Heb No.21 Consistent Christian Conduct 10v9-39

I've been reading recently about the turnover of power from the hands of what was the British Empire to the nationals in India in the late 1940s. And it's a fascinating story, a book whose title, I think, is Five Minutes to Midnight. And in that book, two characters really are dominant.

One is Louis Mountbatten and the other was that small Indian fellow, Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi is one of the most remarkable men, I think, of the 20th century. But the thing that particularly recalls him to my mind as I open this Bible study is reading at some other stage in the life of Gandhi some years ago a comment which has lived on in my memory where Gandhi said, I would be a Christian if it wasn't for the Christians.

Think that one through, it's not a nonsense statement. I would be a Christian if it wasn't for the Christians. What Gandhi really meant was that the experience that he had received at the hands of Christian people because he felt every white man was automatically a Christian here in England and what he received at the hands of some of the officials of the empire back in the subcontinent of India was such that he believed, having read the New Testament, the way that they reacted to him and to the needs of his people was such a flat contradiction of the gospel that he rejected Christianity.

I would be a Christian if it wasn't for the Christians. Therein lies, of course, one of the great tragedies throughout the whole of church history that many of us and how many would associate ourselves with this particular comment this evening live lives that are far less than the standards the New Testament set for us. And as a result, other people are hampered from committing their lives to Jesus Christ because they judge whether we want this or not.

They judge Christianity from us. We are living epistles and sometimes what they read is not very flattering and it puts them off the Christian gospel. Now, it's this idea of consistent Christian living that it seems to me is very much at the back of the mind indeed at the forefront of the mind of the writer of the Hebrews as you come into the latter part of this tenth chapter for here he commences a great deal of application.

Can I pause and say this? You might sometimes feel Bible study to be a bit irksome. I remember, and I congratulate her for her honesty, not many days ago a young woman came to see me and she said, I've been in your Bible studies on Hebrews but I find they have little relevance to me. Well, one takes the point and one recognizes one's own inadequacies as a Bible teacher.

But you see, basic to what she was saying and one sympathizes to some extent was that these chapters we've been working our way through, the eighth, ninth and tenth chapters of Hebrews have been dealing very, very much with Old Testament lifestyle, the sacrificial system of the priests and so forth, the whole business of the tabernacle and the way that worship was offered yesteryear. And it may seem to be a little bit remote, a little bit distant from life in the twentieth century. Indeed, a lot of the arguments in the New Testament when you work your way through the epistles, they seem to be somewhat irrelevant to the sort of problems and situations that confront us today as we endeavor to live for the Lord Jesus.

But one of the things that it seems to me as common in Scripture is this, that whenever you've got a piece of theological reasoning that absorbs your mind and makes you really extend your mind in thinking, then later on you'll come to the practical application of that piece of theological reasoning. If you take, for example, the letter to the Ephesians, the first four chapters or so is just chock-a-block full of theology, chock-a-block full of doctrine. I think it's fascinating.

I think it's absolutely absorbing. Can't really understand anyone who doesn't react in the same way as myself. But that happens to be the case.

There are those who find it difficult. But when you move on, you discover that the apostle Paul in the fifth and in the sixth chapter robs home some of the conclusions that he's made in the opening chapters. And you can't fully understand the point of his teaching later on practically unless you've come to grips with the theology of the earlier chapters.

Now that's exactly the case in Hebrews. Why have we spent so many times, so many Thursday nights going to the Old Testament, working out the inadequacies of the Levitical offerings and all that the tabernacle stood for? Well, we've done so. That we might see something of the supremacy of Jesus, how he fulfills all those Old Testament sacrificial offerings, how he stands out as the greatest high priest that ever lived.

But there's more to it than that. It says, our writer of this epistle to the Hebrews, if you've seen something of the splendid work of Jesus, if you've seen how adequate he is compared with the relentless activities of the Old Testament priests, how great his sacrifice is compared with the inadequate sacrificial offerings that they made, then there will be certain things in your life which will follow because you understand something of the greatness of your salvation. And it's here I say from the 10th chapter and the 19th verse that our writer starts to rub in the lessons that he's worked out theologically.

He comes to the practical aspects of his teaching. And he's going to tell us, as Christian people, what we are to do, how we are to live our lives. He's going to tell us, in contrast, what we're not to do.

