Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript

Today’s sermon text is Hebrews chapter 10:19-39. If you have the outline handout, if you follow along in the reading of that, it might be helpful to understand the flow of this text. Hebrews 10:19-39. Please stand for reading of God’s word. The sermon is on the right and duty of boldness, both a gift and a task set before us. Hebrews 10:19-39.

Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he consecrated for us through the veil, that is his flesh, and having a high priest over the house of God, 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.

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. For he who promised is faithful, and let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching. For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries.

Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses of how much worse punishment do you suppose will he be thought worthy, who has trampled the son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the spirit of grace. For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine. I will repay,” says the Lord. And again, the Lord will judge his people.

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But recall the former days in which after you were illuminated you endured a great struggle with sufferings. Partly while you were made a spectacle both by reproaches and tribulations and partly while you became companions of those who were so treated. For you had compassion on me in my chains and joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods, knowing that you have a better and an enduring possession for yourselves in heaven.

Therefore, do not cast away your confidence which has great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he who is coming will come and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith, but if anyone draws back, my soul has no pleasure in him. But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your most holy word. Thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit who indwells us, Lord God. May the spirit take these words of our savior and impress them upon our hearts. May you, Lord God, through the word of our savior and the power of the spirit transform our lives by this text. In Jesus name we ask it. Amen. Please be seated.

Well, great conference gathering here in Oregon. God blessing the church, adding families to it. Same time, concern over doctrines of the church that seem to make participation in the local church somewhat synonymous with one’s relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. And I’m not talking about last week. I’m talking about 15 years ago. And here at Reformation Covenant Church 15 years ago, we went through some real trials. And we are now once more in a position of being the recipients of tremendous blessings from God as we were then.

And now as then, we had people gather here in Oregon City, a delightful meeting of the CRC Presbyterian and discussions, meetings, very encouraging. And then as now we had reached kind of a high mark in terms of families attending our church. And then as now we had people concerned because of this teaching that somehow we’re to understand a relationship to God by relationship to the local church and then as now the teaching of this text I think is quite important for us getting ahead of whatever curve may be coming ahead of us here in Reformation Covenant Church.

I know of nothing but I don’t want you to feel worried about it that way but this text is quite important for us. This text is placed at a very interesting place in the flow of the argument of Hebrews. It is a high water mark, as it were, of this text, the whole sermon to the Hebrews. It’s the culmination of this long central section on the priestly work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

On your outlines on the first page you can sort of see that we’re at the very end now of that middle section and we’ve reached at the end of that section a section here of about 20 verses of primarily exhortation. We’ve had a lot of exposition. It’s the middle difficult part of the book that we’ve worked our way through with all the wonderful depictions of the priestly work of Jesus Christ.

He’s the greater high priest. He’s the one that initiates the new covenant. He’s the one who is the offering as well as the one who brings the offering. He’s priest and victim. We could say he has opened the way for us. And this text now says, what do we do with all this? What’s the purpose of this given to us by God? How do we apply it? And that’s what this text is about.

You’ll remember if you were here at the beginning of this fourth section of this middle section of the book of Hebrews that it began also with exhortation in chapters five and a portion of chapter 6. And so what we have here is a balance and on the second part of that sheet of the handout you see the whole section, the middle section broken out and at the beginning and end are statements of exhortation.

And so this text represents this high part. It tells how we can apply the blessings of Christ’s high priestly ministry to our lives. We’ve had tremendous doctrinal truths portrayed in the central section. What does it mean to our lives? It’s a climactic exhortation section of this sermon.

There’s a sense, you know, if the middle is the most important part, so to speak, the focal part of what’s going on in the entire narrative or the entire sermon, this is the great climax of it in terms of how to apply these things and as a result it should take a heightened sense of awareness to this text.

I won’t go through all the terms but without getting into the specific—you know, I don’t want to bring Greek into the sermon—but it is important for you to know that in this section there are a whole bunch of words that are only used very sporadically two or three times in the rest of the New Testament. Some of them not used at all in the rest of the New Testament. Some of them not used in the New Testament or the Septuagint or in any Greek writing prior to the Christian period.

So this section, you know, coming where it does, we know its importance. But in addition, if you’re a first century hearer of this sermon as it’s read to you with all this distinctive terminology that’s used distinctively here, again, that would have the effect of focusing attention on what’s being said here. And so by way of the overall structure of the book and then by way of the itty bitty little words that are used, you know, God working through the author of this sermon really focuses our attention here in these verses.

