"28 Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge His people.” 31 It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
32 But remember the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, 33 partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated. 34 For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one. 35 Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. 36 For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.
37 For yet in a very little while,
He who is coming will come, and will not delay.
38 But My righteous one shall live by faith;
And if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him.
39 But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul."
Good Morning My Beloved,
Welcome to worship this Lord's Day!
We are so very grateful for our beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, we are so thankful that you are all with us today.
I would like to encourage you to visit our Prayer Wall, as there have been a number of new prayer requests. Please add any prayers or concerns that you may have as well. We are all called to pray with and for one another, in keeping with the commands of our Lord.
There are some people who can never seem to get over the past. They live their whole life in the past. Most psychiatrists or psychologists today, will draw you back into the past, to tell you what your problem is. Then, they will typically tell you that your problem really isn’t yours, that your problem is the result of something your parents did to you as a child. That somebody in your past messed you up, it's not your fault, you didn’t mess yourself up.
Then, there are other people who can’t get over the guilt of something that they've done, It haunts them, it’s always there. They seem to have this lingering morbid sense of guilt that causes them to go through life, like some kind of a moral corpse, and they never seem to
get any relief because they’re always agonizing over past sins and
it ruins their life, steals their joy and it robs them of
all happiness.
Because we are always sinning, for those of us with a moral conscience, guilt is always a factor. Some people just cannot get over the past. However, because a man's life, is made up of both success and failure, its therefore dependent upon what he’s able to get over.
The people of Israel never got over the past. When Israel got out in the wilderness and which way did they look, toward Cana or toward Egypt? Instead, they were crying over all the things they had in Egypt and as a result of that, they died in the wilderness and never inherited the Promised Land. Lot's wife looked back, and she was turned into a pillar of salt. In other words, its very often what we don’t get over that destroys us.
God recognizes that we need to express sorrow, in fact, when Jesus looked over the city of Jerusalem and He wept. So, tears can be healthy, because they cleanse the soul of grief. Tears release tension and they aid in the begin the process of healing. God’s not against sorrow, He's even involved in it. However, there are some things that we should not get over, things that we do seem to get over, and very often one of those things is the conviction that we initially feel when we hear of the gospel.
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father,
Father, as always, we thank You for Your Word for us today. Thank You for calling us to Yourself, we are so grateful for the effectual call, we are so grateful that we responded. Lord, we know there are many today, even some among us, who have yet to respond to that call, we pray that today would be that day, that they would respond and commit to Christ. We pray the through Your Holy Spirit, You would teach us, so that we change the pattern of our
living because of what we learn. That by faith, we understand that the worlds were prepared by Your Word, creating everything out of nothing. We pray for those who have misguided, believing the world was created by some scientific event, that they would believe in the creation, as given to us in Your Word.
We pray in Christ’s name
Amen
Today's Message: Cut Off From God - Part 2
Today, there are people who hear the gospel preached, they’re initially convicted of sin. And they maybe even profess to believe and come to Christ. Then, over time, the interest begins to wear thin, the pressures of this fallen world, the desires of the lust of the flesh,
the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, which have never been
lessened by the power of the indwelling Spirit, but because they’ve never truly been saved, it begins to overwhelm them finally. The pressure of a
persecuting world drives them away, rather than drawing them closer, and finally they just disappear. They commit the unforgivable sin of knowing the truth, having full revelation,
professing to believe, then getting over it and walking away. They become apostate. And in doing so, they become worthy of the most severe, the hottest hell. Because for the sin of apostasy, there is no forgiveness. There is no forgiveness for apostasy.
Allow me to say, that it is not ours to speculate as to who is an apostate, to mark them and
leave them alone. Ours is to pray diligently and faithfully for every
individual as far as we know and allow God to determine who the
apostates are. That’s not for us to determine. Only God knows. That said, I warn you, never to make the judgment, either that the individual knew everything in
the first place and reacted against full knowledge, or
that his rejection is final. Because only God knows that.
