Hebrews 10:26-31
Amen. You may be seated. A reading from the New Testament
today is from the book of Hebrews chapter 10. We’ll be reading
verses 26 through 31. We’ve been making our way through
the book of Hebrews and we’re approaching very soon the great
chapter 11 where the writer of Hebrews exhorts us to follow
the saints who’ve gone before us and their examples of faith.
They looked ahead and saw Christ. They looked ahead and saw the
heavenly city. They looked ahead and saw salvation.
And they lived by faith. And under the old covenant, they
did not yet possess the fullness that we now receive under the
new covenant, yet they looked forward to it. And so there’s
an exhortation to mimic their examples of faith. But before
we get to chapter 11, we have to deal with chapter 10. And
last week in chapter 10, we were encouraged to draw near to God
through the blood of Jesus. We were encouraged to hold fast
to our confession of faith, not going wobbly or unsteady in our
commitment to Christ. And then we were also encouraged
to encourage one another in our faith in Christ so that we will
do good works, so that we will serve one another, so we’ll do
acts of love, and also so that we will not, to paraphrase, skip
church and therefore discourage the saints. Now today’s passage
is opposite those encouragements. It’s an exhortation. to not walk
away from the living God. And so let us with great humility
and grace approach this, what is a very difficult passage,
as we hear God’s word together. Let’s read together from the
26th verse of chapter 10. For if we go on sinning deliberately
after receiving the knowledge of the truth, There no longer
remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of
judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.
Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses died without mercy
on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment
do you think will be deserved by the one who has spurned the
son of God and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which
he was sanctified and has outraged the spirit of grace? For we know
him who said, Vengeance is mine, I will repay. And again, the
Lord will judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of the living God. Amen. This is God’s holy
word for us. Let’s pause now and ask for his
grace that we might hear and receive it together. Pray with
me. Our gracious God, we thank you
that you speak. And we thank you that you speak to us words
of encouragement, words of wonder and joy. But today we thank you
that you speak words of caution, words of danger, words of exhortation,
words of darkness and not light. And we pray now that as we walk
through this passage that you would give us eyes to see, give
us ears to hear, and especially give our minds and hearts understanding.
And we pray that our faith would be strengthened. And we pray
with all our hearts that if there be one in our midst today who
knows not the Savior Jesus, that they would not leave today without
coming to faith in him and laying hold of the promises of salvation
and the goodness of his mercy and grace in Christ Jesus. Of
this we pray now as we ask for your help and blessing. Amen. There are some passages in the
Bible that are hard to understand. In fact, Peter, the apostle,
writes in one of his letters, there are passages in the Bible
that are not easily understood. And he says Paul has written
some of them. We understand as we read through
the Bible sometimes that verses and chapters often maybe don’t
make sense to us. Well, today is one of those passages
where we need extra grace, extra humility, extra pause and help
to understand what the Lord is saying. Passages like this are
not only hard for us as Christians to read, but they are difficult
for preachers to preach. But guess what? if it’s in the
Bible, God has supernaturally, He has intended for these to
be read and heard and believed and proclaimed. Now, we could
be unfaithful and just skip over these few verses. We could avoid
them. I could make some attempt to make it more palatable to
you. I could do something to tone down the judgment of God. We could say something other
than what this passage means. And you could leave here today
confused. You could leave here today and hopefully you would
say your pastor has been unfaithful to the scriptures. But no, we
walk through the Bible, we walk through the book of Hebrews,
and so we must take every chapter, every verse, because God has
written them for our instruction, for our direction, for correcting
and rebuking and for training us in righteousness, so that
the man of God may be fully furnished for the Christian life. And so
I hope today to be very clear. I hope that what is said will
be immediately understood by you. And I hope that the way
we walk through this passage will be pastoral, for that is
the intent of the writer of Hebrews. I want to say this to you. This
is a guarantee. If ever something is confusing to you, if ever
something is not understood by you or it offends you, come see
me. Call me. Let’s have a coffee
or a lunch or sit on the porch or something. But today’s passage
is a difficult one. Chapter 10 verses 26 through
31 is a lot like the verses we looked at in chapter 6. If you
flip backwards in your Bible to chapter 6, Verses 4 through
8. You’ll remember these words.
For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who
have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift
and who have shared in the Holy Spirit and have tasted the goodness
of the Word of God and the powers of the age to come. if they then
fall away, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to
their own harm, and they are holding Him up in contempt. For
the land that has drunk the rain often falls on it, and it produces
a crop useful to those for whose blessing and sake it is cultivated.
and receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and
thistles, it is worthless and it is near to being burned and
cursed and its end is to be burned. This passage is much like that
one. It’s got difficult words, difficult
truths, difficult teachings. And depending on your theology,
depending on your perspective of the Christian faith, you will
interpret these passages one way or the other. By way of introduction,
let me mention to you that our doctrine of the assurance of
salvation is very important to have and to hold here in this
sermon today. We believe that scripture teaches
that if God saves you, he will never let you go. Jesus loves
us with a love that will never let us go. He who began a good
work in you You can probably complete the sentence. We’ll
be faithful to complete it. The book of Jude ends with the
benediction now to him who is able to keep you from falling
and to present you faultless, spotless before his throne. And
it ends with the doxology. Over and over, the Bible teaches
us that when God does a good work of salvation in us, he will
see it to its end. That brings us to a second point
of theology that is not our theology. but is very popular in American
theology in our world today. And that is this idea that one
can lose their salvation. One can be saved. One can embrace
Christ. One can come to faith, this teaching
says, but by their own fault they can lose it. We do not believe
that one who is truly saved loses their salvation. We do not believe
the Bible teaches that. We believe that is one of the
grossest heresies in the Christian church, for it has unsettled
many a person and caused great grief in their lives. There’s
a third thing we must consider as we introduce ourselves to
this passage, and that is what the modern church in the last
100 and 150 years has done. Men have attempted to persuade people
into the kingdom of God by their gimmicks, by their persuasive
speech, by their trickery into forcing someone into professing
a faith that they will never possess. And so this passage
of Scripture If we approach it according to our theology, according
to how the whole of Scripture speaks of God’s love for His
children, here is what we need to understand as we walk through
this passage. It is possible to profess faith but not possess
faith. Do you understand that distinction?
It is possible to say, I love Jesus, It is possible to say,
I have faith in God. It is possible to respond to
the gospel in its outward call, but to not possess faith because
the work of the Holy Spirit has not come into your life. And
the reason the writer of Hebrews writes this couple of verses
after he has exhorted the church to draw near to God, to hold
fast their confession and to encourage one another to be together
and love and serve each other. He’s now warning those who are
in the congregation who have professed faith but do not possess
it. And he’s warning them of a very specific danger and he
is preaching the gospel to them in an effort to save them. We
must see that the writer of Hebrews is pastoral. He is gospel-minded
and he is desperate that those in the congregation who may have
professed faith but not possessed faith do truly come to faith
in God and hear the warning that is offered throughout the scriptures.
And so he is speaking to those who may be sitting in the pews,
those who have sat under the ministry of the word, those who
have served the church, those who have professed faith in Jesus.
And to back up to our passage from last week, they have stopped
drawing near to God. That’s a mark of the Christian.
They have wavered in their confession of Christ. They’re thinking about
their options. And in the immediate context
of the book of Hebrews, some are thinking of going back to
Judaism. The persecution of the early church on these particular
Christians has been wide and hard and difficult. And he’s
saying, don’t waver on Christ. Yet there’s some in the congregation
who are looking at their options. And we are surrounded by that
a lot today in our world. Jesus is not the only option
to many. He may be my only option and
your only option, but he is not the only option to many. We hear
so often there are so many ways to salvation, but know in the
Christian church, we believe that we must hold fast to the
confession of Christ Jesus. So not only have they stopped
drawing near to God, they are wavering on their confession
of faith, but they have begun to absent themselves from the
life of the church. They are away from the assembly
of believers. Now, in Hebrews, it may be that
they met every day. It may be that in the early church,
in this particular case, their practice was to meet every day.
