(A) Introduction.

In verse 12 we read: Therefore..... The writer has been dealing with God's discipline and has argued that it is good for us. He now calls for a positive response from his hearers.

(B) Advice for the despondent

Many years ago the BBC published a pamphlet on the USA to accompany a series of programmes on that country. It contained a photograph that attempted to convey the consequences of the decline in coalmining in the Appalachian Mountains. The photograph was of an old, shabby man, shoulders hunched, walking along a railroad track - a picture of poverty, despondency and despair. Sometimes we who are supposed to be running a race slouch along our particular railway line. What does the writer to the Hebrews say to us:

(a) Pull yourself together.v12 strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees!
This, I must say, is not the sort of advice that makes you popular. You may be accused of being unsympathetic. It is not always helpful - like when someone is very depressed. However occasionally it is necessary. Joab was not one of David's favourites. He did give David good advice in characteristically forthright terms when he was mourning the loss of his beloved son, Absalom, instead of celebrating victory over the rebels. David's grief was so extreme that it was undermining the morale of the army. Joab says, "Now go out and encourage your men. I swear by the LORD that if you don't go out, not a man will be left with you by nightfall. This will be worse for you than all the calamities that have come upon you from your youth till now."
So the king got up and took his seat in the gateway. When the men were told, "The king is sitting in the gateway," they all came before him. 2Sam19v7and8.

People do take stock. They are unhappy with the way they are and decide to do something about it. Perhaps they are eating or drinking too much, smoking heavily or taking drugs and their lives are in a mess. A decision is made to take action to change the situation and often from that moment things improve. We must never underestimate the importance of human resolution.

Christians may need to stop lamenting the sorry state they are in and start to do something about it.

(b) Make an effort. V13 make level paths for your feet.
This seems strange advice and it is not too clear what the writer is driving at. It is certainly very therapeutic when despondent to find something useful to do. I was listening recently to a programme on the radio about cleaning. Most people find it therapeutic to clean when they are upset. I know that on one of the very few occasions that I was disappointed in love and feeling very low I went to start my motor scooter and the clutch cable snapped. One thing after another! But by the time I had replaced the clutch cable I felt better.

It is not bad advice to be told: if you are feeling despondent do something about it - even if it is only moving a few rocks out of the path. People in our church complain about the lack of a Pastor - there is no one to visit newcomers to the village. There is nothing to stop those who are anxious about the situation to make contact them selves. They can move a few rocks out of the road. It is easy to complain and not difficult to feel dispirited. When our last Pastor made a rather hasty departure he left his refrigerator in the garden. One lady came to tell me that there was fish going off in the refrigerator and it was making a nasty smell. So why didn't she remove the fish!

(c) Help those who are worse off than you v13cont. so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.
If we remove a few obstacles from the path then those who are limping along are less likely to break a leg. One of the best ways of beating the blues is to help others - and it is blessed work.

In John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress Mr Great Heart had some odd fellow travellers: Mr Feeble Mind, Mr Despondency and his daughter Much Afraid, and Mr Ready to Halt on his crutches. Mr Great Heart could have felt very sorry for himself. They were not a very inspiring collection of pilgrims. He might have thought that he was worthy of better company. Mr Great Heart got them all safely to the river, journeys end.

Many Christians are handicapped - by lack of intelligence, a gloomy temperament, a hasty disposition, an unlovely personality, physical infirmity and loneliness. It is something to level the path for them. And it makes us feel better. I live a lonely life but I know people even lonelier than me. I can always go to see them, to cheer them up and to be cheered myself.

(C) A Challenge for the Complacent.

