Hebrews

Hebrew is chapter 10 verse 19.

Therefore brothers and sisters, Since we have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way open for us through the curtain that is his body. And since we have a great high priest over the house of god, let us draw near to god. With a sincere heart and with full assurance that faith brings. Having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess for he who promised is faithful, and let us consider how we may spur 1 another on towards love and good deeds.

Not giving up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging 1 another and all the more as you see the day approaching. If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sin is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of god. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of 2 or 3 witnesses. How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the son of god on the foot? Who has treated as an unholy thing, the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the spirit of grace.

For we know him who said it is mine to avenge, I will repay. And again, the lord will judge his people. It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living god. Remember those earlier days after you had received the light when you endured a in a great conflict full of suffering, sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution. At other times, you stood side by side with those who were so treated.

You suffered along with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. So do not throw away your confidence. It will be richly rewarded. We need to persevere so that when you have done the will of god, you will receive what he has promised for in just a little while. He who is coming will come and will not delay.

And by my righteous 1, but my but my righteous 1 will live by faith, and I take no pleasure in the 1 who shrinks back. But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved. Father help us now, these are precious words. It's your word. And by your spirit, would you speak to us?

Help us please be receptive. Help us not to close our ears. Help us to hear what you say and by your spirit, you do be doers of what you say, not just heroes in Jesus' name, amen. Now, sometimes, in in what can be really essentially a good marriage, the couple find that they've sort of drifted apart. That happens quite a lot, doesn't it?

And because they've drifted apart, that's itself brought sort of doubts into the marriage. Is this really good for me? Is this the right thing. And then those doubts can lead to a sort of dullness in the relationship because you're doubting whether you really wanted to be married to this person. There's a dullness.

There's no vibrance there in the relationship. And it's at that point that the marriage is in great danger because it's at that point people start sort of thinking about separation or perhaps even dreaming that divorce is perhaps the best thing for it in the end. Now at those times, good advice is to ask the question very simply, can you remember the earlier days? Remember the days when you first fell in love. Remember the days of courtship What attracted you to them in the first place?

That's good advice to do to people in that situation. And then more advice is just think about all the hard times and the difficulties that you've been through. They they brought you together, didn't they? You became stronger in those times when you went through those battles. Think about that and how how those times have made your relationship and made you.

That's a second good bit of advice. And then a third good of good bit of advice is to encourage them to see through the situation that they're in. You know, this may only last a little time, and and and see the hope and encourage them to ride the storm that they're going through as a couple and keep on going. Now, of course, in a relationship, there may need to be major changes, major changes in attitudes, major changes in behavior. But, you know, it's worth going through the pain of those changes.

It's worth it. Keep on going. That's what you do within a marriage. That's good advice. Now this is the sort of thing that the writer to the to the Hebrews that the book that we're having a look at, this, this, in the sessions, he's been doing this, and he's still doing it.

This is the fourth we're in, right at the end of Hebrews 10. The fourth warning in the book, there is 1 other to come. But he's warned them as we were seeing last week about drifting. And he says drifting really leads to the second warning, which is doubting. Am I in the right place here?

Which leads to the third warning, which is dullness. Which leads potentially to disobeying god, to divorcing Christ, because he's not talking about marriage here, although he's helpful, he's talking about our relationship with Jesus Christ. There comes a point where they're nearly on divorce, and he's been talking about that. And last week, we saw a powerful warning about the danger of divorcing Christ, powerful, powerful warning. And if you weren't here, then perhaps you need to go back and listen to that.

I would encourage you to do so. And it was the sort of negative side of his warning. This week, in these verses that we've got here from verse 32 to 39, it's the positive side of the warning. He's he's really encouraging us to keep on going. And he does what a good marriage counselor would do.

He says, look, remember remember the earlier days. Do you remember those days when you first followed Jesus? And then remember where you've come, remember the times you've been through, the difficult times you've been through. And then he points them to the future, look to the future in just a little while, Christ will be back. And he encourages them in all of this to persevere.

