It would be impossible, of course, for me
to express properly my deep gratitude for the
enormous privilege of these days in Toronto.
I have greatly valued and appreciated renewing again
friendships that are more dear to me than
I could express, and to have the opportunity
of this fellowship and of people who are
willing to sit for really what is quite
a long time to listen to me.
I was hearing of one young man who
had never had to take down eight points
in his notes until last night, and I
think he gave up halfway through, but I
am deeply grateful for your patience in listening
so well.
I'm very thankful for the fellowship of so
many within the council of this convention, and
I delight in the opportunity of being in
Toronto again.
I'm not sure whether I brought this cold
here or picked it up in Toronto, but
I assure you I'll take it back to
Glasgow tomorrow with your warm good wishes to
my family.
Let me just say to you that I
greatly envy you, if it is a proper
thing to do, having Alistair Begg here next
year.
He is a very dear friend of mine
and had an outstanding ministry in the west
of Scotland.
He has been the one man that Dr.
Griffith's former church in Edinburgh greatly wanted to
be their pastor, and he is in Cleveland
in Ohio, and God has greatly blessed and
used him, and I'm sure you're going to
be greatly blessed in the grace and goodness
of God next year with his ministry.
Now let me ask you to turn again
to the Word of God with me, to
Hebrews chapter 12, and principally to the first
two verses of that chapter.
Over these three evenings we have been considering
together the great theme of Christian assurance or
Christian certainty, the theme of the eternal security
of the believer in Christ.
On Tuesday evening we concentrated on Paul's great
affirmation in Romans 8, 28.
We know that in all things God works
for the good of those who love him,
who have been called according to his purpose.
Last evening we sought to understand the great
and Jesus' uncompromising words regarding those who are
his sheep.
They, he says, shall never perish.
No man can pluck them out of my
hands.
But in the perfect balance of scripture I
want us to come this evening to another
emphasis that God sets before us in this
whole general theme of the perseverance of the
believer, and that is the exhortation that we
receive and which we read at the beginning
of Hebrews chapter 12, an exhortation to the
believer to persevere in the Christian race.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a
great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off
everything that hinders and the sin that so
easily entangles and let us run with perseverance
the race that is marked out for us.
You see, it would be possible for us
to listen to these great affirmations of Paul
and of Jesus and to draw a false
conclusion, namely, that since we can never perish
and no one can pluck us out of
Jesus Christ's hands and no one can take
us from the Father's hands, then since it
is true that nothing can separate us from
the love of God who is working all
things together for good to those who love
him, there is therefore every reason for us
to cease from any kind of effort and
simply to recognize the inevitability of our being
carried by a long to glory in the
fullness of time, no matter how we live.
And undoubtedly, that would be a logical conclusion
to draw, but it would certainly not be
a biblical conclusion to draw.
And it is a very important thing that
we should draw our conclusions about Christian truth
from Scripture as well as eliciting the truth
itself.
And it would be important for us, if
we had to choose, to be biblical and
illogical rather than to be logical and unbiblical.
And I want to press upon you what
is really the biblical conclusion to what we
have been considering together on these last two
evenings.
And the biblical conclusion is this exhortation the
writer of the epistle to the Hebrews gives
to us in Hebrews 12, 1 and 2.
It is, if you look more closely at
it, in fact, three exhortations rather than one.
And they each begin with the words, let
us.
In verse 1, let us throw off everything
that hinders and the sin that so easily
entangles.
Secondly, let us run with perseverance the race
marked out for us.
Thirdly, let us run with perseverance fix our
eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of
our faith, who for the joy set before
him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and
sat down at the right hand of the
throne of God.
Now these are the three exhortations I want
us to listen to this evening and see
how they become, in biblical terms, the logical
outcome of the great truths that we have
been considering on these last two evenings.
The second of these three exhortations is obviously
the central one in every sense, and I
want us to look at it first.
Let us run with perseverance the race that
is marked out for us.
This idea of perseverance is, of course, a
very common one in the New Testament.
The word is often translated patience or endurance,
and God's people are urged again and again
to have patience and endurance in the way
they live out this glorious life that God
has given to us in Jesus Christ.
