So our reading will be from Hebrews
chapter 10, but before we read the passage, there's only a few
verses that I want to draw to your attention. I want to start
really by thinking about the salvation that we have in the
Lord Jesus Christ this morning. So just set your Bibles aside
for a minute or two and let us think about the richness of our
salvation. Salvation, as it is described
to us in the Holy Scriptures, is a wonderful promise of hope
and redemption for sinners. We should say that a lot. We should remind ourselves often
of the great things that the Lord our God has done. We stand,
as we've been singing, in the woods or in the forest and we
rejoice at the beauty of the handiwork of our God. We stand
on the mountaintop and we survey the panorama and we think, oh,
the beauty of the things that the Lord has done. We look into
space and we see the stars and the constellations and we think
of the magnitude and the depth of the power of our God who simply
spoke a word and brought it all into being. And yet all of these
things pale into insignificance in the light of the salvation
which God has accomplished for his people in this world through
Jesus Christ. Now, I understand the word salvation
to be a grand, overarching umbrella word. It is a word that covers
all the things that God has done for his people. It describes
all of God's gifts of grace and mercy and peace in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And we might use some of those
words with their particular and precise theological meaning and
slant and light that they shine upon the work of God and its
breadth and its depth and its height. But salvation is a good
word to gather them all in together. The revelation of Holy Scripture
calls us to look to the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
as the author and source of our salvation, as the designer and
divisor of the plan of redemption, as the beginning and author of
the covenant of grace and mercy and peace that he has established
to gather his people to himself and unite himself to them in
the salvation of the church. Throughout scripture, we read
about the person of the Godhead in the accomplishment of these
grand schemes. Let me just give you a couple.
Psalm 18, verse two, there the psalmist says, the Lord is my
rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my strength. Psalm 25, verse five, thou art
the God of my salvation. Salvation. to be saved by God,
thou art the God of my salvation. Psalm 130, there is forgiveness
with thee. Forgiveness is to be found with
God and there is redemption with thee. The psalmist says, plenteous
redemption. There's lots of it. There's a
plentiful supply of redemption to buy us back out of the depths
of our sin and out of the depths of our unworthiness and out of
the depths of our depravity. A redemption that paid the price,
the precious blood of the Lord Jesus. Romans 4, verse 5 says,
God justifieth the ungodly. The ungodly. You know, it's a
point of principle that we should know and understand, that God
justifieth the ungodly. Let me tell you what that means.
That means he doesn't and didn't justify us when we were godly. He didn't justify us when we
were being obedient. He didn't justify us when we
were trusting in Him. He didn't justify us when we
expressed our faith in Him and our trust in Him and decided
to follow Him and acknowledged Him as our God. That would mean
He justified us when we were being obedient, but He justified
us when we were being disobedient. He justifies the ungodly. Does that make you eligible for
His justification? It does me. It does. Oh, if you are ungodly, if you
know that there is sin in your life, this salvation is for you. This is the work of God from
all eternity for someone like you, because you are who you
are and you are what you are. In Romans chapter five, verse
six, it says, for when we were yet without strength in due time,
Christ died for the ungodly. He dies for sinners. That's what
the Lord Jesus Christ did on the cross. He died for sinners. And if you are a sinner, if you
are ungodly, then that brings you within that group for whom
the Lord Jesus Christ died, a sinner, an ungodly sinner and rebel against
God. 2 Samuel 23, verse 5, we find a
lovely testimony from King David. Here's what he says. That man
had tremendous insights to the things of God. We speak about
Moses, and we speak about Abraham, and we speak about Isaiah, and
the tremendous grasp of gospel truth that these men had. David
is up amongst the best of them. There he was as the shepherd
boy in the fields and elevated to king in his kingdom and a
man whose life betrayed. that sinful passion, which is
characteristic of every ungodly sinner in this world. And yet
he saw a wonderful insight of the things of God. And this is
what he says. He was speaking about a promise
that God had made to him. He says this, although my house
be not so with God, he acknowledged That his house. Now you can think
about that as his family. You can think about that as his
palace. You can think about that as his
body. You can think about that as his life or the culmination
of all that he is. It's not so with God. It's not
right with God. It's not as it should be. Although
my house be not so with God, yet, yet, yet, he hath made with
me an everlasting covenant. He has made with me an everlasting
promise, ordered in all things, perfectly set in place, ordered
in all its ways. And sure, For this is all my
salvation and all my desire, although he make it not to grow. Do you know what David is saying
there? He is bearing testimony to the fact that he trusts in
the Lord who promises to do him good despite of David himself. And he says, although he make
it not to grow. What David is telling us there
is that even although he does not see the evidence yet of the
fulfilment or the obvious results of this promise coming to fruition
in his life, He nevertheless believes that God is worthy of
being believed for the covenant promises that he has made. And
that's what faith is. That's what we were telling some
of the young people earlier. It's acting in faith. It's acting
when we don't see the things that we are trusting in. That's
the very nature of faith. And that's what God calls us
to. That's not unreasonable. It's
not unreasonable for God to call his people to trust him when
he promises that he loves them. It's not unreasonable for him
to say that he will care for us even if we find ourselves
