The Danger in Willful Sin, Part 4

We have once again the opportunity today to partake of the Lord's table The Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 11, verse number 28, that we are to examine ourselves before we partake, that we might not eat and drink in an unworthy manner and manage to judge himself based on self-examination Where does he stand with the Christ? Later in the second epistle to the Corinthian church, Paul says in chapter 13, verse number 5, that we are to judge ourselves, we are to prove ourselves, we are to test ourselves to see whether or not Jesus is really in us

Well, we've had the wonderful opportunity over the last four weeks to look at the fourth warning in the book of Hebrews, and they all deal with examination to see whether or not you truly love the Lord, to see whether or not you are a true follower of the Lord We told you four weeks ago, we told you when we began our series in the book of Hebrews, that Hebrews is all about the explanation of who Christ is He is supreme and he is sufficient It's all about the exhortation as a result as to who he is, what we do It's all about expectation, knowing that Jesus is going to come again

It's all about exaltation, exalting Christ as Lord and Savior, but it's also about examination because the writer of Hebrews wants us to examine our lives That's why we have the warning passages That's why he puts them in in Hebrews 2 and Hebrews 3 and 4 and Hebrews 5 and 6, Hebrews 10, Hebrews 12, that we might gather together and examine our lives in light of what the word of the Lord says

And so, as we gather together today, before we partake of the Lord's table, it gives us one more opportunity to go through and complete this fifth warning, or excuse me, fourth warning, and to examine our lives in light of what the word of the Lord says This fourth warning is all about the danger of willful sin, which is basically the definition of apostasy We began by looking at what is the description of apostasy, and it says this in Hebrews 10, verse number 26, for if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins

The writer describes for us what apostasy is It's having come to the knowledge of who Christ is, maybe even believing in who Jesus is, maybe even having received Jesus, and yet, in spite of that knowledge, in spite of that truth, deciding to continue to sin willfully and to fall away from the Lord So, he describes for us apostasy He's been building on this from Hebrews chapter 2, lest you drift by and neglect the opportunity, this great salvation, and not give yourself to it Or in Hebrews 3, you harden your heart, as in the day of provocation in the wilderness, don't do that

Or in chapter 3, having tasted of this heavenly gift, having been a partaker of the Holy Spirit, having been enlightened to fall away, it's impossible to renew you again to repentance Now, he comes to the place that if you are continuing in sin, you just want to willfully sin against the Lord In spite of all the knowledge, in spite of all the truth, in spite of everything that you've seen and heard, and everything that I've said to you up to now, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin He gives us a repercussions, that's point number two

He says, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries Why does he say that? Because if you continue in willful sin, you're an adversary You're an adversary of the Lord You're not a friend of the Lord, you're His enemy So he says there's a fury of fire awaiting you because you are an adversary of the Lord Therefore, these are the repercussions There's an absence of a sacrifice, and there is an assurance of hell's fire

So he gives us the description of apostasy, then he gives us the repercussions of apostasy, and then we gave you an illustration of apostasy by looking at the life of Judas If you were with us three weeks ago, we talked to you about Judas and his life, a man who was with Jesus, who was chosen by the Lord, who was a disciple of the Lord And instead of becoming an apostle, he became an apostate He fell away from the Lord, okay? He denied the Lord He turned his back on the Lord We looked at Demas as another illustration Having loved this present world, Paul says, he hath forsaken me

And so it's good to know the illustrations in Scripture to help us understand the repercussions of those who decide to turn away from what they know to be true because they've heard the truth, they've heard the gospel, they know the gospel, they've even maybe believed the gospel, and yet they want to continue in willful sin So it's good to have biblical illustrations of that because there was no more privileged person in all the world than the man Judas

And every one of the apostles believed that Judas was a trustworthy person because when Christ said that there was going to be one that betrayed Him, none of them said, it must be Judas They all thought it was them because they did not know who it was That's how deceptive willful sin can be That's how deceptive apostasy is You could even deceive your own self

And so we move from the illustration of apostasy to look at the clarification surrounding apostasy because we talked about the unpardonable sin, a sin that's unforgivable by our Lord because He said it's blasphemy against the Spirit of God It's attributing God's work to Satan