(a) We are to ensure our relationships are inclusive. v14 live in peace with all men.
We are encouraged to get on with everybody. What a challenge! I wonder if we really have this as one of our aims in life. Even those who love to be popular don't put themselves out to live at peace with all men. There are some folk who are not worth it, who don't count. I used to visit an old lady in a home in Mid Suffolk. She suffered from Alzheimer's disease. It wasn't easy to chat to her. She would often talk nonsense. I didn't contradict her or try and put her right. I agreed with her and kept the conversation as light hearted as possible. One afternoon she was given a large glass of sherry and two cakes. She insisted I eat one of the cakes and that we have alternate sips from her one glass of sherry. I saw her a day or two before she died. Before I left I said, "Now you be good, Louisa." She replied, as she had done dozens of times before, "I'll try". I didn't have any trouble getting on with Louisa. I got on with her better than most. But I have not always lived in peace with head teachers, educational advisers or Her Majesties Inspectors. Nor am I over fond of militant Calvinists! However the writer to the Hebrews doesn't tell us we can pick and choose. Live in peace with all men.

There are many examples in the Old Testament of individuals who had this ability and it served the cause of God very well. Daniel, Joseph, Esther and Nehemiah were all highly regarded by influential foreigners and by this means helped their people.

Paul writes to the Corinthians, I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. 1Cor9v22and28. Later in 1Cor10v32 he continues in the same vein: Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks, or the church of God - even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved. 1Cor10v32and33. I think Paul is a much maligned apostle. Most would think of him as a controversialist and certainly not as someone who tried to please everybody in every way. If his epistles to the Corinthians are read carefully it is evident that he hated controversy. I believe he stopped away from the church at Corinth because he couldn't face the disagreements he would have. He wrote instead. Paul only wrote the strong words he did because he had to. Paul's wonderful ability to get on with all sorts is revealed in Luke's account of the shipwreck in Acts27. When the ship in which Paul was travelling as a prisoner to Rome under guard broke up on the rocky shore of Malta: The soldiers planned to kill the prisoners to prevent any of them from swimming away and escaping. But the centurion wanted to spare Paul's life and kept them from carrying out their plan. v42and43. Julius' attachment to Paul saved the lives of all the prisoners.

(b) Relationships need working on. Make every effort to live in peace with all men. v14.
Improved relationships don't just happen. Most worthwhile things require an effort. I am reminded of the words of Rudyard Kipling:

Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made By singing: "Oh how beautiful!" and sitting in the shade While better men than we go out and start their working hours At grubbing weeds from gravel-paths with broken dinner-knives.

My brother Philip used to be a village policeman in West Suffolk. Each day Philip would cycle around the large village he was responsible for and as he did so would pass an old boy at work in his garden. The crabby old fellow hated policeman and when my brother called out in his cheerful fashion, "Good morning", he spat. Yes he spat! Now my brother could have ignored the man and cycled past on subsequent mornings in sullen silence. He didn't do that. Every day as he rode past the grumpy gardener he called out, "Good morning". After a while the old man stopped spitting. Then he grunted in response to my brother's greeting. Eventually he so unbent as to reply, "Morning, Constable". Finally the man who spat became one of Philip's most outspoken supporters in the village. My brother's invincible good will broke down all resistance. He made every effort to live at peace with all men on his beat. (He hasn't always made the same effort to live at peace with me!)

(c)We must avoid the deficiency that excludes. v14 without holiness no-one will see the Lord.
If we are holy we are different from non-Christians in our conversation and conduct. We should be growing more like Jesus as we follow his example and obey his teaching.

I have to admit that I am not always holy in my conversation. On Saturday I was travelling to Norwich to play hockey. We passed Thetford common - a lovely little area of heath. It was covered with the caravans of travellers and lots of rubbish! I was incensed and said, "Someone wants to take a flame thrower to them". My travelling companions did not consider that was a very Christian sentiment and told me so. On the very same journey my friend Dean said, "I've got a story to amuse you, JR". He and his wife took a spring break on the Island of Skye during the course of which he hired a car. Eventually it began to run out of fuel. He filled up with petrol. The car was never the same again. The engine began knocking. Dean began to wonder...... He checked in the vicinity of the fuel tank. Yes, you've guessed it, there was a sticker informing him to use diesel! He hastily topped up the tank with diesel, carefully removed the sticker and returned the car from whence he had hired it without saying a word. I told him that I didn't think I would have done that. It was sneaky to remove the sticker. I also said that he should have known better than to tell me the story! So if there is an owner of a hire car company in Skye who has a ... Christians should be scrupulously honest to be different from the world but they also need to watch their speech.

