Warning & Encouragement
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[00:00:00] If you would please turn in your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10, and we are gonna read verses 26 through the end of the chapter. So Hebrews chapter 10, verses 26 to 31. Actually, we're gonna start in verse 25 because that's the springboard verse, and I'll explain as we get started. But if you're able, if you would please stand for the reading of God's Word, and I would ask that you hear this for what it is.
And again, as I've said so many times, it's so easy to take this for granted. This is the words of the living God. These are the words that God used men, but He wrote them. These are His words. These are the words He wanted us to have. So hear this for what it is. Beginning in verse 25, "Not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
For if we go on sinning willfully after we [00:01:00] receive the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin, but a terrifying expectation, expectation of judgment, and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries. Anyone who sets aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.
How much severe punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who has said, 'Vengeance is Mine, I will repay.' And again, 'The Lord will judge His people.'
It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But remember the former days when you, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of suffering, partly by being made a public spectacle through the reproaches and [00:02:00] 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 and a lasting one. Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, 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, but of those who have faith to the persevering of the soul." May God add a blessing to the reading, the hearing, but most importantly, obedience to His Word.
Please be seated
So as [00:03:00] I was going over my notes this morning, I made the decision I'm gonna have to cut this in half. So my regular routine is I write out my sermon, and then I read through it, cut it in half, and then I read through it, cut it in half again. So this is just another half. And, uh, I hate doing it because I don't wanna take forever to get through a particular book.
Reformed pastors are known for this. So I, I saw a meme the other day, and it was a newspaper article in a, a church in Texas, and they were celebrating the pastor finally completed his 40-year teaching through the Book of Romans. And when the pastor got to the 27th verse of chapter 16, which is the last verse by the way, he was stressing out three months into it because he didn't wanna cut it short, but he figured it'd be good for the congregation.
So I don't wanna be that guy, uh, but I don't wanna skip what's important, and there is so much in this portion of Scripture. So I figured I'd cut it in half and, and we'd take our time. But our portion of Scripture, I mentioned it springboards off [00:04:00] of Hebrews 10:25. And if you remember last week, we looked and beginning, I believe it's in the 22nd verse, we are commanded to draw near, and we're commanded to draw near with confidence.
And God gives us six ways in which we draw near. With confidence, we draw near with a sincere heart. We draw near in full assurance of faith. We draw near knowing that our hearts have been sprinkled clean and our bodies washed, a picture of regeneration. We draw near by holding fast our confession of hope.
We draw near by moting-- motivating each other to love and good deeds. And finally, we draw near by not forsaking our assembling together. Now, apparently it was a habit of some in the church to do that, but instead we should encourage each other all the more as the day draws near. And just a couple of things that I wanna point out from that verse.
Number one, you cannot be an island. If you're a Christian and you think you [00:05:00] can do this on your own, you are committing spiritual suicide. You cannot do this on your own. You were not designed to be on your own. We were created to be social creatures. We were created to worship together. You are not an island, and church is important.
Number two, and guys, this is especially directed to you, maybe wives, I don't know, but we need encouragement. We need encouragement. And the reason I bring up guys is we tend to think that we don't. We tend to think that we don't need relationships, that we don't need, you know, a bunch of other guys to hang around with, that, you know, I can do it on my own.
I, I, I gotta be honest with you, I, I fight that. I like my wife. I like hanging out with her. I could spend the rest of my life just hanging out with Stacy. That would drive her crazy
We need relationships. We need to be in relationships. And one of the many [00:06:00] reasons we need relationships is because we need to encourage one another. We need encouragement. Wives, your husbands need your encouragement more than anything else. They need to know that you respect them. They need to know that you love them.
They need to know that you trust them. They're not gonna tell you that, but we need it. We need encouragement. And interestingly enough, our author goes from don't neglect coming to church, and I, I spelled that out last week. I gave you the reasons why I think that's exactly what he's talking about, that weekly first day of the week gathering to worship and break bread, go to the table.
And he says we need that, and in part we need it because of encouragement, and then he goes immediately into a warning passage. He goes immediately into a passage, and he warns us about apostasy, walking away from the faith. And I think the principle there, and I brought that out last week, but I wanna emphasize it again, is that's what happens when you're [00:07:00] not part of a community, when you try to live this Christian life as if you were an island.
