3492. God’s Word Not to Be Refused

A Sermon Published On Thursday, December 30, 1915.

See that we do not refuse him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused him who spoke on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him who speaks from heaven. {Heb 12:25}

For other sermons on this text:

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1888, “Blood of Sprinkling, The” 1889}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1889, “Blood of Sprinkling, The” 1890}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3492, “God’s Word Not to be Refused” 3494}

   Exposition on Heb 12 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3111, “Warning and Encouragement” 3112 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Heb 12 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3206, “Church of the First-born, The” 3207 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Heb 12 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3492, “God’s Word Not to be Refused” 3494 @@ "Exposition"}

1. We are not a cowering multitude gathered in trembling fear around the smoking mount of Horeb; we have come where the great central figure is the mercy of God in Christ Jesus. We have gathered virtually in the outer circle of which the saints above and holy angels make the inner ring. And now tonight Jesus speaks to us in the gospel. So far as his gospel shall be preached by us here, it shall not be the word of man, but the word of God; and although it comes to you through a feeble tongue, yet the truth itself is not feeble, nor is it any less divine than if Christ himself should speak it with his own lips. “See that you do not refuse him who speaks.”

2. I. The text contains: — AN EXHORTATION OF A VERY SOLEMN, EARNEST KIND.

3. It does not say, “Do not refuse him who speaks,” but “See that you do not refuse him who speaks” — that is, “be very circumspect that by no means, accidental or otherwise, you refuse the Christ of God, who speaks to you now in the gospel. Be watchful, be earnest, lest even through inadvertence you should refuse the prophet of the gospel age — Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who speaks in the gospel from heaven to the sons of men.” It means, “Give earnest heed and careful attention, that by no means, and in no way you refuse him who speaks.” My object tonight will be to help you, beloved friends, especially you who have not laid hold on Christ, who are not the children of Zion, who are joyful in their king — to help you tonight, so that you may see to it.

4. And to go to our point at once, we shall have many things to say, and we shall speak them in brief sentences, hoping that the thoughts as they arise may be accepted by your mind, and may, by God’s Spirit, work on your hearts and conscience. There is great need of this exhortation from many considerations not mentioned in the text. A few of these we will hint at first.

5. First, from the excellency of the Word of God itself. “See that you do not refuse him who speaks.” What Jesus speaks concerns your soul, concerns your everlasting destiny; it is God’s wisdom; God’s way of mercy; God’s plan by which you may be saved. If this were a secondary matter, you need not be so earnest about receiving it, but of all things under heaven, nothing so concerns you as the gospel. See, then, that you do not refuse this precious Word, more precious than gold or rubies — which alone can save your souls.

6. See to this, again, because there is an enemy of yours who will do all he can so that you will refuse him who speaks. Satan is always busiest where the gospel is most earnestly preached. Let the sower scatter handfuls of seeds, and birds will find the seeds and soon devour them. Let the gospel be preached, and these birds of the air, fiends of hell, will soon by some means try to remove these truths from your hearts, lest they should take root in your hearts and produce fruit to repentance.

7. Give earnest heed, again, “that you do not refuse him who speaks,” because the tendency of your own mind will be to refuse Christ. Oh! sirs, you are fallen through your first father, Adam, and the tendencies now of your souls are towards evil, and not towards the right, and when the Lord comes from heaven to you, you will reject him if left to yourselves. Watch, then, I say; see that you do not refuse, stir up your souls, awaken your minds, lest this delirious tendency of sin should make you angry with your best friend, and constrain you to thrust from you what is your only hope for the hereafter. When a man knows that he has a bad tendency which may injure him, if he is wise he watches against it. So, knowing this, which God’s Word tells you, watch, please, lest you refuse him who speaks.

8. Remember well, too, that you need to see to this, because some of you have rejected Christ long enough already. He has spoken to you from this pulpit, from other pulpits, from the Bible, from the sick-bed. He spoke to you recently in the funeral knell of your buried friend — many voices, but all with this one note, “Come to me, repent, be saved”; but until now you have refused “him who speaks.” Will not the time past suffice to have played this mischievous game? Will not the years that have rolled into eternity bear enough witness against you? Must you add to all this weight by again refusing? Oh! I implore you to see to it that you do not again “refuse him who speaks from heaven,” for every word that he speaks is out of love for your souls. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, did not come armed with terrors to work wrath among the sons of men; all was mercy, all was grace, and to those who listen to him he has nothing to speak but tenderness and lovingkindness; your sins shall be forgiven you; the time of your ignorances God will wink at; your transgressions shall be cast into the depths of the sea; for you there shall be happiness on earth, and glory hereafter. Who would not listen when it is good news to be heard? Who would not listen when the best news that God himself ever sent out from the excellent glory is proclaimed by the noblest Ambassador who ever spoke to men, namely, God’s own Son, Jesus, the once crucified, but now exalted Saviour? For these reasons, then, at the very outset I press on you this exhortation, “See that you do not refuse him who speaks such precious truth,” which the enemy would gladly take out of your minds: truth which you yourselves have refused long enough already, and truth which is sweet, and will be very precious to your souls if you receive it.