However, probably the most familiar case of apostasy is recorded when Jesus was
on earth. There are different forms of apostasy. There’s
apostasy in the Old Testament, apostasy in the time of Christ, and
the apostasy that occurs today. And in each, there are unique characteristics of
an apostate. But perhaps the most familiar case, if we want a case study
for apostasy, is recorded for us in Matthew, the twelfth chapter, when Jesus first began His ministry, everybody gathered around Him. He had
great crowds of people, who were following Him everywhere. And they were remarking about His teaching, His power and the wonder of His ability and they were trying
to crown Him a king.
And, in John chapter 2, when He went to Jerusalem, at the time of the Passover, there were many believed on His name. Miracles were being done and they were astounded and thought He was wonderful. Then, in Matthew 12:22-24, it tells us what they finally came to in their evaluation. Allow ,e to read that to you before we begin.
"Then a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute was brought to Jesus, and He healed him, so that the mute man spoke and saw. All the crowds were amazed, and were saying, “This man cannot be the Son of David, can he?” But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, “This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons." Beelzebul or Beelzebub, was the popular name for Satan at that time. So, their conclusion was, what they were saying, is He’s of Satan. In their conclusion, they decided that He was from hell.
And, in verses 25 and following, "And knowing their thoughts Jesus said to them, “Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and any city or house divided against itself will not stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand? If I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? For this reason they will be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can anyone enter the strong man’s house and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house." Jesus, in other words is saying, "If Satan went around casting demons out, he’d be defeating his own cause. You cannot be that naive."
Now, let's look at verses 30-32, follow along with me as I read them, when Jesus says "He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters. “Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come." This has commonly been called the unpardonable sin. The unpardonable sin. So I tell you, don't just sit there on the fence of undecisiveness, you had better make a decision about Jesus Christ.
Allow me to first say, that yes, God is a loving and forgiving God. God forgives sin and He forgives blasphemy. He’d
better, because all of us have sinned and at one point or another, all have blasphemed. But let's read the end of verse 32 again, "but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come." Because they had just attributed the works of Christ to Satan, rather than God, the committed the unforgivable sin. Whatever Christ did, He did by the energy and power of the Holy Spirit. Because they had seen all those works that the Spirit of God had done, and after
all the miracles and all the revelation they had seen and heard, they
had concluded that He was from hell, they were hopeless. There’s no repentance when you know the truth, you’re forever damned. When a man has been given all the truth, all the revelation of God, and rejects it, he is at the other end of the world from the truth, therefore, there’s no way he can be saved.
The Son of man is a term that designates Jesus’ humanity, The Son
of God emphasizes Jesus' deity. The Son of man emphasizes His humanity. Therefore, if someone said something against the human Jesus, that’s one thing,
because in the humanity of Jesus, there may not be a total divine
revelation. But if an someone sees Christ in all of the display of His deity and concludes He’s from hell, that’s something completely different. So, when you have all of the deity of Christ presented to you, without possibility
of contradiction and still you conclude that He’s from hell, there can’t
be forgiveness for that.
Many have asked, "Can that sin be committed in this age?" Essentially no, because Christ isn't here physically today. This particular sin of apostasy belonged in the day Jesus was alive and on earth. The issue here was to see the works of Christ done by the Spirit, which
proved Him to be Messiah, and conclude they were done by the devil
himself. Now, I want to be very clear, that doesn’t mean that there cannot be an apostate today because indeed
there can be. And there is. But apostasy today is not to see the works of Christ
living on earth and attribute them to Satan, man's apostasy today is to
hear all the truth of God that is revealed, to know it fully with all of
his mind and to make some kind of a mental assent to it, then turn
around and walk away from it and stay away forever. That is the apostasy in this
age. But it all comes out the same in the wash, doesn't it. It’s a rejection against
full light.
As a footnote, Judas never attributed the works of Christ to Satan. He never did that. Yet, he was an apostate, because if ever there was one who lived in the
light of Jesus Christ, who attached himself to Jesus Christ and was
never truly saved, it was Judas. Jesus, early in His ministry, knew that Judas was never saved. In fact, in John chapter 6, He even said it, "One of you is the devil." Jesus said it would have been better for that man if he’d never been born. Judas was closer to the light of Christ than any man who ever lived, yet he didn’t come to the light, he turned around and walked away. It's unforgivable, because it’s total rejection. It burdens my heart to know, that there have been a million Judases since then. It would have been bad enough had there only been one, but there are a million of Judases since.