So let me take my first point then. My first point is remember the past struggles in order to stay the course now. Remember the past struggles in order to stay the course now, but he starts off not with a struggle. Look at verse 32. He says, remember those earlier days after you had received the light.

It's a wonderful expression of becoming a follower of Jesus. Remember those earlier days after you received the light to remember them. Lovely expression of becoming a follower of Jesus. Do you remember that? You received lights, dot darkness.

You you came into the it's like your eyes were opened. Do you remember you came out of darkness into the light? You're like a blind person who now sees. Instead of fumbling through the world just feeling and touching things, and not quite knowing what's going on or where your what where you are in your surroundings. Instead of sort of guessing about life, your eyes were opened.

You're not fumbling around feeling things anymore. You see clearly. You understand. Do you remember that? You're saying?

Now for these first century, Jewish born Hebrew Christians here, that meant something massive to them. This is really what Hebrews is about. They suddenly came from Shadow land to reality. They came into a sort of understanding color and beauty, and they weren't fumbling around anymore in the shadow lands. They understood that Jesus was the fulfillment of all that they've been brought up to believe in the scriptures, all the sacrificial system.

All the laws in the bible, all the great characters, Abraham, Moses, Aaron, all the high priests, Joshua, the whole Sabbath day The whole idea of the promised land. They were all just shadows that they were told, but now they've received the light. They've received the lord Jesus Christ. They know that he's the Messiah, that he's the 3 d surround sound, you know, beautiful color, of all of that. They've come into it.

Remember, verse 32. That was earlier days after you received a light. There's a a terrific book I read a couple of years ago, It's it's just a biography of Paul in the New Testament, by Tom Wright. And it's a terrific book. Now some of his books are a bit odd, but this is really, really terrific book.

And in it, he shows us the what we often call the conversion of saul to Paul. And he says it's it's not really a conversion. We think of conversion as someone who is like an atheist that becomes a Christian or is a Buddhist that becomes a Christian, he's saying it's not really conversion. It's actually coming into the light of what he already sees. And is an amazing, description of this in, in this book.

Let let me read it to you. Now remember, Paul was sore. Saw was on the road to Damascus to get more permission to kill more Christians. You'd already seen, Stephen stoned to death. He was an absolute Hebrew of Hebrews, he calls himself.

He was a pharisee. He absolutely understood the old testament, or rather he followed the old testament. This is what it says here. Then Jesus meets him. When he's riding to Damascus, and Jesus comes as a light.

You receive the light. Listen. This moment shattered Paul's wildest dreams, and at the same split second fulfilled them. This was, he saw it, in that instant, the fulfillment of Israel's ancient scriptures, but also the utter denial of the way that he had been reading them up to this point. God, the creator, had raised Jesus from the dead, declaring not only that he really was Israel's Messiah, but that he had done what the 1 god had promised to do himself in person.

Saul had been absolutely right in his devotion to the 1 god, but absolutely wrong in his understanding of who the 1 god was and how his purposes would be fulfilled. He'd been absolutely right in his devotion to Israel. And the Torah, that's the law of god under Moses, but absolutely wrong in his view of Israel's vocation and identity, and even in the meaning of the Torah itself. His lifelong loyalty was utterly right, but utterly misdirected. He had a zeal for god, but had not understood what the 1 god was up to.

Everything was now focused on the figure from whom there was stream, the blinding light, the figure who now addressed saul as a master addresses a slave, the figure he recognized as the crucified Jesus of Nazareth, heaven and earth came together in that figure, and he was commanding saul to acknowledge this fact and to reorientate his whole entire life accordingly. And then he goes on and he says, But all of scripture, it was about Jesus, about Jesus as to this, at to which this point, exactly the Steven mar the the the martyr Stephen had claimed heaven and earth, were now held together, fused together. It was about Jesus as being in person, the reality towards which the temple had been pointing. That's what had happened to these Jewish believers. They'd come into the light.

They understood that the whole Bible isn't just rules and things about god. It's all pointing to Jesus. And he had fallen down on his face and seen the risen Jesus. They had come into that. A 3 d surround sound version of the whole Bible in Jesus.

Remember, he says, Those earlier days. After you had received the light, they can see what life is about. They know what the scripture is about. They know what all their background is about. They know what god is about.