9. II. But now the text gives us: — SOME FURTHER REASONS for seeing to it that we do not “refuse him who speaks.”

10. One reason I see in the text is this: see to this because there are many ways of refusing him who speaks, and you may have fallen into one or other of these. See to it; examine your own state and conduct, lest you may have been refusing Christ.

11. Some refuse the Saviour by not hearing about him. In his day there were some who would not listen, and there are such now. The Sabbath days of some of you are not days of listening to the gospel. Where were you this morning? Where are you usually all the Lord’s Day long? Remember, you cannot live in London, where the gospel is preached, and be without responsibility. Though you will not come to the house of God to hear about it, yet be sure of this, the kingdom of God has come near to you. You may close your ears to the invitation of the gospel, but at last you will not be able to close your ear to the denunciation of wrath. If you will not come and hear about Christ on the cross, you must one day see for yourselves Christ on his throne. “See that you do not refuse him who speaks to you from heaven” by refusing to be found where his gospel is proclaimed.

12. Many come to hear it, and yet refuse him who speaks, for they hear listlessly. In many congregations — I will not judge this one — a very large proportion of hearers are listless hearers. It matters little to them what is the subject at hand: they hear the sentences and phrases that come from the speaker’s tongue, but these penetrate the ear only, and never reach their heart. Oh! how sad it is that this should be the case with almost all who have heard the gospel for a long time, and who are not converted! They get used to it; no form of alarm could reach them, and perhaps no form of invitation could move them to penitence. The preacher may exhaust his art. They are like the adder that is deaf. He may know how to charm others, but he cannot charm these, charm he ever so wisely. Oh! you gospel hearers up there, and you below here, who have been hearing Christ for these many years, see that you do not refuse him who day by day during so long a time has spoken to you in the preaching of the gospel out of heaven.

13. But there are some who do hear and have a very intelligent idea of what they hear, but who actually refuse to believe it. For various reasons best known to themselves they reject the testimony of the incarnate God. They hear that God the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and he has borne testimony that whoever believes in him is not condemned. They know but they will not believe in him. They will give you first one excuse, and then another, but all the excuses put together will never mitigate the fact that they do not believe the testimony of God concerning his Son, Jesus Christ, and so they “refuse him who speaks.” How many, how many here are, by their unbelief, refusing the Christ who speaks out of heaven?

14. Some are even offended by the gospel, as in Christ’s day. When he came to a tender point in his preaching they went back and walked no more with him. Such there are to be found in our assemblies. The gospel galls them; there is some point that touches their prejudices, something that touches their favourite sin, and they are vexed and irritable. They ought to be angry — angry with their sin — but they are angry with Christ instead. They ought to denounce themselves, and patiently seek for mercy, but this is not palatable to them; they would rather denounce the preacher, or denounce the preacher’s Master.

15. Some will even hear the gospel, the very gospel of Christ to catch at words and pervert sentences to make sport of the preacher’s words which he uses, when they are honestly the best he can find, and, even worse still, make sport with the sense, too, with the very gospel — and find themes for loose jokes and profane and ribald words, even in the cross. Playing dice, like the soldiers at the foot of the cross, with the blood falling on them, so some make merriment when the blood of Jesus is falling on them to their condemnation. May it not be so with any present here, but there have been such who have even reviled the Saviour, and had harsh words for God in human flesh — could not believe that he bore the guilt of sin, could not admire the astounding love that made him suffer for the guilt of his enemies — would not see anything admirable in the heroic sacrifice of the great Redeemer, but rather turned their heel against their benefactor, and poured out venomous words on him who loved the sons of men and died saying, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”

16. And some have practically shown they have refused him who speaks, for they have begun to persecute his people; they have mistreated those who sought the glory of God, and anything that had a savour of Christ about it has been despicable and detestable to them.

