for a few weeks here. And let's begin reading there in
verse 12. Well, let's read in verse 11. Now no chastening for the present
seemeth to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward, it yieldeth
the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised
or trained thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which
hang down and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your
feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way, but
let it rather be healed. Follow peace with all men and
holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. Looking diligently,
lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness
springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled. Lest there be any fornicator
or profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his
birthright. For you know how that afterward,
when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected,
for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully
with tears. For ye are not come unto the
mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor
unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest. And the sound of
a trumpet, and the voice of words, which voice they that heard entreated
that the words should not be spoken to them any more. For
they could not endure that which was commanded. And if so much
as a beast touched the mountain, it should be stoned or thrust
through with a dart. And so terrible was the sight
that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake. But year come
unto Mount Sinai, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general
assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven. And to God, the judge of all,
and to the spirits of just men made perfect. And to Jesus, the
mediator of the new covenant. And to the blood of sprinkling
that speaketh better things than that of Abel. See that ye refuse
not him that speaketh. For if they escape not who refused
him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape if we
turn away from him that speaketh from heaven. Whose voice then
shook the earth, but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more
I shake not the earth only, but also the heaven. And this word,
yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that
are made, the removing of those things that are shaken as of
things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken
may remain. Wherefore, we receiving a kingdom
which cannot be moved, let us have grace whereby we may serve
God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for our God is
a consuming fire. Now I believe that It is an important
part of looking at what the scripture says to look at what the scripture
says. And what I mean by that is you
cannot take the Bible and have a complete and right understanding
of it. And of course, we're speaking
naturally. We know that the Lord alone can give a man understanding. But as we look at the scriptures,
and we would take them unto ourselves and have understanding of them
in as far as we can, we must understand that this is the word
of God. It's not taking a page out of
it and saying this is the word of God, but this is the word
of God. Now what do I mean by that? Well,
you can prove a lot of things from the scriptures if you ignore
some other things that the scriptures say. But if you take the scriptures
as a whole, then it becomes much clearer and it is not that which
men necessarily desire to see, but we must take the whole in
the context of which it's given. And that's nowhere more plainly
true than in this book of Hebrews. And many have gone shipwreck
and went from one thing to the other by taking parts of this
book without considering what the whole message of the book
is about. And especially as we look in
this passage, this particular passage that we're looking at
here, I believe there's a couple things that we have to be really
clear on. One is who it is that God has
spoken from heaven unto us. Now he began the book with that
very thing God who at sundry times and in divers manners hath
in times past spoken to us by the prophets hath in these last
days spoken unto us by his Son. Now that needs to be indelibly
printed on our mind. The other thing is that as we
go through this book, we understand that the Lord has raised up a
people in the earth that He calls His own. And we just read about
them there in Hebrews 11. that those that by faith followed
the Lord. There's no other way that a man
can follow the Lord. And so what we see is that the
Lord sees his people and desires that his people come together
as he raises them up. And we have one cohesive mindset. The first is to give glory to
God in His Son, Jesus Christ, and the other is to help one
another in this world and in this journey, because we're all
on the same journey. These all, the scripture says,
these all, speaking of those Old Testament saints, these all
died in the faith, not having received the promise. And they
understood that they were not privileged at that time to receive
the total unfolding of that which God would show to men. But we,
on the other hand, have been a blessed people in that we have
now received that which God has been pleased to reveal to the
world. There's no other revelation that
is going to be given to men in this world than that which has
already been given in Jesus Christ. And so in that, we all share
together as we go through this journey as the children of God. We didn't make ourselves the
children of God. Impossible that a man could make
himself the children of God any more than it's possible for a
man to make himself somebody else's child. I mean, you don't
choose who your parents are, do you? You can't say, well,
I want so and so to be our parents. Now I know in our day and age
where people can just say I'm this or I'm that, they might
think they can, but that's not so. Only as the Lord makes a
man his child can a man be the child of God. Now it's a glorious
thing that the children of God desire to be the children of
God. Those who aren't the children of God don't. You know, we often
hear men say when the doctrine of election is preached, they
say, well, that doesn't seem fair. I mean, what about all
those people that want to follow the Lord? Maybe they're not one
of the elect. Nothing could ever happen like
that. Because you see, when a man seeks to follow the Lord and
desires to know the Lord, That's an evidence of the fact that
the Spirit of God is working in him and the Lord by His Spirit
works in His people to draw them unto Himself. Only as men think that they have
the power to seek God can that pose a problem. When men understand
that they will not, there's none good, no, not one. There's none
that seeketh after God. Men are not out here clamoring
to get into the kingdom of heaven and the Lord standing there batting
them away and saying, no, you can't come in because you're
not one of the elect. That's not the picture there,
brethren. Because none of us would ever seek the Lord if the
Lord did not seek us first. And so He will draw His people
unto Himself. And so as we go through this
life in this journey, we are our brother's keeper. We are
those who are to be looking out for one another. And that's what
He's speaking about here. Now the chastening of God's people.
