A Fearful Expectation 2
1 Amens
A Fearful Expectation 2
Hebrews 10:26-31
April 6, 2008
Series 3 Sermon 41
26 For if we go on sinning
deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer
remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a fearful expectation of
judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. 28 Anyone
who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or
three witnesses. 29 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? 30 For we know him who said,
“Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.”
31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands
of the living God.
Introduction
Proverbs 1:7 says: “7 The fear
of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge;
Fools despise wisdom and instruction.”
Proverbs 1:20-29 says, 20 Wisdom
shouts in the street, She lifts her voice in the square; 21 At
the head of the noisy streets
she cries out; At the entrance of the gates in the city she utters her sayings:
22 "How long, O naive ones, will you
love being simple-minded?
And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing And fools hate knowledge? 23 "Turn
to my reproof, Behold, I will pour out my spirit on you; I will make my words
known to you. 24 "Because I called and
you refused, I stretched out my hand and no one paid attention; 25 And
you neglected all my counsel And did not want my reproof; 26 I
will also laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your dread comes, 27 When
your dread comes like a storm And your calamity comes like a whirlwind, When
distress and anguish come upon you. 28 "Then
they will call on me, but I will not answer; They will seek me diligently but
they will not find me, 29 Because they hated
knowledge And did not choose the fear of
the LORD.
Proverbs 8:13 says, 13 "The fear of the LORD is to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way And the perverted mouth, I hate.
Proverbs 9:10-12 says, 10 The
fear of the LORD is the
beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. 11 For
by me your days will be multiplied,
And years of life will be added to you. 12 If
you are wise, you are wise for yourself,
And if you scoff, you alone will bear it.
Proverbs 10:27 says, 27 The fear
of the LORD prolongs life, But the years of the
wicked will be shortened.
Psalm 19:9-11 says:
9 The fear
of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; The
judgments of the LORD are true;
they are righteous altogether. 10 They are more desirable
than gold, yes, than much fine gold; Sweeter also than honey and the drippings
of the honeycomb. 11 Moreover, by them Your
servant is warned; In keeping them there is great reward.
And verse 31 of Hebrews 10 says, 31 It is
a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
So what we can ascertain from these passages is that it is wise to fear the Lord and walk in His ways. But what if we don’t? What is God willing to do to us and for us in order to ensure that His name is praised and is glorified?
God has made it abundantly clear that His name is to be praised and glorified by the people whom He has called His own and if that is not happening then He will have something to say about it. Malachi 1:11 says:
11 "For from the rising of the sun even to its setting, My name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense is going to be offered to My name, and a grain offering that is pure; for My name will be great among the nations," says the LORD of hosts.
Last week when we were together I showed you that God is in the business of judging His people. That is exactly what verse 30 says. Look at it with me.
30 For we know him who said,
“Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.”
We looked at the examples from Scripture of the two priests Nadab and Abihu and two New Testament examples of God’s judgment on Anninias and Saphirra as well as some members of the Corinthian church who were disruptive and disrespectful in the church.
I told you last Lord’s Day that what I would like for you to take away from that sermon was the understanding that as a believer the Lord will judge you and do it severely if indeed you have violated His covenant standards. For Nadab and Abihu they offered strange fire which they knew the Lord had not commanded and the Lord killed them on the spot. Anninias and Saphirra were involved in deception within the church. And the Corinthians were taking the Lord’s Supper in an unworthy manner and being disruptive in the church service as well as having factions. Some of them were weak, some of them were sick, and others of them were dead. Paul told them why this was the case in 1 Corinthians 11:32.
32 But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we
may not be condemned along with the world.
This morning in our mini-series within the Epistle to the Hebrews I want you to understand that God judges His people differently than He judges those who are in the world. We have seen in Hebrews as well as other Scripture that we can rightly make a distinction between the people of God and the people of the world because God makes that distinction. The Lord Jesus said that He has sheep in His flock but some sheep are not of His flock and therefore He is not there shepherd.
We need to be reminded this morning that our passage, Hebrews 10:26-31, seems to be pointing to genuine believers. Notice the text with me.
