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"Is not this laid up in store with Me, Sealed up in My treasuries? For the day of
vengeance and recompense, For the time when their foot shall slip",
and this is evidently "the day approaching" of Heb. 10: 25. The apostasy foretold by
Moses is manifestly at hand in Heb. 10:, and explains Heb. 6: as well.
Ye have need of patience.
While Israel as a nation were fast slipping away, the apostle turns with renewed
earnestness to the tried and tested remnant with words of encouragement and exhortation.
He bids them to call to remembrance the former days, in which, after they were
illuminated, they endured a great fight of afflictions. Among the elements of endurance
that he enumerates are:
Being made a gazing stock.
Being a fellow-partaker of those so used.
There is something very gracious in this recognition. To be a "gazing stock", a
"spectacle", may not seem half so heroic as some other forms of martyrdom, yet the Lord
knows the intensity of mental suffering that some natures may endure. Then, further, the
Lord takes note of those who simply stand by and share the sufferings of others. The
suffering of "reproaches" associated them with Christ Himself (Heb. 13: 13), and the
"enduring possession" with the "enduring city" (13: 14). Early Christians were called by
their enemies, atheists, their places of assembly were misrepresented as being convened
for most immoral purposes, all of which misrepresentations would constitute a very real
suffering of reproach for Christ.
The words "goods" and "substance" should be rendered by the same word, and
perhaps "possession" is the most suitable. The words in the original being huparchonta
and huparxin.
"And submitted to the seizure of your possessions with joy knowing in yourselves that
you have in heaven, a better and an enduring possession" (Heb. 10: 34 not AV JP).
The case of Moses in Heb. 11: 24-26 supplies a very full example of the meaning of
the apostle here. He esteemed this "reproach" as greater than all the treasures of Egypt.
He too looked unto the recompense of the reward. So he urges these Hebrew saints:
"Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward.
For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive
the promise" (Heb. 10: 35, 36).
A chapter could well be devoted to the words, "Ye have need of patience". It is the
"patience of hope", the patience that James speaks of when he says:
"My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that
the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her PERFECT work"
(James 1: 2-4).