And we talked about that last week. Chastening is not the reaction
of God to what people do. Now that's a picture that most
people have, because that's how we were chastened by our parents,
was it not? Everything was going along good,
and we did something we shouldn't do, and they chastened us for
it. And that's the only way they
could do it. But you see, the Lord's chastening is much more
complex than that. His chastening is continual. He begins chasing us from the
time that we're born, and everything that is in our life from the
moment that we draw breath until we breathe out our last breath
is the mercy and working of God to draw us unto Himself. And
He takes some by a very circuitous path. He takes some by a more
direct path. But He brings His people by the
path that He would have them to go, and we're all on the same
path. Because there's only one way,
and it's the way of Christ. There's not three or four different
avenues for men to get to the Lord. is through Christ and Christ
alone. And so it is that we read here
that no chastening for the present time seems to be a choice. That's
a common thing. The teaching that the Lord gives
us is not enjoyable as a general rule because we're not always
amenable to what he's teaching us. We want to go our own way.
That's the natural way of man. And it is the teaching of the
Lord as He brings us to the awareness of what His truth is and it chafes
against us. You know, men don't like what
the Lord tells them to do. I mean, the law is the evidence
of that. And He says right here that they
could not endure that which was commanded. Now, I don't think
that, if you just took nothing but the Ten Commandments, would
you say there's anything in the Ten Commandments that is unreasonable? I mean, from a standpoint of,
or not beneficial to people in general? There's not a thing.
But yet, the nature of man is contrary to that, is it not?
There's not a man by nature that loves what the Lord said. There's
not a man by nature that really loves for somebody else to tell
him what to do. I mean, every child comes to
a place in his life where he says, and Caleb, he likes this,
that he says, I can do it. You know, he doesn't need any
help. He knows what to do because he
wants to do that. And that's a good thing in many
ways. I mean, the Lord made us to be independent people, did
he not? We're not supposed to be trying
to get to think like you do or whatever. The Lord works on us
individually. He gives us a mind and He gives
us a heart. But you see, the work of the
Spirit of God is to give us all the same heart to seek the Lord. We want to see Christ exalted.
That is our desire, and we want to see Christ exalted in our
brethren. And so we understand that while
chastening, the teaching of the Lord is not always joyous. For the present time, after it
has yielded its peaceable fruit of righteousness, then to those
that are exercised thereby. In other words, those who are
trained by the Lord, though it be a painful journey, they are
benefited by it in the end. And so he says, wherefore lift
up the hands which hang down, the feeble knees, and make straight
paths with your feet. Now what's he speaking of? We
spoke about it last week. But to reiterate it, it has to
do with how our regard is to one another. and how we ought
to be constantly reminding one another of exactly what it is
that we're looking for. We're looking for Christ. We're
looking to follow Christ. We're looking to know His way.
And so that's how we encourage one another in the way. Now sometimes
That might involve a rebuke or an exhortation or whatever. It's not being busybodies in
one another's affairs, but it is being our brother's keeper.
We are looking out for our brethren. And when we see a brother or
a sister straying from that which is of Christ, then it is our
obligation to help one another. Now what is it that we are to
be seeking after? He says here, follow peace with
all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.
Now there are a lot of people that take this verse right here
completely out of the context in which it's given and they
get a complete false misunderstanding of what it is. Now I'm here to
tell you that there's only one holiness that we exhort one another
to follow. And that is the holiness of Christ.