And then he's going to tell us later on what we are to remember, what will stimulate us to live in a more consistent fashion that pleases the Lord Jesus Christ. So then, in the opening verses, from the 19th to the 25th of this passage of Scripture, the writer tells us what we are to do. Look at that first word, will you? It's in the NIV, and I think it's the same in the authorized version.

It's therefore. And therefore is a connecting word. It points back and it points forward.

As Tom Reese used to say, if you come across that word in Scripture, then ask yourself, what is it therefore? Well, it's there as a linked word to connect all that's been said previously with all that follows. And as our writer starts to tell us something of the way in which we are to live our lives, he reminds us of two privileges that are ours that he's demonstrated previously. In the NIV, the word since occurs in the 19th verse and also in the 21st verse.

And that word since, again, is part of his reasoning. Since I've argued this, then that follows. What has he argued? Well, he's argued first of all that we have a right to enter into the holy place.

We've a right to come before our Father God. We are told that by the blood of Jesus and by a new and a living way, the likes of you and me can stand before the Lord. Now, that's a wonderful thing.

You see, going back into the Old Testament, you remember that in the old-fashioned tabernacle, only the priest, the high priest once a year, could enter into the holiest place. Ah, but in the New Testament, things have changed. You and I are priests and you and I can go before the Father God because Jesus has bled and died for us.

Do you remember how one of the apostles on one occasion said to Jesus, Lord, show us the way. We don't know it. You say that we know the way to the Father.

Jesus, we're telling you, we don't know the way. And then our Lord utters that exquisite verse, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes unto the Father but by me.

It's Jesus. He's the new way into the presence of God. So we don't need the tabernacle of the Old Testament.

We don't need the offerings. We don't need the priests. We've got Jesus.

And because of what He's done, we can have an audience with God as we are pleased to avail ourselves of the blessings that are ours because we're Christians. It's a new way. It's a living way.

You say that something is living if there's a lot of activity. It's a lively household. Why? Well, you see, they've got several children and they're all over the place.

It's a place that throbs with life. And that's exactly descriptive of the road along which men and women go to find salvation through Jesus. There are thousands of them.

Tens of thousands of them. A great innumerable company flock the road that leads into the presence of God. It's a living way.

But look at that way that the old priest used to go on once a year in the Old Testament era. It was a pavement that was lonely and deserted. That wasn't living.

It was sterile. It was barren. But you and I, we enter God's presence by a new and a living way.

And not only that, says the writer in the 21st verse, we have another privilege. We have a great high priest over the house of God. It used to be said of Christians that they hadn't got a priest.

Well, you see, the reason for that comment was that in the old days of the Roman Empire, all the various pagan religions, they had their priesthood. Men dressed with peculiar garments. People who were recognized as being individuals who performed sacrifices, who offered incense, who indulged in incantations.

There was a priest or a priesthood in every pagan religion. And even the Jews, as you know, they had their priesthood. But the Christians, oh well, they used to say to those believers in Jesus in Rome and in Athens and around the Empire, you haven't got a priest.

Yours can't be a valid religion. Where are your priests? And the writer of the Hebrew says, you're wrong. If you don't think we've got a priest, then you don't know how ignorant you are.

We have a priest. He tells us this in the fourth chapter, you remember, and in the fourteenth verse, therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. He tells us in the sixth chapter and in the sixteenth verse also that we have a great high priest.

He tells us the same in the twenty-sixth verse of the seventh chapter. Such a high priest we have who meets our needs. I, says the writer of the Hebrew epistle, it's not just that we've got a high priest, we've got the best one.

We've got a high priest who has an indestructible life and who is at present by the right hand of God making intercession for each one of us. Well, these are all things he's reminded us of before. Therefore, brothers, because we can enter into God's presence, because we have a great high priest, there are four or five instructions which I put to you almost as commands.

What are those instructions? Well, you are to draw near to God regularly. Look at the twenty-second verse. Let us draw near to God.

Look later on to the next verse, the twenty-third. When we're told, let us hold on to the hope which we profess. Look at the twenty-fourth verse.

Let us consider how we may spur one another towards good works. Look at the twenty-fifth verse. Let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing.

You see the point? Because we're the priest, and because we have a right to enter into the presence of God, then there are three or four practical injunctions which our writer has upon his heart to instruct us with. We are to come before the Lord God on a regular basis. Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart, verse twenty-two, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience, and having our bodies washed with pure water.

