Bible Commentaries

A Besetting Sin (a Lenten Sermon)

Hebrews 12:1

Sin is a very difficult thing to define; it is so complex, so subtle. The Greek word—which we translate for "sin"—means "missing the mark". What a true name that is for any sin which any of us commit! How sure it Hebrews 12:1

When St. Paul spoke of Christians as being all members one of another, and as therefore bound to the duties of brotherly help and consolation, he was expressing a thought which lies at the very centre of Christianity. And I desire to draw your attention to this side of the revelation which we have received in Christ, as to the conception of Christianity as a social system, in which no man dare live to himself, in which no man can live to himself even if he would.

I. This conception of a mysterious bond uniting all men in one great fellowship is itself contained in the fact of the Incarnation. The brotherhood of all men is revealed in the Person of Him who calls all men His brethren. It may perhaps seem a trite thing to say, an obvious inference, hardly necessary to indicate to intelligent or Christian people. Nay, have we really learned the lesson yet? has the world, has the Church, really accepted this inference, and given it practical expression? No; we have not learnt yet the significance of the teaching of the Incarnation in relation to human society.

II. And so it appears that the lesson is not altogether easy to apply. And God, who is always better to us than we are to ourselves, has not left us to work it out for ourselves. For when Christ revealed His truth to men, He did not leave it there for them to appropriate, here a fragment, there a fragment, as they best could; but He left behind a Society which was to be at once its keeper and its symbol. The Church was to teach the truth; more than that, it was itself the expression of the great fundamental truth of the Incarnation, that all men are brethren in the sight of God, for they all have but one Redeemer who is the Brother of each.

III. The Church Hebrews 12:1

We are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses—not merely the faithful of long past ages, but the saints of God in every period of the Church's history.

I. How clearly it reminds us that goodness is possible, and is within the reach of all. You and I have a life to live, a race to run, which is beset with many difficulties, many temptations, many sorrows. It is not, it cannot be, easy. But when we remember that this life has been lived, this race been run, by countless others, who have not lived and run in vain, is there no encouragement for us to press forward with fresh zeal and hope? They are God's true witnesses; they show us what He intended all men to be, and what by His all-prevailing grace we ourselves may yet be.

II. Their very presence with us is a continual call to lift up our hearts, and not to allow ourselves to become wholly engrossed in the things of this world. We know what a real danger that is. John Bunyan has drawn the character for us in one of his immortal pictures—the man that could look no way but downwards, with a muck-rake in his hand, and, standing over his head, an angelic being with a celestial crown in his hand and proffering him that crown for the muck-rake; "but the man did neither look up nor regard, but raked to himself the straws, the small sticks, and dust of the floor". How ready we are to fall into the same error! If nothing else will rouse us, may not the thought of our unseen witnesses do so? They supply us with the standard, not of earth, but of heaven, by which all our actions should be measured.

III. Be assured of their never-failing sympathy and love. We believe—do we not?—that our dead are now with Christ, and therefore that they are entering ever more fully into His mind and spirit. But if Hebrews 4:15), and is still pleading for us with an all-prevailing intercession before God (compare Hebrews 7:25), what more certain than that His people are engaged in the same great ministry of love? They have not, they cannot have, forgotten us.

IV. We rise up through His people to our Lord Himself; we look beyond them to Him who is "the author and finisher of our faith". One of the grandest of old Greek myths tells us how on stated days human souls follow in the train of the gods, and, rising above the world, gaze on the eternal and the absolute. It is only by strenuous effort that they can gain for a brief space this vision, and then they fall to earth again, and their life on earth corresponds with the range and clearness of the heavenly impressions they retain. "For us," says Bishop Westcott who recalls the story, "the revelation of Christ has made this dream a truth."

—G. Milligan, The Divine Artist, p97.

Hebrews 12:1

"Consider," says Ruskin in the third volume of Modern Painters (ch. IV.), "what are the legitimate uses of the imagination, that is to say, of the power of perceiving, or conceiving with the mind, things which cannot be perceived by the senses. Its first and noblest use Hebrews 12:1

"My heart," says Augustine (Confessions, ch1. of book seven), "cried out vehemently against all my phantasms, and with this one blow I tried to beat off from my mind's eye the unclean troop which buzzed around it. And lo, being scarcely driven away, in the twinkling of an eye they again gathered thick around me, flew against my face, and beclouded it."

