Good evening, brothers and sisters. It is wonderful to be together, to join in worship like that, and to share the Word of God together.
I am always curious when I come up here for the first message to find out how many are here for the first time this year. I recognize many faces, but would you raise your hand if you are actually here for the first time this year? It is wonderful that you are here.
It is amazing to me how people keep coming to receive from the Lord during this wonderful vacation time, as Kenny is putting it.
You have need of endurance. This is a word of exhortation, and we know that the book of Hebrews is a letter of strong exhortation.
The Lord, in His mercy, realizes that the closer we get to His coming, the more we need to hear the straight truth from His Word. We are so thankful that we have this wonderful Scripture together from the book of Hebrews.
I will be spending almost all of our time together in the book of Hebrews. I would like you to turn with me to the section that we are dealing with as a theme, Hebrews 10:32, beginning in verse 32.
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.
For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.
For yet in a very little while, He who is coming will come, and will not delay.
But My righteous one shall live by faith; and if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him.
But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.
Then, if you will go back to Hebrews 2, I would like to read some verses in line with this hymn we sang tonight. I will begin in verse 9. I know we are all very familiar with this section, but Hebrews 2:9.
But we do see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels; and because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.
For it was fitting for Him, for Whom are all things, and through Whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.
For both He Who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father; for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying,
“I will proclaim Your name to My brethren,
In the midst of the congregation I will sing Your praise.”
And again, “I will put My trust in Him.”
And again, “Behold, I and the children whom God has given Me.”
Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.
For assuredly, He does not give help to angels, but He gives help to the descendants of Abraham.
Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.
Let us pray.
We do come to You tonight, Father, amazed at Your love for us, a love that involved the sending of Your Son, and now His close attachment to us—His love for us—which we have seen even as we have gathered here in this conference, prayed together, sung together, and listened together.
Again, we would ask that Your Holy Spirit would be the interpreter to us in these last days; that Your Spirit Himself would be the One Who exhorts us to find this endurance that leads to great reward. We are thankful for all the saints who have gathered here tonight. We pray that You would refresh our hearts, refresh our bodies, and give us clear minds to see the things that we can see from Your precious Word.
We commit this time to You. We thank You in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
I would like to place this verse, “For you have need of endurance,” together with Numbers 21 by way of contrast—just two verses in Numbers 21. This is the episode where the saints, in the wilderness experience, encountered the serpents and had to place that serpent up on the pole. But in that story, we come to verses 4 and 5 in Numbers 21.
Then they set out from Mount Hor by way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the people became impatient because of the journey.
The people spoke against God and Moses: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food.”
What I want you to notice in this passage is the phrase, “The people became impatient,” in my version. To me, it describes what it is to lack endurance. Literally, in Hebrew, it says, “Their soul was short.”
If you lack endurance, your soul is short.
Now, I live in New York City. It is full of people whose souls are short. I was just talking to Jerry today. He visited New York last year, and he went out for breakfast one morning near Penn Station, just at the time the trains came in with the daily commuters.
They have about ten escalators that come up from under the bowels of the earth where the trains come in. They all came up at once, and it was like ants coming out of an anthill. He saw thousands of people descend on him, and he knew he could not walk that way if they were walking this way. That is New York. Soul is short.
People will step over you. They will drive over you in order to get to their next empty place in the wilderness. This is what happens when we do not have endurance: souls are short.
I do not think I need to lecture any teacher here about short souls. I understand—I do not know how many of you are actually schoolteachers—but we should pray for the whole bunch of them, because every kid now, their soul is getting so short. Their attention span is about this long. How can we teach anything to people with an attention span that short?
On the other hand, we admire endurance when we see it, whether it is physical, emotional, or intellectual. I do not know if you saw this, but I think it was just a few weeks ago that one of those amazing African runners almost ran a marathon in under two hours. He just missed it, I think, by fourteen seconds. That means fourteen miles an hour he runs for two hours. I am amazed by endurance like that.
I wonder if any of you remember the name of a preacher named Angel Martinez. Any of you remember him? He was a Baptist preacher, and I used to be a Baptist, so I used to run into this guy. He traveled all over the place and preached the gospel. He did a good job, but his claim to fame was that he had memorized the whole New Testament.
Somebody could just say, “Hebrews 11:3,” and he would shout the verse. Or somebody would read a verse without saying where it was from, and he would read the next verse. He would have a little show before he preached the gospel. Of course, he preached the gospel without having to open his Bible, because everything was there.
It was like Watchman Nee preaching. If you have ever heard Watchman Nee preach, you probably could not understand it unless you knew the King James Bible, because he basically preached the King James Bible. It is amazing, the endurance of some people.
I have trouble with endurance. My wife gets after me all the time about this. The other day, I came home after playing four hours of golf, and she said, “You know, we have to go to Lowe’s to pick up some stuff.”
I go into a store, and in about ten minutes my legs start to lock up. I get back spasms. I feel dizziness coming on. My wife says, “How can you be out there golfing for four hours, and ten minutes in the store and you go all fuzzy?”
How about you? What is your endurance like? I do not know. I think all of us have endurance problems, right?