26 For if we go on sinning
deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer
remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a fearful expectation of
judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. 28 Anyone
who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or
three witnesses. 29 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? 30 For we know him who said,
“Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his
people.” 31 It is a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of the living God.
The deliberate sin in verse 26 is the forsaking of the three commandments from verses 22-25 which told us we must continue to draw near to God, hold fast our confession, and to meet together and spur one another on to love and good works. To not do these things is an abandoning of the New Covenant. This could happen for numerous reasons such as persecution, disappointment, and sin but whatever the cause the result is the same and that is departing the covenant.
I am not going to split hairs in this text. Some have tried to reinvent terms in order to avoid the implications of this text and I refuse to do that. We are going to work hard together to come to understand what the writer of Hebrews is saying and I encourage you to be thoughtful in the process and I understand that you may come to a different conclusion than me and will openly admit that you may be correct. But we are going to weigh the biblical evidence together and try to form a theology of judgment that spurs us on to love and good works and helps us to avoid the judgment of almighty God. I believe that is the very reason this warning text is here in Hebrews 10. These are words of warning to spur us on to endurance and faithfulness as life grows difficult and the way becomes more dangerous. That is what Hebrews 11 is all about.
But before we get to Hebrews 11 we must deal with God’s judgment in 10:26-31. God’s judgments are overwhelmingly wise. They are perfect. The punishment always fits the crime and the Lord is always on time with His verdicts.
I don’t know about you but I often wonder why the Lord does not zap people who utter blasphemies and abominations and distort the Gospel of Jesus Christ and mock the Bible. Why doesn’t the Lord purge the evil from the world and wipe out evil people who take innocent life?
This has led philosophers to come to the conclusion that if God is indeed good then He is not all powerful because if He were all powerful and all good He would put an end to all evil. Therefore if He is all powerful then He can not be all good.
That sounds good on the surface but really is a lot philosophical nonsense and presumption which makes its conclusion based on the fact that God does not think or act like the philosopher thinks He ought to think and act. In other words the philosopher thinks far too much of his or her own mental ramblings.
The truth is if God began to have an operation purging of evil the population of the world would decrease dramatically and quickly and the few redeemed would be left here alone. But God does deal with evil and He does so in His timing and in His way.
This morning I want you to see how God deals with the lost world. I want you to see how God enacts judgment upon people who are not His people. In establishing this theology of judgment we need to see both how God works among His people and among those who are not His people. So today from three examples, one in the Old Testament and two in the New Testament, I want you to see how God judges the non-elect. What we are going to find is that His judgments are both righteous and ultimately effective.
The first example is from the Old Testament. Turn to Genesis 15:12-16. This is the covenant given to Abraham. And in the speaking of that Covenant God shows His character in judging those who are not His people.
12 As the sun was going down, a deep
sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. 13 Then
the Lord said to Abram, “Know for
certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and
will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. 14 But I
will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall
come out with great possessions. 15 As for yourself, you shall go to
your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. 16 And
they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the
Amorites is not yet complete.”
Now I want you to clearly understand this picture. God is appearing to Abraham to let him know that indeed his posterity will receive the land that he is a sojourner in and the Lord will not forsake them. They are going to live in a foreign land and be afflicted for four hundred years before they can return to the Promised Land. In the process of God giving the land to the Israelites two things must happen. Look at verse 14.
14 But I will bring judgment on the
nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great
possessions.
God is going to judge the Egyptians harshly for their godlessness and for the treatment of His people. This judgment has been brewing for centuries and God has some business to take care of on this nation. But that is not what I want your mind to focus on this morning. I want you to look at verse 16.
16 And they shall come back here in
the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
Did you notice that? Four generations of the promised seed of Abraham will not see the Promised Land due to the sin and iniquity of a group of people called the Amorites. God says to Abraham that his seed will suffer four hundred years of Egyptian cruelty and bondage so that the iniquity of the Amorites will be completed.
I don’t know about you but that boggles my mind. I understand that the Lord’s ways are higher than my ways and His thoughts are much more deep and profound than my ramblings but four generations will come and go before the Amorites will be punished by God and the people of the promise will inherit the land. I want you to imagine for a minute that the Lord appeared to us here this morning and said that He was going to give us a new land. However we would not see this because four generations must pass before we get to go in. That means that for me the generation of my family that gets to go in will be my great, great, great grandchildren. All because of the iniquity of the Amorites.