Now, these verses have echoes of earlier verses, but these verses are marked off as a section, right? So we know it’s pretty obvious. We’ve gone through exposition. Now we’re coming into exhortation. Now we’re coming into application. And very specifically, we know that Hebrews 11 is the great hall of faith chapter. Those of us that know our Bibles very well, we know that much. And we know that there is a transition to come in 11:1 with this description of what faith is.

But so this is a section, it’s a clearly marked section just on the basis of that. And there are bookends to this text as well. I said the title of the sermon is boldness as a gift and as a task. And up until the last couple of verses, there are two places where this word is used—this word boldness—and they form an inclusion. I try to indicate it this way on your notes. They form an inclusion again to show us that there is a particular section here in verse 19.

Therefore, brethren, having boldness and then down in verse 35, do not cast away your confidence. Two different words translated in our text but the same Greek word. So it’s boldness and I think that in the first case it is the authorization. It is what Jesus has accomplished. It’s the application of the high priestly work discussed and in the last case it has this subjective courage sort of element to it.

But in any event verses 19 to 36 are marked off as a unit. The exterior marker points is this boldness and it means both ability to enter, there’s an authorization to draw into the presence of the father and there’s also a subjective boldness we’re to have in speaking and in applying the faith of Jesus Christ in our Christian life. And that then marks off the last few verses which are still part of the same basic thought.

I think that’s rather obvious. “You have need of endurance just shall live by faith. Don’t draw back.” In other words, the boldness we’re to have, the courage is not to draw back into a cloistered mentality. We’ll talk about that more in a couple of minutes. But the point is that the inclusions that mark off the last couple of verses make it clear that those last couple of verses while part of this last section of the central fourth section are introducing section number five.

These last couple of verses are what we’ve seen throughout this sermon and that is that the author introduces the next section at the end of the last section. So the sections are chained together by these references. So a reference here to endurance and faith and this is what we’ll see then expounded in chapter 11 and following. And again it’s in reverse order. We’ll see a demonstration first of what faith is and then there’ll be a call in chapter 12 to endure.

So these last couple of verses introduce the next section. They’re the introduction to that even while concluding the fourth section. So the text is an important one in the overall flow of the book but also in how we apply the teachings of the central section of the book into our lives as well.

So the great central division is now drawn to a rather climactic conclusion. The exposition of the fourth section of Christ’s high priestly office and sacrifice is now the source of motivation for the exhortations that are given to us in this particular section.

Now you’ll remember that when we began all of this we said that there was exhortation at the beginning of the fourth section and exhortation at the end. I just alluded to that. There are similarities here. You know, there’s a “this is what you should do” and if you don’t it’s going to be really bad. The strongest warnings of the book are found in beginning and end of the fourth section. And then there’s, well, but you know, we know you’re going to do okay.

And we saw that same pattern in chapters 5 and 6. You know, listen up. Things are have to attend to now. And if you don’t, you’re going to fall off the waterfall. You’re going to drift away and you won’t be able to be brought back to repentance. But we have better thoughts about you than that. And why? Because we remember what you did.

And here it’s the same thing here. There’s exhortations at the beginning of this section. And then there’s warnings that if you don’t heed these exhortations, all you’re going to have left is an expectation of fiery judgment. And then there’s “but you remember now the former days” and the way you acted then. And you know, we have confidence that you’re not those who will pull back to perdition or destruction, but who will move forward.

So these two sections—five through the first half of six and these last 20 verses of chapter 10—match up and they match up in the way they work and I think that you know this probably could serve as a useful tool to us when we discipline our children when we exhort one another. There’s exhortations, there’s warnings, but then there’s assurances you know that we are those who are called as Christians and will persevere in that context.

So that’s the similarity between this section and the other one but there’s a difference and I know it’s technical and probably most of you have no use for this. But again, on referring to the handout, the second page of the handout, there’s a table and the table looks at some elements of these two exhortation sections and compares them. And it shows very obvious comparisons that there’s warning and there’s comfort. And it looks at those last two-thirds of those two warning sections, warning and comfort.

And on the right hand column, what I’ve done is underlined a few things, right? So for instance, I’ve underlined the blood of the covenant consecrated by means of the blood of the covenant sacrifice for sins. See that language isn’t in the first warning section. Covenant sacrificial blood of the sacrifice purification of sins—those technical terms about what Jesus has accomplished. Not technical but truths are a result of the exposition of the middle section.

See, so we have this warning at the beginning with exhortation at the end, but the exhortation at the end picks up all of these expositional truths that Jesus Christ shed his blood to bring about the new covenant, that he sacrificed for sins, that our consciences have been purged and brought to a maturity that was not present in the old covenant.