References.—XII:1.—J. Parker, The Gospel of Jesus Christ, p117. Bishop Gore, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlix. p325. Christianity in Daily Conduct, p309. Marcus Dods, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlv. p166. J. W. Houchin, The Vision of God, p92. E. E. Jenkins, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lii. p92. J. Watson, Scottish Review, vol. iii. p331. B. J. Snell, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlviii. p1. R. F. Horton, ibid. p193. Archbishop Temple, ibid. vol. liii. p321. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture— Hebrews 12:1-2; John 14:2

Lord Beaconsfield, in his "Venetia," describes the aged tutor of the son and heir of a noble house as leading his pupil into the picture gallery of the castle. As he pointed out one portrait after another he reminds the youth that no single one of his ancestors had brought dishonour to the family name. He did this in order to stimulate and encourage him to walk in the steps of those who had gone before. The author of this Epistle, writing to Hebrew Christians tempted to apostatise from the faith, leads them to the portrait gallery of the heroes of faith. He compares them in number to the "cloud" of spectators at the Isthmian games, looking down on the arena and watching with keenest interest the runners in a race. Bishop Lightfoot has told us that the Greek word for "witnesses" is never used simply of spectators. Here they are those who bear testimony to a certain truth. They are not the Light, but they reflect the Light. "Jesus Christ is to me," said Tennyson one day, "as is the sun to yonder flower." "So must it be to us," said Canon Ainger, who authenticates the story, "for power comes from the source, not from the colour, beauty, charm of the reflection." "And the Light was the life of men."

I. Condition of the Glorified Saints.—"In My Father's house are many mansions;... I go to prepare a place for you." Christ, in these words, is clearly speaking of the intermediate state. "My Father's house" was the name which He gave to the Temple. He draws an analogy between the earthly and the heavenly sanctuary. The Temple had "many mansions," which were used for a threefold purpose.

(a) I need not say that the Temple was a place of worship. St. Hebrews 12:1-2

"Seeing that we are compassed about"—whether we see it or not it is a truth. There are so many people who seem to live quite unconscious of environment. And what is true of ordinary things is also true of the kingdom of God. Some Christians are so very unsympathetic to environment, and there are some whose eyes are open and they see Jesus at the right hand of God. It is like that beautiful Old Testament story of Elisha's servant.

But what are we compassed about with? The writer of this Epistle has before him the circus of Rome and the tiers, row upon row, filled with spectators. Those who strive, who are they? We can supply the answer ourselves. Who are the angels? They are spectators, they are observers. They take an interest in the contest, and their faces behold the face of our Father which is in heaven. And yet these are not the spectators St Paul alludes to. He does not say that we are compassed about with a great cloud—mark the word "cloud"—of spectators, observers; no, he says witnesses. And the word "witness" means not a spectator, an observer, but one who testifies, a martyr. We might render it, "We are compassed about with so great a cloud of martyrs". They are not cold, critical observers of the struggle; no, they are those who themselves have struggled and fought, and run, and have won the victory.

Now mark the word "wherefore". The eleventh chapter, which precedes this, is the great chapter of the saints of old, who waxed valiant in the fight, who were stoned, tempted, sawn asunder, and who confessed that they were only strangers and pilgrims who sought a better country, and that a heavenly, who were destitute, tormented, afflicted, of whom the world was not worthy, of whom it is said, "Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God". The martyrs are the saints, the Church triumphant, witnessing the Church militant. Now you can understand the expression, "Wherefore seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses".

Then just let me follow the text out in the simplest way. What are we to do?

I. First of all we are to "lay aside every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset us". The word "us" is not in the original. It does not mean sin within us at all. We are to lay aside every weight and the sin which is always at us. That is the first thing to do. We are not to give in to the circumstances that are round about us, however evil they may be. Lay them all aside, strip yourself of them, and run free. It is the circumstances that are round about us that would prevent us gaining the crown. Now the circumstances of sin round about us steal away our faith. Who is there here who does not know in running the race the difficulty we have to maintain our faith clear to the end? The saints and martyrs are there all round, and of them it is written, "These all died in faith". The coldness, the atmosphere round about us, the indifference in high places, the criticism of the Word of God itself—lay them aside. You cannot run unless your faith is true.

II. And then the second point is this—run with patience the appointed course. There is where the happiness comes in. You yourself are placed on the course by God—it is all His choice. He made you, and He has made the conditions in which you have got to run. It is the appointed course. He has chosen the race for you. It is all His doing. You were born at the moment He chose, and you die the moment He chooses. Your times are in His hands. You are His from the beginning to the end of the course, entirely His, wholly His, completely His, wherever the circumstances of your life may be. And is not that a help? It is His course, His race, you are His runner.

III. And, then, last of all, "Looking unto Jesus". Keep your eye in the right direction. How strong here is the preposition! It is not looking unto exactly. There is a little word which in the Greek means looking into Jesus, right into Him, not looking only at His words, His works, His miracles, and His beautiful Life; something more than that, looking right into Him and reading His heart. When Peter fell cursing and swearing in the hall of the Judgment Seat, Christ looked at him. Peter saw it How did Peter know that Christ was looking at him? Because Peter was looking at Christ. And when Christ looked at him and Peter looked at Christ, Peter looked right into His Heart and went out and wept bitterly. That is an example of looking into the Saviour.

