Sometimes the first part of a chapter in the Word is not understood until the last part is read. The end of the twelfth chapter of Hebrews says, …Our God is a consuming fire. Verse 29. If you orient yourself to this verse, the entire chapter will have more meaning. Verses 25 and 26 say that we are not to refuse Him who speaks, because He is going to shake everything. This refers to the time when the Israelites could not bear the words that they received at the foot of Mount Sinai (Exodus 20:19).
In the first part of Hebrews 12, the writer tells how God deals with you. God wants to talk to you as He spoke to Moses from Mount Sinai. However, this time He will speak to shake not only the heavens and the earth, but everything in your life. As a consuming fire, He will consume everything of the dross, everything that stands in the way of the perfect will of God. You must hear that word, but first He has to get your attention. “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him.” Hebrews 12:5b. The Lord has a way of getting and keeping your attention. The fear of the Lord is not easily or lightly learned. Many have the scars to prove it.
Hebrews 12 begins: Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us…. Verse 1. Who is in that cloud of witnesses? Are they visible? No, they are invisible, and Hebrews 11:38–40 tells about them—those who died in the faith: …(men of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground. And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they should not be made perfect.
There is an evolution in God’s great redemptive work. However, this does not mean that today’s disciple is better than those of former generations. For instance, does the college graduate or scientist today have more intelligence than the man who invented the wheel ages ago? Considering the circumstances and the restrictions, inventing a wheel in the past was as great an accomplishment as inventing a pocket-sized computer today. Each inventor labored under the restrictions of his time. He could only build on what already existed. If a man understands what has been, he can add one significant step.
In the history of the world, all that men have ever done is to take a significant step; and that is what God is telling us to do in the realm of spirit. In the Word, He tells us of the great cloud of witnesses surrounding us. They were not made perfect in their time. They started the race, and the world was not worthy of them. They lived in caves and holes in the ground. They were harassed and persecuted. They were no better than we are; nor were they any worse.
The sermon of Paul in Acts 13:36 says that David, by the will of God, served his generation and slept with his fathers. This is important to know in this day. All that you can do is to live where you are living right now. You may be able to live a number of years in the future, but you cannot live in any significant time of the past. Men in history may appear to be great heroes; but if they were transported in time and lived in this day, they would be no greater than you are. The best thing to do is to be the kind of patriot and Christian that God wants you to be today. The belief that the “good old days” were better and that the saints of the past were far greater is not true. There are those in this day who are giving their lives with the same total dedication to the Lord that was seen in days past.
The flesh is the flesh, and there has never been any generation born whose flesh was superior to any other generation. All we can do is appropriate the grace of God and walk in it. We are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, but they are not made perfect without us. We are the anchormen in this relay team, the ones who will break the tape and hear the Lord say, “One age has ended, and you are now in the Kingdom!” We today are the ones who will do it; and although it does not mean that we are more important, neither does it mean that we are less important. We stand as God’s people in this generation.
It is a strange feeling to realize that all those saints and prophets from ages past are watching. Be careful where you go, what you see, and what you do, because the Father and all of those brothers and sisters from generations past are watching how you run the race.
Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy 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 has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart. Hebrews 12:lb-3. Consider what Jesus did. He could endure the cross and all the shame because He looked beyond it. If you want to see the spiritual values in a person, focus beyond him.
Truth is not found by focusing upon the present circumstance; truth is found by focusing on what is beyond the present circumstance. Jesus wanted to see the truth as it was. Therefore, He endured the cross. He despised the present circumstance, the shame and the suffering. He endured it all because of the joy that was set before Him, beyond the cross. He saw that He would be seated at the right hand of the throne of God. The present has less significance when there is an understanding of what God is bringing in the future.
Hebrews 12:4–8 explains that you are not to grow weary and lose heart. You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him; for those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives.” It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
Is there a sadistic tendency in God that makes Him discipline you severely? No, of course not. When God led the Israelites in the wilderness, He tried them and proved them. He did many things to make them know that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. That discipline was necessary; for if He had not disciplined them, their eyes would always have been on the circumstances. They would have murmured and complained. He disciplined them so that they would focus upon His word. In like manner God deals with you.
