Hebrews Lesson 203                                                                                                       July 8, 2010

 

NKJ Deuteronomy 6:5 "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

 

Tonight we are continuing our study in Hebrews 12, and we have come down to the approximately verse 12 (to) pick up a little review before we begin. Hebrews 12:12-14 – let’s get a little review so we see the context of what we're looking at here in Hebrews. 

 

Remember that I said that there are 5 major sections in Hebrews that are related to teaching. These are teaching sections. Each of these sections begins with an exposition or explanation of some important point (some key element) that the writer of Hebrews is making to those to whom he is writing. After he has that introductory section (that instructional section), it's followed by a practical challenge, or as I’ve called it before an exhortation. That’s what an exhortation is. It’s a practical challenge. Then some or most of these have a section within the practical challenge that is a warning – a warning to believers, not that they can lose their salvation or not that if you don't do these things you weren’t really saved. That’s the lordship salvation position, the position that you weren’t really saved or you lose your salvation rather. That’s the Armenian position. But if you really understand grace God gives you a gift with no strings attached that salvation is not based on anything we do, who we are, what we've done because we can ever do anything that really merits the righteousness of God. We just can't ever be good enough. It’s a free gift so that means that God gives it to us, no strings attached. It can’t we lost. It's not conditioned upon acting a certain way after you receive it. The gospel itself (the gift of salvation) is that it’s a free gift. 

 

There are other things related that are dependent upon growth, obedience, things of that nature, but not salvation itself. That's what the warnings all relate to. As we look at this last section in Hebrews, the instructional part was in chapter 11 where the writer focused on faith and gave all the different examples from the Old Testament heroes, these Old Testament leaders from Enoch to Noah to Abraham, Moses, Joshua, all the way down. Then that example leads to his conclusion where he makes the application, starting in verse 1. Therefore because of what we learn from those Old Testament examples, we are to do something. The first thing is to focus on Jesus Christ. That's the key element. He is the example of endurance. That’s chapter 12:1-2; 12:1-29 is the practical challenge. The first two verses focus on Christ as the example, the focal point of the believer.

 

Then in verses 3 through 11 a section that we have just vanished, the focus is on the training of the believer, the training of the believer. Unfortunately the translators have used the word chastening, or perhaps some translations use the word discipline, which conveys the negative, punitive side of discipline (chastening). The Greek word that we looked at is paideuo and it has to do with training. It is what a coach does when he takes a young child who manifests certain athletic abilities; and he begins to work, to train, to discipline, to form, to shape this child so that by the time they become an adult they are skillful in the use of their natural talents. That athletic metaphor lays behind this whole section from verses 1 through 11in this section. So it's the idea of training. 

 

Training involves both positive motivation (encouragement), but it also involves the negative punishment when there’s failure. Training has to do with recognizing that to achieve anything that we want to in life, to achieve any worthwhile objective in life; then there are going to be things in life that we're going to have to say no to. 

 

There are going to be things in life that we're going to have to say, “Well that's fine for other people to do, but if I'm going to achieve what I wanted to achieve then I have to restrict certain things in my life so that I can achieve the goals and objectives that I have set for myself.” 

 

That is the essence of discipline. We looked at the Old Testament passage that is quoted in verses 5 and 6 here from Proverbs that emphasize Proverbs 3:11-12. The word that’s used for chastening is a word that has to do with binding. That’s what we do. We bind or restrict ourselves in certain areas. That is the idea and it involves endurance because every one of us has faced this where we've been on some track. We’ve decided to try to reach a certain goal or objective, and we have put ourselves under some system of rigorous discipline (self-discipline) to achieve that goal. 

 

At some point we just want to say, “Well, to heck with it!”, and we just want to throw off those restraints for a little while and not always be under the gun or under that rigid discipline. 

 

Endurance has to do with hanging in there and staying with the challenge. So 12:3-11 the believer endures training in order to reach that goal of being a useful mature believer that's productive spiritually and that is serving the Lord with his life from a position of strength of a mature believer. 

 

We then come to a conclusion that is found from 12 to 29. I break it into two sections. The first part is a conclusion indicated by the “therefore” of verse 12. Therefore we must become strong spiritually to enjoy the blessings of a full reward in heaven. A focal point here is to enjoy that full reward, the full inheritance. That's where we have the overlap with what I taught on Tuesday night in Revelation 21:7-8, specifically in verse 8. All those passages relate to promises of rewards to the overcomer. So that is all part of this doctrine. This is just one facet of the doctrine that’s taught in the New Testament related to inheritance and these special rewards to believers who stick with it and who grow to spiritual maturity.