Then comes the last beautiful expression of the text, "the Author and Finisher of our faith". Now, is not that a complete text? See how complete it Hebrews 12:1-2

"Spinoza," says Professor Royce in his Spirit of Modern Philosophy (pp54 , 55), "is not a man of action; his heroism, such as it Hebrews 12:2

Let the Apostle, an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures, read the Old Testament to us. We do not want a new Bible, we want a new reader. Who has this gift of vocal light and heart music who will read to us the Old Testament? That man is the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews 12:2

Life is not given to us all at once as a full cup, to be slowly drained as the years pass, to become less palatable, less delightful, more flat, more weary. It Hebrews 12:2

Our Lord, going down into the chill passages that ended in the cross, and speaking with the full determination of eternal love, said: "If any man will come after Me, let Him deny himself, and take up bis cross, and follow Me". We know, in part, the meaning of His words. We know that it is not our business to seek crosses or to make them. The cross lies in our path, and our duty is to lift it The Christian has to deny self, and take up his cross cheerfully. "Dragged crosses are very heavy, but carried crosses are very light." Crosses lifted bravely and in the strength of Christ can be carried, even although it is true that every day brings its cross, not the same cross necessarily, but a cross always that has to be borne with gentle firmness through evil report and through good report up to the very end.

I. There are various ingredients in the cross. There is labour, there is pain, and there is shame. The cross of labour is the easiest to carry, if the labour is accomplished with some measure of recognition, of stimulus, of success. Many men need these. General Grant, writing of his great antagonist in the Civil War, said: "Lee was a good Hebrews 12:2

I mean by happiness, man's true well-being—that of his higher, not his lower nature—that of his nature, not for a moment, but for ever. With such happiness, duty, however stern, must always ultimately coincide. I say, man was formed to desire such a realisation of the possibilities of his nature, that to bid him cease or slacken in this desire is a cruelty and folly, and that the will of God ought never for an instant to be conceived as hostile to such well-being. If He were, why hear we of Redemption? And I may point with reverence to the Incarnate Perfectness, "who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross"; He would die to know the blessedness of restoring to us our life. Only the most sublime self-sacrifice could account for such a result or recompense; and that recompense he did not refuse to keep constantly in view."

—Vaughan, Hours with the Mystics, vol. II. p284.

It is not alone the amount of suffering implied in the treatment to which our Lord was subjected that we must fail to estimate aright, unless we see that suffering in the light of the life that was in Him. It is still more as to the nature of that suffering that we shall err. This we feel the moment we turn from contemplating it as physical suffering on the part of men and physical endurance on the part of Christ, to contemplate it in its spiritual aspect as the form of the response of enmity to love. There is surely very special instruction for us here in the fact that shame—indignity—is so marked a character of the injuries inflicted on Christ... Indignity and contumely, that is to say, all that would most touch that life which man has in the favour of Hebrews 12:2

One of the main sources of strength of what we are accustomed to call the evangelical view of Christianity is its consistent emphasis of the outward look. To my thinking, Thomas Carlyle was never a wiser and stronger teacher than when he dealt with the endless and useless torments which mankind has suffered in its efforts to fulfil the Socratic precept "know thyself. "Long enough has that poor self of thine tormented thee. Thou wilt never get to know it, I believe. Know what thou canst work at, and work at it like a Hercules; that will be the better plan." It is nothing less than the honest truth that the self cannot be known by self-analysis and self-examination.

I. If I had time to make the review, I think I should be able to show you how strong and wise and healthy is the objective note all through the Old Testament—heard like a clarion in its greatest passages. The call of the Psalmist is for an outgoing of the soul in praise and prayer. They are the noblest vehicles of public and private worship, because committed to these Psalm the spirit of the worshipper is lifted out of its broodings and disquietudes, and self-pityings, and carried away in imagination and faith towards its Maker and Redeemer. The message of the Psalmist and Prophet is one everywhere; it is the great cry that utters itself still from the pages of Isaiah. "There is no God but Me; a just God and a Saviour; look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth."

II. When we turn to the New Testament we find that this Gospel of the Outward Look is more and more proclaimed. John the Baptist deals searchingly, mercilessly with the sins of his day, but he concludes by pointing his hearers—not only away from himself, but away from themselves: "Behold the Lamb of God Who taketh away the sin of the world". Christ directed the gaze of the world from sin and its consequences to sin and its salvation.

III. Equally striking and consistent is the Gospel of the Outward Look in the Apostle's preaching. I think we cannot but be impressed with how little the Apostles seemed to trouble about their own souls. There is no counsel on which it is more necessary to insist than to rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him. Look out steadily, believingly, obediently to the Christ of God; for in that look is self-forgetful-ness, life, and peace.

IV. Nothing grows clearer to my mind than that, in the religious life, to be self-centred is to fail. Introspection breeds pessimism and every morbid phantasm of fear and folly. There is no safety for any of us but in following Christ and in going about doing good.

—C. S. Horne, The Soul's Awakening, p.l.

References.—XII:2.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. v. No236. W. J. Knox-Little, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlv. p184. C. Perren, Revival Sermons in Outline, p330. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. p300; ibid. vol. x. p75; ibid. (5th Series), vol. ii. p434. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture— Hebrews 12:4

Compare Charles Lamb's letter, of23December, 1822 , to Bernard Barton the Quaker, in which he observes: "You have no martyrs quite to the fire, I think, among you; but plenty of heroic confessors, spirit-martyrs, lamb-lions".

