Chapter 10:32-39

“But recall the former days in which, after you were illuminated, you endured a great struggle with sufferings: ³³ partly while you were made a spectacle both by reproaches and tribulations, and partly while you became companions of those who were so treated; ³⁴ for you had compassion on me in my chains, and joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods, knowing that you have a better and an enduring possession for yourselves in heaven.

“³⁵ Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. ³⁶ For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise: ³⁷ ‘For yet a little while, and He who is coming will come and will not tarry. ³⁸ Now the just shall live by faith; but if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him.’ ³⁹ But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.”

More and more as I read these passages, I am convinced that Paul was the author. In the verses we explore today, you will see that the author commends the readers for how they treated him. In verse 34, they ‘had compassion’ on him in his chains. One can argue that most, if not all of the apostles, did endure prison at one point or another. But when we pair this evidence with the structure of the writing and the pure knowledge of the Old Testament, I am convinced more and more that this is Paul.

And what a writing about Jesus this entire book is! No Jew, no Hebrew, and now, no Gentile could claim ignorance of the person and purpose of our Lord Jesus. He came to pay for my sins and yours, a once and for all payment that transcends time. A payment that cannot be exhausted and that cannot expire for those that fall under it, and a hope that brings back life to the dying masses around us.

In lesson 38, we talked about what happens when a person rejects the Gospel, the free offer of the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. That person then has no other options and no way to appease the pure Holiness of God the Father. There is no hope then for that person; there is only judgment and then Hell. Today we will explore the opposite; we will explore what happens to that one who accepts the free gift of salvation.

• We become illuminated, verse 32

For the very first time, we can truly see the world as it is. This can be disheartening to some, and at first, one can be a bit disoriented. This kind of change is very hard. We go from being comfortable citizens of ‘earth’ to being uncomfortable aliens from another world.

1 Peter 2:11 (AMP) says this: “Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers [in this world] to abstain from the sensual urges [those dishonorable desires] that wage war against the soul.”

We are now aliens, and this can be a bit tough at first; there may be a cost. Some friends will go or leave. For others, we will have to limit our contact. Some will think this is just a phase and wait for us to come back. Places we used to go to, things we used to do, etc., will begin to feel foreign, and the Holy Spirit in us will begin to talk to us about the world around us. We stop believing everything we hear, and we have questions. That is wonderful; we want to know more and more about the Lord.

If we are truly seeking, God will lead us to a good church, one that teaches the Bible in its entirety, one that magnifies Jesus and not the pastor, one that is honest about the flawed people in the pews, and one that longs to love Jesus more, and by doing so, becomes more and more obedient.

• We become compassionate, verses 33-34

We begin to feel for our brothers and sisters around the world. We have a dear family that serves the Lord in Pakistan, and they like to communicate. They are in a predominately Muslim world, and there are not many Christian ministers to talk to, so they talk to me a lot. Sometimes late at night, they talk about the pain of seeing the people they try to help. I have never seen these folks face to face, but they love Jesus, and they preach Jesus was crucified and resurrected; they are a part of my alien family, and one day when the Lord returns, I will see them, and they will know me and I them.

We see the lost around us, and we want to open their eyes for them and show them what they are missing. We hurt for their hardness of heart. We ask God to soften their hearts and open their eyes as He did for us. We become more and more thankful that we saw the light.

• We become Heaven-minded, verse 34

We begin to think about meeting Jesus one day. We think about the judgment that we will go through. No, not one about Heaven and Hell, but how we managed the life that God gave us. We are told this in 2 Corinthians 5:10 (NIV): “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.”

All of us will give an account of the stewardship that we lived with when we got this new life from Jesus, this new sight, this new heart, this new eternity. How did we obey the Lord? Did we lay up treasure in Heaven? (Matt. 6:19-21). Did we love each other as Jesus loves us? (John 13:34-35). I can go on, but you get the point. Here is not all there is; we begin to live and love like there is more.

• We become Focused on Jesus’ return, verse 37

Jesus promised He would come again and get us. Acts 1:11 (NIV), “‘Men of Galilee,’ they said, ‘why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

This echoes the promise He made to His disciples in John 14:1-3 (NIV), “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”

We begin to look for Jesus; we see the signs of the times, and we rejoice, even amid harsh and troubling times. Jesus will come soon and set everything right. Or, we will go to Him and escape this mess. Either way, WE WIN! Jesus be praised.