Of course, we all realize that no matter how much natural endurance a person has—and some people are gifted in this way and that—when we are born again into the kingdom of God, we have almost no spiritual endurance.
That is what the letter is writing about: spiritual endurance. You have need of spiritual endurance, that, having done the will of God, you might receive what was promised.
If you look into the Word, you see very soon that the reason for this is that endurance, in its spiritual aspect, is one of the characteristics of Christ Himself.
We are told in 2 Peter 1 that He has granted us, by His great and precious promises, to partake of His divine nature. Then it gives us a list of things: add to your faith character, and to character different things. He comes to one of them, and it is this word: endurance.
In other words, endurance comes as the nature of God is worked into our lives by the tremendous working of the Holy Spirit. When this writer says, “You have need of endurance,” he is telling us that we need to find our way into the Lord in such a way that this exchange of life can be known among us in this matter of endurance.
I will be speaking from Hebrews on this matter of endurance. The next time I share, I will be sharing on discipline unto endurance. Those two words are put together in the book of Hebrews in a wonderful way. The last time I share will be on the relationship of faith and endurance.
Tonight, I want to begin with the relationship between endurance and heaven. Heaven—it is an old-fashioned word. People do not talk about it too much anymore except when they are about to die. Some people sing songs about it, but it is kind of sentimental.
But it turns out that endurance is connected with heaven, and that is what I would like to look at. The writer of Hebrews is writing to some people who are going through a very difficult time. Here is what he says to them:
Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession.
These Hebrew Christians are going through a tough time. We read already in the Scriptures what they had been through. They had endured a great conflict of suffering. They had been made a public spectacle, showed sympathy to prisoners, and accepted joyfully the seizure of their property.
But now the very foundations of their Jewish religion were about to collapse. Their foundations were being tested. Upon what is your Christian life really based?
It is in tough times that we realize whether our foundations are built on sand or on the rock. These Jewish Christians were being shaken, even as we are being shaken.
There are many things that can shake us, but I think our country is being shaken in its morals, its religion, and its family foundations. At least the saints are feeling the shaking effects of such things. Even worldwide, this refugee crisis is shaking the very foundation of Western civilization.
The book of Hebrews speaks about a shaking that is now happening and is about to create a greater shaking of things when the Lord prepares to come back. We see that this has to do with foundations and the need for endurance underneath all of these things.
So, in tough times, the writer is saying, “Consider your heavenly calling.” This may seem a little irrelevant to us, but evidently this seems to be the Holy Spirit’s strategy with people going through difficult times.
We remember John on the Isle of Patmos. When he was going through a difficult time, what did God do? He opened heaven and gave John the encouragement that he needed.
When you look at the men and women listed in Hebrews 11, you realize that God gave many of them endurance by opening heaven. We have that one Scripture in our studies: “He endured, as seeing Him Who is unseen.” That was Moses. But look how he endured: he saw Him Who was unseen. Heaven was involved in this whole thing.
The Lord Jesus, when He came to earth, shook up Judaism. Why? Because He preached the gospel of the kingdom of the heavens. He came with an authority from heaven. He spoke gracious words from heaven, brought healing from heaven, prayed, “Thy kingdom come,” and said, “Seek the kingdom of heaven first.”
This shook Judaism to its roots. Why? Because with all of their religious machinery, all their theology, all their different camps and beliefs, all their trust in the temple, their liturgies, sacrifices, priesthood, and all those things, Jesus exposed something.
What they were calling the kingdom of God—Israel called itself the kingdom of God—had completely taken heaven out of their life. Judaism was religion without heaven.
Jesus came and said, “Repent, because the kingdom of heaven is here.” They realized there was some correspondence with heaven that was missing from their religion.
Now the Hebrews are going through a shaking themselves because they believed in the Lord Jesus, their Messiah, but their Judaism was being shaken. This was written just before the great destruction of Jerusalem, the temple, the sacrifices, the priesthood, and all of that sort of thing.
Just before that time, as things were beginning to shake, Jerusalem was absolutely chaotic. Two years before it was destroyed, it was chaotic with groups and sects, people killing each other, and the Romans trying to lay siege to the city. It was chaos.
During that shaking, these Jews were being tried by this gospel of the kingdom of heaven. What the writer said to them, frankly, was this: God is shaking you so that you can rediscover the unshakable foundation of your faith.
When God brings such a shaking, there is a positive purpose to it. When everything that can be shaken gets shaken, what remains is something real.
So we have in Hebrews what I would call a prophetic burden to show these people heaven. Ten times heaven is mentioned in the book of Hebrews. “Partakers of a heavenly calling.”
Let us pause for just a moment. How rich are you in heavenly things? Are your treasures there? Are you intelligent concerning what really goes on in heaven? It seems to be pretty important here.
When we come to the book of Revelation, we are talking about exhortations in the last days. We hear Jesus’ last words to the churches in Revelation 3, spoken to the church in Laodicea.
Basically, what He says to them may be put in these words: “Church, church of the last days, you are so poor. You have no more heaven.”
You say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.
