Text: Heb 10:26-29, Title: Afraid? Should Be, Date/Place: NRBC, 8/21/11, AM
A. Opening illustration:
B. Background to passage: the writer has given us the first three of five warnings in the sermon, and here is number four. After the passionate declaration of the superiority of Christ in all things, he has turned to practical application again. He is a powerful preacher with a urgent and grave truth. He doesn’t simply want to give a theological treatise or an academic exercise in doctrine, he is preaching for a decision. And because he knows the terror of the Lord, he attempts to bring that truth to bear on those that may be wavering.
C. Main thought: is the warning against apostasy, and the fear that God instills; so three truths to fear
A. Scared of Willful Sin (v. 26-27)
1. In dealing with the church of the Hebrews, the preacher is dealing with a mixed bag. Some that profess Christ, some that don’t; some that are really saved, some that aren’t; but all are calling the church their church. The warning he sounds is to be afraid of willful sin. The word for willful is placed at the very first of the sentence for emphasis. There is a difference in the OT for how intentional and unintentional sin is dealt with. Sin that is presumptuous (knowing that it’s wrong, and doing it anyway) is punished by death. And the preacher says that if one continues to deliberately sin, there is no sacrifice for them. It puts one in danger of sure fiery judgment that consumes the enemies of God. It calls them adversaries!
2. Argumentation
3. Illustration: little white lies, not questioning the ability of God to forgive, just saying that when the provisions that have been made for that forgiveness are rejected with full knowledge, the benefits of the atonement do not apply, and the only alterative is to grant them the wages they have earned and asked for: judgment
4. This should really scare us for our own souls. We take sin so lightly. And the truth is that we very rarely examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith. This verse should make a really consider our ease in purposefully sinning and the consequences it brings, and the truth that it reveals about us. And even if we are convinced that we truly give evidence of genuine conversion, the simply violence that is promised toward those who blatantly sin should be enough to examine our hearts.
B. Scared of Apostasy (v. 28-29)
1. Apostasy is when one with a full knowledge of Christianity, turns from it. This can be “believers” or unbelievers who understand the gospel and reject it. Look at the characteristics of those who fit the apostate mold: they trample Jesus underfoot, count the blood as common, and insult the Spirit of Grace. The “trampling” here means to treat with utter disdain, to count as worthless. So they are taking the greatest Treasure in the world, and spitting on it, and declaring it contemptible. Counting the blood of the covenant common means that after having evaluating the blood of Christ as a saving measure, decided that there is nothing special about it, and deemed it unworthy and unable to save, and unfit for sacrifice (spotted rather than spotless). “They drank the cup of the new covenant, said, "Nice juice," and went away to sin , as if it were not the most precious reality in the universe.” Insulting the Spirit would be telling the Spirit “no” after conviction and leading. After the Spirit speaks to them, they have judged Him a liar. This is very much akin to the unpardonable sin of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Basically they have understood, but rejected the good news of Christ. And it is a fate worse than physical death.
2. John 8:31, 1 John 2:19, Heb 6:4-8,
3. Illustration: Steve from the Grace to You program who after 10 years of full-time ministry had written in for them to remove him off the mailing list because the trinity were nothing but fables, and now he is living in the real world. Rick Nelson, “Confrontation is one of the highest expressions of love. When done is love and compassion, confrontation of one of the kindest things you can do for another person. A refusal to confront when needed is one of the most selfish things that you can do. The parent who says, “I love my child too much to discipline him,” says in reality, “I love myself too much to discipline, confrontation is too difficult for me.”
4. This is a truth that scares us for our future, but more so for those in our circle of family and friends. Each one of us can probably name someone that you know, who exhibited some initial evidence of change or commitment in their life upon making a profession of faith, but today is not walking with the Lord. This begs for an explanation. And it can’t be because they have lost their salvation. Although many groups have gone to this theology based on experience rather than bible. Can’t always tell apostasy from severe stumbling. So we must seek diligently to recover the apostates! We must warn those who seem to be headed down that road.
C. Scared of a Wrathful God (v. 30-31)
1. The final thing we note in the text is that we may be scared of God. The thing that we see in the text numerous times is the wrath of an all-powerful God. This is abundantly clear throughout, but summarized in the final verse with the word “terrifying.”