So you could see the difficulty. Maybe you’ve got to be at work
or got to go to the grocery store. Being in church every day is
difficult. but narrow it down to our day. We are expected to
be together in the Lord’s house on the Lord’s day with the Lord’s
people. And so these folks who are being warned today have forsaken
the assembling together and they are not sharing in their gifts
of grace in the church. And so the writer of Hebrews
has a concern under the power of the Holy Spirit as he writes
this epistle, this sermon to the Hebrew church, he’s warning
those who evidence in their lives that they may profess faith but
never possess faith. Now, how could this be the case? How can you say these are people
who profess faith but not possess faith? Well, you remember that
Jesus tells us there will be wheat among the tares. In the
church, you will have seed that is planted and it produces wheat.
But among that wheat, you will have tares, you will have weeds.
And that is what the church, he tells us, is like in this
world. Well, how can that be true? Well,
think of an example of a person, Judas, one of the 12. He was
with Jesus. He ministered alongside Jesus.
He was the treasurer of the band of disciples. Yet for 30 pieces
of silver, he walked away from that band of believers, showing
his true heart, his true character. Think also about Jesus’ parable
of the soils in Matthew 13. Remember the four soils. The
seed was scattered along the path. It was scattered along
the rocky ground. It was cast among the thorns,
and then forth it landed on good soil. And you remember the explanation
Jesus gives of the seed or the gospel falling on those different
soils. The seed that fell on the path was snatched up by the
birds, and that was like the evil one coming into the life
of one who hears the gospel and maybe receives it verbally, but
Satan snatches it away. Or the seed that falls on rocky
ground, it springs up, but because it
has no root, it is quickly scorched. And Jesus says that is like the
Christian or the person who receives the gospel. But when tribulation
and hardship come, they go the other way because following Jesus
comes with too high of a cost. The third seed falls upon the
thorns and it is choked by the deceit of riches and the deceit
of the desires of this present world. And Jesus says that person
who hears the gospel proves to be unfruitful. But then he goes
to speak of the good soil. The good seed falls on the good
soil and that soil raises a crop and it produces 20 and 60 and
100 fold. And God reaps that harvest in the end. So we understand
the gospel goes out. Our duty is to preach the gospel.
Our duty is to proclaim the gospel, to minister the gospel. It’s
an outward call of the gospel. What does the Apostle Paul say
in the book of Romans? How can they not hear if there
is no preacher? Behold the feet How lovely are
the feet of him who brings good news. God works through the work
of the ministry of preaching. And so the outward call goes
out, but we understand from our theology that the Holy Spirit
must work. God the Holy Spirit must take
that Word of God and plant it deep within the good soil of
our hearts. And that Spirit must open our
eyes. That’s why we pray this every Sunday as we get into the
Word. Open our eyes that we may see her. Unstop our ears that
we may hear. Soften our hearts that we may
be tender to the Word of God. And make our hands willing and
ready and able to hear and live and obey the Gospel. But the
writer of Hebrews is speaking to those in the church who profess
faith but do not possess it. They’ve gone through the motions.
But now they are in danger of falling away. They are being
warned of the danger and the urgency He’s not preaching to
the choir, as we say. You know what that means, we
preach to the choir. We already know it, we’ve heard it, we’re
there every Sunday, we got it. No, he is preaching to those
who truly need to hear the gospel of grace. Now, what is the writer
of Hebrews been saying all along as he approaches these few verses?
He’s been saying this, Christ has opened up a new and living
way by his once and for all sacrifice for sins. And it makes further
sacrifice for sins no longer necessary. We do not need the
blood of bulls and goats. We do not need all of the old
covenant sacrifices for in Christ Jesus, all of that has been fulfilled. And so this warning is issued.
This warning is issued to those who are defiant to the gospel. Those who are deliberately in
an ongoing and high handed way and arrogantly speaking against
Christ. They have once professed Christ,
but now they are turning away from him. And so what does he
say to the one who has contempt for Christ? He’s saying there
is no forgiveness and there is certain judgment. Those are hard
pills to swallow. Those are tough words to hear.
