When the hope gate in our spirit is functioning properly it will be red hot, full of hope!
Hebrews 10:12 but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth (used of time, hence forward) expecting till his enemies (in opposition) be made his footstool. 14 For by one offering he hath perfected ( spiritual condition brought about by the completeness of the action, which results continue to the present, to bring to completion) forever (perpetual) them that are sanctified (continuous or repeated action, to make holy).
The sacrifice of Jesus Christ for us was all-inclusive. “One sacrifice, for all time.” The book of Hebrews concentrates on teaching new Christians.
It was written at a time when ever Jew mourned the destruction of the old sanctuary. But the Jewish Christians were to know that there was a better sanctuary.
The old covenants were replaced by the better covenants, by better promises, and now by a better sacrifice. The word “better” becomes a key word for the book of Hebrews; “The new is better, better than the old.” And the Hebrew Christians were to rejoice and get excited at the fact that God brought enduring promises to them.
In those days before the fall of Jerusalem, while the sacrifices were still being made, the Jews knew what it was to bring an offering for sin. Those offerings could keep a man broke, because when anyone committed a sin, he brought a sacrifice to the Lord. If he committed another sin the next day, he had to bring another sacrifice. You could lose a lot of money that way!
The sacrifice for sins (because the sacrifice really didn’t take it away) was looking forward in anticipation of what Jesus was to do. When Jesus came, He made one sacrifice for all time, for all sin. This expresses the completeness of what He had done. Then He sat down at the right hand of the Father, with this fantastic quality of anticipation that the Lord has, “Henceforth waiting, until His enemies are made the footstool of His feet” (Verse 13).
We have to understand what this anticipation, what this waiting means. The lord has this quality in Him which never gets discouraged. He shall not fail nor be discouraged, Isaiah prophesied, until He has set judgments in the earth (Isaiah 42:4). We need the same focus that Jesus had when He faced the cross.
Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2. We have to anticipate even as He did.
If we have anticipation, we can go through a great deal. Back in the days of communism, the communists had succeeded in bringing forth great sacrifices from a nation by saying, “It will be better for our children.” The anticipation—“It isn’t so good now, but it’s going to be better for my children”—motivated them to go through all kinds of privations, thinking things will be better.
We need to start anticipating great things from the Lord, but the Scripture says that hope deferred makes the heart grow sick (Proverbs 13:12). When we don’t get what we were hoping for right away, we begin to get sick at heart. This is human nature. It is a deep discouragement to the self-nature.
We have to look to what Jesus wants to become to us. Revelation 1:9 speaks about the saints who are partakers of the patience of Jesus; this is the only kind of patience that endures. Human patience will fail, but the patience of the lord in us looks for promises, it looks for fulfillment, it looks for something to come, and refuses to give up on it. We may have had severe reversals, but there is still such a thing as anticipating and not wavering.
We have an anticipator, it is the hope gate in our spirit and the Holy Spirit will help us take a look at it. It may be damaged and dented and bent out of shape, hardly even functioning. The Lord may have to rebuild it, because we are probably not expecting as much as we should from the Lord.
The Holy Spirit wants to teach us to be just like Jesus Christ, henceforth expecting, anticipating, until His enemies be made the footstool of His feet.
You may say Jesus, You’ve been sitting there for two thousand years—and look at all the demon-possessed people; look at all the problems in the earth. The church has certainly fallen into disrepute. Our government is corrupt. What do I do now? Where do I go from here?”
I can hear the Holy Spirit saying keep on anticipating! If Jesus isn’t discouraged yet, what right have we to be discouraged? He has to raise up sons to sit in the heaven places in the atmosphere to displace the spirits presently there, most of them have never been challenged.
We are ones who are called to not only rule upon the earth but also the heavenly places that enemy has access too, the places that are still in darkness.
Jesus is just sitting and anticipating what all is going to take place.
