Hebrews chapter 13. We looked
at a couple of these verses last week, but we will look at them
again a little bit and maybe go a little further into the
chapter than we did. Beginning in verse 4, it says,
Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled. but whoremongers
and adulterers God will judge. Let your conversation be without
covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have.
For he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,
so that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will
not fear what man shall do unto me. Remember them which have
the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God, whose
faith follow, considering the end of their conversation. Jesus
Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. Be not carried about
with divers, different and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing
that the heart be established with grace, not with means, which
have not profited them that have been occupied therein. We have an altar whereof they
have no right to eat which serve the tabernacles. For the bodies
of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by
the high priest for sin are burned without the camp, or outside
the camp. Wherefore Jesus also that he
might sanctify the people with his own blood suffered without
the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto
him without the camp, bearing his reproach. For here we have
no continuing city, but we seek one to come. Now we had spoken
some on verse 4 last week concerning marriage. It says marriage is
honorable in all. And it's very important that
we understand why the Lord says marriage is honorable. It's not
just honorable because it's a thing that is beneficial to the human
race. It is honorable, but the reason
that marriage is honorable is because of the reason that God
designed marriage. And the reason that He designed
marriage was to magnify His glory in reminding us of the relationship
that there is between the Son and His Bride. Because that is
what, if you read the book of In Ephesians, where it speaks
there about marriage, and in chapter 6, or chapter 5, excuse me, and
I won't read the whole thing, but it's speaking about husbands
and wives, and then it says, For this cause shall a man leave
his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and
they too shall be one flesh. So that is the picture of marriage. Now listen to what he says. He
says, This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ
and the Church. Now that's what marriage is.
Now it's a lot of things to a lot of people in this world. And
of course, one would have to hide his head in the sand to
not see the concepts of marriage that various people have. But
I'm telling you this, when people move away from what the purpose
of marriage is, they can come up with all sorts of things of
why people ought to be married. And the Scripture indicates that
marriage is between a man and a woman. That's the purpose of
God. And now society can decide whatever
they want to do, but you can't go to the Word of God and find
any foundation for marriage other than between a man and a woman
in the sight of God without any ifs, ands, or buts about it.
And it is an honorable institution. It's honorable because God made
it that way. It becomes dishonorable when
men dishonor it. But marriage itself is an honorable
institution because it is given by God for the purpose of magnifying
the glory of His grace in showing us the relationship of Christ,
the bridegroom, to His bride, the elect of God. And so that
is a glorious thing. It says the bed is undefiled. Of course, we know that The Lord
gave marriage to a man and a woman for two reasons. One is that
they might enjoy one another, that they might be benefited
by one another. But it was also primarily, or
not primarily, but also it is for the propagation of the human
race. And so that is a glorious thing,
but it is In the context of marriage, it's a glorious thing. It's not
a glorious thing outside of it. Outside of a committed relationship,
there is no glory in it. But it is a thing, as he says
here, home-hungers and adulterers God will judge. Those that disregard
that. Those that have no concern about
it. Those that just go willy-nilly
off into doing whatever they want to do because it feels good
and they like it. God says He will judge those
who are in that fashion. Then He says, Let your conversation
be without covetousness, and be content with such things as
you have. For He hath said, I will never
leave thee, nor forsake thee. Now covetousness As we spoke
some last week, it has several different meanings. The primary
meaning of coveting something is wanting something so that
someone else can't have it. That's when the Lord said, Thou
shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife. That is, you're not to
want his wife so you can have her so he can't have her. That's what literally covetousness
is, is desiring to have something so somebody else can't get it.
It's wanting the last pork chop that's on the plate, you know,
so that you get it and they don't have it. Well, we've all been
there. You know, it's a hard decision
to make when you're hungry and there's only one pork chop left.
You know, you have to make those decisions. But nonetheless, we're
not to be driven by covetousness. That's what he says here. Let
your conversation, that is your way of life, we use the word
conversation as we speak, But conversation in the Scripture
generally is talking about the manner of a person's life. So
the manner of the life of the children of God is not to be
ruled and marked out by covetousness. In other words, a person shouldn't
look at a person who's claiming to be a follower of Christ and
be able to say, well, he's a covetous person. That's not the place
to which we're called. Let your conversation be without
that. and be content with such things
as you have. That is, not to be those who
are grasping for all the things that they could possibly get
in this world, that their life is not controlled by the gain
of things. Now, gain in itself is not a
bad thing. Timothy says, Money, and of course that word
money there is the love of gain. It doesn't have to be, you know,
five dollar bills or twenty dollar bills or a hundred dollar bills.
