Gospel Gleanings, “…especially the parchments”
Volume 34, Number 2 January 8, 2017
Walking in Faith or Perdition; We Choose
Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. (Hebrews 10:38-39)
The reference to Habbakuk 2:4, the just walking by faith, in this context urges our discipleship pursuit of Jesus’ personal example of faith. These verses would touch deep sensitivities in the first Jewish readers of this letter. They lived for much of their lives as devout Jews attending to their worship in the synagogues and periodic visits to the temple in Jerusalem. When they heard the gospel, they were converted and joyfully followed Jesus, even when it meant intense persecution. As their trials wore on over time, they apparently became discouraged and were presently considering giving up on their faith and returning to the synagogue. The latter half of Hebrews 10 forms a well-reasoned and sound appeal that such a major lifestyle change, anchored in their forsaking their faith in Jesus and their place in the New Testament church, would prove devastating to them. They would be abandoning the one lifestyle that the Lord had blessed and would continue to bless if they remained steadfast in it. They would be returning to a nicely decorated but empty place of worship (Matthew 12:44) that the Lord Himself had now forsaken, a worn out house that was ready to collapse and vanish. (Hebrews 8:13) The writer in no way has regarded these people as mere pretenders to the faith who are “Not really saved at all.” He has regarded them as redeemed, saved, and admirable saints in the faith, but beleaguered discouraged saints who were presently staggering in their walk of faith. He has reason to expect “better things” of them than any notion of abandoning their faith and the church that served as the pillar and ground of that faith, “things that accompany salvation.” (Hebrews 6:9)
What is the best way to appeal to a discouraged believer? A major tactic in today’s man-centered superficial religious world is to threaten the tired believer. Lay a guilt trip on them. “If you pursue this course, I cannot give you any assurance that you are really born again.” The pastor or believer who adopts these humanistic strategies chooses to ignore the rich example of Hebrews. The Book of Hebrews begins with an intense reminder of God and Jesus’ finished and successful work. He didn’t fail in His work; He succeeded! Because of His success, believers are never left alone to fend for themselves against all manner of adversaries, including some that live inside their own “Skin.” They have the host of heaven’s angels ready “…to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation.” (Hebrews 1:14b) They no longer must approach God through a human and often cold hearted or even unbelieving priest. (In the first century the Sadducees had gained permanent control over the priesthood. Not believing in angels, life after death, or the resurrection, they viewed their control over the priesthood solely in terms of furthering their political ambitions, not as being God’s compassionate ministers to His people) Thus Paul’s arguments in the early chapters of Hebrews that start with Jesus being better than—not as the best of—created angels, as Him manifesting that He had been and remained God’s exclusive priest over the family of God, not just Jewish believers, were precisely structured to remind these discouraged Jewish believers of everything they had in Jesus—and everything they were walking away from should they follow their discouraged hearts and return to the synagogue. Beginning in Chapter 10 with the “Having—let us” reasoning, including the warning not to forsake their faith that centrally included the assembly of the saints who, like them, believed in Jesus, these Jewish believers are solemnly warned that abandoning their knowledge of the faith, and even the object of that faith Himself, was not a minor lifestyle change that they could choose without consequences. No, their choice would not negate their eternal and blood-bought position in the family of God, but they were dreadfully delusional to think that they could so abandon their faith without consequences—dire consequences. Paul’s “Of how much sorer punishment” warning in Hebrews 10:29 was a grave reminder that they could not so flippantly abandon their faith and avoid the frowning chastening of their God and Savior. “Oh, but I will still believe in Jesus privately” would not fly with Paul, I believe the human author of Hebrews, much less with the Lord. It was God who imposed death on willful sin under Moses’ Law, and it was that same God who personally administered His present kingdom which these people were thinking to abandon. The much sorer punishment of Hebrews 10:29 is clearly depicted as far more severe than the Lord’s righteous judgment against His people’s sins in the Old Testament era. You say, “What could be more severe than death?” Think. If you abandon your faith and your fellowship with faithful people, you leave yourself to face every problem you’ll face in life, every obstacle, and every spiritual adversary alone! Yes, alone. If that doesn’t frighten you, you are impervious to fear. I’ve yet to meet that person. A “Living death” is far more frightening and severe than the quick death of God’s judgment in the Old Testament. Ponder this passage.
The Lord is with you, while ye be with him; and if ye seek him, he will be found of you; but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you. (2 Chronicles 15:2b)
I often point out the blasphemous error of fatalists who claim that God on occasion “Leaves us to ourselves” for various reasons, most often identified as rather arbitrary and manipulative. Does this passage and the points I here examine compromise my objection to this fatalistic notion? No, not at all. There is nothing arbitrary about the Lord’s warnings to His people in the passage. It states a bedrock Biblical truth. God is ever as close to us as we are close to Him. When we forsake Him, He never promises in Scripture to continue blessing us as if we remained faithful and steadfast in our faith in Him. You think you can deal with life without God in your corner? Do you really want to try that approach? As a pastor for some sixty years, I have witnessed the lives of many people who followed this delusional thinking. I’ve never actually spoken the words in that setting, but I have often thought them. When these people contact me later to tell me about all the disappointments and to describe the painful scars that life has etched into them, I do think, “You told me you wanted to go your own way and not the Lord’s way. This is precisely what God warned you against in His Word. You chose to ignore Him, His Word, and His people. How is that working out for you?”