If God were to let you slide along on an easy path, you would completely forget the word that He has for you, and it would mean nothing to you. Therefore, you are not to faint when you are reproved of Him. This world is deceitful, and it tempts you to become focused upon the cares and the problems of the day. For that reason, God must prod you occasionally to jolt you out of a mesmerized state in which you are focused upon your circumstances.
God knows what He is doing. He knows how to discipline and channel your spirit so that you will not follow the wayward ways of the flesh. He teaches you the discipline He wants you to follow. If you are without that discipline, you become a spiritual bastard. You become an Ishmael creature, with something of God in your nature, but also with something of the old flesh of Adam that has taken over. Then you cannot inherit the good promises God wants you to have. Oh, how God disciplines you! How He leads you! He tells you, “This is what I want you to do!”
Hebrews 12:9,10 speaks of God’s discipline: Further more, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? (He is the Father of your spirit.) For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness. In other words, when God disciplines you, you learn to hold fast to His word and to give good diligence to it. This results in your inheriting His nature. You become a partaker of the divine nature of God instead of giving way to an expression of the nature of Adam.
Salvation is free, just as life is free to a little baby when he is born. He breathes, he cries, he sleeps, he eats. Life was given to him, but his life will mean nothing without discipline and training. This is true also of eternal life: it is free, but the upkeep is expensive.
In many churches it does not cost much to serve God; in fact, it does not cost anything. However, if you want to be a son of God and not a spiritual bastard—some kind of freak that comes forth half God and half religious and fleshly—then you must go through the process of becoming a legitimate child of God. This involves a discipleship that is total. It is very expensive. What God demands of you is completely devastating. He disciplines and chastens you until you can truly say that you are His own son.
Hebrews 12:11–29 shows you the value of discipline. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. Discipline comes to heal you so that you can walk with God.
Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled; that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears. Keep this Scripture in mind. Allow your spirit to be disciplined. Let God deal with your heart.
Here is the important point of this word: For you have not come to a mountain that may be touched and to a blazing fire (referring to Exodus 19), and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind, and to the blast of a trumpet and the sound of words which sound was such that those who heard begged that no further word should be spoken to them…. But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel.
See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less shall we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven. And His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven.” And this expression, “Yet once more,” denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, 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, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire.
This Scripture establishes the relationship between the word that God is speaking and the discipline He requires. If you want life to be easier for you, if you want to avoid the dealings of the Lord, just walk away from the word He is speaking in this hour. For a little while it will seem as though you have escaped the pressure, and things will be much easier for you. You can settle down to a nice, comfortable little groove.
When you really start seeking God with all your heart, you can expect something to happen, because it will happen. The word that God is speaking will shake everything in the world, ending one age and bringing in another. However, that word must first shake you and bring to an end the things in your life that must be removed.
A number of promises that came to pass were wrapped up in the words that God spoke to the Israelites. Likewise, the victory of the Kingdom is wrapped up in the word that God is speaking to you, because the victory of the Kingdom will one day be spoken through you with your words. You will speak the word of God that will bring down Babylon and principalities and powers.
The first action of the word, as you hold on to it, is that it disturbs your own life. It shakes up the things that have to go. It brings you under discipline and under the chastenings. You do not have to do anything. You do not even have to say, “O Lord, chasten me”; all you have to do is hold on to His word. That is the mark of legitimacy in the Kingdom. Legitimate sons hold fast to the word of God, and it disciplines their lives. God purges and cleanses them through the word.
In John 15:3 Christ said, Now ye are clean (purged) through the word which I have spoken unto you. A pruning of your life comes through the word. The word comes to your life and searches out your heart. A lover of the word is one who will ultimately have a pure heart before God. As he holds on to the word, it will purge him and remove impurity.