They know that is everything is fulfilled in Jesus, and he's the 1 to live for. Yeah. Happened to you. Remember the day you really clicked or days in your life when you clicked about Jesus? You received light and you sort of understood.

Remember that? Wonderful. Wouldn't they? Suddenly you understood what life was about. He suddenly understood.

God had all these things working in your life. He suddenly looked back. We'll see this again in a minute. And suddenly, gosh, God, you put that there for me and him, there for me, and, oh, there for me. And and now I'm beginning to see that you were working all things for me to receive the light.

There's an old hymn. We we don't sing it. I don't think we've ever sung it. Maybe we should. I don't know.

It's quite quaint, but it talks about someone who's been converted. And it says this. I love this. Heaven above is softer blue. It's actually talking about the sky.

I mean, they couldn't have been living in Britain, couldn't they? But nevertheless, heaven above is softer blue. Earth around is sweeter green. Something lives in every hue, Christless eyes have never seen. Birds with glad a song overflow, flowers with deeper beauties shine.

Since I know as I now know, I am his and he is mine. Something wonderful when you receive the light of Jesus. It changes everything. You start to see everything. You start to see how Christ brought you there.

You start to see the providences of God. Why? Why did that person knock on my door when I was beginning to think of Jesus Christ? Why was the only word I heard from this woman we used to call the upper d dub woman, who we never understood what she was talking about, and she knocked on my door because she was a Jehovah's Witness telling me a false thing about Jesus, but I didn't hear anything because she went uppity, w. D.

W. Jesus. I just heard Jesus. Amazing. Why when I was walking down the street outside Windsor Castle?

Someone come and told me about Jesus. But it's amazing all these. Why? But this enlightenment also brings conflict while we're on earth. Look at verse 32 again.

Remember is good advice. Go back to those early days. Remember those earlier days after you received the light, when you endured great conflict full of suffering. Now the word conflict is where we get the English word athletes from. And it has the idea of struggling to get the cohort medal or a medal, struggle and pain and commitment and competing as athletes.

Now we've seen that if you've been watching the the winter Olympics. You know, some extraordinary things, wasn't there? I was watching 1 as a team. I I forget what nation it was now. I think it was Sweden, that 1 of the women doing that that that cross country, you know, skiing, which is unbelievable, the energy that they have for that.

And this 1 girl was in good position, but her ski came off and broke. And then but she was doing it with 1 leg. She kept on going like a proper athlete. And then the 1 that took over from it, just went for it, went for it, and got them back into silver position. That's the word.

Together, as a team, as athletes, conflict, they came into the light, And it's wonderful, but immediately you're in a competition. You're in a conflict. Jesus said this to his followers. Let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven. When you receive the light, you shine the light, and he says sometimes people will see your good deeds, and they too will come into the light.

They'll see your good deeds and come or if I got in heaven. But just before that sentence, he said this, blessed to you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me, rejoice and be glad because great is your reward in heaven for in the same way they persecuted the prophets prophets who were before you. In other words, there's times when your light shines, and some people will become, followers of Christ. But there's also times when you're gonna know insults and persecutions and people saying false things against you, There's conflict. There's an athletic conflict between you in the light and darkness that is around you because the darkness wants to extinguish the light.

He's saying this. That's what's going on. And look look at verse 33, what look at what they've gone through, see what he reminds them of. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insults for. That's what Jesus said he would be and persecution.

Well, that's what Jesus said he would be. At other times, you stood side by side with those who were so treated. You suffered along with those in prison and joyfully accepted the conf the confiscation of your property. Because you knew that you yourselves had a better and lasting permission. They're remarkable words, and he's reminding them of that situation.

You went through conflict, and it was serious stuff. But actually, look what it did for you. You you deepened your partnership. See at verse 33 in the second half? You stood side by side with those who were so treated.

The word side by side is partners. You became partners. You deep deepened your commitment to each other and to the lord's cause. There was a real partnership there. You were together on the same athletic team.