Now what does it mean, then, this word
perseverance?
Well, you may have found, if you have
studied the Bible, that you can often tell
a great deal about a word, as you
can about people, by the company that they
keep.
And this particular word is generally found in
a certain context.
It is found in company with one or
other of two ideas or metaphors.
One is a military metaphor, where the idea
of perseverance means fighting to the end of
the battle and not desisting from deserting the
field, going on whatever the pains, whatever the
opposition, until the day when the victory is
won.
That is the first general background against which
you find this word.
And, of course, the Christian life is likened
to a battle, to a warfare, and it
is part of Paul's thinking about Christian experience,
for example, that he describes it in these
terms.
The other background is an athletic one, where
the word perseverance is used to describe the
kind of runner who enters upon the race
with his eyes set upon the goal, and
goes on to the very end, and never
drops out or leaves the field.
And these two backgrounds fill in for us
the significance of this word, perseverance.
Here in Hebrews twelve, it is obviously the
athletic metaphor that the apostle is using.
And he is urging these Hebrew believers to
live their lives like those who have entered
upon and committed themselves to a long-distance
race.
This is not some kind of short sprint.
It is not the hundred meters dash that
he is speaking of.
It is probably the marathon race.
It is a long-distance race.
And the point of the idea of perseverance
is that not just as we begin, but
right through until the very end, we are
to persevere.
We are to keep going on, and by
God's grace, in the end of the day,
to receive the crown or the prize.
Now you will know, of course, that the
apostle Paul uses both of these pictures of
the Christian life, and indeed brings them together
at the very end of his own Christian
pilgrimage.
And he describes them in a military and
athletic form.
I have fought the good fight.
I have finished the race.
Now this is the characteristic language that Paul
uses to describe his Christian pilgrimage.
Now these examples of persevering faith in chapter
11 of Hebrews are not only examples of
a long-distance race.
You think of how the writer in this
chapter that leads into the exhortation in verses
1 and 2 of chapter 12 describes for
us some of these great men of God
in the past who have gone on year
after year, decade after decade, and the great
mark of their life was that they persevered
to the end.
But their life was not simply a marathon
race.
It was also an obstacle race in so
many circumstances.
If you just look a little before the
twelfth chapter, for example, in verses 36 and
37 of chapter 11, you will see how
he describes some of these people who are
amongst the great cloud of witnesses who bear
witness to God's persevering grace in their own
lives.
What was the nature of the race they
ran?
Well, he says, some faced jeers and flogging
while still others were chained and put in
prison.
They were stoned.
They were sawed in two.
They were put to death by the sword.
They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute,
persecuted, and mistreated.
The world was not worthy of them.
They wandered in deserts and mountains and caves
and holes in the ground.
This is the characteristic of the race that
they ran.
And the great testimony of their lives is
that they persevered.
Now, the really important thing about that great
cloud of witnesses is what they witnessed to.
Let me emphasize to you that they did
not witness to their own extraordinary powers of
endurance.
One of the characteristic marks of biblical biography
is that it is woven through and through
with reality and honesty.
The great figure who dominates Hebrews 11, for
example, is Abraham.
And when you go into the book of
Genesis, you discover Abraham with all his frailties,
with the evidence of cowardice and weakness and
fear and selfishness, ready to sacrifice his wife
for his own safety.
You find so many things in the biographical
account of Abraham.
And what God is saying to us when
He sets Abraham, the man of faith, before
us is not what a great figure Abraham
is, what a man of endurance, what remarkable
native powers he must have had.
The thing that God is setting before us
is for such an ordinary, frail vessel like
this.
What a glorious God this man had.
What a mighty Redeemer and Savior Jehovah proved
Himself to be to a man like Abraham.
And very obviously, what they witnessed to is
what faith witnesses to.
And you will know that faith witnesses to
its object, the greatness and faithfulness and the
supernatural power of God who enabled them to
persevere.
Now, this is the secret of perseverance.
It is what lies behind this exhortation, else
it would be an exhortation of despair.
But when the writer is pointing out the
perseverance of Moses to us, do you notice
what he says in verse 27?
By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the
king's anger.
He persevered, how?
Because he saw him who is invisible.
