BOOK OF HEBREWS
CHRISTIAN CONFIDENCE
DR. JIM DIXON
OCTOBER 07, 1984
HEBREWS 10
Don’t drink the water. Don’t eat the food in the marketplace. Don’t wear shoes in the dome of the rock. Don’t lose your travelers’ checks. Those were four instructions given to 115 of us. As we gathered in the chapel at Faith Presbyterian Church in 1978 about to embark on a journey to Israel. We were reminded that we were going to a foreign country, a country that was not our own, a country where we held no citizenship, a country where we would be aliens and strangers in the land. Now in the Bible we are told that as Christians there is a sense in which we are to view this earth as a foreign country, our citizenship is in heaven.
This world is not our home. We are just passing through. We are aliens, exiles, and soldiers on this earth and in our passage of scripture for today, we are given three instructions, three admonitions for our life in this world. First of all, we are told to have confidence. The author of Hebrews says, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward in another place. In the same pass, the author of Hebrews says that we are to have full assurance of faith in this world. God wants us confident as we live in this world. He wants us confident, and we should be confident because we have a great high priest over the household of God, Jesus Christ. He looks down upon us, he intercedes for us. He promises to protect us. He promises to provide for us. He promises that he will never fail us, and he will never forsake us.
He promises that he will always be with us. He even promises that everything in the life of the Christian works together for good. All things work together for good, for those who love the Lord and are called according to his purpose. If you believe that you will live this life confidently. Many of you have heard the story, the Chinese proverb of the Chinese farmer. The Chinese farmer had one son and one horse, but one day the horse ran away. The Chinese farmer’s neighbor came by and said, that’s bad news, but the farmer just smiled. The next day the horse came back with seven wild stallions and now the farmer had eight horses. The neighbor came by and said, “That’s good, that’s good news. But the farmer just smiled. The next day, the farmer’s only son broke his leg trying to tame one of the wild stallions.
The neighbor came by and said, that’s bad news, but the farmer just smiled. And the next day a Chinese war Lord came through recruiting all able-bodied men to go off to war. A Chinese farmer’s son could not go where his leg was broken. Those who went never came back, but the farmer’s son lived a long, full and blessed life. We tend to view this world in our lives, in this world as having good news and bad news, but the Bible tells us that if we’re Christians, we can smile at the bad news. We can smile because we are promised that all things work together for good to those who love the Lord and are called according to his purpose. That is why the Bible says counted all joy when you experience various trials. If you believe the promises of God, you will be confident. Our Lord Jesus Christ promises to provide for us and lie, listen to the promise of God through Christ. In the sixth chapter of Matthew, Jesus said, let not your heart be anxious.
Why are you anxious saying, what shall I eat, what shall I drink, or what shall I wear? Consider the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns and yet your heavenly Father feeds them all. And are you not of much more value than they? So why are you anxious? And which of you are by being anxious? How can you add one Cubit to your span of life? Consider the lilies of the field and how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. And yet I tell you that Solomon and all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these. And if God so close the lilies of the field which are here for a day and tomorrow are burned, how much more will he clothe you? Oh you of little faith. So why are you anxious saying, what will I eat, what shall I drink, what shall I wear? For the Gentiles, the nations seek after such things and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all, But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and he will give you everything you need.
If you believe that you’ll be confident. God wants us confident not only in life, but he wants us confident in death for, for us as Christians, death itself has been swallowed up in victory. We need not fear death. The Bible says, since therefore the children share in blessed and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same nature, that by death he might destroy him as the power of death that is the devil and deliver those who through fear of death are subject to lifelong. There are millions of people in this world subject to lifelong through fear of death. But as Christians we’re called to be confident even in death. For Jesus Christ has risen from the dead and he offers resurrection bodies and eternal life to all who believe in him.
In the year 1968, archeologists unearthed the burial chamber of Princess Wencheng. She lived during the period of the Han Dynasty. She died 104 years before Christ. She was placed within this vast burial chamber, and no one had seen her for 2,000 years. But in 1968 they opened up that great burial chamber and the world was shocked. Archeologists had never seen such wealth in a burial chamber. Her body was surrounded by 2,800 funeral offerings, each offering priceless in value, and she was clothed in a funeral shroud. And that shroud was made of 2,000 jade stones strung together by solid gold wire. The royalty of her day believed that jade had power for protection and that gold offered physical incorruptibility that was all designed to give confidence in death. But that confidence was misplaced. Indeed after 2,000 years that jade funeral shroud is just as beautiful as the day when it was first made. But when they opened up that funeral shroud, they found that the body of the princess had decayed to dust.
