I will not deceive you. The life
of faith in this world is hard. It's difficult. And I'm not whining. I wouldn't choose any other life.
The difficulties of the life of faith are not, according to
Paul, are not to be compared with the glory that will be revealed
in us. And so whatever difficulties we face in this life because
we're believers, we don't whine about them. We don't act as though we are ready to quit because
we know that the things that God has prepared for us far outweigh
any additional difficulty we may experience in this life because
we're believers. But faith itself is not only
hard, it's impossible for us in our natural selves. Faith,
which the book of Hebrews teaches us,
at least begins with this, that God exists and that He is the
rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. That faith is not natural
to us. It may be natural to us to believe
that there is a God. In fact, if a person denies that
there is a God, they are not being reasonable. I hear people
say, well, there's no proof that God exists. That's true, but
there's a lot of evidence. Paul says that from the things
that have been created, we understand that there is a
creator. The things that we do see around
us, reason cannot come up with any way that they should just
suddenly come into being. And so Paul says that those who
deny the existence of God and even those who make gods that
are simply made up, you know, of parts of this creation. That is, they're given the likeness
of human men or mortal men and the likeness of beasts and creeping
things. You see, that's silly too because
how could one who is part and parcel with this creation ever
have created it? So naturally we can believe that
there is a God, and naturally we can believe that He is a rewarder
of those who do His will, who obey His commandments. That is
natural faith. And men are capable of that,
and that is the basic tenet of all human-based religion. One
way or another, it falls into that category. There is a God,
and he rewards those who do what he wants them to do. But it's
beyond our power to believe that God rewards those who simply
seek him, even though they are commonly found to disobey his
will. Now, that's the hard part to
believe. It goes against inborn thinking. It goes against our training.
And quite frankly, it goes against the way we treat
other people. That's not how we act. This faith is impossible for
us or very difficult for us because it's diametrically opposed to
the way that we deal with others and the way others deal with
us. Our goodness toward others is
usually dependent on how well they conform to what we want
from them. Now that's human nature. And that makes us think that
God deals with us that way. Now if I might insert a little
helpful hint here, As a believer, you may grow in the confidence
of God's gracious intentions for you if you will practice
acting toward others as God acts toward you. Our Lord taught us
to pray, forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against
us. He's not saying forgive us our
sins because we forgive others. Rather, when we ask God to forgive
our sins, our concept of forgiveness is wrapped up in the way we practice
it towards others. And if we are stingy with forgiveness
or give forgiveness only to those who conform to what we want,
why it's no wonder that we live in doubts and fears. Our Lord
said, take my yoke upon you and learn of me and you will find
rest for your souls. Now, if we take Christ's yoke,
and a yoke binds two animals together, if we take on ourselves
his yoke, that means we walk like he did, we live like he
did. And while we'll never be able
to do things in perfection as he did, yet we know this, he
freely forgave people, freely and fully forgives people. And if we walk yoked with him
and learn to do that very same thing, we begin to understand
how it is that God freely and fully forgives us and we find
rest. Now, living by faith may be impossible
to those who are natural. They can't come to faith, therefore
they certainly can't live by faith. But living by faith is
a struggle even to those of us to whom God has given the gift
of faith. Preachers lie to their listeners
when they present the life of faith as an easy path. And it
leads to this conclusion, if your path is not easy, it must
mean you are not living by faith or you are doing a very bad job
of it. I say this without fear of scriptural
contradiction. No believer is doing a bad job
of living by faith. There are no degrees in this.
