It is my plea that in this instructional lesson this morning that it will comfort us, even in the mist of the adversary that is trying to conquer us.”
As we visit this text this morning, we will see that the Jews to whom this book of Hebrews were speaking of, were experiencing much misfortune and persecution because of their discontinuity of Judaism.
And what’s so disturbing about their conditions was that their persecution, their harassment and their maltreatment is that it was coming from their so call friends, relatives and neighbors of the Jewish culture, who were upset with them for disowning the religious customs and traditions in which they had been taught about for all of their lives.
As we read the history of their abuse, we are retold about their past days of conflict and sufferings, which they are talking about right here in Hebrews 10:32-33 which says “But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions; Partly, whilst ye were made a gazingstock both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, whilst ye became companions of them that were so used”. My first points is that in this walk with the Lord we to could be a part of great suffering, agony and pain.
Because even when looking at this, I believe that the unbelieving Jews, who were involved with the church suffered, just because of their association with Christians.
And I can just only imagine the arguments they heard for disallowing the old faith and converting to the new faith. I imagine the conversations that were going on that could have went something like this. Now look at you, look at what you have gotten yourselves into. Look at what you have becaome. You have become Christians and all you have had are problems after problems, you are being criticized, analyzed, ostracized, hated, detested and you have become unpopular. Look at you now, now you are encountering hardship, and suffering. Your family members don’t own you, you have have lost your friends, your place to worship, people are talking about you behind your backs. In fact, you have lost everything look you now.
And what I have found out is there are times when you try to share with people that now that you have found Christ in your life as your personal Savior, but yet others only see that you are going through, or that you are always in a storm with what seems like all of the time. It seems like on every hand and on every turn you are running into a storm. It appears as though, every time that people see you, you are asking for them to pray for you, because you are going through. It seems as though you
are in every pray line, on every pray call, always crying in the midnight, always on a fast, walking slow, with your head low, it seems as though you are going through.
That being said, can I just drop this in your spirit? Can I just share with you that it’s ok to go through? Because there are times when you are going through, that the Lord will allow some storms to come our way? Let me call a witness to the stand.
You all remember the man of God name Job don’t you? Do you remember how God pointed out Job for the challenges of His faith by Satan? Figuratively speaking, it seems like the Lord put His hand on Job. And can I tell you that God has no respect of persons, what I means is that while you are going through your trials and tribulations, if God will look out for Job, then you have to know that God can look out for you.
The issue that I ran across in this scriptural neighborhood, is that some of believers were probably wondering, if their God was a God of power and of peace, why are they were suffering so much. The enemy was probably asking if the Lord fights your battles then, why are we not winning out over our enemies, instead it seems like the enemy always to have the upper hand? Where is the God who is supposed to supply all of our needs and give us the answers to our questions? Where is the God who is supposed to place fulfillment into our lives? Why is it that when we turned to a God of love, why did everyone start hating us, disliking us and mistreating us?
The last section of chapter 11 it begins to answer questions like these and also provides a foundation of counseling for those who are suffering in chapter 12:4-11. Because what I have learned is that suffering for God’s sake was nothing new. The saints of the Old Covenant had known what it was to suffer for their faith. They were faced with warfare, weakness, torture, being beating, imprisonment, stoning, destitution, and every sort of affliction known onto mankind—all because of their trusting in the Lord (11:34-38).
Can I tell you that these heroes and sheros of the past "did not receive the due respect and honor that they deserved," but yet they endured, and because they endured they gained approval through their faith".
Yes, they faced some afflictions, but they had the right attitude, which what we are taught to do. What were they taught Spies? They were taught to run the race of faith as their forefathers had done (12:1). But what was more important than running the race, they were taught to fix their eyes on Jesus, who had given up more, and suffered more than any other person had ever faced. Allow me to tell someone that is going through this morning, that you might be going through, but I dare you to keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. I believe that one of the reasons Jesus endured so much hostility by sinners who were against Himself, was because he was teaching His disciples and those that followed him, not grow weary and lose heart" (12:3). In fact, he wanted them to look to him as an example for strength while dealing with their calamities.