You can't do it. So look at verse twenty-six. And number one on your outline, and in your bulletin there's a couple of different things, but one of them is a fill-in-the-blank sermon outline, and number one on your outline is warning. Willful sin. Willful sin Verse 26: For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin.
So a couple of things about willful sinning, and you might-- this hopefully jumps off the page at you, but two immediate things is it's an ongoing sin, and maybe that jumps off your translation, maybe it doesn't, but the Greek is very specific. It is an ongoing sin. It is a lifestyle of sin. But the second adjective here is, actually it's an adverb, but it's willful sin.[00:08:00]
This is not accidental. This is not struggling with a sin. This is not falling on your knees on a regular basis, "God, why do I keep falling into this?" This is a willful, I don't care, deliberate, intentional sin. And contextually in our book, these men, and I'm sure there were women too, there were wives, but as I told you before, and I, I think it'll, it'll play a role in this chapter, I believe this was a group of Hebrew priests, former priests who served at the temple, and now they're thinking about going back to the temple, going back to the old sacrificial ways.
And that would've been intentional, and that would've been willful. And the Bible makes a distinction. You don't need to go there, but if you write down Numbers 15, Numbers chapter 15, the 27th verse through the 31st verse. But the Bible makes a distinction between sins of ignorance and high-handed sins.
And high-handed sins are condemned, and this is what the author is talking about here, willful [00:09:00] sins. In fact, early in the book, the author in, uh, chapter five, verse two, talked about the ignorant and the misguided And if we sin, it should be out of ignorance. If we sin, it should be out of being misguided.
If we sin, it should be because we're struggling with this and we're seeking help with it. But here we're talking about high-handed sins The book of Proverbs gives us an illustration of, uh, high-handed sins. Again, you don't need to go there, you can write this down, but Proverbs chapter 2, and I'm not gonna read the whole thing, but beginning in verse 14, Solomon describes it this way: "The wicked one, the one who sins high-handed, high-handedly delights in doing evil, rejoices in the perversity of evil.
Those whose paths are quicket, and who-- crooked, and who are devious in their ways." And he ends that proverb, "So you who walk in the way of good men and keep the paths of righteousness. So you [00:10:00] will walk in the ways of good men and keep the paths of righteousness, for the upright will live in the land, and the blameless will remain in it, but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be uprooted from it."
And I make this point because so often, uh, I, I meet with people all the time, and they're struggling about their sin, and they're worried about it. And, and here's what I wanna say. If you're worried about your sin, it's not high-handed This is intentional disobedience. This is I want to disobey and so I will disobey.
The second thing that I wanna point out is they did this after receiving the knowledge of the truth. You see, they did this after responding to Christ. And I think about the parable of the sower. I'm sure you're familiar with the parable of the sower. The seed is the word of God. The sower goes out and he throws the seed out and it lands on four different soils.
Two-- I'm sorry, three out of the four respond immediately, [00:11:00] but two fall away. And if we put the parable of the sower together with the rest of scripture, what we find out is only one soil, only one group of people had true saving faith. James talks about it in chapter two. Jesus talks about it and we'll return to the story of the vine and abiding in Him.
You see, the others had what theologians will call historical faith, temporary faith, what I like to refer to as conditional faith. God, you make my life easy, I'll follow you. But only one soil continued to follow. Only one soil continued to obey and strive to serve Christ. So just keep in mind, the sin that we're talking about here, this willful sin, is a sin that takes place after a response to Jesus Christ, after an initial confession of faith, and we've talked about that in the past.
And then thirdly The author says there no longer [00:12:00] remains a sacrifice for sin. And sadly, some people will go to this verse to demonstrate how you could lose your salvation. And the idea is you could sin in such a way that you could make Jesus' sacrifice ineffective, ineffectual for yourself. And that's not what the author is saying.
The author is simply saying, if you walk away from this sacrifice, if your faith is not in the work of Jesus Christ, there's nothing left. And we won't get to it today, but I hinted at it a couple of weeks ago. I, I believe with all of my heart that this book was written sometime near the end of the sixties AD.
What happened in seventy AD? Jesus, I believe, if you look at the Old Testament, Jesus came, not the second coming. I'm not talking about his coming at the end of time. But Yahweh, just like multiple times in the Old Testament, came in the whirlwind, and he punished the old covenant people. He destroyed, using the Roman army, he destroyed [00:13:00] Israel.
