothy, if we believe
not, Yet he abideth faithful, he cannot deny himself. Unfaithfulness would be a denial
of him, any change in him would rob him of his deity. Though we believe not, yet he
is the one who is always faithful, because he cannot and he will
not deny himself. When he made promise to Abraham,
remember how he swore by himself. And Paul here in Hebrews goes
on to speak how that these two things are immutable, unchanging. God has given his promise and
God has given his oath. And so the word that He has spoken
must be accomplished. He has magnified His words above
all His knife. If His words is broken, God Himself
is no more. How solemn it is! All these two
immutable things, the promise of God and the oath of God. God is not a man. that he should
lie, nor the Son of Man, that he should repent. Hath he said
it, shall he not do it? Hath he spoken it, shall he not
make it good? Oh, this is the God that we have
to do with Him. This is what Paul is saying here
in our text this morning. We are to hold fast the profession
of our faith without wavering, for He is faithful. He is faithful
that promise. the gifts and the calling of
God are without repentance God never changes and he is not only
faithful in his words and that's certainly what is emphasized
here in this parenthesis at the end of our text it is word of
promise but he is not only faithful in his words he is also faithful
in his works every good and every perfect
gift we are told cometh from above and cometh from the father
of lights in whom there is no variableness nor any shadow of
turning he never turns, he never changes he is that one who is
constant oh what a mercy it is that we have to do with such
a God as this we know how He judged that ancient world
because of sin. He visited an awful universal
flood upon the whole of his creation. But he preserved Noah and his
wife and his sons and their wives because Noah found grace in the
eyes of the Lord. There was a preservation. And
then the promise that God gives after that flood Remember the
words that we have there at the end of Genesis 8. While the earth
remaineth, sea time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter,
day and night, shall not cease. And even as we come into a new
day, we should remind ourselves of God's faithfulness. He has
told us in His Word. Day and night shall not cease. We come to a new day, we come
to the commencement of another week. If we would but behold
these things and consider these things. God's providential government
of the world. He is not only, I say, faithful
in His words, He is also faithful in all His works. even when it
comes to his dealings with his people. Or what does Jeremiah
say there in the book of Lamentations? And he's lamenting, of course,
the awful situation that has arisen in Judah. Jerusalem has fallen The Babylonians
have come, they've overrun not only the country, they've overrun
that holy city. They've taken the people away
into exile. And yet there, as he laments
the sad state of affairs, he says, it is of the Lord's mercies
that we are not consumed. Because His compassions, they
fail not. They are new every morning. Great
is thy faithfulness. God is faithful. and God is faithful
with His children even when He is chastening them. And that
was a chastening that God was visiting upon His ancient people. He was dealing with them because
of their sins. He would take a remnant, the
godly remnant, He would remove them there into captivity, but
He would preserve them through all the long years, 70 years,
a lifetime, there in exile. but He would bring them again
to that land of promise. And it is still true today, even
when God deals with His people in the way of chastening, when
He comes to us and lays His rod upon us and corrects us and acts
contrary to us, He's still that God who is the faithful God,
whom the Lord loves. He chasteneth and scourgeth every
son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, Paul
says, God dealeth with you as with sons. Oh, here is the mark
of our sonship. God is faithful with us. We can
read these things here in chapter 12 of God and His chastening.
Read the opening verses of that chapter. No chastening for the
present seemeth to be joyous but grievous, we are told, nevertheless
afterward." Oh, there's a nevertheless, and there's an afterward. And
we are assured by God's faithful word it will be profitable to
them who are exercised, or to be exercised as we consider God,
and not only the word of God but the ways of God, the way
He comes and deals with us. The first thing then we have
to observe here is something of the character of the God,
this quality that belongs to him, this attribute. He is faithful. He is faithful, it says that,
promised. And so having said something
initially with regards to God and this attribute of his faithfulness,
let us in the second place turn to the promises of God. because this is where we see
his faithfulness principle he is faithful it says that promised
his faithfulness and he stated in terms of his promise now where
does the promise center? the promise centers in the Lord
Jesus Christ remember what we are told in the book of Galatians,
the epistle to the churches of Galatians. There in Galatians
3.16 it says to Abraham and his seed were the promises
made. And it says not to seeds as of many but as of one and
to thy seed which is Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is that
one who is the promised seed. What Paul is saying there, in
that verse in Galatians chapter 3, is that all the promises of
God that were given to Abraham, who is the father of believers,
all the promises center in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is that
one who is the true seed of Abraham. Now when we read the history
of Abraham, Back in the Old Testament, there in Genesis, we see that
the promise very much centers in this son, that Sarah is going
to bear, and she will bear the child, even in her old age. The promise centers in Isaac.
