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Our
Faith Climb to Heaven
By
Rev. Todd W. Allen
Villa Rica
11/6/05
Hebrews 3:1-12
A traveler in ancient
Greece had lost his way and, seeking to find it asked directions of
a man by the roadside who turned out to be Socrates. “How can I
reach Mt. Olympus? Asked the traveler. To this Socrates gravely
answered, "Just make every step you take go in that direction."
The
word I want to emphasize today from our scripture is faithfulness.
God tells us in his word,
1Therefore,
holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the
Apostle and High Priest of our confession; 2He was
faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was in all His
house.
The
reason we are to consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest is
because by considering him we can run the race set before us
successfully.
We are in a race. Not a race of
speed or swiftness but a race of endurance, a marathon. We do not
want to be sidetracked. We do not want to get discouraged and drop
out. We want to finish the race. It is not a case of being first in
this race. It is a matter of finishing honorably. To finish
honorably one must keep his eyes on the apostle and high priest of
our confession. He is the motivation and reason for the hope of
justification, forgiveness and heaven.
In a
most remarkable story the British writer C. C. Montague tells of a
man in his early fifties who woke up one morning with a curious numb
feeling in his right side, which affected him from head to foot. He
had lived an active life, achieved a reasonable degree of success,
and was alone in the world, his wife being dead and his children
grown and married. He saw the numbness as the beginning of age and
dissolution of his powers. He was not a man for suicide, but, as he
pondered his situation, he came at length to a decision. This
warning numbness was an opportunity for him, while his strength and
vigor remained, and before he began to decline, to carry out an
experiment in which he had long been interested. He was a lover of
the mountains and he was a first rate climber. He would go to the
Alps where he had often climbed before, and pursue, right to the
end, the piquant experiment of paring and paring away that limiting
margin of safety which mountaineers, even the boldest, keep in
reserve. He had nothing to lose by such an experiment. No precipice
could frighten him anymore. He could climb as he had never climbed
before. And when he reached the limits of strength and endurance
that would be that.
So
Christopher Bell went to Switzerland to a special place that he had
in mind, and one morning some weeks later started out alone to climb
a 12,000-foot ridge over the steepest route. He noticed as he
started his walk that the numbness was with him in his right leg and
arm; but that he did not seem to notice it so much as he went on.
By
mid-afternoon he was partway up the ridge, slowly and painfully
cutting steps in the ice wall with his axe. He was beginning to tire
and the way ahead was ever steeper and more dangerous. But he felt
no fear. Never had the world seemed so beautiful. Never had the zest
of climbing been so great. He came at last to a precipitous cliff,
sheathed in ice, which was even steeper than the vertical. It had
several overhangs that seemed almost impossible to negotiate, but
without hesitation he began the ascent, cutting holds for hands and
feet with his axe, and holding on against gravity with his free arm.
The progress was slow, but at last he reached the most hazardous
spot of all; a place where the overhang was directly above him.
Progress could be made only inch by painful inch, and at tremendous
expenditure of strength and endurance. He began to feel the drag of
a huge fatigue and the ache in his joints, which warned him that his
strength was failing. And yet, knowing that one relaxed muscle could
let him drop hundreds of feet to his death, he went on and on until
he reached the moment when he could not longer raise his arm to chop
the steps in the ice, which were his only safety. He looked up at
the overhang still above him, and knew that he could not make those
last few feet. And he knew also that he had reached at length the
moment he had sought.
Suddenly he became aware of something above him, on the upper side
of the overhang. He could not see, but he could hear voices, and
presently an ice axe came sliding over the edge of the overhang and
fell into the abyss below. He knew that somebody was above him, and
that whoever was there was in trouble. Then he heard a cry of
distress. New strength began to flow into his arms and legs. He knew
no numbness, no cramps and no fatigue. He knew only that he must get
up there to give what help he could.
Swiftly and yet carefully he began to climb again, cutting the steps
with his axe, pulling himself miraculously upward. And then suddenly
he had made it, and saw above him two people: a woman dangling
helplessly on a rope, and a man above her unable to move from a
precarious perch since his whole strength was necessary to hold the
woman. Bell came to the rescue and was able to bring these two
people to safety. Together the three surmounted the ridge, found a
hut, and spent the night in warmth and conversation.
Bell had, of course, rescued the man
and the woman. But they had also rescued him. For, if he had not
heard their distress, he would have yielded to exhaustion and lost
his grasp.
Christopher Bell had discovered that life-giving principle. It is
not in hours and hours of introspective contemplation that one
discovers the key to life. Rather it is in total commitment, total
surrender and total involvement that the soul transcends
meaninglessness. There are far too many people today who want to
have gusto in their lives by lying on a sofa with a beer in their
hands. It never happens. There must be a striving, a sense of
purpose, a dedication, and a discipline. We must have more than a
goal. We must have something greater than ourselves to live for. We
must have a vision for something greater than this life, this world.
We find that vision in Jesus Christ. But we dare not take out eyes
off of him. To take our eyes off of him is to lose our will and
strength to finish the course. We must keep our eyes fixed on him. I
believe that is what the Word we have read today is telling us.
In
this Hebrews passage we have Christ and Moses contrasted. Moses is
certainly a wonderful example of a man who was faithful. Without
taking anything away from Moses it is pointed out that Christ is
worthy of much more honor and glory than Moses on the grounds of who
he is and what he accomplished. Moses was a servant who did the
things God wanted him to do. In this respect he was as a man
commissioned to perform a task that was humanly impossible. He was
to lead Israel out of Egypt and then enact a body of legislation and
constitute the nation as a theocracy, establishing a worship program
that was to endure until the coming of Christ. Looking back at what
was done under the administration of the prophet Moses it is nothing
short of fantastic and amazing. Not only did God bring the people
out of Egypt despite the refusal of Pharaoh to release them, he
managed to take a mixed multitude of slaves and bring them under law
and order and establish a theocracy with a solemn and holy approach
to the living God, something never done before in the history of the
world.