in times of trouble and hurt and bad experiences. Because
the Lord, even in the midst of those things, is true to his
word, even if we don't see that growing in our immediate circumstances. In Acts chapter 4, verse 12,
we read, Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none
other name under heaven given amongst men, whereby we must
be saved. It must be. If we are to have
this salvation, this wonderful salvation that God has designed
and arranged and revealed to mankind, if we are to have that
salvation, there is but one source for it. And that is the Lord
Jesus Christ and what he did upon the cross. The name, the
person, the work, the success of the Lord Jesus Christ is where
we all must go for salvation, whether you're young or whether
you're old. If we have a need, if we have
that awareness that we are sinners, that we are ungodly, that we
need to be saved, then the salvation of God is found only in the person
of Christ. Go to the Lord Jesus Christ. Salvation. What a sweet, sweet
prospect that is. What a blessed hope it gives
us for this life and for the life to come. What a wonderful
gift to possess salvation, to have salvation, You know, people
can have fancy cars and people can have big houses and people
can have big ranches with all the livestock that they can desire. People can accrue to themselves
riches and wealth beyond imagination and satisfy every desire of their
heart or lust of their heart, depending on how you want to
describe it. And if they don't have salvation, they have nothing
because it's all just going to pass away and they will stand
before a holy God and they will hear his judgment upon their
naked souls. Oh, to have salvation. Oh, to have that knowledge of
the wonderful gift of God's grace that foretaste of heaven here
upon earth. The high blessings of our God. These are the things that men
aspire to. Even in the natural realm, they
aspire to these principles, principles of a second chance, another opportunity,
Atonement, redemption, reconciliation. How many people have spoiled
a relationship, have damaged their family, have ruined their
reputation? with their sons and their daughters
and their wives and their parents because of the foolishness of
their conduct and their actions and they say to themselves in
their loneliness, oh, I wish I had a second chance. I wish
I had a way of redemption. I wish there was some atonement
could be made for these mistakes that I have made, these sins
that I've committed, these abuses that I've perpetrated upon the
people that I love. And so often there can't be. And men and women go to their
graves, go to their old age, regretting the things that they've
said and the things that they've done and no forgiveness is ever
found. But there's salvation with the
Lord. There's atonement with Him. There's forgiveness. There's
a second chance with the Lord. It's a beautiful theme. It's
a wonderful revelation that there is salvation with Him. And all
of these great words of the power of language, atonement, restitution,
recovery, new beginning, these things are all together in this
great salvation that the Lord God has given to us. And we talk about the language
of friendship and of family and of forgiveness and love and mercy
and grace. These words too, with their themes
and their meanings and their power and their value, these
things all come to us within that work, that plan of salvation
that God has given us. Loneliness is a terrible thing. but to have God as a friend and
to have God's friends as your friends. These are wonderful
things. Salvation is a marvellous blessing
if we possess that which God has for his people. Why would
not a sinner seek such a blessing? Why would he not? Why would he
not seek forgiveness for the things that he's said and the
things that he's done? Because they don't see their
need, we need to be brought to see our condition before a holy
God. We need to be brought to see
that sin is deadly serious. People will say, well, Maybe
God has his way of salvation, but I'd rather choose to do it
my way. I want to be Lord in my own life. I want to be King of my own destiny. Well, that's such a foolish attitude
when we see what the Lord God has accomplished for the salvation
and the eternal salvation of sinners like you and me. but
I want to press on because I want to ask a question. In the light
of what we've said about this salvation, I want to ask a question. about those of us who have tasted
of this salvation. And I'm not for a moment assuming
that you all have. That would be a foolish thing
for me to do. But let me speak to some of you who have tasted
this salvation. And you know something about
the wonder of what we've just described? You're still in the world. You're
still in this world. You still have to deal with the
troubles and the problems of this world, even as a possessor
of that salvation that comes from the Lord. I sometimes use the phrase, you
live and you learn. And we discover that our conversion,
when we were brought to a knowledge of our sins forgiven, we discover
that that wasn't the end. but rather it was just the beginning
of a journey which the Lord has led us into in our life's experience. We discover what it is to be
a pilgrim. Things were altered, that's why we call it conversion,
things were changed. The things that we loved and
the places that we went and the passions that we had, they lost
their attraction to us because the Lord made something different
in our lives. And we discovered that things
that we wouldn't have countenanced before, we find pleasure in. We enjoy being with the Lord's
people. We have a desire to study the
Word, to discover more about God, to learn something about
the Lord Jesus Christ. We learn these things in that
pilgrim journey. And these things alter the kind
of people that we are. but we discover that in the midst
of that journey, we have trials and we have difficulties and
we have problems and we feel weakness and we feel weary and
we feel the problems. Yes, there are the hilltop experiences,
but a lot of time is spent in the valley. Yes, there are times when it
seems as if the Lord is close to us, but there are times when
it seems that the heavens are like brass. Times when we enjoy the fellowship
of the Lord's people and other times when we are cold and we
have no empathy or no sympathy with the positions that they
take and the things that they say. These experiences that we have
are sent to us for a reason. There's a purpose behind them.
