Verse 32 and following, But call to remembrance
the former days, in which, after ye were
illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions,
partly whilst ye were made a gazing-stock,
both by reproaches and afflictions, and partly whilst
ye became companions of them that were so
used.
For ye had compassion of me in my
bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your
goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in
heaven a better and enduring substance.
Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath
great recompense of reward.
For ye have need of patience, that after
ye have done the will of God ye
might receive the promise.
For yet a little while, and he that
shall come will come, and will not tarry.
Now they 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 under perdition, but of them that believe
to the saving of the soul.
Now, the purpose of this little oratory passage
here is to restore and maintain spiritual confidence
in these young Christians.
You know, you can beat a congregation to
death very easily by always presenting the dangerous
side of things and never admitting or acknowledging
any good when it is found.
The men of God who wrote the New
Testament epistle did not make that mistake, neither
did our Lord.
But while they were very faithful to rebuke
and chasten and exhort and warn, at the
same time they also were very careful to
encourage.
We have here an encouraging passage of scripture.
This is for your encouragement.
He says, Call to remembrance the former days.
Now, here is seen the right use of
remembrance.
It is to unite our yesterdays with our
today and our tomorrows.
If we had no remembrance of what had
been, we would be vegetables and not men.
By the mystery and wonder of remembrance we
make yesterday today, and today will be tomorrow.
Because our memory unites things, and a human
life is like a painting.
A painter begins with his canvas in one
corner or top or bottom or somewhere, and
he lays stroke after stroke and line upon
line and color upon color and shade upon
shade, and when it is all finished, he
has his picture there and it is composed
of what he gave it during the time
he was painting it.
Now, human life is very much like that.
If a painter were painting a picture and
he laid on a brush stroke, and then
when he dipped in the paint for the
next brush stroke, the first one disappeared.
And that was that way all the way
through.
When he put on number two, number one
disappeared.
When he was finished, he would have a
blank canvas.
The only stroke would be the last one
he laid on, and it would disappear shortly.
Now, life is not to be like that.
Life is to be like the first.
Life is to be a composite of all
of its experiences.
So we are to call to remembrance, and
that's the right use of remembrance.
But there are some who say that we
should not remember at all, and they quote
Paul who said that he forgot the things
that were past.
But this is a misunderstanding because, you see,
we're forcing a statement out of its context.
Any figure of speech or any passage of
scripture, if it is forced out of its
proper meaning, and is not corrected by other
passages of scripture, will lead you wrong.
For instance, if you take the word leaven,
and make the word leaven always to mean
something bad, then you of course take that
authority on yourself to do that.
But if you do, you will miss much
of the meaning of the scripture.
Take the expression dead in sin.
Because the Bible says that the she that
liveth in pleasure is dead in sin, while
she liveth, and because the Bible talks about
sinners as being dead, we therefore have had
those Christian believers who claim that a Christian
is dead, unable to think, unable to help
himself, unable to reason or to want to
do right, unable to make up his mind
to do right, unable to repent, unable to
do anything, until he has been regenerated by
a sovereign arbitrary act of God.
Then he repents, then he believes, then he
turns to God, only after he has been
regenerated.
And that's taking the passage of scripture dead
in sin, and making it simply ridiculous.
Because what is meant here, of course, is
he is dead to God.
He, in this case, dead to God, dead
to good, dead to righteousness, dead to heaven.
But a long way from being dead, some
of these ladies who love pleasure, are a
long way from being dead.
They keep the drugstores and other stores in
business by the amount of extra adornment they
buy.
They keep the closures and the hat-makers
also, and they keep their husband jumping to
keep them with a new car under them.
And they generally are a long way from
dead.
But they are dead in the sense the
Bible meant it, that's all.
And so it is with sheep.
If the Bible says, as it does say,
ye are my sheep, my sheep hear my
voice, if we are to take that as
meaning always, that the Lord's people are sheep,
then of course we couldn't be men anymore.
We would have to be sheep.
But it's a figure of speech, and so
it is with birds and all else.
So when the Bible says that I forget
the things that are behind and press toward
the things that are ahead, it doesn't mean
that we are to cease to remember all
that is past, and let the brush strokes
of our experience disappear like disappearing ink.
And if we did it, I say, we
would have a blank and no experience at
all.
Now what did Paul forget?
Well, Paul tried to forget what kind of
man he'd been before.
