Hebrews 10:19-39 - A Call to Persevere

Several times so far in the letter of Hebrews, our author has given strong, and severe, warnings to his readers. Warnings that challenge them regarding their behaviour, belief, and the direction that their lives are taking.

Hebrews 2:2-3a says:

For if the message declared through angels was valid, and every transgression or disobedience received a just penalty, how can we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?

And again in Hebrews 3:7-11, we read his warning, quoting from the Psalms:

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, as on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your ancestors put me to the test, though they had seen my works for forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, and I said, ‘They always go astray in their hearts, and they have not known my ways.’ As in my anger I swore, ‘They will not enter my rest.’”.

And then there is the warning in Hebrews 4:1:

Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest is still open, let us take care that none of you should seem to have failed to reach it.

And what we find in our reading this morning from Hebrews 10 is that same sense of warning.

Verse twenty-six warns us about the dangers that those who "wilfully persist in sin" are facing.

Verse twenty-seven warns us about:

a fearful prospect of judgement.

Verse twenty-eight warns us that those who:

violated the law of Moses die without mercy.

Verse twenty-nine warns us about the punishment of God that comes upon those who have:

spurned the Son of God, profaned the blood of the covenant by which they were sanctified, and outraged the Spirit of grace.

And verse thirty-one finishes by warning us that:

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Hebrews is filled with warnings that must be taken seriously, not only by the world "out there", but also by the redeemed, the Christian, the believer "in here".

And so, having for the last ten chapters warned, taught, encouraged, and shown us from the Scriptures that Jesus, the son of God is now our great high priest.

• The one who, by his own blood, has brought us eternal redemption.[1]

• The one who, by his sacrifice on the cross:

has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.[2]

• The one who, having:

offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, “sat down at the right hand of God.”[3]

• The one who, even now intercedes for us.[4]

Having done all of that, he now encourages us, and warns us, of the absolute need to stay true and faithful to Jesus Christ, the son of God, our great high priest, and his very warning reminds us that "faithfulness" is a choice.

Country and Western Singer Roy Clark has a song which talked about "choices". On the one hand, the man in the song faced the choice of leaving behind his wife, his kids, his job, and doing and living as he pleased. On the other hand, there was the choice of ongoing faithfulness to his wife and to his children.

On his way to work he arrives at Oak Street. He knows that he could turn to the left and leave it all behind, or he could turn to the right and remain faithful, and when he gets to the chorus, as he weighs up everything that he is going through, he sings:

Right or left at Oak Street

It's a choice I face every day.

And, likewise, we face a choice every day. In fact, every day we face the same choice that this group of Christians in the first century faced. Will we turn away from Jesus Christ and all that he has done for us? Or will we remain faithful to Jesus Christ? Follow him. Trust him. And obey him.

It is a choice that each of us has to make, and it is a choice that no one else can make for us. I cannot choose for you. You cannot choose for me. None of us can choose for our children, although we often wish we could. Our children will never be able to make that choice for us, or even one day, for their own children.

Faithfulness to Christ is a choice that each of us must make for ourselves.

• It is that choice that Moses called the people to when he told them to "choose life".[5]

• It is that choice that Joshua called the people to when he said, "choose this day whom you will serve".[6]

What our author is doing here in the last half of Hebrews 10 is the same thing that Moses, Joshua, and Elijah did. He is encouraging us to "make a choice".

He encourages us to make that choice by warning us about the consequences of making a "wrong choice", and he lets us know that making a "wrong choice"; choosing to turn away from Jesus and all that he has done for us, brings consequences to our lives. He says that through a wrong choice, we become the enemy of God, we receive death without mercy, punishment becomes ours, and the wrath of God awaits.

What I find interesting here is that part of his encouragement to faithfulness to Christ, is this warning about the consequences of unfaithfulness to Christ.

In Australia today we don't like to hear about the consequences of our actions. All we want to hear is:

It's my life, and I can do as I please. And if there are any problems, then the government, or society, or my neighbours, or my parents can pick up the pieces of the mess I leave behind.

