Welcome to our program. Today
I'm going to be preaching from Hebrews chapter 10, beginning
with verse 22. And the title of the message
is Faith, Hope, and Love. Now I'm going to be talking about
these three spiritual graces. The Spirit of God, He gives faith,
hope, and He sheds abroad the love of God in the hearts of
God's people. Three spiritual graces. Over
in the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 13 and verse 13, the
Apostle Paul concluded this great chapter on love, which he calls
charity, we would call it love, it's the same thing. He closes
out with this verse in verse 13 of 1 Corinthians 13. He says,
and now abideth faith, hope, charity, or love And these three,
but the greatest of these is charity or love. Now that shows
us that love is the crowning grace of the Spirit. Everything
is directed toward love to Christ and love of the brethren. But
let's look at this in Hebrews chapter 10. Each one of these
verses that I'm going to deal with begins with these two words,
let us. Let us. and has to do with an
encouragement and a command of God to the people of God. Now
last week I showed you how everything that God's people are commanded
to do by way of obedience in any area, whether it be areas
of faith, areas of hope, or areas of love, it is always founded
upon or grounded upon and motivated by the grace of God in Christ,
which they already possess as a free gift from God." In other
words, none of the obedience of a believer, a justified sinner,
is to be attempted or done in order to attain or maintain salvation,
or favor with God, or blessings from God, or reward from God.
They are to be done because all favor, blessings, rewards, all
of salvation has already been freely given in Christ. And that
was shown back there in verse 19 when he begins this way, having
therefore. In other words, what you are
to do as a believer in the way of obedience and dedication,
in the way of worship and prayer and good works, is to be based
upon the fact that you already possess the fullness of salvation
which comes by virtue of the merits and work of the Lord Jesus
Christ, His blood and His righteousness alone. So he says, having therefore,
brethren, boldness to enter the holiest, not by your works, but
by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which Christ hath
consecrated for us, you see, it's not a way that I've made.
It's not a way that you made. It's not a life that I earned
or that you earned, but it's a new and living way which Christ
hath consecrated. He made it for us through the
veil, that is to say, His flesh, and having a high priest over
the house of God, because Christ is our high priest who made the
way by His works, His obedience unto death. He's our prophet
who showed us the way. We couldn't have found it on
our own. We've all gone out of the way, the Scripture says.
None good, no, not one. None righteous, no, not one.
No fear of God before our eyes, naturally. If He hadn't shown
us the way, if He hadn't made the way and shown us the way,
we'd never have the way, we'd never see it, and then He's our
King, our Lord, to bring us into the way and keep us there. If
He hadn't brought us into the way, and if He doesn't keep us
there, we'd never find it, be brought into it, and we'd never
stay there. It's all by the grace of God
in Him. Now based upon that, here's three
exhortations. Number one is an exhortation
or a command of faith. And this first command of faith
has to do with the believer's relationship to God. This has
to do with our personal relationship to God. Look at it. He says in
verse 22, 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." Now he speaks of drawing near. Where are we to draw near to?
Or to whom are we to draw near? We're to draw near to God. What
he's talking about is communion with God. He's talking about
worshiping God, serving God, hearing God's Word, loving God. This is a believer's relationship
with God. Now, based upon the fact that
we who know Christ already possess the fullness of salvation to
have boldness to enter into the holiest, then let's draw near. Let's don't run away from God.
You know, false religion is a very subtle and deceptive thing. It
has sinners running away from the true and living God while
they think they're getting nearer to God. For example, here's a
person who's doing his best going to church, trying to get close
to God in prayer, but he doesn't know Christ. He doesn't know
that Christ's righteousness alone saves us and entitles us to the
whole inheritance of grace and glory. He doesn't know the value
of the blood of Christ to cleanse us from all sins. He's working
hard to cleanse himself, working hard to make himself right with
God. And in all of his efforts, he's
not getting closer to God. He's getting farther and farther
away from God. Colossians 1 described it this
way, that they were alienated in their minds by wicked works. Those wicked works were their
attempts to make their own way to God without Christ. My friend,
without Christ, there is no communion with God. Without Christ, there
is no salvation. Without Christ, our prayers are
just the empty utterings of an idolater. Without Christ, there's
nothing that God has for us but wrath. So he says, let us, who,
the brethren, who have boldness to enter the holiest by the blood
of Christ, who have all the fullness of the Godhead bodily in Christ
and are complete in Him, let us draw near in communion. in prayer. And we do it by faith. We believe God. And he says we
do it with a true heart. Now what is the true heart there?
