Jack Jurgens's Ministry Library

Ministry from Jonathan Seed Saturday morning.

[0:01] Hebrews chapter number 3. I’d like to read a few verses from the beginning of the chapter. Hebrews chapter number 3.
I thought it was interesting. Our brother’s message goes very well with the entire book of Hebrews. In fact, his outline is an outline you could use for the epistle to.

[0:28] Hebrews and I thought to myself, well isn’t that just so characteristic of the Word of God? Perfect continuity from beginning all the way to the end. We think right at the beginning of the message that, we heard, He’s the God that comes close, well that’s the Book of Hebrews. This is the incarnate, Son of God. This is the one who is not ashamed to call us His brethren. You think of the second point? Well, he is also the God that makes claims on us. Well, Hebrews is a book that is full of exhortation. I believe if I counted correctly, there are roughly 38 different exhortations in the epistle to the Hebrews, maybe a few more, maybe a few less. He’s the God also who keeps covenant. Well, that’s the epistle to the Hebrews. And in the epistle to the Hebrews, we see the Lord, Jesus Christ, the one who has become a surety of a better covenant, the one that is founded upon better promises. He keeps covenant as he did in the Old Testament. He does in the New and the person of his son. He’s a God who cares. Well, we see this in the, epistle to the Hebrews, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one who comes. He is the one that himself hath suffered, being tempted so that he is able to succor them that are tempted. We see in the epistle to the Hebrews that he’s a, God who comes close, and I missed your last point, it was to see that He’s consistent.

[1:54] He’s consistent, He’s the same, the I Am, we could say He communicates.

[2:01] Well, we see this in the epistle to the Hebrews. He is Jesus, the same yesterday and today and.

[2:10] Forever. He’s the same. He will never change. And so it’s my desire this weekend and the few messages that we have in the little time that we have to speak, to speak to you from the, epistle to the Hebrews.
And I’d like to notice in the exhortations that we have, the same exhortations that we heard from the Old Testament, but the writer to the Hebrews will tell us if we could boil them down or we could reduce them down to just four different exhortations.
The writer to this epistle, sorry, to these believers will tell us number one, to keep going.

[2:41] That’s chapters three and chapter number four, chapter number 12 as well.
Keep going. Don’t stop. Don’t go backwards. Don’t be stagnated.
But go forward. The second exhortation that we could see, if we boil them down, 38 different exhortations, we can see that the writer to the Hebrews will tell us, look forward, keep going, and look forward. Don’t look back, don’t look down, look up, and look ahead. And we see this especially in chapter number 11, in chapter 12, and also in chapter number 13. But it’s all through the book, chapters 1 and 2 as well. I’ll get to that in a different message. We see that in chapter number six, the writer to the Hebrews will tell us to go deeper into the Word of God. He wants to, explain great things about Melchizedek, but because of their dullness of hearing and because they were so slow to listen to the Word of God, he’s not able to go on. We have many things to say.
They are hard to be uttered, but you are dull of hearing. He goes on and says it anyway. I noticed that as well in the epistle to the Hebrews. So I’m going to go on and talk about Melchizedek anyway as well, even if some of you might be a little dull of hearing. My apologies, I hope you’re not.

[3:49] He says to go deeper, and we see also in the book towards the end, not only to go deeper, but very similar to the bush as we’ve heard this morning, come closer. Not only the God who comes close, the God who comes close to us, but the God that asks us to come close to Him with boldness and with confidence that we might approach the throne of grace.
For all that he is considering, all that he has done for us, considering all that he has provided for us, we boldly approach the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find help in the time of need.
Find grace and help in the time of need. And so may the Lord help us as we consider the epistle to the Hebrews.
I’d like to read the beginning of chapter number three and where we see this writer, Not sure who it is and that’s not my purpose this weekend. Not enough time for that.
But in chapter number three, I’d like to just consider right at the beginning, keep going.
Keep going. I’m wondering if there’s someone among us this evening, this morning, and you’re just wondering about putting the brakes on.

[5:04] And you’re thinking there’s not much gas left in the tank. Times are tough, times are difficult.
I’m not sure that I can keep going.
Hebrews chapter three has the answer.
Verse one says this, wherefore holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling.