1 brother's ski came off, 1 sister's ski came off, but you got in the gap, and you went on. You went side by side. There was something beautiful about that. And then look, they developed a sim sympathy verse 34. You suffered along with those in prison.

The word suffered there is sympathized. You grew in your emotions and your concerns for others. You're not just an individual selfish little brat. You grew with others. Selfishness wasn't on the agenda.

You were concerned. You sympathized. You grew up. And then look, you endured joy. You had this enduring joy, rather not endured it.

You you you had this enduring joy. Look, and joyful accepted the confiscation of your property because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. That is so utterly against the world's philosophy, isn't it? It's against our human nature in many ways. This was this was a remarkable work of god in your life, because we love comfort, and we love possessions, and we love money.

And we love free time and we love doing our own thing. We love when we have that, we rejoice and when we don't have that, we complain. Oh, grumblers. Yeah. But you didn't grumble.

Mustn't grumble must be the the the the Greek word here, I guess. Because how did they do that? How did they do that? How did they joyfully accept the confiscate confiscation of their property? Because they had their eye on better things.

Some years ago, we were burgled in our house, the house that we live in. We I think we came back from church. I can't remember what it was. We came back from church. The door was smashed in, the back door.

The fridge door was open. This burglar was known as the milk burglar because wherever he went, he drank all the milk in the fridge. I mean, how to identify yourself? Anyway, there you go. He left the fridge door open, all the milk was drunk.

He had stamped his horrible muddy shoes all over our house. You could see where he had gone, and it's stolen everything. Yeah. And we were pretty devastated. We came back.

We're serving the lord, come from church, dirty, filthy muddy boots. Can't even make a cup of tea. What is this man? Shortly, you should have left a bit for us. But then I found out I had an insurance, and my insurance was new for old.

New for old. Everything he took was old. It was already secondhand to us. I got everything new for old. It was so good that I thought I'd put a little advert in my garden front garden saying, please burglar us every year because I get new for old.

He took a rubbish computer. I got a brand new computer. He took a rubbish telly. I got a brand new telly. Everything he took, I got new stuff for.

And that's what he's saying. The missionary Jim Jim Elliott who who gave his life, who was killed. For taking the gospel to a tribe. He put it best, I think. He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

He's no fool. Gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. And that's what they've done. They lost their property, but they joyfully lost their property because it was in the name of Christ, and they were going to get new for old. So this was a tough conflict, but they weren't gloomy days.

Remember them, strong partnership, strengthening of caring for others, not just on your own, the joy of serving god. Paul puts it like this in 2 in 2 Corinthians chapter 4. Just listen to these these words. They're extraordinary. For our light and momentary troubles, are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.

New for old. So we fix our eyes, not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. Since what is seen is temporary. See here 1 minute on the next, and what is unseen is eternal. You see that?

He's encouraging them. Remember those times. Remember receiving the light. Remember where everything became clear. Remember your partnership.

Remember the emotional and spiritual growth that you had as people together. Remember the joy that you had as now you viewed the world so differently. Remember those things. Yeah. With that memory now go through this storm.

You persevered. He was with you there. He'd be with you here. That's my first point. The second point then is, well, don't throw it away, and don't shrink back.

Look at verse 35. He talks about throwing away your confidence, and then verse 38 and verse 39 both have the words shrink back, don't shrink back. Now the word shrink back is a nautical term. It's a it's a sailing term. Yeah.

And it's very interesting, actually. This writer, because everybody tries to guess who the writer is, but this writer definitely knows something about sailing. He's often full of nautical terms drifting, anchors, and here. This is an nautical term, and shrink back means to lower your sails. Don't lower your sails.

You're sailing along. Don't lower them. Keep them up. Keep the wind in them. You're going through Rocky Place.

Yeah. But actually, the best thing is Keep the wind in them and sail through it. Yeah? Now the writers told us, and I'm sure these things, if you're a sailor or a nautical person or whatever you are, you'll say, well, this is weird, but I'm only telling you what what he says. He he's told us earlier that our anchor is in heaven.

Not on this earth. Our anchors in heaven where Christ is seated. So keep your eyes on the anchor where Christ is seated. And now he's saying, don't throw away. Don't don't cut yourself off from that anchor.