 

Then we have an explanation of why that is important of how this flows from this superior New Covenant. Of course the New Covenant that’s mentioned here has to do with the way in which the New Covenant that will be established in the future between God and the House of Israel and the House of Judah. The basis was established at the cross. 

 

Jesus said when He observed the Passover meal and He took the element of the cup, He said:

NKJ Luke 22:20 … "This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.

 

He connected His death to that sacrifice related to establishing a New Covenant that would be predicted in Jeremiah 31:31-2 for Israel. It is not a covenant with the church, but it is a covenant that all benefit from. It’s with Israel, for Israel (the House of Israel and the House of Judah) but is the basis for all the future blessings and the Messianic Kingdom and beyond. That's in 18 in 29. 

 

Tonight we’re in that section of 12:12-17. In order to understand what goes on here we have to understand a little bit about figures of speech. Verse 12, which is where we're starting this evening, says:

 

NKJ Hebrews 12:12 Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees,

 

NKJ Hebrews 12:13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.

 

What does that mean? How are we to understand what that means? Just go back a couple versus to verse 10. The writer says:

 

NKJ Hebrews 12:10 For they indeed

 

That is talking about earthly fathers.

 

for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He

 

That is the heavenly Father.

 

for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.

 

The goal of discipline is to participate or share in the holiness of God. Not positional righteousness, which we believe is imputed to every believer at salvation, but this experiential or productive righteousness as the believer grows to spiritual maturity. We call it progressive sanctification, or it is the progress of the spiritual life or spiritual growth so that as we go through that training process the result is that the righteousness of God is not just a positional reality, it experientially works out in the life of the believer. 

 

NKJ Hebrews 12:11 Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

 

Again we come back to that same idea: the production value of the growing believer. It produces the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who've been trained by it. 

 

NKJ Hebrews 12:12 Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees

 

You know he's saying something important. He’s shifting into a more metaphorical speech here. But what is he saying? What is the significance of this? In order to answer that we have to side track a little bit in order to investigate this particular idiom and to learn just a little bit about the use of metaphors and figures of speech in literature.

 

This is an extended metaphor. First we'll talk about the metaphor. A metaphor is an unstated comparison where the writer is saying that one thing is another, whereas a simile, which is also a comparison, is a stated comparison. A simile is an explicit comparison whereas a metaphor is an implied comparison. A smile usually uses the word like or as. One thing is “like” something else. Scripture says that when we are cleansed of sin we are as white as snow. That is stated. It is an implicit comparison comparing white to snow. 

 

We see other examples here that I have on the screen. This is from a classic work on figures of speech in the Bible by E. W. Bollinger. He writes:

 

                        The simile says, "all flesh is as grass".

 

He is comparing flesh to grass. There is something about flesh, something about grass that is parallel. You could picture it as overlapping circles and that there's a lot of things about grass and a lot of things about the flesh that are different. But there is one characteristic of both flesh and grass that are the same and that's the point of the comparison. 

 

A simile states it explicitly.  All flesh is as grass whereas a metaphor carries the figure across at once and just directly states it as in the original quote from Isaiah 40:6. 

 

NKJ Isaiah 40:6 …"All flesh is grass,…

 

See the difference? There’s no as or like. That's the distinction between the two.

 

Something else that Bollinger said here I thought was interesting because in other times and other topics when we talked about interpretation and understanding figures of speech as part of interpretation. We talked about the problem that occurs when we talk about the fact that as conservatives we believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible. 

 

Some people say, “Well, literal? Wait a minute. What do you mean? Do you mean that you don’t believe in figures of speech? You don't believe in idioms?  You don’t believe in symbolism things – things like that?”

 

Yes, we do. That is all within the meaning of literal interpretation. Literal interpretation does not exclude figures of speech. Literal interpretation is not a wooden superficial literalism like that. It is taking the Word and reading the text of Scripture so that the words carry the normal plain sense of everyday language. 

 

There are different types of literature we have in the Scripture. You have legal literature of the Torah in the Old Testament. You have poetry. Much of the prophets are written in poetry. Of course the Psalms are all poetry. Proverbs are all poetry. Most of Job is poetry. In poetry words do not have the same narrow sense of meaning as they do for example in legal literature. If you are reading a contrast and a contract talks about a lake then you can be pretty sure that that contract is going to state the precise location of the lake, the dimensions of the lake; all of those kinds of things. Whereas if your reading a Shakespearean sonnet and there is a reference or allusion to a lake, you know that that could be a figure of speech. You really have to look at the context because the idea of a lake can have a broader sense of meaning than you would find in legal literature. 