We live by works or we live by faith. We conduct our life according
to the pattern of those who believe that their works in some way
contribute to their salvation or we live as those who understand
that salvation is the work of God and God alone. Now that doesn't
mean that there's not interference thrown in our pathway and we
may stumble and fall. Our flesh, which has never yet
been convinced of the gospel, is always inserting its thoughts
into our minds and causing us to stumble in the way. But that's not because our faith
is faulty. It's not because our walk is
in any way faulty. That is our walk concerning how
we worship God and approach God and this sort of thing. It just
means that we drag this flesh around with us and it trips us
up from time to time. In fact, it may trip us up a
lot, but nonetheless, we are walking by faith from our spirits,
from that part of us which is able to know God and commune
with God and believe God, we are walking without fault. if
we're walking by faith. Now, let me give you a rule by which you can determine
whether the standards given by some preacher, by which you are
supposed to be able to judge whether or not you have been
saved, whether these are good standards. Because you know, people are taught, I mean actively
taught by pastors of churches that they are to look to their
morality or their religious experiences or consistent feelings of assurance
or any other such natural thing. And you look for those in order
to obtain some sense of confidence regarding the welfare of your
soul. And preachers are always doing
that. There's lots of sermons out there
about being a, quote, a true Christian. And it's not as though
I think that there are not true and false Christians, but most
of them who describe how a true Christian might be identified
are actually laying the ax to the root of the gospel and tearing
it up. Here is the easy rule, a simple
rule by which you may determine whether or not you are looking
at the right things when you look for assurance. Are these
standards about you or about Christ? It's that simple. Do these standards point you
to yourself or to Christ? You might say, well, didn't Paul
command us to examine ourselves whether or not we're of the faith?
He certainly did, but he did not say examine your morality
to see if you'd be of the faith. He did not say examine your commitments. your devotion to see if you're
of the faith, or examine your experience to see if you be of
the faith. It was simply this, examine yourselves
to see if you believe. If you have, as the book of Hebrews
says, if you have fled for refuge to the Lord Jesus Christ based
upon the promise of God. This is the only question about
your soul's safety in which you and I are instructed to look
at ourselves. The only thing that we look at
ourselves in order to determine is whether or not we believe. We're not told to put our faith
to the test. That is examine something else
about ourselves to see if we really believe. We just examine
ourselves to see if we believe. Let me read you that passage,
it's found in 2 Corinthians chapter 13. But Paul says this, on my
return, I will not spare those who sinned earlier or any of
the others, since you are demanding proof that Christ is speaking
through me. He is not weak in dealing with
you, but is powerful among you. For to be sure, he was crucified
in weakness, yet he lives by God's power. Likewise, we are
weak in him, yet by God's power, we will live with him in our
dealing with you. Examine yourselves to see whether
you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize
that Christ Jesus is in you? Unless, of course, you fail the
test. And I trust that you will discover that we have not failed
the test. Now, here's a little secret about
where Paul says examine yourselves. He's not really saying examine
yourselves to prove yourselves. His point is this, or his subject is this. We find
this in verses three and six of 2 Corinthians 6. He's wanting to prove himself
as an apostle. His exhortation, let me paraphrase
it for you. You are being led to believe
that I'm not really an apostle or that I am in some way inferior
to these super apostles which came in after I left. Well, don't
waste your time examining them or me. Examine yourselves. Do you believe the gospel? Well
then, how did you get that way? Was it through the ministry of
these self-proclaimed super apostles, or was it through my ministry
among you? Now that's what Paul's getting
at. He's not even telling them, examine
yourselves to prove that you're saved. He's just saying, examine
yourselves. Aren't you a believer? And if
you are a believer, who was it told you the gospel? Was it me? Or was it these guys that build
themselves up at my expense? So you see, even when we read
this scripture, examine yourselves to see if you be of the faith,
even that exhortation was not given to prove their genuineness,
it was given to prove the genuineness of the Apostle Paul. Now we're made to doubt, made
to have a difficult way in this world by the very difficulty
of believing. You know, the older we get, I shouldn't
say we, I'm just gonna talk about me, because when I write these
messages up and I talk about experience, the only experience
I know is mine. But there is a part of me, the
older I get, And the closer I get to the prospect
of leaving this world, the more this warfare goes on within me
of whether it is truly by grace without works or is my character
and my conduct such that in the end I will be lost. We cannot
help but take stock of ourselves, and if we will not take stock
of ourselves, Satan certainly will, and he's all too happy
to declare the verdict of guilty. Guilty. And that our faith has
not laid hold of that which will remove our sin. It's difficult to believe. And
so Satan says, if you were truly a believer, would it be this
hard? We are caused to doubt because
of our lack of progress in righteous living. And I've heard preachers
say, a fellow that was a friend of mine in Owensboro, the last
Sunday that I was in Owensboro, I preached. for him at his church in the
evening, but I attended there in the morning. And he plainly
said, if you don't see yourself growing in obedience, then you're
lost. I remember even then, I was only
32 years old. I thought, well, I'm done. I'm gone. And now I'm more than
twice that old. And you know what? I don't see
myself growing in righteousness. I don't see a better pattern
of obedience to God than I could see when I was that age. In fact,
it seems to me as time goes by, I become more and more aware
of just how unrighteous a person I am. The presence of doubts. makes
us doubt all the more. And the devil says, how can you
call yourself a believer when you are so full of doubts? For all these years, you've said
you believe the gospel. But who do you think you're kidding?