Keep sailing towards the anchor where the anchor is pulling you towards Christ. It's that sort of stuff. Don't throw away your confidence, he says. You know better than that. You've already been through rocky times and stormy times.

Remember, remember what it was like when you set out on the voyage, all excited. And remember the storms, they didn't break you. You went through them. You were kept through them. Remember how you weathered those storms.

Now You've got the harbor lights in front of you where your anchor is. Keep the lights in view. It'd be silly. It'd be silly now, wouldn't it? After all this time, to give up the voyage and put your sails down.

Keep them up. Hit your sails up. Let the wind blow. Jesus, the lord of all the universe is your confidence in life and death. So draw near to him.

Look where your anchor is, look to him, keep sailing to him, and do the will of god. Look at us 36. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of god, you will receive what he has promised. Now let's just stop here a minute. We are constantly told that we need something more than Jesus Christ of the Bible.

We're constantly told that, but constantly This world tells us, and even the religious world tells us, and unfortunately, even the so called Christian world tells us. And what it does is it plays on our earthly nature and our earthly desires. It stirs them up. So that we become dissatisfied with Christ, which is an amazing thing that we should do because it's sort of offers us more than Christ. If you've got Christ, but you need more.

And I want to tell you here, and this is a warning, and we've gotta take this seriously because there's so many of them around. There are plenty of salesman and soothsayers and gurus and false prophets and religious tinkers that offer us some some kind of extra experience to Christ, something that you can feel that you can touch, that you can see with the human eye, rituals, perhaps it might be, ceremonies, strange events, miracles, blessings if you just receive this. There are all kinds of people selling this stuff. And do we need any of them? And he's saying no.

What you need to is to persevere and follow god's will. Just stick at the will of god, stick with what is true and the living way of god. Now what's the will of god? Well, there's no mystery to it. You don't need an extra person to tell you the will of god into your life.

It's clear It's simple. God's will is that you follow Jesus. God's will is that you draw near to to god through Jesus that you draw near to the throne of grace to get grace and help in this world. God's will is very clear that you sit under the apostolic teaching, which is the word of god in the Bible, that you listen to that teaching, that you serve 1 another, that you meet together, and you don't do anything that's unworthy of the good news of the lord Jesus Christ. It's not It's not a mystery in the sense that we don't know what it is.

The mystery of god's will. What is it? It isn't a mystery. He's told us, follow Christ, live for Christ, serve Christ people. That's it.

You don't need any special person to tell you anything more. Now these Hebrew Christians, they were thinking of going back to a physical religion. Where there were sacrifices and smells and bells and all that stuff. And he's saying, don't go back. You came out of the you you came into the light.

Don't go back into the darkness and start seeing not Jesus now and just the shadow. Now let me say this, and we've we we rarely talk like this, but I need to. I don't know whether you've been following what's been going on in the wider so called Christian world. I don't know whether you've been following it or not. And perhaps you haven't.

But if you have, let me say this. Many of the leaders, not all, but many of the leaders of these so called big mega churches, Bethel and Hillsong, in particular, many of their leaders, as I say, not all, have been exposed as sexual abusers and false prophets. It's like a Christian version of the Epstein stuff. It really is, if if you read it. Now I'm not gonna go into the lurid detail because it really is quite horrible, and it would be totally inappropriate in a mixed congregation to talk about some of the things that have gone on, but they're lurid.

I will at a men's meeting, but not here. But mixed up in all of that are many, many, I'm sure, genuine Christians that went to these so called churches and followed these preachers, these gurus, these religious tinkers. They went there because they were promised extra experiences. They wanted spiritual physical sense of god. And if you ever watch these things, that there there's some crazy things that go on.

I mean, in Bethel, they had head butting in the spirit, and it knocked people down. You've only gotta go to Glasgow for that, and you get it for nothing. But head butting in the they were bizarre things. Going on. Really crazy.

And they wanted the sense if I'm falling on the floor. Maybe that shows that god is present with me. And they were fed by these leaders, false prophecies, taken away from the word of god, and now it's all been exposed and many are hurt and broken, and they're lost, and we should feel for them. That's why I'm speaking like this. We should feel for them.