What has happened to the church that has become disconnected from heaven? Our whole life is to have a connection to heaven. It is a mystery, but our whole life is to have a connection to heaven.
When we worship and correspond with heaven’s worship, there is a wonderful sense of life and anointing. When we have a prayer meeting and are somehow under the Head and corresponding to heaven, then that prayer meeting is a lively meeting.
When the Word of God is preached and it is connected with, and has correspondence with, the burden from heaven, then the heavens open. We are blessed and convicted that God is speaking to us.
But can you imagine the church without a connection to heaven? It is so easy. The church of Laodicea had it. They had doctrines. They had worship. It was all lukewarm and smooth, but heaven was missing.
Jesus came and spoke a word to the church in the last days, which I believe are the days in which we live. He says, “You are so poor, church. You are so poor. You have gotten hold of so much stuff that you do not feel you really have any need for heaven.”
You are not looking forward to going to heaven because this is heaven for you right now. You have your little mansion, your two-and-a-half dogs, and a new car. Why do you have any hope for heaven? Why do you have any desire for heaven?
We can sentimentally say, “Oh, we cannot wait to get to heaven.” Do we even know what we are talking about?
The church is very poor today in the United States, very poor. It is poor in direct relationship to how much of heaven it is missing.
Can the church really be under an open heaven? This is the desire of the writer of Hebrews. Your endurance is tied to heaven.
Let me make three statements about heaven, and then we will review Hebrews together.
Did you catch that? Let me say it one more time: it is the right of every Christian to walk in victory here on earth because they live by heaven. Walking on earth, living by heaven.
The more we know about heaven, the more hope anchors itself in heaven, in Jesus.
Listen to our theme verse: “For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.”
There is a present necessity that leads to two future things: an immediate future and a near future. Right now, you have need of endurance to do the will of God. That is why you need endurance: to do the will of God.
We cannot do the will of God in a shallow way. Not in the last days; you cannot get away with it. You have need of endurance that you could do the will of God and receive the reward of what was promised in the near future.
When faith is joined by hope, it produces a faith with endurance. Do not forget the definition we all know from Hebrews 11: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for.”
There is a connection between hope and faith. All three graces should work together: faith, hope, and love. But the more hope is an anchor for you, the more faith has the power to endure, as seeing Him Who is unseen.
The writer of Hebrews is not interested in giving you a tour of heaven, per se. He is interested in giving us a proper, intelligent vision of our Man in the glory. That is why I wanted to sing this song tonight.
The Holy Spirit wants us to know why seeing Jesus in heaven is so important. Is it important to you to see?
If we see Jesus in heaven, what is going to happen? We are going to burst out in worship. If the heavens opened right now and we saw Jesus right up there, everybody would be down on the floor worshiping. We would thank the Lord for our salvation, for His great mercy and grace toward us, and for everything. That is a good place to start.
But this writer wants us to look into heaven a little longer, because he wants us to see Jesus as a Man in heaven, as your representative.
In heaven, He wants you to gain encouragement by understanding that He is up there right now representing you. He is your Advocate. He is on your behalf. He is the first Man in, and He is standing for all of us together.
If we see it, endurance becomes part of our life.
Let me try to explain. I take trips occasionally. Let us say I take a long, exotic trip to Singapore. What a wonderful place. One of the brothers there, after a meeting in Singapore, says, “I want to take you somewhere you have never been before.” He takes me by plane out to some lush paradise.
I see this beautiful island. We land, drive around, and I see it. Wow, this is a beautiful place. As I am driving by, the strangest thing happens. Down by the seashore with crystal blue water, looking up at the lush vegetation, the animals, the birds, the fruits of every kind, I see over the entrance to a ranch your name on it.
I say, “What? I know that guy. He lives back in the States.” I go into town and ask, “I was just driving around. This is the most beautiful place I have ever seen, but I went by Brother So-and-So’s ranch, or Sister So-and-So’s ranch. How did that happen?”
He says, “We have the chief justice of the island, and he happens to be a very good lawyer. He is representing your friend here on this island. He takes care of the land, the property, and the family that has already come there. He is taking care of the whole thing on your behalf.”
Now, if I told you of such a place, and said your name was on it and somebody was representing you there, would you be interested? You might want to check it out, even if it is way out in New Zealand or somewhere. This may be where you want to be.
Of course, it is a foolish example to explain something beyond explanation. We have a greater treasure than anything we could describe, and He is just above our heads in the heavens. We have everything up there.
I have to confess that I was a Christian for several years, and just before I turned forty years old, I lost my oldest son in a car accident.
I got saved because I knew I was a sinner. I knew about heaven, and I sang songs about heaven. “When we all get to heaven.” But I did not really care much about heaven until my son was there.
That was the first time, as a Christian, that I really had the notion: I want to go there. I want to see my son.
I put it this way—it is crude, but if you understand—I now had an investment in heaven. There was something more interesting about heaven.
Now, if that is the case because I have a son up there, how much more so because Jesus is up there? How much do you care about heaven now that you know that He is up there? He is up there on your behalf, representing you.
He goes before the Father. He advocates for you—in your weakness, need, and frailty. He stands up there with all of His strength, having overcome. He stands on your behalf in heaven.
