Hebrews chapter 10 beginning at verse we'll pick up at verse 19 and I'm going to read all the way down to verse 31 to set the context again and you can see what the author is doing here in a proper response and then an improper response to all of this so beginning at verse 19 therefore brothers since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is through his flesh and since we have a great priest over the house of god let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near now our text for if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth there no longer remains a sacrifice for our 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 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 trampled underfoot 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 judge his people it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living god and there will end the reading of god's word well one of the great eliminations of the christian faith in our day has to do with the concept and the teaching of eternal judgment. The general approach of Christians today when it comes to this truth is simply to either just avoid it, hoping that it's something that is just not true, and we think the less we talk about it, the other problem is we simply hope to wish the idea away. So this has been one of the most neglected truths of our day to preach and to teach in the Christian church. But the reality is, is the fact that the Scriptures make a very clear statement in case that there will be a judgment day and that there will be eternal judgment that is coming. People will have to stand before the judgment seat of Christ on that great day. And if they are not found in Jesus Christ, They will go to what Jesus says is a place of unending torment. I'll be honest, up front today, I recoil at this teaching. This is really hard to do. I don't like preaching this. I don't know any pastor who's ever liked preaching this. This was what is absolutely hard about Christian ministry today. This is what makes Christian ministry extremely difficult, especially in our day. When you have statements like knowing the terror of God, we persuade men to take this seriously. So the Christian ministry has a pleading function. We plead with people to be reconciled to the Lord. We're greatly concerned about what is coming and about how serious God takes sin and how holy He is. But I know that if the, as a pastor, that if the seriousness of judgment is not set before the people, the Christian faith will not be taken seriously. That's just the consequence of it. That's what we see today. That's why everything's so light and nothing serious about the faith. If the Christian faith and judgment is not set before the people, we will not take our faith seriously. And the gospel will simply not mean that much to us. People will view the church as it's become, as a club and as a social gathering, making worship whatever one wants it to be. It was sad when a survey of Christians was completed and done not so long ago, and the basic question was asked of church-going people, church-going people. What do people need to be saved from? Very few could answer it. there was no no idea that people needed to be saved from the wrath of god because of sin without taking that truth seriously people can be deluded as to what the heart of christianity is all about but anyone who has looks at the scriptures and contemplates very carefully what the message is and what is being said when we do that we come to great conclusions about what the goal of Christian ministry should be. What is the great purpose of Christian ministry? It keeps us honest about the goals of Christian ministry. And maybe that's why the church struggles today with being so off track on mission. We've forgotten what the aim is. We've forgotten the greatest problem for people. And if we've set aside the greatest problem, and if we've not talked about the reality of hell, And we've not talked about the reality of judgment. No wonder we're going to try to save everything else other than people from their sins. So you can live today, think about this, and this is the great goal that is given in addressing this great subject. The great goal is that you would live in confidence of God's love. And that you would have a great confidence that the judgment will not touch you. That's where Hebrews has already continually made this case for us. And it's vitally important because I want you to know that the goal in any presentation of the judgment of God, which is what we're looking at today, is to rescue people from it. You need to know that's always my goal for every single one of you as your pastor that the Lord sent. I don't want to see anyone face this. my prayer for every single one of you, I say that with full sincerity of heart today, every single one of you, because I love you, is that you will stand on that day in God's favor. And that you can live in confidence of that right now. I want you to enjoy that right now. This is what the aim of Christian ministry is doing. I want you to enjoy confidence in this. You are to have that confidence. That's the heart of the matter. That's my heart on the matter. That's the goal of the author here. The goal of the author here in Hebrews that now as he now addresses the strongest passage on apostasy is that nobody would walk it. that nobody would do it that's why he's writing this and as a pastor this is my best efforts by god's grace to keep you from this that you might know today that god is for you for if you have christ and if you have his righteousness you are forgiven and you are loved by god there is however a big problem that we've got to talk about there's a big problem we've got to talk about one that the author now tackles and i hope you see how it's his pastoral way of keeping the flock from the kind of apostasy that is here described there is a certain kind of apostasy that is here described and his goal is to keep every single one of you from it so what the author does here is describe this great problem in order to encourage which is the great end of chapter 10 And I really look forward to that. I think I'll keep this going in the morning for a bit. The encouragement to keep us in enduring, endurance in the Christian faith. That's a great theme at the end of this chapter. To endure, endurance in Jesus Christ, endurance in the faith. That's where this chapter will end before we get to the great hall of faith in chapter 11. So I want to look at this today by looking at the certain kind of apostasy that is here described. you'll notice that he says that there's a certain kind of apostasy and then second that that will result in a certain