Hebrews 12, verses 1 to 17, a cloud of witnesses

 

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.