You know the language that we have time and again, turning
back to Genesis. And there in Chapter 17, Verse 7, God says, I will establish
my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their
generations for an everlasting covenant to be a God unto thee
and to thy seed after thee. All of this has to do with that
seed, that son that is going to be born Again at verse 19 God said, Sarah
thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed, and thou shalt call his
name Isaac, and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting
covenant, and with his seed after him. But Isaac remember, Isaac
is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. those words that we've already
referred to in Galatians 3 now to Abraham and his seed where
the promise is made it says not to seed as of many but as of
one and to thy seed which is Christ Isaac directs us to the
Lord Jesus, Isaac is a type and so Christ is the one who is really
the seed of Abraham but not only the seed of Abraham, Christ is
the seed of the woman. Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15,
God's words that he speaks to the serpent, Satan's instrument
in the fall of man, as the serpent had come and tempted he, and
Eve had partaken of the forbidden fruit and she'd given to her
husband Adam and Eve with open eyes had also eaten that that
God had prohibited and when God comes and addresses the serpent
there in Genesis 3 I will put enmity between thee and the woman
and between thy seed and her seed it shall bruise thy head
and thou shalt bruise his heel now that's verse, Genesis 3.15,
set in the context of the fall of man, the entrance of sin into
that creation that God had pronounced very good. That verse is referred
to by the theologians as the great Proto-Evangelium, the first
promise of the Gospel. The first promise of the Gospel.
And what is the first promise of the Gospel? It's the seed
of the woman. it's the seed of the woman and
so when the fullness of the time was come God sent forth his Son
made of a woman made under the law to redeem them that were
under the law there is a fulfillment with the coming the birth of
the Lord Jesus Christ God's manifest in the flesh who comes to be
the saviour of sinners. All the promise is very much
bound up with the faithfulness of God. God is true, God is faithful
to the word that He has spoken. And so when we read there in
the Messianic Psalms I'm thinking in particular of the language
that we have in Psalm 89, where we see the Lord Jesus set before
us as Him who is the son of David, David's greatest son. What does
God say? I have made a covenant with my
chosen. It speaks in terms of David,
but the reference is to more than David, it's to Christ. one
greater than David I have made a covenant says God with my chosen
and then he goes on to say there at verse 24 my faithfulness shall
be with him all God is faithful you see to that promise to the
Lord Jesus Christ why all the promises of God in him are yea
and amen he is faithful that promise. And now we see it when
Christ comes into this world when we think in terms of the
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. What does the Lord Jesus Christ
do? He seals the promise, He seals the New Testament with
the shedding of His own precious blood. And this is a truth that
is set before us here in this epistle to the Hebrews Look at
the language that we have earlier, in chapter 9, verse 12, Again, in that chapter, that
9th chapter at verse 16, it says, where a testament is, there must
also of necessity be the death of the testator. For a testament
is of force after men are dead, otherwise it is of no strength
at all, while the testator liveth, the testator is died. Christ
is the testator of the New Testament. Christ is the mediator of the
New Covenant. And He has come, and in coming
He has sealed that Testament, that Covenant, by His dying upon
the cross, by the pouring out of His soul unto death, by the
shedding of that precious blood. whereby there is the remission
of all the sins of his people. Oh, he has redeemed them from
all that curse of the broken law. Oh, we see it there in that
lovely hymn of Isaac Watts, number 83. The faithful and unchanging
God lays the foundation of my hope in oaths and promises and
blood. That is the work of the Lord
Jesus Christ, they say. He comes to fulfill the covenant. He is faithful, the promise. And Christ does it and we see
it, not only in His work, but He is that One who is also the
witness to these things. He bears a testimony to these
precious truths. He is the Amen, He is the faithful
and true witness. consider the language that we
have in that lovely passage in Isaiah chapter 55 God says at
verse 3 incline your ear and come unto me and your soul shall
live and I will make an everlasting covenant with you even the sure
mercies of David Behold, I have given him for a witness to the
people, a leader and commander to the people." All this David,
this one who is the beloved of the Lord, even his only begotten
son, his well-beloved son, he is given for a witness, a leader,
and a commander to the people. And so he comes, he comes as
that one who is the mediator, as we've said, of that covenant. Again, look at the language of
the prophet, this time in the book of Malachi. What does Malachi
say? There in the opening words of
chapter 3, the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple,
even the messenger of the covenant. The Lord Jesus, that messenger,
that witness, His work, His witness, it is to the certainty of the
promise that God who is faithful has given to His people. How
is the promise declared? It is clearly here seen in terms
of a covenant. Isn't this the context that we
have? If we go back in the chapter, this 10th chapter to verse 16,
this is the covenant, God says. This is the covenant that I will
make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my
laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them,
and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now, here in this portion he
is quoting the language that we find back in Jeremiah chapter
31 at verse 33 and he's already made reference to that south
sign passage previously if we turn back to chapter 8 at verse 10, this is the covenant
that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, said
