On Friday night, my girls play volleyball for Heritage Christian School.
Go Lady Minutemen.
It's kind of weird, Lady Minutemen.
Anyway, there's some confusion there.
Anyway, but hey, they won.
They both won, which is cool.
And we were on our way home and it happened.
We were going to a game about two hours away.
We're about 10 minutes from home coming off of the exit.
And that light that you don't want to see on your dash, the check engine light, it came up.
And it didn't just come up and stay solid.
It came up and started flashing.
Now, I'm not a mechanic, but I know that a flashing light is worse than a solid light, potentially.
Right.
And so the car was kind of sputtering, then that happened.
And yeah, it wasn't just staying on.
It was blinking and that's even more infamous than if it just comes and stays on.
And so we were coming off the exit and heading over the house.
We weren't going very far.
And a quick Google search revealed that we better turn the car off.
So we pulled it in to our driveway and that's where it has sat ever since.
And luckily it's a holiday weekend.
And so we're going to wait until Tuesday to try to get that fixed.
But thank the Lord for warnings, right?
If there wasn't a warning, I would have just had to blame my wife.
Because she was the one driving and I probably should be driving, but she was driving for us.
But yesterday I went and bought one of those code scanners to find out what the check engine light meant.
And I read the warning that was relevant to us and learned on a forum after a forum online that continuing to drive the vehicle without getting it fixed would be bad.
So that's what we're doing with it.
Ignoring the warning is not the answer to our van's woes.
Are you with me?
Ignoring it doesn't make the problem go away.
Small problems can stay small when you heed the warnings.
You get it?
Big problems can be dealt with and warnings, though not fun, should be welcomed, right?
Because if they aren't heeded and they're not responded to, big problems tend to get bigger.
Who agrees with me?
That happens.
We are in the book of Hebrews.
And we've been in the book of Hebrews, I think, a little bit over a year.
We're in chapter number 10 today.
So if you have your Bibles, go to chapter number 10.
And we're going to study what Brother Brian read to us this morning.
Hebrews chapter 10 starting in verse 26.
The reason I'm bringing up warnings is because this particular passage of Scripture is a warning.
It's a warning.
I don't love delivering bad news.
Because you know what they do when somebody brings bad news.
What's the saying? Don't shoot the messenger.
Why is that?
Because who likes getting bad news? Nobody.
Nobody likes getting warnings.
When my wife said, hey, the check engine lights blinking, I wasn't like, yes, I'm so excited.
I get to hang out with my mechanic.
This is great, right?
But we need them.
We need them.
We need warnings.
And I'm in chapter 10, verse 26, because the week that I last taught, I was in the verses beforehand.
We're going to go through every verse of the book of Hebrews.
And the book here tells us a warning.
It's a warning.
This is a warning.
And you're like, okay, is it for me?
Let me tell you who this warning is for.
This warning is to people who think that they are good with God.
This is a warning to people who potentially are religious.
It's a warning to people who think they are good.
It's a warning to people who have a lot of knowledge about Christ, but who have not trusted in Christ.
And I want today's message to be a blinking light on the dashboard of your life if you've not put your trust in Christ.
It's also among the most difficult passages of Scripture to interpret in the New Testament.
And so my week this week was a lot of fun trying to figure all this out.
It wasn't easy.
Many people have read the warnings in this passage and through a poor interpretation come to a fear of things that are not possible.
Part of the role of a pastor and not just a senior pastor, but any pastor who's worth assault is for them to give a public proclamation of the word like I'm doing now.
Preaching to a lot of people, but there's also a private proclamation of the word where that you get one on one and one on three conversations and you declare the word of God to people and private.
And in doing that, I have come across in my ministry a lot of times people who come to passages like this passage of Scripture and they go, oh no, maybe I can lose my salvation.
Maybe I'm not good enough for God.
Maybe I'm going to go to hell even though they've placed their faith and trust in Christ.
Many of people have read the warning like that and come to that poor interpretation.
But to understand the Holy Spirit's intent, who wrote Hebrews?
We don't know the human author.
Some say it's Paul.
I've heard people say other names.
Here's who I knew wrote it.
The Holy Spirit wrote it.
This is God's word.