So these Amorites were an evil, godless people. The term Amorite in the text is indicative of
the whole of the people of
Let me tell you what archeologists have found in the ancient homes of the Canaanites. They have found children who were suffocated in acts of worship to their gods. The Canaanites had a blatant disrespect for the sanctity of human life and God allowed them to continue in their depravity until they were destroyed.
So God allowed this iniquity to continue and the Amorites would have been totally destroyed if the Israelites would have been obedient. Listen to Exodus 23:20-24.
20 "Behold, I am going to
send an angel before you to guard you along the way and to bring you into the
place which I have prepared. 21 "Be on your guard
before him and obey his voice; do not be rebellious toward him, for he will not
pardon your transgression, since My name is in him. 22 "But
if you truly obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to
your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. 23 "For
My angel will go before you and bring you in to the land of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the
Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites; and I will completely destroy them. 24 "You shall not worship
their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their deeds; but you shall
utterly overthrow them and break their sacred
pillars in pieces.
Of course you are familiar with the story and the Israelites left some of these people alive and it came back to bite them as the whole time in the land they suffered spiritually because of the draw of worshipping foreign gods.
One of the things that we can say about the difference in the way God punishes His people versus those who are not His people is different. Last week we saw in the three examples of God punishing His people that when He disciplines His the discipline is quick and very precise. But when He decides to turn His anger on a particular person or a particular group of people He will allow for extended periods of time that group to continue sinning, be successful, and then ultimately will topple them completely.
The second example that I want you to see comes from the New Testament. I want you to turn to Matthew 23. The Jews of the early first century had taken the place of the Canaanites and the Lord Jesus warned them of their impending judgment. Read with me Matthew 23:29-36.
The Lord Jesus pronounced a series of woes against the Scribes and the Pharisees and in the final woe the Lord says this:
29 “Woe to you, scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the
monuments of the righteous, 30 saying, ‘If we had lived in the
days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the
blood of the prophets.’ 31 Thus you witness against
yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill
up, then, the measure of your fathers. 33 You
serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? 34 Therefore
I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and
crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to
town, 35 so that on you may come all the
righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of
Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the
altar. 36 Truly, I say to you, all these
things will come upon this generation.
Did you catch that? The sin from the all the righteous blood that was shed from Abel to the present time was going to be judged and the punishment executed on that generation. And less than forty years later the punishment was handed down as the land of Israel was razed by the Roman army, a nation that would later be destroyed by God as well. But in the meantime those whom the Lord sent out to preach the Gospel would suffer at the hands of these rebellious unbelieving people until the time of their judgment arrived and God would only leave a remnant of Jews after 70ad. The punishment on those people who are not His people may have taken a long time to get there but when it did arrive the punishment was complete.
So how do we get into the mind of God on understanding why it takes Him so long it seems to enact punishment on wicked people? How do we begin to comprehend what God is doing in allowing sin and degradation to continue so long and then to finally be heaped on a particular generation of people? What I really want to know is how God is working His judgments which are perfect on people who refuse the Gospel and choose rather to stay in their sins and corrupt those around them even further.
We can see the moral deterioration in our society. You can hardly go anywhere without being assaulted by sin and debauchery. Turn on the TV and all the pleasures of a sin filled sick world are at your fingertips. We live in a society that more and more devalues human lives but elevates the animal to human standards. Save the whales but forget the babies. Special rights are given to all known perversion and the protection of the most vulnerable among us is shunned. All religions are good and acceptable in our country except for biblical Christianity. There are far more pagans in our nation today than true Christians. So how does God handle this? Why has the same fire and brimstone that rained down on Sodom and Gomorrah not rained down on some of our own cities like San Francisco or Las Vegas or any other?
Peter gives us the answer in 2 Peter 3:7-9.
7 But
by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for
the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
8 But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved,
that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like
one day. 9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count
slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any
to perish but for all to come to repentance.
The truth is that God’s ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts and what may seem like a long time to the vapors that we are is a very short time in the mind of God who lives in eternity. But I still want to understand how God is judging those who are not His people.