He said he was circumcised the eighth day
of the stock of Israel, of the tribe
of Benjamin, Hebrew of the Hebrews.
Touching the law, he was a Pharisee.
Concerning the zeal, he was persecuting the church.
Touching righteousness of the law, he was blameless
in all this.
But he said, I forget these things and
press on.
He wouldn't allow any memory of yesterday to
slow him down.
So the proper use of remembrance is to
remember the things that help us and try
to forget the things that do not.
Now he says that Paul forgot only those
things that slowed him down, that hindered him
from making progress, but he says that we
are to remember other things.
Now in this time of crisis, keep in
mind your past.
Keep in mind your fight of affliction when
you became a Christian.
Keep in mind that you were a gazing
stock.
Keep in mind that you endured the spoiling
of your goods and cast not away, therefore,
your confidence.
Like a soldier or like a group of
soldiers, a company of soldiers that become suddenly
frightened, lose heart, their courage collapses, they throw
away their guns, the only protection they have,
and make a headlong dash toward the rear.
Now a Christian can get in that same
fix.
Don't forget that.
We get the impression from the preachers, and
we don't mean to give it, but somehow
we do give it, that Christianity is a
pink cloud upon which God floats you off
to heaven, without any discipline, without any will,
without any purpose, without any subtle confidence, but
simply with a great deal of emotion we
are swept along.
The truth is, the Bible has as much
or more to say about confidence and vows
and purpose and will and determination than it
does about joy.
The Lord knows that a man can be
happy and be a scoundrel, but the Lord
also knows that if a man has set
his face like a flint to do the
will of God, he'll not be a scoundrel,
but he'll make it through.
Now Satan tries to terrorize and stampede God's
people, and God says, you're not green troops.
Don't you remember how once in your early
Christian lives you suffered for Christ's sake?
You're not green troops, you're not rookies who
don't know how to handle a gun.
Remember, he said, the time when you first
became a Christian and were first illuminated, how
you suffered for Christ's sake.
Remember that.
Your great fight of affliction.
Remember, you were made a gazing star.
People looked at you as they would look
at a three-headed calf in a zoo.
They looked at you as if you were
completely crazy.
Remember that.
Remember the affliction you endured.
Remember that you became companions of people who
were afflicted and persecuted.
And remember that you lost your property for
Christ's sake.
You lost your goods for Christ's sake.
And therefore, have courage and keep up your
confidence.
I say Satan tries to terrorize, but he
says, he that cometh will come and will
not tarry.
He that cometh will come.
He'll either come now to your present help
if you need him and when you need
him, or he will come to your final
curing, whichever or both.
He will come, the Lord will come, so
don't let it bother you.
I believe in this.
He will come, as the hymn says, to
terminate the evil and to die at him
the right.
Now the just shall live by faith.
Notice it here.
The just shall live by faith.
Not the just shall live by his feeling,
but the just shall live by faith.
Faith here is complete confidence.
It's not an act of believing once done.
It's not something that you do and settle
it.
It is a complete confidence that remains with
you all the time.
Faith is a complete confidence, a state of
confidence maintained.
A state of confidence first in God.
We must and we shall, we must believe
in God.
Then we must believe in his Son Jesus
Christ, the work he did for us and
the work he's doing for us at the
right hand of God now.
We must maintain a state of confidence in
the promises of God.
And we must maintain a state of confidence
and certainty that God will come to our
help.
The Christian is completely thrown out on God,
completely.
He's thrown out on God and the writer
of the Hebrew says, here, you've turned away
from the world and you're attached to Jesus
Christ.
Now be confident and maintain your confidence, for
the just shall live by his faith.
There are lots of times when you will
not have any spiritual feeling at all.
So when that time comes, live by faith.
The writer of Thomas Acampos said that when
the Lord withdraws his comforts from me, that
is when I no longer feel like singing,
when he withdraws his comforts, he said, it
is my business to remain uncomforted until the
time the Lord gives me my comforts back
again.
So we are therefore to have our confidence,
but it's a long-range confidence, not a
petulant demand for immediate vindication.
A lot of books have been written on
prayer that never should have been written, and
a lot of people buy them, my God,
poor sheep.
They have very little discernment, and so they
buy a book that has a nice cover,
and they read it.
And a lot of books on prayer are
dedicated to, as one man said, getting things
from God.
That was the name of his book, Getting
Things From God.
God has things, and you go and get
them from God.
Now that is one aspect of prayer, but
it's only one aspect of prayer.