So the great encouragement of these men and
women of faith who are cataloged for us
and whose history is described for us in
Hebrews 11, the great encouragement is that they
are ordinary people who have an extraordinary God.
And we are summoned and exhorted to persevere
in the same way that they persevered as
seeing Him who is invisible.
This of course is one of the great
lessons of Scripture about the proper use of
history, you know.
It's one of the great reasons for acquainting
yourself with the historical sections of the Old
Testament.
It is one of the reasons that God
introduces Himself in terms of His own historical
mighty acts.
Have you ever noticed this?
He says, I am the God of your
fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac
and of Jacob.
I am the God who brought you up
out of the Red Sea and from the
land of Egypt.
And He begins to recite to them an
historical record of His mighty acts in history.
Now He does not that for us, not
merely in order that we might be acquainted
with history from the past.
The great use of history is that we
might recognize the character of God.
That's what these great sections of Scripture are
for.
They are to bring us to an understanding
of the way God works in time in
order that we may discover that what He
has done for them, He will do for
us.
So He says, let us run with perseverance
the race that is marked out for us.
And the second exhortation is this, let us
throw off everything that hinders and the sin
which so easily entangles.
Now that is clearly a vital exhortation for
how we are to prepare ourselves for this
quality of prayer.
And perseverance, you will know that it's an
essential element in running any kind of race
that we have serious preparation for it.
And here the writer of the epistle is
describing for us the kind of clothing which
is suitable for those who are serious about
persevering in the Christian life.
You will know how the apostle Paul uses
the same figure of speech when he describes
a certain kind of clothing which is appropriate
to living as Christian people.
So he says, put off this particular kind
of clothing.
Put off this and put off that and
put on various other forms of clothing.
He is describing Christian character of clothing.
He says, this is the suitable clothing for
living the life of a redeemed child of
God.
Now here you will notice the writer of
Hebrews is urging those who are serious about
the Christian race to get rid of whatever
would be in the nature of impedimenta, of
hindrances to running the race.
You will be familiar with the fact that
in the Olympic games to this day the
contestants come down to the track wearing all
kinds of clothing, some of them with quite
heavy suits, track suits on.
But very soon and before the race is
even called you will see them peeling off
one layer after another until they are stripped
for action.
Now of course the reason is that they
are serious about this business.
This is not something they take casually.
This is not something they view lightly.
They really mean to go for the tape.
And so they lay aside whatever will hinder
them.
And it is an obvious lesson that the
apostle is teaching us.
You think of it this way.
If you were to see someone come down
onto the track in some great gathering for
athletic games and those who had trained for
months and months and were now standing waiting
for the race to begin and were peeling
off these outer layers of their track suits
were joined by somebody who had a heavy
overcoat on and was carrying suitcases.
They would look and say somebody needs to
go down and clear the track of that
man.
He is presenting a ludicrous sight.
Now if you think of it for a
moment it is not because there is anything
ludicrous about somebody wearing an overcoat and carrying
suitcases.
It is what he is professing to do
that makes his situation ludicrous.
And there are many Christian believers who profess
to be Christ's who present a similarly ludicrous
spectacle as they come to the business of
running the Christian race.
And they carry all the impedimenta of a
lifestyle and of standards and of priorities that
would disqualify them from beginning.
So the apostle says there are things that
need to be left behind.
There are hindrances that you need to throw
off and you need to be quite radical
and ruthless.
Now there is somebody who has a sense
of priorities for a most corruptible crown.
But my dear friends you and I are
running this glorious race.
And when you look back into Hebrews chapter
11 and see what some of these people
gladly laid aside in order that they might
persevere.
A man like Abraham for example.
Have you ever thought of what he came
from in Ur of the Chaldees when he
heard the voice of God and was called
out of that land of great sophistication as
the archaeologists tell us.
And great progress and great comfort.
And went at the bidding of God not
knowing where he was going but with the
summons of another world in his soul.
And he counted nothing as precious to him
and everything as loss in order that he
might set out on the race.
And when the time came when even his
very own son had God's hand laid on
him and God said to him go up
into the mountain and sacrifice your son your
only son Isaac if ever there was an
illogical thing that was it.
