Hebrews 10:23-25: Keep Right On to the End of the Road

INTRODUCTION

Sir Harry Lauder was popular singer of our grandparents’ generation. Sir Harry was a Scotsman who toured the country singing Scottish songs that he composed himself. Many Americans had immigrated from Scotland, including my grandfather, and they loved to go to Sir Harry sing. My grandfather went to one of his concerts and talked to him.

Sir Harry wore a kilt and carried a crooked walking stick. He spoke with an authentic highland Scottish accent. He was also a comedian. He was funny

Because of our Scottish grandfather, we had some of Sir Harry’s records that we loved to play on our Victrola. One of our favorites was, “Keep Right On to the End of the Road.” He wrote this song just after he learned of his son John’s death in World War I. The refrain goes like this—

Keep right on to the end of the road,

Keep right on to the end,

Though the way be long, let your heart be strong,

Keep right on round the bend.

If you're tired and weary, still journey on,

Till you come to your happy abode,

Where all you love and you're dreaming of

Will be there at the end of the road.

That song has something important to say to us believers because we are near the end of our road.

Have you ever wondered if you would have to strength to keep your faith bright to the end?

I think about this because I have faced challenges I didn’t expect. I thought that when I got old, I would just sit in my recliner and read my books. I didn’t think about weakness and pains and memory problems.

Here is something from the Book of Hebrews that helps me to keep my resolve to keep right on to the end of the road. It is from Hebrews, chapter 10:

Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope

without wavering,

for he who has promised is faithful,

and let us consider how to stir up one another

to love and good works,

not neglecting to meet together,

as is the habit of some,

but encouraging one another,

and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

I. “Hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering.” That’s a challenge.

A. Something that helps me is to repeat often to myself the promises God has given us in scripture. Jesus said, “In my Father’s House are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”

Another scripture I like to repeat to myself is found in 2 Corinthians 4:

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed every day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond comparison, because we look not at the things that are seen but at the things which are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).

B. Another way to “hold fast to the confession of your hope without wavering” is to use your imagination.

Picture in your mind what it will be like when you get to glory. Sometimes I do this when I’m in bed before you go to sleep or when I wake up in the middle of the night.

Imagine yourself meeting Jesus face-to-face. He welcomes you and puts his arms around you.

Imagine what it will be when old friends, who have arrived in the Promised Land before you, welcome you and show you around.

Picture yourself in your spotless robe, in front of the throne waving your palm branch and praising God with the angels and old and new friends.

C. Yes, “Hold fast to the confession of your hope,” but remember—according to our verse—it’s not all up to you: “He who promised is faithful.”

Jesus will keep us from slipping away because he has a firmer grasp on us than we do on him.

The psalmist writes (Psalm 73):

Nevertheless, I am always with you;

you hold me by my right hand.

You will guide me with your counsel,

and afterwards receive me into glory.

II. Then we read in our Hebrews text: “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” These are important instructions for us if we are to keep right on to the end.

A. “Stir up one another to love and good works…”

Evidently some of the believers were becoming apathetic, drowsy, and neglectful. They were drifting away from their faith.

We all have a tendency to drift away unless we get stirred up now and then.

I can think of how believing friends have stirred me up to be more earnest about my faith.

Someone asked me to take on a new responsibility in the church. I was anxious about it, but it went well.

Someone complimented me on something I did—and it made me want to do more.

Several people have suggested good books. Some of them changed my life.

Some people offered friendship, listening to what I had to say and sharing their lives with me.

I have received notes of appreciation that encouraged me.

These are some ways fellow believers have “stirred me up to love and good works.”

I hope that I also have encouraged others in important ways.

B. Now we come to this phrase: “…not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day approaching.”

Evidently, even in those early days of the church, some of the believers had become neglectful of their church attendance.

Some people say that you don’t have to go to church to be a good Christian.

Sometimes they say, “I don’t get anything out of it.”

Some say, “I can worship God by myself.”

One friend, who had formerly a faithful believer gave me this excuse: “There are too many hypocrites.”

But we need one another.

If you “don’t get much out of it,” remember, you go to church, not for yourself but for others.

As our writer reminds us, we need to encourage one another.

And the more responsibility you take, the more you get out of it.

The New Testament never imagines that faith is something we do by ourselves. We need each other.

The time in my life when I made the most progress as a Christian was when I was in college. We had a group of Christians who met one night a week for public meetings, at other times for Bible studies, and every day for prayer. We had weekend conferences. We also worshiped in our churches. I taught a Sunday school class. Many in our fellowship were active in these ways.

We encouraged each other in the faith. We provoked each other to love and good works.

The time in my life when I made the least progress in my Christian life was when I was in the Army in Korea. Most of the time I had no opportunity to go to chapel.

The men I tented with weren’t interested in spiritual things. I felt isolated. I read my Bible; I prayed. But I didn’t thrive as a Christian.

This story comes from the early days of Christianity, during the terrible persecution of the emperor Diocletian. It was the year 304. A group of 49 Christian believers was meeting secretly in one of their homes in a town in what is now Tunisia. They were gathered to celebrate the Lord’s Supper.

Suddenly, soldiers burst in and arrested them. They were taken to Carthage to proconsul to be interrogated.

When the Proconsul asked them if they kept the Scriptures in their homes, the martyrs answered that they kept them in their hearts.

As they were tortured, they bore witness to their Lord. As one of their members was being tortured the Proconsul asked him: “Why have you received Christians in your home, transgressing the imperial dispositions?”

“We cannot live without Sunday,” answered the Christian. He meant life would be unbearable without the gift of worship and fellowship Christians.

On that day 49 followers of Jesus gave their lives because they refused to deny their Lord by refusing to gather together in worship.

III. Our text ends with the words “…encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

A. What is The Day that’s approaching?

It’s the Day of Glory—and the Day of Judgment.

It’s the Day of Judgment because, as the Bible says, “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body” (2 Corinthians 5:10).

And it’s the Day of Glory because it’s the day God takes us to our Heavenly Home, the day when Real Life begins, the day when we “enter into the joy of the Lord.”

And the Bible teaches that our joy there will depend on our faithfulness here.

B. It’s easier to keep on to the end of the road when we keep our goal in sight.

As we’ve all learned, life isn’t a sprint—it’s more like a marathon. I read of a famous Christian who refused to have his biography written while he was still alive. He said, “I’ve seen too many men fall out in the last lap of the race.

CONCLUSION

I’ll end with a prayer from an old Christian believer in India. I make this prayer my own.

O God, you have kept me vigorously and joyfully

at work in days gone by,

and you now send me

joyful and contented into silence and inactivity;

grant me to find happiness in you,

in you in all my solitary and quiet hours.

In your strength, O Lord, I bid farewell to all.

The past you know; I leave it at your feet.

Grant me grace to respond to your divine call;

to leave behind all that is dear on earth,

and go alone to you.

“Behold I come quickly,” says the Lord.

Come, Lord Jesus.