Bear With the Word of Exhortation

Bear With the Word of Exhortation

We know the saying that goes like this: “Well begun is half done.” It is difficult to make a better beginning than the Hebrews. “For you had compassion on me in my chains, and joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods, knowing that you have a better and enduring possession for yourselves in heaven.” Ch. 10:32-34.

This was their beginning, but their subsequent progress was bad. They had become dull of hearing. By then they should have been teachers, but they needed someone to teach them again the first principles of the oracles of God. Ch. 5:11-13. They had had a good beginning—a successful birth—but there was little or no growth. Consequently, the apostle gives them many strong exhortations that cannot be found in any other epistle. I wonder if many people these days aren’t in the same situation and should be reminded of the former days, as the Hebrews were, of how zealous they had been. It is of no avail for them to have been zealous but did not continue to be zealous until the end.

“Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away.” The apostle follows this up with something that sounds like a severe warning: “For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward, how shall we escape . . . .” Ch. 2:1-3. “Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus . . . .” Ch. 3:1. He reminds them of Israel when they left Egypt, and that God was angry with them for forty years. He exhorts them: “Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called ‘Today,’ lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” He continues to exhort them further in Chapter 4: “Therefore . . . let us fear lest any of you seem to have been left behind.”

In Chapter 6 we read a further powerful exhortation to go on to perfection, which he follows up with another apparent warning. He lets them understand that the earth that receives God’s blessing but still bears thorns and thistles is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned.

Even though he gives them this powerful warning, he still calls them “Beloved” and expresses his confidence concerning them though he speaks in this manner. But again he continues as if threatening, in Chapter 10: “For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries.” Moreover, seeing that it is this serious, he exhorts them to consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, and so much more as they see the Day approaching. Then he gives very serious exhortations in Chapter 12 where he reminds us that “they did not escape,” and that God is a consuming fire. He says further: “Looking diligently lest anyone draws back from God’s grace, lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled; lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau . . . .” This is how he wrote to the Hebrews, even though they had not fallen away from God; not at all, they still ministered to the saints. Ch. 6:10-11. Yet they did not show the same zeal. They had become sluggish. They did not grow. He asks them to bear with this word of exhortation, for he had written to them in all brevity. In other words, he had much more to say to them.

The above is just a short excerpt of the word of exhortation to the Hebrews written in all brevity. Here we can see how serious the apostle saw the matter of a lack of growth, and of how little help it is to comfort yourself with your glorious experiences. It can rather be to a person’s judgment if he does not continue in the same zeal. Ch. 6:5-6.

Let us therefore test ourselves whether there is growth and development, and let this epistle be a powerful awakening for us.