Holy, men of old, spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
And so this is God's word and here's what I know about the Holy Spirit.
God is truth.
God's word speaks truth and that means God does not contradict himself.
He does not contradict himself.
And so to understand the intent of this passage, we have to explore the context in which he gave this warning.
We also have to include where we are now in the flow of the book.
So as we studied this particular series for this last almost a year,
we said that the theme of the book is the title of the series, Jesus is Greater.
And the purpose of the book of Hebrews is to teach us that Jesus is better than anything and everything,
especially as it's written to the Hebrews, to everything that came before in the Old Testament.
That Jesus is a greater revelation.
He says in chapter one, God who spoke to us in times past by the prophets had in these last days,
he spoke into us by his son who he made heir of all things.
And so Jesus is a better revelation.
He walked through and said he's better than the angels.
He's greater than Moses.
He's greater than Abraham.
Jesus has a better priesthood that the Old Testament priests were of one order and they were an inferior order
because now there's a better priesthood and now we have a better priest.
We don't need a bunch of priests because we have one high priest.
It's the high priest Jesus who sits on a throne next to God the Father and ever lives to make the intercession for us.
That's who we have.
Jesus is our high priest.
He's our great high priest.
And so when we got to chapter 10, he's continuing to make a case to Jewish believers specifically,
but of course to us as we read it today and sometimes to people who were Jews who had not yet believed,
but who understood the Old Testament and he's making the case that only it was Jesus better than all those things
and a better priest.
He makes the case that Jesus is a better sacrifice.
See the priest would make a sacrifice, right?
And that sacrifice, the blood of that sacrifice would atone for their sins in that Jesus,
in that God set it up that that was a picturing forward to the sacrifice of Jesus that would come one day.
And so everybody that gets to heaven gets to heaven by Jesus.
Some did it because they put faith in God, looking forward to it.
We do it now.
We get to heaven by Jesus because we look back at what he does and what he's done and we put our faith and trust in him.
Amen.
So when you get to chapter 10, look at chapter 10, look at verse 1.
Here's what he says, talking about that sacrifice.
For the law, talking about that Old Covenant, that Old Testament.
Having a shadow of good things to come and not the very image of the things can never with those sacrifices,
which they offered up year by year continually make the comers there unto perfect.
Whenever you ever get hot outside and you're outdoors and you want to take a break and so somebody brings out the lemonade,
what do you look for if you want to go take a break?
You look for some shade, right?
You look for some shade.
You go get in a shadow because the shade, the shadow comes because there's something there to create the shadow.
There's the sun.
There's the tree.
And there's the shadow who's grateful for trees on hot days, right?
The shadow's there because the real is there.
If the real wasn't there, there would be no shadow.
Do you get it?
He says the law is a shadow of good things to come, but not the, the law is not the image of those things.
The law is not what's creating the shadow.
The law is the shadow.
Do you get it?
It's pointing to something real.
And so he says the law can never, verse one, with those sacrifices that they offered year by year, those goats, those, those, the sheep, the turtle doves,
the sacrifices that he did all the time, they can never make the comers there unto perfect.
It could not satisfy, it could not forgive sins.
Verse four tells us this in a very clear way, for it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins.
Do you get it?
Jesus had to do it.
So what sacrifice could fully and finally do that?
Look at verse nine and 10.
He says, then said, he lo, I come to do thy will, O God.
This is the author of Hebrews, Philhoi spirit, quoting the Old Testament, a prophecy of the New Testament that would come, talking about Jesus.
When he said, lo, I come to do thy will, O God.
Verse nine, he taketh away the first, the first covenant, the shadow, that he may establish the second.
What is he saying?
When God, when Jesus obeyed God all the way to the cross, all the way to death on the cross, his sacrifice made it so that the shadow pointed to the real.
So that the, the sacrifice, this covenant that was made could do away with the Old Covenant because the new was here.
He says this, verse 10, by the which will, Testament inheritance.
He says, by that we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Jesus only had to die once.
And his death on the cross wasn't just for the person that made the sacrifice like the Old Testament was.
They brought it and it was just for them, between them and God.
Now this sacrifice is for everybody.
It's for everybody.
Point to who it's for.
It's for everybody.
