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You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. ³⁷ For,

‘In just a little while,
    he who is coming will come
    and will not delay.’

³⁸ And,

‘But my righteous one will live by faith.
    And I take no pleasure
    in the one who shrinks back.’

³⁹ But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.

Here, at the end of chapter 10, we see clearly that in spite of his earlier severe warning, the writer to the Hebrews has every confidence that these believers will keep going. One incentive for them (and for us) is that Jesus will come again. The suffering will not continue for ever. Tom Wright points out that Christians are out of tune with this world because they are in tune with the future one. Therefore persecution in some form is to be expected. But Jesus will have the last word in human history. Those who know Him have every reason to hold on and keep going.

In the next chapter, we are going to be introduced to a catalogue of faith heroes who held on and kept going through thick and thin. How they inspire us (and even cheer us on from the stands!)

You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.

They needed to persevere; I need to persevere; and so do you. It is those who persevere to the end who will be saved.

I have long believed that perseverance (or endurance) is a seriously under-rated quality in the Christian life. (It’s been referred to as ‘stick-to-it-iveness’), It’s not spectacular. It doesn’t have connotations of spiritual fireworks. It’s just about putting one foot in front of another and keeping going.

The missionary pioneer, William Carey, said about himself: ‘If he give me credit for being a plodder he will describe me justly. Anything beyond that will be too much. I can plod. I can persevere in any definite pursuit. To this I owe everything.

Some days it is a noble and courageous thing to just get out of bed and carry on with life:

• to be faithful for one more day in that challenging marriage;
• to continue to love that oh so difficult relative;
• to return to the workplace which causes you much stress and anxiety;
• to press on with that ministry in which you feel unappreciated, taken for granted, and where there are few visible results.

How encouraging, then, to consider C.H. Spurgeon’s perceptively wonderful comment:

”By perseverance the snail made it to the ark.”

 Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you endured in a great conflict full of suffering. ³³ Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. ³⁴ You suffered along with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. ³⁵ So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.

Following on from the severe warning we read yesterday, our writer reminds his readers of better days in the past, when they showed the fruit of genuine faith in their costly faithfulness to Christ and His church. Those were better days: days when the understood that they had ”better…possessions” in Jesus.

The hymn writer asked himself: ‘Where is the blessedness I knew when first I saw the Lord?’

Sometimes we may need to remind ourselves (or be reminded) of how it was with us in the earliest days of our Christian experience. If we can ‘get back to where we once belonged’ we surely will keep going, and not throw our true and lasting treasure away – even though, at times, we may be tempted to do so. The spiritual battle is real and fierce, and we have a ruthless enemy. He will steal precious things from us if he can. We need to always be alert, continually standing guard, living in prayer and nourishing our souls with God’s Word

PRAYER: Lord, renew in me my first love, and help me love you more and more.

THOUGHT:

‘Lord, it is my chief complaint
that my love is weak and faint;
yet I love thee, and adore;
O for grace to love thee more!‘ William Cowper (from the hymn: ‘Hark my soul it is the Lord’).

If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, ²⁷ but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. ²⁸ Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. ²⁹ How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? ³⁰ For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.” ³¹ It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

This is not the easiest passage in Hebrews, either mentally or emotionally, and its meaning is debated between sincere Christians. Is it possible for a believer to be saved and lost? It is beyond the scope of these daily devotional thoughts to go into all the details the arguments. But I will make two brief points:

1. These warning passages in the Bible should be taken seriously. We have all known people who once walked with Jesus and now do so no longer. Let those who think they stand take heed…! But the particular verses in our reading today seem to refer to more than what we might call ‘backsliding’. This looks like apostasy, where someone who has publicly confessed Christ now publicly disavows Him. (Remember the context, the author was writing to Jewish Christians who were tempted to go back from Christ to Judaism; from the church to the synagogue). But there is no salvation outside of trusting in Jesus. ‘The Message’ translation is helpful here, I think: If we give up and turn our backs on all we’ve learned, all we’ve been given, all the truth we now know, we repudiate Christ’s sacrifice and are left on our own to face the Judgment—and a mighty fierce judgment it will be! If the penalty for breaking the law of Moses is physical death, what do you think will happen if you turn on God’s Son, spit on the sacrifice that made you whole, and insult this most gracious Spirit? This is no light matter. God has warned us that he’ll hold us to account and make us pay. He was quite explicit: “Vengeance is mine, and I won’t overlook a thing” and “God will judge his people.” Nobody’s getting by with anything, believe me.
2. Although the warning is severe, the writer is confident of better things with regard to the recipients of this letter. We will see this in the remaining verses of chapter 10.

PRAYER: Lord, you have kept me going to this point. Thank you for your amazing grace. Please keep me going to the very end. Sometimes I feel the winds blowing strongly against me, and I see the waves around me. Lord, I can feel I am sinking. Help me to keep on walking with my eyes fixed on you.