The next verse is all revealing. For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. Hebrews 10:14. By one offering He has done this! You say, “I’m perfected?” Yes, that is what He is anticipating—your perfection. You say, “Well, I wasn’t really expecting to get that holy.” The average person doesn’t anticipate it will be that good a job; he will be thankful if he can just squeeze into the Kingdom, even on a back row.
But the Lord has an anticipation of perfection for us. He is bringing many sons to glory (Hebrews 2:10), bringing the manifestation of the sons, whom He foreknew and also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. These are the ones whom He glorified (Romans 8:29, 30).
“He glorified me?” Yes, He has. It is the provision for you, and you should anticipate the fulfillment of that too, reaching into it in the name of the Lord.
May the lord impart to us His anticipation because we know what happens to people. They stop anticipating, and they start to withdraw. The minute their expectation is low, they start drawing back. And yet this chapter ends, “If any man shrinks back, My soul shall have no pleasure in him.” (Verse 38). God takes no pleasure in anyone like that. Put your hand to the plow and look back, and you are not fit for the Kingdom of God (Luke 9:62).
The manifestation of the kingdom upon the earth is coming, and we will have to be partakers spiritually of the same anticipation that the Lord has. Have you found yourself drawing back lately? You say, “I don’t know whether I’m drawing back or not.” Find out! If the vision is a little dim, if you find in your heart criticism comes up a little easier, if that fervent love for the Lord is less, you are withdrawing, and that withdrawal is deadly.
We cannot make progress in a walk with God unless we are pressing in every day of our life. We don’t dare lay it aside awhile, or won’t make progress.
Withdrawal places us in a dangerous position. You say, “But I’m going through things.” You will not go through them any better by withdrawing. The night when they took Jesus to the judgment hall, Peter followed afar off (Mark 14:54). That is a poor place to be. When you trail along away back there, before morning you will find yourself warming your hands at the devil’s fire; denying Him, cursing, and saying, “I never knew Him.”
The problems, the betrayals of Christ come in our life because we follow afar off, because of some withdrawal in our spirit. We draw back just a little and it was too much. Luke-warmness gets us into trouble. The Lord says He will spew you out when you are neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm (Revelation 3:16). There is only one degree to work. And that is red hot.
Cars run better when the motor is hot. We can’t perform; we can’t function adequately, unless we keep a fervent spirit. See that you love one another with a pure heart, fervently (I Peter 1:22b). That indicates the heat: red-hot love for the brethren. It burns out the impurities. When a person is up on a spiritual level, then things start working out.
We don’t really need to understand doctrines as much as we need to know the Lord. As we walk with Him, we have it all. We need to keep the gospel simple. We do not need to preach the complexity of doctrines but we need to preach Jesus as Lord over our lives, as the absolute, perfect provision for us. And you are complete in Him who is the Head (Colossians 2:10). There remains nothing more that we need except Jesus Himself.
We need to walk closer to the Lord. The more we concentrate on Jesus Christ as Lord, seek to relate to Him and for His life to flow into us, the quicker we will come into all the experiences and into the realization of all the doctrine. We must preach Jesus Christ, exalt Him and lift Him up until the believers have a meeting with Him. Then they will have all these other things.
God forgive us for getting discouraged because of things that are really secondary in our lives that we have made primary. We withdraw from the Lord because we have faced problems, circumstances, difficulties in our relationships, difficulties in what we’re doing. Things don’t move, so we take it out on the Lord. We cool off and draw back. Difficulties have a way of doing it, abounding iniquity has a way of doing it, and our love begins to wax cold (Matthew 24:12). God forbid that this happen.
Father, put that hope burning in our hearts again, that divine anticipation like Jesus has, real expectation that doesn’t waver. Let us anticipate, day by day, the victories of the Lord. O God, take that withdrawing spirit from us. The very root of it has to go that we would draw back under any kind pressure. Let us press on, into the joy of the Lord, into the things that are ours. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we’re not going to walk in anything short of all that He has purposed to bring forth in us.