the Lord, I will put my laws into their minds and write them
in their hearts and I will be to them a God and they shall
be to me a people and they shall not teach every man his neighbor
and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for all shall
know me from the least to the greatest for I will be merciful
to their unrighteousness and their sins and their iniquities
will I remember no more." He quotes from Jeremiah 31 there
in chapter 8 he quotes from that same passage here in these verses
16 and 17 in chapter 10. Now that means that on three
occasions in Scripture we find that great promise in terms of
the New Covenant. And we're told in Ecclesiastes
that a three-fold cord is not easily broken. A three-fold cord. A three-fold promise. And friends,
what a great promise it is! What is God promising in that
New Covenant? that the Lord Jesus Christ has
come as the mediator of He is going to save His people and
He is going to do all the work for His people both objectively
and subjectively that redemption was accomplished by the Lord
Jesus Christ here upon the earth when He came and was born and
was born under the Lord of God and was subject to the Lord of
God and in his life was obedient to every commandment of that
Lord of God how that he must constantly be about the business
of his father how he had to work to accomplish and so he accomplishes
that work by obedience and not only obedience in life but obedience
unto death even the death of the cross all he honours and magnifies
the law in that twofold aspect in his life he is honouring it
in terms of all its precepts, all its commandments, all his
statutes he's living the life of obedience and then when he
comes to his end he honours that same law now in terms of all
its dreadful penalties and punishments He bears that curse that was
due to his people who were the transgressors of the law. They
deserve to die. To die that death that the law
demands must be visited upon the transgressors, the soul that
sinneth it shall die. And Christ dies, and he dies
the just. He was a righteous man, a just
man. He dies the just. for the unjust, the unrighteous,
the sinner. He dies the just for the unjust
to bring sinners back to God. All the great objective truths
that we see in that salvation that was wrought by another,
even the Lord Jesus Christ. But God's promise in the covenant
also has to do with the experiences of those for whom the Lord Jesus
Christ has come to live and die for. What does He say? He says He will work in the hearts
of His people. This is the covenant that I will
make with them after those days, says the Lord. I will put my
laws into their hearts and in their minds will I write them.
And their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. Or God will do it you see, He
will bring that salvation that Christ accomplished and He will
apply it. This is the great work of the
Holy Spirit, to take what Christ has done and to make it a reality
in the soul of that poor sinner. God works in the sinner's heart.
In Isaiah 26 and verse 12 we read, Thou also hast wrought
all our works in us. The works are not only wrought
for the sinner by Christ, they are wrought in the sinner by
the Spirit of Christ. And there must be that application,
we must know that gracious work, those sovereign operations of
the Spirit of God. And we can't. The Lord Jesus
says it. The wind bloweth where it listeth,
though hearest a sound thereof, but cannot tell whence it cometh,
nor whither it goeth. So is every one that is born
of the Spirit, that sovereign work of the Spirit, ye must be
born again, born from above, born by the Spirit of God, that
communication of new life into the soul of the sinner. How vital
it is, friends, that we know new life, spiritual life. Oh yes, when we're born naturally
there is life, of course there is. And we've been favoured with
that recently in the birth of this child born to Mark and Hannah,
this little life given, a little son. And what a wonder it is
to see life, that that was conceived in the womb, brought to fruition. But we're all born dead in trespasses
and sins, and we all stand in need of another birth, a new
birth, a spiritual birth, to be born from above. And this
is that great work of God. He accomplishes it in the soul
of the sinner. And this is the promise, you
see, of the covenant. the covenant that I will make
with them in those days, in these last days, this gospel day. I
will put my laws into their hearts and in their minds will I write
them and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Or when
that application of the work of Christ is accomplished, sin
is gone and salvation is present. It is the great work of God and
as God works in the new birth In that new birth God also communicates
saving faith. It is that faith that is of the
operation of God. Not something that we can manufacture
of ourselves. We cannot give ourselves saving
faith. We have to look to God. It is
the gift of God. It's the work of God. We have
to be those then who are looking on to Jesus who is the author
and finisher of our faith. Or what does it say here in our
text? Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering
for He is faithful that promised. And so, having said something
with regards to God's attribute, His faithfulness and how that
attribute is revealed to us in terms of His promise and that
promise that centers in the Lord Jesus Christ in his person and
his work and how he comes as that one who is ever the witness
to these things and the mediator of these things I want us in
the third place to consider something of the faith of God's people
and you will observe in the text that there is clearly a connection
between these two things God's faithfulness and the faith of
His people. God's faithfulness and the faith
of His people. We see the connection in this
little word FOR or BECAUSE. What does the text say? Let us
hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering FOR See
the connection? We can hold fast because of the
faithfulness of God, because He holds fast onto those for
whom He has accomplished this great salvation. Dr. Gill says this is a strong
argument to hold fast the profession of our faith. What is the strong
argument? It's the fact that God is faithful.