See there, you're trembling at the thought of dying. I guess
you don't believe after all. These things are cast into our
minds by the flesh or by the devil. And we find the life of faith
to be a struggle, for there are many around us who seem to be
doing so much better than us, who, as far as we can tell, would
be able to pass the devil's test. If he said, you're not growing
in righteousness, they could say, yes, I am, because I used
to do this. But I don't do that anymore. I remember a preacher friend
once made the comment, and he was talking about these testimonies
that were very common back where we came from. You know, they
want someone to give their testimony and they would testify about
how bad their life was, awful things they did, and then God
saved them, you know, and now they're not doing those bad things.
And this brother preacher said, I'm tired of hearing the testimonies
of ex-sinners, ex-drug addicts. ex-prostitutes, ex-thieves, ex-this,
I'm not ex-anything, I'm sorry, I'm just not. I wish I were, but I'm not. I look at others and it does
seem they're doing a lot better than I am, but I also realize
this, I know a whole lot more about me than I know about them.
And God knows more about both of us than either of us knows
about ourselves. Blessed be the name of our God,
for as a father pities his children and deals with them as children,
giving them what they need in their childlike state, so does
our heavenly father pity us, knowing that we are dust. So
he gives to his dusty children exactly what they need. Strong
encouragement. Isn't that what our text talks
about? It says in verse 18, God did this so that by two unchangeable
things in which it's impossible for God to lie, we who have fled
to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. Now, if we did not have great
doubts, we would not need great encouragement, would we? But our father knows this, and he gives us great encouragement. And this great encouragement
does not arise from anything about us. He does not point out
the dust that we are and say, clean yourselves up. Dust cannot
clean itself up. He points us away from ourselves
and gives great encouragement to us upon only two things. The first is, is God trustworthy? Is his promise good? And secondly,
is Christ a suitable savior for people like us? That's the only
two questions that need to be answered. Now to whom is this word of encouragement
given? In verse 18 it says, we who have
fled to take hold of the hope offered to us. And this is one
of those occasions when the newer version of the NIV does a better
job than this older version which I've pretty much been using since
I got here. Now every translation has its strengths and weaknesses.
Here we read it says that we may be greatly encouraged we
who have taken hold of the hope offered us. Now that word offer,
they did a little interpreting there. That's not a strict translation. The word simply means to set
before. Now you can see how they might
think, well, if it's set before us, then it's offered to us. The hope is offered. But over
here in chapter 12, We read in verse one, therefore,
since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let
us throw off everything that hinders us and the sin that so
easily entangles and let us run with perseverance the race marked
out for us. Those last words, marked out
for us, the same Greek word there. Now, we wouldn't think of reading
that as the race offered to us. No, it's a race that's been set
before us, put before us. We didn't choose it, it was put
before us. Now, that's why I think that
that way gives us a better sense. We've had a hope set before us. It was not a hope offered to
us, and we laid hold of the hope. Because quite frankly, we have
not yet laid hold of the hope. As Paul says, who hopes for what
he already has? If we talk about having a hope,
we're talking about something we do not presently possess. And Paul speaks of the hope of
righteousness. Now if we have a hope of righteousness
and no one hopes for what he already possesses, what does
that say? We don't have righteousness.
Now, I realize we have righteousness imputed to us, but I'm talking
about the possession of it, the actual nature of it within us.