What sayest thou, son? Cease to complain, when thou considerest My passion and that of other saints. Thou has not yet resisted unto blood. It is but little which thou sufferest in comparison of those who suffered so much, who were so strongly tempted, so grievously afflicted, so many ways tried and harassed. Thou oughtest therefore to call to mind the heavier woes of others, that thou mayest the easier bear thine own small troubles.

—Thomas À Kempis, Imitation of Christ (IV:19).

And who among the saints hath ever taken that castle without stroke of sword? The chief of the house, our elder Brother, our Lord Jesus, not being excepted, who won His own house and home, due to Him by birth, with much blood and many blows.

—Samuel Rutherford, to Lady Kenmure (15th Nov1633).

Reference.—XII:4.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture— Hebrews 12:5

"When there is a keeping in any measure from a despising of the Lord's chastening," Rev. H. Davidson wrote, in1728 , to Thomas Boston of Ettrick, "yet I find no small difficulty to bear off from the other rock, a fainting under His rebukes. Faith's views, that it is the Lord, will prove quieting. A sight of His sovereignty, Hebrews 12:5-6

Retribution is necessary to salvation; chastisement and punishment must come before salvation. There are three great necessities for salvation.

I. A man must be brought into a certain state of mind and will; a certain mental attitude towards sin. So far as retribution shows that God is not Love, it is one of the most convincing proofs, if intelligently understood, that God is Love.

II. Man must be revealed to himself. And sometimes he is taught to know himself by a hard, painful process.

III. We must not be individuals. Our sympathies must be called out A man may be great, but without sympathy he cannot be good. The only way to get a contrite heart is to get a broken heart.

—Reuen Thomas, British Congregationalist, 30th August, 1906 , p104.

Hebrews 12:6

We all want religion sooner or later. I am afraid there are some who have no natural turn for it, as there are persons without an ear for music, to which, if I remember right, I heard one of you comparing what you called religious genius. But sorrow and misery bring even these to know what it means, in a great many instances. May I not say to you, my friend, that I am one who has learned the secret of the inner life by the discipline of trials in the life of outward circumstance? I can remember the time when I thought more about the shade of a colour in a ribbon, whether it matched my complexion or not, than I did about my spiritual interests in this world or the next. It was needful that I should learn the meaning of the text, "whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth". Since I have been taught in the school of trial I have felt, as I never could before, how precious an inheritance is the smallest patrimony of faith.

—O. W. Holmes, The Poet at the Breakfast Table (ch. VII.).

Reference.—XII:6.—Expositor (4th Series), vol. iii. p118. XII:7.—Expositor (6th Series), vol. x. p172.

Hebrews 12:8

"I am better off now than I have been for years, God be thanked!" Charles Kingsley wrote in1857 to Thomas Hughes. "God grant, too, that I may not require to be taken down by some terrible trouble. I often fancy I shall be. If I Hebrews 12:9

"Small as the amount of prayer Hebrews 12:10

It is a great mistake, and one which deceives many, to suppose that suffering will, of itself, be any use. Suffering is never negative. But it often hardens. And suffering turned to no account, or turned to a bad account, is the most grievous of sins!

There must be a supernatural agency working with the suffering before it will be of any use to the sufferer. The Holy Ghost must do His own work in the soul.

Therefore, at the very threshold, ask two things: one, that the God of grace will work with the God of providence to make the trial effective to spiritual ends; and the other, that whatever be the special purpose for which the trial is sent, it may not pass away till you have learnt your lesson and the purpose is fulfilled.

This done, we may look for the uses.

I. All Suffering is Intended to be to the Mind what Physical Pain is to the Body.—When you feel a pain in any part of your body, it is sent for this purpose, to say to you, "There is mischief going on here; attend to it". It is the same to the soul, with every suffering which our heavenly Father ever sends us. It comes to say, "There is something which needs correction". There is something latent. But you must probe it, and examine it, and treat it seriously. The Holy Ghost, working in your conscience, will show you what it is.

II. Sufferings are not always Intended for the same Uses.—The suffering of Manasseh was for conversion; of Jacob, for correction; of Hebrews 12:10

It is to keep a man awake, to keep him alive to his own soul and its fixed design of righteousness, that the better part of moral and religious education is directed; not only that of words and doctors, but the sharp ferule of calamity under which we are all God's scholars till we die.

—R. L. Stevenson.

Evan had just been accusing the heavens of conspiracy to disgrace him. Those patient heavens had listened, as is their wont They had viewed, and had not been disordered by his mental frenzies. It is certainly hard that they do not come down to us, and condescend to tell us what they mean, and be dumb-foundered by the perspicuity of our arguments.... Nevertheless, they to whom mortal life has ceased to be a long matter, perceive that our appeals for conviction are answered,—now and then very closely upon the call. When we have cast off the scales of hope and fancy, and surrender our claims on mad chance; when the wild particles of this universe consent to march as they are directed, it is given them to see—if they see at all—that some plan is working out: that the heavens, icy as they are to the pangs of our blow, have been throughout speaking to our souls.—George Meredith, Evan Harrington (ch. X.).