Now one of the things that they couldn't do in the Old Testament era was to draw near to God. In fact, when Moses gave the Ten Commandments from Sinai, he said, stand back. Don't go to that mountain.

That mountain is the place where God appears. He put a fence all the way around the edge of the mountain so that the people couldn't draw near. Why? Well, God was a holy God and there are sinful people.

If the message at Sinai, however, was stand back, the message at Calvary is come near. Draw nigh unto the Lord, come unto me, all ye that labour and that have inlaid him, and I will give you rest. But we can't come near because we're sinful people.

As is our writer, but we can come near because something has happened to us. We have been ordained to a ministry. Now you say, where on earth do you get that from? Well, dig into that verse a little deeper.

Verse 22, I'm still with. We have our hearts sprinkled. We have been cleansed from a guilty conscience.

We have bodies washed with pure water. Why is this reference made to the sprinkling of our hearts, to the washing of our bodies? Well, you see, when Aaron was ordained to the ministry, you discover in the 29th chapter of Exodus the rites of his ordination. He was sprinkled with blood.

He was washed with water. That was the first ordination service in the Mosaic legislation. It was copied by the rest of the priests.

The blood and the water, well, they stood for purification. Now, how much more? In the Christian era, our people who have been to Jesus Christ, cleansed. We're cleansed through his blood.

We're washed whiter than the riven snow. And what is more, we're made into a priesthood. Why don't I wear a priestly garment? Why don't I take a priestly title here in the tabernacle as we find ourselves in 1981? Well, for this reason, I'm a priest, yes, but so are you.

This is what the apostle Peter has to say. We are a holy nation. We are a royal priesthood.

Well, what do priests do? They come near to God. And we are to do just that, come near to the Lord. That's his first instruction.

But then there is something else. He tells us to hold on to our faith. Verse 23.

Now, we've come across this idea of clinging on to faith before, have we not? You remember how references made to the Christian belief as an anchorage earlier on in this in this epistle. And we were told not to cast away our confidence. We're not to be like boats that are uncontrolled on the seas of life.

We have an anchor. We have something to hold on to. We have a profession.

And as we cling on to this faith of ours, then we can be assured that God will be faithful to us and keep us close to Him during the rest of our lives. We hold on to Him, and He holds on to us. So we sing, alas, not in hymns of faith.

The hymn book is a little too sophisticated. But you do sing in Sankey's hymn book. We have an anchor that keeps the soul steadfast and pure while the sea billows roll.

I wish that that hymn was in our hymn book. Perhaps when we update our supplement we'll pinch it and we'll put it in there so we can sing it. Because it's biblical.

We are to draw near. We are to hold on. And what is more? We are to encourage other people.

No, you can't get more practical than this, can you? Look at verse 24. Let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds. When I was on the borders of Brazil just a couple of months ago, I took some meetings at a place called Salto.

And the meetings were very much owned of the Lord. And we were very grateful for the way that people had prayed and the measure of blessing that God poured out amongst several of the Christian communities there. But the dear brother with whom I was staying, when I took my leave from him and from his family, he gave me a present.

And when I opened it in their presence, I confessed I hadn't got a clue what it was. Have you ever had the embarrassing experience of having to thank somebody for something and you didn't know what it was? And he felt it would be of great practical use to me and I hadn't got a clue as to how I would in any way use this particular thing. It turned out to be, and I meant to bring it this evening but I left home in a hurry, it turned out to be a spur.

It turned out to be a couple of spurs that if you go riding, you have over the saddle of the, when it's saddled on the horse and you put your feet in and the stirrups and the spurs are out from your boots. You wear them underneath the arches of your feet. And when the old horse isn't going fast enough, you're sort of digging one underneath where it's a little tender and he shoots forward and you can quite appreciate his reaction.

Of course, the gift has got no relevance to me because I've, I don't think I've ever ridden a horse in my life. I've ridden donkeys but that was a long, long time ago. But if I had a horse, I could spur the horse on with these particular things that I brought back from Uruguay.

Well, not in the painful sense, but in a very practical way. We, because we belong to the Lord, are not only to draw near to him, we're not only to hold on to the faith, we are to spur one another. We're to provoke one another to good works.

