Clough Hebrews Lesson 66
Election Revealed by Faith – Hebrews 12:12-17
There are three questions that have been handed in on Hebrews that I’d like to answer before going further; one is a question dealing with the humanity of Christ. Did Christ in His true humanity possibly suffer the frustrations and failures of normal men in instances such as fouling up on a carpenter job, this kind of thing? This gets involved in a very fine distinction between what is sinful and what is a learning process, and I don’t think I can answer that without further defining what’s involved in the learning process, getting involved in a big long discussion. So I’ll just pass that one, I just can’t answer it right now.
The second question is: could you cover
again the basic points in Hebrews where we are told that we believers are tied
to a New Covenant with Christ? We went
through that in chapter 8 and without going into all the details, the only
thing I can do now is to just remind you of some of the key issues. The old covenant was a covenant with the
nation and this old covenant, the Mosaic Covenant was a covenant made with both
regenerate and unregenerate people. It’s
going to play a role in the passage we have before us tonight; it’s given to
the twelve tribes and those twelve tribes have some regenerate and some
unregenerate people. So the old covenant
applies to unbelievers as well as believers; unbelievers who were citizens of
The New Covenant has not yet been phased
into complete existence, it’s not yet operational. We are plugged into some of
the benefits of the New Covenant but we do not live under the New Covenant in
all of its details because Jeremiah says when the New Covenant is phased in and
becomes wholly operational, then nation Israel will exist, will be worshiping
Messiah, and the New Covenant will form the basic constitution of the nation,
of the regenerate Israel. So obviously
since we don’t have
And then we had one further question: in Hebrews 12:8 who are the “all?” gegonasin pantes, would not imply the audience, being in the third person rather than the second. It’s a passage saying that “all,” whoever that is, “have become partakers of training.” Now in 12:8… it shows that somebody is reading the Greek is good, so the third person in verse 8 refers to the sons of verse 7, the third person can mean the audience in the sense that the audience is pictured as sons in verse 8. See what it says, “It is for chastening that ye endure, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father does not chasten.” So verse 7 talks about sons and the chastening process. Now verse 8, “Whereof all of them,” third person “them,” them refers back to the sons of verse 7, so it does apply to the audience, it’s just an indirect way it applies.
We left off last time with verse 11, so now we’re going to begin with Hebrews 12:12 and from verse 12 through verse 29 we have the fifth warning passage. Which brings us back to a review of these warning passages. In a warning passage we have three ways of handling it. What are those three ways? There are three possible ways when you come upon these threats, there’s only three ways and you’re going to have to kind of weave your way around through and in and figure out what the deal is, but no matter how you interpret it you’re going to wind up with one of these answers. So why not have all the answers accessible, to use a nice fundamentalist expression, lay all the cards on the table first. So what would be one? [someone answers] Yeah, but more I mean, what’s the warning about? You’ve got one thing that couldn’t apply to believers, it could apply to unbelievers, it could apply to carnal believers, how? That’s who it applies to, what’s the warning? What are the possibilities? Whenever you get this warning, “failing the grace of God?” [someone answers] Carnal believers, discipline and confession, and believers, loss of salvation. Now theoretically are three options that you have if you just considered the language. Those are the only three options you’ve got. No matter how you interpret it, it’s got to be one of these three, no ifs, ands or buts, it’s got to be one of these three ways.
So now our problem of interpreting Scripture is to eliminate the possibilities. Now we know that the doctrine of election would support the second option; the doctrine of election, it’s very clear that believers, if they’re elect, don’t lose their salvation, from other passages. However, this could be proven from these passages if what were the case; if you wanted to prove that believers could lose their salvation, what would you have to show using one of these five or six warning passages? What has to be shown to substantiate the first option? [someone answers] All right, you have to show that the language applies to only believers and so far in the four warning passages we’ve had that has not been able to shown. It is not yet possible to show that the language in these passages can apply only to believers. These words have been used elsewhere in Scripture for unbelievers. So until you prove that the word has to be only believers, you cannot go with this option because you’re going against the whole mass of other Biblical material.