The true heart is an honest heart. It's a sincere heart. It's a
heart that has been convicted by the Spirit of God by sin. Therefore the Bible calls it
a contrite heart. A heart that's broken over sin.
Like that old publican who stood outside the temple and beat on
his breast and said, God, pray God, be merciful to me, the sinner. God, I need a substitute. I need
a high priest. I need a sin bearer. I need one
to take my sin. I cannot, I have no right or
qualification to come to you in myself. I'm a sinner. So it's
a contrite heart broken over sin, but it's also a heart that's
been washed clean by the blood of Christ. He's going to say
that, a true heart, a sincere heart, an honest heart, not a
proud heart. The opposite of this true heart
would be a proud heart, a proud sinner like the Pharisee who
stood in the temple and he prayed, I thank God that I'm not like
other men. I'm not an extortioner. I do
this, I do that. He gave God the credit, he thought.
but it was pride. You see, when we come before
God, if we plead anything but the shed blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ, then that's a proud heart. The Bible says God hates pride.
He hates a proud look. That's a sinner who comes to
Him without Christ, expecting salvation without Christ. So
the true heart is the opposite of a proud heart. It's a humble
heart, a heart made humbled by the power of God. We won't humble
ourselves, but God humbles his people. But go on. What else
about this true heart? It says, a true heart in full
assurance of faith. Now, I want you to listen to
me very carefully about this. In full assurance. That means
confidence. That means boldness and liberty.
But it's the full assurance of faith. Now, is that talking about
my personal faith? The answer is no. Now let me
say this. In the Bible, when you see the
word faith, it can be talking about one of three things. It
can be talking about our personal faith. Now if you have any personal
faith that is true faith, saving faith, that faith is the gift
of God. The Bible says, for by grace
are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, It's
the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. No
sinner by nature believes God. All we'll do by nature if left
to ourselves and our own free will is remain in unbelief. So there is personal faith. Secondly,
the Bible speaks of the faith of Christ. Now that is the faithfulness
of Christ to do what the Father sent Him to do. You see, Christ
was faithful in all things. For example, if you make a promise
to somebody to do some work for them, and you do the work, then
you were faithful to your promise. If you don't do the work, then
you were unfaithful. Well, the Lord Jesus Christ made
a promise to the Father in the everlasting covenant of grace,
that He would come and do the work the Father sent Him to do,
that he would take the place of his people and obey the law
for them perfectly, that he would go to the cross of Calvary and
shed his blood as payment for their sins, that he would suffer
and bleed and die, he would establish a righteousness that would enable
God to be just and justifier, that he would die and go into
the grave and be raised the third day for their justification and
ascend unto the Father and be seated at his right hand, making
intercession for them. Now in everything that Christ
promised to do, he was faithful. So sometimes the Bible speaks
of the faithfulness of Christ. Now another way faith is used
is faith is the gospel. It is the body of doctrine, the
body of truth. We who are in Christ have one
faith. We've got one set of truths that
we believe. They all find their embodiment
in Christ. He is the way, the truth, the
life. No man comes to the Father by
Him. Now here, when he says, let us draw near, that's personal
faith. Drawing near with a true heart
is personal faith. That's the gift of God. Drawing
near with a contrite, broken heart, based on the blood of
Christ, is personal faith. But we do that in full assurance
of faith. that is of Christ as he's presented
in the gospel. You see, my assurance of salvation,
my confidence, is not in my personal faith, it's in Christ. And that's
what I want you to see. It's not in what I've done for
God, but it's in what he's done for me in Christ. It's not in
my suffering, but it's in the death of Christ. It's not in
my righteousness, but in the righteousness of Christ. And
I personally, by God-given faith, draw near to God with a true
heart, an honest, broken, sincere heart, but a heart that looks
to Christ. And He's my assurance. That's
communion with God. That's what personal faith is
all about, looking to Christ. You see, you cannot separate
faith from its object. And He says that full assurance
of faith, that true heart, is a heart, having our hearts sprinkled
from an evil conscience. What is an evil conscience? The
evil conscience is the condemned conscience. It's the guilty conscience. Now you say, well, doesn't everybody
have a condemned or guilty conscience? Now listen to me. We who know
Christ, we see our sins. But if we're looking to Him,
what does the Bible say? It says, there is therefore now
no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. It says, who
shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that
justifies. It says, who can condemn us?
It's Christ that died, yea, rather is risen again and seated at
the right hand of the Father making intercession for us. You
see, a guilty conscience, a condemned conscience must find relief.