To prove my point it was said in chapter 23 and verse 4. That you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin. (12:4). In other words, you have not been what I’ve been through.
None of the suffering Hebrews to whom this letter was written had endured what Jesus had endured. None of them had given his life for the gospel as Jesus has. Nor had any of them lived an absolutely sinless life as Jesus had done, living in perfect obedience to the Father, and thus deserving no punishment at all. On the contrary, some of their suffering was deserved and some of their suffering was intended for their spiritual discipline and their spiritual growth.
And allow me to drop this in your spirit. Every one of us will encounter some rough days, see some stormy weather, and have some troubled days. Sometimes it comes from God. Sometimes we bring it on ourselves. But no matter as to how the tough the storms are, we have to remember that God is still our Captain, and that He can guide us, direct us, and keep us in the storms. Can I also share with you that while you are going through the storms that people, such as family, friends love ones and even church folk, will leave you, abandon you, and leave you hanging when is seems as though the ship is going down, but we have the abiding assurance of God, that lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. We have the promises of God; that I will never leave you nor forsake! This is when we can remember the lyrics of the song that goes like this. Like a ship that's tossed and driven, battered by an angry sea. When the storms of life are raging, and their fury falls on me. I wonder what I have done, to make this race so hard to run. (Then I say to my soul, soul take courage) The Lord will make a way somehow. The Lord will make a way somehow.
When reading this passage I see that the emphasis of this
passage is on the heavenly Father’s use of discipline in the lives of His children to help guide us, and direct us in this Christian walk. And sometimes hardship and afflictions are used as a means of discipline.
If I had to call someone to the witness stand I would call on David to be a witness. I would ask David, sir, you promise to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing, but the truth so help you God.
Well David my first question is: you, being a man after God’s own heart, my question is will God discipline you. And I can hear Davis saying yes he will. Will you please explain sir? I can hear him say (shamefully), well because of my lust for another man’s wife named Bathsheba and for the assassination, the hit that I put out on her husband, these actions resulting in adultery and murder, God severely punished me. Even though others have done the same thing and worse, plus in those days it was the custom and the Kings prerogative to have who he wanted. But, because I was anointed for the position by God and I knew better, God severely punished me. Because it doesn’t matter what any culture tolerates, none of God’s people has a prerogative to sin. I tell you that God will discipline when we don’t obey.
Let me call another witness to the witness stand, come here Jonah. Jonah disobeyed God, and the Bible says that God “prepared a fish!” (Jonah 1:17).
And if I had the time, I would dissect this fish and tell you how this fish represented God’s love. If I had time I would tell you how this fish represented God’s tender mercies. Only if I had time, I would explain how this fish represented God’s presence and His discipline in the lives of His Children.
If I had time, I would tell you that you ought to consider yourself blessed when God prepares a fish for you! If I had time I would tell you that they reason you ought to feel bless is because there isn’t any joy in being inside of a fish! There is no light in the fish! No future in the fish! But I can tell you, that when God prepares the punishment, it is not punishment for punishment’s sake! It’s punishment to make us, to mold us, to shape us, deliver us, and to guide us. Jonah discipline came because he would not go down to Nineveh and preach to the Ninevites as God had instructed him to do, but instead he went to Tarshish down to Joppa and jump on a ship, and while out to sea God sent out an APB an All-Point-Bulletin to arrest Jonah. And when the warrant was served and the fugitive was found. Those that were on the boat asked the question who is it that had brought this upon us? When they found out that it was Jonah that was causing this havoc, Jonah was thrown overboard into the sea, and the prepared fish swallowed him up to make him understand that God will discipline you. But like I said God won’t punish just us to punish us, but he punishes us to discipline.
Don’t miss that, instead of God allowed the fish to digest him and deposit him into the sea as waste, God made the prepared fish to cough him up, and when God got through with him, and when God got through disciplining him God allow the fish cough them up on dry land, and what would have took him three days to make this journey to Nineveh, Jonah made it in one day!
What are you saying Spies? I’m saying that sometimes God disciplines us in order to save our lives.
Besides punishing and preventing, God’s discipline will also educate us for better service and better living. It will teach us, if we will listen to what He is saying and follow his guidelines that there is a reward for our obedience’s.