People often don't want to hear about the consequences of sexual immorality: unwanted pregnancies or sexually transmitted diseases. All they want to hear about is the idea that:

It is my life, I can live as I please, and how dare you tell me that I can't.

In our society, people don't want to hear about the consequences of excessive alcohol consumption. They don't want to hear about relationship breakdowns. Birth defects. Liver disease. Heart disease. Cancer. Pancreatitis. All they want to hear is, "it is my life", and, in the words of Cyndi Lauper:

Girls just wanna have fun.

The same is true for smoking, overeating, and numerous other things. So often, we want to live our lives in the words of the Billy Joel song:

I don't care what you say anymore, this is my life.

Go ahead with your own life, leave me alone.

Or, for that matter, in the words from the song “Let it Go” in the movie “Frozen”:

It’s time to see what I can do.

To test the limits and break through.

No right, no wrong, no rules for me.

I’m free.

Likewise, people don't always like to hear the spiritual consequences of their actions, but that is exactly what our author does here. He says:

If you continue in the path you are on. If you continue to turn your back on Christ, and on Christ's sacrifice on the cross. If you seek to return to the temple, human priests, and animal sacrifices. If you seek to rely upon your own hard work. Your own efforts. Your own actions, rather than depending upon Christ, then the consequences of your turning from Christ is the judgment and the wrath of God.

As Christians we don't like to hear about "the wrath of God". I mean, God is love. God is our friend. God forgives everything. All of which, praise God! is true. And yet, and yet we are warned in Hebrews 10:29:

How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by those who have spurned the Son of God, profaned the blood of the covenant by which they were sanctified, and outraged the Spirit of grace?

And again in Hebrews 10:30-31:

For we know the one who said, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

And in Hebrews 2:3a:

How can we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?

Remember, none of these warnings were given to "unbelievers". None were given to “the lost", or to the "unsaved". Each of these warnings were given to Christians. To believers. To those who, having once professed faith in Jesus Christ were now thinking about turning their backs on Christ, and so he warns them that their actions, their spiritual actions, will have spiritual consequences.

Think about when we were children, or perhaps as we raised our own children. Our parents often warned us, and we often warned our children about their behaviour, their conduct, and their direction. Warnings about our actions, and warnings about the consequences of our actions, were a daily part of life.

If you touch that hot stove, you will burn yourself.

If you play out in the street you will get hit by a car.

If you are not careful you are going to fall out of that tree and break your leg.

If you don't do your homework, if you don't study, then you are going to fail.

Warnings about danger. Warnings about the consequences of our actions. Warnings, not to frighten us, or to scare us, but warnings to show us that the direction we are taking, the choices that we are making, have consequences that are real. Consequences that are lasting. And even if we don't want to think about them, every choice that we make, has consequences.

And so he warns them here:

Beware of the choices that you make. Be careful about the direction that you are going because the bad choices that you are making have consequences that you will not like.

But not only does he warn them about "going left at Oak Street". Not only does he warn them about making bad choices, and the horrible consequences of those bad choice, but he also encourages them to make right choices, and he shows them that making "right choices" comes with "good consequences", as we read in verse 34b:

you cheerfully accepted the plundering of your possessions, knowing that you yourselves possessed something better and more lasting.

That is, an eternal home in heaven.

And verse 35:

Do not abandon that confidence of yours; it brings a great reward.

Not necessarily in this world, but "holding on to our confidence in Christ", has an eternal reward when Jesus returns.

Verse 36 says:

You need endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.

And verse 39:

But we are not among those who shrink back and so are lost,

again, a choice and a consequence,

but among those who have faith and so are saved.

which is also a choice, with a consequence.