The Bible says, we are dust and the dust we shall return. There’s only one hope of resurrection and that hope is Jesus Christ. He alone rose from the dead and offers eternal life to the world. He said, I’m the resurrection and the life who believes in me, though he die yet shall he live, and he lives and believes in me will never truly die. Do you believe this?
God loved the world so much He gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. The Apostle John says, we are writing this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life confidence. God wants us confident of life. He wants us to be confident even in depth. He wants us to know that he will keep us alive on this earth until our work is through and then we will spend eternity with him.
Confidence. Secondly, we have this admonition for Christians living in this world: Hold fast. The author of Hebrews says, hold fast to your confession. He says, you have need of perseverance that you might do the will of God and receive what is promised. Don’t backslide; persevere, hold fast. Now, most people in this world have never heard of Tommy Cruise. Tommy Cruise was an Irish immigrant. He came to New York City in the 19th century, and he began to work there, but he didn’t like the jobs that were available to Irish immigrants. And so he began to move west. He felt the call of gold and he gave his life to that call. He began to respond to that call.
Tommy Cruise went west. Tommy Cruise went west to respond to that call of gold. Gold fever is what they said he had. He came to Helena, Montana, one of the great gold towns and cities of the old West and Helena, Montana. Most of the gold had already been played out in the 1850s. And Tommy Cruise came in 1867 when people thought there was no gold left. But he began to search. He didn’t care. He began to search the hills and the streams surrounding Helena. People began to make fun of him. And Tommy Cruise became a kind of joke around the town.
They weren’t too subtle either. People made fun of Tommy right to his face, but he didn’t care. Every spring, summer and fall, he’d go out in the hills, and he’d search for gold and every winter he’d come back to town, and he’d beg for food. He did this for nine years, but finally in the year eighteen hundred and seventy-six, twenty-two miles north of Helena, Montana on the silver on Silver Creek, Tommy Cruise saw gold quartz float, gold film that had weathered away from gold rock somewhere up the stream, somewhere up the hills. And that told Tommy Cruise that somewhere there was a mother lode upstream. And so he tied pads to his knees, and he literally crawled over every inch of the hills up through the where the stream flowed. He did that for three years, persevering that he might find that goal for three years. And whenever he’d find any trace of gold rock, he would drive a stake into the ground.
After a while, he began to see a pattern to the stakes, and he could discern which hill was likely to have the great vein of gold. And so he began to dig into that hill. He began to dig into solid rock a little more than a foot a day for 180 days. He dug 200 feet into rock. And finally Tommy Cruise hit the mother lode, a vein of gold quartz running through the hill, one foot thick. It became the largest gold quartz mine in the history of the state of Montana. And Tommy Cruise referred to that mine as the Drome Lu after his native parish in Ireland. That mine has given more gold to Fort Knox than any other mine in the United States of America. From that mine, Tommy Cruz took $16 million, and then he sold it to a large Eastern conglomerate, and they have taken millions and millions more.
Tommy Cruise returned to Helena, and nobody made fun of Tommy Cruise anymore. It was Mr. Cruise and Colonel Cruise, and he founded the Tommy Cruise Savings Bank in 1896. He saved the city financially from the great financial crash and there was a monument to Tommy Cruise in Helena, Montana today. St. Helena’s Cathedral, magnificent, massive, and beautiful, built entirely with the contributions of Tommy Cruise. He felt the call of gold and he gave his life to that call. He persevered despite the ridicule, despite the mockery, he persevered and there was a great reward. As Christians, we have a call, not the call of gold, but it’s the call of God, the call of God, Jesus Christ. And we are called to give our lives to that call that we might pursue it, that we might persevere in it all the years of our lives on this earth.
And it is promised that there will be a great reward. The author of Hebrews warns us if we do not per persevere in this call, if we do not hold fast, if we are not faithful to his word, if we not truly give our lives to his call, if we return into sin and we begin to wander away and live lives of promiscuity, it is dangerous. The author of Hebrews says, if we sin deliberately after receiving knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains an offering for sin, but a fearful prospect of judgment, a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Or if a man who violates the law of Moses dies without mercy at the testimony of two or three witnesses, how much worse punishment do you think shall be deserved by one who has spurred the son of God, profane the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and outraged the spirit of grace.