So all that truth is actually brought into the exhortation with the technical language of this particular exhortation. So we’re getting another exhortation, but we’re getting it now with the fuller knowledge of who Jesus is after having gone through this exposition of the fourth section.

Okay, so that’s the overall sense of what’s going on in the text and I’ve broken it out on your handouts. There’s four distinct sections. There is this first section that says, “Well, do these things.” The second section says, “If you don’t, big problems.” The third section is a comfort section. You know, remember the former days. You did great before. Have confidence you’re going to do again. And then the last section is sort of that, but it’s transitioning into the next major section of the book, the fifth section of the book.

So that’s the way this narrative works. And what I want to do is spend most of my time on the first paragraph and but also talk about the second, third, and fourth paragraphs as well. So we’ll just work our way through the text. You can either have your Bibles open or use the handout that’s been provided as we work our way through this and make a few comments as we go along.

And you’ll see that in the first paragraph we have “therefore brethren.” And so, you know, again, here the author is teaching us how to address one another. He’s going to exhort them to specific action. He’s going to give them strong warnings, but he begins it all by tying it back, “therefore, because of the work of Jesus Christ, brothers.” He addresses them as brothers. You see? So, the context for encouragements and exhortations, which we’ll see as Central part of what we’re supposed to do with this text in front of us, is to exhort one another.

The context is set when he calls them brothers having boldness. So this is confidence. And I think that here this term boldness has the nuance that we have an objective authorization to move forward into the presence of God because of what Jesus has done. It doesn’t mean you know having a lot of confidence and courage here so much—that comes at the end of this section. But here I think it primarily means that we have authorization.

Because we have authorization, we have boldness to come to church. You know, we have authorization to get real close to God in this covenant renewal meal of the table. So it has that nuance of courage. But the primary thing it’s saying is that he has just demonstrated in a long drawn out exposition that we have authorization to move forward. How do we have this authorization. What’s it about?

Well, we’re going to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus. So we are going to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. And this is the boldness we have. This is talking first and foremost about the corporate worship of the church. It’s going to talk about more than that, but it’s talking about the corporate worship of the church. When we, you know, we there’s a sense in which this is really indicative of the entire Christian life.

The entire Christian life is lived in the presence of God. But he’s using temple language here as he’s done throughout this book to talk about how there’s discontinuity. Everything has been brought to completion and yet we still have access and we’re to enter into the Lord’s Day services. And that’s precisely the problem. That’s the application point of this entire fourth section is that they’re not to forsake the assembling of themselves together.

So we have temple language and then we have synagogue language later when it says don’t forsake the assembling. The word—the same Greek word—is synagogue. So it’s like super synagoguing. Don’t forsake the super assembling, the synagoguing of yourself together. And it puts it here in the context of the temple.

The worship service of the church brings into it elements of the synagogue. Worship service on every week. Leviticus 23:3 tells us was a day of convocation. The teaching of the word went on. The temple can be seen as related to the sacrificial work displayed for us not performed again but displayed for us at the table. So the worship service of the church has synagoguical—it has synagogue elements in the preaching of the word primarily—and it has temple elements in rehearsing what it is that Jesus has accomplished.

We go through the articulation of that purification and giving us honor and assurance, causing us to be transformed and giving us knowledge of him accepting our tribute. All these things are taken from temple imagery, but wedded to that is the preaching of the word taken from the synagogue imagery. And so this text doesn’t posit an either/or, temple or synagogue. It says that both together. It uses temple language here and it will use synagogue language in a couple of minutes.

But the next verse I’ve laid out differently than you might have thought about it. “By a new and living way which he consecrated for us through the veil, that is by means of his flesh”—is the way I might want to say this should be better translated. There’s a parallelism you see. We can enter because of this new and living way and you know the work of the Lord. The newness of this way is both new in terms of time—this is new temporally. Jesus has come now just you know 30 years before this is incarnation, 60 years before this letter was written—so it’s new and it’s a way to life that, living way means, it is the way of life. It is a living way.

And it’s new not just in terms of time, but it’s new because it’ll never become old. It won’t wax old the way the old covenant waxed old through the disobedience of the people and through its transitory nature. This is different now since the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. The world has matured. And so while you know some of the basic elements of theology are the same in the old and new testament saints, there is a radical difference because we are now entering into the direct presence of God with consciences purged by a new way.