It's exactly right.
The final sacrifice that was needed to fulfill the New Testament or the New Covenant, Jesus Christ's death on the cross was made once for all.
And so the preacher here, what I'm calling the author of Hebrews the preacher, because I don't know if it's Paul.
I don't know if it's Apollos. I don't know if it's some unnamed person.
I don't know who it is.
I know it's the Holy Spirit through a human author.
And this preacher who's talking to a bunch of Jewish people, some saved and some potentially unsaved, is telling them that they can't, he's saying to them,
you can forsake the old ceremonies.
You can forsake the sacrificial system.
Who thinks that's a good idea?
Who thinks that's good news?
Anybody bringing any sheep with them today?
Who's glad for that, right?
We don't have to do that anymore.
We don't have to sacrifice those animals anymore.
Why?
Jesus died once for all.
And by the way, he doesn't have to die over and over and over and over again, as some teach.
The Lord's Supper, when we do communion, that's not Jesus dying every time we do it.
It's a picture of what was done.
And so, they could, he's telling these Jewish people, you can forsake your old ceremonies, the old sacrifices, the old covenant,
not because Jesus said they're bad, but because he came and fulfilled it.
Why?
Because Jesus is greater.
You can see that in verse 16.
I'm catching you up to where we're going to be today.
Verse 16.
This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days.
This is the new covenant, he says.
Sayeth the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts and in their minds will I write them.
And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.
Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.
What is he saying?
He's saying, once you get saved in this new covenant, the Holy Spirit's going to come and live inside of you.
He's going to be the law on your hearts that convicts the word of God.
The author of this book gets to live inside of us.
And he convicts us of our sin.
And he gives us life.
And because of his once for all sacrifices, now we have forgiveness and sins through him.
And where remission of these is, what does he say?
There is no more offering for sin.
You don't have to bring the sheep anymore.
Jesus doesn't have to die again.
He already did.
Who's thankful for that?
I'm so thankful for that.
So what he's saying to these people is you can forsake the shadows of the old covenant because we have a better one.
You can stop participating in the old sacrificial system because the once for all sacrifices that those sacrifice signified has been made fully and finally.
And so it is then when we get to this verse, verse 18, that the doctrinal kind of part of the book of Hebrews seems to come to a close.
And he begins to make it practical.
He begins to say, okay, if that's true, what does that mean for us?
And that's when we got to verse 19 where he says this, having therefore brethren boldness to enter into the holiness by the blood of Jesus.
These Jewish people would have heard that and said, hey, yeah, now because of Jesus, we don't have to have the holy of holies that only the high priests had to go into once a year.
When Jesus died, that veil was broken, that veil was torn, signifying that we can go in there.
And what he's saying is we have a high priest in a real temple and Jesus goes on our behalf.
And so now we're the priests.
Jesus is our high priest. We can go to God. There's a priest to the believer and we go not because of our own righteousness.
How can we go to God now by his son and the blood of his son? That's what he says.
We now have boldness. We can go to God into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way.
Hey, this Jesus who died gets what happened to him.
He rose again.
And so this living way, he consecrated us through the veil, that is to say his flesh and having a high priest over the house of God.
Here's what he says, now that you have all these things, what do we do?
Let us draw near with a true heart, full assurance of faith.
You know what? Because of what Jesus did, you and I can have a relationship with God and we can be close to God.
We can commune with God. You can talk to God and God can talk to you through his word and through his spirit.
He says, let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering for he is faithful that promised.
That is, what do we have to claim now? We have Jesus. Hallelujah. All I have is Christ. Hallelujah. Jesus is my life.
Do you get it?
And so he says, and you can forsake all that other stuff, but don't do this.
Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling.
I told you last time that word was epi-synagogy.
Hey, you Jewish people, you can forsake the blood of bulls and goats because you don't need it anymore, but don't forsake getting together.
Don't stop doing that. Don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together as the man or some is, but exhorting, encouraging one another
and so much the more as you see the day approaching. You can forsake the sacrificing of the goats and the bulls.
You can forsake the ceremonial washings and cleanliness. You can forsake the dietary laws and all God's people said, bacon.
I mean, amen. Right? Amen. I'll amen myself on that.
