Correction from God (Part A)

He doesn't have to come out right and say it, then he would be accused of boasting. But again, I believe it is Paul that wrote this letter for increasing, multiple, and still going reasons why I believe it is him. But there are some Christians, and I hope it's not you.

You won't even, not you, but whoever the one is guilty, you will not resist to inconvenience. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Hebrews.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of Hebrews chapter 12 as he begins his message, Correction from God. We are in Hebrews chapter 12, and if you have your Bibles, we will read Hebrews 12 verses 3 through 11. For consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. You have not yet resisted to bloodshed striving against sin, and you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons. My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by him, for whom the Lord loves, he chastens and scourges every son whom he receives. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons, for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons.

Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us, as seemed best to them, but he for our prophet that we may be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Well, last section where we had just this outpouring of faith and tying in the Hebrew letter, now the writer turns to correction. Well, the entire letter is one of correction. That is why he has taken them to task in what we now know as the letter to the Hebrews.

He is trying to correct the course that some of them are on, which is a collision course to apostasy. And reading from Psalm 19, verse 7, the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. And that is to make the simple wise or the untrained wise you have to educate them, you have to train them, you have to turn lights on in the dark and then explain what is being looked at. All instruction, all education is an attack on ignorance and so it should be.

Now you can use the word ignorance in an insulting way or you can use it in a very general way and that is how I am using it now. But here these Hebrews that were considering abandoning the faith were making a grave mistake and they needed correction. And so we look now at verse 3 again, he writes, for consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.

As I am reading this I am saying to myself there are so many directions to go in to make application from this and it is important to stay disciplined and according to how the Lord has first shared it with me and hopefully it will be a benefit to you. That first or second word consider, for consider, in the Greek that word is the word we get our English word analyze from. In fact it is pronounced almost identically in the Greek and he is saying contemplate, analyze, consider, study, scrutinize Jesus. Remember in verse 2 if you look up he says looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith as we know him to be but looking unto Jesus. And then he says for consider him, analyze him. Now where he is going with this of course is Jesus who has taken head on persecution that was hurled at him. And these Hebrews at the time of the writing they were beginning to want to abandon the faith because they just retired of the persecution.

Now they had not yet suffered to blood and as we just read in the reading of this passage and we will come to that. So he says analyze him and this isn't of course to criticize it is to gain. We do it when we study the word of God. We are analyzing God in its proper form. He who endured such hostility from sinners against himself. He that being Jesus.

This example that he has left us. Well you might say but that was the son of God. He could endure persecution. He is made of finer stuff.

Well you bet he is. But he has had many of his sons and daughters stare down and swallow to the dregs the cup of persecution and bring glory to his name nonetheless. So there's no way out of this. It is in our interest as Christians who in this country live in relative peace with our faith right now for now. It is a good idea to be more and more mindful of persecution. One way is praying for those who are persecuted and another one is just just considering that it can happen here and it very very possibly will.

May we be ready because we have been in the scriptures. Now our Lord of course he endured what was not fair. Well we know life is not fair.

That doesn't make it all that much easier. But it is important to understand this. And so we consider him who was persecuted for what? Righteousness sake.

That's for what? It wasn't persecuted simply because he had a different opinion though he did have that. But it was righteousness. His righteousness. And so he taught about persecution. He taught his disciples to face this. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake. We cannot leave out that word falsely.

It's very important. That is just where these Christians were. They were being reviled.

Not yet physically assaulted but they were being reviled and they were looking to get out of it. It is not easy. It is not supposed to be easy. It cannot be easy.

That's why it's not supposed to be. Those aren't the terms that we are faced in this life. Any idea that someone may have that obedience leads to easy street has an opinion that is contrary to scripture. Obedience leads to obedience. And that is worship. That is one of our ways of honoring our Lord is doing what he has told us to do. If you love me, he said, keep my commandments. And of course he has made provisions for when we stumble. If obedience brought in an easy life then they never would have crucified Christ who lived more obediently than he.

No one. He followed the Father completely more than any of us put together could ever do. And yet he was scourged and shamed and crucified. And so when we are persecuted for righteousness sake, it is not that something wrong is happening to us. It is something right happening to us on the battlefield of humanity, fallen humanity. And so he says, consider the one who endured such hostility from sinners against himself lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. That lest, lest you become. It will show up a couple of times in this remainder of this chapter. It is so that none of you.