He destroyed the temple. He removed all vestiges of the old covenant system. And I think the author is hinting at it. You reject this sacrifice, yeah, you may return to the temple, but its time is limited. There's no sacrifice that matches up to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. So we're talking about willful sin.
We're talking about sin after responding to the gospel, and we're talking about a kind of hopelessness if you walk away from the gospel. Verse twenty-seven. What's left? A terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries. Now, I was thinking about this, and I don't know, and you don't have to answer this outside, but have you-- out loud, but have you ever been terrified?
And this, this Greek word for terrifying expectation of judgment, it's a word that means terrible or horrifying. Have [00:14:00] you ever been horrified? You see, I've been scared a couple of times in my life. I have felt like, you know, I might lose my life today a couple of times in my life, but I've never really been horrified.
And I don't know if you've ever experienced... I will say this, I don't think any of us can experience this before we stand before God. But the author is painting a picture here of what it looks like to be judged by God and not be in Christ Jesus. It is terrifying. It is horrifying. And if you reject the sacrifice, if you reject the finished work of Jesus Christ, that is your only expectation, and it is a sure expectation A terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.
And I wanna translate the second half of that verse a little bit differently. I, I-- It's a little closer to the original, and I think it brings it out. And what he says is, instead of fury of fire, it's the intense [00:15:00] jealousy of a fire about to eat the hostiles, about to eat the adversaries. It is a fearful picture.
And if you think about it, uh, the Book of Proverbs describes a jealous man, and a jealous man is a dangerous man, and that's the word used there, a jealous fire, a jealous judgment The Father being jealous of His Son's dignity. And what we have here, although the, the author doesn't put it this way, but it's very clear, we have here the doctrine of judgment and hell.
And I'm not gonna go into a lot of detail, but I do wanna say at least three things about judgment and hell, because I think we need to be reminded, and when you understand the words of the original, he is trying to graphically remind his readers Jesus is the only way. He's already spent nine chapters describing the superiority of Christ, [00:16:00] describing the effectual work of Christ, ex- describing the finished work, the completed work of Christ, who is now in heaven, seated like no other high priest, ruling and reigning.
And now he's trying to paint a graphic picture of what happens if you reject Him, and it is a picture of hell, a consuming fire, a jealous fire that will consume, that will eat the adversary. Number one on hell, hell is frightening and real. The doctrine of hell is frightening, and it is real, and it ought to disturb us.
If you're not sure you're in Christ, it ought to scare you. It really should And it's not wrong when somebody uses that doctrine to, as they say, put the fear of God in you. But it should scare you believer sitting here, because how many of us have family members that aren't in Christ? When's the last [00:17:00] time we talked to them about Christ?
The doctrine of hell is frightening, and it is real, and it ought to disturb us. Number two, it is eternal. And I don't know if you follow the different internet debates and stuff, but there's a debate going online right now with some popular folks because they're, they're asking the question, is hell eternal?
And just, just a warning, just a, I don't know, warning and encouragement. It is not wrong to ask questions. Sometimes we don't ask them the right way, but it's good to ask questions and then dig into Scripture and see what it says. But Scripture is clear. Hell is eternal. In Matthew twenty-five, the forty-first verse, and this is where Jesus is separating the goats and the sheep.
And he says in verse forty-one, "Then he will also say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, accursed ones.'" And literally that word accursed means loathed. "Depart from me, you loathed ones, [00:18:00] and depart into eternal," and that's a common word in the New Testament for eternity, for never-ending. "Depart from me into the eternal fire that has been prepared for the devil and his angels."
And then at the end of the story in verse forty-six, "These will go away into eternal punishment." Same word, never-ending, everlasting punishment, and this word for punishment has to do with retribution, payback for sin. It brings to the, the attention, this word itself brings to the attention suffering and pain due to chastisement.
Hell is real. It is frightening, and it is real, and ought to disturb us, and it is eternal. And there are so many other verses we could refer to. We read about it in Daniel chapter 12, in Revelation chapter 14 and 20. And last but not least, the doctrine of judgment and hell should motivate us. It should motivate us in our obedience.[00:19:00]
It should motivate us in our love, first for Jesus Christ, because He has saved me from that fate. I didn't earn it. I don't deserve it. I was a passive participant, and the Lord Jesus Christ, God Almighty, Yahweh, the second person became incarnate, experienced what theologians call a humiliation So that he could save a worm like me The doctrine of hell and judgment should motivate me to be obedient, it should motivate me to love, and it should motivate me to evangelism.