[5:22] Consider the apostle and high priest of our profession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to him that appointed him, As also Moses was faithful in all his house, for this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses in as much as he who hath built the house hath more honor than the house.

[5:43] For every house is built by some man, but he that built all things is God.
And Moses verily was faithful in all his house as a servant for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after.
But Christ as a son over his own house, whose house we are, are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.
And I’m really interested in verses seven down to verse number 12.
They say this, wherefore as the Holy Ghost saith, today if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts as in the provocation, and the day of temptation in the wilderness when your fathers tempted me, proved me and saw my works forty years, wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said they do always err in their heart, and they have not known my ways, so I swear in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest, into my rest.
Take heed, 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 cold today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
And we’ll stop the reading there, considering the time, and ask the Lord to bless the reading of His Word.

[7:05] The setting of Hebrews was hardened hearts, unbelief, the deceitfulness of sin.
It’s difficult when we come to these epistles where we don’t know much about the author, and that might be part of the epistle, part of the reason why there isn’t a mention of the author, but we don’t know much about him. We also don’t know much about the audience. You know, you read all the different commentaries and they’ll tell you one theory and another about who the audience is. They’re all Gentiles, say some. They’re all Jews, say another. It’s a mixed audience and different ratios that you hear from different people. Well, we’re not exactly sure. What we do know is this, they understood the Old Testament and they could receive an exhortation and an example from the Old Testament, an example of the people of God who had the same problems that they did, the hardened hearts, the unbelief, the deceitfulness of sin. So it appears that for these believers who received this letter, they were having trouble going on. They wanted, they needed to keep going. Well, the writer thought to himself, this reminds me of something.
I remember in the book of Numbers, he says, I imagine, this is my imagination.
I remember in the book of Numbers and back in Numbers 14, perhaps he was, thinking about, we know very specifically he mentioned Psalm 95 as he quoted here in the verses that we read. Back in Numbers 14, I remember the people of God and I remember how they provoked the Lord, the provocation among Israel in, Numbers chapter number 14. You see, one of the things that I’ve noticed in Numbers 14 is that they brought up an evil report of the land. I wonder if, I wonder if that’s what happened in the assembly there with these believers.

[8:34] The people be strong that dwell in the land, they said. The men went to the city. They saw the fortifications.
They saw the giants. They saw all the resources.
They saw the infrastructure and they thought to themselves, it’s too big. It’s too much. We can’t go in.
The cities are walled and they are very great.
Great reasons, all the reasons not to go in.
We saw the children of Addak there.
The Amalekites, they dwell in the south, the Hittites and the Jebusites, they all dwell in the mountains, the Canaanites, they dwell down by the sea. All the reasons we should never go in, to Canaan. They are stronger than we. It is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof.
The evil report. Imagine to yourself, I wonder how the people felt. Imagine them coming back from Canaan. You’re all excited. We heard about the promises from God himself, Jehovah to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, and the land that we are to inherit, that we are to possess, and we come to the border, just about to enter, and they come back with a report. No, sorry guys, it looks really difficult. I don’t think we’re going to go in. You know, I wonder if for these believers who received this letter, it was much of the same thing. Provocation, it was an evil report.
He tells them in verse number seven, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.

[9:55] There was an evil report from someone. I don’t know exactly what the evil report was.
This is my, again, I’m surmising here. The evil report, maybe somebody in the fellowship, somebody in the assembly came back.
Somebody who was part of the, maybe who had one foot in the synagogue or one foot in Jewish life.
And they came back to believers in the assembly and they’re telling them, you know, we could always go back.
You know, there’s always a back door in Christianity. Maybe it’s the way that they saw it.
We could go back where we have the rabbi. We could go back where we have our fellow believers.
You know, here in this part of the country, I’m from Canada, but this part of the country, I notice lots of Jewish people. Something I notice about at least the Orthodox sort.
Similar kind of dress. There’s almost something attractive about it.
Maybe I’m weird, I don’t know. There’s almost something attractive about it. You know, it’s a community. There’s things in common. Common dress. Common traditions. Common history.
Most, a lot of them probably related.