And so, dear brothers and sisters^] we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. ²⁰ By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. ²¹ And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, ²² let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.

²³ Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. ²⁴ Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. ²⁵ And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near. (NLT).

The call is to everyone in the church to, in a very real sense, pastor the church. It is not just for leaders to encourage the members of the church in good behaviour. This is a ministry entrusted to every believer. But how can we meaningfully participate in this if we’re not there (or not there all that often)?

‘So, then, we are to come to worship God – not just in private, though private worship and prayer is enormously important, but in public as well. The danger of people thinking they could be Christians all by themselves was, it seems, present in the early church just as today, and verse 25 warns against it. This may well not be due to people not realising what a corporate thing Christianity was and is, nor yet because they were lazy or didn’t much like the other Christians in their locality, but because, when there was a threat of persecution…it’s much easier to escape notice if you avoid meeting together with other worshippers. Much safer just not to turn up.’ Tom Wright: ‘Hebrews for Everyone’, pp.116/117.

Well, safer physically maybe, but not spiritually.

One thing we clearly should not do in the light of Jesus’ ever-nearing coming is to give up meeting together.

Even before the pandemic, the pattern of church attendance was changing. It appeared to be the case that for increasing numbers of professing Christians in the UK, regular involvement was becoming once a fortnight, or even once every three or four weeks – once every so often. But the pandemic seems to have accelerated that direction of travel. For us, this is not about playing it safe in a hostile environment. It is primarily about personal preference and convenience: about how we choose to spend our week-ends. It doesn’t look or feel very much like New Testament discipleship, and I have to say it just isn’t healthy.

And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. ²⁰ By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. ²¹ And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, ²² let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.

²³ Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. ²⁴ Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. 

The next two exhortations, found in verses 24 & 25, have to do with what we might call a person’s ‘churchmanship’. The Cross has implications for not only our vertical relationship with God, but also our horizontal relationships within the church.

Verse 24 challenges us with regard to the amount of thought we put into our church life. ‘The Message’ says:

Let’s see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out…

‘Every Christian needs the encouragement of every other Christian. Everyone who comes through the door of the place of worship, whether it be a house in a back street or a great cathedral in a public square, is a real encouragement to everyone else who is there. This is part of the way, along with an actual word of encouragement when necessary, in which we can ‘stir one another up’ to work hard at the central actions pf Christian living, ‘love and good works’ (a deliberately broad phrase to cover all sorts of activities.’ Tom Wright: ‘Hebrews for Everyone’, p.117.

And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. ²⁰ By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. ²¹ And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, ²² let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.

²³ Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. (NLT)

In John 10:10a, Jesus says: ”The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy…”

It is because of the relentless and ruthless prowling activity of this ”thief” that we need to hold on tight to everything God promises us in Jesus. As at the beginning, in the garden, his approach will be to question God’s Word – to try to undermine it and get us to doubt it.

I read an article recently, written by a seasoned pastor for younger leaders. One of his pieces of counsel was: ‘Always act like the Bible is true.’ He said this, I believe, because he knows how regularly the enemy of our souls will try to get us to doubt it is so. We need to remember:

”Every word of God is flawless…” (Prov.30:5).

‘I have decided, I’m gonna live like a believer, turn my back on the deceiver, I’m gonna live what I believe.’ Amy Grant

Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, ²⁰ by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, ²¹ and since we have a great priest over the house of God, ²² let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 

Biblical theology has practical implications. Look at the word ”since”, (coming twice in verses 19 & 21), and then the logical conclusion drawn out in verse 22.

Let us pray!

In the ‘New Living Translation’ our passage reads:

And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. ²⁰ By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. ²¹ And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, ²² let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.

We have been cleansed both inwardly and outwardly: washed by Christ’s blood internally, and by the waters of baptism externally

You may recall that in Acts 9:11, a man by the name of Ananias was commanded to go to the newly converted Saul of Tarsus with these words:

‘Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. 

The fact that he was praying was an indicator of his new spiritual state. It is always a mark of conversion. One of the most practical implications of experiencing the Cross is that we pray; indeed, that we have the desire to pray. It is as natural as breathing.

So…let us pray.

 Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, ²⁰ by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, ²¹ and since we have a great priest over the house of God…

“Christianity is not a cafeteria line where you say, “I’ll have a little salvation, but no Lordship right now.” Adrian Rogers

I have heard it said that people leave managers rather than companies. Good leaders inspire love, loyalty and respect, whereas bad ones send people in search of the exits.

As believers, we are not a law unto ourselves. We are a people under authority. But we are not an oppressed people; we are rather truly liberated. Because look at who is ”over” us (21): Someone who sacrificed His life for us, and who lives to represent us before the throne of God in heaven. He is our loving Lord.

“When Jesus is truly our Lord, He directs our lives and we gladly obey Him. Indeed, we bring every part of our lives under His lordship – our home and family, our sexuality and marriage, our job or unemployment, our money and possessions, our ambitions and recreations.” John Stott