There is a Shaking Coming: Part 1
/Chapter 11 a cloud of witnesses that believed God had a plan and lived their lives for Him instead of themselves.
Hebrews 12
P1: 12:1-2
Surrounded by a cloud of witnesses— lay aside every weight and sin/run the race w/ endurance
Look to Jesus, the author and finisher, despised the shame, endured the cross for the joy that was set before Him.
P3: 12:3-11
The Lord had to endure great hostility from sinners on this earth. He was holy and the world was fallen. They came against Him and tried to destroy Him. He endured—hypo monae means that He remained steadfast and did not waver against the great opposition that was against Him.
3…consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds
The world was hostile against the Lord, because He was completely different than the world. I’m sorry to say that much of the church is hostile towards the Lord, because it has embraced the ways of the world.
The church is warned that the last days will be characterized by:
1. 1 Timothy 4:1-2
1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall
depart from the faith, giving
heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;
V2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy;
having their conscience seared with a hot iron;
2. 2 Timothy 4:2-4
2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.
3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine;
but wanting to have their ears tickled,
they will accumulate for themselves teachers
in accordance to their own desires,
4 and will turn away their ears from the truth…
The truth of the cross crucifies the flesh, but also…
Galatians 6:14
But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
The change of the cross is both immediate and progressive. Immediately, the believer becomes a new creation. The Spirit of God is implanted into the heart and begins the transformation from the old creation in Adam to the new creation in Christ, but love of the world and preservation of self tries to prevent the metamorphosis from taking place. The cloud of witnesses that goes before us shows us that there have been countless humans that believed God’s word and chose the kingdom of God over the kingdoms of the world. The result was that the world treated them the way that it treated Jesus.
God wants to prepare our hearts, so that we will be faithful to Him.
5 …despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him
6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
Hebrews 12:7-8
7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? 8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.
through Jesus’ work of the cross and our response through faith, we have been made sons of God. We live in a world that increasingly hates correction and discipline, but our Father is not of this world. That is the prince of the power of the air, the Spirit that works in the children of disobedience (Ephesians 2:2).
If you truly are a child of God and desire to serve Him, be prepared, there is discipline coming. He will not allow you to stay the same.
Psalms 119:67
Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word.
Psalms 94:12
Blessed is the man whom you discipline, O LORD, and whom you teach out of your law,
People grow weary when the Lord disciplines them. They drag up, tap out, ask the coach to take them out for a couple of plays? I’m kind of tired.”
“Take you out for a couple of plays. Son, we don’t have anyone else? We need you to stay in the trenches and fight.”
Growing up, my football coach would have told me, “If you need a break, go to the locker room and turn in your uniform, because you obviously don’t understand the privilege of being on this team.”
He calls you son. He is your Father, and you are His son, made possible through the death of His only begotten Son. He has a plan, and if you’re going to really be His, there is going to be some discipline involved, and we are going to have to endure it.
Hebrews 12:6
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”
Hebrews 12:7
It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?
You have to endure the discipline of the Lord. When He disciplines, He is treating you as a son. Good Fathers discipline their children. Listen church the conclusion of this chapter is that there is a shaking coming. In the end, God is going to shake everything and only that which remains will enter the kingdom. Therefore you must endure the chastening of the Lord. Your eternity depends upon it.
Hebrews 12:8-10 ESV
8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.
A true child of God will participate in the discipline of the Lord, or else they aren’t a true child of God. It’s a good thing if the Lord is bringing discipline into your life, because it means that you are a son/child of God. If He’s not bringing discipline, then it means that person is not really a son of God.
Hebrews 12:11
For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. [exercised]
The thought of this section on discipline ends with these two truths:
God’s discipline is painful when it’s present. Why would God discipline? There is something that He doesn’t like about our lives or our behavior that He is dealing with. No one likes the way discipline feels. A spanking hurts, and punishment feels frustrating. The time mom punished me from the circus. I can still see myself so frustrated. I realize it now that it was a spirit of rebellion that refused to comply.
The discipline of the Lord can be much more painful than missing the circus: Financial famine, discord in relationships, trouble at work… The enemy offers answers to lower the pain…many times people people look around for someone or something else to blame instead of taking their medicine like a big boy and humbling themselves under the hand of God.
2. But discipline yields a crop: holiness
Discipline yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness
Proverbs 29:1
He who is often reproved, yet stiffens his neck, will suddenly be broken beyond healing.
James 1:21-25 ESV
21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. 25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.