[10:53] And you think to yourself, it’d be very difficult to leave. I wonder if that’s precisely what was happening here with these believers, a provocation to fall back, to go backwards, to go back to Egypt.
These are the kinds of things that we see later on in the letter.
I’ll mention that in a moment.
But we see that they were provoked to return. I thought about it this way.
All the reasons not to believe the report. That’s all they heard.
One of the things I’ve been thinking about in my own mind as I consider my own life and I consider my own journey or my own life and walk with the Lord, is I think how many times I consider all the reasons why something will not work out.
And dear believers, I’d like to tell you this afternoon, one of the things that helped me from time to time, it’s a struggle, but that helped me from time to time is this, instead of thinking of all the reasons why something will not work out, think of all the reasons why God, all the reasons why God is faithful.

[11:58] Remember all the reasons why God can be trusted, not all the reasons that things can go wrong.
You see here, these believers say they were provoked. I wonder if here in the assembly, those who are visiting from outside, being provoked, maybe not to return all the way to Egypt, maybe not to leave the faith, but you’re being provoked to be stagnant, to not move forward, to not keep going. I think of young mothers here in the crowd, wrestling with the kids, day in and day out. It’s not worth it. Clock out. Get the iPad. Turn the computer on. Put the movies on. I don’t want to be a hypocrite. People here have been to my house. They know I have an iPad.
I have computers. My kids do watch movies. So I’m not throwing stones to you young mothers.
But you know, sometimes you just throw in the towel. It’s too much. Why read my Bible in the morning? I have four kids, five kids, two kids. I have one child. It’s too much. Keep going.
Harden not your hearts. Don’t be fooled by the deceitfulness of sin.
You know, you think also of older mothers.
It’s a difficult time. I’ve never been one. It’s a difficult time, but I can see from a distance.
Mothers wrestling maybe with bitterness.

[13:12] Maybe with jealousy. It’s kind of a difficult juggle, you know, you don’t want to be too involved, but you don’t want to be too distant. Your kids are grown, they have their own children, you want to be a help, but you don’t want to be overbearing. You get complaints that you’re too involved, you get complaints that you’re not involved enough. She’s always at her house, she never comes to her house, she never babysits, she’s kind of always babysitting. You know, it’s a difficult thing for an older mother, for a mother-in-law. Don’t give up, keep going.
The deceitfulness of sin, the hardening of the heart, wanting to stay in one place, in fact, even wanting to go backwards.
I think of the young sisters here in the crowd, you know, it’s a difficult thing.
You’re not quite at that stage yet, you’re still at the beginning.
Thinking of marriage, you don’t want to move too soon. Nothing’s happening, maybe for others, nobody on the horizon.
Harden not your hearts, keep going.

[14:04] Keep going. Don’t be fooled by the deceitfulness of sin. Young men, wrestling with temptation, it’s easy to give in.
It’s easy to stay in the same spot. All my friends are the same.
My friends indulge the different temptations that come to my mind, the different things that I can be involved with.
Well, it’s easy just to give up again and to throw in the towel.
The writer to the Hebrews wanted to tell these believers, keep going.
Do not be fooled by the deceitfulness of your sin. As the Israelites, as they did in the provocation, they said to themselves, or they said to Moses, would God we had died in Egypt in the wilderness, why did you bring us all the way out?
Why to suffer all of these temptations, to suffer the hunger?
We want the leeks and the onions and the garlic.
We’re not better for us to return into Egypt.
You know, one of the things that I found interesting, this isn’t really the point of the message, he says there, they say, let us make a captain and let us return into Egypt. They didn’t realize it, but that day they made a captain.

[15:10] That wasn’t a captain to take them back to Egypt. They made a captain. Do you know who it was?
It was Joshua. They didn’t ask Joshua at that moment to lead them into the promised land, but that’s where, I would suggest to you, that’s where Joshua was made.
And that moment, as Joshua returned, he saw the failure of his peers, the failure of his fellow companions, the men who came back, they gave the evil report. Joshua and Caleb, they saw what was right. They knew that God could take them in. God had, promised. God had made the promise. God would be true to the promise. God would guide them in, lead them in. God would fight their victories. God would give them the inheritance and all the rest of the brethren, they gave up. And I think in, that precise moment, I imagine that Joshua was made as a leader. I wonder if there’s young men today. We heard last night about the, the goodness of carrying a burden in your young age. Are there young men in this crowd today? Difficulties abound. Lots to complain about. Lots of reasons to go back. Lots of reasons to stay in the same place. Maybe all your friends, they’re in the same spot. Go forward. Keep going. Don’t give up.