Reference.—XII:10.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture— Hebrews 12:11

How the eternal Justice might see fit to deal with other souls, why he had been singled out for so peculiar and conspicuous a fate, Richard did not pretend to say. All that had become curiously unimportant to him. For he had ceased to call that fate a cruel one. It had changed its aspect. It had come suddenly to satisfy both his conscience and his imagination. With a movement at once of wonder and of deep-seated thankfulness, Hebrews 12:14

Our subject is holiness; personal holiness which shows itself in the daily life; that personal possession of something which leads us day by day to live according to God's laws. No subject of greater moment could engage our attention on this the first day of Lent.

I. A Life of Holiness is a Life not Ruled by the Body but by the Spirit, and if our lives are ruled by the Spirit of God then we shall be holy. But if our life be ruled by the body and by the lust of the flesh and by our own evil desires, then we shall have no holiness and righteousness. We shall be of the earth earthy, for the rule of the body is antagonistic to the rule of the Holy Spirit

II. How shall we Obtain this Holiness?—We can never lay claim to holiness until we have each one of us been cleansed of our own sins, and the right holiness of life is shown in the life of Christ We are the possessors of the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, and we have received not only forgiveness of the past but cleansing. So the life of Christ is in our lives. We become partakers with Him, and His Spirit dwelleth in us. It is necessary for us to start from the only starting-point; we begin in Christ, we go on in Christ and end in Christ when we become partakers of the joy of eternity. It is necessary for each one to come to Jesus Christ and to be partakers of eternal life through faith in a personal Saviour.

III. Our Bounden Duty.—It is bound upon us to aim at holiness and to possess it because we are not our own. We belong to God, we must do the works of God, and we must try and live the life of Christ because He has saved us by His own most precious blood. We know that many socalled Christians are leading a sham life so far as their religion is concerned. Their religion lacks sincerity. We know how sincere we ought to be, and how we ought always to cast out by the power of the Holy Spirit the sham and the hypocrisy both in our profession and in our practice. We ought to be very circumspect in our daily lives, and to be regular attenders at the house of God and take care to observe the Holy Sacrament.

IV. Yet it is not in Externals that Holiness Lies.—There must be form, but we must never leave out the inward and spiritual grace. Jesus Christ defined His Church in these words: "the Kingdom of God is within you". Such is holiness. It is something within. It is set up and cultivated by the Spirit in the heart, and because it is in the heart therefore it is in the life, and you do certain things because it is in your heart to do them. Holiness is something within; it is that inward joy which shows itself in the life of Christ. Our hearts are inclined to fault, but when they are touched by the grace of God and the Holy Spirit enters and they are cleansed, then there is holiness. From the heart proceedeth good desires and right impulses, all these being the movement of the Holy Spirit.

Hebrews 12:14

If we wished to imagine a punishment for an unholy, reprobate soul, we perhaps could not fancy a greater than to summon it to heaven. Heaven would be hell to an irreligious man. We know how unhappy we are apt to feel at present, when alone in the midst of strangers, or of men of different tastes and habits from ourselves. How miserable, for example, would it be to have to live in a foreign land, among a people whose faces we never saw before, and whose language we could not learn. And this is but a faint illustration of the loneliness of a man of earthly dispositions and tastes, thrust into the society of saints and angels. How forlorn would he wander through the courts of heaven! He would find no one like himself; he would see in every direction the marks of God's holiness, and these would make him shudder. He would feel himself always in His presence. He could no longer turn His thoughts another way, as he does now, when conscience reproaches him. He would know that the Eternal Eye was ever upon him; and the Eye of holiness, which is a joy and life to holy creatures, would seem to him an Eye of wrath and punishment.

—J. H. Newman.

Hebrews 12:14

He that does a base thing in zeal for his friend, burns the golden thread that ties their hearts together.

—Jeremy Taylor.

References.—XII:14.—G. Davidson. Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlv. p204. J. B. Mozley, University Sermons, p231. C. D. Bell, The Saintly Calling, p79. E. J. Boyce, Parochial Sermons, p257. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol1. No2902. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iv. p58; ibid. (5th Series), vol. v. p137. XII:14 , 15.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvi. No940.

Hebrews 12:15

Describing his tour to South Africa with his wife and a cartographer, Mr. Theodore Bent, in The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland (p5), observes that "we three left England at the end of January, 1891 , and returned to it again at the end of January, 1892 , having accomplished a record rare in African travel, and of which we are justly proud—namely, that no root of bitterness sprang up amongst us".

References.—XII:15.—J. M. Neale, Readings for the Aged (4th Series), p42. Ibid. Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, vol. i. p152.