But let us look now at three things that the writer of Hebrews
says this person or these persons are rejecting. The first thing
they are rejecting is the truth. Notice verse 26 where he says,
if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge
of truth, there is no longer, there no longer remains a sacrifice
for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire
that will consume the adversaries. He’s speaking to the person in
the congregation who has professed faith but does not possess faith
and they are persistently sinning against God by turning away from. Do you know what the word apostasy
means? If you know your early Greek
and Latin grammar, you know that the prefix apo means away from. This person is walking away from
God. Now think of how ironic that
is. Think of the word repentance.
What is repentance? Repentance is I am going this way in sin
and trespasses and I recognize that and I turn and go the other
way. So repentance is turning away from sin. What is apostasy?
It’s turning away from God, the answer to sin. And you see why
the writer of Hebrews is so upset in his warning. You have turned
to God in profession and now you’re turning from him in defiance
and in disobedience. And for you, there’s no forgiveness. There’s judgment, certain judgment
to come. And so this person is persistent
and willfully and deliberately and decisively turning from the
Son of God and the blood of the covenant. They are rejecting
God’s word. It is a rejection of the truth
of the gospel. Now it is one thing for a minister
to preach the gospel. It is one thing for you to proclaim
the excellencies of the gospel to your friends and loved ones
and for them to say, no thanks. That is not for me. You’ve got
your religion. I’ve got mine. But isn’t it a whole nother thing
to walk side by side with someone in the faith? You sing hymns
beside them in the pew. You serve by them on boards and
committees. You’ve eaten meals together in
fellowship at church. You’ve walked side by side together.
And then we realize one day it was all bogus. It was all fake. It was an outward profession
without an inward change by the Holy Spirit. And how sad that
is that they who have tasted the gospel have now rejected
his holy word. They’ve tasted it. They’ve loved
it. They’ve soaked in it. They’ve, they’ve, they’ve, been
versed in it and steeped in it. They’ve had verses on their mirror.
They’ve sang songs in their car and all those sorts of things.
What does the scripture tell us here? It says in Moses day,
if you rejected the covenant of God, and that was the old
covenant with the evidence of two or three witnesses, you were
put to death. You read the passages quoted in the books of Moses
and they were stoned. They were executed. If you did
not keep the covenant of God under the old covenant, you were
put to death. And Jesus, the word is going to say here to
us how much more if you reject the new covenant with the blood
of Jesus. And so it is first a rejection
of truth. It’s a rejection of the covenant
of God. The second thing we see, though, is not only is it a rejection
of truth, it is a rejection of Jesus. Look at verse 29. He says, How much worse punishment
do you think will be deserved by the one who has spurned the
Son of God, who has profaned the blood of the covenant by
which He was sanctified and has outraged the Spirit of grace? This person not only rejects
the truth of the word, not only rejects the truth of the gospel,
he rejects now Jesus. And you think about all that
the writer of Hebrews has said to us about Jesus. Jesus is better
than Moses. Jesus is better than angels.
Jesus is better than the Levitical priest. Jesus is a priest, a
perfect priest. After the order of Melchizedek,
his priesthood is eternal and final and full. And now he’s
preaching to the congregation and saying, and now you reject
not only the truth, But you reject Jesus Himself. You look at Jesus
and the one you once valued, you now say, I no longer value
Him. I no longer have need for Jesus. And you think about that practically.
All the songs we sing, I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold. What would this person now have
to sing? I’d rather have punishment. I’d rather have justice. I’d
rather have wrath and grace and mercy on Jesus. This person rejects
Jesus Christ. This person who once sang of
redemption, this person who once enjoyed the worship of God, the
worship of the redeemed, the praise of the Redeemer, who sat
at the Lord’s Supper, at the Lord’s table where we proclaim
the blood of the eternal covenant, shed forth abroad by the blood
of Jesus, and he now rejects, this person now rejects Jesus. his only hope, his only salvation,
he is now put away and said, no more, I don’t need Jesus. And so we read verse 26. If we
go on sinning deliberately, and that’s the sin of apostasy, after
receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains
a sacrifice for sins. Very soberly, the writer of Hebrews
says, you reject Jesus. You reject the only means by
which your sins can be forgiven. You see what a troubling word
that is. What a hard statement that is
to swallow, but that’s a statement of warning. Do you remember one
of the most famous sermons in America? I remember reading it
in English class in maybe junior year of high school. It was Jonathan
Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Friends, this
is a sermon like Edwards. Edwards pleaded with the generation,
do not turn from God, turn to Him. And he begged and pleaded
with them, saying, your foot shall slip in due time, you will
fall, and God will not be there to catch you. Our passage from
Isaiah today, for our assurance of pardon, seek the Lord while
He may be found. There’s an urgency to our message
of the gospel. We seek the Lord. We seek Christ
while He is available to us. Our only hope, our only comfort
in life and in death is Jesus and that He has bought us with
His precious blood. Do not reject Jesus. Do not reject
the truth. Well, there’s a third rejection.