 

So the context always has some sort of effect on how we interpret words. It doesn't change the meaning (their ultimate core meaning) so that white becomes black or red becomes a house or something of that nature. It just has a little bit broader sense to it than in poetic language. When we use words in figures of speech they also have a little broader sense to them and you can figure out what a figure of speech means by comparing that figure in other literature.

I remember some years ago I got involved in a discussion with somebody who was trying to make the absurd point that Isaiah 14 did not refer to the fall of Lucifer – that actually all those chapters were nothing but one extended metaphor. As bright as that individual was, I had to say, “Well I don’t think you understand either metaphor or the text of Scripture.” I told this individual that I was really glad he had an accountant because if he applied that system of interpretation to the way he read the tax form, he would be in jail. That's unfortunately the case with most people. When they read something important like an instruction manual or guidelines on how to fill out their income tax form they will interpret it in normal, plain sense. But then somehow when they go read the Constitution for example, all of a sudden they want it to mean something other than the normal, plain sense of the language and make a fluid instead of fixed. It’s legal literature. 

 

We always have to understand that even though we have certain the figures of speech, there are rules for understanding figures of speech. I ran across this in Bollinger, which I thought was really interesting. He talked about metaphors. He said the two nouns (that is, the nouns that are going to be compared here such as “white as snow” or “that the flesh is as grass”) are always to be taken in their absolute literal sense. Even though it's a figure of speech and we say that all flesh is like grass, we have to understand flesh in the literal sense to understand all of its literal characteristics and attributes. We have to understand grass in its literal sense and understand all of its actual literal characteristics and attributes in order to find the point of comparison that the writer is making between these two nouns. That's what I mean when I say even a figure of speech must be interpreted literally. If you get beyond the literal interpretation, you’re really just making up the meaning. So you have to stick with those normal rules and canons for interpretation. 

 

Bollinger made that point I thought, “Well that looks like that's an important point. I’ll emphasize that. He uses that same explanation there in his example. In the second paragraph for example “all flesh is grass.” Here flesh is to be taken literally as the subject spoken of. Grass is to be taken equally literally as that which represents flesh. All the figure lies in the verb “is”. In other words “is” is where you pick up that comparison; and you understand that. Now Bollinger wrote at the beginning of the 20th century. 

 

A more recent book and for those of you who like language, those of you who write, this is the new reference book that you should have in your reference library. It is written by Bryan Garner: Garner's Modern American Usage. The most recent edition came out last year. He is a Texan who has been interested in grammar and the details (microscopic details) of language and usage ever since he was in elementary school he says. This is the standard. It really replaces for us an older work called Fowler’s English Usage. Fowler was English. That’s more British usage. This is the first major reference point (reference book) on usage. It's just incredible. I picked up a little over a month ago.  It’s the kind of thing you just want to read lots of different things in there because you learn all manner of different things.

 

He defines a metaphor as a figure of speech in which one thing is called by the name of something else or is said to be that other thing, unlike similes, which use “like” or “as”. Metaphorical comparisons are implicit, not explicit. 

 

Now there’s a classic example here. I didn't even think about using this when I started this lesson but just keep your place in Hebrews 12 and let's go back into the Old Testament. This is probably one of those parts of the Old Testament that you haven't used a lot so the pages won’t be turned. This is just after Proverbs. You have Proverbs, then Ecclesiastes and then Song of Solomon. 

 

In Song of Solomon we have a description of the Shunamite woman. Now if you were to translate this literally and I’ve seen a picture done like this somewhat factiously, you would not have a very attractive individual. But this shows the use of metaphor in Scripture.

 

NKJ Song of Solomon 4:1 Behold, you are fair, my love! Behold, you are fair! You have dove's eyes behind your veil.

 

Were those literal doves’ eyes behind the veil? No, he's making an unstated comparison that her eyes are like doves’ eyes; but he doesn't use “like” or “as”. So it's a metaphor.

 

Your hair is like a flock of goats,

 

Now that's a lot of fun to deal with that. How in the world ladies would you like have your hair compared to a flock of goats? Any of you’ve been out on the farm or the ranch somewhere with a bunch of goats; you know that there are a lot of things about goats that you do not want to be said about your hair.  But if you are out on the hills of Galilee you see a flock of goats coming down over the side of a ridge as it flows beautifully. You don’t see the details of the individual goats; you just see that beautiful movement. That is the image that he’s invoking. But it's a simile. It’s a stated comparison here.

 

Going down from Mount Gilead.

 

NKJ Song of Solomon 4:2 Your teeth are like a flock of shorn sheep

 

He's emphasizing they're all nice white even teeth. 

 

Which have come up from the washing, Every one of which bears twins

 

See one side looks like the other side.

 

And none is barren among them.