That is the meaning behind its placement there. Weary and discouraged to the point of uselessness. That is Satan's plan for your life. To make you weary to the point of uselessness for the kingdom. No glory is radiating or coming out of the life. You're just living for yourself. The woe is me will put you there. The doldrums of, you know, I'm treated wrong. I'm not getting my share. So easy happens to all of us.

What are you going to do about it? Satan has a plan for your life. You know, we've heard that soul. God has a plan for your life. Well, I don't dispute that. But that plan, that's a bloody road.

That's a hard road. And each one of us needs to go down it. Again, that's what Bunyan, John Bunyan was trying to illustrate in Pilgrim's Progress. Well, Satan has a plan too.

In verse 2, for you have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin. Now, of course, the writer speaks as though he has. That is the tone.

I think it's inescapable. He doesn't have to come out right and say it. Then he would be accused of boasting. But, again, I believe it is Paul that wrote this letter for increasing multiple and still going reasons why I believe it is him. But there are some Christians, and I hope it's not you. You won't even, not you, but whoever the one is guilty, you will not resist to inconvenience. It says here, you've not yet resisted to bloodshed. How many of us won't resist to inconvenience in our grappling with sin and not just our personal sin? If you have that opinion that all sin is just yours and your life, what about everybody else that we're called to reach, to strengthen, to encourage, to uphold? So this audience, they have suffered persecution but not to blood.

We read that in chapter 10. But recall the form of days, Hebrews 10 verse 32, in which after you were illuminated, that has come to the faith, you endured a great struggle with sufferings. Partly while you were made a spectacle, both by reproaches and tribulations, and partly while you became companions of those who were so treated. For you had compassion on me in my chains, in my chains that is, and joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods, knowing that you have a better and an enduring possession for yourselves in heaven. So he says to these believers, once upon a time, you were solid in the faith. You were saved, you were willing to take persecution on, even for me. When I was in a shameful state, I was in jail, in chains. You reached out to me. We're not ashamed to do so and to be associated with me.

Now you're wanting to go back. You've not yet resisted to bloodshed. So don't feel too good about yourselves. He's not being harsh with them, but he's being straight on and he's got a lot to say. He says, striving against sin.

Now that's a lifelong affair for us. There will be no rest for you striving against sin, personal or someone else's, trying to lead them to Christ, trying to keep them. He is the author. He is striving against sin, the sin of their potential apostasy. He's striving against it. He's resisting.

He's not taking this sitting down. So we must prepare ourselves as we strive against sin. Is there any Christian here that does not, don't raise your hand, but that is not striving against sin? Something's wrong with you, very seriously, according to the scripture, which is the standard, not because it is my opinion. And you say, I resent that.

Well, with that resentment, you are making an admission. You are admitting that you're not striving, and if you're good with that, that should be proof. Striving against sin, does this not sum up the lives of the apostles, the disciples of Christ, examples for us to follow? Does this not sum up the Christian experience when carried out obediently?

When Christians obey, are they not striving against sin? This is the role of the individual Christian in service of the king. This is the role of the obedient church. Wherever she works, in whatever age she stands, if she is not standing, she is not a church. A church is called out by definition of the name, to the Lord, to stand against the works of the devil. If the church is not doing that, she is apostate. She has fallen from the faith. Otherwise, why are we left here in this cursed world, if we're not to strive against sin?

When we lose sight of this, we begin to amass for ourselves the pleasures of this life, and Christ begins to reduce in our life, the light begins to dim. Who needs the church? If the church will not do what she is called to do, stand and strive for righteousness. God doesn't need that kind of a church. Sin is the cause of all suffering and the population of hell. Sin is the reason. We are not to take it lightly. The church at Laodicea, all the way back in Revelation chapter 3, all the way back in the age of the apostles, the church at Laodicea stopped striving against sin.

She had bigger fish to fry, things that would make people happy instead of holy. I have a poem here. I don't know who the author is.

I know the name, but I'm unfamiliar with the man. And I'll read the poem because I think he says just what needs to be said in every age. Let us not think, well, it's the church today. The church has been struggling against churches who refuse to struggle since there was a church. And you say, well, when are we ever going to win? When we get to heaven. It's the ones that come out of being wrong, that are corrected.

Those are the victories, and the others will reap what they sow. The church, begins the poem, has failed to tell me that I am a sinner. The church has failed to deal with me as a lost individual. The church has failed to offer me salvation in Jesus Christ alone. The church has failed to tell me of the horrible consequences of sin and the certainty of hell and the fact that Jesus Christ alone can save. We need more of the last judgment and less of the golden rule. More of living the living God and the living devil as well. More of a heaven to gain and a hell to shun. The church must bring me not a message of cultivation, but of rebirth.