It doesn't mean that when it says money, but it means gain. It can be the gain of fame. It can be the gain of power. It can be the gain of a lot of
things. But the love of gain is the root of all evil. Now
gain is not the root of all evil. But the love of it, that is the
pursuit of it as the number one thing in our life, that is not
the place to which God's people are called. And so we are not
to be those who are covetous in that sense, but are content
with such things as we have, such things as God is pleased
to give us. And how does He give us wisdom
to be able to do things with our hands and with our mind,
in order to provide for the things that we have in this world. Now, we know that all things
come from the hand of God, but He does give us the ability to
perform things, to bring those things to pass, insomuch that
the Apostle Paul said, if a man doesn't work, neither should
he eat. Now that's kind of a concept that you don't hear much of from
the bleeding heart type people that believe that it is the right
of all people to eat. It's not the right of all people
to eat. You don't have a right to eat.
You do have a right to do something to get your food. whatever that is. And when I
say you have a right to do it, I don't guess right is the proper
word, but you are to do that. There's nothing in the world
wrong with a man seeking to provide for his own household or seeking
to provide for the needs of others. In fact, that's a noble thing.
So the love of money is the root of all evil, Having things is
not an evil thing, but having things or wanting things for
the utmost degree, that is, seeking them out, that consumes us. That in itself is that which
he is speaking of here. Be content with such things as
you have. Why? Because he said, I will
never leave you nor forsake you. Now, is he talking about the
world in general? Of course not. Couldn't be. Because
there are some people who are in a forsaken place today and
forsaken situations. But what he's speaking about
is the people of God. Now, can you determine who the
Lord has forsaken by their monetary status or their status in society? I mean, is the people that's
got plenty of money, are they the ones that God hasn't forsaken?
Not at all. It doesn't have anything to do
with that, does it? Because you see, a man can be poor in this
world's goods and yet rich in the kingdom of heaven. And the
Son of Man, when He walked upon the earth, the Scripture says
He didn't have a place to lay His head. He didn't own anything.
He didn't have a thing. And yet,
He was that one who fully and completely followed the way of
the Lord. And He understood that the Lord,
His Father said, to those that He loved, I will never leave
thee, nor forsake thee." But yet, you know, that brings up
another subject as we think about it. Think about this. The Lord Jesus Christ was the
perfect man following His Father and desirous of doing His Father's
will, and yet He was forsaken. The Scripture says, He said,
I'll never leave you or forsake you. The reason that He said
He'll never leave us or forsake us is because of the fact that
Jesus Christ was forsaken in our behalf. Now, we should be
forsaken. I mean, if we were going to approach
the Lord on the basis of our own merit or what we deserve,
then most assuredly we would be forsaken. The Lord Jesus Christ
approached the Lord on the basis of His merit and bearing our
sin, took our forsakenness and He was forsaken for us. That it might be that we should
never be forsaken. Now that's a glorious thing.
as we think of the fact that Christ is that One who bore our
sin. He took it away so that it might
be said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. You see, none
of those for whom Christ died on Calvary's cross shall ever
be forsaken because He was their substitute. And He took that
upon Himself. Remember them. So that we may boldly say, The
Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto
me. Now, I guess the hardest thing for
us in the flesh to come to grips with is the fear of men. And all of us have it in varying
degrees. It's called embarrassment is
another word for it. Or wanting to fit in or not being
thought to be an oddball. See, a lot of this comes down. Especially when we come to look
at the Scriptures and the Lord would teach us something in the
Scriptures, and it might not be what is the popular viewpoint. Now, I have a lot of viewpoints
that aren't very popular, and I believe this is a true
thing that anybody who believes what the Word of God says is
not going to be popular. That's not going to be a popular
viewpoint, because the world in general despises the Word
of God. Now, they like parts of it. See,
the religious world loves parts of it. I mean, every religion,
at least they call themselves Christians, they hold up the
Bible and say, we believe it. But somehow or other they conveniently
leave out the parts that they don't want to talk about. The fact that God is an absolute
God, that He's not some little pipsqueak God that's trying to
get folks to do something. And won't you please help Him
out? God doesn't need your help. He's an absolute sovereign God,
and He does according to His will in the army of heaven and
among the inhabitants of the earth. There's none that can
stay His hand or say unto Him, What doest thou? Now that's not
a popular viewpoint, I can tell you that, because people want
to say, Oh, but wait a minute. God can only do so much. Well,
brethren, if God can only do so much, we're in trouble. There
wouldn't ever be any need to pray if God can only do so much. If man's free will thwarts the
way of God, then we would be in trouble. But I'm telling you
this, that the Lord doesn't need anybody. He doesn't need anything. But He is accomplishing exactly
what He has set out to do, to manifest the glory of His grace
in the declaration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And that is
that which he is presently pursuing and causing to come to pass in
the earth. So we may boldly say, the Lord
is my helper. I will not fear what man can
do to me. It does not make a difference
what men say. It does not make a difference what men think.
