A Great Crowd of Witnesses

I heard a message quite awhile ago about a speaker’s experience dragging his luggage from place to place at an airport. He either carried it or dragged it and it was not a great experience and he was getting very tired by the time he got to where he was supposed to be. His luggage was getting very heavy the further he had to go and he wasn't a “happy camper” so to speak.                  

To the reader, have you ever been to an airport to take a plane trip?

What kind of luggage did you have?  Was it the kind you had to carry or drag around or the kind that had wheels on it so that you could pull it. It is a lot easier to pull a heavy bag than to carry one all over the airport.

The reason I used this example is that I want to talk about carrying extra weight that we don’t have to carry. 

Hebrews 12: verse 1 says, “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.”

Now try to get a spiritual picture of this.

Try to picture yourself in a coliseum where all the other believers have signed up for the big race.

It says, “We are surrounded by a great crowd of witnesses,” so who are they and what is this talking about?  These witnesses are the ones in the great hall of faith that it talks about in Hebrews 11 in what is called the “faith” chapter in the Bible.

They are not literally watching us but they are the inspiring examples for us, in other words, they have already run the race before us and kept the faith.  So we are surrounded by their witness, or their examples, that we can follow.

Have you ever watched a marathon race on television? There are many that start out but only one who wins the race. There may be some that drop out and never finish the race. 

What do the runners wear when they are racing?  As little as possible.  Have you ever seen one running with a fifty-pound weight on his back?  Of course not!  Why?  Because it would slow him down and he would not be able to finish the race.

Well now think about the believer, they are in a spiritual race and the thing that weighs them down is the sin that he or she has allowed in their lives.

There are a lot of people that start out running well, but before long they fall out of the race because they are weighted down with a heavy load of sin and they can’t run any longer so they give up.

The important thing is not how you start out; it is how you finish the race.

When you sin and hold on to it, it will weigh you down.

Sin is sort of like dirt in this way, if you play in dirt it will cling to you and if you continue in sin it will cling to you also. The difference is you can wash dirt off but you can’t just wash off sin.  

Think about sin and how many times you sinned last week?  Let me refresh your memory, young people and adults alike.

How many lies did you tell last week?

Did you disobey your parents?

Did you cheat on a test or do something else that you knew was sin?

And how about gossip?

Did you steal something? 

Did you hurt anyone this week intentionally?

Are you bitter or angry with someone?

Have you been watching or reading things you know you shouldn't have?

Maybe there is something you have done that I didn’t mention and you know it is sin and you need to deal with it?

There are many more things I could mention but I think you got the picture. When we allow sin to cling to our bodies it weighs us down and it also separates us from the Lord.  If we continue in this destructive path we will soon be disqualified from the race.  

So now we have a problem, how do we get rid of the weight of sin in our lives? We need to yield to the conviction of the Holy Spirit and stop grieving Him with our rebelliousness. We need to confess our sin and repent from our hearts asking the Lord to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

There is a good example of this in Psalms 51: 1–17, it is King David’s repentant prayer. It wouldn’t hurt to use this example for yourself.

God bless you and have a great day!