Proverbs 9:10-12 says, 10 The
fear of the LORD is the beginning
of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. 11 For
by me your days will be multiplied,
And years of life will be added to you. 12 If
you are wise, you are wise for yourself,
And if you scoff, you alone will bear it.
I want to have knowledge of the Holy One and I am sure this morning that each of us desires to multiply our days. So if the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding then I want to understand what the Lord is doing and how He is doing it to the best of my ability.
And I think we can get a glimpse of the process of God’s judgment in Romans chapter one. Turn there with me.
18 For the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their
unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For
what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.
20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his
eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the
creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without
excuse.
This is commonly referred to as general or natural
revelation by theologians. The creation
is God’s handiwork and by it we know that there is a God. That is what Paul stated in verse 21 and then
tells what these people do instead of acknowledging God. Look at verses 21-23.
21 For although they knew God, they
did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their
thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming
to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the
immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and
reptiles.
This is blatant idolatry and a violation of the first two
commandments. So as the people whose
foolish hearts were darkened decide to worship the creature and not the creator
what does God do? Look at verse 24.
24 Therefore God gave them up in
the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among
themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth
about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the
Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
The first thing that we notice here is that God did not give them the thoughts to do evil. It was naturally in them already. These people are not elect and therefore under the wrath and punishment of God. God simply gave them up or handed them over to the lusts of their own heart. The reason that He did this is in verse 25. Look at it.
25 because they exchanged the truth
about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the
Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
So this breaking of the first two commandments leads them further and further into their own depravity. Look at verse 26.
26 For this reason God gave them
up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations
for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and
the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with
passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving
in themselves the due penalty for their error.
Now the Lord hands them over to the dishonorable passions that come from their foolish darkened heart filled with the lusts of impurity. And in the process of this degeneration the people become more and more reprobate. Evil begins to be called good and good evil.
And now in the final blow of ultimate judgment and the
filling up of the iniquity of the non-elect we have verses 28-32.
28 And
since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a
debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They
were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice.
They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips,
30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent,
haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish,
faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s decree
that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but
give approval to those who practice them.
This is now a people that the grace of God is so far from them that they are under the ultimate wrath of God and they are not being destroyed by God, God is simply allowing them to destroy themselves.
I don’t want you to miss the overwhelming truth here this morning. God never has to push people toward sin their own sinful hearts will take them quickly and completely down the road to destruction. All God has to do is to remove His restraining hand and Amorites, or the Jews, or the Americans will plunge their own selves into perdition.
This is what James says in James
1:13-16: 13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am
being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself
tempts no one. 14 But each person is tempted when
he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then
desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown
brings forth death. 16 Do not be deceived, my beloved
brothers.
All God has to do is this: (pull hands back).
Three times in Romans chapter one Paul says that God gave them over to either the lusts of their heart, dishonorable passions, and finally a debased mind. Here we can see how God works among those who are not His people. He simply allows them to destroy themselves.
We can see this over and over in
Scripture and in history. The
The wickedness of the people who are not God’s people will only grow worse until that group of people collapse in on themselves and devour themselves lack a pack of hungry wild dogs.
So what can we take from this and apply to our theology of judgment.
1. God’s wrath will only be held back temporarily. We may cry out at some point with the Psalmist, “How long o Lord?” but the day of reckoning will come and when it does it will be like a flood.
2. We can examine our own heart in light of knowing the truth about God’s judgment and see if we are in the faith. To be in the faith means that God is restraining you from evil. If you find yourself plunging further and further into sin then you can be sure that God is dealing with you to bring you as His child to repentance. But if sin does not bother you and you can eat stolen bread wipe your mouth and declare that you have done nothing wrong then you are in deep spiritual trouble.
This is why the Bible says at least a few times, “Today if you hear His voice do not harden your heart…”
3. God’s judgment upon the evil world will be full and final. There will be no mistrial; there will be no jury of your peers. The all knowing, ever present, Creator of the universe will preside over the court and the guilty will be punished. And the punishment will fit the crime perfectly.
4. The last truth I want you to take away from understanding how the Lord judges the world is this. Hebrews 10:31 says, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
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