God had gathered all his promises in this
boy and now he is saying to Abraham
take him and take him to the altar
and there sacrifice him.
And Abraham because he was set upon persevering
to the end in this race the writer
of the epistle says to us he took
his son his only son Isaac.
And he offered him as a sacrifice he
who had received the promises was about to
sacrifice his one and only son even though
God had said to him it is through
Isaac that your offspring will be called.
And Abraham reasoned that God could raise the
dead and figuratively speaking he did receive Isaac
back from death.
But he was ready even to sacrifice him.
Now this is what putting aside everything that
might hinder and the one thing that hinders
is disobedience and that links in with the
other half of what the writer of Hebrew
says on the sin that so easily entangles.
You see one of the ways in which
God's people persevere to the end my dear
people is when they become ruthless with sin
in their own lives.
We do not live in a society where
that is popular today or where the doctrine
of mortification of sin is one that is
often spoken or discussed amongst us.
But I tell you it is one of
the vital things for persevering gloriously to the
end that we not only take God seriously
in his glorious promises but that we take
sin seriously and are absolutely ruthless with it
in our lives.
You cannot persevere in the Christian race entangled
by the sin that so easily besets us.
So the apostle says let us throw off
everything that hinders and the sin that so
easily entangles.
Now you know sometimes I think that if
we find ourselves stuck at this point going
to hinder me in this business of running
the race I have to put it aside.
I have to be ruthless in mortifying non
-sin.
Well you know if we do get stuck
with that it is because we have not
begun to grasp the sheer and infinite wonder
of the glory that God is setting before
us in Jesus Christ.
My dear friends if the poor tinsel of
our sin, if the attractions of this present
world hold us back it is because we
have not grasped the glory for which we
were created and redeemed which God sets before
us.
I am amazed when I hear men like
Nick Faldo who say they are ready to
sacrifice almost anything and God knows the man
has already sacrificed one marriage in the interest
of golf and for the interest of the
glory of God and the glories of his
kingdom of grace we say oh but I
could scarcely let that thing go.
God help us we have not begun to
get life in perspective have we?
Well says the apostle let us throw off
everything that hinders and the sin that so
easily entangles and let us run with perseverance
the race marked out for us.
Now finally let us fix our eyes on
Jesus the author and finisher of our faith
possibly the most important of these three exhortations.
Let us run with perseverance the race that
is set before us.
Let us throw aside everything that hinders and
the sin that so easily entangles but now
what is it that our eyes are to
be upon?
What is the whole form and manner of
our life as we are running this race?
Well some have suggested it is that great
cloud of witnesses.
We are to look at them and take
encouragement from them.
Well of course in a very real sense
we are.
Our perseverance is greatly helped by recognizing what
they testify to but I say to you
again what they testify to is not their
own extraordinary powers it is the extraordinary glory
of God.
To which they testify and so says the
apostle let us fix, let us fix our
eyes on Jesus.
You know what it is like when there
is someone or something in a room and
you find your gaze drawn away to them
or a picture of some sort and you
find your eyes taken away from everything else
and you are captivated by this.
Well now if you have begun to grasp
what it is to be one of Christ's
sheep purchased by his blood kept by his
hands nail pierced then you will begin to
know something of the captivating wonder of the
Lord Jesus Christ and you will find your
eyes more and more as you grow in
grace fixed upon him and this is the
whole manner of our living says the apostle
as we run this race.
What does it mean for us to fix
our eyes on Jesus?
Well of course it means to fix our
eyes upon him as our example.
That's carried in what the apostle is saying
when he says let us fix our eyes
on Jesus the author and perfecter of our
faith who for the joy set before him
endured the cross scorning its shame and sat
down at the right hand of the throne
of God.
If ever there is an example of perseverance
it is in the Lord Jesus.
No one ever persevered as he did.
No one ever endured what he endured and
yet he did it with his eyes set
on the goal of pleasing his father and
fulfilling the work the father had given to
him and he is a great example of
course of perseverance.
But I don't think that's primarily what the
apostle is concerned with.
I think what he is primarily concerned with
is that we should fix our eyes upon
Jesus as the one who is the key
to our persevering.