For we know him who says, vengeance is mine, I will repay. And again, the Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But consider, recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a great struggle with suffering, sometimes being publicly exposed to abuse and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those who were so treated. You had compassion for the prisoners. You joyfully accepted the plundering of your property since you knew that you had a better possession and a heavenly home. Therefore don’t throw away your confidence, which has a great reward, or you have need of perseverance that you might do the will of God and receive what is prompt. I believe in eternal security. I believe that once we truly accept Jesus Christ as Lord and as savior of life, that life cannot be taken from us.
Once you have eternal life, it truly is eternal. Jesus said, I know my sheep, they hear my voice, they follow me, and I give them eternal life. No one is able to snatch them out of my hand. No one is able to snatch them out of my father’s hand. And my father is greater than all. But we have this warning that if we as sheep begin to wander, it is dangerous. There are consequences in this life and in the life to come.
You know, two weeks ago, Barb got a phone call from her mom and dad. Dr. Doolittle had run away. Now Dr. Doolittle used to be our dog, but a great personal sacrifice. We gave that dog to Barb’s parents and Barb’s parents were driving in the car one afternoon and it was a great thunderstorm in San Diego where they lived. And then they remembered that we had told them that Dr. Doolittle gets bananas during a thunderstorm, and they had placed the dog out on the back porch. So they hurried home to see how the dog was. And when they got there, Dr. Doolittle was gone, couldn’t find him anywhere. Barb’s dad, who had a stroke a few years ago and uses a cane, began to hobble around the neighborhood looking for Doc, and couldn’t find him anywhere.
But then a neighbor came out and he said, I think I saw another neighbor take Doc into the house. So he went to that neighbor’s house and sure enough, that neighbor had taken Doc into the house, but Doc had begun to fight with the neighbor’s dog. And so the neighbor said, I opened the door and just let Doc out. Well, Barb’s dad came back to his house and Barb’s mom was there crying. That’s hard for me to understand. But she was there crying. And so he got in the car. He got in the car, and he began to drive around looking for Doc. And he prayed that the Lord had helped him find Doc. And a man came up in a car, rolled down his window and said, are you looking for a little dog? And he said, yes. And the man explained that he had found the dog three miles away and was now driving around looking for the owner. Obviously, God loved that dog more than I ever did.
But you see, Doc has a history of running away from home. When we had him, he ran away from home over and over again. And that’s dangerous. Sometimes dogs get run over, sometimes they get lost, never find their way back. You see our Lord Jesus Christ is the good shepherd and he goes after the lost sheet, but he wants to warn us. It’s dangerous. It’s dangerous when you go astray. And that’s why he says hold fast. That’s why he says, persevere, don’t backslide. Be faithful to me. Obey my word. Serve me as you live in this world. Now thirdly, and finally we have this exhortation, this instruction given to Christians in this world. The author of Hebrew says, forsake not your assembling together. He says, do not neglect to meet together as is the habit of some, but encourage one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near. We need each other.
We no longer have Dr. Doolittle, but we do have a little tiny white Terry Poo, a little, tiny dog called McNugget. Whenever Barb and I and the kids sit in the living room, McNugget sits in the living room. Whenever we sit in the family room, McNugget sits in the family room. If we sit in the kitchen, McNugget sits there. If we want to go outside, he wants to go outside. If we want to go upstairs, he wants to go upstairs. He seems to like company. And when no one else is home, and I’m the only one there, he even likes my company. He’ll sit at my feet while I read a book or while I watch tv. And dogs are like that. They like fellowship, they like friendship. That was true not only of McNugget, but that was true of Dr. Doolittle. It was true of Beethoven. It was true of Shiloh and Gretel. It was true of every dog we’ve been so fortunate to have.
According to studies at Duke University reported in Science magazine, chimpanzees deprived of fellowship with other chimps actually become psychotic. I’m not sure what a psychotic chimp does, but it’s very evident that animals need fellowship. And if that’s true of animals, how much more is that true of people? In the beginning, God said, it is not right that man should be alone. We are social beings. God made us that way. We need fellowship, fellowship with the Father through his son. We need fellowship with our families. We need fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ and in the Bible, the word for fellowship is the word coin. And the Bible tells us that our fellowship is at the very center of our purpose. For existing God made us for fellowship. The church, the gospel calls us into fellowship, the community into the family of God.