17. Oh! dear hearers, I shall ask you, since there are all these ways of refusing Christ, to see to it that you do not fall into any of them. The grosser forms, perhaps, you would be too shocked about, but do not fall into the others. Do not especially fall into that indifference which has almost as much insult to the Saviour as blasphemy. Is it nothing to you, is it nothing to you that God should come from heaven that he might be just in the salvation of men, and that, coming from heaven to be just, he should himself suffer so that we might not suffer — the Christ of God bleed and die instead of the undeserving, hell-deserving sinners? Shall this be told to you — pressed on you and will you refuse it? Will you refuse him who speaks himself, in his own sacrifice, and in the blood which he has carried within the veil continues now to speak — will you, will you refuse him? Pray God you may see to it that you do not do this in any way.

18. And now passing on, but keeping to the same point, striking the hammer on the head of the same nail, there are many reasons why men refuse Christ; therefore, see that you do not reject him for any of these reasons. Some refuse him out of perfect indifference; the great majority of men do not have a thought greater than their food and their drink. Like the cock that found the diamond on the dunghill, they turn it over and wish it were a grain of barley. What do they care for heaven, or the pardon for sin? Their mind does not reach to that. See that you — that you, none of you, are so sensuous as to “refuse him who speaks from heaven” for such a reason as this.

19. Some reject him because of their self-righteousness: they are good enough. “Jesus Christ speaks against them,” they say; “he does not applaud their righteousness, he ridicules them rather; he tells them that their prayers are long prayers, and their many good works are, after all, a poor basis for reliance.” Since the Saviour will not patronise their righteousness, neither will they have anything to do with him. Oh! do not say you are rich and increased in goods; you are naked, and poor, and miserable. Do not say you can win heaven by your merits; you have none; your merits drag you down to hell. Yet many will refuse the Saviour because of the insanity of their self-righteousness.

20. Some, too, reject him because of their self-reliant wisdom. “Why,” they say, “this is a very thoughtful age.” And everywhere I hear it dinned into my ears, “thoughtful preaching”; “thinkers,” “intellectual preaching.” And what a mass of rottenness before high heaven the whole lot is that is produced by these thinking preachers and these intellectual men! For my part I would rather say to them, “See that you do not refuse him who speaks,” for one word of God is better than all the thoughts of all the philosophers, and one sentence from the lips of Christ I esteem to be more precious than the whole Alexandrian library, and the Bodleian {a} also if you wish, so much as it comes from man. No, it is the thinking about Christ we have to think about; otherwise our thinking may prove our curse. A man, if he is drowning, if he has a rope thrown to him, had better lay hold of it than merely be there thinking about the possibilities of salvation by some other means. While your souls are being lost, sirs, there is better employment for you than merely indulging in rhapsodies and inventions of your own supposed judgment. Take hold of this, the gospel of Jesus revealed by God, lest you perish, and perish with a vengeance.

21. Some reject the Saviour for another reason: they do not like the holiness of Christ’s teaching. They refuse him who speaks because they think Christ’s religion is too strict, too precise, cuts off their pleasures, condemns their lusts. Yes, yes, it is so, but to reject Christ for such a reason is certainly to be most unreasonable, for it should be in every man a desire to be delivered from these passions and lusts, and because Christ can deliver us, shall we, therefore, reject him? God forbid that we should be led astray by such a reason.

22. Some reject him because they have a fear of the world. If they were Christians, they would probably be laughed at as a Methodist, Presbyterian, Puritan, or some other name. And shall we lose our souls to escape the sneers of fools? He is not a man — call him by some other name — he is no man who flings away his soul because he is such a coward that he cannot bear to do and believe the right, and bear the frown of fashion.

23. There are others who refuse the Saviour simply out of procrastination. They have no reason for it, but they hope they shall have a more convenient time. They are young people as yet, or they are not so very old, or if they are old, yet still life will linger a little while, and so they still refuse him who speaks.

24. I have not mentioned a good reason for refusing him who speaks, nor do I believe there is a good reason. It seems to me that if it is so, that God himself has assumed human form, and has come here to accomplish our redemption from our sin and misery, there cannot be any reason that will stand a moment’s looking at for refusing him who speaks. It must be my duty and my privilege to hear what it is that God has to say to me: it must be my duty to lend him all my heart to try and understand what it is that he says, and then to give him all my will to do, or to be whatever he would have me to do or to be.