 

NKJ Song of Solomon 4:3 Your lips are like a strand of scarlet, And your mouth is lovely. Your temples behind your veil Are like a piece of pomegranate.

 

Now pomegranate is pretty hard, kind of scaly looking But the comparison is color, that nice red rosy color. But for him the pomegranate color. 

 

NKJ Song of Solomon 4:4 Your neck is like the tower of David, …

 

Rocky, scaly, bumpy – right? No! Elegant, delicate, thin, supports her head well – beautiful! So that just is an incident of comparison.

 

Let's go back to our passage. We have an extended metaphor. We have a metaphor that runs through chapter 12. It sort of disappears a little bit in this section from verse 3 down through verse 11. It's a little bit dormant, but it's there in the imagery of the discipline, the paideuo. Just think in terms of the discipline of the athlete, the training of the runner. He’s going to race in the stadium in the contest. 

 

Now go back to verse one. The writer says:

 

NKJ Hebrews 12:1 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, …let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

 

Now that first verse sets the metaphor. We're talking about running a race, running in a contest. In that contest there are witnesses. They don't directly observe us literally, but he uses that in terms of the imagery. Those witnesses are those that have run the way race before us those that are mentioned in chapter 11. So the metaphor here is that the spiritual life is like running a race. Now you don't get in the race by works. You get in the race by a grace.  You become a contestant by grace. You're able to get into the starting block by grace, by simply trusting Christ as your Savior. You don’t have to do anything to earn that position. But once you're in the race, then there are going to be different kinds of rewards for those depending on how they perform in the race. So he's going to talk about using the race there as the metaphor for the spiritual life. He digresses beginning in verse 3 to the training that God provides for every believer so that they can run the race well. Some are going to run well. Some are going to sprint at the beginning and fade out in the middle. Some are going to do a pretty good job of pacing themselves but they don't quite make it to the finish line. Others are going to run the race well and make it to the finish line. 

 

As we see Paul uses that same analogy in 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 3 gives us the description of the Judgment Seat of Christ that at the and when we are all taken to be with the Lord in the air. We go to heaven there is a judgment seat or evaluation of the Bema Seat. All of our works are evaluated, not to see if we get to heaven but in terms of what we do, what our roles, responsibilities will be when we are in heaven. There are those who have different levels of rewards but there are some who completely fail. They trip and fall coming out of the starting blocks. They never run the race. They don't do anything. They lose rewards; but they don't lose salvation. 

 

This whole idea of discipline comes from observance of the Lord. We saw back in Hebrews 3 that He was disciplined in His life. God trained Him so that He would be the pattern for us for our sanctification. 

 

NKJ Hebrews 12:3 For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.

 

Now what I'm pointing out here is that the key is endurance as in any race or any contest. To prepare yourself you have to be disciplined or trained. That’s paideuo. But the problem is giving up. The problem is becoming weary or discouraged. There are two different words that you see in the English in verse 3. 

 

lest you become weary

 

…which is the word kamno which I pointed out I believe when we were studying this verse. It means to tire with exertion, to labor to weariness, to be worn out, exhausted, even to be discouraged. It overlaps with the second word that we have there that’s translated “discouraged” here. If you look at the New King James translation, the translator was consistent in translating the second word ekluo as discouraged in verse 3 and then also as discouraged down in verse 5 in the quote from the Old Testament (Proverbs 3) in that quote. So ekluo is used both places. They're very similar words indicating weariness and discouragement. Ekluo brings out an element different from kamno in the emotion behind it – becoming discouraged or weak. The problem is that we’ve become discouraged. We become weak. We don't persevere. We don't endure to the end of the contest. 

 

So the writer goes on to describe that you have to endure chastening. The chastening there of course is the discipline, the training. If you endure training, God deals with you as with sons. This is an adult son. It emphasizes the maturity aspect that comes as a result of the growth that takes place in the life of the believers. 

 

So the metaphor that we see that runs through this section builds on the image of running the race that is set before us. It is that contest where there are those in the stands: the spectators, the witnesses. It brings to bear the training metaphor translated in the English chastening or discipline but it has the idea of training someone to complete a task. The success of the competition is related to how well you and I as the individuals respond to the training and remaining disciplined in the race so that we hang in there to the end and not give up, give out or quit. That is the problem that he is addressing here. It is the believers he’s addressing want to give up and quit. He gives them a challenge in verse 12. 

 

NKJ Hebrews 12:12 Therefore strengthen

 

He is saying, “In light of what I have just described the solution is to strengthen….

