Author: Don Guthrie

Re: Verse reading–Hebrews 12:25-29; 13:1-9, 20-21 (day seven)
“Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.” (13:4)  In Matthew 22, the Lord says that marriage is not part of God’s eternal plan for the human race.  It is a creation ordinance.  For earth not heaven.  So, why does the writer of Hebrews, while listing the commands of God to which we owe particular attention as we receive an eternal kingdom, mention marriage?  The answer? Marriage is not eternal but morality is!  God judges those who defy His law by sexual activity outside of marriage.  Sexual expression outside of marriage between consenting adults is not morally neutral as people of this age claim.  Both adultery (in marriage) and immorality (before marriage) are rejections of God’s holiness and authority.  No nation/no individual can ignore His law without experiencing the instability  that will come as an expression of His righteous wrath.

Re: Verse reading–Hebrews 12:25-29; 13:1-9, 20-21 (day six)
“Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you.  Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.  Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”  (13:7-8)  In Hebrews 13, the writer does an interesting thing.  He asks his readers to remember their leaders.  Former missionaries, pastors, teachers who brought the message and helped them grow in the early chapters of their faith.  Either to death or a new assignment, now gone.  And what do good leaders do for us?  They speak God’s word to us.  They help us hear the instructions of the Spirit.  So, the writer quickly finishes his point (and helps them/us learn a New Testament confidence).  Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.  Leaders come and go.  Disconcerting!  Christ never leaves and never changes.  Confidence building!  Remember Moses turning leadership over to Joshua?  The stability of the church is always God Himself!

Re: Verse reading–Hebrews 12:25-29; 13:1-9, 20-21 (day one)
“His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised. . .’Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but the heaven.’ (which) denotes the removing of things which can be shaken. . .in order that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.  Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude. . .for our God is a consuming fire.”  (12:26-29)  It was a familiar Bible story.  The day God gave the 10 Commandments, the earth shook. See Exodus 19. It demonstrated the relative stability of the two things.  (Compared to the God’s Law, even the mountains were fragile, unstable)  Something similar will happen at the end of time.  All things will pass away.  God’s Kingdom will remain.  Everything else will shake and collapse. (2 Peter 3:11) It reminds us to be grateful and reverent.  God is the fire that will eventually burn up (consume, make disappear) all that is not completely His.

Re: Verse reading–Hebrews 11:1-2,32-40; 12:1-3, 12-17 (day seven)
“By faith (they) conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, (and) shut the mouths of lions. . .Others experienced mockings and scourgings. . .they were stoned, they were sawn in two.”  (11:33, 36-37)  Christians have two kinds of spiritual heroes.  People who trust God into triumph AND people who trust Him to death without any apparent vindication or victory (in this world, at least).  As a Pastor, I have known believers who experienced miraculous rescue.  I have also known those who endured pain and injury without complaint for long and patient years.  The lesson?  Faith’s reward is not always now.  Never completely now.  (Kipling says that triumph and disaster are both “imposters”.)  The real value of life will only be known when God declares it in eternity.  Whether they win or get wiped out, our heroes all tell us the same thing.  Trust God!  He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.  Always!  Eventually!

Re: Verse reading–Hebrews 11:1-2, 32-40; 12:1-3, 12-17 (day one)
“Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race set before us.”  (v 12:1)  No one is suggesting it is easy.  To trust Christ, to walk by the Spirit in a material/secular age is a daily demanding task.  And a lonely one.  But we are not alone!  Believers are always surrounded by people from the past (now living in heavenly places) who also walked by faith and therefore understand the challenges we face.  Chapter 11 names a few of them.  Chapter 12 helps us hear them cheering for us as we run our race.  You are not alone, dear one!  You are surrounded by people who know the discouragements and the fears and the available resources.  They know the race and the rewards.  Can you hear them cheering for you?

Re: Verse reading–Hebrews 10:19-39 (day seven)  “We are not those who shrink back to destruction.” (v 39)  “Not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.”  (v 25)  The danger is very real.  Not that we would deny  Christ with our words, but with our actions.  Two examples.  One psychological.  The other congregational.  Shrink back is a Greek word that literally means, “to gather under”.  It pictures a person who retreats into self and becomes unwilling to face challenges.  “I am tired of getting ‘beat up’ “, he says.  “I will do what is good for ME.”  This secret shift of focus will have one noticeable sign.  He will stop showing up for meetings.  Worship.  Business Conference.  Sunday school.  Not that attendance is the primary virtue, but  others need his encouragement and he is gradually less willing to give it.  The danger is real.  We deny Christ by retreating from other believers and into self.

Re: Verse reading–Hebrews 10:19-39 (day six)  “Remember the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings. . .therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has great reward.”  (v 32, 35)  Sometimes we forget.  The good old days weren’t entirely good.  Time tends to soften the memories, but we made sacrifices.  We faced stress.  Building a family or a church or business, there were (and always will be) prices to be paid (time, attention, effort).  One benefit of looking back is to see this truth, and to recognize that giving up now would make all the sacrifices of the past meaningless.  No marathon runner would complete 25 miles (0f a 26.2 mile race) and not finish!  Neither should we.  False logic says, “I have done enough.  I am going to quit.”  Eternal logic says, “I have taken many steps.  I am determined to finish.”  “Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come”.  Great reward ahead!  Don’t quit now!

Re: Verse reading–Hebrews 10:19-39 (day one)
To read Hebrews is to review the Old Testament, and no passage is more important than Habakkuk 2:3-4 (quoted in today’s lesson, v 37-38)  “For the vision is yet for the appointed time; it hastens toward the goal and it will not fail.  Though it tarries, wait for it; for it will certainly come, it will not delay.  Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by faith.”  Claiming that God uses years to accomplish His work (and that patience is, therefore, required of God’s people), the prophet Habakkuk also declares that true faith continues, perseveres, waits. . .even when it is difficult to do so.  Pride doesn’t.  Pride demands immediate answers.  It protests the difficulty and shrinks back from the daily task that trust is.  Faith doesn’t.  Faith believes that “confidence will be richly rewarded”. (v 35)  And the difference between the two attitudes is life itself!

Re: Verse reading–Hebrews 5:11-14; 6:1-12 (day seven)
“Land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed.  In the end it will be burned.”  (v 6:8)  It is an interesting question.  Important.  If I am saved, am I safe?  The answer depends on a follow-up question.  Safe from what?  Some believe that Hebrews 6 refers to believers who lose their salvation by “falling away” from Christ.  I disagree.  “He who began a good work in you will complete it” says Philippians 1:6.  Salvation is a gift from God that cannot be taken from us.  The danger for the true believer is that by falling away from Christ we experience His discipline.  “If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.” (1 Corinthians 3:15)   Sin has consequences that we should fear.  Being saved doesn’t make us safe from the danger of God’s holiness.  Only reverent obedience can do that.

Re: Verse Reading–Hebrews 5:11-14; 6:1-12 (day six)
“By this time you ought to be teachers, (but) you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of. . . God.”  (v 5:12)  One factor that God uses in His righteous judgment is to compare what we are with what we could have been.”  Provision compared to progress.  To whom much is given. . .When God provides resources and time and teachers and pastors, He expects a return on His investment.  What return?  Progress in faith so that we, ourselves, become the teachers of the next generation of new/growing believers.  It is ungrateful to do otherwise.  Perpetual infancy, extended irresponsibility is evidence of a heart that receives the grace of God without embracing the purpose of God.  We become land (see 6:7) that drinks in the rain but never bothers to bear fruit.  Such ground is close to being cursed and WILL BE burned.  What an ungrateful (and dangerous) way for a believer to live!