The 11th chapter of Hebrews, which we come
to next in our consideration, is the chapter
of faith.
And you will find in that chapter that
very few of the fruits of faith were
given to the people while they were on
earth.
They had a long-range faith that looked
into the future and dared to count the
things that were not as though they were,
and the things that were as though they
were not, that dared to believe in the
long-range view.
And so many of the most of them
died without seeing the fulfillment of the promises.
But they lived on and died, and are
with the Lord.
And as the choir sang, the souls of
the righteous are in the hands of God.
In the old apocryphal book, The Wisdom of
Solomon.
And the souls of the righteous are in
the hands of God, and no evil shall
befall them.
And though we think that they died under
God's discipline, it was God who took them
where they are to be safe, said the
old writer, and keep them.
So these people in the 11th chapter of
Hebrews were not the nickel-in-the-slot
Christians, the kind that went to the Lord
and got things from God.
They believed God for things too big to
get now.
If you're satisfied with ten cents store jewelry,
God might be willing to give it to
you now.
But the great things, the mighty things, God
is making you wait, to discipline you.
If you want simply, if you want a
mushroom, it'll grow overnight, let it rain, and
you'll have your mushroom in the morning.
But if you want an oak tree, wait
seventy years, and take the long-range view
and believe for the future.
I think it's entirely possible to be petulant
and demanding, and go to God and say,
God, I'll have this and this and this,
and I'll have this.
And sometimes the Lord gives it and then
sends leanness to the soul.
I'm not saying he doesn't answer prayer.
There are times, there are critical times when
God does answer prayer immediately and at once.
There are times when he has to answer
at once.
There are times when God has to send
the answer special delivery.
He hasn't got time to wait for the
regular mail, and he does it.
I've had him do it.
I know that, but I say that's one
aspect of prayer, and one aspect of faith.
The other aspect is the long-range view,
that just shall live by his faith.
If he feels good in the morning, he
will thank God and go his way.
If he doesn't feel good in the morning,
he will thank God and go his way.
One man I heard make a testimony once.
I smiled at the time, but I see
a lot of wisdom in it.
He said, I feel just as good when
I don't feel good as I do when
I feel good.
And I believe in this.
I believe in this kind of Christianity, to
feel just as good when you don't feel
good as you do when you feel good.
God loves that kind of thing.
If a man only loved his wife when
he felt good, and as soon as he
got a headache or a pain in his
chest, he didn't love his wife anymore, all
the homes in the world would break up
overnight.
But the simple fact is, love is not
something that rides out on your emotions for
the moment, in spite of Hollywood and Jane
Mansfield.
Love is something that's a fixed and settled
thing.
Now, you've got to have a subtle determination,
a subtle determination to identify yourself with God's
cause.
Identify yourself.
I remember an old fellow, a young fellow
at the time, in the Old Testament, Elijah.
Elijah went by, flung his mantle at him,
Elijah, and decided he was going to follow
the prophet.
Sometime in getting over that fence and joining
the prophet, he said to himself, now, I
have given up everything to follow Elijah.
And he did.
Turned back, said to himself, now if my
cattle are alive, I'll be tempted to go
back to my cattle.
And if my plows, or wooden plows, if
my plows are in order, I'll be tempted
to go back to my plow.
I'll kill my cattle and use the plow
for fuel, and we'll have a big feast
and celebrate the fact that I've quit farming
and started following a prophet.
He settled it.
And if anybody, his wife or somebody, said
afterward, Elijah, don't you think you'd go back,
Elijah?
He said, go back to what?
The cows are dead.
Go back to what?
The plows don't exist anymore.
They've been made to ashes, no place to
go back to.
He had a subtle determination that he was
going to follow.
I believe in this, and I believe that
we ought to teach it to young Christians.
We ought to get the idea ourselves, and
then we ought to teach it.
And we ought to show young people that
when they become Christians, one aspect of their
conversion is that of a subtle determination to
follow Jesus Christ, regardless of what it may
cost you or how you may feel about
it at any given time.
I think it was Dr. Simpson who said,
Christians' feelings are like the loose change in
his pocket, never the same twice.
You look at the loose change just after
you go out of church today, and then
look at it tonight, and there's a way
of changing somewhere right in your pocket.
Actually, it doesn't, you know, but it seems
to, because it's so variable.
And a subtle confidence that you're on God's
side.
I speak to a lot of these.
