To Encourage You

Hebrews 4:2 “For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.”

Some years back I was in a conversation in my workplace and it revolved around the miserable condition of the world at that moment.  I can’t recall the specifics, but it was simply one bad news story on top of another relating to the world, the workplace, and efforts to protect fish and other aquatic life, which was the profession in which I was employed.  Suddenly, one of my coworkers turned to me and said “Leroy, do you have any good news?”  The question actually kind of startled me, and I hesitated for a moment to answer, for I don’t think I’d ever heard a question so readily aligned with the instructions in the Word of God to “always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15). Because of my hesitation, my coworker started to laugh, and said “He doesn’t have any good news.”  But then, once I had my wits about me, I answered him, “Yes I do. It’s the gospel. That’s what the word ‘gospel’ means.”  Interestingly, things got really quiet at that point, and my coworker didn’t say another word.  He just turned away from me, making it obvious that he’d had enough of this particular conversation. 

You see, my coworker was not a believer, and I am.  As a believer, I had not just good news, but the best news that had ever come to anyone.  By God’s grace, this news had come to me at one time. It’s the news that although we are sinners (and that’s really at the root of all the bad news in the world), Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).  It’s the news that Jesus, the very Son of God, came from heaven to earth, not just to be a good example, not just to do miracles and show us how powerful God is, and not just to teach us with His great wisdom. No, the reason Jesus came was to die for our sins, to pay the penalty for them, and thereby, as our substitute, make it possible for us to be forgiven.  It’s the news that “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved” (Romans 10:9-10).  It is this good news that I was ready to pass on to my coworker, but in spite of all the horrible news all around us, he wasn’t interested in hearing the good. 

How strange this is, when you think about it.  But that’s the condition that is being described in Hebrews 3 above.  Here it is talking about the Jewish nation. They had been given the good news of Jesus’ death on the cross. As a result, some of them, such as the writer of the book of Hebrews and the apostles,  who were all Jews, had believed .  Yet, most of them didn’t believe.  The good news had come to them. They had heard it, “but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.” What a sad state of affairs this is.  In a world starving for good news, like my coworker so many years ago, often when the best news is shared, the news of the gospel, it is of no benefit to the vast majority, because they won’t believe it. 

What about you?  If you are reading this, you are hearing the good news of the gospel. However, although it is the best news ever announced to anyone in the world, if you won’t believe it, to you it will be of no benefit.  I would urge you to not follow the bad example of the Jews that the writer of Hebrews is talking about. Sadly, it is not just the Jews at the time the Bible was written that derived no benefit from the good news. The vast majority of the Jews that have lived ever since have rejected the gospel as well.  As it says in John 1:11 “He (i.e., Jesus) came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.”  The Jews, for the most part, have rejected the Jewish Messiah.  It’s a tragedy.  However, the Messiah of the Jews is also the Messiah of the rest of us who are not Jews, and if we reject the gospel, the good news is of no value to us.  However, the good news remains that “But to all who did receive him (i.e. Jesus), who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12). 

Has that happened to you?  Have you been made a partaker of the good news of the gospel? Has it benefitted you?  If not, please know that it can. All you have to do is believe.