 

the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees,

 

The question we have to ask here is: what does that mean “strengthening the hands” and “the feeble knees”? The issue is that now that we have to properly interpret this metaphor and to understand this idiom. This is this a metaphor to return to fellowship? Is that the primary thrust here? That is one interpretation that I have heard. It is the idea here is to recover or return from disobedience to obedience. But I don't necessarily see that as the main thing.  He hasn’t been going through this section here where he’s focusing on “you have been disobedient and now you need to be obedient.” That has been the backdrop. I think that’s included, but I don't think that's the main thrust of the metaphor here. Is the metaphor more specifically addressing the issue that we need to advance and continue to grow and to become strong spiritually and not to regress and become weak and give up?   

 

Now we can think of an athlete in any endeavor. We could think of somebody perhaps even in the arts, in piano, in music and dance that requires discipline - ongoing discipline and endurance in achieving the goal. To excel you have to get a good coach. You have to have a good trainer and you have to focus on the endgame. But what does it mean here when it says that we have to strengthen the hands that hang down? Well, in order to understand this, we have to realize that this comes of the Old Testament. Just like so much in Hebrews we can't just interpret it in isolation from an Old Testament context. Both of these verses that begin this next section (both 12 and 13) are quotes or paraphrases that come out of Old Testament context. 

 

I want you to turn in your Bibles with me to Isaiah 35. It seems like recently with all the time we’ve spent in Isaiah in almost all three studies we’ve almost done a side study on Isaiah. Isaiah 35 is one of those great, wonderful chapters in the Old Testament and in Isaiah that focuses on God's promise to Israel that no matter how much they go through in history, how much horror they go through, how many times they may be taken out of the land, that God is going to remain faithful to them. No matter how much persecution they go through, no matter how much they are defeated in battle, how much chaos is in their lives; eventually God is going to fulfill all the promises that He made Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He's going to give them the land, and He will bring His Anointed (the Messiah) to the land to rule over Israel. 

 

In chapter 34, the focus was on the day of the Lord's vengeance in Isaiah 34:8. This speaks of that future time of judgment on all of the nations. So chapter 35 then speaks of the time after that which is the time of the Messianic Kingdom when God will restore all of Israel to the land and the Messiah will rule and it will be a time of absolute perfection. 

 

We look at Isaiah 35. We must understand the verse that we're going to look at is down in verses 3 and 4. 

 

NKJ Isaiah 35:3 Strengthen the weak hands, And make firm the feeble knees

4 Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence; he will come and save you.

 

Look at the context. The context as I’ve pointed out in 34 is judgment on the nations. The nations are judged in chapter 34. Then starting in verse 1of chapter 35 the focus is on of the glories of the Messianic age.

 

NKJ Isaiah 35:1 The wilderness and the wasteland shall be glad for them, And the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose;

 

That verse is sometimes applied to what the modern state of Israel is doing today and how they have turned the wasteland, the barren country that was under Ottoman rule up until the Jews began to return in the late 19th century and have just done an incredible job. The economic miracle that has occurred in Israel (especially in the last 40 years) is almost unprecedented in the world. There are two great books right now if you're interested in it. There's one by George Gilder called The Israel Test and another one by Dan Senor called The Start Up Nation that goes through just all of the incredible things that are taking place in Israel. 

 

The Start Up Nation is fascinating. I’ve read about half of it now. One of the things that he points out and goes into is the interdependency in Israel between industry and business and the military. It is fascinating because you have just the opposite in the United States, which is very, very sad as he points out.  But in Israel because you have universal military service everybody comes out of high school and they go into the military and actually competition for the better units in the Israeli army began as early as 13 or 14 years of age much like in many sections of the United States competition for a certain colleges will begin very early at 13 or 14 years of age. But there it’s competition to get into a certain units of the Israeli army because they know that the people who come out of certain units have had tremendous, tremendous success in business afterward. Because everybody stays in the military until they’re 45, they stay with the same unit they originally trained with so they're together all the way through. They maintain those relationships throughout much of their early professional career. 

 

In Israel in the way the culture of the Israeli army works, there’s a tremendous amount of freedom to your junior officers, which you don't have in most armies, especially in the US Army. They had situations they faced with terrorist and other things that are immediate, and they don't have time to go up the chain of command to get answers. You have junior officers of 22, 23 years of age who are making decisions that would just blow your mind in life and death situations that in many cases you wouldn’t have anyone lower than the rank of major making decisions like that in the US Army.

 

When they come out of the military and they go to work for, let’s say Intel or Microsoft or some other Israeli company, when they go in for a job interview the first question they’re asked is not where did you go to college or what was your degree in. The first question is what unit did you serve in in the military? The person that is interviewing them knows the unit. He probably has an uncle or cousin. It’s a small country. He's got somebody (next door neighbor) who served in that unit. He knows people in that unit so he wants to know what unit he served in. Once he finds that out, that’s going to tell him a lot about the abilities and capabilities of this particular individual that he’s interviewing. 