I talk to a lot of seminary students
and so on.
I had a wonderful young doctor just getting
his M.D. out to see me last
night.
For two hours and 15 minutes we discussed
things pertaining to his life.
And psychiatrists and the anthropologists and all the
rest have greatly disturbed our young people.
Greatly disturbed.
But they say, that which was right to
our fathers isn't right to us.
And that which our fathers believed in, we
don't believe in anymore.
Don't you see that, Mr. Torshaw?
That they believed this was wrong.
Today they accept it.
So they make morals to be relative.
That's what you call the relativity of morals.
That is, there's nothing pinned down.
There's nothing right in itself.
It just floats.
If you think it's right, it's right.
And if you don't think it's right, it
isn't right.
Everything floats.
But the Christian isn't taking any, any of
that kind of moonshine.
The Christian knows better than that.
He has settled it.
He believes in God the Father Almighty.
He believes in his Holy Son who died
for him.
He believes in the will of God as
his righteousness.
He believes in the Bible as the fixed
revelation of divine truth.
And whatever the anthropologist may say in a
given day, whatever the psychiatrist may say in
a given day, he knows in whom he
has believed.
And he's able, knows he's able to keep
that which he's committed unto him against that
day.
Of marginal things.
Our friends, some of our friends are Mennonites
and Amish people out through the state of
Pennsylvania.
They won't drive an automobile.
They drive a horse and buggy.
I, for my part, can't see any morality
in that.
That is, I can't see the difference between
a horse and buggy and an automobile except
for convenience and speed.
Just the way of getting around.
I'm willing to let them have their opinion
about it.
But that isn't what you set your mind
on.
You set your mind to do the will
of God.
You can do the will of God in
an airplane.
I suppose you can do the will of
God in a space capsule, but that's one
place I don't intend to do the will
of God.
Unless he sends me, and then of course
if he sends me, I'll go.
But I doubt whether he'll choose me.
He's choosing some old fellows, around 40, but
I doubt whether he'll choose me.
Now, we've got to make up our minds.
And we've got to make up our minds
by a long-range, settled determination that we're
going to bear the cross without ceasing, and
as far as possible, without whimpering.
Dr. R.
R.
Brown tells about a dear old Swedish woman
who was dying.
He was at her bedside.
She was a sweet old saint.
She was praying to the Lord in English,
but with a kind of an accent.
And then she turned and testified to the
man of God, and she said, she said,
My father's been with me all these years,
she said, and he's blessed me.
And she said, He's kept me from sin,
almost.
She was honest.
It's pretty close to being, it was approximation,
but she remembered a few little things that
didn't exactly qualify righteousness, so she said, almost.
And I believe this, that we are settled
to bear the cross and to do the
will of God, and if there should be
a necessity for a little bracket, a little
almost in there, put it in there.
Be honest with God, but see to it
that you carry the cross, and live for
another world than this, and serve and wait
for God's time, and lose whatever God calls
you to lose, whatever it might be, lose
it.
It's all right.
Lose it, and honor God in everything.
Now, that's a subtle determination.
He said, I want you to do this.
Call to remembrance, and remember how you've lived.
Now, don't get panicky, and don't quit, and
don't get discouraged, and don't give up, because
things aren't moving the way you think they
ought to move in your life, or in
your church, or in your home.
Cast not away your confidence.
The just shall live by faith.
That makes me feel good, just to hear
him say it, just to know that this
is the way God wants his people to
live.
He doesn't give us little wings and say,
now fly away.
He says, the just shall live by faith,
and we walk by faith, and not by
sight.
Any man draw back, he says, he draws
back because of fear, or love of this
world, or love of life, or because of
impatience, because God doesn't answer his prayer, he
wants to get mad and quit.
Well, he hasn't got faith.
Go on believing.
We're not of them that draw back, but
of them that believe.
So, what should concern you this morning is
not how you feel, but how you believe.
Not how you feel, but what you believe,
and how firmly you believe it.
And as we celebrate this morning, the called
out people, separated from the world by an
act of the Holy Ghost, and by an
act of our own.
We look like other people, but we're not
like other people.
We're God's people.
And when we celebrate the Lord's Supper, it
is a remembrance.
These things do in remembrance of me.
As we look back at all that God
has done, and forward to all that God
will do, it ties our yesterdays and our
todays and our yesterdays.
God bless us, and give us grace now,
so that this Feast of Remembrance will mean
something to us.