Not by giving someone a dig in the ribs, but by putting a loving arm around them and encouraging them. By suggesting to them in verbally, in verbal terms so that they can understand how much we appreciate their ministry. How grateful to God we are for them.

We are to spur one another to good works by being encouragers. I remember my dear friend Dorothy Smith, whose memorial service I conducted a few days ago here in the tabernacle. She was one of the greatest encouragers I have ever known in ten years or eleven years of being pastor in this church.

An elderly lady called into the presence of God in her eighties. But a woman who was such an encourager, whenever any of our young people would go and see her, encouragement just poured from her lips whenever she was asking about the tabernacle and the things that we were doing. It was always encouraging.

A person who was given this ministry of spurring someone else on, encouraging them. Well, that's what you are to do. That's what I am to do.

You see, I can understand Hebrews chapter eight and chapter nine and the first part of Hebrews ten. And my young friend who I referred to some time ago was quite right. You can understand all about the Levitical offerings, all about the priestly duties, all about the tabernacle of the Old Testament, and if it doesn't affect your life right now, well, it's all a bubble.

It adds up to nothing. If it doesn't mean that because you see the greatness of Christ at Calvary and all that he's done for you, if it doesn't spur you on to be an encourager, if it doesn't stifle a critical spirit, if it doesn't cause you to open up your home and use whatever you have for the benefits of other people, if it doesn't make you one who will spur someone else along in the Christian faith, then it's pointless you coming here. I really mean that.

It is pointless you coming to be theologically and historically informed. That's not what the Bible is about. The Bible is about practical issues.

And it's as I understand something of the greatness of the Christ and the perfections of his ministry over against the inadequacies of the Old Testament era that I want to live a life that pleases him. I want to provoke other people to spur them on towards love and good deeds. I ask myself and I ask you, do you encourage other people? Are you critical or are you commendatory? Are you someone who endeavors to breathe a spirit of love and peace, a balm of accord, or are you someone who becomes bigoted? Knowledge of the Scripture, but little of the graces of the Scripture worked out within your life.

I leave that, and I leave it for myself as well, as a challenge for us to think through. Four things. We are to draw near to the Lord, we are to hold on to the faith, we are to encourage others, and we are to meet regularly together.

Let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but let's encourage one another as we see the day of the Second Advent approaching. Well, there's not much comment I need to make on that. The Bible is always very much for church attendance, and you folks wouldn't be here on a Thursday evening if you didn't recognize the value of meeting together regularly.

These then are things that we are to do. All right, let's move on, because he says in the 26th verse through to the 31st, and this is a very somber passage of Scripture, he talks about things, he refers to certain things that we are not to do. Look at verse 26.

We, if we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left. He doesn't want us to be inconsistent, you see. He doesn't want us to fall back.

In the second chapter, in the first verse, in the third chapter, in the twelfth verse, in the fourth chapter, in the first verse, he's been saying exactly the same. Don't slip back, because it might well be if you slip back you demonstrate that you were never a believer in the first place. You were an apostate.

It was all a cosmetic thing, your religion. Don't slip back at all. Rather, go on with the Lord and implement these instructions that I've given you.

However, we must look at these verses from the 26th to the 31st, and here as he works out what is the nature of apostasy, he does so first of all by dipping back into the Old Testament. Let me read the 26th and 27th verses. If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.

I go on to the next, the 28th verse. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. What's he referring to there in that last verse in the 28th? Well, he's making comment about the way that apostates were treated in the Old Testament era.

You can read this up yourself as you go home in the references given on the outline. Deuteronomy chapter 17 and Numbers chapter 15. They dealt in a very high-handed fashion in those days.

The person who was an apostate who rejected the law, who deliberately sinned with a high hand, as Numbers tells us, that person was stoned. That person was put out of the community of the Hebrews. Now, that old covenant was an inadequate covenant.

That's what Hebrews has already been telling us, has it not? So if that measure of seriousness was applied to those who sinned in the Old Testament era, how much more shall people who, having a superficial interest in the gospel, going back on their superficial profession of faith, how much more will they be punished? That's basically what he's saying as he glances back into the Old Testament era. But let's move on a little bit because he tells us the nature of apostasy, what it means to go back on a profession of the Lord Jesus Christ in the present era. Look at the 29th verse.