The world has been brought to maturity in the Lord Jesus Christ. But he consecrates this way for us through the veil, that is his flesh. And you know we could think of this—we could think of this that the veil is his flesh. And I know that this is the way it’s normally thought of, that he has made this way through the rending of his flesh. But this same idea is alluded to in Hebrews 6:19 and 20: “this hope we have as an anchor of the soul both sure and steadfast and which enters the presence behind the veil where the forerunner has entered for us even Jesus having become high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.”

So now that was in the explanation section, in the expositional section in Hebrews 6:19 and 20. But did you see that the veil in Hebrews 6:19-20 is not Jesus’s flesh? Jesus takes us through the veil so that we get behind the veil so that we’re ushered into the direct presence of the father, the direct presence of God. Jesus is the forerunner, right? And other language—he’s gone through the heavens into the sanctuary in heaven.

And that’s the idea here. I think that using this text to interpret itself, we have a new and living way that we can enter through. He has brought us through the veil into the holies by way of linking these two verses up. And that means that the means by which this has happened is the blood of Jesus, but it’s also the means of his flesh, his incarnation. The incarnation and sacrificial death of Jesus Christ is the means by which he has gone as our forerunner into the holiest and we follow him.

So these two verses are parallel to one another. And what’s the way they’re similar? How they’re different is that Jesus Christ is being described in verse 20. The new and living way that Jesus consecrated for us through the veil, that is his flesh. That’s him going forward. Jesus went through—as Hebrews 6:19 and 20 says—through the dividing veil into the presence of God bringing humanity there and we’re exhorted on the basis of that high priestly work of Jesus Christ that we now as a priestly group, as the church, the body of Jesus Christ, we are to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus.

You see the first section talks about our entering. The second section says the basis of our entering, our movement toward nearness with God is through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, you know, the early church looked at this text and saw that this was the assertion that we are this priestly people now being made priests and kings on the earth that we’re following the great high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, having a high priest over his people.

In other words, “let us draw near.” So the same thing is said here. We’re going to enter the holies. Here’s the first, here’s the first specific command. Since we have boldness to enter because Jesus has gone into the presence of God, then we have the first of the “let us” clauses. There’s three of them. The first one is “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.”

Well, this is talking about the formal entrance and worship in its first application. But it’s not—there’s a the way we draw near, the way we enter into the worship of the church has to be with a true heart, a steadfast, believing, faithful heart. So the external formalism that some people are worried about with worship becoming so prominent is spoken against almost every place you look at it. But certainly here, you can’t just enter into the doors of the church and think something has happened magically or ritually.

We have to enter with a true heart, drawing into the presence of God himself with a heart that is faithful to him and we enter in full assurance having the confidence of faith. And then the next phrase is interesting. Our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience. Our bodies washed with pure water. Pure water in the Septuagint is the water that’s used for purification purposes. It’s like holy water you could call it. That’s the idea here. Pure water is water that really cleanses.

But what is this? Having our hearts sprinkled and our bodies washed. Well, this seems a rather obvious reference back to the ordination of Aaron and his sons when Aaron and his sons were ordained for the priesthood in Leviticus 8. They are sprinkled with blood and then they are washed and become a new creation. So the sprinkling of blood on Aaron and his sons and then the washing, the purification, new birth coming out of water imagery is what’s applied to us now.

And so again the language, all that sacrificial language about the work of Jesus in the center of this section, now becomes applied to us. We’re the ones now who are the great priests who follow the great priest. We’re the priestly nation who go forth and have this ability to enter into the worship of God drawing near with a true heart and full assurance of faith.

“Let us hold fast the profession of our hope without wavering. For he who promised is faithful.” The idea here is you know that we’re to, the confession of Jesus Christ as Lord is seen by our entering into the worship of the church and then our living lives in relationship to how that worship informs us. So we’re to hold fast and the implication here is that our confession of faith as Christians is denied by our failure to attend the worship services of the church and then live our lives the way that worship service structures for us.

Do you see that? If we’re to draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith and this is holding fast the confession—they’re put in in that kind of way here. You know, this is another way to say, as the title of Peter Leithart’s book says, “against Christianity and for the church”—against the idea that we have a personal relationship with Jesus that isn’t somehow corporate and corporately tied to the relationship of the church.

The reformed confessions routinely said that salvation is ordinarily not found outside of the church of Jesus Christ. And that’s kind of what’s being said here. We’re not to waver. The Hebrews are wavering from their commitment to attending the worship services of the church. We’re not to waver. Why? Because “he who promised is faithful.” God never wavers. He has made these great promises to us. And we are given the attributes of God, this faithfulness, this unwaveringness, as his people.