It isn't easy to be different. I visit my friend Joe Hewitt once a year and we go out to lunch. We usually go to a pub. Joe always says grace before we begin our meal. I have never, ever, seen anyone else say grace before a meal in a public place. I wouldn't say it if I was by myself. However I am glad he says it. It is a holy thing to do.

I occasionally go and see my friend Will who is cared for in a Christian nursing home. I have been much impressed by the level of care he is given and by the general loving atmosphere in the home. It is a holy place. It cannot be easy at times to be patient and kind while working with the old, confused and ill.

However difficult holy living might be we have a powerful incentive to achieve it for without holiness no-one will see the Lord Jesus Christ. Lack of it excludes us from the promises and the gift of eternal life.

(D) A warning to the irreligious. It is possible to miss the grace of God if we:

(a) Adopt the values and practices of the world. This is the bitter root (that) grows up to cause trouble and defile many. Heb12v15.
This is a reference to a passage in Deuteronomy29v16to21 and in particular v18: Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the LORD our God to go and worship the gods of those nations; make sure there is no root among you that produces such bitter poison.

We are not to adopt the values of the world. Paul says in Romans12v2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will. When Christians do import the values of the world into the church there is trouble. There is a tendency today to treat the church as just another service. So Christians pick and choose which church to attend as they would a school or a supermarket. Associated with this is the culture of complaint. The customer is always right! So there are a lot of discontented Christians putting pressure on their pastors and elders by expressing dissatisfaction at this or that aspect of church life. Increasingly large churches are bedevilled by sexual laxity. Young Christians live together before marriage and no-one dares to discipline them. Their parents say, "Well times have changed. It is the norm now. We can't expect young people to live their lives as we did". What a lot of garbage! I don't write a lot about sexual sin because I am not perfect myself but let's stop pretending that the values of the world are God's values or that it doesn't matter if young Christians adopt sexual practices that are incompatible with Biblical teaching. Finally there is sentimentality about children. Nowhere in the Bible are we told that they must come first. Politicians tell us, "We must do it for our kids". Children are no more important than anyone else. I cannot see that it is right to leave one church and join another for the sake of the children. What about the interests of the old folk that are left behind in the church you have abandoned. The world idolises youth and denigrates age.

If we are indistinguishable from the world our salvation is in doubt. We miss out on God's grace and are lost.

(b) Despise the promises of God.
This was Esau's problem. W. Manson in, 'The Epistle to the Hebrews' writes,'It was unbelief in the divine promise to his house, no mere sensuality, that led Esau to the irrevocable step of bartering away his birthright. No later repentance was able to undo the act'. Esau was not a bad chap. He was a robust open-air type, a man's man and kind to his elderly father. In later life he showed generosity of spirit in forgiving Jacob. He wasn't greedy and was grateful for all that he had. But he sold his birthright for a bowl of soup. It says in Genesis25v34: so Esau despised his birthright. He did not take seriously the wonderful promises God made to Abraham. He did not count it the highest of honours to be the father of God's chosen people. Esau didn't think it mattered whom he married and chose a couple of wives from amongst the Hittite people. This caused his parents great grief. Esau was irreligious and as such was rejected by God and forfeited the blessing. He missed out on God's grace.

All the choices that we make in life should be informed by God's promises. If we do not take them seriously but treat them carelessly then we too, despite being what the world calls a good chap, will miss God's blessing, the only blessing that really counts.

The solemn words at the end of this passage speak for themselves: Afterwards, as you know, when he(Esau) wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. He could bring about no change of mind, though he sought the blessing with tears.

ANY COMMENTS FOR JOHN REED: E-mail jfmreed@talktalk.net

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