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Hebrews 12-Grow Not Weary and Lose Heart
For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Hebrews 12:3 NASB

Endurance for the race

Life wears me out – daily and year to year. My faith fades into a fog of uncertainty as I wonder if the Lord has any use for me at all. I am weary of sin and sinners, my heart broken and soul suffering. How will I endure this marathon of mortal life?

Can you relate to that? Do your days run endlessly with all around you asking you to sprint to their end rather than endure the race of hope to finish?

It was no different for a persecuted church, yet in Christ we have found our Hope and Light to victory over death and the joy of the prize.

The author of Hebrews has just connected a genealogy of Jewish faith where ‘faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Now he urges us to continue in Christ by faith.

Lay aside every burden

Cast your burden on the LORD,
and he will sustain you;
he will never allow the righteous to be shaken.
Psalm 55:22 CSB

Many know well the comfort of our Lord’s invitation to give to Him the great weights of our lives which hold us down.

At that time Jesus said,
“All things have been entrusted to me by my Father.
“Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
excerpt from Matthew 11:25-28

The author of Hebrews has just shown us many witnesses who have gone before us in this long journey of faith. He has provided the evidence.

Hebrews 12:

Therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every hindrance and the sin that so easily ensnares us.

Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith.
Hebrews 12:1b-2a CSB

Clear imagery of our remaining days, as well as the persecuted lives of the early Christians to whom the author of Hebrews wrote his letter. We are not in the race alone, but have run it with Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, the many Prophets of God and all the others.

We have received a baton of hope from our forefathers, which we may place gently into the hand of our children by faith. Jesus, the Messiah is our hope of winning the prize joyfully awarded by our Heavenly Father.

Fix your eyes upon Jesus

It bears repeating: Jesus IS our pacesetter. He has run this same race of mortality before us.

Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

ἀφοράω – aphoraō
- to turn the eyes away from other things and fix them on something
He exhorts us to turn away from things that are not part of the race of eternity and fix our eyes on the finisher of our faith.

The once-familiar hymn based on this passage expresses the authors same desire.
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O soul, are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There’s light for a look at the Savior,
And life more abundant and free.
 