To be set apart in Him. The peace that passes understanding. That's the peace that we're to
follow. Now does that manifest itself in the people of God? Of course it does. We're to be
people of peace. Those we seek peace, and we pursue
it. We're not seeking to be at war
with one another. We're not seeking conflict, but
we're seeking peace. But the peace that we are to
follow after is the peace of Christ, because that is the peace
of Christ. You see, Christ, He didn't come
seeking to stir the pot, did He not? but he came to comfort
his people, to help his people in the way. Follow peace with
all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.
Follow the peace or follow the holiness without which no man
shall see the Lord. And what is that holiness? It's
the holiness of Christ. There's no other means whereby
a man might come into the presence of God except through the holiness
of Christ. And when our brethren might,
as Paul admonished the Galatians, when a man, or when people start
to think that having begun in the spirit, now they're gonna
be perfected in the flesh, they've strayed from the truth. And we
are to exhort our brethren back. That's what this book of Hebrews
is about. Paul is exhorting these Hebrews
not to turn aside from him that spoke to them from heaven. Don't
go back to the old way. He says here, we're not come
to the mount that might be touched. We've moved from that. We've
been brought to a different mountain. We've been brought to Mount Zion,
the city of God, the people of God whom the Lord has called
out. We're trusting Him. He said,
looking diligently. lest any man fail of the grace
of God." Now we're looking to our brethren. And Paul's writing
to the Galatians is probably the best illustration of this.
He was looking to them, looking diligently, lest any man fail
of the grace of God. How does a man fail of the grace
of God? Does a man fail of the grace
of God by something he does? No, he fails by the grace of
God when he begins to entertain notions of other manners or something
he can do to cause himself to be pleasant and pleasing in the
eyes of God by some activity that he performs. He said, well,
now I please the Lord. No, we're looking to Christ. And that's what we're always
exhorting one another to look unto the Lord. And we look diligently. If we see somebody who's relying
on something other than Christ, we exhort them, hey, you've moved
away. How does a man fall from grace?
You know, you've heard that term. Well, he fell from grace. Well,
you can't fall from grace, you can't fall out of grace. You
can fall from grace in the sense that you go back to your old
way and thinking that you can do something to please God. That's
falling from grace. And so that's what we're to exhort
one another not to do that. See, we are looking to one another,
seeking to help one another and build one another up in the most
holy faith. lest there be any fornicator
or profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his
birthright. Now, you know, the subject of
fornication, I mean, we don't spend a lot of time speaking
on that, but the scripture, of course, uses marital fidelity
that is being faithful in one's marriage and having the relations
of men and women to be in the marriage bond, he uses that not
specifically for its sake, when he teaches his people not to
be fornicators, but rather to impress upon them that we are
not to be fornicators with other religious ideas or with the thoughts
of coming to the Lord in some fashion other than through Christ.
See, spiritual fornication is far worse than that which is
done in the flesh. Now we certainly have no, we
certainly speak against that which is done in the flesh. But
understand this, that it is far worse that a man should turn
away from Christ than to fall into this sin in the flesh. Oh, that the Lord might give
us understanding there. lest there be any fornicator
or profane person who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.
Now what did Esau do? He despised the grace of God. Because you see, he was given
something that was his, he didn't do anything to earn the birthright.
He got the birthright by the fact that he was born first. So he was a blessed man. But
he was so tired one day and so hungry, and Jacob being the supplanter
as he was, and seeing the value of what Esau had, he said, you
know, I'll give you some soup here if you'll give me your birthright. And he said, eh, what is that? He says, I don't care anything
about that. He says, I'd rather have the soup. And so what he
did was he despised his birthright. He despised the grace of God.
He didn't count it as the thing worth the most. Now Jacob, as
wicked as he was by the grace of God, he understood the value
of that. And he said, man, I want that.
He says, I'll give him all the soup I can make if he'll give
me that. Because that's what's important.
And that's what he's talking about here. He says, don't be
like Esau. He says, see what's of value. He said, because afterward, when
he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected, for he found
no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.
Now, I've had men, I've heard messages on this passage just
taken out of the scripture and said, see there? You know, a
man can come to a place where he can't repent. Well a man can't
repent apart from the grace of God. Repentance is a gift of
God as much as faith is or anything else. But a man, this is not
about a man coming to a place where he has, he was in the Lord and now he's
out of the Lord and he can't come back. Now you can't get
out of the Lord. Because when the Lord puts you
in, you're in. It's like Noah, when he was sealed
up in the ark, he couldn't get out, could he? Why? Because the
Lord put him in there. Because it was the Lord's purpose.