Our study passage precisely reminds us of the outcome of the choice to abandon the Lord and His ways. It always leads to “Perdition,” translated from a Greek word that means destruction or loss. The same word was translated as “waste” in Matthew 26:8.
When Paul wrote, “But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition,” he was not necessarily referring to being turned away from the Lord on the Day of Judgment. He is contrasting two lifestyles for believers. One lifestyle he describes by the Habakkuk citation and the reminder that the good way always requires that we walk by faith, a walk that follows the dictates and examples of Scripture and never our own private ideas or wishes. He will describe this lifestyle and its blessings in Hebrews 11. The other lifestyle, however nicely the tempter dresses it up to seem either appealing or harmless at the moment, leads to “perdition,” to destruction of our present fellowship with the Lord, to the loss of what we treasure in the faith, and to a wasted life. Those are all the consequences that this context warns us are inevitable should we choose to follow our pains and our discouraged hearts in times of difficulty. Consider one more Old Testament passage that almost certainly describes a timeless principle of the Lord’s chastening disapproval of our unbelieving choices to do things our way instead of the Lord’s.
Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow. (Isaiah 50:11)
Imagine a cold night with you all alone in a lonely desert. You gather what meager sticks and fuel you can find and start sparking a flint to ignite your fire. However, you never get past the spark. Sparks rightly used with the right fuel can start a fire that will keep you warm, but you simply can’t get past the sparks. No fire however hard you work at making sparks. You shiver in the cold all night long. Now contrast a warm blazing fire that keeps you toasty warm through the long cold night. With every problem we face, with every trial we must endure, we face the choice. Do it your own way and spend the night with sparks, or follow the Lord’s way and find rest in the warmth of His fire. The night comes either way. It is cold either way. The difference appears in the way you will spend the night, warm or shivering cold. The health and wealth gospel idea that you serve God to gain creature comforts and avoidance of trouble is in fact a cruel hoax. I doubt that any believer living today could boast of the same faithfulness in the pressure cooker of life that we read of Paul in the New Testament. If Paul was so faithful, why did he yet endure so many troubles and trials? (Acts 20:23; even the Holy Spirit told Paul that he would face bonds and afflictions in every city)
Whether you serve God or not, your life shall surely be punctuated with many painful disappointments and trials. The difference that you may experience from following the Lord versus going your own way is not utter avoidance of trouble, but how you will face them. Alone? Or with the Lord by your side, providing His warming fellowship and aid through the night? You make the choice when you choose to follow the Lord’s way or your own, and nothing you think or do can avoid the consequences in either situation. Alone or with the Lord by your side, that is the question you face with every pain and every trial that invades your life.
Paul writes that we are “…of them that believe to the saving of the soul.” The saving of which he writes appears in this context. It is a saving that Paul associates with “Having…let us…,” a saving that we experience only to the extent that we consciously and faithfully keep our lives within the tender fellowship of the assembly of His people. It is a saving that we realize here and now in the cold nights of our lives, a saving by the warm fireside of fellowship with the Lord as we stand with Him and He abides with us through the night. It is a saving from a long, cold, dark night with nothing but vain sparks of our own making that never get the fire started. I join with Paul as I think of my own life and its trials, including trials I now face and no doubt shall continue to face till I check out and go home. I think of the trials and pains of the many believers whom I know and love, whom I care deeply about and seek to encourage on their journey. I long to see them—us all—endure the cold nights of trial beside the warm fires of the Lord’s grace and fellowship, fellowship with Him and with His people, in ways that avoid wasted perdition and bear rich godly fruit, “…and things that accompany salvation.”
The theme in Chapter 10 sets the stage for Chapter 11 and the good way of faith. A review of the “Heroes of faith” in Chapter 11 should wisely remind us of the choices we make in our difficult trials. We choose the way of faith, God’s way that He has set forth in Scripture, a way that involves His protective grace, His warming, cheering fellowship, and the fellowship and encouragement of His people in the church, His “…pillar and ground of the truth.” When life’s crazy difficult trials invade your life, remember these lessons. Choose the way of faith and fellowship with the Lord and with His people. Allow Him and them to walk the way with you. Always remember. There is another path. However appealing the gate leading into that path may seem, it is the path of waste, your wasted life, your lost opportunity to find joy in your journey, fellowship with the Lord and other believers through the cold lonely nights of your trials. Choose the way of faith and not the way of waste.
Little Zion Primitive Baptist Church
16434 Woodruff
Bellflower, California
Worship service each Sunday 10:30 A. M.
Joseph R. Holder Pastor