But don't forsake the body of Christ. That's what he's saying.
It's the Lord's will that we obey all that Jesus taught the disciples to do.
All authority He said is given into me and heaven and earth, go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe or to obey all that I've commanded you.
And, Lord, I'm with you always, even to the end of the world and to the end of the Ion, the age. I'm with you. You go and I'll go with you.
It's the Lord's will that we obey all that Jesus taught the disciples to do. And it's at this point, so do you get the idea?
You get what we're talking about. He gets to the warning. And here's our text for today. Here's what he says.
For if we sin willfully, after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,
but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and a fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries.
Now, like I said, these verses have caused great fear and trembling for people. And I believe on the whole that's a good thing.
Let's say that in my backyard I had a well, an old school kind of well. You know, you picture that in your mind.
Remember Timmy falling in the well and Lassie has to go get people. Every episode you get that kind of well.
And I've got that in my backyard and you let your kids come over and hang out with my kids and play and they're going to go in the backyard to play.
If I'm a good host and a good dad, then I'll sit my kids down and I'll sit your kids down and I'd say, hey, we have a lot of fun stuff in the backyard.
We've got trees to climb. We've got footballs. We've got Nerf guns. We've got a trampoline. It's going to be a blast.
But back in our backyard there's a well and that well is there and you can fall in the well. You can fall in the well.
And if you fall in the well, you'll get hurt. And so you need to stay far away from the well. Just don't even go anywhere near the well.
Okay? Who's with me? That's a good warning. Okay. Now, what if I said among these children, among these kids, there was two responses.
One response was a kid going, oh, yes, sir, I won't go near the well. And the other one was like, well, Schmel, who cares?
Let's all play tag and the well will be the base, right? Which kid should I be worried about?
Should I be worried about the kid who's scared? Or should I be worried about the kid who's not scared?
Who should I worry about? The kid who's not scared. And so if you read this and there's any kind of, if you're reading the word and you're like, oh, man, this is kind of scary,
there may be an indication that you take the things of the Lord very seriously. That you take the Bible seriously. Who agrees it's good to take the Bible seriously?
If Jesus gives us a warning, we better figure out who the warnings do, and we better be careful about that.
So the big question of these verses then is who is this talking to? Who's being talked to in Hebrews chapter 10 verses 20, 60, 31?
And I think there's three options that people have proposed. Some say that, so here's the question, who's being talked about in Hebrews chapter 10, this 26 through 31?
One option that people have proposed is these are true Christians who turn away from Christ and then lose their salvation.
Okay, people who were saved, who believed in Jesus, but began to sin, it says here, sin willfully and they sin enough that they pass some kind of line of too much sin or a certain kind of sin.
And then because they did that, now they've lost their salvation, there's no hope for them because they lost their salvation.
Now, this is not an option because the rest of Scripture does not allow for it.
I want to give you four truths from passages where the Holy Spirit teaches, truths that pertain to the eternal security of the believer.
Let me give you these four truths, ready? This is kind of an aparitheses in the sermon because I want you to not be worried unless you ought to be.
Are you with me? Okay.
Number one, the truth of eternal life.
Write this verse down. I'm going to read it to you. It will be on the screen.
But if you, you may want to go back and look at these later. Okay.
In John chapter 10 verse 27, this is Jesus speaking and he says this,
My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.
He's saying, my sheep, when I call to my sheep, they respond, right?
And I give unto them eternal life and they shall, what does it say?
Never perish. If the kind of life that God gives is eternal, can God give eternal life and then that life go away?
God doesn't give us eternal life when we go to heaven. He gives us eternal life when we get saved.
That's what he's saying. What kind of life does God give? He gives eternal life.
Neither shall any man, it says, pluck them out of my hand. How many men can pluck them out of his hand?
How many? Give me the universal symbol of how many?
Right. None. Does that include you?
Can you pluck, are you any man? Can you pluck yourself out of the Father's hand?
No, you cannot. Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
And my Father, which gave them me, is greater than all.
And no man can pluck them out of my Father's hand. Oh, and by the way, I and my Father are one.
Jesus talks about those who respond to his call and to his voice to follow him.
He says they have eternal life. Eternal life doesn't start when we die.