25. “But did God come like this?” one says. I always feel that the very declaration is its own proof. No heart could ever have contrived or invented this as a piece of imagination, the love, the story of the redeeming love of God in Christ Jesus. If I had no evidence but the mere statement, I think I must accept it, for it wears truth on its very forefront. Who should conceive it? The offended God comes here to redeem his creatures from their own offence. Since he must in justice punish, he comes to bear the punishment himself, so that he may be just and yet be inconceivably gracious! My soul flies into the arms of this revelation; it seems to be the best news my troubled conscience ever had — God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them. Oh! there cannot be a reasonable motive for rejecting the Saviour, and I, therefore, impress it on you, since so many unreasonable motives carry men away, see that you do not refuse him who speaks, and may the Spirit of God grant that you may not be able to refuse.

26. III. But now coming to the text again, we have: — A VERY HIGH MOTIVE GIVEN for seeing that we do not refuse him who speaks.

27. It is this — because in refusing him, we shall be despising the highest possible authority. When Moses spoke in God’s name, it was no light thing to refuse such an ambassador. Still, Moses was only a man. Though clothed with divine authority yet he was only a man and a servant of God. But Jesus Christ is God by nature. See that you do not refuse him who is of heavenly origin, who came from heaven, who is clothed with such divine powers, that every word he speaks is virtually spoken from heaven, and who, being now in heaven, speaks through his ever-living gospel directly out of the excellent glory.

28. Please regard this, and remember well the parable which Jesus gave. A certain man planted a vineyard, and rented it out to vine-dressers, and when the time came that he should receive the fruit he sent a servant, and they stoned him. He sent another, and they beat him. He sent another, and they mistreated him. After he had sent many of his servants, and the vine-dressers of the vineyard had incurred his high displeasure by the shameful way in which they had treated the servants, he sent his own son, and he said, “They will reverence my son.” It was the highest degree of guilt when they said, “This is the heir; let us kill him, so that the inheritance may be ours.” Then they took him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. You know how the Saviour was treated by the sons of men; but here is the point I aim at; it is this: to reject Jesus Christ, to refuse him, to refuse merely his gospel, if he did not speak in it, might not be so high a misdemeanour, but to refuse him! — I do not know how it is, but my heart feels very heavy even to sinking, at the thought that any man here should be able to refuse Christ, the Son of God, the Everlasting and the Ever Blessed.

29. But I cannot speak out what I feel. It fills my soul with horror to think that any creature should refuse his God, when his God speaks, but much more when God comes down on earth in infinite, wondrous, immeasurable love, takes upon himself the form of man, and suffers, and then turns around to his rebellious creature and says, “Listen, I am ready to forgive you; I am willing to pardon you; only listen to me.” Oh! it seems monstrous that men should refuse Christ! I do not know how you feel about it, but if you have ever measured that in your thoughts, it will have seemed to be the most monstrous of all crimes. If, in order to be saved, the terms were hard, and the conditions difficult, I could understand a man saying, “It mocks me,” but when the gospel is nothing but this, “Turn, turn; why will you die?”; when it is nothing but, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved,” what shall I say? I cannot think of an excuse for any of you, and if you, after having heard the gospel, are cast into hell, I dare not think that its utmost pains will be too severe for so high an insult to such amazing love. You will not be saved, sirs; you put from you your own life; you will not be saved when the way of salvation is plain, easy, simple, close at hand.

   What chains of vengeance they deserve

   That slight the bonds of love.

30. I cannot — I could not — conceive of a punishment too severe for men who, knowing that their rejection of Christ will bring on them everlasting punishment, yet wilfully reject him. You choose your own delusion. If you drank poison and did not know it, I could pity you; if you made all your veins to swell with agony, and caused your death — but when we stand up and say, “Sirs, it is poison; see others drop and die; do not touch it!” — when we give you something a thousand times better, and invite you to take that, but you will not take that, but will have the poison — then if you will, you must. If, then, you would destroy your soul, it must be so; but we would plead with you yet again; “See, see that you do not refuse him who speaks.”