And so again, I would simply ask you and, and think about it this week, when's the last time you shared your faith? Because we live in a world that needs it. I-- And don't get me wrong, I still get nervous when it comes to talking to people. I wanna be liked. I don't wanna be offensive. And I used to say the gospel offends.
I don't say that anymore. Sinners are offended [00:20:00] by the gospel. The gospel is not offensive. It is loving and it is gracious. But we need to get over that fear. We need to get over that hesitation because people are going to an eternal hell
And then he gives an illustration from the Old Testament in verse twenty-eight. Anyone who has set aside the law of M-Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Without mercy. That's the description of fire eating. You see, judgment is without mercy. Judgment is just, but it is without mercy.
We get mercy. Jesus takes our judgment, and the interesting thing about God and the thing we need to keep in mind is God never ignores justice. It's not like God chose to forgive us by ignoring justice. No, Jesus went to the cross, and Jesus received the justice due us, and so we get mercy But it's interesting because he also refers to, "They die without mercy on the [00:21:00] testimony of two or three witnesses."
And I'm not gonna go there, well, I might in a minute, but Deuteronomy 17 is the hyperlink. And for those of you that have been coming for a while, that's the Old Testament passage in the mind of the author. And it's interesting, if you go back and you read Deuteronomy 7, all the sins that are talked about there are high-handed sins.
Idolatry, hating God. They're high-handed sins, and so this is the hyperlink, and so people die without mercy. But here's the part that I wanna remind you of, "On the testimony of two or three witnesses." You see, I've shared this with you before, accusations fly in the church. I can't tell you, uh, the accusations I've heard against me, against others, they fly in the church.
And what most people forget is you're supposed to have two or three witnesses, and if you don't have two or three [00:22:00] witnesses, there should not be an accusation. You see, sometimes in church settings, we get into, and you'll all understand this, we get into a he said, she said situation, and we don't have witnesses.
And what a Christian should do in that situation, he said, she said, we go to the other person like we're taught in Matthew. We confront the other person, but if the other person doesn't respond or the other person thinks, "No, I have not sinned against you," guess what a Christian does without witnesses? We drop it.
We drop it, and we trust God. But we go even further. We drop it, we trust God, and we do what Paul says in Philippians chapter 2, and we treat others as more important than ourselves. That doesn't mean you can't set boundaries. That doesn't mean you can't protect yourself. That doesn't mean you can't use common sense.
But we trust God because God has set up a system Verse 29. And in verse [00:23:00] 29, the author uses an, an argument from the lesser to the greater. So in verse 29, he says, "How much severe punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?"
And kids, I skipped your first few questions, but on your outline, kids, there's a question about this passage. So there's some fill in the blanks there. There was a, a question earlier about sin in, in 1 John and, and how he defines sin. But, uh, couple of things. How much severe punishment do you think he will deserve?
And again, in logic, that's called a lesser to the, to the, the greater argument. And what he's saying is, if people in the Old Testament got punished under the law of Moses, and if Jesus is superior to Moses, wouldn't the punishment be greater now? Is it wise to walk away from Christ? Is it smart to walk away from Christ?
Would it not be [00:24:00] dangerous to walk away from Christ? And here's what I want you to catch if you haven't caught it. The author is pleading. When you evangelize, do you plead? Do you, do you beg? There, there's passages in the scripture where you could translate the word beg. Beg men to bow the knee to Christ.
Do you plead with people? Because that's what the author is doing here. He's going out of his way to, to lay things on the table, to plead with these men and women, "Don't turn away from Christ Jesus." There's three things that these people do. Remember, they've been enlightened. They've heard the gospel.
They've had an initial response, and the first thing they do, and kids, this is on your outline, they trample underfoot the Son of God. They trample underfoot the Son of God. This phrase, Son of God, has been used three other times in the Book of Hebrews, and when the author uses it, he emphasizes the deity and the superiority of Christ.[00:25:00]
You see, to walk, to respond to Jesus Christ and then to walk away is to say, "You're not God." And I no longer honor you, and I no longer respect you, and I don't recognize your deity And we have quote-unquote religions that do that from the beginning. Mormonism, Jehovah Witnesses, Islam, modern-day Judaism, they all deny the deity of Jesus Christ, and so they are damnable religions.