And we’re to act like we’re supposed to be. We’re supposed to see father in heaven. And we’re supposed to act like father in heaven. He is faithful who promised. He never wavers. And we’re not to waver either in our application of what we’re to do.

And then third, “let us consider one another in order to stir up stimulate love and good works.” So you know, here we have the application, right? It’s not just about the worship service of the church. It’s about drawing near to God in the rest of our lives. And specifically, it’s living out the concepts of community, exhortation to faithfulness in the Lord Jesus Christ in whatever calling and vocation, recreation, whatever we’re doing, this exhortation, this taking outward now this life that Jesus Christ has given us.

This third command is to “let us consider one another to stir up to love and good works.” How do we do this? Well, again, the text tells us how we’re to do this. We’re to not forsake, but exhort. You see the parallel fashion there? We’re not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together as some are starting to do, but we’re to exhort one another, “so much the more as you see the day of judgment approaching.”

And you know, this can be thought of as the day of the second coming of Jesus. Probably more likely what’s happening here is it’s a reference to AD 70 and the judgment that’s coming upon Jerusalem in a couple of years. And he’s saying that and to us we could say contemporaneously the day of our death approaches. The day of the evaluation of God approaches. Well, this has a specific reference to both the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, but also the second coming of our savior. We can make it ours because God comes to visit us.

He comes to do it every Lord’s day. This is the day of the Lord. In the scriptures, the day of the Lord and the Lord’s day are the same in the Greek text. So this is particularly so on Sunday. The point is that there’s we don’t have to totally guess on what it means to consider one another, to stir up love. The word consider could be caring for. So we’re exhorted to care for each other. And in that care, to encourage and exhort each other, to stir one another up to love and good works.

Usually, this word “stir up” is used in the negative sense in the Greek, and you’re not supposed to stir up a hornets nest, but here we’re to stir up the hornets nest, so to speak, of love in good works. And how do we do it? Well, we do it by not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. Here’s the synagoguing together as the manner of some is. So even while he’s talking about the community life of the church extended into the week, he still says the way this all begins is in Lord’s day worship services, assembling of ourselves together.

And some people, he says, are starting to drift off. Don’t forsake it the way that some are starting to do, but rather exhort one another.

So you know, we have some very specific commands here how to apply the great doctrinal truths of the high priestly work of Jesus Christ. And the specific commands have to do with the corporate gathering of the church, but that corporate gathering producing a sense of community and encouragement to one another to love and good works in the context of the rest of the week.

So we come together in the Lord’s day and in that assembling, we’re encouraging and exhorting one another, but we’re also beginning the practice throughout the rest of the week exhorting one another to love and to good works. And if we don’t do that, we can’t say that we love one another. I mean, that’s what he says here. We could should be caring for one another to the end of stirring up love and good works.

And that includes exhortation of one another, exhortation of one another. When you see your brother sin, you’re to go to him. You’re to exhort him to leave off sin and to put on righteousness. You’re to exhort your brother to good works. You’re to exhort your brother to love for the Lord Jesus Christ and then the application of that love in his callings, his various callings of life.

So the specific application of these truths is the community life of the church of Jesus Christ. And so he draws this parallel between the corporate gathering on Sunday but then moving into an exhortation and encouragement of each other in the context of the week. That’s the application. That’s specific. This is it. All that fourth section is to the end that we might live lives in reality to the truth that we have been created a body, a corpus, a community of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now of course in the context of our setting lots of different churches gathered in different places this means that the community of faith is broader of course than just this assembly and the exhortation and the good works that we’re stimulating with one another. We’re going to do this very thing when we have the love inc fundraiser you know, on I think it’s November 4th. It’s an exhortation. It’s an encouragement to one another to love and good works specifically in terms of benevolence projects in the context of the city. This is the sort of thing that we’re supposed to do.

We’re to encourage each other in the application of the faith. So, so you know, Steve Sykes reads a book on leadership and gives me stuff to think about, you know, maybe a critique of the book. We’re to encourage one another and exhort one another to love and good works. You’re all to assist me and to assist you. This is not application given to the elders of the church first and foremost. It’s application given to every member of the body of the church.

And so as difficulties happen, it’s the commitment to live out the life of Jesus Christ as a community of him that will see us through the difficulties of whatever God may do next in the life of our church or any church. So this is very important.

Now, if we’re going to exhort one another to love and good works, if that’s what his application is, that is so important. Well, and actually let me first go on to the next section and say how important it is and then let me come back here and mention a couple of specific things. How important is it? Well, the very next section is the big warning section, right?