We're thrown back upon God. Paul, when he writes to those
Philippian believers, remember the opening chapter of that epistle,
he says there, he's confident, confident of his very thing,
that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until
the day of Jesus Christ. All what God has begun, God finishes. If God begins with us, His work
will never be an abortive work. The language that we have there,
at the end of the book of Isaiah, in Isaiah 66 and verse 9, God
says, Shall I bring to the birth and not cause to bring forth,
saith the Lord? Shall I cause to bring forth
and shut the womb, saith thy God? No, God's works are never
abortive. God always accomplishes that
that he has begun. And so, if we are those who have
known anything of the gracious beginnings of that work of God
in our souls, we will be those who are holding fast the profession
of our faith. That faith that is wrought of
God, what is it? It's an enduring faith. It's a faith that endures. And
look at what Paul says at the end of the chapter. Verse 38, Now the just shall
live by faith. That's the great text, is it
not? The just shall live by faith. We have it first in Habakkuk
chapter 2 and verse 4, and I'm sure many of you are aware it's
quoted three times in the New Testament. We have it in Romans
1.17, in Galatians 3.11, and we have it here in Hebrews 11.38.
The just shall live by faith. That is
the justified sinner. This is justifying faith that
he is speaking of. But if any man draw back, my
soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who
draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving
of the soul. Oh, this is that enduring faith. And this is the only saving faith.
He that shall endure unto the end, the sign shall be signed. It's not just the beginning friends,
it's the continuing. If we have a testimony, we won't
just speak of what God did for us when He first came into our
souls. We will have an ongoing experience. We'll be able to speak of those
things that the Lord is still doing in us and for us. It's enduring faith. It's perseverance,
that great doctrine. The last of what we call the
five points of Calvinism, the perseverance of the saints. Yes, the saints are preserved
because God is faithful. But how are they preserved? They
are preserved in perseverance. Let us hold fast the profession
of our faith without wavering for he is faithful that promise. And how solemn it is, because
doesn't he go on here to speak of those who apostatize? Those words that we find later
at verse 26, if we sin willfully, after that we have received the
knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for
sins but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation,
which shall devour the adversaries. those that apostatize, those
that turn away. He speaks of it most solemnly
earlier in chapter 6 verse 4 he says it is impossible for those
who were once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift
and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted the
good work of God and the powers of the world to come if they
shall fall away to renew them again, or to repent, and seeing
they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him
to an open shell. Oh, the great danger, the grievous
thing that apostasy is. God preserve us from that. God
grant us that faith that is persevering and enduring. Oh, God grant us
that assurance of faith, to be delivered from all doubts and
all fears. Why are these sort of passages
left on record in scripture such words as we find here in verses
26 and 27 or those words that we just read back in chapter
6? Are they not left there in order that we might be those
who would be examining ourselves and proving ourselves and knowing
ourselves? Know that Jesus Christ is in
us except we be reprobate. or that God would grant that
we might know something of assurance. We're to seek it. We're to seek
it, again in the context. He says in the previous verse,
let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith,
having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies
washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession
of our faith without wavering for He is faithful, that promise. Or do we seek that assurance,
that full assurance? Yes. It is not great faith that
saves us. It is a great Saviour that saves
us. And that faith that is true is
looking to Jesus. and it is looking away to Jesus,
it's looking only on to Jesus and He is ever always that great
Saviour, Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today and forever
He is faithful that promised but let us not be those who are
satisfied with a small faith we read in scripture of faith
and of the assurance of faith and of the full assurance of
faith and that's what we have here in verse 22 the full assurance
of faith always that what we would long after that we might
know of a certainty and to be sure of our salvation think of
that man who comes to the Lord in the gospel what does he say
Lord I believe help thou mine unbelief. How often do we have
to pray that prayer that God would help us. How the disciples
come to the Lord and they say to Him, Lord increase our faith. Or do we make these sort of prayers
our prayer? We want God to help us in spite
of all our doubts, our fears, all our unbelief. We don't make
an excuse for unbelief. No, we want that assurance, yea,
even that full assurance of faith. We want the Lord to increase
our faith. Or we want to live that life
of faith. The just shall live by faith. But if any man draw back, my
soul shall have no pleasure in him. God says the apostles, we
are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but them that
believe. to the saving of the soul, or
to be those who believe. God grant to us that faith, even
the assurance and the full assurance of faith. Let us hold fast the
profession of our faith without wavering, for He is faithful
without promise, or to be those whose faith centers in the faithful
God. the Lord bless to us his word.
Amen.