But
what Moses did pales beside what Christ did. Christ comes as a
prophet and high priest with greater glory, first because of who he
is and secondly because of what he did. Moses was God’s servant,
but Christ was God’s Son. Moses was of the household of faith and
ministered to that household, but Christ is the Creator and builder
of the house of faith. He is the one who made everything that has
been made. When he comes it is more than Moses. Moses was a man
called of God to serve the people of God. Christ is the Son of God
appointed as Builder and Redeemer of his people. Because he is the
God who brought into existence the people of God he is worthy of
more honor and glory than Moses. His priestly work is also greater
than the work of Moses. Moses obeyed the Lord in giving the commands
of God and being the instrument for the structuring of the people of
God of the Old Testament, but Christ is the Savior of the people. He
offers himself as the Lamb of God to redeem his brethren from their
sins. His suffering and his faithfulness are greater than that of
Moses.
In the passage we have read we find
the example of those Israelites who had unbelieving hearts and who
provoked God to anger. God says that he swore in his wrath that they
would not enter his rest. I take that to mean that they did not die
in faith in the Lord.
In Revelation 14:13 we read,
“Write,
‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on!’” “Yes,” says
the Spirit, “so that they may rest from their labors, for their
deeds follow with them.”
The incidents whereby the children of
Israel provoked God are recorded for us in scripture. Psalm 95 in
particular refers to their unbelief. We read there in verses 8 to
11, Do not harden your hearts, as
at Meribah, As in the day of Massah in the wilderness,
9 “When your fathers tested Me, They tried Me, though
they had seen My work. 10 “For forty years I loathed
that generation, And said they are a people who err in their
heart, And they do not know My ways. 11 “Therefore I
swore in My anger, Truly they shall not enter into My
rest.”
God delivered them
from pharaoh’s army. He had always provided for them. He had given
them Manna from heaven, water out of the rock; he even rained quail
upon them when they craved meat. But invariably they would murmur
and complain. They grumbled against Moses and against God. They had
a perpetual case of unbelief. They walked by sight and not by faith.
So long as their outward circumstances were pleasant and favorable
they grudgingly admitted that God was looking after them but the
minute they had a problem, the minute there was a scarcity or a time
when the going got tough they would bellyache and complain and
threaten Moses.
At Rephidim, when there was no water
to drink,
2
the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water that we may
drink.” They fussed and
complained so much that
Moses said to
them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?”
3But
the people thirsted there for water; and they grumbled against Moses
and said, “Why, now, have you brought us up from Egypt, to kill us
and our children and our livestock with thirst?” 4So
Moses cried out to the LORD, saying, “What shall I do to this
people? A little more and
they
will stone me.” Ex. 17:2
-4
So the Lord provided water
for them.
Moses named the place Massah and
Meribah. Massah means testing or tempting and Meribah means
contention or strife.
It was this kind of unbelief that
provoked the Lord to wrath. Had they never seen his miracles and his
power to deliver and save them from slavery, or had not experienced
his protection and provision and care, it might have been excusable.
But they had over and over seen his special care, protection and
provision and still they persisted in unbelief.
The
point I would make is this: unbelief lurks in all of us. To
live by faith is to keep your eyes fixed on Christ, remembering what
he did for us. He died for you and me. His sacrifice at Calvary is
worth some inconvenience if it should come, some hardship, even
persecution if it should come. Faith is trusting that God loves you
and that he not only will take care of your needs in this life but
that he promises you a place in heaven when this faith journey is
completed.
I heard a story about a man who
decided to walk to a town called Smithfield. He walked quite a way
down the road until he came to a dividing of the road where there
stood a sign post with two arrows telling him that one road would
get him to Smithfield and the other would not. That was simple
enough. One road was well paved, smooth, a delightful sort of road.
But that was not the road to Smithfield, it was the other road that
pointed to Smithfield and that road was rough, stony, steep and
unattractive. The man stood and looked at the signs for a while and
then he climbed up and just changed the signs around. Then he went
off singing happily down the delightful road. He walked and walked
and walked, but obviously he never came to Smithfield.
The road Christ calls us to walk may
be rough and uphill but it is the only road that will bring any of
us to the promised land of heaven. We are called to climb by faith
until we reach heaven. We are partakers of a heavenly calling. We
are to consider Jesus, the apostle and high Priest of our
confession. We are to consider who He is and what He did for us. We
are to keep his person and work ever before us so that we will- not
fail to come to the end full of faith.
5Now
Moses was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of
those things which were to be spoken later; 6but Christ
was faithful as a Son over His house—whose house we are, if
we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the
end.
7Therefore,
just as the Holy Spirit says,
“Today if you hear His voice,
8
Do not harden your hearts as
when they provoked Me,
As in the day of trial in the wilderness,
9
Where your fathers tried
Me by testing
Me,
And saw My works for forty
years.
10
“Therefore I was angry with
this generation,
And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart,
And they did not know My ways’;
11
As I swore in My wrath,
‘They shall not enter My rest.’”
Beloved, are you on the faith road to glory? Are you looking to
Jesus the apostle and high priest of our profession? Make sure he is
your ever present vision so that you will finish the race full of
faith and good works.
Be Thou My
Vision # 642.
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