As we have thought about that Shunammite lady earlier today,
there was a purpose behind the Lord directing her. And when
we follow after him, we discover that we don't always leave behind
the hardships, but that there is a new kind of hardship is
brought into our life's experience. And yet we know that the Lord
goes with us. I was interested to read, you
remember, Uncle Laban. I think he was Jacob's uncle
when Jacob worked for those seven years for Leah, first of all, and then
for Rachel. Laban said to him, I have learned
by experience that the Lord hath blessed me. And that learning
from experience is what I just want to touch on this morning
for a little while with you. Learning from experience. In
Deuteronomy 4 verse 10, the Lord says to Moses, gather me the
people together and I will make them hear my words. that they may learn to fear me
all the days that they shall live upon the earth, and that
they may teach their children. There's so much in that verse.
We'll pick that verse up another day maybe and enlarge upon it. But we see here that the hearing
of the word of the Lord leads us to learn to fear him. all
the days that we live upon earth, that we may teach our children. The fear of the Lord is not the
terror of guilt under a broken law. That's been dealt with.
We dealt with that, we understand that at our conversion. But the
fear of the Lord is a dawning realization of the magnitude
and the majesty of the God with whom we have to do. It is a holy
reverence that comes upon a soul as he begins to learn just who
this God is whom he stands before. He knew him in his conversion
as a God of wrath who would judge his sin. He knew him in his conversion
as a God of love who revealed that that affection, that love,
that mercy in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. But it is
only as we experience him, it is only as we grow in grace and
in a knowledge of the truth, as we hear his word, that the
sheer awesomeness of God begins to take form in our life's experience
and understanding. Proverbs 9, verse 10 says, the
fear of the Lord, and that is what we've just described, the
fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge
of the holy is understanding. Why does the Lord just not take
us out of this world when he converts us? Wouldn't that be
good? Well, you see, that wouldn't
be walking by faith. That would be walking by sight.
That would be moving into a seeing, a witness, an experiencing of
these things that God has prepared for us. But God calls us to faith. When the sinner hears the word
of the Lord and is brought to faith, he begins to learn. And education and the lessons
that we learn are hard learnt. That's just the reality. Because
the flesh, we've been thinking about this on a Wednesday evening,
the flesh battles against the spirit and the spirit against
the flesh. And it's a genuine struggle.
It really takes place. And it takes place in our emotions.
And it takes place in our minds. And it takes place in our hearts.
And it takes place in our bodies. And we are filled with doubt
because of that battle. And we resort to self-examination
because of that battle. And we wish that we could worship
God aright, but we find that we can't. We wish that we could
see more of that awesome God, but we discover we can't. We
become sensitive to our own inadequacies and we see ourselves getting
smaller and smaller and smaller before the holiness of God. And
it causes us to doubt and it causes us to worry. And we're subject to attack.