 

In the United States, you go to some Fortune 500 company. You come out of the military, You come out as a captain or a major and you come in and they look at your resume and you talk about all things you do the military. 

 

When it’s over they say, “Okay, but what kind of experience do you have in business?” 

 

Because once we went into a volunteer army in the mid 70’s, the percentage of people in business that went into the military became less and less and less, so that the chances are very great that when you go interview, if you're coming up the military, you're going to interview was somebody who has no idea what the military does and thinks all you do is sit around and shoot people. He has no idea that there are any skills or abilities that you learned in the military that could possibly benefit their corporation. 

 

This is really sad and there are all kinds of unintended negative consequences from that. In Israel there are all kinds of unintended positive consequences that have come out of that. It's often said that because of agriculture and all the innovation that this has produced this kind of culture there of tremendous innovation and initiative that they have produced, they've made that desert blossom in both a literal sense and a figurative sense. 

 

But that's not what 35:1 is talking about; 35:1 is talking about the fact that there will be a meteorological and agricultural and geographical overhaul of the land during the Millennial Kingdom. It is not going to be done through technology. It's going to be done through the miracle of the Messiah who is going to bring this joy and this blessing to the land. 

 

The result of that is that it glorifies God. That’s the last two phrases of verse 2. 

 

NKJ Isaiah 35:2 …They shall see the glory of the LORD, The excellency of our God.

 

Then in verse 2 we read the same kind of phrase that we have in Hebrews. 

 

NKJ Isaiah 35:3 Strengthen the weak hands, And make firm the feeble knees.

 

NKJ Isaiah 35:4 Say to those who are fearful-hearted, "Be strong, do not fear! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, With the recompense of God; He will come and save you."

 

So the address is to those who have survived this period that we call the Tribulation, the Time of Jacobs Wrath, the Time of Daniel’s 70th week that they are weary. They're tired. They’ve been fighting, struggling in a defensive position embattled for the last of 7 years, especially the last 3½ years on the verge of defeat. They are fearful. They are terrified because the armies of the Antichrist are surrounding them and what happens is your God will come with a vengeance. That is with justice. We’ve studied that word in the past. It doesn't have the idea of personal vindictiveness, but the idea of bringing just retribution. The emphasis is on the justice of God.

 

Behold, your God will come with vengeance, With the recompense of God; He will come and save you."

 

…and deliver you. 

 

Look at the phrase “strengthening the weak hands." The weak hands then seem to be an idiom to describe those who are fearful, those who are weary of the struggle, those who are on the verge of giving up because they seem to be overwhelmed by tremendous odds. 

 

Now we see a parallel verse to this in Zephaniah 3:16. So Hebrews is picking up this as a quote from Isaiah 35 where you have the same phrase in Zephaniah 3:16. So let’s turn to Zephaniah 3:16. Zephaniah is in that section of the Old Testament known as the Minor Prophets. Now the last three are Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. They’re the post-exilic prophets.

 

Zephaniah is the last pre-exilic prophet before Haggai. It’s the 4th from the end of the Old Testament. Zephaniah was a colleague and a contemporary of Isaiah. His message parallels the message that Isaiah’s giving. This is in the 7th century BC. It’s the same time period we've been studying on Sunday morning in our study of 2 Kings, the time period of Hezekiah. It’s the time period when Isaiah is predicting that ultimately the Southern Kingdom will fall just as Northern Kingdom fell. It is a warning that even though God will bring His discipline (His punishment) upon the nation, He is not leaving them, He's not deserting them. He will eventually fulfill His promises to them. 

 

So when we come to Zephaniah 3:16, we read that it says:

 

NKJ Zephaniah 3:16 In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem:

 

And that refers to the same future time period that Isaiah was referring to. 

 

God says:

 

"Do not fear; Zion, let not your hands be weak.

 

So what exactly does that mean? Well, let’s just look at the context a little bit and go back to the beginning of chapter 3. Chapter 3 is an indictment on Jerusalem and Judah. The Northern Kingdom of Israel has already gone out into divine discipline, been conquered by the Assyrians and the people have been deported. Zephaniah 3 is an indictment now of the Southern Kingdom Just as Isaiah brought an indictment, especially in chapter 1 with the famous passage on the woes against Judah because of her unfaithfulness to God. 

 

So chapter 1 begins the same way. 