Eternal life starts when we get saved.
That salvation we receive eternal life and eternal life by definition never ends.
He says they will never perish. That's exactly what he told Martha when she came to see him after her brother's death.
She said to her, I am the resurrection and the life.
He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever, and liveth and believeth in me shall never die.
You say, Ben, do you think one day you're going to die? No.
I don't. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.
My body's going to die, but I'm going to be doing great.
I'm going to have a new body. It's going to be amazing.
Calories won't matter. I'm joking.
Here's the thing. Of course, it says in verse 1,
needless shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
This would include some enemies of God who some may think could try.
False religious leaders have always tried to exercise control over people by holding condemnation in the afterlife over their heads.
So this designation of any man would include them.
It would also include the person who believes.
I cannot pluck myself from Christ's hand or his father's.
If I'm truly saved, then I cannot change my own spiritual condition, because I never could.
Jesus is the one who does that.
Number two, these are coming quick, the truth about God's love.
God is love. God is love.
He gives us in Romans chapter 8 an exhaustive and extensive list of what can't separate us from his love.
He says in Romans 8.34, who is he that condemneth?
It is Christ that died, ye rather, that has risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also make an intercession for us.
What, who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?
As it is written, for thy sake, we are killed all the day long.
We are counted as sheep for the slaughter.
Nay, in all things, we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
For I am persuaded, are you with me?
For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth,
nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Those who know Christ cannot be separated from him by anything.
Number three, quickly, the truth of the indwelling spirit.
The truth of the indwelling spirit.
1 Corinthians 6-17 says this, he is making a case for being pure with your body sexually.
He says this, but he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.
He says if you are joined to a harlot, you become one flesh and that is not good.
But if you that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit, flee fornication, every sin that a man does is without the body.
But he that committed fornication sins against his own body.
What?
Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you?
Which ye have of God and you are not your own for you are bought with a price.
Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God's.
If you are a believer, the Holy Spirit lives inside of you and even when you sin the Holy Spirit can't leave.
That is what he is saying here.
Don't you understand?
You are going to mess this thing up.
You are going to make him upset.
Paul's plea with the Corinthians believers is that they understand the sacredness of their own body is made in God's image and then dwell by that Holy Spirit.
The spirit cannot leave and to live this way dishonors him.
You need to give me more proof.
Ephesians 1 verse 12.
Paul is doing a praise anthem to God.
He is talking about how we are blessed by the Father and by the Son and then he goes into being blessed by the Spirit when he says this.
That we should be to the praise of his glory who first trusted Christ and whom ye also trusted after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and whom also after that you believed you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.
That means he came and dwelt you and he sealed you.
What does that mean?
He is the earnest verse 14 of our inheritance and we are sealed by him.
He is in us until when?
Until the redemption of the purchased possession under the praise of his glory.
Who is the purchased possession?
The Holy Spirit coming inside of us is the down payment on the inheritance to tell us that hey, the same God that gave you the Holy Spirit has a whole bunch more he wants to give you in heaven.
I am like 87% more excited than you guys are.
Do you understand what you have been given?
And then he says this three chapters later in the same book.
Paul says put on the new man which after God has created in righteousness and true holiness, wherefore putting away lying speak every man truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.
Be ye angry and say not let not the sun go down your wrath.
Let him that stole steal no more but rather let him labor working with his hands the thing which is good that he might have to give to those that need.
Let no communication proceed out of your mouth but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace into the hearers.
And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.
You know what that means?
If sinning could make the Holy Spirit go away he would.
But he doesn't.
He doesn't.
He can't because he's promised not to.
I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.
He can't go even when I mess up.
And guess what?
If he could he would because I mess up all the time and so do you.
Are you with me?
If you could lose your salvation you already had.
You already have.
You can't because he can't leave.
Isn't that exciting?
I need that because otherwise I'm in trouble.
I'm going to lose him like even while I'm preaching.
I can't.
I'm sure at some point I'd sinned when I was preaching.
That's how messed up I am.
What about you?
You ever sinned when you were praying?
God I pray for them.
They are idiots.
Sorry God, I shouldn't have that.
Are you with me?
Here's one more truth you have to consider.
Ready?
Here it is.