I do not know if you are interested in that, but I am telling you that the angels and the various creatures in heaven are amazed that there is a Man in the glory. They are amazed at it. I think the writer, in a very simple way, wants us to be a little amazed by it too.
Especially suppose that you are going through a shaking time, a very difficult time. In God’s mercy, He opens the heavens to you. You see something, and what you see is the Lord saying, “It is the Lord Who is shaking me.”
So many of you are going through difficult times. Sometimes we think, “Well, it was my fault,” or, “It was their fault.” Maybe, like these wandering Jews in the wilderness, we start blaming God, blaming our food, and blaming Moses. “That is why I am out here.”
But what if the heavens opened and we saw the Lord saying, “I am shaking you so that you will be unshakable”? Would you be encouraged by that?
What if you were some of these Jews and your whole system was collapsing? No rabbis, no scribes, no more sacrifices—the whole thing is going to be shut away. But you see the Lord up there saying, “I am doing this. Yet once more I am shaking, and everything unshakable will remain.”
I would think that even in a difficult time, we could find comfort in such a thing.
Let us take a look at heaven and see how Hebrews goes about this. When you really look at it, the writer starts in heaven and ends up in heaven. If you do not like heaven, you probably do not read the book.
What is your vision of heaven? I understand that Chinese people have a very stylized understanding of heaven. I do not know what that is, but I know they have some idea of something.
Growing up as a good Protestant non-Christian, I thought heaven was that fluffy, cloudy place with angels, where I would sit on a cloud. It was all kind of ethereal up there. But we always prayed that if we died before we woke, we wanted to go to heaven.
What is your view of heaven, millennials? Is it Narnia? Is that heaven? I think we ought to see what the Word of God says about heaven.
One of the things we see is that now there is a Man in the glory. That makes it very interesting. The book opens this way:
God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, Whom He appointed heir of all things, through Whom also He made the world.
The writer is opening up heaven because he wants us to see Jesus.
He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
Oh my goodness, what a view to see of heaven. It is Jesus up there. It is glorious. It is wonderful. It is like the sequel, I could put it this way, to Matthew 3.
When Jesus went into the waters to be baptized, God tore open the heavens. You have to see this: He tore it open. All the angels were looking down through the clouds, seeing Jesus, this Son of Man, this glorious Son of God, down there submitting to death—even the death of the cross—when He went down into baptism.
Heaven knew what that meant. They looked down through the clouds because they wanted to see. “That is the One. That is the glorious One. Look what He is doing there on earth.” They were amazed.
Now this is the sequel. The writer of Hebrews is tearing open heaven and saying, “Look up, look up. Let us see what is up there,” so that you and I can see our glorious Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, in the glory—especially to see what He is up to.
There He is, seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high, with a double glory right off the bat. He is the greatest part of heaven. He has a glory that comes from His eternal state as the Son of God. He is the Creator of the world. He always has been. He is on an eternal throne.
At the same time, He is on a throne as the glorified Son of Man, because He came down and died for us with perfect moral perfection, sinless, an offering for us. Then He was raised up and sat at that throne. He is the Son of God and the Son of Man. Glory, glory. He sits at the right hand of the Majesty.
What a picture this is for us to see. From the book of Hebrews, starting there and all the way through the book, we need to open heaven and see how this affects us and touches our lives. We see Him inside the veil. We see Him running ahead of us. We see Him outside the camp.
Do you see Him? Do you see Him? Do you see Him? He is in heaven now.
In order to see Jesus in heaven, the writer realized that he had to keep sweeping things out of the way for these Jewish Christians. There were Jewish things that got in the way of seeing Jesus.
Chapters 1 and 2 are a good example, because both chapters are about the fact that Jesus is better than the angels. At the time of Jesus, the Jews had developed quite an angelology. They worshiped angels.
You remember how, in Colossians, Paul says that people were worshiping angels. No, no, no. Christ alone you worship. But the Jews were beginning to worship angels. They were calling on angels in prayer. If you read the intertestamental literature, you will see that they were getting angel-crazy.
They were substituting angels for God. The writer says, “Look, I want you to see Jesus, so the first thing I want to do is sweep away the angels. He is better than the angels.”
He goes through chapter 1 and asks, “To which of the angels did He ever say, ‘Thou art My Son; today have I begotten Thee’?” None.
“When He bringeth in the Firstborn into the world, He saith, ‘Let all the angels of God worship Him.’” In Hebrews 1:8, to what angel did He ever say, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever”? He said that to Jesus.
In Hebrews 1:10, He says, “You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of Your hands.” To what angel did He ever say something like that? No, no, no. Jesus is so far above the angels. You have to get this clear if you are to go on with Him.
In verse 13: “To which of the angels did He ever say, ‘Sit at My right hand, until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet’?” No angel. That is Jesus, the Son of Man, Who has been told all these things through the Scriptures.
Then he comes to the last one, where he quotes that beautiful passage in Psalm 8: “What is man, that You are mindful of him? You made him a little lower than the angels, and then You crowned him with glory and honor.”
