“FOR YET IN A VERY LITTLE WHILE, HE WHO IS COMING WILL COME, AND WILL NOT DELAY. 38 BUT MY RIGHTEOUS ONE SHALL LIVE BY FAITH; AND IF HE SHRINKS BACK, MY SOUL HAS NO PLEASURE IN HIM. 39 But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.” NASB
“For in just a very little while, “He who is coming will come and will not delay. 38 But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him.” 39 But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.” NIV
There is a repeated exhortation running through this letter to the HEBREWS, which we may take as an underlying theme in the epistle.
It is the exhortation to endure; to hold fast our confidence in what we have believed; to ‘hold fast’, as he puts it in verse 23, ‘the confession of our hope without wavering’.
Here are the places we have seen it so far:
3:6 and 14 “but Christ was faithful as a Son over His house—whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end.”
“For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end,”
4:14 “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.”
6:11 “And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end,”
And in verse 19 of chapter 6 is a familiar exhortation that is worded differently but carries the same message:
“This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil,”
Then, in verse 23 of our text chapter once again,
“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful;”
So as we come to this final portion of chapter 10 we are being led to examine ourselves against several backdrops. • The writer speaks here of those who will face certain judgment, • he talks about those who will finally be vindicated for their patience in suffering due to their association with Jesus, • and he talks about the One who is coming and what His coming will mean to these categories of people. Let’s look closer.
HE COMES TO JUDGE
We are reminded here that Christ’s return will bring judgment upon the unbeliever – but that is an understatement. The wording in this passage should make the wise man tremble with the thought of the terrible punishment that will come upon those who have heard the good news, on some level understood having received that initial enlightening from the Holy Spirit that gets their attention, then have turned away and rejected Christ choosing the passing pleasures of this life instead.
Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is the only provision for anyone.
When people reject that there is no other payment for sin; no other sacrifice. So all that will be left for them is ‘a certain terrifying expectation of judgment, and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries’.
Let that sink in for a minute. My friends and family, this is a horrible thought! Throughout the Bible fire is symbolic of the wrath of God and it is mentioned in reference to the purging of the saints and the destruction of the wicked.
But the wording of verse 27 is exceptionally graphic. Let each word ring in your ears as you hear it. ‘A certain terrifying expectation of judgment’. That’s all the apostate has to look forward to!
‘THE FURY OF A FIRE WHICH WILL CONSUME THE ADVERSARIES.’ Now I want you to understand that all God’s adversaries are not outside the church. They are not only the bold, professing atheists, or the worldly liberal-thinking pagans that scoff at the church, mock God and His people and even fight against the forward movement of Christianity’s influence in society.
There are apostates within the church – tares among the wheat – goats among the sheep – and in the future for them there is only the certain terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume them.
Peter said, “For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?” 1 Peter 4:17
And the writer here assures his hearers and readers that what God declared through Moses to His people so long ago remains true still; ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay’, and ‘The Lord will judge His people’.
Beloved ones, there will be degrees of punishment fitting sins committed. There is evidence of that even from the mouth of Jesus, who told Pilate that the sin of Judas was greater than his own, since Judas had the greater light and chose with malice to betray the Son of God.
“For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God; but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned.” 6:7-8
So when God lays claim to the right of vengeance and judgment on the heels of talking about those who have trampled under foot the Son of God and regarded as unclean – or unworthy – the blood of the covenant, and insulted the precious, gentle, Holy Spirit, then we are wise to tremble at the thought of falling into the hands of the living God!
He who is coming, comes in judgment over apostasy and deliberate rebellion, and those in the church whose will has ever remained their own and who have hunkered down in the comfort of the organization while rejecting in their own heart the application of the blood of the covenant for their sanctification will be judged to have the greater sin.
HE COMES TO VINDICATE
But He who is coming also comes to vindicate.
“But remember the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated. For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one. Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.”
These Hebrew Christians, in the early days of their enlightenment to the faith, having heard and believed the truth, having come to the cross and beyond to the empty tomb and having believed the good word, that Christ, risen from the grave had ascended to heaven to take His rightful place at the right hand of the Father, by joining themselves with Christ had then been treated by the world as the world had treated their Lord.
Look at the words. Great conflict of suffering. Public spectacle. Reproaches. Tribulations. Property seizure.
They had suffered, and they had joyfully endured the suffering and even ministered to the saints in the midst of it all as we already know from chapter 6 verses 10 and 11.