Number four, the truth about false teachers and false believers.
Often what's brought up when the conversation of eternal security comes up is a story.
I went to a Bible college in Missouri and across town there was the assembly of God
Bible college.
I love those people.
I believe they are in Christ.
I love them.
I care about them.
I would end up working with people from that more Pentecostal denomination.
I didn't believe in the security of the believer.
I had a buddy that would come in.
We did tuxedos and he came in and we get to talk about it.
I would go, if you are saved and you know it, say amen.
It's kind of a mean thing.
He is my buddy and I love him.
It's hilarious.
There is a story.
The story is, there is someone that made a profession of faith and lived for a long time
like a believer would live.
Now they have left the faith.
They are not going to church.
They are running a brothel or some kind of story that sounds really, really bad.
What I think the teaching of Scripture would tell us is that not everybody who says they
have trusted in Christ or claims to know Christ actually does.
Not everybody who claims Christ is saved.
First John 2, 18 says, little children, it is the last time and as you heard that antichrist
shall come, there are many antichrists, whereby we know it is the last time.
They went out from us but they were not of us.
For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us.
But they went out, they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.
This is an instance where there is false teachers, false believers whose works will show that they were
never really saved or part of a fellowship of believers.
Profession of faith in Christ saying, I have been saved does not always mean that you have been saved.
It doesn't always mean that.
Jesus said in Matthew 21, not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord shall enter into the kingdom of God, of heaven.
But he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven, many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied
in thy name and in thy name cast out devils and in thy name done many wonderful works and then will I profess unto them,
I never knew you depart from me ye that work iniquity.
So in summary, you can't lose your salvation.
People's claims also aren't always right. Salvation happens in the heart and we don't know ultimately what goes on in a person's heart.
We can only know them by their fruit or by their work.
So if it's clear from other passages of scripture that this passage cannot teach that someone who is saved can lose their salvation,
what are their options are left to us?
Well, there's two more options.
One option would be that this passage is dealing with believers, true Christians, who black slide but are still saved
and are warned of enduring the chastening of the Lord.
That would be one other option.
Another option that these are talking about those who profess to be Christians but were never truly born again.
And then their way of thinking, if they continue to think that way.
Those who profess to be Christians but were never truly saved because they rejected Christ's sacrifice.
I think there are good people who hold to both positions, but I believe the context points to a straightforward answer.
Let's read the text one more time and we'll get in. That's all my introduction. Here we go.
Verse 26,
Whenever anybody preaches or writes to a group of people, I think it's right to think that there are people in the crowd who know Christ and are saved.
I also think that there may be in the crowd or in the reception of a letter like the one that the preacher is writing here in Hebrews.
That there are those who do not know Christ and are lost.
There are also even people who may profess Christ but have never truly put their faith and trust in Him through repentance and faith.
The truth is that when the author says here in verse 26, if and includes himself for if we,
I believe that he is saying that those who turn away from Christ through continual habitual sin,
especially the sin of forsaking Christ and forsaking Christ's body, they are showing that they never were really saved.
He is saying that if you forsake Christ's sacrifice for your sin and go back to any other thing,
here especially the old covenant and the old sacrificial system, but really anything else, you're abandoning your only hope.
You're showing that you are never truly saved to begin with.
I believe that this is a warning to believers to work out their salvation with fear and trembling and to lost people to not hear and understand,
to not do this, to hear and understand the gospel and then fail to put their trust in it.
Okay, so here's the big idea and the body of my sermon will go much faster than the introduction.
Here's what I want to tell you today.
We must be warned about the danger of rejecting Christ.
It is a dangerous thing to reject Christ.
It is the most dangerous thing.
All you have is Christ.
The plane of this world is going down.
It's appointed unto man wants to die.
And if you reject the parachute, you have no hope.
Christ is the parachute.
Don't reject Him.
Don't know everything about the parachute and fail to put it on.
Don't know the dimensions and the color and the manufacturer and when it was made.
And everything about it but not put it on.
Put on the parachute.
That's Jesus.
Here's what He's saying.
We have to be warned about the danger of rejecting Christ by considering three realities of such a rebellion.
Number one, there's no remedy for persistent rebellion.