So we have these two left open to us. Why haven’t we gone along with this third one? Obviously the second and the third one differ on two points. Now how are you going to decide, as you study the Scriptures, how are you going to decide between that second and third option. If we’re having trouble over here, seeing if they’re believers or unbelievers, we can’t distinguish that very well, that’s hazy, so we’re going to have to go over here and see what the judgments are. Well you remember from chapter 10 what kind of judgment was involved? That, for all the world, looked like judgment of an unbeliever, hell. So this second option is the one we have taken, that Hebrews is written warning people who have been linked up socially with the Christian movement to get with it, because though they may be linked up socially, they may not be linked up by regeneration.
And we have a framework to understand this in Jewish history and this goes back to the doctrine of election. So we are going to through this, again for background purposes, and then we’ll be able to work with the passage. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, three generations; in those three generations God has given us a picture of what’s going on. So when we get to passages like this we don’t have to fall apart at the seams and wonder what’s going on, because God has already given us a normative picture. All we have to do is just back off a minute and go to the simple picture that is structured for us in these three generations.
Okay, let’s see what we’ve got here. When Abraham believed he’s justified; Genesis when, remember when it’s announced that Abraham… Genesis 15. So there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that Abraham is elect, that Abraham is justified. Fine, great; we’ve got Abraham fixed. Now the nest thing; Isaac and Ishmael; Abraham has two sons. How do we know which son is the elect, which one is the true believer and which one is the phony? How do we tell, just think a minute, how do you tell one from the other? Let’s pretend we don’t know the New Testament so it’s not fair to appeal to Paul. Let’s just pretend we’re first century people, we don’t have the benefit of all the apostolic teaching, we just have the Old Testament. Now what about the Old Testament clues you in? [someone answers] All right, the promise of the covenant, the covenant was passed on, the inheritance was passed on to Isaac, so since the covenant involves Abraham’s seed and since the seed of Abraham that received the covenant has to be regenerate because of the nature of the promise of the covenant, we know that by the channel of the distribution of the covenant that Isaac is the one that is regenerated, not Ishmael. You could argue that maybe Ishmael is regenerated and he’s out of it but you can’t once you hit the New Testament because the New Testament makes it very clear it’s not.
The same thing here, what did Jacob get finally that Esau didn’t? The blessing. Now viewing again these two brothers here, what was different about their general pattern of life style? [someone answers] All right, if there’s one central characteristic that separates these two brothers and these two brothers it is positive volition toward the Word. Would you say that their general moral tone is significantly different? No. So you don’t go on the basis of the general moral tone of their life, because there wasn’t any difference in the general moral tone in their life. The point was that one was positive to the Word and the other wasn’t. That’s basically all you can say in the text.
Now with that background let’s come to Hebrews 12:12, he continues the athletic metaphor, “Wherefore, lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; [13] And make straight paths for your fee, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way, but let it rather be healed.” Now verses 12 and part of 13 are Old Testament quotes. And the words in verse 12 are used fairly precisely in the Old Testament, “lift up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees.” Turn to Isaiah 35, it’s good to turn back to the Old Testament and see where these things came from. It also familiarizes you with the Old Testament so that you can know what’s going on.
Isaiah faces this kind of a situation with his people; in Isaiah 35:3 he faces a group who are going to see their nation collapse and they are going into exile. Isaiah is ministering in the southern kingdom, not the northern kingdom like Hosea, but it’s the same kind of thing two centuries later. And these people are going to go into oblivion and from the human point of view it looks like they’ll never recover. It looks like they will just disappear from history. Now Isaiah is commissioned by God to give them hope, and the hope roots back to God’s plan for history and therefore in verse 3 when he says, “Strengthens the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees,” he is using, again an athletic metaphor as the author of Hebrews, but he’s using it in the context of giving hope. Hope that after this exile mess is over, that in fact, these people will come back to God, that God will ultimately sanctify them. So the hope here is a hope in a final solution. It is a future orientation, again, as we have seen so often. The person who uses the faith technique in Scripture is a future oriented person in contrast to people who today inhabit this country who are entirely present centered; a future oriented person, verse 3.