[16:22] The deceitfulness of sin, the hardening of the hearts. But he says here also, verse number 13, I want you to notice something about the exhortation of the writer to the Hebrews.
Not only the hardening of the heart. But he said there’s a way, there’s a way that this will come about. There’s a way that we can help our fellow believers. There’s a way that we can keep going.
Look down at verse number 13. He says to them, take heed brethren, take heed brethren, but jumping down to verse number 13, but exhort one another daily while it is called today, lest you be be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
Don’t you remember what it was like? Go to the house, going to the house of the brethren.
I imagine the writer to the Hebrews, if he was around physically, going to their house, just keep going, don’t go backwards, exhorting one another daily.
You know, I find so much help when brethren come and they come to help me and tell me to keep going.
I find that help even in my own wife.
I find that in fellow believers, family members, et cetera. When somebody comes along and just gives you a little word to keep going.
The other day we were at a sister’s house. Maybe some of you relate to this. We’re at a sister’s house and she hadn’t been to meeting in quite a while. How are you doing, sister? Won’t say the.

[17:39] Name. And while I’m doing okay, you know, kind of sitting on the couch slouched, didn’t look very enthusiastic, tried to encourage her with a few words, you know, I just feel kind of lethargic.
You know, I go to work and I come home and I don’t really want to get out of bed. I’m struggling to find motivation.

[17:58] Different things. I’m not sinning necessarily. I’m not going into the things of the world, but I just find myself in a stagnant position. And we didn’t have anything brilliant to say to her.
You know, I didn’t give her five Ps or give her a long message or a great exegetical sermon on Hebrews chapter 7. We just gave her a few words of encouragement. Just keep going.
Why don’t you come to meeting tonight? We’ll be at 7.30. We’ll pick you up.
You know what? I think I’ll come. It’s been a while. I think I’ll come. Exhort one another daily while it is cold today. One of the greatest resources that we have in our Christian life is our fellow believers. I know it’s maybe a little more difficult in America. I don’t know what it’s like further afield. In Mexico, everybody lives close together. Everybody’s in each other’s business, for better or for worse. And you have a lot of contact with, other people and you can speak to them on a daily basis and you can go and visit them and you can give them these words of excerpt. A little bit more difficult here in the United States, everybody’s spread out, everything’s through the telephone, maybe through email, don’t look at me, don’t touch me, I’m in my home, you’re in your home, especially during COVID, you know, a lot of people enjoyed that, six feet, six meters, whatever it was, and we’ll keep our distance, and we’ll carry on with our lives and you do you and I will do me and etc. We’ll go on.

[19:21] Exhort one another daily, while it is cold today, lest you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
How is it that we keep going? It’s not an individualistic type life that we live with Christianity.
How is it that we carry on? How is it that we persevere? How is it that we look forward and go on to the rest that the Lord has for us?
Well, he tells them here, not just the exhortation with your fellow brethren, brethren, but we have to go back to the beginning of the chapter.

[19:50] You see, the great theme of the book of Hebrews is the Lord Jesus Christ, from the beginning all the way to the end.
It’s a fascinating book. I recommend it to you. For many years, I avoided it.
The book of Hebrews was daunting. I thought it was too complicated.
There’s too much, a lot of chapters, hard to outline, hard to distinguish things, hard to understand things. It’s a beautiful book, not as complicated as it looks.

[20:13] But right from the beginning, we learn about Christ and His Majesty.
We carry on to the next chapter where we learn about Christ and His incarnation.
And there’s a reason for this trajectory.
I want to talk about that later on in a different message.
But we learn about Christ, the one who was sat at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens. But in the following chapter, we learn about the one who was made a little bit lower, a little lower than the angels.
He was crowned with glory and honor. He tasted death for all men.
He was not ashamed to call us his brethren.
The one who defeated he who had the power over death, that is the devil.
The one who partook of flesh and blood, the one who was able to become a merciful and faithful high priest for each and every one of us. And one of the things that the apostle or the writer says to these believers is he said, as you encourage one another and as you exhort one another daily, and as you think about going forward or you think about staying in the same spot, consider him at the beginning of the chapter number three, consider him, consider, the apostle and the high priest of our profession, Christ Jesus, faithful to him that appointed him. He says it again later on in chapter number 12. I believe it’s chapter 7. He might say it a third time in a slightly different context. Consider him. How do we move forward? We keep Christ before us.