What I mean by persistent rebellion here is rebellion against Christ.
He says if we sin willfully after we receive the knowledge of the truth, there remain no more sacrifice for sins.
Here this idea of sin willingly or willfully means to go on sinning.
The idea of sinning without restraint.
Sinning that disregards that Christ died for sins.
Everybody sins.
Christians sin.
Believers sin.
Just hang out here for a little while.
You'll see Christians sin.
We do it.
We're not perfect.
But the Bible makes it clear that if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us of all our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
That's not the kind of sin he's talking about here.
The sin he's talking about here is a sin like the sin of Judas.
Judas was with Jesus.
Judas was an exemplary disciple in that they trusted him with the money.
He was the keeper of the purse.
You guys know what I'm talking about.
Judas Iscariot.
You know what I'm talking about.
Raise your hand.
Judas Iscariot, he saw Jesus.
He saw Jesus do the miracles.
He saw Jesus teach like nobody else.
But he loved money.
He loved money.
He loved it so much he took from the purse.
He was stealing from Jesus.
He was stealing from Jesus' disciples.
And he stole and he stole and he stole and he stole and he stole and he stole.
And he was never truly repentant.
His faith was not really in Christ.
And in the end, he rejected Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.
He abandoned the only hope he had.
His was not an issue about knowledge.
Did he know Jesus was God?
Did he know Jesus was the Messiah?
He absolutely did.
And when he knew that truth, he did not make the decision to trust Christ.
And because he did, what was true, this verse is true of him.
There remaineth no more sacrifice.
Where can he go?
If you reject Jesus, where can you go?
The idea is that someone that sins this way is not acknowledging the price that was paid.
We must acknowledge the sacrifice that was made for our sin.
That points to its seriousness.
Jesus died for us and we must trust in that sacrifice.
What is there to look forward to when we reject Christ's sacrifice?
He tells us right here in verse 27.
What do we have to look forward to?
If we reject Jesus Christ, a certain fearful looking for judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the enemies.
The Bible says that our sin makes us enemies of God.
God loves his enemies.
He loves them so much that he offered his enemies his son.
But if his enemies, his adversaries reject the son, guess what they say?
His enemies.
And so what's certain fiery judgment?
If we reject Christ, there's no other way.
If you reject Christ after having understood the gospel, what's left for you?
If you reject Christ's sacrifice, then you stay in your state as an enemy of God.
So there's no remedy for that kind of persistent rebellion.
Number two, there's no lessening of judgment.
Look at verse number 28.
It says this, he that despised Moses' law.
Now what was the law?
It was a shadow of good things to come.
Okay?
He's making a case here.
He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses.
What in the world is he talking about?
Well in the Old Testament time, people under the law that rejected the Old Covenant
and served other gods were commanded to be put to death.
There are preachers referring to Hebrews who knew the Old Covenant.
And you're going to see here in a minute because of what I'm going to read.
I mean he's referring to a specific passage of Scripture.
In that passage of Scripture, the sentence being referred to is a rejection of God
and an acceptance of idolatry and all that comes with it.
Sexual sin, idol worship, infant sacrifice, blasphemy, rejection of God, lawlessness.
What was the law of sentence for that person?
It was death.
Look at Deuteronomy chapter 17.
I want to show you this because it makes sense.
This is how we got to the decision about who this is talking to.
Look at verse two.
This is God, the Holy Spirit through Moses giving the law, talking about this issue.
Verse two.
If there be found among you within any of thy gates, which the Lord of thy God giveth thee,
man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the Lord of thy God
and transgressing his, what's the next word? Covenant.
And hath gone and served what?
Other gods.
And what?
Worship them.
These are people who saw God split the Red Sea, saw God deliver them from Egypt,
saw God lead them with the pillar of cloud by night, or the pillar of fire by night,
the pillar of cloud thy day.
And having all that knowledge in their history, going and serving and worshiping some other idol,
either the sun or moon or any of the hosts of heaven.
Verse four.
And behold, it be true in the thing, certain that much, such abomination is wrought in Israel.
Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which hath committed that wicked thing,
unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shall stone them with stones till they die.
At the mouth of two witnesses or three witnesses shall he that is worthy of death be put to death.