They're cults. They are false religions. And to walk away from Christ is to deny His deity. Secondly, they regard as unclean the blood of the covenant by which they were sanctified. So we gotta break that in two. The first thing is they regard as unclean the blood of the covenant. They deny the finished and the perfect work of Jesus Christ.
That's what they're doing. You see, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ isn't gonna work. I need to go back to these animal [00:26:00] sacrifices. I deny that Jesus is God, and now I deny that His sacrifice is even worthwhile, that the sacrifices, the death of goats and bulls and animals are more significant than His. And again, we have faiths that practice this.
Catholics deny the finished work of Christ. That's why in, in their mass, they reoffer the sacrifice week after week, day after day. The Orthodox deny the finished work of Jesus Christ. And here's the frightening thing. Some evangelical churches come dangerously close to denying the finished work of Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the perfect Savior, and to walk away from Him is to deny that. But it's interesting because the way the author describes it, he says they regard as unclean the blood of the covenant by which they were sanctified, and we've talked about this a couple of times. And a lot of people will come to this verse and see [00:27:00] they believed in Jesus, they were enlightened, they responded, and they were sanctified.
Therefore, these are people that lost their salvation. And if you come to that conclusion, it contradicts the rest of the book. It contradicts John chapter six that we'll get to momentarily. Jesus loses nothing that the Father gives Him. So what is being said here? And if you look in your bulletin, there's another handout, and on the top of it, I summarized a chart that I gave you a couple of weeks ago on the different uses of this Greek word sanctified.
And literally what this word means, it means to be set apart. In some sense, you're set apart. Another translation would be to be made holy, which means, again, to be set apart. And I shared with you that there are four uses in Scripture of this word sanctified. There's initial or definitive sanctification, and that's kind of a picture of the entire Christian life in a snapshot, but it's when you become saved.[00:28:00]
When you first come to true saving faith, Jesus Christ, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have taken you and set you apart from the rest of mankind. You are now part of the church And that's initial sanctification. You've been set apart, and now you begin a journey, and that's ongoing sanctification. And ongoing sanctification is cooperative.
We cooperate with the Holy Spirit, and that's how the Bible uses it most of the time, so it gets confusing in verses like this. And then there's final sanctification, and that's when we finally enter glory and we're freed from sin. But there's also a covenantal use of sanctification. It's where you respond initially and you're placed into the covenant, and that's what he's describing here.
These men were covenant members, and they're thinking about walking away. And if they walk away, they prove, as John said, that they don't have saving faith I think I reminded you, you [00:29:00] of this last week, but in 1 Corinthians 7:14, Paul uses sanctification in the same way. Paul writes, "For the unbelieving husband is sanctified, set apart through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified," same word that the author of Hebrews uses, set apart, made special in some sense through a believing husband.
"For otherwise your children are unclean." Another covenant phraseology. Otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy, sanctified, same Greek word. You see, to be in the covenant in one sense is to be sanctified. John chapter 15, we read it at the beginning of our service, and John chapter 15 uses another phrase in much the same way.
It uses the phrase in Christ. So three things I wanna say about John 15, and again, I beg you, go home, reread it, John 15:1 through [00:30:00] 11. It's what we read at the very beginning of service. Three things, John 15, this is a no-brainer, but it's important. John 15 follows John 6, and what do we read in John 6? And we covered this passage a couple of weeks ago, but in John 6:37...
And before I read it, I'm just gonna ask you, do you believe Jesus? Could Jesus lie? Could Jesus possibly be mistaken here?
Or do you think he knows what he's talking about? In John 15-- I'm sorry, in John 6:37, "All," every last one, "all that the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will certainly not cast out." And in the Greek, the, the grammar there is the strongest, most emphatic way to say it's not gonna happen.
"I will certainly not cast him out. For I have [00:31:00] come down from heaven, not to do my will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of my Father who sent me, of all that he has given to me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day." Jesus loses none that the Father gives to him. That's the first thing I wanna say about John 15.
The second thing I wanna say about John 15 is there are two groups of people described as being in Christ. In John 15, this vine, there are two groups of people that are described as being in the vine, being in Christ. And a-again, we can sometimes confuse that language because it's used differently elsewhere in Scripture.