We don't have that. Therefore, we should not be surprised
that we struggle so much with unrighteousness. To us, righteousness
is the hope that we're aiming for. Now, Paul writes in Philippians
3, and he says, we've not obtained that hope. Actually, he's just
speaking of himself, but it's applicable to all of us. We've
not yet obtained that hope, but we forget all that is behind
us, looking only to the goal, the hope, the hope of being like
Christ. That's what righteousness is,
the hope of being like Christ. And we are straining to lay hold
of the very thing for which God laid hold of us. Now, God's laid
hold of us. We are not his hope. He already
possesses us. He laid hold of us. He laid hold
of us in election. He laid hold of us in redemption.
He laid hold of us by his spirit when he called us. But that caused us to strive
that we might lay hold of that which he has made us desire,
our hope. Now, to whom is this word of
assurance? Well, it's for those who have
fled for refuge. Now, our translation just has
the word fled, and that works, but it's a strengthened form
of the word normally translated fled, and it adds the sense of
fleeing to a refuge. Because a person could just run
with nowhere to run. He's just trying to outrun the
people chasing him. But this is a reference to those
cities of refuge. When the old covenant was written
up and they were told when you go into the land, you are to
establish, and I can't remember the number of them, but several
cities. And there were supposed to be several of them so that
it was not that hard for someone to get to one of them. And there
were supposed to be signs pointing the way to these cities of refuge.
And what these cities were for is if someone accidentally killed
someone else. And a member of the dead man's
family is full of vengeance, and back then they practiced
vigilante justice. Families were given the right
to avenge the deaths of those in her family that were killed.
And so, you know, you were doing something with rocks, you
know, maybe pitching them over a cliff or something. You didn't
realize someone was down there and a rock hit somebody in the
head and killed them. News gets back to the family and they're
mad and they're going to come and it's going to be eye for
an eye, tooth for a tooth, life for a life. They're going to
take your life. What could you do? You run to one of those cities. And while you're, when you're
in that city, there will be a judgment made as to whether The act of
killing that person was intentional or an accident because there
was no refuge then for the outright murderer. But once they determined,
hey, this was an accident, in that city you were safe. The avenger would not be allowed
in. And so you'd live in that city,
but here's the thing, you'd live in that city until the high priest
died. And once the high priest died,
you could go out of the city and you were safe because anyone
from that family that sought to take vengeance on you, if
he were successful, he himself would be counted a murderer. So that's, remember this book
was written to Jews who were struggling with faith and they
were being tempted to depart the faith in order to avoid persecution
and the many troubles of trying to live a life of faith in this
world. So he refers them to a particular
law in the old covenant with which they were familiar. And
he applies it here in the spiritual sense. If we have fled to take
hold of the hope set before us, we have fled to the city of refuge. Now, how does that apply to you
and me? Through faith, we are justified.
You know, anybody that fled to the city of refuge was believing
that there was safety there. And so this person fleeing for
refuge, then he represents, I don't have any trouble really saying
he represents the believer who's being accused of sin. And it feels within his conscience
that vengeance is on his heels. And so this city of refuge, And
if we put it within the context of the Jewish way of looking
at things and broadly look at it in historical sense, the cities
of refuge represent Christ as he is revealed in the Old Covenant. And so the Old Covenant believer,
he was trusting Christ. Now, he didn't know nearly so
much about Christ as you and I did. or you and I do, but he
found refuge in the promise concerning someone who would come. And so
the old covenant believer, he lived, as it were, lived his
entire life in the city of refuge. But the time came when the high
priest died. Jesus Christ, our great high
priest, died. And when he died, all those old
covenant believers, hiding out in the old covenant promises,
were set free to leave the city of refuge and go abroad wherever
they wanted to go. Because now that the high priest
has died, No one has a right to take vengeance against them.