But at the mouth of one witness, he shall not be put to death.
The hand of the witnesses shall be first upon them, him to put him to death,
and afterward the hands of all the people.
Meaning, if people are making that kind of accusation, they better be the first person to throw the stone,
because it's a grievous thing to make that kind of accusation.
Verse seven.
The hands of the witness shall be first put upon them to put them to death,
and afterward the hands of the people.
So shalt thou put the evil way from among you.
All of these Jews would have understand this kind of willful, habitual rejection of God,
and rejection of God's first covenant.
They were rejecting the shadow that was pointing to the real.
And so what was their punishment?
It was capital punishment.
So think through the comparison.
He says, if in Moses' day capital punishment were to people who rejected the first covenant,
look at what he says, of how much sore punishment suppos ye, shall he be thought worthy who hath
trodden under the foot the Son of God.
And hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing,
and hath done despot under the spirit of grace.
If under the old covenant rejection of the covenant led to the death at the hands of men,
what does rejection of Christ's sacrifice mean in the new covenant?
He lays out three charges.
People that have trodden under foot the Son of God, they call the blood of the covenant
and a holy thing, the thing that can cleanse them, they call unholy.
Number three, they insulted the spirit of grace.
That word, despite, is the word inu-brizzo.
It means to insult.
It's close to the word hubrizzo, where we get our word hubris from.
It's to exercise violence.
It's abuse.
It's to use despitefully, to reproach, to entreat shamefully.
Basically, he's saying, God gave his best.
And through the spirit calls you to believe in and trust in his best.
And when you take that and you treat it like it's blasphemy,
what more could be done?
Will you expect no judgment from that?
You already deserve judgment before he gave you that.
And then he gave you that and you reject that.
It's going to be bad for you.
That's the warning.
This is not a fun message, but you must hear this.
If you abandon and reject with all that you know now, he's saying to these Hebrews,
you are not in danger of less judgment, but more if you reject him.
Some people might think, well, isn't God forgiven when he just overlooked my sin?
Praise the Lord, he has overlooked our sin.
But there's one sinful state that he will not overlook when we reject the person and work of Jesus Christ.
When we reject the working of the Holy Spirit, it calls us to salvation.
Here's the danger of rejecting Christ.
There's no remedy for persistent rebellion.
There's no lessening of judgment.
Number three, there will be no surprises from the judge.
If that's your position, don't be surprised.
Here's what he says, for we know him that sayeth.
This is the kind of thing Jesus said or God said, vengeance belongeth unto me.
I will recompense, sayeth the Lord.
And again, the Lord shall judge his people.
Well, I'm Jewish. God won't do that to Jewish people.
I'm of the seat of Abraham.
No, no, if you reject his son, that doesn't matter.
We heard today, God's able to raise up from these stones seat of Abraham.
You can't reject God and expect God not to judge.
And then he says this, verse 31, it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God.
If you reject the shadow, if you reject the law in the Old Testament and die at men's hands,
how much worse will it be if you reject the new covenant, the Son of God, and fall into God's hands?
Are you with me?
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God.
This is not a fun message, but I have to tell you, we're in this passage because we're going to teach the whole Council of God.
I want you to know today that if you don't know Christ as your Savior, you are so loved.
You are so loved.
God gave his best.
He gave his son.
If it was between you and my son, I'm voting for my son.
I'm not going to let my son substitute for you.
Are you kidding?
I love you.
I'm not doing that, but that's not how God loves.
God committed his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
But if you reject the provision that God made for salvation, eternal destiny, eternal fire, that's what is there.
You're loved by God.
You're loved by us.
And this is not a fun message, but it's like that plane that's going down.
Christ used a sacrifice for you is the parachute.
Put on the parachute.
Your parachute isn't your good works.
Your parachute isn't your children's, your church attendance.
Your parachute isn't some good deed that you did.
Your parachute is not your grandpa who was a preacher.
Your parachute isn't any of those things.
Your parachute is Jesus.
He died for you.
And what he says is, if you confess with your mouth to Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you'll be saved.
What the heart man believes under righteousness and with the mouth, confessions made under salvation.
Who will so ever believe in him shall not be ashamed.
Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
God loves you.
You can put your faith and trust in him today.