Last week, I told you about, authentic, our youth camp. Gotta get your kids and young people on that. We're doing pilgrims progress, amazing book, 400 years old this book, and it was an amazing, amazing book. And I told you about mister By ends and mister temporary and all kinds of people. This week, let me just tell you about Christian.

So Christian is going on a journey and he's with his mate now hopeful, and they're on the journey from the city of destruction They've come into the light, they know Christ, and they're on the way to the celestial city. That's the port. They've got their sails up. But they pass a nice little style, a gate that goes over into by path meadow. It's a lovely by path meadow, and it looks like the path, the path goes alongside the will of god path.

Now the will of god path has got a little bit of rock on it, but in bypass meadow, it's lovely. There's comfortable green grass. You could take your shoes off and walk. It's delicious. And Christian persuades, hopeful, let's go path meadow.

It's walking along the same route, isn't it? And as they're going across the by path meadow, of course, the path slightly only slightly, and you don't realize it at first, swerves off. And they end up in a place called doubting Castle in prison, with a monster called giant despair and a worst monster called his wife. And they just like smacking the heaven out of them and bringing the hell into them. And there they are in prison, beaten up by giant despair, encouraged to give everything up, even life.

Very vivid picture. Until right in the battle and despair. Hopful remembers the keys. The keys of the kingdom. The gospel keys, Jesus, and he opens the lock to doubting castle dungeons.

And they open the lock, and they get out, and they're back on the road. That's what those Bethel and the hills some people need. They don't need another guru or another experience. They need to get back to the simple word of god, the will of god, and listen to the Bible. They drifted away.

Come back. Come back to the road. Look at the real keys of promise. Look at the word of god again. Don't throw that away.

Persevere. Stick at it. God is faithful to his word. That's my second point. My third point.

Let's try and be a little quicker. Is now then look to the future to keep on going in the now. Look to the future to keep on going on the in in in the now. So look in other words who's coming In the future, Jesus is coming in the future, and who is he? He's the lord and savior.

He's the righteous king of the universe. He's the lover and friend of sinners. He's the great high priest. He's the 1 that brings us into the presence of god, and all his enemies will be crushed under his feet. Eventually, all injustice, all the things that, that you've dealt with, all the lies against you.

In the end, all those injustices will be sorted out, dealt with, even suffering, even death. It's all gonna go. Look at him coming. Look at verse 37, 4. In just a little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay.

Jesus is coming. Jesus is coming. In just a little while. Now what does that mean? Because you could say, well, it's been 2000 years.

I don't know if that's just a long time. I think what it means is that in god's timetable, in god's diary, that's the next event that's going to happen. He's got it perfectly timed. He knows exactly when to return. There's nothing else needed.

He's done everything. He's lived the perfect life on our behalf. He's died for our sins on the cross. He's risen again for our justification. He's ascended to heaven, and is seated at the right hand of god.

And there's only 1 thing left for him to do, and that is to come back. In a little while, that's what it means. The next thing in god's diary. We worry about all the things that are going on in history and all the awful things that are going on in wars and around the world. And we think what's going on?

Well, the next thing is god will put everything right. It's the next step. In just a little while. He has a set time. He always runs on time.

He's not British rail. He's always on time. And while we're waiting, god calls us to live by faith, look at verse 38, and so he's quoting the scriptures again, but my righteous 1 will live by faith. I take no pleasure in the 1 who shrinks back. At the moment, we live by faith, not by sight.

Be careful of turning to sight things. Live by trust in the 1 that is coming. Look at the 1 who's coming. He takes no pleasure in those who shrink back. Therefore, I guess he takes pleasure in those that keep carrying on.

He takes pleasure. There's a smile of god when you're carrying on, when you're the athlete that has lost 1 ski, but you're walking and pushing on 1 ski when you're carrying on like an athlete and you're encouraging the others in your team to go. He smiled. God smiles. God takes pleasure.

That's my son. That's my child. That's my daughter. They're in in the savior. He never promises that this world will be easy for us.