Not only do bad choices have consequences, but good choices, right choices, also have consequences, and just as the personal choice to turn away from God, the choice to trust in my own abilities rather than to trust in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross has the consequences of judgment, rejection, and the wrath of God, so also the choice to follow Christ, to trust in Christ, to remain faithful to Christ has the consequence of a hope received. A heaven gained. A salvation experienced, and seeing the fulfilment of all of the promises of God in our lives.

The difference between these two consequences lies in which path we will take. As he says in Hebrews 10:38-39:

But my righteous one will live by faith. My soul takes no pleasure in anyone who shrinks back.” But we are not among those who shrink back and so are lost, but among those who have faith and so are saved.

• Will we be like those who "shrink back" from following Christ, or will we be like those who "believe and are saved"?

• Will we be like those who shrink back and are destroyed, or will we be like those who "believe and are saved"?

Two choices. Two consequences. Which one have you made? Which one will you make today?

We are sitting here today with these two choices staring us in the face. We know full well the greatness of what he says in Hebrews 10:19-21:

Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), and since we have a great priest over the house of God.

We know what Jesus has done for us through his death. We know that through his sacrifice on the cross Jesus has become "our great high priest". We know his greatness, his superiority, over prophets, angels Abraham, Moses, and Joshua. We know that his priesthood is superior to that of Aaron, and we know that all that Jesus has done is eternal.

• We know that in him there is "eternal salvation".[7]

• We know that in him there is "eternal redemption".[8]

• We know that in him we have an "eternal inheritance".[9]

• We know that in him we have an "eternal covenant".[10]

And every day when we get up, we don't want to turn left at Oak Street and turn away from Christ. Instead, every day we want to turn right, and be faithful to Christ. But how? How can we make that daily choice? Our author answers that question in verses 22-25 through the use of what is called in Greek a "hortatory subjunctive", a Greek form that is used:

To urge someone to unite with the speaker in a course of action.[11]

This form of the Greek is used to exhort, to encourage, to challenge someone to get up and do something, and it is often translated with the phrase, "let us . . .". And it is very important that it is "let us do something". It isn't a command, "hey you over there, you better get moving". Instead, it is "let us, together, as brothers and sisters in Christ, let us get moving", and so we find it used in Hebrews 4:11:

Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one may fall through such disobedience as theirs.

Let us hold fast to our confession.

Or Hebrews 4:16:

Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Let us, together, as followers of Jesus Christ, remain faithful to Jesus in our lives, and in our service.

He also uses this same form three times here in Hebrews 10 in order to encourage us, challenge us, and to exhort us to faithfulness to Christ. He says in Hebrews 10:22:

Let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

Knowing all that we do about Jesus. Having seen his greatness, superiority, and his work on the cross, the first choice that we need to make in a life of ongoing faithfulness, is to "draw near to God.

We cannot live a life of faithfulness if we are "moving away from him". If we know his will and purposes for us, but we, like Jonah, turn away from him and refuse to live and do as God desires, then we are "moving away from him".

But God longs, first of all, for us to "draw near to God". To allow him first place in our lives. To seek his wisdom and guidance in all things. To seek to live a life that pleases him, and that honours him, as James said in James 4:8a:

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

In Hebrews 7:19 our author talks about how, through what Jesus has done for us on the cross, how through being "a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek", we can now "draw near to God".

Ephesians 2:18:

for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father.

Ephesians 3:12:

In [Christ] we have access to God in boldness and confidence through faith in him.

And because we have "gained access through faith", because we can now "draw near" to God, he encourages us in Hebrews 10:22 to "draw near". Come to God. Don't turn away from God, but approach God because he is willing, waiting, and longing to accept you, love you, help you, and guide you, as Jesus said in Matthew 11:28:

Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.

Come. Approach and find in Jesus all that you need. Don't be like those in Zephaniah 3:2, which reads:

It has listened to no voice; it has accepted no correction. It has not trusted in the LORD; it has not drawn near to its God.

Instead, because of what Jesus has done for you, "draw near to God".

The second encouragement that we find is in Hebrews 10:23:

Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.