Now this same expression is used in another place in the Old Testament and it shows the fact that he is not just talking about physical running. Job 4:3, it says, “Behold, thou hast instructed many, and thou hast strengthened the weak hands. [4] Thy words have upheld him that was falling, and thou hast strengthened the feeble knees.” Now in the context that refers to verbal instruction, exhortation, teaching of the Word of God.
So, though this is an athletic metaphor, in Scripture it is associated with exhortation from the Word of God to discouraged believers. And discouraged believers have a mental attitude just like a person in athletics. That’s why the athletic metaphor is given; it goes back to mental attitude. I hope as we go through these Scriptures that if you’ve been here for any length of time you’ve gradually come t see this, that the Scriptures place the emphasis on your mental attitude. That is the most important thing, and secondarily what you are operationally doing in the overt area of your life. But it’s the mental attitude where is the big battle ground, and this is a lesson which you have to know. And this is a lesson that becomes very, very hard because you can hear it and say oh yea, I believe that, I believe that, I believe that and yet you don’t believe it because the first time you cross someone who is, shall we say overtly sinful, the first time you cross someone like that, for you that person is somehow lower down on the totem pole, than you are.
And Christian groups, and the longer I’m in a leadership position in a Christian group the more I see of it; Christian groups are being sabotaged by people who are nice on the outside and have horrible mental attitude sins on the inside. And usually passages of Scripture like this and other things in the Bible, gradually draw them loose. So where you have a group of believers together studying the Word of God, eventually the Holy Spirit will grab hold of these people and shake them and they will get mad and leave or they will get with it and stay, but once you have tromped on their mental attitude toes a decision is made and they’re going to go one way or the other. Now if you in years to come or you are not in leadership position of a Christian group I can’t exhort you enough to do what you can to get rid of those people with bad mental attitude’s, the people who come and attend the Christian group simply because they like the people there, they come because their girlfriend is there or come because their boyfriend is there. Just get rid of them. You don’t need that kind of person around; they just take up space. They’re a waste of time, get rid of them, do anything you can to irritate them. Just drive them off, and then when you get rid of those people then you’ve got some people that you can work with. But as long as those people are in your group they are going to tie your whole group down. I don’t know what it is, they don’t have to say anything, it’s just a spirit that just ties the whole thing down.
You see this often times in athletics, you can take two or three guys on a team and they just ruin the whole thing. And the best thing a coach can do in that kind of situation is get ‘em out of there, make them quit, make them so mad that they’re going to quit, or make them so mad that they get with it, but do something. Don’t let them sit there and be this kind of… just a weight, a depressing wet weight. And this is happening in Christian circles and it happens because people have not been taught the value of mental attitude. The weak knees and the hands that hang down by the side is a symbol of a person who has given up. And they may associate with other believers because associating with other believers gives them certain benefits, they’re socially safe, say, around a group of believers. A group of believers, (quote) “nice clean living (end quote) type, they think and for that reason they like to hang around for social benefit. Usually what happens is they hang around because they know in most Christian groups it’s the custom that you have to smile and shake their hand and that’s the only place and the only way they could ever get anyone to shake their hand. So they come to a Christian group where somebody has to shake their hand. And of course, they’re disappointed in some, like our group, where we don’t care if we ever shake your hand, and this is good because it gets rid of the people who are here because this is the only place in town where they’re going to get their hands shaken. They might get something else shaken but they won’t get their hands shaken.
So this is something you want to watch for and the Holy Spirit, in the book of Hebrews, in chapter 12, is warning against this group, the inside agents who have just come along for the ride, and this is the address the man is giving to get rid of those people; they’re parasites and there comes a time, for a while in grace you tolerate them, you give them an opportunity to hear the Word, but after a while you start to put the heat on and make them go one way or the other.
So in Hebrews 12:12 he quotes Isaiah 35 to give hope, it’s an exhortation to give hope, in other words, that defeatist mental attitude, get rid of it, [13] “And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way,” now there are two words in verse 13 that change the whole meaning when they are understood. Ever notice when you read verse 13 how incongruous that last verb looked, “be healed.” It just doesn’t look, if you read verse 13 the way the King James has it you have the idea of taking the rough turns out of a path; the path is curved, and you’re going to take the rough turns out and make it straight and then it says, “lest that which is lame be turned out of the way,” you think of running down a false path somewhere, and then when you get to the last phrase, “be healed” and that just doesn’t fit at all.
