March 3. "Now no Chastening for the Present Seemeth to be Joyous but Grievous; Nevertheless Afterward" (Heb. xii. 11).
"Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous; nevertheless afterward" (Heb. xii. 11). God seems to love to work by paradoxes and contraries. In the transformations of grace, the bitter is the base of the sweet, night is the mother of day, and death is the gate of life. Many people are wanting power. Now, how is power produced? The other day we passed the great works where the trolley engines are supplied with electricity. We heard the hum and roar of countless wheels, and …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

December 2. "Looking Diligently Lest any Man Fail" (Heb. xii. 15).
"Looking diligently lest any man fail" (Heb. xii. 15). It is not losing all, but coming short we are to fear. We may not lose our souls, but we may lose something more precious than life--His full approval, His highest choice, and our incorruptible and star-gemmed crown. It is the one degree more that counts, and makes all the difference between hot water--powerless in the boiler--and steam--all alive with power, and bearing its precious freight across the continent. I want, in this short life of …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

March 26. "Jesus, the Author and Finisher of Our Faith" (Heb. xii. 2).
"Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith" (Heb. xii. 2). Add to your faith--do not add to yourself. This is where we make the mistake. We must not only enter by faith, but we must advance by faith each step of the way. At every new stage we shall find ourselves as incompetent and unequal for the pressure as before, and we must take the grace and the victory simply by faith. Is it courage? We shall find ourselves lacking in the needed courage; we must claim it by faith. Is it love? Our own love …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

June 4. "Looking unto Jesus" (Heb. xii. 2).
"Looking unto Jesus" (Heb. xii. 2). There must be a constant looking unto Jesus, or, as the German Bible gives it, an off-looking upon Jesus; that is, looking off from the evil, refusing to see it, not letting the mind dwell upon it for a second. We should have mental eyelashes as well as physical ones, which can be used like shields, and let no evil thing in; or, like a stockade camp in the woods, which repels the first assault of the enemy. This is the use of the fringes to our eyes, and so it …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

Note F. Note from Bengel on Rom. I. 4.
According to the Spirit of Holiness. The word hagios, holy, when God is spoken of, not only denotes the blameless rectitude in action, but the very Godhead, or to speak more properly, the divinity, or excellence of the Divine nature. Hence hagiosune (the word here used) has a kind of middle sense between hagiotes, holiness, and hagiasmos, sanctification. Comp. Heb. xii. 10 (hagiotes or holiness), v. 14 (hagiasmos or sanctification). So that there are, as it were, three degrees: sanctification, …
Andrew Murray—Holy in Christ

Twenty-Ninth Day. Holiness and Chastisement.
He chasteneth us for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Follow after sanctification, without which no man shall see the Lord.'--Heb. xii. 10, 14. There is perhaps no part of God's word which sheds such Divine light upon suffering as the Epistle to the Hebrews. It does this because it teaches us what suffering was to the Son of God. It perfected His humanity. It so fitted Him for His work as the Compassionate High Priest. It proved that He, who had fulfilled God's will in …
Andrew Murray—Holy in Christ

Thanksgiving after Chastisement.
(Preached on the Cessation of Cholera, Feb. 1832). TEXT: HEB. xii. 11, 12. MY devout friends, the terrific form of the devastating -L-l- disease which has so long been raging in this great city has now left us, though we cannot feel entire confidence that it will not return; for it would not be the first instance if it appeared a second time, in a place so densely populated, to repeat its devastations. But are we right in availing ourselves of the apparent cessation which has been granted to us through …
Friedrich Schleiermacher—Selected Sermons of Schleiermacher

Chastisement
Peradventure this morning I may have some within these walls who are passing under the chastising hand of God. It is to them that I shall have to speak. You are not all of you in trial, I know no father chastises his whole family at once. It is so seldom that God afflicts people, after all, compared with their faults, that we must not expect to find in this congregation, perhaps, one-half of the children of God passing under the rod of the covenant; but if you are not under it now, you will have …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 1: 1855

The Blood of Sprinkling
Our apostle next tells us what we are come to. I suppose he speaks of all the saints after the death and resurrection of our Lord and the descent of the Holy Ghost. He refers to the whole church, in the midst of which the Holy Spirit now dwells. We are come to a more joyous sight than Sinai, and the mountain burning with fire. The Hebrew worshipper, apart from his sacrifices, lived continually beneath the shadow of the darkness of a broken law; he was startled often by the tremendous note of the …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 32: 1886

The Blood of Sprinkling (Second Sermon. )
The doctrinal portion of our meditation was greatly blest to our hearts, for God the Holy Ghost refreshed us thereby: may he now fulfill his sacred office with equal power, by revealing the things of Christ to us in a way which shall cause self-examination, and arouse us to give more earnest heed than ever to the voice of him that speaketh from heaven. No theme can excel in value and excellence that of the precious blood of Jesus. Unless the Holy Spirit shall prepare our hearts, even with such a …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 32: 1886

The Voice of the Blood of Christ
Now, we have in our text "blood" mentioned--two-fold blood. We have the blood of murdered Abel, and the blood of murdered Jesus. We have also two things in the text:--a comparison between the blood of sprinkling, and the blood of Abel; and then a certain condition mentioned. Rather, if we read the whole verse in order to get its meaning, we find that the righteous are spoken of as coming to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than the blood of Abel; so that the condition which will …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 4: 1858