Hebrews chapter 10 warns us about apostasy, let's quickly review that, through the first ten chapters of Hebrews, the new covenant, salvation
through Christ has been presented. There’s only two ways a man can
respond. He can either respond positively and accept Christ or
negatively and reject Him. But these people were in danger of apostasy
if they rejected because they had full knowledge. Then, back in chapter 2 it
says that the Lord first spoke the gospel, but it was spoken to them by
those that heard the Lord and confirmed to them by signs, wonders, and
gifts of the Holy Spirit.
They had all the evidence they needed to come to Christ. They had the letter of Hebrews, one of the greatest doctrinal treatises that
has ever been written. They had this marvelous letter, which explained everything in great detail. In fact, it may well be one of the greatest in all the Bible. And to have all of that
knowledge, plus seeing miracles and signs and wonders and gifts of the
Spirit, and hearing the very apostles themselves, these people were
totally responsible, and if they turned their back and walked away,
they would surely be apostates, with no hope for them to ever be saved.
Previously, we talked about the positive response, verses 22, 23 and 24, which said "Let us draw near.; Let us hold fast; Let us
consider one another to provoke unto love and good works, not forsaking
the assembling of ourselves together." However, there is also a negative response, and we must not pass that up, its important, so we need to understand that. We talked about the nature of apostasy, willfully sinning, of one’s own accord, which was defined for us in verse 26, " For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins." I believe, this is the strongest statement in the book of Hebrews. Notice in the the middle of verse 26 through verse 27,, "after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins. but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries." Notice that He gives the apostate the same name as Satan, "adversary," because Satan is the classic apostate. He was once so close to God, yet he apostatized.
As I am sure you are all aware, a few years after the book of Hebrews was written, God
proved the Judaism. sacrificial system was over,when He destroyed the whole sacrificial system in the sack of
Jerusalem. And here is something interesting, no Jews have
offered sacrifice since 70 A.D. The whole ritual has become symbolic. And it’s an
interesting to me that God knows why they don’t have sacrifices
anymore, because none of them are efficacious. If a man turns from the
sacrifice of Christ to some other sacrifice, he’s finished. "There
remains no more sacrifice," however verse 27 tells us what does remain, "but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries." I believe that is what happens when the unbeliever dies. I believe that when an unbeliever dies, he goes immediately into hell.
If you will recall in Luke 16, Jesus tells us the story about the rich man and Lazarus, I'll just read that, no need to turn there, "In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and *saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried out and said, ‘Father
Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip
of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that
during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad
things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony. And besides
all this, between us and you there is a great chasm fixed, so that
those who wish to come over from here to you will not be able, and that none may cross over from there to us.’ And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, that you send him to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—in order that he may warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’"
I do not believe in purgatory, I believe that there’s a very real hell and that immediately upon the death of an unbelieving man and it is forever. I believe that not only the fiery indignation of hell is in view here,
but the fiery indignation of the return of Jesus Christ. I believe that. What is most terrifying, is that there’s no hope of his being released from the punishment and the judgment of God. Its eternal.
Now, let's look at verse 28 and following, as he supports his previous statement, "for I have five brothers—in order that he may warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’ But Abraham *said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’But he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!’But
he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they
will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead."
I believe that God deals stronger with sin in this age, the age of grace, than He did in the age of law. Because there is nothing in Old Testament to compare to the severity of judgment revealed in the New Testament. Its true that God judged them severely, but not nearly as severely as He judges
the man today who comes to a full knowledge of Jesus Christ, who never makes the decision to commit to Christ. That man, will find himself in the Judas portion of hell.