Now the problem is with the first two verbs. The first verb “make straight paths” does not mean straighten out curves into straight lines. To “make straight paths” means to make level paths, that will be easy to run on. If there’s anything annoying when you’re running it’s to be running up and down and jumping ditches and running on inclines and everything else. And that’s what it’s talking about, making something level for your feet, “lest that which is lame be turned,” the verb to “be turned” is used in Hippocrates in his medical text for dislocate a joint. So this is still part of the athletic metaphor, he’s saying make a pathway that is easy to run on or you’re going to sprain an ankle, is what he’s saying; take care of the path. “…lest that which is lame,” in other words, you’ve got a weak joint, and if you keep on running on it and you run and you’re not careful where you’re running you’re going to dislocate the thing and hurt your knee, hurt your ankle or do something. “… but let it be healed,” in other words, let the lame part be healed, the lame joint will heal itself if you give it a chance. But you’re not giving it a chance if you insist on running over very rough and irregular terrain where there’s risk of further injury. So that’s the point of verse 13, it’s not talking about straightening curves in a straight line.
Fine, we understand what the original
metaphor is, that it means to jog or to run on a level path where your muscles
have a chance to repair themselves, but what is the application. We can see the
metaphor but now how do we apply the metaphor. What does it mean? What is the lame part? The lame part refers to unbelievers in this
congregation, the congregation to which Hebrews is written. We don’t know what congregation, it may be
So here you have your mixed congregation, some positive, some negative, and under pressure, because remember this congregation is receiving persecution, under pressure the negative people, particularly, are called the lame part, because they are obviously not responding to the persecution in a Biblical way. There’s something missing in their life, they are the lame part. Now the rest of the believers, and here’s the key for this whole thing, the rest of the believers, in other words, this is an exhortation not just addressed to individual believers, it is addressed collectively to a group of believers. “Lest that which his lame,” the idea is you guys on positive over here, you’re the track keepers, you have to make sure that these people, negative, are given a maximum opportunity to believe before the Lord just takes them out of there. So this represents exhortation to an entire group and there is a collective group… what shall we say, evangelization and sanctification that goes on here in the group.
It comes out further if you look at “be healed, “let it be healed.” Let what be healed? Let the lame part be healed, the weak muscle. Well, what is the weak muscle? The weak muscle are these people who are on negative volition, who have never trusted in Jesus Christ. They’ve been associated socially with believers but they have never really gotten with it and so they’re the lame part and the healing equals salvation, let them be saved he is saying. So, re-reading Hebrews 12:13 interpretively, “Make their pathways smooth, so that all in your congregation can believe, lest those who don’t believe, the lame, have further injury,” besides the persecution now, they’re going to be injured by the way you’re handling them, “but rather let them be healed,” or let them come into the body and function, let them be saved.
Now it goes on further to develop this, Hebrews 12:14-17 is built on the metaphor of verse 13. So we confirm our interpretation of verse 13 by the way he immediately follows it up, verses 14-17. In verse 14, “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.” Now the fact that verse 14 starts off with the word “pursue, peace with all,” lets us in on something. Apparently what was happening in this congregation was that under the pressure they were fragmenting, and they were allowing petty jealousies and animosity to develop between believers to the point where they were dividing themselves off from one another. We see this earlier.
Turn back to Hebrews 10:25, remember what it said there, “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the custom of some is,” so it had become customary for believers under pressure not to associate inside the local church with each other. So there’s evidence that this congregation was breaking up, it was fragmenting. We have further evidence of it in Hebrews 3:12, “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. [13] But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today,” so there again is the mutual exhortation that exists among believers in the local church. We want to see that this epistle is not just exhortation, just any exhortation. It’s exhortation with a group in mind, the body of Christ functioning, with all believers exhorting one another and encouraging one another.