It’s not only does this person reject the truth. He rejects
Jesus, but he rejects the Holy Spirit. Verse 28 says this, anyone
who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the
evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment do
you think will be deserved by the one who has spurned the son
of God, who has profaned the blood of the covenant by which
he was sanctified and he has outraged the spirit of grace? This person has heard the whole
counsel of God, most likely, under the ministry of the church,
been, even as our passage says, sanctified. Do you know you can
be in the church and you may not be sanctified in the sense
of being made holy. You may not be sanctified in
the sense of growing in grace, but the church will rub off on
you. And that’s the sense of sanctification
he is speaking up here. This person tasted. and in some
human way saw that the Lord was good. But he has outraged, did
you see that word? He has outraged the Spirit of
God. And you remember Jesus said the
unpardonable sin, the only sin that will lead to death and it
cannot be pardoned is the sin of blasphemy against the Holy
Spirit. What do we mean by that? It means a person rejects the
gospel and the means by which God saves sinners. And so how
does God save sinners? The Holy Spirit gives eyes to
see. The Holy Spirit gives ears to
hear. The Holy Spirit gives a soft heart, not a heart of stone,
but a heart of flesh that we may be tender toward the gospel.
He works in us and effectually calls us. He effectively calls
us to hear the gospel, to see our sin, and to see our need
of a Savior. And He works grace in us that
we will see the Savior as He’s freely offered to us, and we
will embrace Him. And that is the sin of rejection
of the Holy Spirit. God does not, and He cannot,
and He will not, the Scripture says, forgive that sin. That’s
a tough one. That’s one that’s hard in our
minds and in our hearts to understand. How can God be that way? But we must think of God’s mercy
and his grace that God, in fact, does save sinners. God, in fact,
does save those that he loves and that he has put his affection
on and has worked. And so this person rejects the
Holy Spirit. He blasphemes the Holy Spirit.
He outrages the Holy Spirit. It is not that This person doesn’t
choose Jesus. You understand that, I hope.
It’s not that this person says, I’ve seen the options and Jesus
is not the best one for me. It’s that this person has heard
the gospel and in their hubris and their pride have rejected
the Holy Spirit. That’s what’s taking place here.
And so we understand the difficulty. That the writer of Hebrews saw
for the church, there are some in your midst. They profess faith,
but they do not possess it. And let’s preach the gospel to
them that they might be snapped out of their wickedness, that
they might come out of their stupor of their self-absorbed,
autonomous way of life, rejecting God, the Father, God, the Son,
God, the Holy Spirit, the gospel of truth, and that they may come
to faith in Jesus. And if you read through this
passage, If you look at these few verses, you will see that
rejection leads to sure and severe judgment. Notice what he says
as you walk through it. The person who offends God in
this way, who outrages the Spirit, who tramples underfoot the Savior
and profanes the covenant of grace, while Christians are enjoying
faith and looking forward to Jesus coming, this person must
only look for judgment. While we are joyfully expecting
the coming of Jesus, this person must sadly Understand that there
is no sacrifice for their sins, that the fury of fire is coming
to consume the adversaries of God. That there is punishment
under the new covenant that is far worse than the punishment
we saw and read of under the old covenant, that God is a God
of vengeance. Vengeance is mine, says God.
I will repay. The Lord will judge. These are
statements that remind us of the terror of falling into the
hands of God. Notice how the final sentence
reads. It is a fearful thing. It is a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of the living God. In other places, in Hebrews,
it’s a wonderful thing to be in the hands of the living God,
by grace, through faith, in Jesus, resting in his promises and his
work of salvation. But for those who hate the truth,
for those who hate Jesus, for those who reject the Holy Spirit,
it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God.