The Sensualist

Hebrews 12:16

Esau was very far from being "the lowest of the low". On the contrary he possessed noble qualities, which make his ultimate fate all the more pitiful.

He is a big, generous, open-handed fellow, who forgives the brother who has done him the most deadly injuries and loads him with generosity. Does not such a man stand out in marked contrast to the scheming Jacob, who traps his brother in a moment of passion? If Jacob be the religious Hebrews 12:16

This one act shows Esau. We know the man. He belongs to the class of men in whom passion and appetite rule, who are the slaves of every whim, and befooled by every fancy; who fling away manhood and purity, conscience and God in rushing after some fool's paradise. That is the man. Lest there be a profane person, like Esau.

I. Now, What is God's Definition of Profanity?—Our idea of profanity is irreverent speech. But God's idea of profanity goes deeper than that. Man may in his ungoverned thoughtless moments, in sudden anger, fling out words of impious daring which make us shudder; and yet that man in his ordinary conduct may be above everything that is mean, false, tricky, and contemptible. He is not the profane person. And another man may never use words which would offend the most fastidious taste, or the most religious mind, and yet every day he may be selling his conscience, his pledged word, his honour, his trusting friend, or something equally precious, for a paltry price. He is the profane person.

II. The Mad Bargains of Life.—And such things are done every day; terrible bargains with madness written on the face of them. We read of them in history, we read of them in the Bible, we find them in the lives of the men and women about us; happy are we if we never blunder into them ourselves! "Lest there be among you a profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat"—one morsel of meat!—there is a terrible emphasis on that word. We shudder at the greatness of the cost and the contemptibleness of the gain, for whatever you may gain by these bargains it is infinitesimal compared with the loss.

III. Irrevocable Loss.—What is there that can pay you for the loss of honesty, truthfulness, and purity? It is not worth telling a lie for all the gold that passes through the mint. It is not worth breaking a pledge or betraying a trust for all the outward glory of Solomon. It is not worth sacrificing your principles and trailing your honour through the dust for all the huzzahs of the greatest crowd that have ever waved their hats in the air. You cannot buy these things back again. When these are lost the soul is lost. My last word is to Christians, Do not think that you have got beyond the danger.

—J. G. Greenhough, Christian World Pulpit, vol. LXII. p40.

Hebrews 12:16

"Psychical pain," said Heine flippantly, "is more easy to endure than physical pain, and, had I to choose between a bad conscience and a bad tooth, I should choose the bad conscience."

References.—XII:16.—F. C. Spurr, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lii. p323. F. W. Farrar, Everyday Christian Life, p174.

The Tears of Remorse

Hebrews 12:17

Esau was a fair representative of a man of the world. Considering the cicumstances of his age, and his condition, he did nothing exceedingly wrong. He was "more sinned against than sinning". He was passionate; but he was not slow to forgive. He loved pleasure, and lived for it. He was a selfish man. We have no reason to say that he was a directly bad, or an immoral man. His conduct contrasts favourably with the conduct of his brother Jacob. Esau was never a deceiver. The great evil of Esau's life was that he thought little or nothing of spiritual things. He appears to have lived without any real sense of God and the Divine. God was not in all Esau's thoughts. This was Esau's sin.

"And Esau lifted up his voice, and wept." Observe the state of Esau's mind at that moment. Esau never for a moment humbled himself before God. He never "repented". He never wished to "repent". He only wished to alter consequences.

It is necessary that this should be very clearly understood, because Esau's "tears" have been made a handle to the thought that there may be on this earth those who wish to "repent" and cannot. Never! Never was such a thing since the creation of the world, and never will be! One "tear" that falls because we wish to "repent," and cannot "repent," is "repentance"; and the forgiveness—that follows that "tear"—is sure. But Esau's tears were not like that! They had nothing to do with "repentance". They were Remorse—only Remorse—impotent Remorse!

I. But what is Remorse?—Let us see—in the sad picture—some of its features.

(a) Remorse has nothing to do with sin—only with its results. The first and leading thought of real, Godly sorrow is a distressing feeling of sin—of sin as such; sin in itself—its wrongness, its blackness. The sin is the burden. But Remorse has to do with the accidents of sin.

(b) Remorse is essentially selfish. The heart is not pained because God is wronged—or because Christ is wounded—or because the Holy Spirit is grieved—or because a man is injured—but because we are hurt. It is only another form of egotism.

(c) Remorse is almost entirely fear. There is little or no love in it. The "tear" is not the soft meltings of the affection, but the hard extortion of a dread.

(d) See, from the histories which we have of it, what Remorse is worth—what fruit it bears. A new life? Not once. Amendment? Not once A certain right action? Not once (e.g, Saul and Samuel; Ahab and Elijah; Johanan and Jeremiah; Judas). Esau, who wept so importunately, rose from his tears and his pleadings in a fury and said, "The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then will I slay my brother Jacob". O fair and lovely show Remorse can wear! How it can weep, and talk of sin, and cry for mercy—while, take off the mask, and what is its true face? Saul's pride—Ahab's obstinacy—Johanan's treachery—Judas's suicide—Esau's murder!