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
  In the light of His glory and grace.
2
Through death into life everlasting
He passed, and we follow Him there;
O’er us sin no more hath dominion
For more than conqu’rors we are!
3
His Word shall not fail you, He promised;
Believe Him and all will be well;
Then go to a world that is dying,
His perfect salvation to tell! 
```
Do not lose heart

These three verses appear as an introduction to Hebrews 12, but they comprise the heart of the author’s conclusion continuing in chapter 13.

3 For consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself, so that you won’t grow weary and give up.

Fix your eyes upon Jesus. Our race is not ended, but Christ our Redeemer assures our victory!

Striving against Sin

Have your forgotten the exhortation, the admonition and encouragement of scripture?

Proverbs 3:11 Do not despise the Lord’s instruction, my son,
and do not loathe his discipline;
12 for the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
just as a father disciplines the son in whom he delights.

7 Endure suffering as discipline: God is dealing with you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline?

Are you an obedient son or daughter of God our Father? The author of Hebrews continues with the example of earthly fathers. They discipline their child because the love them. It’s just for a few days, but God’s discipline to our holiness ‘yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.’

Therefore, strengthen your tired hands and weakened knees…
Hebrews 12:12 CSB

Walk the straight and narrow so that your woundedness may be healed.

ἁγιασμός – Sanctification

We are all broken though perhaps we have not yet shed blood for the sake of God. Our lives, disjointed by the sin that surrounds, wander the paths of unrighteousness.

What is needed? How will a sinner like me ever get to the holiness required of heaven?

The writer of Hebrews will continue to chastise us as a loving father when we continue in chapter 12.

To be continued…
February 19, 2019
Hebrews 10- Come in, Fear not
Holy of Holies – The Inner Sanctuary

Dominus autem in templo sancto suo sileat a facie eius omnis terra!

וַֽיהוָ֖ה בְּהֵיכַ֣ל קָדְשֹׁ֑ו הַ֥ס מִפָּנָ֖יו כָּל־הָאָֽרֶץ׃ פ

The LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.

Habakkuk 2:20 VUL, WlC, NIV

Draw near to meet the LORD

Hebrews 10:

8 First he said, “You neither want nor are you pleased with sacrifices and offerings or with animals burned on the altar…

11 Day after day every priest stands and repeatedly offers the same sacrifices that can never take away sins.

The author of Hebrews brings the Law and well-known ritual of sacrifices of blood on the altar to compare the old and new covenants. He now asks us to approach the LORD in the sanctuary, the Holy Place.

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Hebrews 10:31 KJV

He invites us into the Holy of Holies, a place of the presence of the LORD, a place where the priest offers blood sacrifices to cover our sin, a place so holy that only one high priest will enter humbly just once a year.

Boldness in the Blood of Jesus

Therefore, be bold, have confidence – fear not.

Come into the sanctuary, the Holy Place of the Lord. For before you, Christ Jesus has entered with the Perfect Sacrifice as our High Priest – He IS our Perfect Sacrifice by His own Blood.

We have climbed the holy mountain, entered the courts of the Temple with thanksgiving and sacrifice. And as the Lord’s chosen we have come to this place to worship the Lord. Our High Priest is no longer a sinful man, but Christ; and He invites us to enter the Temple.

Walk toward the altar of sacrifice, that holiest of places just past the curtain. (For in fact, by the crucifixion of Christ on the Cross the curtain is torn.)

Hebrews 10:19-39

So let us come near to God

²²let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith…

With sincere hearts sprinkled clean, our evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water, because our hearts have been sprinkled clean from a guilty conscience, and our bodies have been washed with pure water. By the Blood of Christ, hold firmly to our confession of faith.

Hold firmly, hold fast without wavering, since He who promised it is faithful.

To do a good deed

Here is our action and not our obligation or prescribed work for heaven.

Let us be concerned for one another, to help one another to show love and to do good.
Hebrews 10:24 GNT

[CSB] 25 not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other…

Others in the flock of faith, the congregation of believers, are important. Yet how can the saints encourage each other in Christ if they neglect time together?

A teacher of the Law asked the Messiah, Christ Jesus, “What is the greatest Commandment?” He responded, ‘love the LORD and love one another.’ Of course the faithful want to love the Lord God, yet the second (a golden rule) often challenges us.

The writer of Hebrews challenges Christians to incite each other to agape love AND good deeds. It is a personal love of others to do God’s good will. And he cautions of the Day when all will be judged.

Jesus had warned: “Sin will be rampant everywhere, and the love of many will grow cold.” – Matthew 24:12 NLT

Justified or Judged?

Even in the first century followers of The Way often detoured in their own way. The love of some in the beginning of these last days had already grown cold.

Sinners in Zion are terrified;
Trembling has seized the godless.
“Who among us can live with the consuming fire?
Who among us can live with continual burning?”
33:14 פָּחֲדוּ בְצִיֹּון חַטָּאִים אָחֲזָה רְעָדָה חֲנֵפִים מִי יָגוּר לָנוּ אֵשׁ אֹוכֵלָה מִי־יָגוּר לָנוּ מֹוקְדֵי עֹולָֽם׃
Isaiah 33:14

Warning against Deliberate Sin

Heb. 10:26 [NKJV] For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries.

HELL! even for one who has accepted Christ, but turns away.