But the writer goes on and says that we do not yet see mankind in that glorious state. But we do see Jesus, Who was made lower than the angels. Because of His worthy death on the cross and resurrection, He was crowned with glory and honor, because by the grace of God He tasted death for every man.
There is no angel who ever saved anybody. But here is the Son of God Who became a Man, went lower than the angels, and is now raised up above the angels, sitting at the right hand. Do you see Him?
Having said that, the writer wants them to realize that Jesus is not just sitting there in a static position. Jesus has finished the work. It is finished. He has taken His seat on the throne.
But if we take that too far, we almost get the idea that Jesus said, “Oh, I am done with those humans. I saved them. I did My work. I am sitting down. You guys take over.”
But no. The writer wants us to see that Jesus, now in heaven and enthroned, is busy bringing us as sons to glory. He is interceding for us, bringing us to glory.
Here in Hebrews 2, He joins with us humans in worship. “I will worship the Father in the midst of My people. I am not ashamed to call them My brethren.”
Is that not wonderful? Here He is up in heaven, and the angels are saying, “Oh, great Jesus, Son of Man, glorious Man in the glory.” Then they look down at the humans on earth and say, “Those people? You are going to make them sons of glory?”
He says, “I am not ashamed to call them My brethren.” He is advocating for us.
Then it goes on to say that, in order to save them, He had to become flesh and blood. He did not come to save angels. Get those angels out of the way. He came to save men, and He had to become just like us.
He had to suffer the temptations that we suffered. He had to go through the sufferings that we went through. That was the only way He could bring us to glory.
He came down to defeat the works of the enemy, who was blackmailing all of us with fear and death, until Jesus conquered fear and death.
Now that He is alive in heaven, He is very, very busy. You know why? Because most Christians are so weak. They are so afraid. They need so much help.
For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.
So many of these Jewish Christians were scared to death. They were afraid of losing their lives. They were afraid of falling into that bondage of the devil again. Jesus wants to come down and say, “Listen, do not be afraid. Do not worry. I am here on your behalf. Look and see. I am right here for you.”
So many saints are weak, fearful, timid, and feel sinful and unworthy. Jesus came down and said, “Look, I am coming here to help you. That is why I was made like you. I want to be faithful to you.”
What a glorious Man.
I am reminded of that wonderful song:
Hear the Savior say,
“Thy strength indeed is small;
Child of weakness, watch and pray,
Find in Me thine all in all.”Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.
If the heavens are open, maybe you hear the Savior say, “I know you are weak. Indeed, your strength is small. Child of weakness, watch and pray. Find in Me your all in all.”
Is that not wonderful? This is the Jesus that this writer wants us to see.
I know some Jewish Christians, and most of them are really kind of tough. They are going to strive with all they can. But when their foundations get busted up, it turns out they are just as weak as the rest.
Some people can put on a good bluff, but when things really get tough, perhaps one of the secrets to endurance is realizing how weak we are.
Who do we know in the Bible who probably sang that song? Well, of course, that song was probably written in the nineteenth century, so nobody. But what I am saying is: the church of Philadelphia.
I know that you have little strength, but you have kept the word of My endurance.
Is that not wonderful? Because they knew they were so weak, they just held on to Jesus. “We believe You, Lord. We believe You. We are holding on to that Word.”
Because you have kept the word of My endurance, I will keep you from the hour of temptation.
Is that not wonderful? They could sing that song. They knew their strength was weak, but they knew Whom to trust.
The Hebrew writer is trying to dissuade these Jews from merely trying harder, praying to more angels, and wondering what else they need to do. He says, “Just look up, just look up. There is a Man in the glory Whose life is for you.”
Then we come to what is probably the main topic, which begins in Hebrews 3:
Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession.
Brethren, are you partakers in a heavenly calling? How earthly is your calling? Does it have a correspondence with heaven?
I heard an old man say, “Consider your ways.” I hear the writer of Hebrews saying, “Consider Jesus.”
He wants us to put the brakes on just a little bit. “Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, slow down a minute and consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession.”
What a wonderful word. We need to see Jesus in heaven on our behalf, doing things to bring us to glory.
The book of Hebrews is not a salvation book. He is writing to holy brethren. This book is all about getting us to glory, getting us to the reward, getting us to maturity, getting us to the fullness. As he puts it scenically, “You have now come to Mount Zion.”
Now, have you? That is where He wants to get us.
He wants us to see Jesus as the Apostle. Chapters 3 and 4 are mostly about Jesus the Apostle; later on, he spends much more time on Jesus the High Priest.
Consider Jesus, the Apostle of your confession. In Hebrews 3:2, it says:
He was faithful to Him Who appointed Him, as Moses also was in all His house.
The writer wants us to see Jesus now in heaven as the faithful Owner of His house, whose house we are. This has a corporate interpretation to it.
He wants us to see Him as the Apostle of the house. Did not the Apostle of the house of God say, “I will build My church”? Now He is up in heaven. You might think He is unemployed, but no, He is not. Here He is, building His house.