And we become the target of the devil that we never were before. And it tries our assurance. And it robs us of our joy. because this experience that
the Lord here speaks about, the experience that he would give
his people to learn, it's not easy, but it is designed. It is purposeful. It is designed
with an object in view, and that is our increasing and greater
dependence of the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 5 chapter 3 we
read, knowing that tribulation worketh patience. and patience,
experience. If God is going to give us an
experience of himself, it will be through tribulation, in order
to work patience, in order that our knowledge of him should increase. Tribulation worketh patience,
patience experience, and experience hope. hope, hope in Christ, hope
in God, because we are taught not to hope any longer in ourselves. And more, we could say these
chastening experiences are sent to prove our union with God and
our adoption into the family of God. Because the scriptures
tell us that whom the Lord loves, he chasteneth. And so these chastening
experiences are part of the way in which the Lord shows us his
love and teaches us of that love. Still got your fingers in Hebrews
chapter 10? Because that's where we're going
now. Hebrews chapter 10, right to
the end of the chapter, verse 35. I think these are lovely words
of encouragement to those who feel the challenges of their
life in this world, their Christian pilgrimage. They're verses of
assurance and verses of comfort. Look at verse 35. It says, cast
not away. So Hebrews chapter 10, verse
35. Cast not away, therefore, your
confidence. When these troubles come, when
these problems arrive, cast not away therefore your confidence,
which hath great recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience,
that after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the
promise. For yet a little while, and he
that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just
shall live by faith, but if any man draw back, my soul shall
have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw
back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of
the soul. Verse 35 is telling us there,
don't abandon these things that you have learned. Don't leave
these things behind that you have been taught. Be faithful
to the revelation that you've been given. Be faithful and trust
in the Lord. Be bold in the face of your trials,
knowing that these trials are not random events that just happen
to fall on you. But this is the very designed
purpose of God for your help, for your improvement, for your
deepening in your experience of God and of Christ. Be bold
in the face of trial. Have resolve, knowing that it's
brought to you for a good reason and a good purpose. Do you remember
when we were reading about the Syrians as they were surrounding
Samaria last week in the Young People's Talk? Do you remember
how we discovered that the Syrians had made their way all the way
back to the Jordan? The two chariots went out and
followed them all the way back to the Jordan. And what was it
that they said they found all the way along where those people
had been running? all their weapons and all their
clothes, all their vessels. Actually, that word vessels means
their helmets. They threw away their helmets
as they were running towards the Jordan. Anything that they
could throw off to be able to go that little bit faster and
beat the guy in front of them to safety as they thought. They
threw away their helmets. You know what we have as a helmet? Our salvation. Paul tells us
that our spiritual armour, the helmet of our salvation, don't
throw away your salvation. Why would you throw away your
salvation? Why would you throw away your
helmets? That's what the Syrians did. But believers have a helmet
of salvation and they are called to faithfulness, to wear that
helmet. in that spiritual war in which
they are engaged with this promise. that it will bring great reward
to them. There will be a recompense. The Shunammite lady was a testimony
to that. There will be a recompense which
is commensurate, that's where the word comes from, to all the
things that we have lost, to all the trials that we have had.
There will be a recompense commensurate with the hurt that we have felt. So someday you will say, It was
worth it all. It was worth it all. Romans 8.18 says, The sufferings
of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the
glory which shall be revealed in us. Verse 36 says, You need
patience. You need patience. You need patience. I need patience. I've never heard
somebody say, I wish I had less patience. Patience is one of the spiritual
fruits of God, the Holy Ghost. And it is a characteristic in
the person of Jesus Christ himself, whom we seek to emulate and which
we seek to exercise. Patience evidences trust in the
Lord. It recognises that this is God's
will and this is God's providential care. And perhaps patience is
greater than many of the other graces which the Lord is pleased
to give us. Patience flows from confidence. confidence in God's goodness,
confidence in God's sovereignty, confidence in the knowledge that
God is in control of this situation. Therefore, I can be patient. I can be at ease and at rest
in this matter. You say, why would the Lord put
me through this? When is this going to end? What? More? And he exercises our patience. He exercises that patience in
our lives. This is the will of our loving
God towards us. And he knows what he is doing. And soon you will receive the
promise. Soon you will receive the eternal
inheritance. In verse 37 he says, just a little
while longer. Hands up who hasn't told that
to the children at some point or another. Because children
are impatient. And you say to them, just a little
while longer. Okay, I'm watching the clock.
Just a little while longer. Just a little while longer. And
that's what you're told. And that's what I'm told too.