We talked about that in Matthew chapter 12 to help you understand the clarification between the unpardonable sin and apostasy because while you can't commit that unpardonable sin in Matthew 12 today because Christ is not with us, but He also says that this will happen in the next age to come, which would be the kingdom age for them because they knew nothing of the church age When Christ again is present upon the earth where you can blaspheme His name in His presence and attribute His work to Satan, there is a sin of apostasy

And while Judas never attributed Christ's work to Satan, he did apostasize the faith He did fall away from that which he knew to be true And so we've talked about that So there'd be a clarification about apostasy and the unpardonable sin And then we moved to last week the admonition And the admonition is found in verse number 28 when it says, anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy On the testimony of two or three witnesses, we took you back to Numbers 15 to show you how they killed a man who picked up sticks on Sunday

So if they kill a man, stone a man who picks up sticks on Sunday, he says this, how much severe punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled on the foot the Son of God, has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which He has sanctified, or He was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? He says, here's your admonition You cannot, you cannot refuse to believe in the Son of God You cannot regard the blood of Christ as unclean, and you cannot resist the beauty of the Spirit of grace and expect to go to heaven You just can't

There's a much severer punishment for you because you're going to fall away in light of the entire Scripture, knowing the truth of the gospel, all about the arrival of the Messiah And that's why the book of Hebrews is so important for this Jewish people, to know that their Messiah had come, and all that He did, they could not, they could not refuse to believe in the Son of God Very important statement Why? Because that would mean they would trample into foot the Son of God They would treat the Son of God as if He was worthless, as if He was worth nothing

In other words, they would see Him as the Pharisees saw Him in John chapter 5 Remember way back in Luke chapter 2? Remember there's only one recorded incident in the life of Christ after His birth and before His ministry began at the age of 30, and that's when He was 12 years of age And it's the only recorded incident of the life of Christ because it's the incident that makes the most sense, and it's the most important incident, because He tells His mother, don't you know? I had to be about my Father's business That statement right there tells you that Jesus is the Son of God

He is God in the flesh He is equal in nature to who God is And so when you come to John chapter 5 at the pool of Bethesda, there the tide would change against the Messiah It was there in the pool of Bethesda If you've been there to the House of Mercy, it's called the House of Mercy If you've been to Israel with me, you know where those five porticoes are And we stand outside of the pool of Bethesda, and we talk about John chapter 5, because there He heals a man who for 38 years had been paralyzed And He takes up His bed and walks

And Christ says, do you want to be made well? The guy says, of course I do, but I have no one to throw me in Thinking that if they were the first one in, when the water would stir, they'd be healed But Christ says, take up your bed and walk, and He walks The Pharisees see Him Instead of saying, wow, look at you, man You can walk This is great You're healed They say, you can't take up your pallet and walk on the Sabbath day What are you doing? You can't do that. I know you've been paralyzed for 38 years, but you just can't get up and walk on the Sabbath day Get back down on top of your pallet

But see, they said, who healed you? He said, I don't know. I had a foggiest idea who healed me. A guy came to me and said, take up your pallet and walk So I did. I've been healed It would be later in the story that He knows who Christ is And when the Pharisees come to Christ, He says, my Father is working, and so am I Ooh, that's not good to the Pharisees Why? Because from that point on, they plotted to kill Him Why? Because it says, not only was He breaking the Sabbath, but here's the clincher, He was making Himself equal with the Father

See, no self-respecting Jew would ever call God his Father in a personal sense He couldn't In a national sense, they did But never did any Jew call God his Father in a personal sense until Jesus came along Why? Because as the Son of God, He is equal in nature to God Himself He is God in the flesh And so, the writer of Hebrews is saying, you know what you're doing? You're refusing the Son of God You are refusing to believe in the truth about the Son of God You are trampling underfoot the Son of God You are treating Him as if He's not God in the flesh

You're treating Him as if He's just another man You can't do that And on top of that, you cannot regard the blood of Christ as unclean or as common For He says these words, He says, you can't regard as unclean the blood of the covenant by which He, which is not the person Himself but Christ, He Christ, was sanctified or set apart It was His blood that set Him apart It was His blood that was pleasing to the Father It was His death that pleased the Father, right? And so, what you're doing is you are regarding the blood that He shed as unclean, as common, as worthless and meaning nothing