All that we need as frail, weak, needy
children of God in this fallen world to
persevere to the end is found in Jesus
Christ.
How does he speak of him?
Do you notice?
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus the
author and the perfecter of our faith.
Now do you see this double anchor for
the child of God?
Where did all this begin for me?
Do you ever ask yourself that?
Here I am as a child of God
this evening.
Where did all this begin?
Now you might rightly say to me it
began on the 21st of October 1979.
I remember it so well that occasion.
That's true.
Blessed be God if you are able to
rejoice in that this evening.
I personally could not tell you a date
and time when I was brought to faith
through grace but I tell you the infinitely
truer truth is that all this began for
you before the foundation of the world when
the Lord Jesus Christ from all eternity set
his heart upon you.
Now you and I will never begin to
understand that.
We will never fathom what it means that
the Lord of glory set his heart upon
us and was the author of our faith
before he was the creator of the world.
It was he who began it.
Now that in no sense means that in
any way did Jesus believe for you.
He summons us to repentance and faith but
it does mean that the origin of all
this work of God began grace in my
life is in the eternal counsels of God
and in the work of Jesus Christ.
He began it.
He is the author of our faith and
I bless God for that this evening my
dear friends that my eternal hope does not
rest on some flimsy thing that I have
done but on the glorious thing that God
in Jesus Christ has done as the author
of my faith.
I am here this evening as a child
of God for the same reason that you
are there as a child of God and
that is he came to seek and to
save that which was lost.
But if he is the author of it
you notice the other thing.
He is the finisher, the perfecter, the one
who will complete our faith.
That's exactly what the apostle Paul is saying
of course in Philippians 1 6 when he
says I am persuaded that he who began
a good work in you will go on
to complete it until the day of Jesus
Christ.
That's how we know we persevere.
That's how we know that if we are
children of God then we shall one day
assuredly see him face to face in glory.
It is because our God is a God
who never leaves unfinished work, who never does
have unfinished symphonies.
What he begins he completes for his glory.
Do you know the way he does that?
Notice what the apostle says.
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus the
author and perfecter of our faith who for
the joy set before him endured the cross,
corning its shame and sat down at the
right hand of the throne of God.
I want to tell you this evening as
we close that this is not simply a
promise God gives to us.
That would be enough.
It would be quite sufficient if he said
to us what I have begun I will
complete.
I will never leave the work of grace
I have started in you incomplete.
But he tells us that the same Lord
Jesus Christ who was the Lord Jesus Christ
who endured the cross and despised the shame
and went to Calvary in our place and
died our death and bore our judgment.
He ascended to the throne of God.
And what is he doing there by the
way?
What does this epistle to the end tell
us?
It tells us what the Hebrews tell us.
He is doing there at the right hand
of God the Father he ever lives to
make intercession for us.
And what is the significance of that?
He is able to save to the uttermost
all those who come unto God by him
because he ever lives to make intercession for
them.
Now that is true of every child of
God here in this building this evening.
That tonight even while we meet here the
risen exalted Lord Jesus Christ is at the
right hand of God the Father pleading our
cause and doing for us what he said
to Simon Peter Simon he said, Satan has
desired to have you that he might sift
you like wheat but I have prayed for
you that your faith will not fail.
Oh beloved what a Savior Jesus Christ is.
What a glorious completeness there is in everything
that I have done for you that God
has done in Christ for our sake.
There is just nothing that he has not
thought about.
Do you know how you sometimes tell a
secret to my wife?
You have thought about everything.
There is not a tiny detail that has
gone past your notice.
You have thought about everything now.
If you take that and baptize it into
Christ and multiply it by infinity we have
a God who has thought about absolutely everything
and he sits this evening on the throne
of the universe and what he has begun
he will finish more happy but not
more secure the glorified spirits in heaven.
Oh therefore we may say to God and
allow one another to overhear as we go
this evening we rest on thee and in
thy name we go and I tell you
my friends you can go anywhere.
There is not a place in God's earth.
There is not a circumstance known to humankind
which you cannot face if such a God
is your God and such a Savior is
your Savior.
Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ.
For such a Savior and for such a
Gospel.
Let us pray.