31. I wish I could raise him before you tonight — even the Christ of God, and ask him to stand here, and you should see his hands and his feet, and you should ask, “What are these marks we see there?” He would reply, “These are the wounds that I received when I suffered for the sons of men,” and he bares his side and says, “See here, here went the spear when I died so that sinners might live.” In glory now, yet once, he says, this face was defiled with spittle, and this body mangled with Pilate’s scourge and Herod’s rod, and I, whom angels worshipped, was treated as a menial, indeed, worse, God himself forsook me, Jehovah hid his face from me, so that I, bearing the punishment of sin, might really bear it, not in fiction, but in fact, and might suffer the equivalent for all the miseries that souls redeemed by me ought to have suffered had they been cast into hell. Will you look at his wounds, and still refuse him? Will you hear the story of his love, and still reject him? Must he go away and say in his heart, “They have refused me; they have refused me; I told them about salvation; I showed them how I bought salvation; they have refused me; I will go my way, and they shall never see my face again until that day when they shall say, ‘Mountains fall on us; hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne’?” If you will not have him in mercy you must have him in judgment, and if the silver sceptre of God will not touch you, the Christ of God, the man of Nazareth, will come a second time on the clouds of heaven, and woe to you in that tremendous day. Then the nations of the earth shall weep and wail because of him. They would not have him as their Saviour; they must have him as their Judge, and out of his mouth shall the sentence come, “Depart! Depart!”

32. IV. Now I have to close with the last reason that is given in the text why we should see that we “do not refuse him who speaks.” It is this: that if we do: — THERE IS A DOOM TO BE FEARED, for if they did not escape who refused him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from him who speaks from heaven.

33. You hear the din that goes up from the Red Sea when the angry billows leap over Pharaoh and his horsemen. Why is the king asleep in the midst of the waters? Why are the chivalry of Egypt cut off? They rejected Moses when he said, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Let my people go.’” If Pharaoh did not escape when he refused him who spoke on earth, oh! dreadful shall be that day when the Christ who speaks to you today, and whom you reject, shall lift up the rods of his anger, and the lake of fire, more terrible than the Red Sea, shall swallow up his adversaries. Do you see that next sight? A number of men are standing there holding censers of incense in their hands, and there stands Moses, the servant of God, and he says, “If these die the death of common men, God has not spoken by me,” for they have rebelled against Moses. Do you see the sight? Can you picture it? If they did not escape who refused him who spoke on earth, how shall we escape if we refuse him who speaks from heaven? Go through the peninsular of the Arabian desert. See how the tribes drop, one by one, and leave graves behind them as the track of their march. Of all who came out of Egypt, not one entered into Canaan. Who slew all these? They were all slain there because they resisted the Word of God by his servant Moses, and he swore in his wrath that they should not enter into his rest. If they did not escape who refused him who spoke on earth, how shall we escape if we refuse him who speaks to us from heaven?

34. I might multiply examples and give you proof of how God avenged the refusal to listen to his servant Moses, but how much more will he avenge it if we do not listen to Jesus Christ the Lord! “Oh!” one says, “you preach the terrors of the Lord.” The terrors of the Lord! — I scarcely think of them; they are too dreadful for human language; but if I speak severely, even for a moment, it is in love. I dare not play with you, sinner; I dare not tell you sin is a trifle; I dare not tell you that the world to come is a matter of no great account, I dare not come and tell you that you need not be in earnest. I shall have to answer for it to my Master. I have these words ringing in my ears, “If the watchman does not warn them, they shall perish, but I will require their blood from the watchman’s hands.” I cannot bear that I should have the blood of souls on my skirts, and, therefore, I say again to you — refuse what I say as much as you wish; cast anything that is mine to the dogs; have nothing to do with it; but I have spoken to you Christ’s Word and have told you his gospel, “Believe and live,” “He who believes in him is not condemned,” “He who believes, and is baptized, shall be saved.” It is Christ’s gospel, it is Christ who speaks! and I again say to you, for your soul’s sake, “Do not refuse him who speaks from heaven to you.” May his Spirit sweetly incline you to listen to Christ’s Word, and may you be saved tonight.

35. If you do not have Christ tonight, some of you never will have him. If you are not saved tonight, some of you never will be. It is now or never with you. God’s Spirit strives with you, conscience is a little awakened. Catch every breeze, catch every breeze; do not let this pass by. Oh! that tonight you might seek, and that tonight you might find the Saviour. Otherwise remember if you refuse him who speaks from heaven, he lifts his hands and swears that you shall not enter into his rest. Then you are lost, lost, lost, beyond all recall! May God bless every one of you, and may we meet in heaven.