In other words, you're taking His sacrifice and making it just like all the millions of sacrifices that took place over the last several hundred years that could not give you access into the presence of God But this one, this one sacrifice gives you access into the presence of God, but you will not accept it And then He says, in which He is sanctified and has insulted the Spirit of grace So, you're actually going to refuse to believe in the beauty of God's Spirit Zechariah 12.10, the Spirit of grace is called the Spirit of grace and supplication

And so, you're going to sin against the Spirit of God You can't do that So, He gives the admonition You must understand where you're going with this And like a great surgeon having cut them open, right? Stitch them back together He's now going to give them words of encouragement and give them how it is they cannot become apostate So, He gives them what we'll call in our outline, the prevention from apostasy He wants them to understand you don't have to go down this route You don't have to deny who Christ is You don't have to turn your back on the Messiah No This is what He says

Verse 32, 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 For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession than a lasting one Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised

For yet, in a very little while, He who is coming will come and will not delay 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 or to perdition, but to those who have faith to the persevering of the soul He says, listen, if you don't want to apostasize the faith, you need to look backward, you need to look forward, and you need to look inward You need to look backward and remember You need to look forward and rejoice

And you need to look inward and reexamine whether or not you have genuine faith He wants to wrap it all together and say, look, I don't want you to defrock the faith. I don't want you to turn your back on the Messiah As He gives this fourth warning, He's bringing them into the next chapter Of course, it's not a chapter when He writes the letter, but it's the next chapter because it goes into the great Hebrew hall of faith, right? He's going to go in this long dissertation of faith because He wants to understand genuine faith

All faith works, right? All faith is evidenced in the life of people who have faith And so Hebrews 11, and we'll take, you know, two weeks on Hebrews 1, 1 to 3, and then we're going to go through each character one at a time, each and every week to show you exactly how they exemplified their faith, how they believed in the Lord, how they followed the Lord, how they served the Lord Yes, sometimes they failed, but by and part, they always look to their upcoming reward, always looking for the promise, always living in obedience to what God had already said That's what faith is

And so before He gets there, He says, listen, I want to let you know something. I don't want you to fall back. I don't want you to lose your confidence Remember, He began with a positive response in verses 19 to 25, you know, let us draw near, let us come in faith, right? Let us hold fast, let us cling to our hope, and then let us consider what? Love, how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds That's a positive response

But He quickly goes into the negative response because He doesn't want them, He wants them to the implications of not following the Lord, but of falling away from the Lord Because you remember, the warning passages are giving because there were many professors in the audience There were a few possessors, but many professors And there were even some protesters They would protest the truth And so He wants them to understand how they can possess Christ as Lord and Savior, how they can embrace the Messiah

And this should encourage every single one of us, because all of us know people who profess Christianity, but don't live Christianity We know those who have protested against Christianity because they have fallen away from the faith, and they don't want to follow the Lord anymore But the hope is, the hope is this, that as long as you have breath, there's an opportunity for you to respond Because none of us knows. I'll never know if you apostatize the faith The Lord knows, but I don't know

My job is just to warn you about the repercussions, to warn you about what's available or what's going to happen next if you continue in disobedience My job is to lay out for you the opportunity and how to prevent yourself from falling away First of all, look backward And remember how it was at the very beginning That's what He does Listen to what He says He says, but remember the former days when after being enlightened, okay, they were enlightened Remember Hebrews chapter 6? You once being enlightened and fall away, it's impossible to renew you again to repentance

So now He goes back to that phrase, uses it again, you were enlightened Remember that? Remember when you first heard about the Messiah? Remember when you first understood about the sacrifice that would save you from your sin? Remember those former days? Remember what it was like? Like Matthew chapter 13, those people who with joy jumped on the Jesus bandwagon They received the Word with joy They heard the gospel and they wanted what the gospel offered And so they received the Word with joy

But when the sun would be down, when there'd be affliction and tribulation and persecution, it says they would fall away They would not persevere They would not endure Why? Because they couldn't endure Why couldn't they? Why? Because the redeemed, I already said this last week, the redeemed remain with Christ because the Redeemer reigns within the Christian If the Redeemer reigns in you, He's always indwelling you He's always compelling you He's always telling you exactly what to do