We are not interested in that. Now, we live in a country where
we have been very fortunate that we have never faced very little
in general persecution from the standpoint of standing for those
things that we believe to be true. I think that can and might
very well change in the future because we are already seeing
great movements against what some people hold as convictions
that they are willing to stand against and not fear what men
shall do to them. And we've seen what's happened.
And these things will only grow worse apart from the grace of
God because as men turn their thoughts inwardly and raise up
the standard of men, as being that be all and end all, then
ultimately that will be the standard. And I'm not too sure that we're
not already completely there. It's just going to take a little
while before all of that comes to fruition. But we are to be
a people that regardless of what it is that men would do to us,
that we fear them not. But we declare what we are, we
declare who He is, and we declare that we'll stand in that which
He has taught us regardless of what men say, regardless of what
the highest court in the land may say. It doesn't make any
difference. We don't fear what men shall
say unto us. The Lord is my helper, and I
will not fear it. Remember them which have the
rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God, whose
faith follow, considering the end of their conversation." Now,
one thing that men by nature do not like is somebody to rule
over them, do they? But isn't it a strange thing
that that is, you know, just in the heart of a man to do his
own thing? Isn't that really what was at
the heart of the deception and the fall in the garden was that
men said we're going to do what we want to do and not what God
said to do? Isn't it an amazing thing that
men don't want somebody to rule over them, but yet the nation
of Israel desired to have a king? They wanted a government. They
said, Well, we want to be like all the other nations on earth.
Give us a king and a rule over us. And Samuel the prophet said,
Are you crazy? He said, Do you want somebody
that's going to tax you? Do you want somebody that's going
to conscript you into their army and send you off to fight in
some war that they concocted and desired to come into? Are
you crazy? Do you really want that? Yes,
give us a king. We want a king. And you know, it's an amazing
thing. That's kind of what people want today, isn't it? Oh, give
us somebody that will straighten this mess out. We want a king.
We want somebody that can do it. See? But the Scripture does tell us,
Remember them which have the rule of you. Now this is speaking
primarily concerning the relationship in the church of those who are
given places of leadership and teaching, because listen to what
he says here. Remember them which have the
rule over you. Now, the rule of those who have
been set in places and offices among the children of God as
teachers and leaders, they are not autocratic rulers in the
sense that they are the head and the controller. of things. We are all a part of Christ. The church has one head, His
name is Christ, and we are all members of the same body. But
in that body the Lord has placed some in positions of leadership. And He says here, Remember them
which have the rule over you. Now look how He says that rule
takes place. The rule doesn't take place because
they say, here, I want you to do this, you do that, you do
this, and I'm going to rule over you. No. He said, remember them
which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the
Word of God. Now, so what is the standard
by which we consider that rule to be? It's speaking the Word
of God. It's the truth of God. It's not
the personality of the person, but it is rather the Word of
God. Who has spoken unto you the Word of God? Now if a man
claims to be this great leader, but he doesn't speak the Word
of God, it certainly can't be the one who Paul is speaking
about here, can it? It doesn't appear to me that
it can be. They said, remember them that
have spoken the Word of God to you. Why? Because it's a precious
thing. I mean, it's a valuable thing
when men would preach to you the truth of God. How does that
happen? It only happens by the sovereign
purpose of God. I mean, the Lord raises up whom
He wills. He raises up false prophets just
like He raises up true prophets. And who can change it? Who can
turn it? But it's a glorious thing. He
said, Remember them which have the rule over you, those who
have spoken unto you the Word of God, whose faith follow. Now
Paul said to those, he said, Follow me as you have me for
an example. Now was Paul boasting about himself? No. He said, The Word of God
is that upon which I stand, and that's what I want you to follow.