Only Jesus Christ can meet the human need for fellowship, the fellowship that comes with God and with the people of God. John says we are writing this so you may have fellowship with us. Our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. And we’re writing this, that your joy may be full. Do you want joy that is full? It only comes through fellowship with God and the people of God. Now, the people of this world are confused, and they live for false purposes. They live for false goals. The Bible says the people of this world live for three false goals. And very briefly, I will recount them. First of all, the Bible tells us that some people in this world live for the lust of the flesh.
This is a biblical phrase for hedonism from the Greek word hedonate. These are people who live for pleasure. They live for their next meal. They live for sex. They live for sun-soaked beaches and pina coladas. Now, there is nothing wrong with pleasure. God gave us taste buds that we might enjoy food. He made us male and female that we might enjoy sex, but he did not intend for us to become gluttonous. He did not intend for us to become promiscuous. Sex is a gift meant to be opened only within the context of marriage. When it’s opened at any other time, it is adultery. It is fornication. It is sin. We were not meant to live for pleasure. We were not meant to be hedonists. Pleasure can never satisfy. It produces emptiness. When a life is given over to it, it satiates, but it never satisfies. It is not a proper goal for a human life.
Now, there’s a second group of people in this world and the Bible says they live for the lust of the eyes. Now, this is a Greek expression for materialism and covetousness. It’s an expression for people who are preoccupied with material things who live for the acquisition of spirit, of material things. People who live for their houses, people who live for the acquisition of money and wealth, people who live for a home in the mountains. Now, there’s nothing wrong with material things. God created the material universe and God said it is good. But you see material things were never meant to be our goal, our purpose in living. And the Bible tells us that everything belongs to God. Nothing belongs to us as Christians. We above all people ought to know that we are simply stewards.
Some things are entrusted to us for a while, and our stewardship will one day evaluate it. When we try to possess things, they wind up possessing us. Jesus said, “A man’s life does not consist in the sum of his possessions.” And when people live for the lust of the eyes, when they live for material things, they wind up in a lifestyle of futility every time.
Now, there’s a third group of people in this world, and they are most tragic of all. The Bible says they are people who live for the pride of life. This is an expression for egoism and ascension. We live in a world that is preoccupied with self-ascension. Men and women enter the job market. They enter their work.
It might somehow produce ego gratification and self-ascension in their thirst for power. They pour themselves into their work. And those who thirst for power never handle power. Well, there’s a certain dignity to work. We’re called to work. We’re called to work responsibly. God has given us gifts. He’s given us talents. He expects us to cultivate them, to use them so that we might replenish and subdue the earth. But work was never meant to be the goal of our life. It was never meant to be the highest purpose of our life. Some people pour themselves into their work 80 and 90 hours a week that they might ascend, but we should not desire ascension. It was Satan who in the beginning said, I shall ascend above the stars of God. I will set my throne on high. I will make myself like the most high God.
Everybody wants to make something of themselves. But you see, Jesus said it’s more blessed to serve than to be. Sir. He would be the greatest among you. Let him be the servant of all. There’s no place for ascension and the heart of the Christian. What I’m saying, few people want to hear this world is out of whack. But you see the Apostle John said, all that is in the world, the lust of the eyes. Excuse me, the lust of the flesh, hedonism, the lust of the eyes, materialism, the pride of life. Egoism is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passes away and the desires of it, he does the will of God abides forever. What is the will of God? The will of God is that we would have with a father, with a son, with the Holy Spirit, with our families, with our brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ.
If you have a lifestyle that is such that you don’t have time for God, for communion and fellowship with God, if your lifestyle is such and you don’t have time for your family, for your spouse, your wife or husband, and your children, if you have a lifestyle is that is such that you don’t have time for the people of God, brothers and sisters in Christ. And your lifestyle is wrong, and you need to reprioritize your life. And that’s not from me, that’s from the Bible. That’s from the word of God. Three messages to Christians in this world, have confidence. The Lord looks down on you and he takes care of you. Hold fast, don’t backslide, persevere in your service to the kingdom of Christ.
Finally, do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together. Do not neglect to meet together with your Father, with your family, and with his people. Shall we pray?