In Ephesians chapter 1, to be in Christ, Paul tells us, is to be elect, is to be chosen of God, is to be preordained from the foundation of the world. But here it's a covenantal usage. It means they've made a profession of faith. They've begun to follow [00:32:00] But there's a difference. Some who are in Christ will abide with Christ, and if you abide with Christ, as we read, you were pruned.
You were caused to grow. And here's the, the interesting thing. That means, like James says, you will encounter various trials. It's funny. It's not really funny, but you can laugh about it after the fact, but there are so many times when we encounter trials and we're like, "God, don't you love me? Why would you do this to me?"
And yet that's His promise. If I love you, I'm gonna prune you, and you're going to encounter trials. Why? Because I love you, because I wanna grow you, because I want you to mature, because I want you to trust in me, because I want you to depend on me, because I want you to be a better person. So He promises pruning if we abide in Him.
But what happens to those who don't abide? And that's the third thing I wanna say about John fifteen. Those who abide [00:33:00] bear fruit, but those who don't bear any fruit, those who show no growth, they're thrown away, literally cut off, thrown away, and burned because they were never truly in Christ. They never truly had saving faith, James chapter two.
They were not given to Christ by the Father. It was a profession of faith. It was historic faith, temporary faith, give me something faith And so we jump back to verse 31 in Hebrews. Well, we'll get to verse 31, but it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Verse 30. And he begins-- he's gonna transition here to encouragement, but he says, "For we know him who said, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay.'"
And again, the Lord will judge his people. And it's really easy to skip this. It's really easy to jump to the vengeance part, but listen to the first few [00:34:00] words: For we know him You see, if you're in Christ, you know God. Or as John puts it, you're known by God. But, but I want you to stop and think about it because the, the unbeliever, one of the arguments they'll use is because we say that God is infinite, that God is immense, that God is incomprehensible, and then they'll say we're contradicting ourselves when I say I have a relationship with Him.
Just because I can't wrap my head completely around God does not mean I can't know Him. And the author of Hebrews is very clear here. If you're in Christ, you know God. And I just want you to meditate on that for a minute. You know the God of the universe. You know Yahweh. You know Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and He has, He has entered into you through the person of His Holy Spirit.
He calls you to worship Him. He wants you in His [00:35:00] presence on a weekly basis. He wants to feed you at His table on a weekly basis because you know Him. And if you know Him, it means He loves you because He has made Himself known to you. Never read over those words too fast. Yes, vengeance is mine, and God will repay.
And this Greek word for vengeance, it literally refers to justice and punishment to-- due to the breaking of justice. So the vengeance is because God will judge sin Vengeance is mine. I will repay. And again, the Lord will judge his people. There's another phraseology, and again, this is another covenantal expression.
God is going to judge his people. Now, when you read the scriptures, you should know by now that when I stand before God, my judgment is gonna look very different than the unbeliever because I'm gonna stand there clothed in [00:36:00] Jesus, and when God looks down on me, he's gonna see the perfect righteousness of Jesus, and he's gonna say, "Enter."
And yet here it's talking about vengeance, it's talking about a fury of fire, and yet it still applies to his people. What's going on here? How do we understand it? Again, back to the covenant. God enters into covenant with people, and in that covenant there are true believers and not true believers. We see it in the parable of the sowers.
We see it in the parable of the vine. We see it when James explains what true saving faith looks like. It's not that these people lose their salvation, as John says, "They left because they were never among us." And then in verse 31, "It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God." So again, he reminds us of the doctrine of hell and eternal punishment.
But be-before I wrap up, kids, there's one last set of questions on your outline, and yet I think it applies to [00:37:00] everyone here. And moms and dads, I'm just gonna let you know right up front, you're gonna have to take this one home, and you're going to have to give further explanation, okay? But I think it's important, and I don't wanna skip it when it's staring us in the face.
And so kids, I write on your outline, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay," and I wanna know who's speaking here. And clearly the answer is God. God is speaking here. What's God saying? And God is making it very clear. He is the one who judges and punishes. That is not my role. God is the one who judges and punishment.
Here's the hard question that I think we need to address. Does that mean we should never, ever fight? And kids, the answer is no. There are times when God calls you to fight. And moms and dads, this is where you're gonna have to pick it up and finish it. But there's self-defense. There's defending others.
