_SPIRITUAL ENVIRONMENT_ ‘Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith.’... [ Continue Reading ]
_JOY IN GRIEF_ ‘Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame.’ Hebrews 12:2 What made the ‘joy’ of the grief of our great Intercessor? Plainly it arose from three things—love, service, heaven. I. IT WAS LOVE that brought Him to this earth, and laid Him upon tha... [ Continue Reading ]
_THE DIVINE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE_ ‘Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him: for whom the Lord loveth He chaste... [ Continue Reading ]
_SIN AND ITS PUNISHMENT_ ‘Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.’ Hebrews 12:6 Scripture tells us of God’s fatherly chastisements; and speaks of them, like human chastisements, as both deterrent and remedial. I. THEY ARE SPOKEN OF AS DETERRENT.—‘When Thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants... [ Continue Reading ]
_DISCIPLINE AND LIFE_ ‘Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?’ Hebrews 12:9 You are all familiar with the fact that very frequently in the New Testament parallels between the earthly home and the earthly father with the heavenly home and the heavenly Fathe... [ Continue Reading ]
_HOLINESS OF LIFE_ ‘Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.’ Hebrews 12:14 Our subject is holiness; personal holiness which shows itself in the daily life; that personal possession of something which leads us day by day to live according to God’s laws.... [ Continue Reading ]
_PROFANITY_ ‘Looking diligently … lest there be any … profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.’ Hebrews 12:15 It seems to us, as we read the old story, to have been almost incredible folly in Esau to have flung away his birthright for so trifling a consideration as... [ Continue Reading ]
_THE WARNING FROM ESAU_ ‘Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.’ Hebrews 12:16 Esau stands out as a solemn warning to us as one who was guilty of the profanity of bartering away his birthright. I. WHAT IS OUR BIRTHRIGHT?—To put it briefly, it is that salvation which is offered to... [ Continue Reading ]
_AFTERWARD_ ‘He found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.’ Hebrews 12:17 Every act has its afterward, and that is the New Testament criticism upon the Old Testament story of Esau. The facts of that story are familiar to you all. I. THERE IS AN AFTERWARD THAT COMES... [ Continue Reading ]
_OUR PLACE_ ‘But ye are come unto Mount Sion, and … to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. See that ye refuse not him that speaketh.’ Hebrews 12:22 This ‘place’ requires faith to apprehend it; it requires faith to... [ Continue Reading ]