II. But cannot Remorse lead on to Repentance?—I think not. There is a state of heart, not unlike remorse at first view, which may be, and Hebrews 12:17

In a letter, quoted in his biography (ch. IX.), Dr. Arnold of Rugby remarks: "So far from finding it hard to believe that repentance can ever be too late, my only wonder is that it should ever be otherwise than too late, so instantaneous and lasting are the consequences of an evil once committed. I find it very hard to hinder my sense of this from quite oppressing me."

References.—XII:17.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture— Hebrews 12:19

On23February, 1791 , John Wesley preached his last sermon at Leatherhead, in the dining-room of a magistrate, from the text, "Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near". Thus that wonderful voice fell silent—that voice which they who heard entreated that the word should be spoken to them for evermore. He was then eighty-eight, and the long course of his earthly life, with its afflictions, its homelessness, its fatigue, and its constant triumph in Christ, was nearing the end. The next day he wrote his last letter, denouncing "the execrable villainy" of slavery. He died on2March. For many years he had lived in the second rest—that rest where Christ's yoke is easy and His burden light Spiritual throes and pangs, earthly cares and tears, were far in the past, and it was with him as with his friend Fletcher of Madeley, of whom he testified that he died in an unspeakable calmness and serenity of spirit, "a tranquillity in the Blood of Christ which keeps the souls of believers in their latest hour, even as a garrison keeps a city". So he went home from the life which he himself had described as "a few days in a strange land".

I have chosen as a motto rather than a text a phrase from the passage in Hebrews where the terrors of Sinai are contrasted with the peace of Sion. At Sinai there was the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words—the tempest, the terror, the fire, and the quaking. But Sion is the home of all stable and tranquil things. We come to it now by faith, but only, as it were, in moonlight and in silence. No sound is heard but the voice of the blood of sprinkling, which speaketh better things than that of Abel. We shall come, if it please God, one day in the sunlight and the song.

For true preaching and true revival we need two things—the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words. The sound of a trumpet is in vain, if the voice of words does not follow it. The end is that false enthusiasm dying in grey ashes which no one denounced more fervently than John Wesley. There must be instruction after evangelisation, or all is in vain. It has been nobly said that "life is spent in learning the meaning of great words, so that some idle proverb known for years and accepted perhaps as a truism comes home on a day like a blow". But we never know the meaning of great words till the Bound of a trumpet rouses the soul from slumber. The work of John Wesley is most fitly described in this twofold aspect as the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words.

I. He set the trumpet to his mouth and sounded it at a time when religion in England seemed dying or dead. Even in secular life there was a leisurely procession, with many sober pauses of which we know little now. In the Church there was a much denser stupor, a spiritual slumber so profound that Godly men openly despaired, and to others it seemed as if Christianity had waxed old, and was ready to vanish away. The voice of words continued, but they seemed to be spoken to no purpose. One of the greatest Christian thinkers of England, Bishop Butler, sat oppressed in his castle with hardly a hope surviving. He did not know that the day of the Lord had come, and that the prayers of the hearts that broke for the Lord's appearing had been answered.

For when John Wesley began his unparalleled apostolate, he sounded a trumpet in Sion. His words to the people were such short, sharp signal-calls as St. Augustine heard in the garden when the child said, "Take, read". He stood on his father's tomb and cried aloud, "By grace are ye saved through faith". He preached on the question, "Why will ye die, O House of Israel?" till the people trembled and were still. He enlarged on the deep words, "Repent, and believe the Gospel". From the text, "The Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins," he declared the great salvation. He spoke directly to the consciousness. The important point with him was consciousness, everywhere consciousness.

The sound of a trumpet. Our newer psychology, however little we may agree with its conclusions, has at least brought out the richness of what is called our subliminal consciousness. We know now that the mind of man is peopled, like a silent city, with a sleeping company of memories, associations, impressions, loves, hates, fears, relentings that may be wakened into fierce activity by some trumpet blast. Indeed, this subliminal consciousness may be so much more thronged than the working consciousness, that when it is called forth it may submerge the personality, and elect for itself a new king to reign over it. The crowd of insurgent spirits may overthrow the old monarchy. In the people to whom Wesley spoke there were God knows what memories, though the lamp of prophecy had been burning very low. There were in the darkened souls texts, prayers, Hebrews 12:22

This is a passage that makes one feel, with something akin to awe, the dignity and sublimity of the Christian calling. You read the passage, and as it lives before you there passes before the mind a stately procession of those beings with whom the Christian is in relationship, and there is also disclosed to the wondering gaze the possessions which the Christian inherits. "Ye are come to these," says the writer to the Hebrew Christians. He has just placed before them, by way of contrast, that from which they had passed. That was your inheritance and the inheritance of your fathers, and it was a religion of symbols or phenomena, a religion which appealed to the senses and through the senses to the soul. This is your inheritance, you are come now into spiritual affinities, heavenly relationships, eternal and unshakable possessions. "Ye are come," and not "ye will come"; you already stand, if you can but realise it, at the centre of these great circles. Here is the present relationship and possession of the Christian.