2. Ezek 8:18, Isa 63:3,
3. Illustration: “For most people today, God, if he is there at all, is there to thank after a close call and to question after a tragedy…Most people today do not tremble at the power and wrath and judgment of God. He is a good old boy. Or a coddling father. Or a doting friend. But rarely a raging fire of indignation and holy anger at sin…The love of God provides escape from the wrath of God by sacrificing the Son of God to vindicate the glory of God in forgiving sinners. That's the gospel. The Gospel of Jesus Christ , the essence of Christianity , makes no sense at all apart from the wrath of God. If there is no wrath and no judgment to escape, then Christ was sacrificed in vain…So we need to hear this text and do a reality check on our view of God. Terrifying expectation of judgment . . . fury of fire . . . consume the adversaries . . . rendering punishment worse than death . . . repaying vengeance . . . with terrifying hands. That too is the truth about God.” -Piper
4. We have very little real fear of God. We really don’t think He disciplines His children or that He punishes with burning fire, pain, and darkness for eternity. We don’t think that He is that offended or that worthy. God will get you. And I don’t say that with smugness or self-righteousness, but as a warning to bolster your fear of God. It is the beginning of wisdom. And to understand our need for grace, we must understand God’s wrath against sin. If we all have a soft, mushy picture of God, our picture of Him is deficient, and less than He really is.
A. Closing illustration:
B. Recap
C. Invitation to commitment
Additional Notes
• The efficacy of the sacrifice of the Saviour has not been exhausted by him, but he has deliberately and scornfully rejected it, so that for him it has no longer any atoning or saving power.
• So that it is not because God is unmindful of their wickedness, and does not resent it, that he does not let loose his hand and cut them off. God is not altogether such an one as themselves, though they may imagine him to be so. The wrath of God burns against them, their damnation does not slumber; the pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot, ready to receive them; the flames do now rage and glow. The glittering sword is whet, and held over them, and the pit hath opened its mouth under them. The devil stands ready to fall upon them, and seize them as his own, at what moment God shall permit him…So that, thus it is that natural men are held in the hand of God, over the pit of hell; they have deserved the fiery pit, and are already sentenced to it; and God is dreadfully provoked, his anger is as great towards them as to those that are actually suffering the executions of the fierceness of his wrath in hell, and they have done nothing in the least to appease or abate that anger, neither is God in the least bound by any promise to hold them up one moment; the devil is waiting for them, hell is gaping for them, the flames gather and flash about them, and would fain lay hold on them, and swallow them up; the fire bent up in their own hearts is struggling to break out: and they have no interest in any Mediator, there are no means within reach that can be any security to them. In short, they have no refuge, nothing to take hold of; all that preserves them every moment is the mere arbitrary will, and uncovenanted, unobliged forbearance of an incensed God.
There are black clouds of God's wrath now hanging directly over your heads, full of the dreadful storm, and big with thunder; and were it not for the restraining hand of God, it would immediately burst forth upon you. The sovereign pleasure of God, for the present, stays his rough wind; otherwise it would come with fury, and your destruction would come like a whirlwind, and you would be like the chaff of the summer threshing floor.
The wrath of God is like great waters that are damned for the present; they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is given; and the longer the stream is stopped, the more rapid and mighty is its course, when once it is let loose. It is true, that judgment against your evil works has not been executed hitherto; the floods of God's vengeance have been withheld; but your guilt in the mean time is constantly increasing, and you are every day treasuring up more wrath; the waters are constantly rising, and waxing more and more mighty; and there is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, that holds the waters back, that are unwilling to be stopped, and press hard to go forward. If God should only withdraw his hand from the flood-gate, it would immediately fly open, and the fiery floods of the fierceness and wrath of God, would rush forth with inconceivable fury, and would come upon you with omnipotent power; and if your strength were ten thousand times greater than it is, yea, ten thousand times greater than the strength of the stoutest, sturdiest devil in hell, it would be nothing to withstand or endure it.
The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood. Thus all you that never passed under a great change of heart, by the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon your souls; all you that were never born again, and made new creatures, and raised from being dead in sin, to a state of new, and before altogether unexperienced light and life, are in the hands of an angry God. However you may have reformed your life in many things, and may have had religious affections, and may keep up a form of religion in your families and closets, and in the house of God, it is nothing but his mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction.
The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you were suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.
O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you have no interest in any Mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment.