Now, you and I are Gentiles. We never did believe in that
old covenant sense, because when we heard of Christ, we heard
of him in the new covenant sense. However, our natural thinking
is of the style of the old covenant way. And it's quite often when
a person becomes You know, the Spirit of God begins working
with them, begins to show them their sin, and they hear something
regarding the Lord Jesus Christ. It's maybe not all clear to them
and everything, yet out of desperation, they flee there for refuge. And
they get in there. And they are cleared of their
wrongdoing. What they understand, the faith, though it may be a
dim faith, or what the Lord called little faith, nonetheless, it
was faith in the promises of God. And we are therefore, by that
faith, or by the agency of that faith, we are justified. But
you know, many, a young believer, has a still quite a difficult
time with the whole scheme of works. But when the spirit of God is
pleased to convince him in his heart that the high priest has
died, he is set free. And here's the
thing. That has to be done over and
over and over again because we go out there, and yes, there's
no one who has a right to seek vengeance against us, but there
is one determined to exact a vengeance against us, and that's the devil
himself. He is the accuser of the brethren.
He is always trying to accuse us and convict us of sin in order
that we would perish. And we're going about our daily
lives and for a minute we forget about the city of refuge and
what we learned there. We don't keep it in mind our
high priest has died and therefore through his death we are once
for all and forever cleansed of all our sins. And we're just
busy. And our sin comes to mind. And
there that accuser of the brethren. He said, I guess you aren't a Christian
after all. And what do we do? Well, the wise thing to do if we find ourselves under a
sense of condemning guilt, just flee for refuge again. Flee back there because it's still safe in the
city. But once you get there, here's what you'll learn. The
high priest has died and you are free. And while the devil
can say some really scary words, he cannot do a thing. The accuser
of the brethren is cast out, and he is cast out by what? The
word of their testimony, which is the gospel, and the blood
of the Lamb. And the word hasn't changed,
and the blood has been shed. And no matter how much he accuses,
whether he accuses in the very presence of God, or simply accuses
you within your conscience and troubles you, the answer is the
same, the high priest has died, I am free, period. And if I stand here shaking in
my boots because my flesh cannot lay hold of that truth, I am
still free, I am still safe. The high priest has died. Well, it's written to those who have
fled for refuge. And these old covenant, these
Jews who were still conscious of the old covenant, Paul gives
them the message by which they're set free from that refuge to
which they have gone. He says, we have this hope as
an anchor for the soul, this is verse 19, firm and secure
It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain. Now it's
talking about the temple there, talking about the Holy of Holies.
He said this anchor of our soul has entered in to the inner sanctuary,
verse 20, where Jesus who went before us has entered on our
behalf. How did he get in there? By death. He offered himself without spot
to God. Through his death, he entered
that most holy place not made with hands. And our hope is an
anchor within the veil back there where Christ went. Now, when
we think of an anchor, we're normally thinking of that which,
you know, they throw overboard the boat and it drops to the
bottom. And it gets hooked on something,
if nothing else, just the dirt down there. But it's meant to
stabilize the boat, keep it from moving, you know, despite the
waves of the wind and all that. And that's the way anchors are
commonly used. But that's not the anchor use
that's being described here. There was another way that they
used anchors, and it fits perfectly with what The writer here is
trying to illustrate. Now remember, these boats were
not the big powered things we have now. They were sailing vessels. And you could put up the sails
and If the wind was blowing, it would push you along, and
if you had good skills, you'd know how to set the sails and
set the rudder, and it amazes me that somehow or another they're
able to set those sails so that if the wind's blowing west, you
can still go south if you want to. That's beyond me, but I'll
leave that to people that work sailboats. But that's how they'd
get around. But imagine now, you are a big
cargo ship. What would have passed for a
big cargo ship back then? Big sails. And you've been sailing,
but now it's time to come into port. You aren't on the high
seas anymore. And you're not altogether sure
of the bottom. As you're coming into land, it
gets shallower and shallower. Plus, your instructions are to
go to this spot. a particular spot. Now, I once
tried, I was out with my sister and her kids, this was way back
when our kids were kids, but while we were there in West Virginia,
we'd rented one of those pontoon boats to go out and putz around
on a lake. Came time to get back. I could
not get a powered boat into that little hole where I was, you
know, supposed to fit it in. I bumped into everything. Finally,
whoever ran the little rental place came out there and docked
the boat for me. But can you imagine trying to
get a huge cargo vessel into a small spot, having nothing
but sails and a rudder? And you can't call on the wind
to suddenly go the other direction and stop you once you get there. So here's what they would do.
