There is here asserted the need of mutual exhortation to avoid unbelief and follow Christ fully.
Apart from the labors of the ministers of the gospel, who were to teach that Christ was" the same yesterday, and today, and for ever," there was to be brotherly love among Christians, who were affectionately to warn each other against the evils of departing from the truths and profession of the gospel. Their counsel was to be directed to the state of the heart, which if unbelieving was an "evil heart," and therefore full of guile, pride, readiness to receive objections against the gospel, and willingness to yield to the blinding influence of Satan. It would lead them to depart from the living God, and. conduct them to ceremonies, and produce works which had no Divine life in them. This work of friendly exhortation was to be done at once, "while it is called Today;" and whatsoever their hand found to do they were to do with all their might; for sin was full of allurement, and promised, as it did in Paradise, large illumination, freedom, and pleasure. It would be bitterness in the end, and. the song of the wren would allure to destruction. The hardening would, if unchecked, go on with imperceptible advance, and would silently desolate the conscience, understanding, and heart. This was to be avoided by perseverance in acts of faith and unlimited confidence in Jesus Christ, who inclined them to begin the course to the upper kingdom of God. As they had "received Christ they were to walk in him," and then they would partake of his Spirit, and share the blessedness which, as a Forerunner, he has gone to prepare. They would share in the joy he has promised to confer upon the brave and immovable in their profession, who shall "sit down with him in his throne, as he has overcome, and sits down with his Father in his throne."—B.