expectation of judgment all with the goal of encouraging in you a certain kind of endurance in the faith so those are the three points that i'm working with today as we work through hebrews chapter 10 what we considered last sunday was uh this this beautiful passage that outlined for us the proper response to the gospel that's really what it was it was the proper response to the gospel remember what he said something marvelous has now happened in the new covenant in the shedding of christ's blood in the giving of the sacrifice of his son a new and living way has been opened up for us we have direct access to god we join the heavenly realm with worship when we come together to worship we are united together by the spirit being lifted up by the spirit into the heavenly places and worshiping god in the beauty of holiness in spirit and in truth as jesus said we are directly before the face of god you're given access to come with boldness notice that right into the most holy place which could have never been said in the old covenant and there were three proper responses that he said because of this great truth that secured for you there were three kinds of responses that he encouraged us to for those who are forgiven and those who believe the gospel we are to draw near now with a true heart. You don't have to be fake in this. Come. God loves you. God's for you. Come in full assurance of faith. Enjoy assurance. Enjoy your forgiveness. Worship Him in the splendor of holiness. View worship as a blessing. Change your mindset with regard to the church that's naturally in you that fights against this. Come in full assurance of faith. Having your hearts cleansed every week. Think about the beauty of this. Your body's washed with pure water, which is what the gospel brings. As John would say, confess your sins together and he's faithful and just to forgive your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Think of this rhythm of rest and worship. Rest in worship now as we worship on the first day of the week. You get to enjoy that. And you're to maintain, number two, the confession of your hope without wavering. Trusting in God's promises because God is faithful. And God's going to do everything that he said he's going to do. He doesn't go back on his promises. He's faithful to those promises. And stop thinking about yourselves when it comes to worship. Consider others when you get together with the church. even in its variety of different functions. Consider others. Consider their needs. Consider those who hurt. Consider those who are wandering. Consider others other than yourself. And learn to stir up one another to love and good deeds. See those three responsibilities there. That's proper response to the gospel. That's proper sanctification. That's what he wants from you. All with the adage, and don't neglect the meeting together as is the habit of some. Some just don't want to do this in the covenant community. Some don't want to be here. Don't let you do that. Don't you do that. Make this a priority. Make this the most important thing that you do as a Christian. Gathering with the saints. You're a community. You're going to heaven together with these people that God has saved. It's wonderful. Love them. Even when they're quirky. Love them. Now, that was the great outline of proper response to all of this. In this platform, God's given us a platform to exercise these gifts and to love one another and to respond to the gospel this way. But then there's an improper response. It can be deadly to reject all this. The author now launches into the improper responses in response to what Christ has done by bringing us near to him through his blood before the throne of God. And I have to say, this is often a passage that's treated in isolation that can be a scary passage and some have treated it as if salvation could be lost or if we could if we commit knowing sins in our lives we might not be forgiven that misses everything he's doing here and and and we're going to show you i'm going to show you that as we work through this but i want to say up front he's now explaining improper response to all of this a certain kind of response that amounts to a terrible apostasy and his goal again as i said up front is that no one would do this no one would do this look at verse 26 for if we willingly if we sin willfully after we have received a knowledge of the truth so again um up front on that when you're talking about apostles you're talking about knowing the truth and rejecting the truth if we sin willfully after we've received the knowledge of the truth there no longer remains a sacrifice for our sins but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation that will devour the adversary so you're considered an adversary in this if you follow this path now that may be one of the most sobering verses in all the bible what he just described well is is important here to understand and to wrestle with and to think through it's very important and let me say up front what he's not describing is that if we commit any kind of willful sin in our lives we might lose salvation and face judgment that that's not at all what he's describing all of us commit willful sin let me say that up front all of us commit willful sin most a lot of sin in your life is willful sin david uh prayed in psalm 19 keep me from willful sins i do them he did that with basheba He's speaking of a distinction that was raised back in the law, in the book of Numbers, of intentional and unintentional sins. And he's not describing, you'll notice here, it's a certain kind of persistent willful sin he has in mind. What is it? He's not describing the believer's struggle against sin. We're not Romans 7 here. you all have struggles and fights against sin in your life you all have your particular sins that you fight against and at times you find yourself giving into willfully and it's shameful and you hate it you hate it in fact romans 7 describes that as the regenerate man often finding himself doing the things that he does not now desire and you'll know that struggle when you sin you hate what you've done that's why there's a roller coaster of of what the old theologians called concupiscence of sin when the desires rage against us and we fall into it and then we come back out of it and we face all the guilt and shame of it when the sin is abated we we we feel all the guilt and shame and we immediately turn back to the lord you know that that struggle you didn't do it with a whole heart there's a kind of double man struggle within us that in the spirit you love righteousness you love truth you love what the god's law says but in the sinful nature you at times find