And so the reason the Christian remains with the Christ, the Redeemer remains because Christ the Redeemer reigns in Him We have followed the Lord We serve the Lord And when God's in us, Christ in you, the hope of glory, there's always that compulsion There's always that instruction There's always that conviction that says you're going the wrong way You got to go back That's why you don't forsake this living of yourselves together, right? That's why you come in faith, you cling to hope, and you consider love Consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds

Why? We're always doing this We want you to hear the truth, know the truth, believe the truth We're going to constantly motivate you, stimulate you, and move you on to maturity because we want you to know the Christ Make sure that what you have professed is truly what is genuinely in you So important That's why the Bible is so clear on examination He says these words

He says, you were enlightened and you endured a great conflict of suffering, partly by being made a spectacle, being made a theatrical appearance because of the tribulation, through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers of those who were so treated In other words, you even were a part of those who were likewise suffering persecution You were along with everybody else Remember that? He wants them to look backward and remember how it was

He says, for you even showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession, a lasting one There's something before you And maybe he's referring to 49 AD when the Emperor Claudius ran the Jews out of Rome, and Paul refers to it in Acts chapter 18 Maybe he's talking about that time in which they had their property seized and they were persecuted

He's saying, remember where it was when you first heard you were enlightened as to who the Christ was, and you got excited about it, and you jumped on the Jesus bandwagon, and you even suffered with those who suffered, and you even had your property seized You thought, man, this is great This is where we're going He says, look, there's a lasting reward for those who continue on That's why he says these words He says, do not throw away your confidence with which there is great reward Don't just look backward, and remember, look forward and rejoice

Look forward because you can't afford to lose your confidence Why? You can't afford to lose that which you've said you believe, and the reason is simply because of what Christ promises You see, there's always something about the believer What is it a true believer has? He has an anticipation He has a longing for the coming of the Messiah and the opportunity to receive the reward that He brings with Him when He comes You see, so many times people don't have that longing for the arrival of the Messiah If you don't have that longing, there's a good chance you don't know the Lord

There's a good chance you don't know the Lord because you don't love the Lord Paul says, the crown of righteousness is in store for all those who love His appearing There's a love of the Messiah So and so, you love for Him to come You long for Him to come You live as if He's coming today It's all about wanting Christ to come If you don't have that passion and desire within you, you have to examine your life and say, do I love the Lord? Am I committed to the Lord? Do I trust the Lord? Do I love Him so much I want Him to be back even today? So he says these words

He says, do not throw away your confidence which has great reward for you are in need of endurance Listen, with endurance, you don't earn your salvation Endurance is the evidence of your salvation You can't earn salvation, but if you are enduring, if you are pressing on, if you are steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, that endurance evidences the fact that you are kept by the power of God Your endurance does not give you eternal security Your endurance evidences that you are eternally secure

That's so important to understand that because all throughout Scripture, that's what it's about This is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 He says this, "'Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.'" You heard the gospel, you were saved by the gospel, you stand in the gospel, right? Unless of course you fall away And if you fall away, it's because you believed in vain Your belief was worthless

So there's that self-examination And then you go over to the book of Colossians, the first chapter, 21st verse, "'And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body to death in order to present you before Him, holy and blameless and beyond reproach, if indeed you continue in the faith.'" If you are continuing in the faith, you evidence the fact that you have been saved by the blood of Christ

If you endure through tribulation, if you endure through persecution, if you endure through difficult times and hardship, if you keep on keeping on, you are evidence of the fact that you are truly born again because the reason the Redeemer remains with Christ is because the Redeemer reigns within Christ And the Redeemer is the omnipotent God of the universe who keeps compelling, keeps indwelling, and keeps telling everything you need to know about following Him as your Lord and Savior So important He says, look, look backward and remember when you were enlightened

And I want you to look forward And I want you to rejoice in what's before you Because if you love the Lord, there is something there you can't wait to hold on to, to obtain And then He says this, Hebrews 11 He says, "'For yet at a very while He who was coming will come and will not delay, but My righteous one shall live by faith.'" By faith Look inward Look inward and reexamine whether or not you have genuine faith Because people who follow me, they live by faith My righteous one will live by faith And what is faith? Faith is believing in what God has already said