What he is encouraging us to here is to have "an unswerving confession". A faith that is "rock solid". A faith that isn't tossed back and forth, hither and yon. This is, in fact, the goal of spiritual maturity, as Paul mentions in Ephesians 4:13-14:

Until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro, and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.

One of the goals of spiritual maturity is to be "unswerving". Steady. Consistent. Not "tossed about" by every new thing that comes up. Not "tossed about", when someone comes up with a new idea. A new discovery. A new theory, or a new teaching.

There was an article in the newspaper some time ago that made the claim that camels were only domesticated in Israel in the tenth century BC. Up until that time, so the article claimed, they were "wild".

This would, of course, mean that Abraham couldn’t have had camels. Rebekah couldn't have ridden a camel when she was brought back to marry Isaac. Jacob couldn't have owned camels. And Joseph couldn’t have been taken to Egypt by camel riding Ishmaelites. In other words, they said that the Bible was wrong, and, of course, the media loved it, shared it, proclaimed it, and many Christians started to panic:

Oooh! The Bible is wrong!

Well, wait a minute. There is well established evidence of carved images of camels in Egypt dating to around 2,500BC, or at least five hundred years before Abraham. There is a gold camel figurine discovered in Ur, the home country of Abraham, from 2,000BC, which is shortly before the time of Abraham. There is mention of domesticated camels in the 18^th-19^th century BC from ancient Ugarit, roughly the time of Abraham but in Canaan where Abraham lived.

In other words, the newspaper was wrong, which is no surprise, and the Bible was shown to be accurate, which, also, is no surprise.

This is why the writer of Hebrews was telling us to have an "unswerving confession". An unswerving faith, because, as Paul says in Romans 3:4:

Let God be true, and everyone a liar.

Or as Hebrews 10:23 says:

He who promised is faithful.

You see, we need an unwavering faith, an unswerving faith in Christ so that we might stand faithful in the face of everything the world might throw at us, but to make that daily choice for Christ we need to "draw near to God", and we need to have "an unswerving confession of hope".

Going on in verse twenty-four we then read that we need to:

Consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds.

And in verse twenty-five he explains what that means when he says,

Not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Mutual encouragement. Being there for each other. Not giving up on one another. Not seeking to live for ourselves alone, or by ourselves alone, but seeking to live lives of love, as Jesus commanded us.

In our individualistic society it is very easy to lose that sense of community, and as much as we may hate to admit it: we need one another, as Ecclesiastes 4:9-11 says:

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up the other; but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help.

Again, if two lie together, they keep warm; but how can one keep warm alone?

This is one of the reasons we come to church. Yes, we come for our own spiritual welfare and encouragement, but we also come for the spiritual welfare and encouragement of one another. We gather together as believers so that, as believers, we might be strengthened in our faith, so that our faith might be "unswerving", so that when times of testing come, we can stand strong for Jesus.

But we also gather together to help strengthen the faith of one another. To help lift up the fallen and bind the wounds of the injured. To provide mutual encouragement to one another in the daily struggle of life. That's one of the reasons we are here.

And so, faced with a choice, as this group of believers sits at "Oak Street"; as they debate whether they should turn to the right or to the left, to Christ or away from Christ, he asks these people, and he asks us:

What choice are you going to make?

Are we, when life gets tough, are we going to turn aside and leave Christ behind, or are we going to choose to come to Christ?

Are we going to choose an unswerving faithfulness, and choose to live our lives in such a way that encourages one another to that same unswerving faithfulness?

This is the choice that each of us faces every single day.

What will our choice be, today?

[1] Hebrews 9:12

[2] Hebrews 10:14

[3] Hebrews 10:12

[4] Hebrews 7:25

[5] Deuteronomy 30:19

[6] Joshua 24:15

[7] Hebrews 5:9

[8] Hebrews 9:12

[9] Hebrews 9:15

[10] Hebrews 13:20

[11] Wallace Basics of New Testament Syntax, p 202