yourselves doing that what you hate that's not this that that is not this he is describing a certain kind of person in the covenant community we're looking inside here We're looking in-house here. That's why the passage ended with judgment begins in the house of God. That emphasis there. This is what makes this particular sin so heinous. Because it comes with a knowledge of the truth. It comes with those who know the truth. Who maybe have been raised in the truth. Think about what we were challenged with last week. Because of Christ's great atoning work, you've been given access. You've been given access and privilege of worship and loving the brethren and serving one another in faith, hope, and love as we looked at. I challenge you to make worship the supreme purpose and one of the great purposes of your life as a redeemed status and your redeemed status to worship the Lord and make that important in your life. That's a proper response to the Gospel. But he's raised concerns along the way in Hebrews in the covenant community. What has he raised? He's had certain warnings in the book. But don't harden your heart like the children of Israel in the wilderness. And there are some who just are never going on to maturity in this. They are just on milk and they don't grow ever. Those were warnings he gave. But now we come to a certain kind of warning. Let me ask a question. How did you respond last week to those challenges? Isn't it interesting that this warning comes right after a challenge to love the church? To appreciate the access you have. To consider the great cost that was made for you to be here. To stir up one another to love and good works. To don't forsake the assembling together. Isn't it interesting this comes right after that? How did you respond to that when you were challenged? Was it one of complete indifference? What he is describing, as one pastor observed, is somebody who deliberately persists in a certain kind of sin. A conscious expression of an attitude that displays contempt for God and his son and the privilege that is given to worship him because of his blood. the ground upon which a true heart sincere heart and someone who is sincere will be witnessed in how they respond to the great blessing of being able to come because of christ's sacrifice into the most holy place as we've been considering and to have this kind of access and worship among the people of God in his body and to consider that sacrifice, to consider the gospel, to consider what it took to make you right with God. That is such an amazing truth. The person he's talking about is one who doesn't care at all. Deep in their heart, because God knows the heart. God reads every heart here. There's no faith. And the attitude to all of this at the end of the day is that one despises it. They hate God. It is indeed talking about a kind of response to the preaching of the gospel. After hearing all this, so great a salvation that the prophets long to see, there remains in the heart of this kind of person a disdain for what this is about a disdain for jesus a contempt for the marvelous privilege in light of all that christ has done this is where some of the early Hebrews were they were turning away from the sacrifice of christ and in their hearts deep within their hearts they thought no they might not say it to anyone they could put on the show they were living as those who had abandoned the confession altogether they were looking back to the sacrificial system and saying you know that's a much better way the sin showed itself in contempt for the work of christ contempt for the church contempt for his worship and rejecting it as the only way now the writer here says something hard for us and so we move to the second point this is no game when you have this kind of contempt for jesus christ turning away from him like this after receiving a knowledge of the truth it's it's as if he says listen there's no mistake mistaking the consequence of this notice what he says there is a certain expectation, this is the Lord's Word, of judgment and fiery indignation that will devour the person. Jesus was clear about hell as a place of unending torment where the fire is not quenched and the worm dies not. It's awful. It's awful. It gives three reasons for this. Such a person tramples the Son of God underfoot. They've made the sacrifice of Jesus of no importance. They've treated the blood of the covenant as defiled, nothing. They've completely held with disdain the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. They've insulted the Spirit of grace. Notice that. They've outraged Him. whose work is to bear witness to the son apostates like this as one pastor said have chosen to embrace worldliness in preference to the community in their lives the sacred has been collapsed into the profane this is apostasy to know the truth to have received the truth and to hold the truth with contempt having a disdain for christ that shows evidence in a disdain for the church and the sacrificial work that he did no real conviction about worship it's just not there the author says listen if um if the law of moses was rejected at the testimony of two or three witnesses that's how the truth was established of a matter if the law of reject was rejected of moses this way and it took two or three witnesses how much worse of a judgment will this kind of contempt of christ bring for those in the new covenant now I think this has a lot to do with what Paul said before the second coming that there will be a great apostasy I was talking with someone after the sermon last week and it was interesting discussion one of the greatest difficulties as we were talking about of ministering in our times is that when it comes what you generally have today when it comes to the church and talking about the church uh is is is that for a lot of people it just doesn't really matter it just doesn't matter that's the day of which we live and and what we see is this sort of flagrant rejection of christ and the church i think it's helpful to reiterate in light of this the pastoral concern here He's not saying, as if to say, there's no way of deliverance of those who are walking this path. He's writing to inspire repentance. He's writing to pull people off this path. And I thought Richard Phillips gave a really helpful story to this that is so relevant. I want to rehearse it here. He said in his ministry, he had a young woman in his congregation. When she went off to college, she joined the unbelieving crowd. And soon after, she no longer believed in Christianity. She believed it was all false. She started reading all the great philosophers. She started reading Nietzsche. She started reading