The Lord says to us, just a little while longer. Just be patient. This is to comfort us as the
Lord gathers in His people. He is coming and there will be
that marriage feast of the Lamb. And we will be part of that and
we will see things and taste things and hear things and know
things that are beyond anything that we can ever imagine in this
world. And he says, just be patient,
just a little while more, just a little while more, and then
it will be yours. Verse 38, he says, now the just
shall live by faith. See that word now in there? That
means now, but now, now. You haven't moved into that wedding
feast of the lamb. You haven't moved into the experience
of that glory. You're still being patient, but
now you will live by faith. He's showing us the tools that
we've got at our disposal to get through these trials, these
problems, these issues. We live by faith. We trust the
Lord. We trust in his promises. There will come a time when patience
is no longer needed, but it's not yet. We live in this world,
we live in this spiritual battle. We live a spiritual life with
spiritual graces that are designed to help us in this spiritual
warfare. And I love the emphasis that
the apostle writes in this verse. He says that they shall, they
shall live by faith. Not they might or they could
or they should, they shall live by faith. We will be enabled,
we will have our needs supplied, and we will persevere, who are
the Lord's people, by faith. rather by the Lord Jesus Christ
who is the object of our faith, deriving our life from him. Believers persevere because Christ
liveth in me. and for the life that I now live,
and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith
of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. He says, verse 38, if any man
draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. If any draw back, if any don't
persevere, if any fall away, that is the evidence that there
has been no real experience of faith in their life. Let me tell
you a little story, and I am aware of the time, but let me
tell you a little story. In 1556, Queen Mary was on the
throne in the United Kingdom. She was called Bloody Mary. Some of you think Bloody Mary's
a drink. Well, before it was a drink, it was a person. And
she was called Bloody Mary because of the way in which she persecuted
Protestantism. and the worship of the true God,
endeavouring to impose upon England Roman Catholicism again. It had been lifted in the previous
reign by a young king called Edward, and now it was being
re-imposed, Catholicism was being re-imposed with a vengeance upon
the church in England. There was a man called Archbishop
Cranmer, and he had been a tutor of the young Edward, and he had
been close to the throne in the days of Edward. But when Mary
came to the throne and her advisors took the ascendancy in the country,
then they persecuted those who had been the upholders of Protestantism
and of the true faith of the Lord Jesus Christ in the country. And Thomas Cranmer wasn't a strong
man. And he recanted of his faith. Not once, but many times. He had seen his good friends
Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley taken out and burned at the stake. Chains wrapped around their bodies
against a post stuck in the ground. Fuel gathered around about their
feet and it lit. And a big crowd gathering round
about to watch them burn to death. And he couldn't face it. He couldn't
face the fact that this was going to happen to him. So Cranmer
recanted. And he did so multiple times.
And he signed documents every time he recanted. They brought
something else. Do you believe in this? Well,
you've written this. Do you want to change your mind?
Yes, I'll change my mind. And they got him on the Pope.
They got him on the Eucharist. They got him on the role of the
church. They got him on faith. They got
him on so many things. And he recanted time after time
on his writings. There came a time when they were
demanding another recantation from Thomas Cramner. And he said that he would recant. And then he knelt down and he
began to pray. And he prayed. And as he prayed,
the Lord strengthened him. And he stood up from his prayer.
And he said to those that were gathered in the auditorium of
the church where he had made this recantation, that he took
it all back, that he wasn't going to recant about these things,
that he was sorry that he had recanted, that he asked God for
forgiveness that he'd recanted. and they grabbed him and they
trailed him out and they put a chain around him and they stood
him up against a post and they gathered wood around about them
and they lit it. And Thomas Cranmer stuck his
hand into the flame and he said, you unworthy right hand that
signed all those documents of recantation. And his hand burned
to a cinder before the flames reached the man and took his
life. Why am I telling you that story?
For this simple reason. We are not of them that draw
back. But what happens if we do? What
happens if we do? Is there no salvation for us?
Have we lost by the mistakes that we've made, by giving up
these things, by turning our back on the things of God? Some
of you know what I'm meaning. The answer's no, because the
Lord's merciful. There's a way back. There are
those who will draw back unto perdition. But until that happens,
there's a way back, a way back for you and for me, even when
we have denied even the very basic things of the faith that
we once believed. Even those who deny the faith
can persevere in the end. Verse 39 says, we are not of
them who draw back to perdition, not to the ultimate spiritual
loss, not to a lost eternity. Some who deny the faith and never
repent will be lost because they've never truly been saved. but the
Lord's people are held even in their failures, even in their
disappointments, even in their hearts, they are held securely,
safely, and everlastingly. We are of them that believe to
the saving of our souls. We believe alone in the merits
of Christ. We believe in the blood righteousness
that the death of the Lord Jesus Christ brings to us. We believe
in the cleansing and the fitness that Christ's sacrifice has garnered
for us. We believe that there is a mansion
in heaven waiting for us who trust in him. We believe there
is no other way of salvation. We believe that there is no other
salvation And that divine gift of faith, we possess it. John Gill says, the divine gift
of faith, whereby the soul sees Christ. It goes to him. It lays hold upon him. It commits all to him. And it expects all from him. This is the faith of God's elect. This is the salvation which is
the gift of God. Here, by faith, we stand, we
live, we experience, we are called to patience, but we persevere
and we conquer. Salvation is a great blessing
and possessing it will cause a great battle. But thanks be
to God, I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me. Amen.