I might fail that kind of church, but that kind of church will not fail me. It was written sometime back, probably before I was born, or when I was a lad, but it's right on. See this again, our subject is correction.

Correction from what? Straying off the course that Christ has set for us. That is what the writer is doing and we should be very, we should be all over this.

If you are nervous about it, that is a good thing. We are saved sinners and it falls to us to reach out to unsaved sinners to win them. That they would be saved and not lost and those who are already Christians, they need us, believe it or not.

I've made this comment quite a few times in the past and hopefully will continue to. It is very easy as a Christian to tell someone else that God loves them and wants to use them. But do we believe that about ourselves?

Do we believe that God loves me and wants to use me? You see, the problem is that we know in detail our personal flaws that others are not aware of, perhaps. And we get stunted right there. We feel disqualified. Well, you are if you lie down.

You are if you let it be that way. I'm not talking about gross overboard sins. I'm talking about those common things that cause us to fail to live to that high standard of holiness which we are called to.

We have to move forward nonetheless. In verse 5 he says, And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons. My son, do not despise the chastening of Yahweh, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by him. Now he's quoting Proverbs 3. Most of us, when we think of Proverbs 3, we think of, you know, lean not on your own understanding but in all your ways acknowledge the Lord, which is often quoted and seldom practiced it seems.

How many Christians are genuinely led by the Spirit and the spirit of obedience and love and truth. But back to this, he is quoting again that Proverb. He takes them to their scriptures as he should. This writer, again, whoever he may be, has roamed the Old Testament to extract his points of truth that must be made to encourage them, to win them, to turn their course away from the rocks. And so he has been all over the Old Testament. And again, as you read through Hebrews, you get a feeling this is the Old Testament and the New Testament. That is the scripture. And so my son, do not despise the chastenings of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked. The second part of Proverbs 3 comes in verse 6.

We'll come to that but there is much here at first to lay the groundwork to continue. Again, the correction that he is now speaking of is education. He is striking them with relevant truths, a virtual reality of truths for them. Truths that they couldn't escape that were right there in front of them. They weren't for some distant generation. They were not for other people outside the church. It was for them, personally. It is not random.

It is spot on virtual reality. And I emphasize it for them. From this verse 5 to verse 12, the word chasten appears seven times.

That's an emphasis there that we must not bypass. Now, the Greek word chasten is not like our English word. The Greek word used here for chastening means the training of a child, the education of a child, and all that belongs to that. It does not bear the idea of harshness like our English word does. See, in the English language when we say, I will chasten you, we mean we're going to put some pain on them.

I wrestled with this. Well, why couldn't the translators have done it differently? Because if you go to the Greek, it's clear. If you go to how the Greek word is used in Scripture, you come away with clearly this word is not a word of harshness.

Scourge is, and he'll use that in a minute. So don't, if you feel like, whew, you don't, not yet, not at all. And so to instruct, to learn, to teach, and the disciplines that go with that are implied without harshness. This can be grueling, especially on higher levels of education. Ephesians chapter 6, I'm going to read the verse, and then I'll point out the same Greek word, how it is used. Patterns is how we get to what is being said, what is the writer saying, and how is the audience going to accept it, and what am I supposed to do with it?

Well, we go to the patterns. He says in Ephesians 6, and you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. The word training there is the same Greek word translated here as chasen. It should be training, corrective training in the case of the Hebrews. Fathers, I need to say that again, don't provoke your children to wrath. Mothers, don't nag them to death.

If you're a parent, it's part of parenting. 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 16, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. That word instruction in righteousness, same Greek word translated here as chasen.

The word correction is not the same. That's the Greek word he would have used here if he meant harshness at this point. And so what I'm trying to let you know is where the writer of Hebrews says, my son, do not despise the chastenings of the Lord.

He is saying to them, don't despise the education in the faith. You've been listening to Cross-Reference Radio, the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Yastin of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. As we mentioned at the beginning of today's broadcast, today's teaching is available free of charge at our website. Simply log on to crossreferenceradio.com. That's crossreferenceradio.com. We'd also like to encourage you to subscribe to the Cross-Reference Radio podcast. Subscribing ensures that you stay current with all the latest teachings from Pastor Rick. You can subscribe at crossreferenceradio.com or simply search for Cross-Reference Radio in your favorite podcast app. Tune in next time as Pastor Rick continues teaching through the book of Hebrews right here on Cross-Reference Radio.