Faith is trusting obedience. I trust in what God has said, and now I obey what God has said That's what faith is And we're going to see that all throughout Hebrews 11, through every character that's there As we examine their lives, every one of them trusted in the Lord Every one of them obeyed the Lord Why? Because they believed in what God said, and they had less revelation than you and I have We have the completed revelation They had to wait for God to speak God's already spoken He's given us His Word We know exactly what He says And so He says, "'But My righteous one shall live by faith

And if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him.'" If he shrinks back, if he falls away, my soul has no pleasure in him Why? Hebrews 11, 6, without faith, it is impossible to do what? To please the Lord Why? You can't please the Lord without faith Faith is believing in what God has said. I might not understand what God has said Who cares? I believe what He says. I might not understand the cross and the resurrection, the triune nature of God, the omnipotence of God. I might not understand all that stuff in my own rational pea brain, but listen, I believe in what the Bible says

That's why faith is a gift, right? That's why faith is a completed gift of God that allows you to believe in what God has said And those who do not have the gift, what? They wrestle with election and predestination They wrestle with all those things They don't understand them and they can't come to grips with those things Why? They have not been granted the gift of faith to believe in what God has said Simple as that So you pray that God would grant them the gift to open their eyes

Why? Remember 2 Corinthians 4? What does Satan do? He blinds the mind of the unbeliever so he doesn't believe in the deity, the glory of the Christ He wants to blind the mind of the unbeliever so he doesn't recognize that Jesus Christ is the Son of God Because once you recognize that Christ is God in the flesh, you understand the identity of the Messiah, you can understand the ministry of the Messiah Once you understand the identity and ministry of the Messiah, now you understand the responsibility before the Messiah

And the responsibility is what? To, by faith, trust and believe what He has said My righteous one shall live by faith And if He shrinks back, I have no pleasure in Him But then He says this, but we are not those who shrink back to perdition Remember, Jesus was called the Son of Perdition, the Antichrist, Son of Perdition It's a word for destruction But of those who have faith to the persevering of the soul There are those who believe and there are those who believe in faith

There are those who believe and there are those who believe and evidence their belief by perseverance and endurance and continuing on The writer of Hebrews says, look, I know I've cut you open. I know I've told you about the fire and the fury of the fire of judgment. I know I've told you that there's going to be an absence of any sacrifice for sin if you fall away and you continue to willful sin But let me tell you this, just look backwards and remember when you were first enlightened And then I want you to look forward and realize and rejoice in the reward that can be yours

And then I want you to look inward and reexamine where you stand with the Christ Do you have genuine believing faith? Do you truly believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? And that's why Hebrews 11 becomes such a pivotal chapter in the whole book to show you enduring faith, what it looks like Remember, all throughout the book of Hebrews, Hebrews 2, Hebrews 3, 3.14, Hebrews 4.14, Hebrews 6.11 and 12, He keeps going back to endurance, continuance, steadfastness Why? He's just reminding them over and over again, listen, when you give your life to Christ, you stay with the Christ

You hang on to the Christ You depend on the Christ And that's what makes the book of Hebrews such a practical, beautiful book because it opens up to us the beauty of the Messiah and what our response to Him should be like And so when you look at this portion of Scripture, He concludes this fourth warning by helping you understand there are people who believe and there have been people who have received the Christ, but they haven't received Him in faith and into the perseverance of the soul There is a difference There are many people, read John's gospel Drew will be here next week

He'll preach in John's gospel, John chapter 7, right? He'll talk to you about the people who believed in the Messiah, but Christ never committed Himself to them because He knew what was in them, right? And so there's this self-examination, that re-examination that when you come to the Lord's table, He's designed this for us, the body of believers, to gather together and say, is Jesus in me? Do I evidence the fact that Christ reigns in me? He lives in me, and I want to serve Him and follow Him all the days of my life

So the writer of Hebrews says, listen, I want to bring it all together for you, help you understand what you need to do, because I want to prevent you from falling away So look backward, look forward, look inward, and make sure you have genuine saving faith faith that perseveres, that endures Remember, endurance does not earn you heaven Endurance evidences the fact that you're going to heaven Big difference Let me pray with you Father, thank You for today Thank You for a chance to understand and grow more in the knowledge of Your Word So much yet to even unfold, so much more to uncover

And yet, Lord, our time is short Our prayer is that every one of us would examine our lives in light of the Word of God, that we might live for Your glory and Your glory alone We pray in Jesus' name, amen.