all these guys and came to the conclusion that Christianity was stupid and that the whole thing was a farce. And again, so she fell into this belief. She later attended the wedding where Richard Phillips was officiating and told him of her pathway away from Christ. And he said, so he sat down with her and she wanted to talk to him. And he said, tell me, I want to ask you a question. Which came first? Your descent into sin or these philosophical convictions? who got right to the issue, didn't he? Was it philosophy that persuaded you of sin or the sin that persuaded you of the philosophy? She broke down in tears right in front of him. Admitting that atheism had gripped her only after she had fallen badly into sin. and she said, well, I guess I'm now just an apostate and there's no hope for me. And he said, I have a question, a few questions for you. Have you renounced Jesus Christ? Can you do that now? Can you say that he's not the Son of God and that he did not die upon a cross for sinners? Do you repudiate Jesus Christ? If you can do that in front of me right now, I agree you're damned. She couldn't. And he started all over with her. And she turned back to Christ. She had backslidden. She was not an apostate. Understand that difference? What Hebrews is describing is apostasy. Someone who knows the truth, rejects it, has never been saved, even if they grew up in the church, and in their heart they've always repudiated Christ and his church. And you see the emphasis here in verse 22, so important of why he challenged us to draw near with what? A true heart. Be sincere. Believe this. We believe what Jesus has done for us. And we respond to that love by loving his church. Loving his people he died for. We hold fast our hope that we're going to glory. And we maintain the confession of that hope without wavering. See, what the author does here, and we're going to spend time on this next time, which I wanted to do, but I don't want to rush too fast through it, is that he wants to pastorally encourage them to endurance in all this hardship. Look at all the ideologies that are coming at us. Think of all the hardship that's now we're being faced with. This is what they were faced with in the first century. In the next chapter, he's going to say, some of you had your property taken from you for being Christians. Can you imagine that? The evidence of true faith is shown in endurance when things get hard. Endurance. But really, beloved, what are people fighting against? I mean, think about this just for a minute. What is our message? It's the best news that could ever be given. I mean it. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not what? Perish but have everlasting eternal life. On the Abounding Grace page the other day we posted an article on sin and somebody wrote in right on the page for everyone to see religion is not benign. It can cause depression, guilt complex, anxiety, and fear. I think that's how people look at Christianity today. What we're doing when we're talking about sin and judgment is just to create that in people, try to control people. That's how they view us today. Try to control people by making them miserable in sin and control them to give money. Well, if you choose to hate Jesus and you choose to hate his church, this message will trouble you when we address sin. It should. It should cause great distress in your life. But when you realize that God has made known the work of his son in order to save and to deliver and to give you peace of conscience and to live in full assurance of faith with a true heart and worship so that you're not going to face judgment on that day and that there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, then you are overwhelmed to see and understand how great the love is of God in Christ and the release and freedom that He's won for you so that you get to enjoy in this life reconciliation and peace. that takes away every bit of stress that matters. This is the greatest news that could be given. And he's calling you today to faith in it. At the end of this warning, the author is most concerned to press them to endurance in living by faith in Christ and all that he's accomplished. And so notice what he says at the very end. We're going to come back to this next time. if anyone draws back my soul has no pleasure in him but listen to the pastoral encouragement at the very end of this chapter but we are not of those who draw back to perdition but of those who believe to the saving of the soul the evidence of endurance in the christian faith will be seen in a true heart that enjoys the assurance of faith that lives in maintaining that hope and in loving our brethren as we making the gather ring together of the saints a great priority in our lives what is god announcing to you that christ was given to you and that when he comes again as we eagerly wait for him he's not coming to punish you for your sins that was the end of chapter 9 he's coming to take you to glory he's coming to give you the free gift the promise that he's eager to give you don't fear little flock what did jesus say it's my father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom Only those who have not been given new hearts and who despise Him would view Jesus Christ as a burden. Would view the gift as a burden. Would view His worship as a burden. The gift of the very Son of God who became one of us to bring us true joy and the remission of sins is the greatest message that could have ever been given to us. And he's calling us to endure in that, to persevere in that through the difficulty, and to remember who you are. When you've been saved by the blood of Christ, you are forgiven. It is finished, said Jesus. So live in the joy of that comfort. And if there are any today who are considering apostasy, don't do it. Think about what's being said to you. And return to the joy of your salvation. Who is the Lord? Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, thank you for your mercies to us and thank you for instructing us in the truth. And thank you that you care as difficult as these warnings are to keep your flock, to uphold them, to give them endurance by your grace. We pray for those, Lord, who have walked paths in backsliding. We pray that you would, as we considered that girl, bring them home and that you'd be merciful for those who may be of our family and friends who have backslidden. And if there be any walking a path of apostasy, that they would stop this day and return and see oh lord how wonderful salvation is in jesus christ give us true hearts all of us so that no one will face this judgment thank you for proclaiming the gospel to us this day in jesus name we pray amen