Those ships would let their sails down, eventually come to a stop
out there in the harbor, and here'd come a rowboat, little
boat that could be controlled, and they would put the anchor
in that little boat, and that little boat would then row back
to the spot that they were supposed to occupy, and it would drop
anchor there. And then the sailors on the big
cargo ship just started pulling on the rope. And that took them right to the
place they were supposed to be. And they wouldn't be going so
fast that they couldn't stop or they'd tear things up when
they bumped into it. And that's what he's talking
about here. Our savior has come out to us and we've dropped anchor
in his boat. And by his death, he entered
the most holy place and he dropped anchor. And we're out here in the boat
full of hope. But our hope lies in the port.
How do we get there? How do we make sure and hit the
right spot and not tear things up? And you know, when you pull on
a rope like that, what does it do? It makes a straight line.
You know, those people pulling that rope, their boat didn't
do this. Straight line. And so we are not trying to navigate our way from
here to glory. Christ has already done the navigating. We, by grace, are just hauling
on the rope. In a sense, we're trying to haul
the anchor in, but the result is not that the anchor comes
to us. We go to the anchor. And there we are, safe and sound. Christ is a suitable Savior for
us. We need not fear that in pulling
upon that rope we shall end up in the wrong port, in the wrong
birth. We'll be exactly where we're supposed to be at exactly
the right time. And is God faithful? Oh, you
got to love God for this. God, who cannot lie, speaks in
the language of liars. Why? Because we're liars, and
that's the language we understand. We know this. If somebody is
promising us something that's of great value, I mean, we're
really going to have to depend on this. We tend to want to,
you know, you swear? If somebody's given testimony,
you know, normally they put their hand on a Bible and they swear.
I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the
truth. And that's, of course, that came from back when most
people thought the Bible meant something. But what you do when
you're swearing or requiring someone to swear, you require
them to swear by something greater than themselves so that they
feel that if they do not come through, Either they will lose
this something or this something greater than themselves will
exact a penalty for it. That's the idea. So it forces
liars to tell the truth. That's the purpose of an oath.
And what does it say? Verse 13, when God made his promise
to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear
by, he swore by himself saying, surely I will bless you and give
you many descendants. In verse 16, men swear by someone
greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said
and puts an end to all argument. Now, because God wanted to make
the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs
of what was promised, he spoke in the language of liars and
confirmed it with an oath. Now, it should be, brethren,
that God merely says something. And that'd be enough for us to
believe it. But he knows our frailty. So God, who should never
have to swear, swore an oath. And since there wasn't anybody
greater to swear by, he swore by himself. And what's that mean?
Well, who is he? He's God. In swearing by himself,
he says, if I don't make good on this promise, I will cease
to be God. I will give up. everything that
it means to be God. My privileges, my power, my expectation
of worship. If I don't come through, I'm
not God. Now, if that doesn't convince you
of the seriousness of God's promise, I don't know what would. God has been so gracious to speak
in the language of the untrustworthy, so that we would be more inclined
to trust him. And we have fled for refuge,
but he has told us by his spirit, the high priest has died. You can leave, no matter where
you go. No one is allowed to touch you.
And if they start hollering accusations at you, just ignore them. It's
only talk. Your high priest has borne your
sins away and he has dropped your anchor here where I am. Just pull the rope. And at the
right time and in the right place, you will arrive and you will
lay hold of your hope. You will possess that which you
have longed for. Now, if we can get that picture
in our mind and see that the life of faith is simply hauling
the rope, and then just keep hauling. And
it doesn't matter if someone on shore is saying, you're going
the wrong way. Well, I'm not. Or they say, who invited you
to this harbor? Whoever dropped that anchor did.
He said, come, just keep hauling, folks. You've nothing to worry
about, nothing whatsoever, if you have fled for refuge to the
Lord Jesus Christ. All right, we'll just stop here.