This is not the way of the world, my friends, it is diametrically opposed to the thinking of the world.
The world seeks comfort, escape from calamity, deliverance from trial, the favor of men.
Promotion, not demotion, the accumulation of property, not its seizure, victory and never defeat.
Hearing these comparisons, can we deny that the thinking of the spirit of this world has crept into the church? Oh, no, we cannot deny it! Crept in? Well, maybe at one point. Not now. This worldly spirit is now strong in the church! It thrives! It all too often even reigns!
Listen to these words from a work of fiction, but eternally wise and true in reality, put to a believer who had become embittered for the sufferings he had both witnessed and himself endured. The challenge finally comes to him to have his thinking reversed before it’s too late. Listen:
“Everyone dies…all flesh is grass…what did you expect? Did you really think that Christ would blunt the spear-points, deflect the lash, cause the chains to melt away when they touched your skin? Did you expect to walk in sunlight and not feel the heat, or to go without water and not grow thirsty? Did you think that all the hatred would turn to brotherly love the moment you strode into view? … Did you believe that God would shield you forever from the hurt and pain of this sin-riven world? That you would be spared the injustice and strife others were forced to endure? That disease would no longer afflict you, that you would live forever untouched by the tribulations of common humanity?
Fool! All these things Christ suffered, and more. … Sure, this is the heart of the great mystery; that God became man, shouldering the weight of suffering so that on the final day none could say, ‘Who are you to judge the world? What do you know of injustice? What do you know of torture, sickness, poverty? How dare you call yourself a righteous God! What do you know of death?’ He knows…He knows!” BYZANTIUM – Stephen R. Lawhead, Harper Torch Pub, 1996
When I gave you the verse from first Peter earlier, where He talked about judgment beginning at the household of God, I took it from a passage where Peter was exhorting them to patience and endurance in suffering and hardship for the name of Christ.
James also, had this to say, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance” James 1:2-3
Go later to Matthew 5:10-11 and see that Jesus declared blessing on those reviled and persecuted by the children of this world. Why? Because you are not of this world. You are of a different place and you belong now to the One whose coming will vindicate every wrong, every slight, every pain, every injustice ever done in this sin-riven world to those who have had faith to the preserving of the soul.
Don’t shrink back from it. You know that you have for yourselves a better possession and an abiding one; a great reward being borne to you by the One who comes in just a little while!
HE COMES TO BRING THE REWARD
Take note of the connection between verse 35 and 36. It is our confidence that gives us endurance. It is a sort of marriage.
Confidence in the cleansing power of Christ’s blood and our certain hope of glorification gives us endurance to do God’s will in ALL circumstances.
Confidence gives us endurance to face trials and tribulation
Confidence gives us courage to boldly confess our hope
Confidence in our standing of perfection before the Throne gives us patience and endurance to keep looking for the day when;
“HE WHO IS COMING WILL COME”.
AMEN! I just love that phrase! Do you, believer? Do you get chills up and down your spine just thinking about that day? You should. It is as sure as all that has already happened. Faith in His coming is the rock upon which the saints have stood firm against the evils of life.
“FOR YET IN A VERY LITTLE WHILE, HE WHO IS COMING WILL COME”
If a first century writer said, “For yet in a very little while...”, then that ‘little while’ is littler now!
Can’t you almost hear the trumpet? Can’t you sense it all around you? The time is so very, very short, when “He who is coming will come”.
Keep your eyes on “He who is coming”
Draw near in full assurance of faith, for your great High Priest in the Heavenlies, is “He who is coming”
Hold fast the confession of your hope without wavering, for
“He who is coming” is the one who introduces you by faith into this grace in which you stand; and “He who is coming” will glorify even your mortal bodies (Rom 8:11) to live and rule and reign with Him eternally.
Forsake not the assembling of yourselves, for it is by your assembling to worship and to stimulate one another to love and good deeds and encouraging one another, that you are reminded as His children to watch the Eastern sky in eager anticipation (Heb 9:28).
For He who is coming will come and will not delay.
Now I have to interject a word here to some who, because of their lack of understanding may not even hear me. So I say to you, please, listen carefully to my next words and examine yourselves; examine the doctrines you have held to be true and ask yourself if those doctrines are holding you down – diminishing your joy and your confidence in your relationship to God. Are you listening?