The [00:38:00] Bible teaches a just war theory. There are times when we fight, but ultimate judgment, and when we can do it, judgment in our day-to-day life, we leave that to God. We let God judge people. And that's why, as I said at the beginning of the sermon, if you ever get into a he said, she said, you can trust God.
You can just trust God to judge that situation appropriately. We started in verse twenty-five as our springboard verse. Not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another all the more as we see the day drawing near. And the first principle that I wanna end with today is when we come together, it's for encouragement.
If you leave here and you don't feel encouraged, y- you need to see me. You need to talk to me. You need to talk to somebody. Now, that doesn't mean that there's not gonna be an occasional Sunday where you feel like you just [00:39:00] got kicked in the pants, 'cause we need that too. But all in all, you should leave here encouraged, which is why we end with the Lord's table, a reminder that we're in covenant with Christ
We're told to encourage one another, and yet it leads right into a warning passage, a passage about apostasy We do need to be warned. We need to be warned. It is not accidental that Jesus calls us sheep. And if you've ever raised sheep, they're not the brightest animal in the herd, and Jesus calls us sheep.
We need the warning passages. We need to be warned. We need to be reminded we are prone when left to ourselves to lethargy
But remember that the warning springs from the exhortation to encourage one another. We need to be in the business of encouraging one another. Certainly [00:40:00] not at the exclusion of anything else. Certainly encouraging my brother might mean to call him on the carpet. But I'm just curious because we are so good at the negative part.
I'm so good, and Jesus even says this, I'm so good at seeing your sin and not seeing mine, and maybe saying something to you about your sin. But when is the last time you encouraged somebody? When is the last time and say, "Hey, you're doing a good job"? And again, Proverbs, uh, twenty-seven verse seventeen, and everyone here is probably familiar with this: Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
And we talk about that all the time. But what you may not think about when we talk about that verse is this is a violent process. When you sharpen a blade on iron, it's violent. It removes steel from the blade. It removes things. It creates heat. [00:41:00] It reshapes the blade. It is a violent process. And we're to encourage one another, but iron sharpens iron.
And Proverbs chapter twenty-seven is all about interpersonal relationships In Proverbs 27 verse five, "Better is an open rebuke than love that is concealed. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy." We need encouragement
And encouragement comes with a lot of other things. But again, and this is what I want to leave you with, what do you emphasize? When's the last time you encouraged somebody? And don't get me wrong, some of you are really good at it. But is it a lifestyle? Is it something you do on a regular basis? Before you leave here today, I encourage you [00:42:00] to go up to somebody that you know and encourage them.
Encourage them in the faith because it is vital to our spiritual health. Let's pray. Father in heaven, there was a lot in that passage, and I know that I probably didn't do everything justice. But Lord, may we walk away with a, a couple of truths just cemented on our brains. Church is important. Gathering with other Christians, having Christian friends, and gathering to worship is important.
Father, may we never lose sight of that, and may we always-- may we be excited about Sunday mornings. May we treat Sundays as a special day in the week And Father, I, I pray also that we walk away from today knowing that I cannot be an island, that I do-- I need friends. I need, I need my wife, but I need guy friends, and, and women here need women friends, and we need couple friends if we're married, and we need single [00:43:00] friends if we're single, and we need non-Christian friends as well so that there's someone that we're gonna pour our life into.
We need younger Christians so that we can disciple. Father, we are not islands. We were not meant to be islands. So help us have a different attitude in how we live our Christian life and how much time we spend with other people in the church both Sunday morning and throughout the week. And Father, help us understand that frightening doctrine of hell.
It's not fun to talk about, Lord, but may it be a reality to us so that it would motivate and change us. It would change our thinking. It would deepen our love and gratitude for you, and it would deepen our desire to go out and share our faith with our friends and our family. And last but not least, Lord, again, help us learn to be encouragers.
Not leaving out any of the other iron sharpens iron stuff, not leaving out any of the needed rebuke, not leaving any of that out, but Lord, that we might [00:44:00] actually emphasize loving one another in a positive way. That we might learn to realize that when we love one another in a positive way, then the negative rebuke comes with more impact because the person being rebuked knows it's in love.
So help us love. Help us to encourage. Help us to spend time together, and may we do it with hearts of gratitude and thankfulness for the grace that you have poured out on us. For we ask this in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and all of God's people said, amen.