Now, can I just correct the grammar here? I do not know what it says in Mandarin; it could be right. But it actually says, “He is faithful to Him Who called Him.” If you look this up in the Greek, the past tense can give us the idea, “Moses was faithful. He was faithful. Now you be faithful.”
That will preach. That is good. But that is not what the writer is saying. That is not what he is asking us to do at the moment.
He is saying that Jesus is faithful as the Apostle of the house of God, and He can bring it through the wilderness to glory.
The story and lesson here have to do with the children of Israel going through the wilderness. The application is that our Christian life in these last days is like going through the wilderness. How can we get through it into the promised land? Do we have a good Apostle?
Moses was faithful as an apostle. He got the house of God all the way to the Jordan River. He could not get it across, but he got it all the way there.
Here was Moses’ job: he was a servant in God’s house. Moses was to steward the tabernacle and get it through the wilderness and into the promised land. That was Moses’ job.
We tend to think that the most important thing was the children of Israel going through the desert into the promised land. From God’s perspective, it was, “Moses, take care of My house. I am dwelling there, and I want you to get it from here to there.”
That was not an easy thing to do, was it? Moses had to follow the house. We say Moses was the apostle who brought the children of Israel to the promised land. Well, actually, Moses was just a servant in the house, because the house was ruled by the cloud and the fire.
When the cloud and the fire moved, the house moved, and Moses moved with the house. He was faithful. He got them through the desert.
Here is the point: they never would have made it to the promised land except that Moses was faithful. How faithful were the children? They murmured the whole time. They complained, wanted to go back to Egypt, lost their patience, and their soul got short.
Even Moses got short. That is why he got to the Jordan River and then God said, “Bye-bye. We need another apostle.”
Hebrews 4 mentions Joshua. Joshua got the tabernacle into the promised land. God got into the promised land. But Joshua did not give them rest.
Why? Because they stuck the tabernacle somewhere up in Shiloh. God’s rest is Zion: “My house in Zion.” Joshua did not get it there. But they were faithful as servants.
Now the comparison is this: Jesus is the Apostle of our confession. Can He get the house of God into the promised land, into rest, into glory?
If it is left up to us, are we going to make it? This is the house of God. Now we are the church. Are we going to make it? Oh man, we have so much clutter in the way. Everybody is blowing a trumpet saying, “Let us go this way.” We have so many clouds over the thing.
But Jesus is the Apostle, and He will get us to glory because He is faithful.
The one thing we have to do as His house is be confident and boast. That is our part in it.
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.
What are we boasting in here? Is the boast, “I can do it. Let us go. Let us march into the promise. We can do it”? Is that our boast and confidence?
No. He is asking them to hold on to your Head, your Apostle. He will get you in. Look up there and see the Apostle. He can do all things well. By His life, your life will get into the promised land.
Again, we are looking up into heaven. We are seeing the Apostle’s work. We are seeing Him build the church.
In this matter of boasting, we have to hold on to the Lord, hold fast to the Lord, if we are going to get into that promised land.
How do we remain confident? Let us put it down more practically. How do we remain confident according to Hebrews 3?
First, we are partakers of Christ if we hold fast. Look at Hebrews 3:14:
We have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end.
First of all, we need to partake of Christ. It is His life that moves the house toward glory.
But there is a second thing. We need to put our total trust in Jesus as our Apostle—that He can get us in. That is what we boast in: not that we can do it, but that He can do it.
But that is not enough. According to the Word of God, there is another way we get through this wilderness and into Zion. We have to live in the kingdom time zone, which is today.
Not only do we hold on to Jesus, because He is the only way we will get into the promised land, but we need to be under the word of the cross.
Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.
Today, if you hear—that is the time in which we are living. Here is an amazing thing: how many more days do we have until the kingdom comes?
Our brother spoke this morning and said Jesus can come back anytime. How many more days are there? There is only one, according to the Bible: today.
Now, that today may be years, but it is only one day. We have only one day to go, brothers and sisters, and the kingdom is coming in. That is today. Is that not wonderful? That is the good news.
Now, today, we need to hear His voice. He is speaking to us. There is a cloud and fire there. He is leading us: “Go that way. Go this way.” Today, if you hear My voice, do not harden your heart.
The children of Israel who came up to Kadesh-barnea did not get into the promised land. Why? Because they heard His voice, did not believe, and did not go in.
What was the voice saying as they got to the borders of Kadesh-barnea? God was saying, “Go in. Take the land. Take the land.” But they would not believe, and so they circled around in the wilderness.
As Christians, we need to believe this Word.
He goes on to mention two enemies of our getting into the promised land: a hardened heart through sin, and unbelief.
Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God.
But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called “Today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
Sin can harden our hearts. I do not know what made the children of Israel decide that they could not go in, except maybe they heard there were giants. Sin.
The second thing is unbelief.
And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient?
The word of the cross is how we practically walk through the wilderness and come to Zion.
The word of the cross speaks. Here is a word of the cross: “You have need of endurance.” Do you listen to that? Do you hear that?
Here is another word of the cross: let Christ be your full possession. Enter into the fullness of Christ. Go on to maturity.
Unbelief says, “No, I am unworthy. I can never make it. I am not good enough. I cannot do this.” That stands in the way of our getting to glory.