How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished? Who has? And he outlines the nature of rebellion here, of backsliding. One, trample the Son of God under foot. Two, treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him.

And three, insulted the Spirit of grace. That's a terrible picture that he here paints. Here is someone who rejects Jesus Christ, who scorns Him, who takes the blood of Jesus, so to speak, and throws it on the ground and says, it's something to be mocked at.

It's something to be ridiculed. Here is someone who insults the Holy Spirit. You say, who was guilty of doing this in the New Testament era? Well, let me suggest to you those high priests and their colleagues who were sitting at the foot of the cross of Jesus when He was crucified.

Do you remember how they mocked Him? If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross, and we believe. Do you remember how on previous occasions they attributed what He had to do as being the works of the devil? They said that He has a spirit of Beelzebub in Him. They ridiculed, they scorned, they laughed at Him.

Now this is what apostasy means. This is what backsliding means, from which there is no recovery at all. That person who so looks upon Jesus in the same way as those priests do.

Now it is possible, this is a very dreadful picture, it's possible that someone could have fooled us. They could have been in this tabernacle, they could have taken communion, they could have broken bread, they could have been dipped in this baptismal tank, and they were never really the Lords. They could have fooled us, but they can't fool Jesus.

And in the last analysis they go back on their cosmetic, their superficial profession of faith. And if that happens, there's no further hope for them. You say you're worrying me at the moment.

Are you saying that a backslider has lost his faith? I've heard you argue so many times from the pulpit that a person can never lose their faith. My friend, what I'm arguing is this, that the person here described is someone who has never known the fullness of the Spirit of God. It's someone who has been in touch with Christian things and perhaps it seemed as though they were a believer and yet the latter years of their lives were lived in such a fashion that they became so apostate they trampled as it were the blood of God under their, the blood of Jesus under their feet.

You see, if anyone's troubled by this particular passage of Scripture, then one immediately knows this doesn't describe them because the person who is alluded to here and elsewhere where similar sorts of things are said in the Hebrew Epistle, the person who is mentioned is someone who couldn't care less. They're backsliders, they're apostates, they laugh at the whole concept of the Gospel. If you think that you're being described here, it's an indication you can't be because this sort of apostate doesn't care as we would say colloquially a toss about spiritual things at all.

So why is the writer of the Hebrews making these particular observations? Why is he telling us and he spells it out in such serious language of what waits in store for such people? Well, he is doing so because he wants to warn us from slipping back in any way at all, from any bout of backsliding, from any fashion in which we might let the Lord Jesus Christ down. We're not to do it. Why? Well, because of what Jesus has done for us and indeed because of the prospects, the awful prospects that awaits the unbeliever and the apostate.

And here we come to the 27th and the following verses the 30th and the 31st verse of this passage which makes mention of the way that God does deal with those who are apostate and unbelieving. A fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire will consume the enemies of God. Look at the 30th verse.

We know him who said, it is mine to avenge, I will repay. And again, the Lord will judge his people. The comments there in the 30th verse and the 31st are taken actually from Deuteronomy, from the Song of Moses.

I give you the reference in your notes. It's Deuteronomy chapter 32. And there Moses speaks of those who are apostate and what will happen to them.

And our writer is saying exactly the same thing. Those who have gone back unprofessioned and have no guilty conscience at all, they shall be dealt with by the Lord God in a merciless fashion. You think that that is an exaggeration? Listen to John, the beloved sensitive John on the Isle of Patmos as he describes the day when Jesus shall return and institute judgment in this world.

Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich and the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains, they call to the mountains and the rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of their wrath has come. And who can stand? When scripture speaks of the love of God, it speaks authoritatively and we are to believe it.

When scripture speaks of the judgment of God, it speaks authoritatively and we are to believe it. You see, whether you're a Christian or an unbeliever or one who has become an apostate and therefore fits back into the category of an unbeliever, you still one day will stand in the presence of God. You either meet God as savior or you meet God as judge.

And that's the reason why our author quotes from Deuteronomy 32 here in his 31st verse and says, it is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God unless, of course, and here's a play on words, you go by the new and living way that's sprinkled with the blood of Jesus. That's the only safe entrance into the presence of God. Go any other way.

Stand before Him on the day of judgment without the blood of Jesus to your account and you're in trouble. So, again, let me summarize what's been said. Our author has told us what to do.