You see, if I depart from what I, if I get out here and I tell
you, you ought to be doing something, but that's not found in the Word
of God, are you supposed to be doing it? Of course not. And vice versa. If I'm telling
you one thing and not doing that, does that make me, am I doing
the right thing? No. He said, whose faith follow? considering the end of their
conversation. You see, Paul gave this, I believe
it was to the Ephesian elders, or he said to Timothy. He said,
Don't be lords over God's heritage, but rather examples to the flock. Now those that he's speaking
about here that have the rule over you, or to be those who
are giving you the proper example. That's whose faith you follow,
who follow that faith themselves. I can't tell you one thing and
then do something else and expect that people would have much confidence
in the things that I say. So remember them. Now how do
you remember them? You remember them in prayer,
number one. Remember them. But you remember them also in
considering what they have to say. Now you might not always
agree with what those who would be sent in a place of teaching
over you would say. Does that mean you just automatically
go, I don't believe that? No. What it should do is drive
you to the Word of God, that you might be like the noble Bereans
who search the Scriptures daily to see if these things be so.
Now, if these things be not so, are you to follow them? No. As they have declared unto you
the Word of God, whose faith follow, considering the end of
their conversation, considering the purpose of their life. Now,
what are we considering here? We're remembering them that have
the rollovers, We are mindful that they are speaking to us
the Word of God, and we have consideration to their manner
of life, which is summed up in the next verse. Jesus Christ,
the same yesterday, today, and forever. Now brethren, if somebody
comes teaching you any other message than that, you better
not follow. You better not follow. But I'm
telling you this, if somebody comes to you and faithfully declaring
that message to you, then I believe that's what he's talking about.
He said, remember them and follow them in their way, not because
of who they are, but because they are declaring to you an
absolute, truthful message that does not deviate to the right
hand or to the left is just Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Jesus
Christ the same yesterday, today and forever. That is the basis
of all truth. Brethren, that's the basis of
our hope. Because if Jesus Christ is not the same yesterday, today
and forever, we don't have any basis upon which to stand, do
we? I mean, if this thing is kind of in flux and it could
be one thing one day. Well, you know, we live in a
more modern time now. Things are different. I mean, the Bible was good for
its time, but you know, we're a lot smarter than that now.
What we need is psychologists. that can come along and tell
us, well, you need to just smile at the world, and you need to
just be happy all the time, and just everything, if you believe
something strong enough, it'll come to pass. You just need to
think positive. There's nothing in the world
wrong with thinking positive. Part of faith is thinking positive,
but thinking positive is not faith. You see, that's not the
power of positive thinking in itself is not faith. It's just
an exercise of the flesh. And people get caught up in it
every day. But I'm telling you, that which
is based upon faith must have a foundation. And the foundation
of all faith, true faith, is this, Jesus Christ, the same
yesterday, today, and forever. We're not worried that something
that he did is going to change. We're not worried that something
that he is going to do is going to change. But it is going to
be the same. And it is a message upon which
we can stand and shall stand. And then he said, Be not carried
about with divers and strange doctrines. What are divers and
strange doctrines? Listen. I'm fixing to tell you
exactly what a diver or different and strange doctrine is. It is
any doctrine. Any doctrine. I'm going to emphasize
that. Any doctrine. That's any with
bold letters. Any doctrine that does not center
in what He just said. Jesus Christ. The same yesterday. Today. and forever. If it deviates from that, if
it comes to you and somebody says, Well, that's all well and
good, but you've got to do this. That's a different and strange
doctrine, dear brethren. Because Paul came preaching one
doctrine. He said, I determine to know
nothing among you. say, Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Dear brethren, that's the message
of the gospel. It's been the message of the
gospel from before the foundation of the world and it will be the
message of the gospel when this world is but an afterthought
because He endures forever and all glory belongs to Him. And
that is the message that you are to follow. And don't be carried
about with any other strange doctor. I don't care who comes
or how smart he is or what he looks like or how persuasive
he might be. See, we live in a day and age
when persuasive preachers are bad. Oh, I mean, you can turn
the TV on and, buddy, they are slick looking. They can tell
you and they've got all this fine stuff and they can come
along and, buddy, they can just sway people. People just believe
everything they say. But I'm telling you, if it's
anything other than this, don't believe it. I don't care what
they say. I don't care who they are. It's
not me, because when I'm dead and gone, this message will still
be the same. And the Lord's able to raise
up out of the dust. He's able to raise up stone,
put children out of the stones to praise Him as He sees fit. It doesn't have anything whatsoever
to do with the messenger. But it has everything to do with
the one who is the message, and that is Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday
and forever. May the Lord give us a mind and
a heart to stand on that. And brothers, I'm telling you,
when a man can stand on that, he's not going to care what men
say. He's not going to care what men do. What can men do? But if we believe that, what
can men do? What are they going to do? They
can't do anything except that which is ordained by the hand
of Him who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.