Those things have to be swept out of the way. The Apostle comes to us to bring us into rest, and He knows just what to do. He brings the Word to us that divides soul and spirit.
We read at the end of Hebrews 4:
So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.
For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.
Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall through following the same example of disobedience.
For the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do.
Are we living in rest while we are going through the wilderness? If we are living in today, hearing His voice, and holding fast to the Head, we are living in rest even while walking through the desert.
The word of the cross brings victory to our life as we go to glory. But we have to listen to it. We have to listen to the Word.
The book of Hebrews talks often about hearing the Word. Do not let it slip. Do not let it slide. Do not neglect so great a salvation. If those Jews got into trouble for not hearing a word coming from earth, how much greater will we suffer if we do not hear the Word from heaven?
It is living under that word of the cross that gets us through the wilderness and into glory. Living today, our confidence is that He is faithful.
That Word is working, dividing, and separating soul and spirit. There has to be a Word that brings our life to the cross. Our flesh cannot inherit what is just beyond the river. There has to be a transformation in our life.
Thank God for the word of the cross. Do you live under the word of the cross? Do you believe that you have been crucified with Christ and that, by His resurrection life, you can now live in obedience to Him?
This is the word of the cross in which we live as long as it is today. Tomorrow we do not have to do it anymore—but tomorrow will still be today unless the Lord comes back now. Am I confusing you? Okay.
All of this, of course, lays these people bare. You can imagine these Jewish Christians thinking, “Oh boy, I cannot hide from God. He knows I am no good and everything.”
But what we discover is that the Person Who is slicing us up is the High Priest Himself. If you are going to be sliced up, do you want to be sliced up by the High Priest, or by Joe Blow, the local Levite, who has just got a big hatchet?
Nobody can cut better than the High Priest. He is like the surgeon in the business. As we are being cut open, we find that it is the High Priest Himself.
Look again into heaven, because I want you to see your High Priest there.
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.
For we do not have a High Priest Who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One Who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.
Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Here we come to the second matter. Up in heaven is our Apostle. He is on our behalf. He is after our interests. He is bringing the Word to us. He is giving us life as He is Head over us.
Now we see Him as High Priest of our confession. If we are going to get into the promised land, this house has to be run by the right High Priest.
A high priest is jealous for his house. He has to keep it clean. He has to keep it right. He has to keep it lit. He has to keep it all in accordance with godliness.
We have a High Priest. From Hebrews 4:14 through Hebrews 10:19, it is all about the High Priest as an Advocate for us.
He has passed through the heavens. In the terminology of the writer, He laid down His life as a sacrifice on the brazen altar in the outer court, which was on earth.
But then, having done that, look what He did with that offering. Now we see Him as the High Priest bringing His blood.
This whole section is full of the blood of Jesus, this new covenant that He is bringing to us. This High Priest offered His blood one time for all, in perfect atonement and total forgiveness.
Can we see Him up there? Remember, these Hebrew Christians had not yet read the book of Revelation.
What do we find in the Scriptures about what Jesus is doing now in heaven? We see that He has gone up and is sitting at the right hand of God, as Peter preached on the day of Pentecost. Paul mentioned things that he saw up in the third heaven. We hear things that Jesus is doing.
But Hebrews gives us a little picture of what He is doing now for us. He is High Priest now for us. He has passed through the heavens now for us.
Why? Because He is connecting us, the house of God down here on earth. All we have is a little candlestick. We bear the testimony of the candlestick. But up in the heavens, He is building a house not made with human hands. It is perfect in the heavens.
He is the High Priest constructing that whole thing. He has gone in with an offering that satisfies forever.
Because of what He did when He died on the cross for us, He started a priesthood of a different line, according to the order of Melchizedek.
The Jews—the Jewish Christians—had to sweep the whole Levitical priesthood, the yearly sacrifices in the temple, and all of those things out of the way if they were going to see that Jesus is the Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.
Having offered His sacrifice, He made it the basis of a better covenant. What is that covenant?
Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.
Can you imagine being a guilty Jew and hearing that under the new covenant, ratified in the precious blood of Jesus: “I will remember your sins no more”?
How about this in the new covenant that this Melchizedekian Priest has inaugurated?
You will know God. You will be His people, and He will be your God. His laws He will write in your hearts.
You will not have to carry around those things the Jews wear—I forget what they call them. Yes, phylacteries. They wear them on their heads so that they will never forget the law is right there.
No, no, no. This High Priest has written laws in your heart. Not only has He written laws in your heart, giving you grace to obey those laws, but He has written them in your heart.
Is this not a wonderful High Priest? He has inaugurated a whole new thing.
That may not impress you very much because you never had a priest in the first place. But to the Jews, it made all the difference in the world.
So what if the temple collapses? So what if there are no more offerings of goats and bulls and everything? There was a Priest Who offered once for all His precious blood. Now we know perfect atonement.
He is perfecting this house up in the holy place. As He takes us through the wilderness, the picture is a little different. Here we are in the wilderness—still our life, still the shaking, still the problems. What do we do today?