Where does the true heart that comes to God, that's been sprinkled
from an evil conscience, where does that true heart find relief?
In Christ and Him crucified. You see, if you find relief for
the guilty conscience, for the condemned conscience, anywhere
but in Christ, anywhere but in His blood alone, His righteousness
alone, then that's an evil conscience. If you wallow in your guilt with
no relief, that's an evil conscience. That evil conscience is sprinkled,
sprinkled by the blood of Christ. And then he says, having our
bodies washed with pure water, our whole persons cleansed by
Christ and by his word and were made fit to enter into the presence
of God. Now that's faith. That's the
command of faith. Now here's the second one. Look
at verse 23. Now here's the exhortation of
hope, the command of hope. And it has to do with the believer's
relationship to the world, our testimony to the world, our witness. He says, let us hold fast, that
means hold on to firmly, the profession of our faith without
wavering, for he is faithful, that promise. Now what that has
to do is with our hope, our profession of faith. What do we profess,
we who know Christ? We profess that our whole salvation,
completely and eternally, is wrapped up and established and
confirmed and made sure in Christ. Now, that's our hope. And that's
our witness to the world, and we're to hold fast that profession,
that profession of hope. Peter said, be ready to give
an answer to every man that asketh you a reason for your hope. Sanctify
the Lord God in your hearts. We have a hope. We have a message
of hope. And we, by faith, hold on to
it. It's our profession of faith.
Our profession of Christ. That's what it's talking about.
Without wavering. We're to persevere in the faith.
We're to tell sinners what we believe based upon God's word. We're to go into all the world
and preach the gospel to every creature. Telling them about
Christ. Who He is. What he did, why he
did it, where he is now. We're to tell them, he that believeth
not shall be damned, but he that believeth shall be saved. We're to be disciples of Christ. Follow him in our witness. The
world will hate us, he said. He told his disciples in John
16, the world will hate you. But you remember, he said, before
it hated you, it hated me. And the disciple is no greater
than his master. He told them in John 16. He said,
they'll throw you out of their churches. You think where a false
gospel is preached, their synagogues, he said. Well, that today would
be our churches. When you go into a church where the gospel
is not preached, where sinners have been encouraged to seek
God's favor by their works and their efforts. And you go in
and you preach Christ and him crucified. He said, they'll throw
you out of their church. They won't want to hear you again.
And it's sometimes they'll come to the point where they'll want
to kill you. And they'll do it because they neither know God
the Father nor God the Son. But he says, you hold fast your
profession. Now that's perseverance. Well,
Lord, I'm not strong enough. If it depends on me and my perseverance,
I'm going to fail. If salvation can be lost, it
can be, but it cannot be because our perseverance in the faith
and in this hope is based upon God's preserving power and grace."
Here's the next line, "...for he is faithful that promised."
You see, salvation, and listen to this very carefully, salvation
is not based upon a promise that I make to God. Salvation is based
upon a promise that God has made to me. The preaching of the gospel
is the preaching of a promise. A promise of God to save sinners
through Christ. And He's faithful to that promise.
All who come to Christ, come to Him through Christ, He's faithful. For all the promises of God are
in Christ, yea, and in Him. Amen. They're sure and certain.
So my perseverance is not the ground of my hope. It's God's
preserving grace that's the ground of my hope. Now look at the third
one. Here in verse 24. Now here he
comes to the command of love. Having therefore let us, he says,
and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good
works. Now here he's talking about the
believer's relationship with his brethren in the church. And
this is the crowning grace because when it's all over, when Christ
comes again and gathers his people and brings them to eternity,
this is the grace that will last. You see, their faith will be
turned into sight. You see, faith is the evidence
of things not seen. That faith there is Christ, the
fact that he's come. But we believe it by God's grace,
but we're looking for things that we haven't seen with the
physical eye. John said, Beloved, it doth not
yet appear what we shall be, but we know this, we'll be like
him, we'll see him as he is. And so faith will be turned into
sight. Hope will be realized. In other
words, hope is in the future, but it's a certain expectation
that we'll attain final glory through Christ. But that'll be
realized then. But love will carry on throughout
eternity. And this is what he's talking
about. love for the brethren. And he says in verse 24, let
us consider. Now that word consider doesn't
mean just take a glance at it or just a fleeting thought. It
means take a hard, long, thoughtful look at what I'm about to tell
you. Well, who? Consider one another.
In other words, you know what? And I've thought about this.