First of all, discipline can help us better know God’s power, and his sufficiency. Sometimes God can get our attention better through affliction than through blessing, because prosperity has a way of making us feel self-satisfied and independent, while problems often make us more aware of our need and dependency on the Lord.
What I’m trying to do this morning, is to give you some comfort for on this journey. That whatever you are experiencing you are not the first, and you will not be the last. What you are experiencing is a speed bump on this road to glory. In other words allow me to remind you of that old saying as you may be going through “no cross, no crown...no pain, no glory. No pain no gain”
Jesus endured what He endured, according to verse 2 of this very text, for the joy that was set before Him. Don’t miss this!!! Don’t you ever forget that while we celebrate that he got up on a Sunday morning that there was a crucifixion on that Friday.
Let me if I can make this plain. You can’t have a great getting up morning without a Crucified Friday! But realize that it might be a Friday of troubles. A Friday of circumstances, a Friday of situations. A Friday of turmoil. A Friday of frustration. A Friday of disappointments. A Friday of pain! A Friday of shame! A Friday of sorrows! It’s Friday now, but Sunday’s coming morning is coming! Remember what Jesus said BEHOLD! Says Jesus in Revelation 2:10! “Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. But be thou faithful unto death and I will give you a crown of life.
Only faith can bring us to appreciate discipline. We are able to see behind the scenes in Job’s ordeal because Scripture gives a vivid picture of the workings of both Satan and God. But I love how the Lord God took care of Job. I love how the Lord rewarded him for his suffering. Let me tell you that we need to just learn to understand and trust God more deeply.
There is so much more in the following verses of this text, but in a summary form, let me tell you that when we are disciplined by God, and at the course our trials, difficulties and at our storms, prayerful we will look at them with a new perspective,
But please allow me to say this before I close and that is when we are disciplined by God, it tells us two things. First it tells us that we are sons [and daughters] of God, and the 2nd thing that it tells us that I love the most it that God loves us. It also gives more meaning to the words, “Please be patient with me, because God is not through with me yet!” There is a word, at the close of our selected text this morning, a special and that significant word...AFTERWARDS...
Look again at the text, verse 11: Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
My parents use to chastise me for doing acting up and doing wrong...but afterwards, they would love on me!
I used to think that parting and drinking was have a good time, but afterward when I found the Lord, then I found a new wine and I found a new party, and I found a new dance, but it was only after I gave my life to the Lord.
Somebody say afterward. After, all over but the crying is over. Afterwards, the “fat lady” has sung! After, you’ve hit rock bottom! After, when your face has been pushed down in the dirt! After, when you have lost all you had! After, your friends and loved ones have left you. After, you have no one else to lean on, then you ought to stretch out on the promises of the
Lord and say, I know that I’ve been suffering, but I’m going to keep the faith. That means that you have been through the storm and the rain, but you’ve made it. That means that you have had to suffer sometimes, but you’ve made it. This means that you have had some hills to climb, but thanks be to God, you’ve made it.
And that reminds me of a story of a dendrologist a person who study trees, who had visited an orange grove where an irrigation pump had broken down to only find that most of the trees were dying or had already died. He said to the farmers that were there, gentleman you know that the season was unusually dry this year and some of these trees died for the lack of water and these were beginning to die for the same reason.
As the man was taking a tour around the farm, he then ran into another farmer who was as happy as he could be. This farmer invited took the inspector around his farm to inspect his trees, where also irrigation was used sparingly. The inspector was quiet surprised when he seen this farmers trees and the farmer said sir I’m not worried about my trees because these trees could go without rain for another 2 weeks,” he said. “You see, when these trees were young, I frequently kept water from them.
And because of this hardship and because of their suffering it caused them to send their roots deeper into the soil in search of moisture. And because of that reason my trees are the deepest-rooted trees in the area while other trees are being scorched by the sun, these are finding moisture at a greater depth.
And all I’m trying to tell you all this morning is when you are deeply rooted in the Lord, the storms may come, and the scorching sun make come, but because you are rooted and ground you will be able to stand a little bit longer.