You are his enemy and he is a dangerous adversary. Do not, my friends,
do not shrug God off. So who is God through Hebrews
speaking to here? He’s speaking to those in the
church who have professed faith but do not possess it. And they
are tempted to walk away from the church, to walk away from
the truth, to walk away from the gospel. And the writer of
Hebrews is being so incredibly pastoral here saying, one more
shot, let me give you the gospel again so that you will not do
what will certainly lead to your death and your destruction. The sacrifice of Christ is all
you need. The sacrifice of Christ, according
to the book of Hebrews, is everything. And see, friends, there is hope.
There is hope in the mercy of Christ offering himself freely
for sins. But you see, there is mercy in
God. We sometimes say, how could God be a God who would let someone
go to hell? Well, you know what you have
right here? You have a God who, through the writer of Hebrews
and through your preacher today, who is saying very mercifully,
don’t turn from Jesus. You may have professed him. You
may have become worn out or disinterested in the things of the faith. And
he’s very mercifully saying, you need the sacrifice of Jesus
and nothing else. Friends, God is terrifying, yes.
God is a God of wrath and fury and judgment. In our day and
time, we don’t like to hear that or say that or preach that or
receive that. For those who love God and who
are awaiting His appearing, though, He is gentle. He is gracious. He is kind. He is merciful. And
there is only one reason that we who sit here today by faith
in Jesus can see that side of God. And it’s because of this. It’s because at the cross of
Calvary, Jesus took on the sins of His loved ones. They were
imputed to Him. They were counted against Him. And He died for those sins. And
all the wrath and fury and judgment of Almighty God fell upon Jesus
on the cross. Remember, it was dark. The earth
shook. Tombs were opened. The dead were
raised. It was a scary, eerie time. Because
the wrath of God came on Jesus locally on earth there. And your
sins were laid on Jesus. Your sins were laid on Christ,
our great high priest, our great and sacred head. And all the
terror of God came to him and not you. That ought to encourage us. who
are of faith. Because we do not have to fear
the wrath of God. We do not have to fear the terror
and judgment of God. But for those who do not have
faith in Jesus, they must fear that. They must expect that.
Let me end by saying this to you. My job is simply this. It’s to
assure those, those of you who by faith are resting in Jesus
alone for your salvation, that if you have put your faith and
hope and trust in Him, if you have asked for forgiveness of
sins, it’s my job to assure you over and over and over that you
are Christ and that He loves you and that nothing in this
world, not Satan, not any power, not any principality, nothing
can snatch you from God’s hands. But it is also my job, dear brothers
and sisters, to proclaim to those who are outside the faith that
if you are outside the faith, is a fearful thing to fall into
the hands of the living god and to encourage you to come to faith
in jesus for there is no escape there is no salvation apart from
christ and may god give you grace to see your sin to see the savior
and to lay hold of him by faith and that faith and god’s power
will lead you safely home to heaven and you will not face
the wrath and the fury and the justice of God. Pray with me. Our gracious God, this is a tough
one, but you are powerful, you are gracious, you are merciful,
so may it be clear. Encourage those who are of faith
to know that they are of faith and that Jesus is theirs and
nothing will take them away from your hands, but we pray, Father,
that you would speak into the hearts and minds of those who
do not know you. that they might know you, that
they might come to faith and rejoice in the powerful saving
work of God and forever and ever worship at your footstool because
you have saved them. Help us in this, we do pray in
Jesus name, amen. Let’s stand together as we respond
to this word, a wonderful hymn, Only Trust Him. It’s a hymn that
is helpful to this very topic. you Brothers and sisters of the Lord
Jesus Christ, as you go into the world, as you go to serve
your Savior in your various tasks and vocations and spheres, go
with his blessing, go with his benediction, go knowing that
he wants to equip you to serve him in the world. So look up
now and receive his blessing upon you. The Lord bless you
and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine
upon you and be gracious to you, not to judge you. And the Lord
lift up his countenance upon you. and show his favor upon
you because he loves you. And may he give you peace now
and forever. And may all the children of Christ
Jesus say, amen.