You know, when, when a brother or sister in Christ comes and
they, they're having a problem, Most people don't really listen
to their problems. They just simply wait till they're
finished so that they can launch into their own problems. And
that would be the opposite of what he's saying here. He's saying
consider one another. You listen to one another. You
be concerned for one another. They're problems, they're shortcomings. And he says you consider one
another to provoke unto love and to good works. Now when you
think of the word provoke, Normally, you don't think of something
positive. Think of something negative. When I'm provoked,
it's usually to anger. When you're provoked, it's usually
to anger. But here he's talking about a provoking of love. A provoking to good works. In
other words, when we motivate and inspire our brethren, let
it not be in the way of anger, hatred, and disobedience. Let's
not be a cause of their hatred or a cause of their sin, but
let's provoke them unto love. Love to God, love to Christ and
His church, love to the world in the sense that we want to
tell them the truth, and to good works, works that are the evidence
of God's grace. Works that are the evidence of
the Spirit's work in us. And he goes in verse 25. and
he talks about public worship. Now this is an important subject.
Every true believer ought to publicly meet with the people
of God wherever they can. Now sometimes people are providentially
hindered from that. For example, John, the Apostle
John, in his latter years he was arrested, tried, and exiled
to the Isle of Patmos where he could not publicly identify with
the people of God. Some people are invalids or shut-ins
and they cannot physically make it. Some people live in areas
where there is no public assembly, church, where the gospel is preached. But if you live in an area where
this gospel of God's free and sovereign grace in Christ is
preached, then you're to assemble publicly with those people. That's
part of your witness. to the world. That's part of
communion with God. That's part of your identification
with God's people, and that's part of this command here to
consider one another and provoke one another unto love and good
works. You say, well, I can't get along with any of those people.
Well, maybe you're the problem. You see, you have to understand
this. Well, they've offended me. Well,
you're to forgive them. You're to be long-suffering.
You know what? In 1 Corinthians 13 it says love is long-suffering. Love is patient. That means it
puts up with a lot. The Lord puts up with a lot from
us. So why shouldn't we put up with
a lot from each other? So he says in verse 25, not forsaking
the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but
exhorting one another. encouraging one another, and
so much the more as you see the day approaching. What this means
is this. God's people are to be united
in their love, their faith, their worship, in their witness to
the world. They're to be united. This word
exhorting, it means encouragement. Don't be a discouragement to
the people of God. but be an encouragement. It means
walking arm in arm together in the same direction as Christ
is our Savior and Christ is our God. It means obedience. It means speaking a word in season. It means knowing what we are
by nature and humbling ourselves before God and before our brethren. You know, when we get so offended
at what others say or do, We've got to look at ourselves and
realize that by the grace of God we are what we are. We're
not to look down upon them. And if a brother falls into a
particular scandalous sin or some form of behavior, we're
to seek their recovery. We're not to set ourselves up
as judges and condemn them. We're talking about people here
who know Christ now. And he says, and so much the
more as you see the day approaching. What day is he speaking of here? It could mean several things.
To these Hebrew believers, it could mean the day of the destruction
of Jerusalem. It wasn't long after this epistle
was written, and it wasn't long after that, in fact it was in
A.D. 70, that the Roman Empire came
down upon Jerusalem and destroyed it all and killed thousands of
people. Literally wiped it off the face of the map. And it could
mean that day. To others, it could mean the
day of the coming of Christ, His second coming. The Bible
says, we who know Christ, we wait for His coming. Now listen
to me. We don't try to figure out when
He's coming. He said that that's not the way
we're to do. We're to preach the gospel. We're to preach the
Christ who has already come. We know He's coming. We preach
that He's coming. We ought to be prepared for His
coming. But we don't know when He's coming.
And we're not to delve into that. All we're to do is to preach
the gospel. There's a lost and dying world out there. So it
may be His second coming. To others, it may be the day
of their personal death. I know the day of my death is
approaching. You know, when you look at your
own age, and some of you may be up in your 70s, 80s, and the
day of your death, practically speaking, is nearer than mine.
I know this, that I will not live. in number of years as long
as I've already lived. Because I don't think I'll live
that long. The day of my death is approaching. But here's the
point. As I see this day approaching,
what I want to do is to honor Christ. I want to honor Him and
serve Him, and I want to love His people. I want to be their
servant. I want to see that I provoke
God's people unto love and good works. Well, there you have it.
and love. Communion with God. Witness to
the world. Love the brethren. Identify with
the brethren. This is the whole realm of the
Christian experience in the grace of God.