Hebrews 12:1 ¶ Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about
with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin
which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race
that is set before us, 2 Looking unto
Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set
before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right
hand of the throne of God. 3 For
consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest
ye be wearied and faint in your minds.
The cloud of witnesses can refer to
the fact that the faithful characters of old were witnesses for God and also
that they are witnesses of what we are doing. Paul is telling his audience to
put off the burden of their sin and focus on following the path that is laid
out for us by God, to run our own race. We need patience to accomplish our
task. We must keep our eyes focused on Jesus Christ who is our beginning and
ending, who, even though He was God in the flesh, endured the Cross at Calvary
for what would be accomplished, not holding what He went through as greater
than the result of what He went through, and who is now united with God in
Heaven. We need to think about what He suffered at the hands of mankind,
otherwise, we may not be able to endure what we must. We are typically not
crucified in such a horrible manner, killed in such a perverse way. Typically,
our suffering is far less than what our Saviour endured. We need to keep that
in mind each day as we struggle with sin and then, at the end of our lives, as
we face physical death.
Hebrews 12:4 ¶ Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. 5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: 6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. 7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? 8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. 9 Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? 10 For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. 11 Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. 12 Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; 13 And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed. 14 Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: 15 Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled; 16 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.
Most of us have not fought the fight we are
called to fight unto our own death. We have not even shed blood for Christ. Our
so-called persecution is usually verbal hostility. The Old and New Testament
saints sometimes went to their death for God. Also, we should not forget;
Proverbs 3:11
My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his
correction: 12 For whom the LORD loveth
he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.
When we face chastisement to turn us from our
sins we should rejoice in God’s proof of His love for us. As a human father, at
least before the 1960s, chastised their own children out of love and concern
for the kind of person they would become so our Father does to us. If He didn’t
care enough to administer discipline to us we could not regard ourselves as
legitimate children of the Father.
Discipline is never pleasant but if it turns
us from our wicked ways it produces joyous fruit and saves our lives. We learn
to do right by instruction AND correction. And if we love a human father who
showed us this attention to our success in life or just was annoyed at our
behavior and lashed out angrily how can we not lift up the God who created us
when He pays that attention to our wellbeing and in doing so does so for our
own benefit so we can be like Him? God is not a, “do as I say, not as I do,”
kind of parent. He wants us to follow His example.
Matthew 5:48
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is
perfect.
So don’t be discouraged. We are also called
to follow peace with all men as Paul states elsewhere.
Romans 12:18
If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.
Also, he declares that we must seek to be holy.
Desiring to do right by God is a proof that the Spirit of God, the very mind of
God, dwells within you.
Matthew 5:8
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
We must be sincere in our faith, letting God
save us, not in trusting our own righteousness but Christ’s, lest by exalting
our self we fall from that standard of God’s grace that saves us. Many people
come just so close and yet can’t reach for it because they are too filled with
themselves.
In Acts 8:23 Peter accuses Simon of being in the
gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity. His heart is not right
in the sight of God. He came to Christ with the absolute wrong attitude, a
worldly error that glorified himself and gave power over the things of God to
money.
The gall of bitterness is a reference to false worship and
holding something different in your heart than what is on your lips.
Deuteronomy 29:18 Lest
there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart
turneth 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 beareth gall and wormwood; 19 And it come to pass, when he heareth the
words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have
peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to
thirst: 20 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.
Bitterness would refer to the expression of that falseness through one’s
speech, by cross-referencing.
Romans 3:14 Whose mouth is
full of cursing and bitterness:
Ephesians 4:31 Let all bitterness,
and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you,
with all malice:
He warns them and us not to treat salvation
with the disdain and contempt that Esau treated his birthright, when he sold it
to Jacob for some stew. The implication here is that there are some rejections
of Christ that are permanent and that a person can want to be saved but just
not find it within himself to reach out to Christ and believe. I’ve met some of
those. They sincerely wish they could lay hold on eternal life but can’t bring
themselves to trust in Christ as the Bible teaches. It has been said by
preachers that at some point a person’s continued rejection becomes final and
there is no way they will ever receive Christ no matter how the thought of Hell
and the Lake of Fire plague their nightmares and waking dreams.
Hebrews 12:18 ¶ For ye are not come unto the mount that might
be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and
tempest, 19 And the sound of a trumpet,
and the voice of words; which voice they that heard intreated that the
word should not be spoken to them any more: 20
(For they could not endure that which was commanded, And if so much as a
beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart:
21 And so terrible was the sight, that
Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:) 22
But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God,
the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, 23 To the general assembly and church of the
firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the
spirits of just men made perfect, 24 And
to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that
speaketh better things than that of Abel. 25 See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For
if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not
we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven:
26 Whose voice then shook the earth: but
now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but
also heaven. 27 And this word,
Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of
things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.