So let’s turn back to Hebrews 12:14, “Follow peace with all men,” carries the implication that that wasn’t happening, that they weren’t, in fact, following peace with all men, they were allowing ruptured social relationships to go on and to fester. Follow “holiness,” the word “holiness” is sanctification, perceived sanctification. Now watch what he’s doing, he takes the same verb, “pursue peace with all and sanctification,” would anyone care to remark what do you think that’s talking about as far as our sanctification as individual believers and its relationship to the local church. Do you see anything in that verse? “Follow peace with all,” it’s obviously group directed, “and sanctification,” now sanctification would involve separation but notice how this use of the word sanctification is linked to how the group is functioning. Said another way, it means that if the group doesn’t function right individuals aren’t being sanctified right.
Now that should just blow a hole in at least several of your views of sanctification because some of you hold the Lone Ranger theory of sanctification, that even without Tonto you can go on filled with the Holy Spirit and that this is all that is required for your personal sanctification. And if the body of believers goes to hell, that’s all right, as long as you make it. Now that’s the Lone Ranger theory and it’s a false theory, and here’s one of those great verses of Scripture that just takes that theory and blows it out, that individual believer’s sanctification is helped or hindered by the group they run with in the body, and therefore you have a selfish interest in seeing to it that whatever the group of believers that you hang around with, that they’re with it. Because if they’re not with it you’re not going to be and you’re going to be hurting yourself. So this is a further motivation to pitch into the leadership and at least, whatever you can, to edify the particular body with which you’re associated. If you don’t, you’re just hurting yourself, is what it says. If you just want to take an independent view that’s fine, but you’re just hurting yourself by doing it.
He says at the end of verse 14, “without which no man shall see the Lord.” That always binds a few people, but it means what it says. Here’s the plan of salvation, three parts; part one, the time you trust in Jesus Christ, and what’s the name of that? Justification, that’s the theological name, we sometimes used the word phase one. Phase two, sanctification, phase two extends from the time you trust in Christ till the time you die or the rapture, whichever occurs first. And phase three is eternity or glorification. Now God’s plan of salvation is in on piece, you can’t take part of his plan of salvation and fragment it. But watch what usually happens in Christian circles. Everybody is big on number one, got to have our revivals, evangelistic rallies, people coming down the aisle, Just As I Am and so on. So this one’s big. And then of course everybody knows that, ah, when we get to heaven, won’t that be sweet.
And the one that’s always dropped out is the second one, sanctification. The reason obviously is because that involves works, that involves suffering and a few things that are unpleasant. Sanctification is a prerequisite for glorification and what this verse is saying, if somebody is not being sanctified they just aren’t in the plan. Now it’s that blunt, “without which no man shall see the Lord.” If there is no sanctification there is no salvation, it’s that simple. It would be like in the Old Testament if the Jews claimed to be the nation, the chosen people under God and they never got disciplined, they never got trained, God never worked with them in history. Well, that would be every indication, would it not, that they really weren’t the nation under God that they claimed to be? So here, same argument, “without sanctification no man shall see the Lord.” Now that’s not talking about perfectionism. It’s not saying that everybody has to be perfect. What is sanctification? Training, the idea that the Holy Spirit is active in training you.
So he goes on, Hebrews 12:15, “Looking diligently” that’s a participle going with the main verb, the main verb is to pursue, and while we are pursuing, look carefully, that’s something we’re running into in the family training program with these three steps that I’m putting out. People ask why is it so necessary to go through all that. Well, you’re not getting saved by it, the point is that it’s just a tool to produce greater alertness on your part as a believer. The great need is to stop sleeping in the Christian life. The average Christian sleeps too much, spiritually speaking; he’s like a zombie and he’s been lulled to sleep by these pietistic teachings that all you have to do is kind of relax and let God. And what this means is that you turn and is neutral, Buddhists do the same thing except they call it seeking nirvana. And they’re more honest, at least they’ve got a correct title for it. But when Christians do this they are flying directly in the face of the Bible, the Bible commands: be alert, be sober, be careful, watch what you’re doing. Now the implication is that if we don’t watch what we’re doing we’re going to get in trouble. So let’s look and see what the conclusions are. “Look carefully,” and it’s participle, present tense, be careful all the time, be careful, be careful, be careful, be careful, be careful.