A minute or two ago I said, confidence in our standing of perfection before the Throne gives us patience and endurance to keep looking for the day of
His coming. If you are not confident in your standing of perfection before the Throne, then you cannot possibly feel joyful and expectant about His coming. Let me rephrase that as you continue to concentrate on my words.
If you have not understood in your mind and in your very spirit that as a result of the finished work of Christ in His death and resurrection for you, that you stand in His righteousness absolutely and forever accepted and acceptable to God the Father, then you cannot fully know the joy and peace and eager anticipation that comes with the knowledge that the return of Jesus is imminent. If you feel that you are in any part unacceptable to God because He still sees imperfection in you that displeases Him and makes Him angry, then you should be experiencing anxiety regarding His return, because His return will bring a reckoning, and you do not know how you will fare when that time comes.
If you are one of the ones I am talking about – even if you think you might be – then you must listen to this and ask God by His Holy Spirit to awaken and enlighten you right now because only He can bring spiritual truth alive in you. Here it is.
If you have repented of sin and confessed Jesus Christ as Lord and Redeemer and Savior of your soul, if you are a true believer and disciple of Christ, then from the moment you believed you have been and will forever be as acceptable to the Father as His Son Jesus. The reason for this is because the shed blood of Christ and His death on the cross was sufficient to pay the debt of your sin of your past, present and future, and you now occupy a place of good standing with God until the day He glorifies your body and takes you home to Heaven, where you will remain perfectly acceptable to Him forever because the work of Calvary was a forever work.
You can never be more or less acceptable to God because it is not your merit that brought you to that place, but the perfect and finished work of Christ.
Therefore, and if you understand what has just been said, you may look for the coming of Christ with the eager anticipation of a young child climbing into bed on Christmas Eve, knowing that the morning will bring only joy and blessing, giving no thought whatsoever to grief or pain or rejection or unpleasant confrontation with a glowering and wrathful God. Jesus has paid it all for you, Christ-follower, and ‘all’ means ‘all’. God has no more wrath for you for Christ has imbibed the full cup of that wrath and forever put the guilt and penalty of sin away, cleansed you, and as the eternal God, already sees you eternally complete in Him.
What I have just given you is the long version of the definition of justification. You stand justified, declared right with God if you are a Christian by faith.
What I am not talking about here, is the doctrine of on-going or progressive sanctification. When you first believed, you were justified, that is declared right with God, and you were sanctified, that is, set apart and reckoned holy by the purifying work of the Holy Spirit because of the finished work of Christ. That is standing, and that is what I’ve been talking about.
There is a progressive work of sanctification also, and that is the daily cleansing that the Spirit is doing in every believer in the process of changing you into the image of Christ; a work that will be completed only and immediately when you go home to Heaven and see Him as He is. That is the work that you cooperate with Him in on a daily basis.
But you must understand that the progressive work of sanctification goes on while you are at the same time perfectly acceptable to the Father because you stand in the righteousness of His Son. God is not pleased with you this morning and disgusted with you this afternoon. You may be, and others around you may be, but in God’s eternal economy the daily work He is doing to conform you to His image does not change who you are in Him, because your acceptability before Him is founded on the merit of Jesus, not your own, and since He does not change, He will not change toward you.
So rejoice, if you have understood this, whether you understood just now or have understood for many years, rejoice once more, and begin to enjoy a confident assurance that He who is coming will come and will not delay, and for you He only brings eternal joy and peace and reward.
Just a brief stop here at the word ‘reward’. We see it in verse 35 and in verse 36 the writer makes mention of our receiving what was promised.
In Isaiah 62:11, the prophet preaches, “Behold, the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the earth, ‘Say to the daughter of Zion, Lo, your salvation comes; Behold His reward is with Him, and His recompense before Him’”
Then in Revelation 22:12-13, Jesus proclaims, “Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end”.
Did you hear it? The prophet says that salvation is coming to Zion and HE brings HIS reward with Him. But Jesus reveals to us that it was He of whom the prophet spoke, by saying, “MY reward is with ME, to render…”
Now just a word or two about verse 38 and this quote from Habakkuk.
“But My righteous one shall live by faith”. We must not take that to mean that our continued spiritual life is dependant upon our ability to maintain faith or perform on a regular basis deeds that require faith to accomplish.
Let me just clarify it briefly. The life of faith will characterize those who have been made right before God in Christ. Through faith alone by Grace alone we have been saved, and once saved and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, the life and walk of faith characterize us as His chosen ones.