28 Wherefore we receiving a kingdom
which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably
with reverence and godly fear: 29 For
our God is a consuming fire.
Look at Exodus 19:18.
Exodus 19:16 ¶ And it came to pass on the third day in the
morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the
mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that
was in the camp trembled…18 And mount
Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire:
and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount
quaked greatly.
Compare that with Psalm 68:8.
Psalm 68:8 The earth shook, the heavens also dropped at
the presence of God: even Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God, the
God of Israel.
It was not to be even so much as touched by
the Israelites or their cattle.
Exodus 19:12 And thou shalt set bounds unto the people
round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount,
or touch the border of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to
death: 13 There shall not an hand touch
it, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot through; whether it be beast or man,
it shall not live: when the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the
mount.
Deuteronomy 5:23 ¶ And it came to pass, when ye heard the voice
out of the midst of the darkness, (for the mountain did burn with fire,) that
ye came near unto me, even all the heads of your tribes, and your elders; 24 And ye said, Behold, the LORD our God hath
shewed us his glory and his greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the
midst of the fire: we have seen this day that God doth talk with man, and he
liveth. 25 Now therefore why should we
die? for this great fire will consume us: if we hear the voice of the LORD our
God any more, then we shall die.
This isn’t like that. Every person
experiences the God who created them through Jesus Christ now. We have come to
the heavenly Jerusalem, the New Jerusalem and a company of countless angels. They
are our appearances, as I’ve explained numerous times before, the spirits of
men and women who have received Christ and have been made complete, perfect.
This is the Biblical definition of perfect that I have explained previously. This
is the church of the firstborn, Christ, whose names are written in Heaven, not
to be removed, again, as I have explained previous to this.
Remember, an angel is a presence,
an appearance of something that is somewhere else, representing that person or
thing but with power and ability that would prevent us from distinguishing the
difference.
Isaiah 63:9 In all their affliction he was afflicted, and
the angel of his presence saved
them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and
carried them all the days of old.
Matthew 18:10 Take heed that ye despise not one of these
little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.
Acts 12:15 And they said unto her, Thou art mad. But she
constantly affirmed that it was even so. Then said they, It is his angel.
Revelation 1:20 The mystery of the seven stars which thou
sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven
churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven
churches.
Revelation 5:11
And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the
throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand
times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands;
Here
is a multitude of the redeemed from every ethnicity and language praising
Christ as God. A numberless amount of angels, representing the saved on earth
stand praising Him along with the beasts around the throne and the elders.
The New Jerusalem is on its way to us now
with our eternal living arrangements being prepared by our Saviour.
Revelation 21:2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem,
coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her
husband.
John 14:1 ¶
Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
2 In my Father’s house are many
mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for
you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place
for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there
ye may be also.
If you
believe that God is preparing an eighteen-room majestic home to occupy in your
resurrected body I will not argue with you. I’m just going to give you the
literal interpretation and you can do with it what you will. According to the
Early Modern English database at http://leme.library.utoronto.ca/menu/menuSearch.cfm
the word mansion at one time meant a
dwelling place, a house, or even a large, luxurious apartment in a mansion
house. Look at some of the cross references to verse 2.
2Corinthians 5:1 ¶ For we know that if our earthly house of this
tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with
hands, eternal in the heavens.
In God’s
house, the verse says, there are many mansions. My concern is that we are
telling people in our excitement about Heaven and in their unwillingness to
read the Bible that we are all going to have our own version of Buckingham
Palace. Wouldn’t it be more likely, based on the construction of the sentence,
that we will all have our own wonderful, dwelling place in God’s house rather
than our own castle next to the golf course?
Psalm 18:19 He brought me forth also into a large place;
he delivered me, because he delighted in me.
Psalm 31:8 And hast not shut me up into the hand of the
enemy: thou hast set my feet in a large room.
Psalm 118:5 I called upon the LORD in distress: the LORD
answered me, and set me in a large place.
Historical
evidence teaches us that, and I quote Michael L. Satlow’s book entitled, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity, the bride
would be brought to the huppah, a
private place prepared by the groom in his father’s house, where the marriage
was consummated.[1]
So, Jesus preparing a magnificent room in His Father’s house for His bride has
parallels in Jewish customs of the time. There is a lot of interesting
information, if you are willing to search it out, about those customs but be
careful of copying anyone who doesn’t, at least, provide you with the sources
of his statements.
