Scriptural text: Hebrews 10:19-39
Exhorting the People of God (Hebrews 10:23-25).
Stir up love means “to arouse to love.” We have an obligation to do this because of both love and faith. We see it in two different contexts: In Hebrews 3:12-14, the subject is faith or belief. In Hebrews 10:23-25, the subject is love. In both cases, exhortation within our fellowship can increase either one or both of them. The writer says that we have to confess our hope. Confess means “to make it known, or to reveal.” We must make our hope known. Undoubtedly, he means the great hope of the resurrection of the dead, but is probably not limited only to that hope but includes other hopes we have.
It is the accomplishment of these hopes that we are to exhort our brethren about: “Hang in there!” “Hold fast!” “Have you tried praying about that?” “I had a problem like that one time.” By doing this, we begin to pool our resources and experiences, and there is wisdom, God says, in a multitude of counselors. It cannot help but build people up, and our fellowship becomes stronger as we share one another’s hopes and dreams. Forerunner Commentary
Avoiding the Judgment of God (Hebrews 10:26-31).
The first thing to notice in Hebrews 10:26-27 is the word “sin.” Paul is not speaking of sin in general but the specific sin of apostasy from the faith that was once known and professed. The apostasy that he has in mind is not so much an act but a state brought on by many individual attitudes and sins, reproducing the original, carnal antagonism a person has toward God before conversion. Commentators insist that the word “willfully” that it should be rendered “willing” in Hebrews 10:26.
The sinner is deliberately, even eagerly, determined to abandon Christ, to turn away from God and His way, having completely become an enemy once again. He sins with barely a second thought, if with any thought at all. He sins automatically, and there is none of God’s Spirit left to constrain him. His conscience is totally defiled; he has forsaken God. The message of Hebrews is that it does not have to be this way. If the person takes heed and stirs himself awake, if he truly seeks to overcome and grow once again, if he returns to being a living sacrifice and seeking to glorify God, if he truly denies himself and takes up his cross, if he keeps God’s commandments to live life as a Christian, he will not apostatize.
Remembering the Former Days (Hebrews 10:32-36).
As if he had said, I trust you will be preserved from so terrible ruin; and in order that you may, I exhort you to call to remembrance the former days To look back upon past events, which, if duly remembered, may be very instructive, and may prove the means of establishing you in your resolution of adhering to the Gospel. It expresses an intentional and deliberate action. The believers were urged to remember the early days of their conversion, which is expressed by the word illuminated. They had come out of darkness of sin into the light of God’s grace in Jesus Christ and knew the implications of following Jesus. References: Forerunner Commentary, Townsend Press Sunday School Commentary, 2021