We're to draw near to the Lord. We're to hold on to our faith. We are to encourage one another in good works.

We're regularly to meet together. What are we not to do? We're not to give the slightest semblance of backsliding because backsliding absolutely understood would lead to apostasy and indicate that our faith was never genuine in the first instance. Ah, well, there's one more thing and you come across this from the 32nd verse and onwards.

There is a stimulus given to our faith. We are told to remember. Remember certain times in past experience which will help you when you're facing difficulty in the present situations.

Well, let's work it out from the context of these writers and then of our readers, of the readers of this epistle initially, and then we can work it out in our own experience. He says to these men and women who are so tempted, remember those earlier days after you had received the light. Remember what you did then.

Isn't it interesting to see how the words receive the light or in the AV, illuminated, are used to describe salvation? Well, here are these men. Possibly they were priests, incidentally, these original readers. Do you remember in the Acts of the Apostles, I think it's in the sixth chapter, references made to a lot of priests who came to know the Lord just prior to the stoning of Stephen.

And you recall after the stoning of Stephen, tremendous persecution broke out headed up by Saul of Tarsus. And it's suggested, though I'm not saying that this is necessarily the case, that it was to those Christian priests who were hiding somewhere in Palestine that this letter was written. So here are Jewish priests, let's imagine that this idea is right, and they've gone through a great deal in decades gone by.

They withstood the onslaught of the persecution at the hands of Saul of Tarsus and all the Jewish priestly aristocracy in Jerusalem. They were looked upon as being traitors. And they had tremendous problems to go through.

But all that was in the past. And new difficulties broken out. And they're in danger of being tempted away from the faith.

Ah, says our writer, remember what you did before? You were so valiant, you stood your ground in great contest in the face of suffering, verse 32. Verse 33, sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution. And those of you who escaped, well, verse 34, you sympathized with those in prison.

You joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property. You went through a great deal, but you realized that you've got a tremendous hope in the future. Now look, if you did that in decades gone by, can't you hold on right now? What our writer is doing is dipping into the theology of that hymn we often sing here.

His love in times past forbids me to think. He'd leave me at last in trouble to sink. All right, says the writer to the Hebrews, raise your Ebenezer.

Remember what God did in the past. And today, verse 35, I give you some present exhortations. Don't throw away your confidence.

It'll be richly rewarded. Verse 36, persevere, so that you might do the will of God and ultimately receive all the blessings that He has promised for you. And then he goes on, and I've just a minute or so to make comment, to sketch out something of the future prospects that confront these Christians and ourselves today.

And our writer delightfully dips in. It's not obvious here in the AV, but it's obvious in the NIV, because any quotation is in quotation marks and it's indented. And those who are following from the NIV will discover from verse 37 into verse 38 there is a quotation.

And that goes back to the book of Habakkuk. It's a very free quotation from the second chapter of Habakkuk. And reference is made in the way that it's quoted by our author to the coming, the soon return of Jesus.

He who is coming will come and will not delay. Jesus is coming back again. Let that always be in your thinking.

Now who will please Jesus? Well verse 38 says so. My righteous one, who lives by faith. Christian people who've trusted Jesus and who through faith in Him have had their sins forgiven.

And how do they know that they're really Christian? That their faith is genuine? Well because they don't shrink back. If a man shrinks back, if he doesn't persevere to the end, if he becomes an apostate, Jesus can never be pleased in him. But the man who holds on, even though he's going through great difficulties in his life, when Jesus returns, shall receive his well done.

So you see the logical argument that our author puts before us here. He tells us what to do and he tells us not what not to do. And then he tells us what to remember.

And he dips into the past, he speaks to the present situation and he strains forward to the future and he says that Jesus is going to return. And then he brings in his final comment and he identifies himself with all these dear Christian people who will receive and read this letter and he says look, this is what I believe. I'm like you and you are like me.

We are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed but of those who believe and are saved. And my friend, that describes us, does it not? We who have come to Jesus, we who see that his sacrifice was the greatest of all, that in heaven we know he is there making intercession for us. We've given up the old way of life.

We're trusting him now. We've trusted him in the past. We're going to continue to cling to the faith and we know that one day our Savior shall return and call us to himself.

And until that moment we want to be those who live consistent Christian lives that bring him honor and glory. Amen.