I. It is intensely difficult, even today, for men to escape from bondage to the outward, to realise the unseen. This Epistle has still its work to do. What is religion to a great many people today? Church ordinances, the use of special Church buildings, the employment of and resort to a special ministry; swinging censers, chanting choirs, observance of days and functions. What is religion? Elaborate music, a preacher, the building of churches, the giving of money? No, ye are not come to these. They may be helps to religion, or the expression of religion, but they are not religion. Religion is an interior thing; a realisation of the presence of God the Father and the Judge; a surrender of the life in loving loyalty to His authority, the living only to do His will.

Have we come to this? Are we enjoying this vision, realising our inheritance, living the life of the soul?

II. Here in this passage, in majestic outline, is set forth what it is to belong to the Church of Christ. Into all this wealth you have been admitted. See how the Church is described: "The general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven". There is such a society in the world as the church of the firstborn, whose names God has enrolled. You joined the general assembly and church of the firstborn when you came to Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling. Then your name was enrolled. Then you began to live, and your name was written in heaven. And all these privileges Jesus ushered you into. See what they are:—

(1) Brotherhood with holy souls living now.

(2) Brotherhood with all the holy dead, right back to the Apostles of the Lord. The holy dead have come into their possessions earlier than we; but the fact that they have already come is the earnest that we shall come too.

—Charles Brown, Light and Life, p77.

References.—XII:22.—H. S. Holland, God's City, p3. H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Holy-tide Teaching, p173. Expositor (5th Series), vol. ii. p342. XII:22 , 23.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture— Hebrews 12:22-24

"As to the vision of the other world," observes Foster in his essay on The Aversion of Men of Taste to Evangelical Religion (ch. VIII.), "you will observe a great difference between the language of sublime poetry and that of Hebrews 12:27

No book of the New Testament is more "modern" than the Epistle to the Hebrews; none lies closer to the heart of the generation, or throbs with a deeper assent to its consciousness of change and its desire for the unchangeable. To the writer and the readers of the Epistle the changes looming on the Church and the world were so vast and awful that the vicissitudes of their own lives were lessened by their side. We are more keenly conscious of the blows of circumstances as they affect ourselves. We look back with yearning on a life like Wordsworth"s, of whom it has been said that his bereavements were "thinly scattered clouds in a "great sea of blue," seasons of mourning here and there among years which never lost their hold on peace, which knew no shame and no remorse, no desolation and no fear, whose days were never long with weariness nor their nights broken at the touch of woe". To us this word "Yet once more" signifieth the removing, but it is the removing of our own treasure and joy that strikes us with most piercing force. And yet we know that the foundations of our society and of our Church systems have been made to tremble.

I. "The Hebrews 12:28

Thought without Reverence is barren, perhaps poisonous; at best, dies like cookery, with the day that called it forth; does not live, like sowing, in successive tilths and wider-spreading harvests, bringing food and plenteous increase to all Time.

—Carlyle.

In the biography of Francois Coillard, of the Zambesi, it is told how he once asked a friend in Paris, during1897: "Do you ever regret having left the Church of Rome?" "Never," was the emphatic reply. "In Protestantism I found an open Bible, the personal knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the forgiveness of my sins—three things I never found in Rome But," he added, "I must confess there is one thing in Catholicism which I miss in our Reformation Churches, and that is adoration." "I miss it too," said M. Coillard.

Compare Renan's indignant repudiation of Branger's theology, in his essay on "The Deity of the Bourgeois". "No, they cannot know thee, Holy Being, whom we behold not save in the serenity of a pure heart The blasphemies of the man of genius must please thee more than the vulgar homage of complacent gaiety. The atheist is far rather he who so misjudges thee, than he that denies thee. The despair of a Lucretius or a Byron was more after thine own heart than this brazen-faced confidence of superficial optimism which insults while it adores thee."

References.—XII:28.—L. D. Bevan, Christ and the Age, pp285 , 299. E. J. Lyndon, Preacher's Magazine, vol. xix. p513. XII:28 , 29.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxviii. No1639.

Hebrews 12:29

The wrath of God properly understood, so far from being in conflict with the love of God, is the highest expression of it. How can God love any good without hating any evil? "Our God is a consuming fire"—but the fire of the furnace which is hatred to the dross is love to the gold. And God's wrath against sin is not only love, but the only love to the sinner.... Supposing it supposable, if God could and should remove from sin and disobedience their natural and penal consequences, would it be an act of love on His part to do so? Would goodness continue to be blessedness if badness ceased to be accursedness? "Our God is a consuming fire," and He is never so much "our God" as when He is consuming us. For it is only in God's wrath to our sin that we know God's love to ourselves.

—Du Bose, Soteriology of the New Testament, p51.

References.—XII:29.—R. J. Wardell, Preacher's Magazine, vol. xviii. p83. L. D. Bevan, Christ and the Age, p315.