[CSB] 28 Anyone who disregarded the law of Moses died without mercy…29 How much worse punishment do you think one will deserve who has trampled on the Son of God, who has regarded as profane the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?

Scriptural support

Once again the writer of Hebrews quotes familiar Old Testament scripture to support his teaching of a new and better covenant he introduced in chapter 8.

30 For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. And again, “The Lord will judge His people.”

Deuteronomy

32:35 לִ֤י נָקָם֙ וְשִׁלֵּ֔ם לְעֵ֖ת תָּמ֣וּט רַגְלָ֑ם כִּ֤י קָרֹוב֙ יֹ֣ום אֵידָ֔ם וְחָ֖שׁ עֲתִדֹ֥ת לָֽמֹו׃

Habakkuk

2:4 הִנֵּה עֻפְּלָה לֹא־יָשְׁרָה נַפְשֹׁו בֹּו וְצַדִּיק בֶּאֱמוּנָתֹו יִחְיֶֽה׃

Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith. – KJV

Remember the early days

32 … you endured a hard struggle with sufferings.

35 So don’t lose your confidence, since it holds a great reward for you. 36 For you need endurance, so that after you have done God’s will you can receive what he has promised.

37 For, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay.. 38 My righteous people, however, will believe and live..

We are not people who turn back and are lost. Instead, we have faith and are saved.
Hebrews 10:39 GNT
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February 13, 2019
Hebrews 10- Sacrifice and Offering
Offering on the Altar

I waited patiently for the LORD;
40:6 זֶ֤בַח וּמִנְחָ֨ה לֹֽא־חָפַ֗צְתָּ אָ֭זְנַיִם כָּרִ֣יתָ לִּ֑י עֹולָ֥ה וַ֝חֲטָאָ֗ה לֹ֣א שָׁאָֽלְתָּ׃

Sacrifice and offering You did not desire;
My ears You have opened.
Burnt offering and sin offering You did not require.

Psalm 40:6 Masoretic Text; NKJV

The Perfect Sacrifice

The author of Hebrews states that in Christ we have a High Priest who does not need to repeatedly make offering and sacrifice. Therefore, the sacrificial blood of the Messiah on the Cross represents a new and better covenant.

Once again, he logically makes his case supported by the evidence of well-known scripture.

Hebrews 10:

Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come, and not the reality itself of those things, it can never perfect the worshipers by the same sacrifices they continually offer year after year. ²Otherwise, wouldn’t they have stopped being offered, since the worshipers, purified once and for all, would no longer have any consciousness of sins?

He refers to the many rules and regulations of sacrifice and offering prescribed in the Mosaic law. Moses gave us a law of better things to come, a mere shadow of true worship. When we finally make the perfect sacrifice, becoming completely purified before the Lord, wouldn’t we then stop making more sacrifices? Wouldn’t our guilt be left covered?

Sin remains in the shadow sacrifice of the Law, because the blood of bulls and goats cannot cleanse sin perfectly.

We have awaited a Messiah.. patiently.. a High Priest Perfect for all time. From
a thousand years before, the writer quotes David’s well known Psalm 40:

Patience

I waited patiently for the Lord,
and he turned to me and heard my cry for help.
2 He brought me up from a desolate pit,
out of the muddy clay,
and set my feet on a rock,
making my steps secure.
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.

Think of this hope in the hearts of faithful Jews when the writer reminds us:

6 You do not delight in sacrifice and offering;
you open my ears to listen.
You do not ask for a whole burnt offering or a sin offering.
7 Then I said, “See, I have come;
in the scroll it is written about me.
Psalm 40:6-7A CSB

‘The Lord is trying our patience,’ they must have thought as Rome dominated their land, their city and culture. We wonder why the Lord has not blotted out evil and accepted faithful worshipers only – faithful in these last days.

Those receiving this letter in the first century would have known the next verses of the Psalm as well. The writer of Hebrews continues:

Hebrews 10:9 [quote of Psalm 40] he then says, See, I have come to do your will.

He takes away the first to establish the second.

The author’s firm reason taken in the second half of verse 9 compare the old and new covenants. He then follows this statement of God’s will with:

By this will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time.
Hebrews 10:10 CSB

The priest of their shadow sacrifices stands imperfectly at the altar day after day.

¹²But this man, after offering one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God.

Testimony of the Holy Spirit

Then the writer of Hebrews then adds even more support from Scripture.

15 The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. For after he says:

16 This is the covenant I will make with them
after those days,

the Lord says,
I will put my laws on their hearts
and write them on their minds
Hebrews 10:16 quote from Jeremiah 31

Jeremiah by Michaelango

A new covenant – ” Look, the days are coming”—this is the Lord’s declaration—

The writer of Hebrews appeals to scripture of the prophet Jeremiah, 600 years before Christ, for support of the New Covenant where sacrifice and offering will no longer be required.

He concludes:

18 Now where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.

Enter the Sanctuary through the Blood of Jesus

Several editors of Hebrews take different directions for labeling the next section of chapter 10, which we will examine in my next post. Again the author quotes scripture known to faithful Jews as he pursues the argument for the Messiah Jesus.

Note just a few headings for the section to come:
- How We Should Live? – ISV
- Hold Fast Your Confession – NKJV
- Exhortations to Godliness – CSB
- The Full Assurance of Faith – ESV
- Let Us Come Near to God – GNT
All, thoughtful considerations of scriptural application to our lives. If you would like to take a preview, take it from the Greek in verse 19.

10:19 ἔχοντες οὖν ἀδελφοί παρρησίαν εἰς τὴν εἴσοδον τῶν ἁγίων ἐν τῷ αἵματι Ἰησοῦ
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February 11, 2019