[21:27] How do we keep going? We consider the one who endured such contradiction of sinners so that we may not faint. How do we keep going? We consider him who is the apostle and the high priest, the one who was sent from above and came down to the earth, the one who endured the spitting and the shame, who endured the rejection, who endured all of his own family, endured all of his own nation being against him, the apostle who came, who was sent from God, faithful and obedient to his God, the heavenly calling called from above.

[22:01] He’s a high priest. He intercedes between. This would have been especially helpful for those believers who receive this letter, especially if they were Jewish, but it’s no different for us. And the priest is someone who goes between.

[22:15] They had priests. They had priests that could help them. But not one of those priests could help them in the way that this priest would help. And as he goes through the epistle, he would like to explain to them how this priest is different. He just teases us in chapter number two, towards the end, he brings up the topic. And one of the things you’ll notice about this book is that he’ll bring up a topic, and then he’ll go to the next one, and then he’ll circle around and pick it up again, and then he’ll explain it to a greater degree, and then he’ll bring up another topic and he’ll drop it and he’ll go on to something else and come back to the topic again and explain it to a greater degree. That’s one of the things that he does with the topic of priesthood. At the end of chapter 2 he’s following the storyline all the way from incarnation to glory and as he comes to the end he mentions his mercy, he mentions his faith, he mentions his sucker, but then he drops the subject. Fix it up again in chapter number 3. He’s the high priest, he is the one who comes down, who comes between, but he is Christ Jesus. He is the one who was faithful as a son. The son who became a priest. The son who was, faithful over all his house. The son who became a priest after the order of Melchizedek. The son who became a priest after the order of Melchizedek, who sits at the right hand and waits until his enemies are made a footstool for his feet. And he says, look, consider this man. Look to this man. He’s gone before. He’s the pioneer. He’s the perfecter. He’s the author.
He’s the finisher, He goes before, consider Him.

[23:43] He’s gone through it all. He’s endured it all. He knows what it’s like. He feels your pain.
Consider Him and you’ll keep going.

[23:55] The last thing I wanna mention here is, in this little section, I’m not going to go through expositionally through every verse here in verses one through six, but I just wanted to mention this.
I think what He wants to emphasize In chapters 3 and 4, it’s faithfulness.
Faithfulness.
How’s your faith? How’s your faithfulness?

[24:20] Chapter three and four are difficult and I’m not going to throw my hat in the ring or nail my colors to the mast with respect to rest. Whether it’s a present rest or a future rest, I think I’m young enough to say I’ll figure that out later and that both are true.
We have rest and there will be a future rest. That’s for another discussion. But the point is Jesus, keep going, be faithful.
Faithful like who? Well, faithful like your overseers. He’ll say that in chapter 12 and 13.
Remember the overseer. Remember the men who have the charge over you.
But here it’s, remember Christ who was faithful. Moses was faithful.
We’ve heard about that.

[24:58] Moses was faithful, but he was faithful as a servant and faithful as a servant in the house.
But Christ was faithful as a son and faithful as a son over the house.
Christ was faithful.
He was faithful all the way to the end. It’s kind of an awkward topic when we think about the humanity of Christ, but he was faithful from first to last, faithful from day one to the very end when he was resurrected and ascended and sat on the right hand.
He is faithful today. He lives in the power of an indestructible life.
He has gone before as a faithful example to each and every one of us.
And so the author says this, Don’t be like that previous generation.
Don’t return to Egypt.
Don’t fall in the wilderness. Why did they not enter? Why was it the second generation that went in?
It was because of unbelief. They didn’t believe.
They didn’t keep going.
My time is up.

[25:56] But dear believers, as we go through the epistle to the Hebrews this weekend, remember that most of the exhortations, the Christian life, it’s actually very simple.
Keep going, you’re thinking about stopping, maybe a slightly different turn. You’re discouraged.
It’s your health, it’s your finances, your prospects, whatever it is, your career.
Keep going all the way to the end.
And once we reach our inheritance, we will see that it was all worth it.
And we’ll meet the one who went before us with a perfect life, perfect faithfulness, and a perfect example for us.
May the Lord help us to keep going.

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