The Shameful Sufferer
"O love, thou fathomless abyss!" for this love of Christ is indeed measureless and fathomless. None of us can attain unto it. In speaking thereof we feel our own weakness, we cast ourselves upon the strength of the Spirit, but, even then, we feel that we can never attain unto the majesty of this subject. Before we can ever get a right idea of the love of Jesus, we must understand his previous glory in its height of majesty, and his incarnation upon the earth in all its depths of shame. Now, who can …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 5: 1859

Holiness Demanded
"Holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord."--Hebrews 12:14. ONE feels most happy when blowing the trumpet of jubilee, proclaiming peace to broken hearts, freedom to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. But God's watchman has another trumpet, which he must sometimes blow; for thus saith the Lord unto him, "Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain." Times there are when we must ring the tocsin; men must be startled from their sleep, they …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 50: 1904

God's Word not to be Refused
"See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven."--Hebrews 12:25. WE ARE NOT a cowering multitude gathered in trembling fear around the smoking mount of Horeb; we have come where the great central figure is the mercy of God in Christ Jesus. We have gathered virtually in the outer circle of which the saints above and holy angels make the inner ring. And now tonight …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 61: 1915

Fourteenth Day. Endurance in Contradiction.
"Who endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself."-- Heb. xii. 3. What endurance was this! Perfect truth in the midst of error; perfect love in the midst of ingratitude and coldness; perfect rectitude in the midst of perjury, violence, fraud; perfect constancy in the midst of contumely and desertion; perfect innocence, confronting every debased form of depravity and guilt; perfect patience, encountering every species of gross provocation--"oppressed and afflicted, He opened not His mouth!" …
John R. Macduff—The Mind of Jesus

"But it is Good for Me to Draw Near to God: I have Put My Trust in the Lord God, that I May Declare all Thy
Psal. lxxiii. 28.--"But it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord God, that I may declare all thy works." After man's first transgression, he was shut out from the tree of life, and cast out of the garden, by which was signified his seclusion and sequestration from the presence of God, and communion with him: and this was in a manner the extermination of all mankind in one, when Adam was driven out of paradise. Now, this had been an eternal separation for any thing that …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

The Consuming Fire.
Our God is a consuming fire.--HEBREWS xii. 29 Nothing is inexorable but love. Love which will yield to prayer is imperfect and poor. Nor is it then the love that yields, but its alloy. For if at the voice of entreaty love conquers displeasure, it is love asserting itself, not love yielding its claims. It is not love that grants a boon unwillingly; still less is it love that answers a prayer to the wrong and hurt of him who prays. Love is one, and love is changeless. For love loves unto purity. …
George MacDonald—Unspoken Sermons

Of Bearing Injuries, and who Shall be Approved as Truly Patient
"What sayest thou, My Son? Cease to complain; consider My suffering and that of My saints. Thou hast not yet resisted unto blood.(1) It is little which thou sufferest in comparison with those who have suffered so many things, have been so strongly tempted, so grievously troubled, so manywise proved and tried. Thou oughtest therefore to call to mind the more grievous sufferings of others that thou mightest bear thy lesser ones more easily, and if they seem not to thee little, see that it is not …
Thomas A Kempis—Imitation of Christ

Meditations on the Hindrances which Keep Back a Sinner from the Practice of Piety.
Those hindrances are chiefly seven:-- I. An ignorant mistaking of the true meaning of certain places of the holy Scriptures, and some other chief grounds of Christian religion. The Scriptures mistaken are these: 1. Ezek. xxxiii. 14, 16, "At what time soever a sinner repenteth him of his sin, I will blot out all," &c. Hence the carnal Christian gathers, that he may repent when he will. It is true, whensoever a sinner does repent, God will forgive; but the text saith not, that a sinner may repent whensoever …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

The Pietist and the Perfectionist.
"He chastens us for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness."--Heb. xii. 10. Sanctification is a gracious work of God, whereby in a supernatural way He gradually divests from sin the inclinations and dispositions of the regenerate and clothes them with holiness. Here we meet a serious objection which deserves our careful attention. To the superficial observer, the spiritual experience of God's children seems diametrically opposed to this professed gift of sanctification. One says: …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit

Christ the Mediator of the Covenant
'Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant,' &c. Heb 12:24. Jesus Christ is the sum and quintessence of the gospel; the wonder of angels; the joy and triumph of saints. The name of Christ is sweet, it is as music in the ear, honey in the mouth, and a cordial at the heart. I shall waive the context, and only speak of that which concerns our present purpose. Having discoursed of the covenant of grace, I shall speak now of the Mediator of the covenant, and the restorer of lapsed sinners, Jesus the Mediator …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

Arrived
"Ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem."--Heb. xii. 22. T. S. M. tr., Emma Frances Bevan, 1899 We are come unto Mount Zion, On Thy holy hill we stand, The crusaders whose march is ended, The risen and the ascended, All hail! Immanuel's land! We are come unto the City, Where our living God art Thou; Thou Who barest our sin and sorrow, Who comest in joy to-morrow, Thou communest with us now-- To Jerusalem the golden, To the Gates of Praise we come, …
Frances Bevan—Hymns of Ter Steegen and Others (Second Series)

Esau Gen 25:34; Heb 12:16
ESAU Gen 25:34; Heb 12:16 Poor Esau repented too late That once he his birth-right despised; And sold, for a morsel of meat, What could not too highly be prized: How great was his anguish when told, The blessing he sought to obtain, Was gone with the birth-right he sold, And none could recall it again! He stands as a warning to all, Wherever the gospel shall come; O Hasten and yield to the call, While yet for repentance there's room! Your season will quickly be past, Then hear and obey it today; …
John Newton—Olney Hymns