“If we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth. There no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.” You reject the sacrifice of Jesus. No other sacrifice for sins going on. The temple’s not going to make it for you. “But a certain fearful expectation of judgment and fire indignation which will devour the adversaries.”

See, we have we think of the New Testament as easier and not as difficult. But no, this says the Old Testament you rejected Moses’ law, you died without mercy, and the testimony of two witnesses of how much worse punishment do you suppose? Will he be thought worthy who has done three things, trampled the son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the spirit of grace.

We know him who said, “Vengeance is mine. I will repay.” And again, the Lord will judge his people. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

The inclusio, the bookends of this little section is fearfulness. Fear at the beginning, fear at the end. So if we do something here, we’re prone to this fearfulness because God is going to bring judgment. He will devour the adversaries. Vengeance is his. Those things match up.

So we’re talking here in this warning section about some pretty horrific stuff. And it involves both the judgment of those who claim to be Christians but really don’t live their lives that way. But it also involves the vindication of his people. “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” As we read earlier in Psalm 50, the judgment of God is at the same time the deliverance of his people. So his judgment on people that might call themselves Christians and are not is at the same time vindication of his people. So this is a very frightening part of the scriptures.

And again, it has a specific time reference, right? Jerusalem is going to be burned with fire. There’s going to be a fiery indignation. They literally, if they’re at Jerusalem, they go up there to worship at the temple and reject the church of Jesus Christ in Rome or wherever it is they’re at. They may then be in the context of those walls that for a long time is going to be besieged by Rome and they’re going to have in a very real and literal sense this fearful expectation of judgment and the fiery indignation of God that will burn up his adversaries.

See, they’re about to switch teams. They don’t think they’re switching teams. You know, it’s interesting. What are they doing wrong here? Why are they doing wrong? Well, what they’re doing wrong is they’re drifting away from the church. That’s what they’re doing. And that means drifting away from the worship services, not being regular in attendance. And it means drifting away from their obligations to other people of God, the other Christians in the community, and hearing what they have to say to them. They’re just drifting away.

And there’s no indication in the text that this drifting is because they’re being persecuted. You know, there is in the very next section, if we look at the third paragraph, he does call them to remember some stuff. He says, “But Recall the former days in which after you were illuminated, you endured a great struggle with sufferings. Partly why you were made a spectacle both by reproaches and tribulations.

People made fun of you and they actually beat you. He said partly why you became companions of those who were so treated. Even if they didn’t do it to you, they did it to others and you said, ‘I’m with him.’ And then they made fun of you as a Christian. You had compassion on me and my chains. I’m not sure if it’s me. On those who had chains and those who were imprisoned for their faith. You joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods knowing that you have a better and an enduring possession for yourself in heaven.”

So you know, they actually lost property in whatever this persecution is described here. Well, if it is a little house church in Rome, we know that in the mid to late 40s there was a tribulation. The Jews were cast out of the city. The Christians were seen as part of the Jewish subcult. They were cast out of the city. They did lose property. They might have been arrested and persecuted. They were certainly ridiculed and made fun of.

And this letter comes maybe 20 years later if that’s was the original thing. We don’t know for sure, but that’s probably a pretty good explanation of what’s happening here. In other words, he’s referring to past persecution, not necessarily because there’s any kind of ongoing persecution yet. There will be as AD 70 approaches. But he’s doing this to remind them of their initial commitment to Jesus Christ once they were brought into the faith.

They were so zealous then that they would put up with direct attacks, people, you know, calling them all kinds of names, people hitting them, people taking away their property and imprisoning some of them. You guys held firm. He said, “In your initial years as a church, you were faithful. You understood the need of the community. You had compassion on others who were persecuted, and you were willing to take persecution for the name of Jesus and for other Christians.” And what he’s telling him now is remember that.

But there’s no indication that’s going on here now. Instead, what seems to be happening, and again, we’ve made this point before and we’ll make it again when we get into chapter 12. What seems to be happening is that it’s just the normal flow of life in a huge urban prosperous city that is causing people to fade away from commitment to the church and commitment to the community of Jesus Christ.

The scary passages mean that it is those who are not obeying the exhortations. “Let us draw near. Let us may have our profession not be empty but not to waver in that profession. Let us live lives as Christians, exhorting one another, stimulating each other to love and good works,” the application of the faith to every bit of life. This is what we’re to do. And it is the absence of that not, you know, literally saying, “I hate Jesus. I’m going to take his Bible and spit on it” or something.

That’s not what he says. He says that’s kind of what you’re doing here. But the specific charge, potential charge, the warning he’s giving them is drifting away from acting as Christians both on Sunday and then, you know, very importantly, more importantly, how they act in the context of the week. If they’re drawing near with a true heart, then that heart is desiring application into the week.