Look, God may have wiped out whole peoples in the Old Testament, the hell that
they experience will not be the same as those who lived in defiance of
God and the rejection of His Son, Jesus Christ. That man is stomping all over the second Person of the Trinity. Let's look at verse 29, which says "How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?" What a terrifying, horrible mistake, to reject with full knowledge is to trample God’s exalted Son under your feet! A man who is an apostate counts the blood of the covenant with which Christ set Himself apart an unholy thing. The blood of the new covenant, was the blood shed on the cross by Jesus Christ, therefore, it is sacred. Not only does the apostate reject God, he rejects Christ and the third thing that an apostate does, is reject the Holy Spirit. Christianity is not a system, it’s a relationship, so by rejecting Christianity, you're not rejecting a system, you are rejecting the Person of God, Christ and the Holy Spirit. He rejects the Trinity.
In verse 30, He takes it a step further. "For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge His people." Vengeance belongs to God. Look at Deuteronomy 32, "‘Vengeance is Mine, and retribution, In due time their foot will slip; For the day of their calamity is near, And the impending things are hastening upon them."
God is longsuffering, not willing that any should perish, that all should
come to repentance, but if a man turns his back and walks away,
vengeance is left. And I say to you, tonight be warned, dear one, be
warned. In verse 31, "It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God." As Christians, we know what it is to be in His hands because the Bible
indicates that we are in the hollow of His hand. However, that’s far different
than the apostate falling into the hands of judgment. And so we see the
nature of apostasy and the results.
So, now let's look at the deterrent to apostasy, here in verses 32-33, "But remember the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated." So the first thing He says is, "anamimnēskesthe," which is remembrance. He says remember when you first came to Christ, remember the fellowship of believers, remember hearing the messages about Christ. Run over all of that in your mind, one by one. Remember how exciting it all was. Then, remember that you even endured a great fight of affliction. There was conflict. Remember, partly being made a spectacle, He uses Greek word "theatrizō," from which we get theater, so apparently they were on some sort of a stage, in front of everyone with the others of us and you weren't ashamed. Interesting word by the way, in the Greek, its the word "athlēsin," from which we get the word athletics.
Then, in verse 34, He says " For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one." I'd like you to notice, that here, the writer gets more personal. He says they had communicated
somehow to him in some kind of prison situation. They had known about
this writer being in a situation of confinement and had showed
compassion. He says they even showed compassion on him.
In verse 35, "Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward." In other words, "Hang in there, God’s got some wonderful things in store for you, so don't quit now." Allow me to point out something here, notice he says to look back and then to look forward, the one place He didn't want them looking at is where they were now, that's where they got hassled. He's saying stop looking at the persecution and all that other stuff that’s cluttering up your mind. Instead look back and remember how wonderful it once was and then, look ahead and remember how wonderful it’s going to be.
Verse 36, He says "For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised." In other words, Just hold on you're getting yourself worked up here, just be patient a while longer. Now, they word "may," doesn't mean might, it means you will receive it. All you need is patience.
Verse 37, He says For yet in a very little while, He who is coming will come, and will not delay." The Lord will be here, so just be patient. You may suffer a little bit now, but hold on. Your reward is coming. So there is a great warning against apostasy. He tells them the nature of it, the results of it, and the deterrent to it. Look back, look forward, just don't get yourself stuck on your problems.
He then closes this great chapter with a simple call for a response, in verses 38-39, "But My righteous one shall live by faith; And if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him. But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul." He's saying Hang in there. Keep the faith. You’ve come this far. Saving faith is continuing faith.
In Closing..
As Christians, we’re constantly living by constant faith. And, if a man isn’t live by faith then he really doesn’t believe God. I mean, I have never seen God, I have never seen Jesus Christ, I have never even seen heaven or hell. And, guess what else, I have never seen anyone who wrote anything on a single page of the Bible. But I will tell you this, I believe it, every single word, not by sight but by faith. I live every day of my entire existence by faith!
It’s one thing to believe, it’s something completely different to believe to the point of saving the soul.
It is my prayer that you will believe what I’ve told you here today. That you will believe what you’ve heard is from God. I pray that you will not only believe it but that you will also live by it.
May it be so..
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
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