Now that the creation/evolution controversy is once again in front of us and we’re thinking more about it, this is an area where Christians are traditionally not at all carefully or look carefully, they’re just asleep, completely asleep. And they have this theistic evolution, I believe in evolution, I believe I the Bible, I believe in Jesus. They might as well say I believe in Buddha and I believe in Confucius, I believe everybody, one big happy family. They might as well say that, and as a result of observation my own conclusion is that the reasons most Christians stop right there is because they are intellectually lazy. They don’t want to take the time, it might involve three hours study of Genesis 1, we can’t invest three hours studying the Bible, good night, we’ve got good TV programs on. So it involves time and when you being to force the issues on believers boy, do you get a reaction. Oh, this is deep, too deep for me…
This is what this word means, to look
carefully. This means that every
Christian can look carefully, you don’t have to sleep through the rest of your
Christian life, this command wouldn’t have been given to you if it wasn’t
possible for you to stay awake mentally and spiritually. God does not ask you to do something that you
cannot do yourself, with enabling grace of course. [tape turns]
So when he says “look carefully” he means look carefully and you’d
better keep on looking carefully. And in
this case the Christians are looking at their own congregation carefully,
constantly.
“…lest,” you see “lest” occur three times, twice in verse 15, once in verse 16, and all of them refer to the same thing from three different perspectives. He’s going to repeat himself. Horror!. He repeats himself three times, “lest any man fail of the grace of God,” now that’s a good term, “lest any man fail the grace of God,” now he’s talking about the mixed crowd. Here we go, here’s some positives, here’s some negatives. Now these people are exposed to grace. They have been exposed to grace by the testimony of these people who have trusted in Jesus. The testimony of their lives, that is an exposure to grace. These people have talked Bible doctrine to them, that is an exposure to grace. These people have consciences that exert social pressure on them, that is a source of grace. When they are living in close association with these believers in the early Hebrew Christian community, they feel social pressure; that itself is grace; grace of God working on their soul to bring them to the point where they can personally trust in Christ.
Now, when it says “lest any man fail of the grace,” it’s talking about one of these people and as this congregation begins to fragment and as they begin to pull apart, operation Lone Ranger, there are going to be some of these unbelievers with. Their contact with grace through other believers is going to dry up; they’re going to be left alone and faced with the kind of pressure without the indwelling Holy Spirit they’re going to go back into the camp of Judaism. And so that’s what it’s saying, “lest any man fail the grace of God,” he’s laying it on the people who aren’t failing. He’s saying you are your brother’s keeper, so you be careful and look constantly in your group for men who fail the grace of God, who never come to a full decision to trust in Jesus Christ. They’re just kind of perpetual visitors.
Then he approaches it from another point of view, same principle, different viewpoint, “…lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled.” Now this again is talking about an unbeliever in the group but this time it’s not looking at him as being left alone. Turn to the place where this came from, Deuteronomy 29:18, you’ll see what this author had in mind. He has another concern besides this abandoning unbelievers. Moses, in Deuteronomy 29 is having the nation make an oath; the oath is a formal ceremony which ratifies the Law, and he says I do this, verse 18, “Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart is turning away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that bears gall and wormwood; [19] And it come to pass, when he hears the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart,” (quote) there should be a quote mark here, “I shall have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness,” literally,“ of mine heart,” (end quote), “to sweep away the moist with the dry, literally is what it says. [20] Now the LORD will not spare him, but then the anger of the LORD and His jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the LORD shall blot out his name from under heaven.”
Now who is that talking about? That is
talking about, in Deuteronomy 29, of the nation
So this is a little opposite tack, in other words here we’re not concerned about them failing the grace of God in the sense of abandoning them, here we’re more concerned about watch out for these people, they’re inside agents. And always constantly be careful of inside agents, lest they get in positions of leadership and very subtly, sometimes not maliciously, talk about somebody that maliciously inhabits smoke-filled rooms with all sorts of plots going on and how to take over your group, that doesn’t have to be that way, all it has to be is one unregenerate person, worming their way up into leadership position and you’ve had it.