36. I do not know, I sometimes am afraid that there are not so many conversions as there used to be. If I thought there were no more souls to be saved by me in this place, under God, I would break away from every comfort, and go and find a place where I could find some whom God would bless. Are they all saved who will be? You seat-holders, have I fished in this pond until there is no more to come? Is it to be so, that in all the ground where wheat ever will grow, wheat has grown, and there can be no more? My brothers and sisters in Christ, pray God to send his Spirit that there may be more brought to Jesus. If not, it is hard, hard work to preach in vain. Perhaps I grow stale and dull to you; I would not if I could help it. If I could learn how to preach, I would go to school. If I could find the best way to reach you I am sure I would spare no pains. I do not know what more to say, but if Christ himself shall be refused, how shall I speak for him? If his dear wounds, if his precious blood, if his dying groans, if his love for the souls of men all go for nothing, then my words cannot be anything; they may well go to the wind. But do, do turn to him. Do not cast away your souls. Come to him; he will receive you; he waits to be gracious. Whoever is heavy laden, let him come tonight. One tear, one sigh, one cry — send it up to him; he will hear you. Come and trust him; he will save you. May God bless you, for Christ’s love’s sake. Amen.

{a} Bodleian: The Oxford University Library; also colloquially called Bodley. OED.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Heb 12}

1, 2. Therefore since we also are surrounded with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily besets us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Looking to Jesus

The apostle seems to say, since so many look on from heaven, and earth, and hell, and we are runners in the great life race, let us strip off all impediments: let us throw aside everything that would make our running difficult; every weight, however golden; every garment, however richly embroidered, lest it should entangle us in our course. And then when we have set out, let us not conclude that we have won the victory, but “run with patience,” on, on, on, until at last we reach the goal.

2, 3. The author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your minds.

What a runner in the race was he! And what a race he ran! While we see him at the end of the course, holding out the crown, let us remember that he knows all the trials of the way, knows what pressure must be put on us before we can reach the mark.

4. You have not yet resisted to blood, striving against sin.

Your battles have been nothing yet; you think yourselves martyrs. What have you done? What have you suffered? What have you endured, compared with your Lord, compared with the saints of old?

5, 6. And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to children, “My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are rebuked by him. For whom the Lord loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives.”

Here is another noble reason for patience. That same trial which, on the one hand, comes from man, viewed in another way comes from God, and is a chastening. Let us accept it from him, regarding it as a sign of sonship.

7, 8. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father does not chasten? But if you are without chastisement, of which all are partakers, then you are bastards, and not sons.

You do not have your Father’s love; you are not recognised as an honourable member of his family.

9-13. Furthermore we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live? For they truly for a few days chastened us according to their own pleasure; but he for our profit, so that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seems to be joyful, but grievous: nevertheless afterward if yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness for those who are exercised by it. Therefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees: and make straight paths for your feet, lest what is lame is turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.

The apostle cheers up those who are tried, with the reflection that the good which will come out of their trouble will abundantly reward them. They are not to expect to see that good at once. It will come afterwards — not yet. No reasonable man expects the harvest at the same time that he sows. You must wait for a while — bear with patience — have confidence in God — and all your trials will end well.

14. Follow peace with all men,

You will not always get it, but follow it — run after it.

14-17. And holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. Looking diligently lest any man fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and by it many be defiled; lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. For you know how that afterwards, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.

He sold his birthright. He could not have the pottage and the birthright too; therefore, he chose the pottage. He must stand by it. And if here, today, we deliberately choose the pleasures of this world, we must not marvel if we have to stand by them for ever.

18-24. For you are not come to the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor to blackness, and darkness, and tempest. And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice those who heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more. (For they could not endure what was commanded. “And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with an arrow”: And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, “I very fear and tremble.”) But you are come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels. To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, who are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect. And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things than that of Abel.

The centre around which we gather in these days is not Sinai with its thunder and its fire; it is the cross; indeed it is heaven; it is the enthroned Saviour; it is the great Mediator of a better covenant than what Moses came to speak about. We gather there, and we make no a part of that vast throng that now surrounds that centre. Oh! that we while we hear the sweet voice of the gospel, may lend it a willing ear, and may we not be among the number of those who reject the voice that speaks from heaven to us in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

25-28. See that you do not refuse him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape, if we turn away from him who speaks from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth: but now he has promised, saying, “Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.” And this word, “Yet once more,” means the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:

For let us not think that we are not to be reverent because we gather at the gospel’s call. Let us not dream that God who is a consuming fire on the top of Sinai, is less terrible under the gospel than under the law, for it is not so.

29. For our God is a consuming fire.

End of Volume LXI.