It is by faith that the righteous live. “Shrinking back”, the term the writer uses here, is to abandon faith. Without faith it shall be impossible to please God and that is why here the writer continues to quote the words of God through the prophet, saying ‘If he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him.’
So let’s not make this hard. It’s not a mystery and it’s not a contradiction to the doctrine of eternal security. The one who belongs to God has entered in by faith and continues in faith because faith is both the gate and the path.
How do I know if I am still in the faith? Just keep believing! And since the topic in this passage is the return of Christ, keep believing that He who is coming will come.
“My righteous one shall live by faith”
Live? Yes! Jesus said it Himself to the Pharisees. “He is not the God of the dead but of the living.” And who are they? Well, you read about some of them in chapter eleven. These are not dead people folks, they walked this earth long ago, but they are alive because of their faith, and they are the great cloud of witnesses who wait patiently for us to join them so they can receive their rewards (11:39,40).
In Luke 18:8, at the end of a discourse concerning His second coming and following a parable told to encourage His hearers to continue praying and watching for that and not to lose heart, He said, ‘nevertheless, when the Son of Man returns, will He find faith on the earth?’
Why do you suppose He asked that question? Do you think He expected to find the church gone; to find that no one believed on Him any more? No! That’s not it! He was expressing concern that when He returned there wouldn’t be anyone actually watching and expecting Him.
And isn’t it so, fellow Christians, that the church we witness in our society today has become so focused inward, so man-centered, so self-serving, that there is far too little attention given anymore to the imminent arrival of our Lord in His glory and in the way He said He would come?
The church has largely reduced its conception of Jesus to that entirely erroneous picture the world has of Him. Gentle Jesus, meek and mild – pictured cradling the little lamb or gathering the plump, red-cheeked and curly-haired children to His lap.
He is the butt of sarcastic bumper-stickers and portrayed in ridiculous skits and comedy movies as a clueless clown doing magic tricks for the entertainment of drunks and idiots.
Can the church be guilty even of this? I tell you it can and it is, when He is relegated to the position of a fire extinguisher, there to run to when our lives are in a mess because of our own stupidity and lack of faith! Or when He is set forth as the magic genie whose belly we rub when we want success in business and wealth for our declining years so we can travel the world in comfort and style.
The church in these last days must return to true worship and teaching of sound biblical doctrine that teaches us to revere God in awe and reverent fear – to glorify and magnify His name as the One through whom and for whom and to whom are all things. We need to learn anew the things the infant church suffered for, yet held fast to and were commended for; and be willing once more to identify ourselves with Him whatever the cost to us – and keep watching, keep watching, keep watching with eager anticipation for that which was promised.
HE WHO IS COMING
I’d like to pause one more time at the phrase which I also made the title of this sermon.
He who is coming. Consider that. He is coming, you know. What does this mean?
Well, it means He is not dead, but alive. And since we know who is being talked about here, we know that He is the one who once was here and departed, but He is coming back.
He is also not slow. That is, He does not tarry unnecessarily. We remember 2 Peter 3:9
“The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”
Now that is not to say that all will repent. It is the Lord’s will that all would, but He knows and we know that not all will. So we aren’t waiting for all to repent. We’re waiting for Him to come.
When He says that He will not delay, He means that He will not delay longer than is necessary to fulfill His perfect plan for the ages. We only have dim glimpses of that plan as He has revealed it to us; He knows and commands all the details. When it comes time, He will come quickly.
He is also not hindered. There is nothing holding Him back against His will. There is no power on the earth or in the heavens around it, nor under the earth, that can delay His coming for a nano-second. When it is time, He will come and His coming will be absolutely irresistible.
In closing I’m going to take one step beyond our text and tell you what our response should be to this news that He who is coming will come and not delay. Look at the first verse of chapter 11.
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
This is the assurance we’ve been admonished to cling to, believer; to which we hold fast. This is the conviction of faith by which the ancients were reckoned justified, and on the heels of telling us that He who is coming will come, the writer defines the very faith he has exhorted us to.
“In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, 7 so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; 8 and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, 9 obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.” 1 Peter 1:6-9
You do not see Him, Christian. You never have. But you will. When? “In a very little while.”
For HE WHO IS COMING WILL COME, AND WILL NOT DELAY.
Don’t shrink back. Do not despair. Do not abandon faith in this promise. Hold fast, hold fast your confidence firm until the end; for He comes with you on His mind, and He brings His reward with Him.
Amen. Come quickly Lord Jesus!