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

How To Connect with Us

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MississaugaMissionaryBaptistChurch
Online: https://mmbchurch.ca/
Email: seangooding@mmbchurch.ca; support@mmbchurch.ca

Chapter 10:26-31

“For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. 28 Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know Him who said, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord. And again, ‘The Lord will judge His people.’ 31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

The context of a passage is so very important. One of the biggest issues that we have in many modern ‘sermons’ is that the verse is often taken out of context. The speaker/preacher is not looking to develop the text of the message and see where the scripture is going and teaches. Rather, he (or she, too often in modern churches) has a topic, and they use a verse to blame the topic on. No matter what the scripture says, they have a point to make, and context should not get in the way.

Why this preamble? Well, it is important to get the context of what we have been speaking about for weeks; Jesus is the only means of salvation. His death, burial, and resurrection are the only currency that God acknowledges, and all others are of no help. The keeping of the Law cannot help you, and any other kinds of ‘traditions or religious’ practices are useless for you or me to be saved.

This book is primarily targeted at the Hebrew people, and they had been given the Law. In the Law, they missed the entire story of Jesus, and instead of being exporters of God’s righteousness, they hoarded it and, frankly, completely hid it in traditions that made it even harder to get and understand. The purpose of the Law was to show men and women that they needed a Saviour. They needed a sacrifice to help them since they were incapable of keeping the Law.

• Willful Disobedience, verse 26

I am in the process of reading through the book of Matthew. In chapter 8, we see an encounter with Jesus and two demon-possessed men. They are dangerous, and the people of the nearby town are terrified. But these men meet Jesus, He casts out the demons, and heals them completely; however, the people of the neighboring town came, saw the men, and instead of rejoicing for them, they asked Jesus to leave. He did (see Matthew 9:1). What a sad state; they had God there, they had the healer of all manner of diseases there, the Savior of mankind there, and they asked Him to leave.

In like manner, Paul (who I think is the author of Hebrews) lays out for the last ten chapters the fact that Jesus is our High Priest and our Sacrifice and that with His own blood, He has paid for our sins. His atoning blood, His atoning sacrifice, and His atoning life are all that we have to be saved. ALL else is futile. No mere man, no mere human high priest, no mere spiritual guru can offer what Jesus offers. He and He alone as the only begotten Son of God, the one who is perfect, yet died as a sinner and then rose from the dead – that Jesus is the only offer of salvation to the whole world, Jew and Gentile alike. There are NO OTHER means of salvation. There is no other sacrifice for our sins; it is finished and done.

Those who reject Jesus’ loving and willing sacrifice are now under God’s wrath in that they have spat God’s Son and His pain and suffering on their behalf. By going back to animal sacrifices, you are diminishing the power and importance of Jesus’ blood sacrifice. The only thing left for you is God’s wrath. You, my friend, are in a dangerous place. God will allow you to deride Him, but when you deride His Son, you messed with the wrong Heavenly Father.

• Willful Reaction, verse 31

God’s reaction to your willful disobedience and willful dismissal of His Son’s suffering and sacrifice will not go unnoticed and unpunished. Once you have rejected Jesus, you have chosen to come out from under God’s grace and be subject to His wrath. There is no in-between. When you hear the Gospel, the Holy Spirit brings to light three things, John 16:8,13,

“And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:

“However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come” (NKJV).

The Holy Spirit tells you the Gospel is true, and then you have the choice to follow His leading or to reject it. He reminds us that we are sinners, He reminds us of the righteousness of God (and lack of our own), and that there is a judgment to come. When He does this, we choose whether or not to accept the offer of salvation – acknowledge that it is true, that we are sinners, that God is righteous, and that we deserve judgment. When we come to this understanding, we can then call on God’s mercy and ask Him to cover us in Jesus’ righteousness, forgive all of our sins (past, present, and future), and we are born again (John 3:3).

Sadly, many reject this call; they know, they see, and they simply reject God’s gracious gift. I have seen it happen. Paul tells us that the only thing left for those that reject Jesus’ offer of salvation is God’s vengeance. I shudder just writing this. Please do not reject Jesus.

I will leave you with these two verses to ponder and maybe to share; govern yourself accordingly.

2 Corinthians 5:21 “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Galatians 3:13 “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’).”

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

How to Connect with Us

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MississaugaMissionaryBaptistChurch
Online: https://mmbchurch.ca/
Email: seangooding@mmbchurch.ca; support@mmbchurch.ca