So let’s turn back to Hebrews and see how the author takes Deuteronomy 29 and uses it in the New Testament era. “Lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby the many,” it has an article with it, “the many,” that means the congregation; the congregation is going to be defiled by these inside agents, they’re going to be defiled several ways. Obviously those who are unbelievers are going to be defiled because they’re never going to get the gospel issue straight, and those who have already trusted in Christ are going to be defiled because their sanctification depends on the group sanctification. See, it goes back to the same principle; your individual personal sanctification depend upon the group sanctification.
Hebrews 12:16, third way, again same principle, mixed congregation, but he’s coming at it a third way, “Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. [17] For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected; for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. Now verses 16 and 17 sort of amplify the point, he uses Esau, an individual person, the first “lest” in verse 15 dealt more with the mechanics; the second lest, verse 15, last part, dealt with the group effect, now verse 16-17, this individual person himself. So he’s going to say okay, I’ll tell you want, I’m going to cut out one of these people, we’re going to bring him up to examine him closely. What’s going on in this person? What’s going on in that person that’s socially identified himself with believers but never really gotten with it? Let’s take him down here and look at him.
So verses 16-17 is just an examination of the heart of this kind of person, and he is made parallel to Esau. “Lest there be a fornicator, or profane person,” the idea is that a profane person shows no sign of the work of the Word. “Profane” means just profane, there’s no sign of the effect of the Word of God in their life. “Profane” means as though they were still Gentiles, and since they are still Gentiles, obviously if they don’t show any sign of the Word in their life, no change, so he says you watch out for those kind of persons. You constantly, constantly, constantly, constantly, constantly watch out, “lest there be these kinds, who for one,” actually “one meal sold his birthright.” In other words, they don’t care about the Word. That’s the point of verse 16.
Esau could care less about the Word of God. It was always something else. Esau would go for all the culture, but when it came to the Word of God, huh-un. So it’s always the Word; you notice in all of these exhortations in Hebrews there is never a Christian activity mentioned. It is always back to the mental attitude toward the Word of God. Is the person positive to the Word or are they negative, that’s the issue, not what they are doing and not doing. In any given congregation you’re going to have people who are struggling with different kinds of sin problem and the fastest way to ruin a group is for somebody to get on their spiritual high horse and look down at somebody else. You don’t evaluate other believers by their struggles. As long as they’re struggling it shows signs of sanctification. Now don’t hit a brother on the head because he’s having a problem. He needs more exhortation, he needs encouragement, not a brain operation.
All right, so verse 17 reveals the heart and the danger of such a person, and it’s probably a very, very sobering, sobering passage and we’re going to spend the next 3 or 4 minutes on it and then we’ll end at the end of verse 17. I want you to pay careful attention to verse 17 because if you do you’re going to see something maybe some of you never saw before about volition. “For ye know how that afterwards,” see in Genesis 25 he sold his birthright. Anybody know what happened in Genesis 27? Genesis 25 is the situation where he was hungry and he’d come in Jacob was with mama in the kitchen, because Jacob, from the human point of view, much of a specimen, but from God’s point of view at least he trusted in God’s grace, and that was all it took for him to be saved. But that was the situation where he made a deal with Esau to get the birthright.
What happened in Genesis 27, the scene before his father, what happened? Jacob lived up to his name. [someone answers] That was when he put one over on his old man. Jacob was ready to bless him and he disguised himself as Esau and he cheated him, that’s the word Jacob, means chiseler. So there the believer was the chiseler and the unbeliever was more or less the decent party in that deal. And after it occurred, you remember, Esau wanted the blessing. Now here, the whole point of verse 17, “afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing,” and the word is teleioo, it means to will, to will to inherit. In other words, Esau changed his volition and he chose that inheritance; that’s the word. He willed to inherit it. So he had a change of volition but what does it say? He was rejected. Now look at that; he went from negative volition to positive volition and he was rejected. God slammed the door shut. Now that is one of the key passages to show you something about grace and volition.
