John Brown, Hebrews Quote 10
Hebrews by John Brown p. 181
“Exhort one another,” says he, “daily, while it is still called To-day.” The food of faith is truth and its evidence. All that man can do to produce faith, and maintain faith, is just to place these before the mind. It is the duty of every Christian, knowing that there is in him “an evil heart of unbelief,” often to turn his own mind to a serious consideration of the truth and its evidence, as contained in the Volume of Inspiration; and it is his duty, too, knowing that in every fellow-Christian there is also “an evil heart of unbelief,” and especially if he perceives this evil heart manifesting itself in anything like a tendency to apostasy, to bring before his mind the truth and its evidence, that he may continue “stedfast and unmovable,” rooted, and grounded, and stablished in the faith wherein he has been taught. This is, I apprehend, the mutual exhortation to which the Apostle refers.
It deserves notice that the word rendered exhort is the same word which is often translated ‘comfort;’ and it is very probably used to suggest the idea, that nothing is better fitted to prevent apostasy than bringing before the mind the truth as to the “exceeding great and precious promises,” made to those who “hold fast the confidence and rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.” It is the good news –the consolatory message of a free and full salvation through Christ Jesus—it is this, believed, which binds the heart to the Saviour and to His law. It is quite right to imitate the Apostle in placing before the mind of the backslider the awful results of apostasy; but such statements alone will produce but little effect. The voice of a reconciled God behind him, proclaiming, “Return to Me, thou backsliding child, for I have redeemed thee,” when heard, will do more to prevent apostasy, and induce him to turn his feet to God’s testimonies, than all the terrors of the tenfold damnation which awaits the apostate, though presented to the mind in the most striking and alarming form.
The duty of public exhortation forms an important part of the duty of Christian pastors; but it is plain from the passage before us that it is the duty of all Christians, as they have opportunity, privately to exhort and admonish one another, lest they be “hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” It is too much the practice of professors of Christianity in our times, when they perceive in one of their brethren a tendency, as they think, to “depart from the living God,” to speak of it to every person rather than to the one to whom alone in the first instance it ought to be spoken of—to lament over it in the presence of others, instead of endeavoring to remove the evil by friendly exhortation to the individual himself, and earnest prayer to God to render the use of the means prescribed by Himself effectual for the purpose for which He has appointed it.
This mutual exhortation the Apostle enjoins to be engaged in “daily, while it is still called To-day.” They were to exhort one another daily, i.e., frequently, and without delay. Whenever we observe in brethren what appears to us an indication of departure from the path of Christian truth and duty, we are to use the means prescribed by the inspired writer for bringing them back. Every step they take in the downward path makes their recovery more difficult; and yet a little while, and they will be removed beyond the reach of our exertions. If any of us have a friend whom we think in danger of that greatest of all evils, the loss of the soul, let us be speedy, diligent, earnest, whether by instruction, admonition or prayer.
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