It's not a smooth sail. We do go through rocky patches. The Bible says this, we must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of god. Now why is that? Because imagine if you became a Christian and life was like by path meadow, everything was nice.

You'd never longed for the new country. You would think this was heaven on earth, and it's not see, that's what liars and religious thinkers tried to sell you. You can have heaven on earth. No, you can't. This is a cursed world.

It's a broken world. It's a sinful world. I love these. Faith in the word of god. Here's a couple of verses.

Weeping may stay for the night. But rejoicing comes in the morning. Isn't that wonderful? Remember that there was a sermon, wasn't it? It was broken and married.

It was fantastic, wasn't it? Just talking about good Friday. You know, good Friday where Crest dies on the cross. Sunday's coming. Sunday's coming.

Sunday's coming. Weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning. Only the morning, in a little while. Romans chapter 16, the god of peace will soon crush satan under your feet. It's the snake here who crushed satan under your feet.

There he is. You're gonna be crushed mate under my feet because of Christ, who crushed him on the cross, all injustices, all evil, all misunderstandings, all the way you've been treated. Crushed. So remember remember you received the light. Remember the battles and conflicts that you've been in and see what it's produced in you.

Don't throw your confidence away in Jesus in god. Look forward, and it won't be long. But there's 1 last 0.1 last point, verse 39. Live what you are. I'll be quick on this.

Live what you are. But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved, where who who do you belong to? Who do you belong to? We don't belong to those who shrink back. You didn't do last time.

You were going through trials, so don't do it now. We belong to those who have faith. Yeah? Who do you belong to? Who are you living for?

Where's your identity? Now for these people that were brought up with a Jewish upbringing, they were strongly tempted to go back to just that old way of life because it was more comfortable. It was a bi path meadow, really. They had a ve you gotta remember these Jews had a very, very strong cultural identity that was formed over many, many years as many of us have. They had laws about what to eat.

They had laws about what to wear. They had laws about circumcision. They had the Hebrew language and a whole history. And so what he's saying is, don't go back just to your culture and to your cultural religion. Be careful.

Your identity is now Yes. Okay. You're a Hebrew. Yes. You are Jewish.

And there are many things about your your human upbringing that makes you you. Of course, it is. I'm British. I'm not Chinese. It's pretty obvious.

I'm British. I speak like a British boat. I like British food. There was a lot of the lovely Chinese stuff that we had yesterday that was lovely because it reminded me of British food, like the little, dumpling. It was basically a sausage roll.

Yeah. But there were things like the dried plum which should never be on the planet earth, and certainly will not be in heaven as far as I can see. But I noticed that lots of my brothers and sisters from Asian backgrounds loved it and a very stinky fish skin thing. Yeah? The way, thank you very much.

It was a great great of the day. And listen, I was so chuffed because I got my name. Look, I got my name in Chinese. It's Pye duck. Is it?

Pye duck? I love duck and I love pie. Pie duck. Yeah. Anyway, sorry.

Where are we? Our our identity. Our identity is in Jesus, and that's where you have to put your emphasis. I'm not I'm not a British person really anymore. I'm a Christian.

I happen to have been brought up and light British things. Nothing wrong with that. But bigger than that, I'm a Christian. I'm a Christian first. That's my identity.

And remember that, and keep going, and don't revert back to the past. Now let me give you an illustration and I'll finish on this. Then we're gonna have prayer and some songs. I know it's alright. We'll be a little over time, but It's me preaching, and I'm not preaching for several weeks.

So there we go. Let me tell you a story of William Tinder. Everybody should know about William Tinder in this country. William Tinder lived 500 years ago. He was a mate with a bloke who lived up the road in in Norburton Hall, and you can go and see the plaque just up there.

In fact, our hub is built on the ground of Norburton Hall. Richard Tavernner, he lived up there. William Tyndall. He wanted to translate the Bible into English because the religion of the day wasn't Bethel or Hillsong. It was a religion that stopped people hearing the word of god in their own language and they had a special Latin language, so no 1 could understand it.