We stand under the Lord and say, “Lord, You are the Apostle. Take us through. I live by Your life, not me, but I live by Your life.”
Then we listen to the word of the cross that strips us and changes us. But what else do we do while we are in the wilderness?
He says, “We are going through the wilderness as a house, but I want you to dwell in the Holy of Holies with Me.”
He welcomes you into the most peaceful place in the desert. There may be swirling winds out there. There may be enemies surrounding the camp. There may be prophets on top of the mountain like Balaam trying to curse you. But it makes no difference.
The one place that is squeaky clean, beautiful, silent, wonderful, and full of clear light is the Holy of Holies. This High Priest has torn open the veil and said, “Now you can live in the Holy of Holies. Your life can live in the Holy of Holies.”
Of course, you have things to do. This does not mean that you should all quit your jobs and find a little closet in your house to read your Bible and pray all day long. You can live in the Holy of Holies while going about your daily work.
Is it not wonderful that He says, “Do you see My precious blood? I want you, with boldness and confidence, by a new and living way, to enter into the Holy of Holies because I am there. Link up with Me. Every day of your life, live in there.”
I was just out in Israel a few months ago, and one night we stayed in a Bedouin tent. The Bedouins are shepherds out there. The people who organized the trip had us stay in a Bedouin tent.
It was kind of a cold night, and we heard animals outside—well, not hyenas, but all kinds of animals. But we went into this Bedouin tent and felt totally safe. They fed us all kinds of food, took our money, and it was a wonderful time.
If you are going to go through the wilderness, you are going to have to go through the wilderness. You are going to have to obey the Lord. You are going to have to follow the cloud and the fire.
But you get respite in the holiest place. It is your place. He has opened it up for you.
The Jews could only go to the outer court. They would be shaking, give their animal, watch the animal being offered, and maybe receive some food back from the animal. But they could never go inside.
But now our new Priest says, “Oh yes, you can go right inside there.”
If you see what this High Priest is doing up there, He has pitched a tent in the heavens. He has pitched an eternal tent, a better tabernacle. He wants you to begin to learn about that.
There is so much about heaven that we have to learn. To see Him going around in His temple, this temple not made with human hands, must be something to see.
The Word of God says we can enter into the holiest place with Jesus, abide with Him, and rest in Him as we go through this wilderness.
The writer is sharing these things, trying to help them understand that Jesus is our representative in heaven. That makes a lot of difference if you know that.
It gives you endurance. Endurance is connected with heaven.
He is the Apostle to take us through the wilderness and pitch His tent in Zion. He is the High Priest according to Melchizedek, Who, by a better covenant, has brought you into the Holy of Holies.
Do you see Him? Do you see His open heaven? Is there baggage in the way? Are there angels you worship?
By interpretation, perhaps for us the question is this: are there preachers in whom you are trusting? I think you should trust in Jesus.
Are you trusting in a good church? “I am going to get into the kingdom because I go to a good church.” I would not bet on it. Good churches end up without any connection to heaven if they are not careful.
I would not trust in a good church, your good works, some good doctrines, super-grace, sanctification by works, or any other such thing. Sweep it all aside.
What we see, if we look up to heaven, is how we are going to get there: by Jesus, the Man in the glory—resurrection power, authority, and life poured out for us to get us from here to glory.
I assume almost everyone here is a holy brother or sister. Are you headed for glory, that kingdom? Are you heeding this Apostle over us, this High Priest over us?
Today, today, the Lord is speaking, saying, “Look up. Look up. See Me. Find your endurance to press forward. Today is the day.”
We do not need a book on endurance, although there may be one in the bookstore; I do not know. We do not need a book on endurance. We need to trust in the Man in the glory.
The three things I said about heaven before may mean something more now.
First, it is the right of every Christian to walk on this earth in victory because they live by heaven.
Second, the more intelligent we are of heaven, the stronger our blessed hope anchors our souls unshakably within the veil, where Jesus dwells.
Third, it is this very hope which gives endurance to our faith, and, having done the will of God, enables us to receive that which was promised.
I do not believe we can understand this exhortation to endurance if we do not understand that it is talking about being invested in the future.
We have a hope. We have the will of God yet to do, and then that which is promised: even a wonderful inheritance from heaven.
May the Lord teach us these things and show us Himself in His wonderful humanity there in heaven on our behalf.
Let us pray.
I want to praise You and thank You tonight, Lord, that this writer of Hebrews is so full of exhortation, so full of power, and that the Holy Spirit speaks to us a word of exhortation and opens the heavens for us to see our Man in the glory.
We realize that our connection with endurance has to do with seeing Him as the Man in the glory, as the Apostle of our confession and the High Priest of our confession.
O Lord, we pray that we could see You ever more clearly as we are going through this wilderness. We will put our trust more absolutely in You than we ever have before.
Lord, do give us an open heaven. We want to see not only what is going on on this earth, but more importantly, what You are doing right now in heaven on our behalf.
Do encourage every heart—for those who are weak and fainting, for those who do not feel like they could possibly make it. O Lord, show them that You are standing there as their representative on their behalf.
O Lord, we put our trust in You as we take up these matters together. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.