 

NKJ Zephaniah 3:1 Woe to her who is rebellious and polluted,

 

This is talking about their spiritual rebellion against God and their spiritual defilement (their spiritual pollution) because they have worshipped all of these other gods. They have been disobedient to God who gave them the Mosaic Covenant. They have been in rebellion against him; and it has defiled them and polluted them spiritually. 

 

To the oppressing city!

 

Once you get away from God, then you lose your anchor point of justice. Justice doesn't come out of a horizontal comparison comparing one person, one nation to another. Justice must ultimately have a reference point, which is the justice of God as an absolute which is what we're going to get into beginning in verse 5. 

 

Once any culture of divorces itself from that absolute reference point of the justice and the righteousness of God, then justice becomes defined by the creature and defined by the government. It always deteriorates into tyranny. You have some of the most horrible tyrannies in the world in the ancient world in the nations that knew nothing of God: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Greece. In many other cultures it was the elite, the governing powers who governed for their own benefit, and nothing was known of justice or righteousness. 

 

Well, when Israel in the north did the same thing and then Judah in the south when they disobeyed God, divorced themselves from God, and lost that connection to the ultimate reference point of God's justice and righteousness, then they began to oppress the people and the people became selfish and self- centered. That's why Isaiah and the other prophets condemned them for social inequity; not that it was the government's problem to solve social problems because it was the individual's responsibility to take care of the needs of others. The social problems, taking care of the widows and the orphans, were not the government's problem, not the government's solution, but the individual's. When the individual became divorced from God and divorced from an understanding of that objective reality of justice and righteousness, then he became more and more self-centered so the society became unjust. 

 

So Jerusalem is called the oppressive city. She has not obeyed His voice. She has not received correction. She has not trusted in the Lord. She has not drawn near to her God. Jerusalem and the inhabitants of Judah were in complete spiritual rebellion against God. 

 

They said, “God, we're going to figure it out and do it our own way. We're not going to listen to you.”

 

Then there's an indictment of the leadership in verses 3 and 4: the princes, the judges, the prophets and the priests.

 

NKJ Zephaniah 3:3 Her princes in her midst are roaring lions;

 

They’re wild beasts. They’re ravenous. 

 

Her judges are evening wolves

 

They come to scavenge and to take what isn't theirs. 

 

That leave not a bone till morning.

 

NKJ Zephaniah 3:4 Her prophets

 

These were not prophets who were serving God; they were false prophets.

 

are insolent, treacherous people; Her priests have polluted the sanctuary, They have done violence to the law.

 

Then we see the contrast. You can only understand the flaws if you can compare it to the absolute purity and perfection of God’s righteousness.

 

NKJ Zephaniah 3:5 The LORD is righteous in her midst, He will do no unrighteousness. Every morning He brings His justice to light; He never fails, But the unjust knows no shame.

 

Now here we have the verse on the screen for you to look at because I want show you what the writer does with these words.  

 

NKJ Zephaniah 3:5 The LORD is righteous in her midst,

 

That is the Hebrew word tsaddyiq, which is the standard word for righteousness, referring to the absolute standard of God’s perfect character. It’s comparable to the Greek word in the New Testament dikaiosune. 

 

He will do no unrighteousness.

 

This is the Hebrew word of evel, which means unjust. God will do no unrighteousness. God is perfect and He cannot have anything to do with any creature that is less than perfect.

 

Since all creatures are less than perfect, how do we resolve the problem? Ah, we solved that problem at the cross because when Jesus Christ paid the penalty for sin the Scripture says:

 

NKJ 2 Corinthians 5:21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

 

When we trust Christ, God gives us Christ’s righteousness. He imputes it to us. The same thing happened with Abraham, Genesis 15:6. 

 

NKJ Genesis 15:6 And he believed in the LORD, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.

 

So that means that God then that God is able to have fellowship with the creature because He gives the creature who believes on Him His own righteousness. That doesn’t make you perfect. We still sin. But legally we have been given a new status because of that righteousness. So the Lord is righteous in our midst and will do no unrighteousness. That’s evel. 

 

NKJ Zephaniah 3:5 …Every morning He brings His justice to light; He never fails, But

 

But what? 

 

the unjust

 

There’s that word unjust again, evel.   

 

knows no shame.

 

The contrast is between God who is absolute righteousness and who is absolute justice and the leaders in Israel at this time: the princes, the kings, the judges, the prophets the priests, all the people under condemnation. They are all unjust. 

 

Later Isaiah says:

 

NKJ Isaiah 64:6 … And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags…

 

As we read on in Zephaniah, God begins to speak. In verses 6 down through 13, He is going to speak about it not only the indictment against Israel; but how He is ultimately going to restore Israel. He starts with His reference to His own justice verses 6 and 7. 