They kept people from the word of god and and dominated people with their religious hierarchy. Very wicked. But Tingle, he wanted to produce the Bible into the English language. He had an argument with 1 of the bishops, 1 of the bishops over over lunch when he was, down in Gloucester. 1 of the bishops was so angry.

He stood up, at the at the dinner party, and he said it would be better to be without god's laws than the popes. In other words, I'd rather have the pope's laws than god's. Tindall was not happy. Tindall responded. I defy the pope and all his laws.

And if god spares my life air many years, I will cause the boy that driveth the plow to know more of the scripture than thou doth. Just the ordinary worker will know about about the word of god. And so he committed his life to that. He was had to, escape from this country because There were, bishops and people out after him to to kill him. He went first to Germany, the worms.

He translated the Bible from the original language into English. Yes. And he was hounded for it. But he said Christ is with us until the world's end. Let his little flock be bold, therefore.

He talked about knowing that there will be bishops and cardinals and popes after him wherever he goes. And there were spies sent out through Europe to try to find him. He translated the Bible. And this month, 500 years ago, last week, in February, 15 25. He translated the Bible into English.

He sent them over in October, which we must celebrate, over. They were printed, first English Bible from the original language, first printed English bible. They were sent over to London, and the Bishop of London Cufpert tunstall had spies everywhere, knew they were coming, bought them all up. Thousands of them, took them outside the old Paul Paul's cathedral and burned a lot of them. Actually, there are 3 in existence from that first edition.

The money, and he had to spend 3 times the amount to get his spies to buy these Bibles from Tyndall, the money eventually went to Tyndall. So he was rolling in the money. So what did he do with it? He did a second edition and printed more Bibles and sent them into the country. That eventually meant that he was going to die.

10 years later, he died. I strangled him and burnt him to death just outside Antwerp for printing the Bible in English. His last words were, lord, open the king of England's eyes. The king of England was Henry the eighth. Henry eighth had ordered his execution.

Henry the eighth thought he was a heretic. 3 years later with the help of Richard Tavern lived just up the road here. A broke called Miles Cabadale, put out the Tinder Bible called the Matthew Bible. You couldn't have Tingle anywhere near the word because he was a heretic. Henry looked at it and said, is there any heresy in it?

And Miles Caffordale, and Richard Tavener said, no. Then let it go out. 3 years after he was executed. The Bible became the Matthew Bible, which then became the Great Bible, which then became the chained Bible. Every every parish had a Bible in it.

And they had to chain it because people would nick it because they hadn't read the tanker moments because they had only heard it in Latin. And now imagine if Tyndall didn't do that. Imagine he comes into the light of the gospel, which he did through another British bloke, which I've got no time for, who another bloke, anyway, you know, loads of stuff here. So here's William Tindle. He comes into the light, and he wants to shed the light, and he goes immediately into conflict Imagine if he said I'm not taking this conflict.

He died at 42 years of age, 40 or 42. Let's imagine he had another 42 years. Or let's imagine he gets as old as Les and he's 94. But didn't follow Christ. Where is he now then?

Where would he be now? What does another 42 years mean when you've got 500 years in eternity? Where would he be? But he had his eyes on a better thing. It was worth dying at 42.

And what a blessing he's been to the team? We have a Bible in English because of him. This is his second edition. There it is, in English. He really formulated English much more than Shakespeare.

William Tinder knew what it was to receive the light, struggle, and know that in 500 years time, he'll be with the Jesus he left. If he had put that down, we wouldn't have a Bible in English. Where would he be? And where's Bishop tunstall? Don't know.

I can't say, but I can tell you where William Tindall is. Perhaps tunstall cried out to Jesus, but William Tindall blessed the team. He went through the storms. And we are blessed by him. I need to stop and over to your brother.

I am my beloved and my beloved is mine. Follow help us to remember remember the days, where we were first saved, where we first came to know you, help us lord to walk in those, in those days, in those memories. Lord help us also to to look forward to what you will bring in the future that you will return. And, lord, please help us to live in a light to walk by faith every day until then. Look, please help us to do this drawing near to you through Jesus.

Help us to follow our king until the end of our days, and we pray in Jesus' name, amen.