And that’s what they’ll do. You’ll live out with one another what you participate in at the table here. And if you don’t, you see, then God says, “You better watch it.” We don’t think it’s a big deal. Well, he’s a Christian. He just doesn’t come to church all that regular anymore and don’t see him much and he’s not really being encouraged by others because he sort of lives with just his family. But it’s a Christian family.

You know, we see people just kind of drifting off. And we think, well, you know, it’s not the best life, but you know, it’s it’s maybe a life. Well, this text seems to say that it is exactly those things that he’s critiquing the Hebrews for. And it’s those things that are the application of that great priestly work of Jesus Christ. He has made way into the presence of the father. And he has made way so that the church of Jesus Christ is community.

And we’re going to turn our backs on that. You see, where is the spirit of grace found? Me and Jesus in a prayer closet? Yeah, it’s found there. But preeminently, more often, I should say not preeminently, but in a more often, that grace of the Holy Spirit comes from people talking to you and encouraging you to live lives of faithfulness to Jesus. And be careful, you know, what you’re doing here. And why don’t you maybe do this? I think you’re gifted for this. And do you know that we’re going to have a loving fundraiser? And you know, we can remember the Reformation and call ourselves to Reformation on October 31st. All that sort of stuff.

You see, If we don’t do that, then we are insulting the spirit of grace. And if we don’t take advantage of the wonderful access in worship that we now have that we did not have before to draw into the heavenly presence of God in corporate worship, then you know, we’re trampling underfoot the blood of Christ. Wherever we walk during that worship hour, what are we doing that for?

So, I know it sounds extreme, but I don’t know any other way to take these texts. The exhortations are to these three specific things. The warning is that if we don’t do that, we’re drifting away from the very great truths of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for his people. And if we drift off into some kind of, you know, unformed view of Christianity, that seems to be just what these people in this house church were doing.

The concerns and cares for work, money, recreations of the city, easy travel, all this stuff is sapping their energy to work in the context of the church or in the context of the broader community of Christians. So he warns them against that and he would warn us as well.

Now then he gives them comfort at the end. He says but recall the former days as I as I just read. So you know we can look back—we don’t know what problems and trials and tribulations will come to us. We can assess some of them and we can look back on the founding of our church, the great commitment that the founders of this church had. That’s why we want to remember these things.

We can recall these days. And each of you can recall days when you came to Christ or when your conversion to Christ was enlivened and you were really zealous to do Jesus’s works. And maybe you did some dumb stuff even, but you were zealous to serve the Savior. You were zealous to get together with other Christians. You were zealous to try to figure out what does this mean when I go to work—this Christian faith in the lordship of Jesus? What does it mean, you know, in terms of the education of my children. What does it mean in terms of the political structure of our communities?

And God is calling us back in this text to that kind of commitment and loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s saying, “Recall those former days. We were willing to do anything. Go out and be called stupidest or whatever it might be that this culture might call those who are committed to the Lord Jesus Christ.”

And then finally, he tells them, you need to endure in this path. “You have need of endurance so that After you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise.” That’s interesting language. After you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise. The promise is, you know, being used, I suppose, to speak of what the promise is, eternal life. But it’s after we do the will of God that we receive this eternal life. Do we have present possession of eternal life? Yes. But does God in the scriptures tell us do this, follow me, Jesus says, and in that obedience to him, is this the way to eternal life? And the answer is yes.

He’s warning them and he’s warning us against cheap antinomian grace that does not see the necessity of obedience to the worship of the church and then obedience in applying that worship in the context of our lives. This is not doing the will of God if we reject these things and we must then not assure ourselves that we will receive the promised because we prayed the prayer at some time in the past.

No, God says, “Yet a little while and I will come and will not tarry. The just shall live by faith. If anyone draws back, my soul has no pleasure in it.” Now, what he’s doing here, it’s complicated, but there was a text in Isaiah where the song of Isaiah said, “Well, you have to hide for a little while God’s judgment comes through the land.” And this church was applying that to justify their failure to speak boldly and forthrightly for Jesus in the gates of the city, in the educational area, in talking to other pastors and Christians.

They were using this as a retreat mechanism to just be off cloistered in their homes maybe or in the church. And he’s saying, “No, bad application of Isaiah. If you draw back like that, my soul will have no delight in you. If you draw back, you’re going to be the adversary. You’re going to be the ones that I bring the judgment against, against my righteous ones. My just shall live by faithfulness. Shall not get and receive forever and then never think about it again.