 

NKJ Zephaniah 3:6 "I have cut off nations, Their fortresses are devastated; I have made their streets desolate, With none passing by. Their cities are destroyed; There is no one, no inhabitant.

 

“If I have executed justice by destroying these other nations who are not mine, were not called after My name, then how much more will I execute justice on Israel who is called by My name?”

 

That’s His argument.  

 

But He says, “Even though I will bring this kind of judgment on Judah and Judah will be taken from the land…” 

 

It doesn’t say that directly in this passage but that’s the indication we know from all the other prophets. He says that there will be a day when He will reassemble the people in the land. This begins in verse 8. The focus goes from judgment on Judah to the judgment on the nations, and then in His fierce anger He judges the nation in verse 8.

 

Then in verse 9 He says:

 

NKJ Zephaniah 3:9 "For then I will restore to the peoples a pure language, That they all may call on the name of the LORD, To serve Him with one accord.

 

NKJ Zephaniah 3:10 From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia My worshipers, The daughter of My dispersed ones, Shall bring My offering.

 

“My dispersed ones” are the dispersed of Israel.

 

NKJ Zephaniah 3:11 In that day you shall not be shamed for any of your deeds In which you transgress against Me; For then I will take away from your midst Those who rejoice in your pride, And you shall no longer be haughty In My holy mountain.

 

There is the removal of the unjust in Israel. There is a rewarding of the humble, those who have followed God. 

 

NKJ Zephaniah 3:12 I will leave in your midst A meek and humble people, And they shall trust in the name of the LORD.

 

NKJ Zephaniah 3:13 The remnant of Israel shall do no unrighteousness

 

There’s our word again, evel. 

 

And speak no lies, Nor shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth; For they shall feed their flocks and lie down, And no one shall make them afraid."

 

Then there is rejoicing. In verses 14 and 15 God has taken away their judgments and has become the king.

 

NKJ Zephaniah 3:15 The LORD has taken away your judgments, He has cast out your enemy. The King of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst; You shall see disaster no more.

 

NKJ Zephaniah 3:16 In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: "Do not fear; Zion, let not your hands be weak.

 

That's our phrase again. What is he talking about? It’s contrasted with fear. 

 

What we see here is that this is again a figure of speech called a metonymy. You never studied that in school, but that's a technical term where you talk about the effect or the cause. The cause is fear; the effect is weakness. Because of fear, because of discouragement you become spiritually weak and weary. 

 

So the verse in Zephaniah 3:16 says:

 

"Do not fear; Zion, let not your hands be weak.

 

What we see from all of this is that this imagery that’s used in Hebrews 12:12 (and we’re not going to get any further than that) has to do with becoming spiritually weary and almost unwilling to go forward with the struggle. 

 

In Job 4:3 we have the same imagery. It’s a very old idiom. “Behold you have admonished many; and you have strengthened weak hands.” Those with weak hands are those who are willing to give up in the struggle.

 

Philo who was an intertestamental Jewish writer used a similar idiom when he compared the Israelites in the wilderness who wanted to give up the struggle and go back to Egypt to weary athletes who dropped their hands through weakness. 

 

So in conclusion what we see is that the phrase describes the one who due to fear, worry, weariness or exhaustion is about to quit the race and give up.  In that condition he can't win. 

 

What is the solution? The solution is going to be “strengthen those hands and become strong.” How do you do that?  Well, that's what we'll see the next time. It's done through the study the Word. It’s done through shifting your volition, your focus to the Lord Jesus Christ. That goes back to the early challenge in Hebrews 12:3 when it says that we are to consider Jesus.

 

NKJ Hebrews 12:3 For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.

 

That’s the command. That's how we strengthen the hands. Strengthening the hands as we'll see you next time is an aorist active imperative. That’s the immediate – aorist imperative means this is what you have to do right now. This is the priority item. It implies confession of sin and restoration to fellowship although that’s not its main import. The main thrust of this whole passage is to start becoming strong. If you're out of fellowship, you need to get back in fellowship. If you are in fellowship, then you need to start growing and putting your focus on the Lord Jesus Christ. So it’s not strictly an idiom that’s talking about just confession or restoration to fellowship. It can include that. If you're out of fellowship then do that. If you’re in fellowship, then go forward. 

 

What is interesting is the section starts with the aorist active imperative of strengthening the hands, and then the subsequent commands are present imperatives, which talk about ongoing action after you have taken that initial action of strengthening the hands.

 

NKJ Hebrews 12:12 Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees,

 

Then you have ongoing action of making straight paths for your feet so that we’ll study this idiom again next time. Again this is a quote coming out of the Old Testament; and we have to understand what that means. So we’ll come back to pick up verse 13 next time. 

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