Here,
Jesus promises to His followers that He is going to prepare a place in His
Father’s house and will return to take them there. This is an amazing promise
apparently in keeping with Jewish custom and tradition for marriage. When Jesus
ascended into heaven;
Acts 1:9 And when he had spoken these things, while
they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.
He went to
prepare a place for His church, His bride.
2Corinthians 11:2 For I am jealous over you with godly
jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a
chaste virgin to Christ.
He will
return to take His bride to His Father’s house.
1Thessalonians 4:16 For the Lord himself shall descend from
heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of
God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be
caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so
shall we ever be with the Lord.
Where
there will be a feast, a marriage supper, and great rejoicing.
Revelation 19:9 And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they
which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me,
These are the true sayings of God.
We await
this greatest of all events in our lives.
Titus 2:13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the
glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;
Our names are written in heaven.
Revelation 3:5
He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I
will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name
before my Father, and before his angels.
Christ
promises not to blot a person’s name out of the Book of Life. All human beings’
names are in the book when their soul was created but based on God’s
foreknowledge and if we reject Him our name is removed.
Exodus 32:32 Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their
sin — ; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou
hast written. 33 And the LORD said unto
Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.
Philippians 4:3 And I intreat thee also, true yokefellow,
help those women which laboured with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and
with other my fellowlabourers, whose names are in the book of life.
Revelation 13:8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall
worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain
from the foundation of the world.
Revelation 17:8 The beast that thou sawest was, and is not;
and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they
that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book
of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was,
and is not, and yet is.
Revelation 20:12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand
before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is
the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were
written in the books, according to their works…15 And whosoever was not found written in the
book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
Revelation 21:27 And there shall in no wise enter into it any
thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie:
but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
Revelation 22:19 And if any man shall take away from the words
of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of
life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this
book.
This is
all made possible by the Lord Jesus Christ, the mediator between man and God in
His dual nature of fully God and fully man, the ladder between earth and
heaven.
1Timothy 2:5
For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man
Christ Jesus;
Genesis 28:10 ¶ And Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went
toward Haran. 11 And he lighted upon a
certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he
took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in
that place to sleep. 12 And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on
the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God
ascending and descending on it. 13
And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham
thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I
give it, and to thy seed; 14 And thy
seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the
west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in
thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. 15 And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep
thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this
land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to
thee of.
John 1:43 ¶
The day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip,
and saith unto him, Follow me. 44 Now
Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him,
We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus
of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. 46 And
Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip
saith unto him, Come and see. 47 Jesus
saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in
whom is no guile! 48 Nathanael saith
unto him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that
Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee. 49 Nathanael answered and saith unto him, Rabbi,
thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel. 50 Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I
said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou? thou shalt see
greater things than these. 51 And he
saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven
open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.
See the allusion to the blood of sprinkling referring to the Passover
Lamb as Jesus is our Lamb.
Exodus 12:1 ¶
And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying,
2 This month shall be unto you the
beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you. 3 Speak ye unto all
the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall
take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb
for an house: 4 And if the household be
too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house take it
according to the number of the souls; every man according to his eating shall
make your count for the lamb. 5 Your
lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out
from the sheep, or from the goats: 6
And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and
the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.
7 And they shall take of the blood, and
strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses,
wherein they shall eat it.
Verses
3,4, & 5 of Exodus 12 give us an understanding of Christ.
3 Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel,
saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their
fathers, a lamb for an house: 4 And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour
next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls; every man
according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb. 5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a
male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats:
He
is a lamb, a sacrifice and ransom to
God, the propitiation to satisfy God’s wrath for mankind’s sins against Him. He is the lamb, the only way to salvation. He is your lamb, who died for your sins on the cross at Calvary and rose
for your justification.
Again, Paul warns the Hebrews not to turn away, not to hold back, but to
receive Christ as their Saviour. It is a warning to those I’ve explained
before, like people we’ve seen in church who half-heartedly make some kind of
surface, emotional prayer about salvation and then are never seen again in
church. It’s a personal, emotional high that makes them feel good for a moment
but is meaningless because it has no root in their heart. Damnation is their
destiny as tares among the wheat only they might not even know it due to our
misleading them much as Judas may have not known that he was a devil as per Jesus’
own words in John 6.
The kingdom we receive upon salvation is eternal, that which we have
entered into upon our salvation and by our salvation through Christ we can serve
God acceptably with a reverence and a godly fear that those who have not
received Christ cannot understand.
Psalm 19:9
The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the
LORD are true and righteous altogether.
Psalm 111:10
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding
have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever.
Deuteronomy 4:24
For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.
[1] Michael
L. Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 172.
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