Life through faith. No, my just shall live their lives in faithfulness to every word of Jesus Christ and applying that word in the context of our lives. We can’t do it. It takes a community. It takes a church. It takes a group of people who are willing to exhort and stimulate each other to love and good works to accomplish this. That’s what it takes. Are we doing that?

You’ll remember that when I talked about the first warning text months ago, I said, you know, there are people probably each of you know who name the name of Jesus Christ and whose attendance at church has become sporadic or you might know that they’re engaged in some kind of ongoing sin in their lives. And I said that we have an obligation to those people, not just the pastors of the church. This is written to the congregants. You have an obligation to warn those people that they are in danger of hellfire because remember we saw before the presentation of Christ’s work here in chapters five and six you know that you can be cut off and there’s no capability for repentance of you if you drift away from Jesus Christ. That’s a truth.

Have you done it? Have you talked to anybody? Do you know people that maybe came to your mind when I preached that sermon three or four months ago or whenever it was? Did you talk to him. Are you willing to be bold enough for Jesus Christ to talk to each other, exhorting each other, yeah, to faithfulness and good works? That’s good. But how about exhortation and encouraging one another to break off sin?

Are we willing to do that? Well, this text says that’s the direct application of this tremendous high priestly work of Jesus Christ is to exhort one another because God’s judgments are in the earth. “Exhort one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching.”

Now, if we’re going to be a community that survives another 20 or 25 years and not just survives but does work. I guess that’s the point. You can’t just survive. You have to be advancing. This text tells us. And if we’re going to be a church that advances in that way, then we have to be a group of people who extend the community of Sunday into the week. And we have to be a group of people who have the boldness to be ridiculed, made fun of, and attacked for encouraging each other to righteousness.

You see what I just said? How easy is it for someone to tell you about something they just saw you do that maybe not the best thing to do? Do you make that easy for people to talk to you or do you make it really hard for people? If you’re like most of us, you make it hard. See, if we’re going to be a group of people obeying these exhortations to exhort one another, then we got to be a people who are willing to speak in love in the context of Christian grace. All that stuff’s true. We’re coming to the table. We love one another. We’re committed to each other. We have to know that about each other.

But in the context of that, in love, are we willing and able to go to each other and to try to stimulate each other by exhorting each other to break off from sins, to do better, to mature in the Christian faith? And are we a congregation who will go out of our way to encourage people to do that to us?

I preached a year or so ago on Proverbs. What’s the wise man want to hear? A rebuke, a rebuke. Are we able to take rebukes? This text says that the ability, the last of these three “let us” clauses, the climactic one is the ability to give and receive rebukes, exhortations, encouragements. So that’s what’ll get us through any difficult times we have. Who knows what’ll happen? Who knows what’ll happen with the various theological controversies that swirl around in our day? They’re the same, some of the same ones that swirled down before and we’ll swirl around again.

But God says that we are more than conquerors that he has confidence about that we are not those who draw back, draw back from the kind of love, encouragement, stimulation in terms of the application of the faith in week to week weekday activities. We’re not going to draw back from that. We’re not going to draw back from exhorting one another. We’re not going to draw back from the worship services of the church.

No, we are those who believe and as a result advance forward to the saving of our souls.

This is the work of Jesus Christ. Boldness is a right and a privilege obtained with a price far higher than we will ever know. But it is a right. It is a privilege to enter into the presence of God and to enter into each other’s lives. It is a right, but it is also a duty. It is gospel. It’s a right, but it is also a duty. It is a task. It’s a privilege, but it’s a task that we must take up and enter into.

Don’t throw away your boldness.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, our great forerunner. We thank you for our access to you, Lord God, in worship and throughout the rest of our lives. We thank you, Father, for the lives that you’ve called us to live. May we be bold people understanding we have authorization to come here and receive the body and blood of our savior through his work.

And May we be bold people in encouraging one another, stimulating each other to love and to good works. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.

What shall I render to my God for all his kindness shown? My feet shall visit thine abode. My songs address thy throne. How much is mercy thy delight. How ever blessed God. How dear thy servants in thy sight. How precious is their blood. How happy all my servants are. How great thy grace to me. My life which thou hast made thy care, Lord. I devote to thee. Now I am thine forever thine, nor shall my purpose move. My hand have loosed my bonds of pain and bound me with thy love. Here In thy courts I leave my vow and thy rich grace return.

Witness ye saints who hear me now if I forsake the Lord. Psalm 50 will guide us in our prayer today. Let us pray. God our Lord, the mighty one has spoken and called the earth from the rising of the…