Grace is temporary, think of the ark of Noah, 8 people went aboard, the door is shut. Suppose the last five minutes we had an Esau, well, I changed my mind. Sorry friend, you had your chance. Now the New Testament has a parable, you know the parable that Jesus told about the man who changed his mind after death, he got so concerned about the gospel that he wanted someone to go back; he couldn’t change his own destiny, even though he had changed his mind. If he had his life to live all over again he would have chosen. But Jesus, in that parable is saying he chose too late. Now that’s one of the sobering warnings of the Scripture, is that you can be very proud of your volition, very fine. But your volition isn’t going to solve your problem if God slams the door shut on His grace. Volition is great while there is grace, but if there is no grace your volition is insignificant. And the people that lived in the days of the flood, when that door was finally shut, could no more get through that ark than the man in the moon. No way could they get in that ark.
Same thing in
History is a one way street, you don’t go back in a time machine and redo the mess-up areas of your life. That’s why we have grace; you can’t relive your past. And every time the clock ticks that’s time that has gone forever, never to be recovered; never! And as you go on in life, you get older, you’re making more and more decision that are locking you down to a certain lifestyle; every year that goes by you’re fixing your destiny that much more surely. A young person has great flexibility but as he gets older he’s making decisions that have committed him and locked him down into a program. And that’s the process of aging. So as you get older it behooves you to make more and more correct decisions because you don’t have the flexibility you used to have.
[someone say something] The believer is never severed completely from God’s grace, doctrine of election, but the believer can be put into a position where through habitual disobedience God may say okay, I’ve had it, sin unto death for you. The only reason I hesitate to go along this route completely is because the case we’ve got in the New Testament where this actually happened to a man in Corinth, where God did say through the apostle Paul, okay, I’ve had it with you and He gave him the sin unto death, we find in 2 Corinthians that the guy got with it and God reversed the decision. So in that case, because we have that case, I hesitate to carry this over to the believer, not only because the believer never gets grace completely cut off but also because of that data. The safest thing to do is to say in verse 17, just stick with the context and the context is talking about salvation here. And what it’s saying is that at certain times in history, maybe all the time but at least in these times, in Esau’s case, Pharaoh’s case, the case of Noah’s ark, the case of the people in the tribulation, the cross, the message of the cross is extended to a point. They are going on negative volition, negative volition, negative volition, negative volition, negative volition, negative volition, negative volition, negative volition, negative volition, and finally God says that’s it, shutting down. And once that decision on God’s part…
Now we don’t make that decision, you don’t make that decision, in fact without any living prophet we don’t know whether any given unbeliever is to that point or not so we operate on the basis that it hasn’t happened and keep on preaching the gospel anyway. But we know in prophecy it’s going to happen in the tribulation. People are going to be cut off; people are going to have the opportunity to hear at least four times in the tribulation, and they say no, no, no, no. Sorry, it’s all over. So people will be cut off from a chance to believe and here is a very poignant illustration of a man who chooses the right way after it’s too late. So it’s volition while there is grace for the fallen creature.
Of course, the rest of verse 17 just simply amplifies it, “for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.” He “sought it,” there’s two words in verse 17 of volition; one is found in the first sentence, “he willed” to inherit and the other one is he’s “seeking it carefully with tears.” It’s an intensive form of the verb to seek. So Esau did reverse his decision but you can’t go through life reversing these kinds of decisions.
[someone says something] Esau, after that point, was a doomed person. There are lots of example in Scripture, Pharaoh was a doomed person, finally. The Canaanite population collectively was a doomed people, that’s why they were damned. God gave the order for holy war, annihilate them, because they had had a chance to believe and they didn’t, time to get bumped off. Now what I’m warning you about is this is a doctrine that I am only applying up to the point where you realize that grace is temporary, that’s our point. But don’t go out and say well, they’re damned. You haven’t got any right to do that. The last order we got from the Lord was preach the gospel to every creature. Now we haven’t got any more orders since that one; that was the last one that came down from headquarters. So that’s the one we follow and we continue to follow it until we get counter orders to the contrary; and we haven’t got any. All we do know though, in fact, is that in history God has worked many times with a damned and doomed people, people who had a chance to believe and the door was slammed shut and even if they chose to believe after that point, sorry!
[someone else says something] Like, four
generation, and the book of Nahum is written as a sequel to the book of Jonah
showing that
Father, we thank You….