The Hands of the Living God (Hebrews 10:31)

Kootenai Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

Turn now please to Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10, and we're gonna read together verses 26 to 31 before we pray.

00:20

Hebrews chapter 10, beginning at verse 26. For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.

00:36

Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.

00:41

How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and has insulted the spirit of grace?

00:53

For we know him who said, vengeance is mine, I will repay. And again, the Lord will judge his people.

01:00

It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Let's pray together. Our Lord, we ask that you would help us to understand and to rightly heed the warning of this passage today.

01:12

We pray that you would open our eyes and our hearts to your word, for we believe that when your word is rightly preached, your voice is truly heard.

01:20

And may that be the case today. May we all who are here see the solemnness of this warning and heed it.

01:27

We pray for any who are not in Jesus Christ this morning that they would heed this warning and that they would see what their eternal state will be without a savior.

01:36

We pray for us who have come to Christ already that you would encourage our hearts together by reminding us again of the great sacrifice and weight that has been borne on our behalf for us so that we may have eternal life.

01:49

Be glorified here through our time we pray in Christ's name. Amen. Hell is a rather unpopular and unfashionable subject in the modern church today.

02:01

You can hardly get any one of the tattooed, ear -pierced, soul -patched, sporting, skinny -jean -wearing raconteurs that occupy most pulpits in most churches today to even mention hell, let alone to explain it and to warn people of it and to describe it and to defend that doctrine.

02:20

If you just joined us for the first time within the last eight weeks, you may be wondering if that's the only thing we ever talk about.

02:26

And it's not. In fact, somebody commented to me today, and this was not by way of a criticism but by way of a compliment.

02:32

They said, there are not many pastors who would spend this many weeks on a warning passage. And I said, that's true, but there are not many congregations that would tolerate this many weeks in a warning passage.

02:42

So I'm not sure if you are to blame or I am to blame for this debacle, but maybe we'll share the blame together. I am camping a little bit on the subject of eternal hell and eternal damnation because we are in this passage that is one of the longest and severest and most sobering passages that speak of eternal judgment that you find in the

03:03

New Testament. In fact, the warnings of eternal judgment are found all the way through the Gospels, the teaching of Jesus, and all the way through Scripture.

03:10

And so to deny that there is a hell or to deny that sinners gather and spend eternity there in eternal conscious torment is to deny the clear and unequivocal teaching of Scripture.

03:21

Yet despite the clarity of Scripture on this subject, people are very hesitant to talk about it.

03:27

Partly, I think, because it is an uncomfortable subject, is it not? To spend any time thinking about it or to sit down and say to a sinner over dinner, maybe you do this this afternoon or this evening, over dinner that, look, if you are not in Jesus Christ on judgment day, your sins will return to visit you and the cost will be eternal damnation.

03:48

That is enough to make you the most unpopular person at the Fourth of July celebration this afternoon.

03:54

It's very uncomfortable to tell people that. It's also that some people feel like they need to apologize for God, as if the doctrine of eternal judgment embarrasses him, as if we need to sort of wring our hands and present it in such a way so as not to make people think ill of the

04:11

God who created hell and will send sinners there if they do not repent. God is not ashamed of the doctrine of hell and neither should we be ashamed of the doctrine of hell.

04:19

If we understood justice and righteousness and holiness and the depth of our sin the same way that God does, we would not be ashamed of the doctrine of hell.

04:28

We would preach it boldly and loudly and we would welcome that doctrine of eternal judgment because it is the vindication of God's name.

04:36

God is not ashamed of the doctrine of eternal justice and yet the way some people talk about judgment and hell, it's almost like they think that they need to protect

04:44

God from having his rep blemished in some way, protect him from, what would people think of God if they knew that there was a hell?

04:52

Well, they might think that he's holy and righteous and just and angry with the wicked all day, every day and that if they do not seek a remedy for their lost condition that they will perish in everlasting flames.

05:03

Maybe that's what they would think if they knew that there was a hell. Or some people feel as if the doctrine of eternal judgment is incompatible with the message of God's love and grace and compassion.

05:14

I mean, after all, God is a loving God and a loving God would never send sinners to hell, would he? And people who think that way never stop to ask themselves what they would think of an earthly judge if an earthly judge let guilty people go free and they wouldn't certainly call him a compassionate or loving judge, would they?

05:29

No, in fact, it is the goodness of God and it is the grace of God, it is the compassion of God and his righteousness that will secure the eternal judgment and damnation of those who are impenitent and unsaved.

05:40

That is the goodness of God that will send them. Because he is a good God, he will send them to hell. That is difficult for some people to get their minds around because God is just, we must tell people that there is a judgment to come.

05:53

And faithfulness to scripture requires that we be unapologetic and clear regarding the clear teaching of scripture.

05:59

Spurgeon tells the story of a church that was once looking for a pastor and one of the men who came to candidate at this church was one of what

06:05

Spurgeon called sort of the modern pastors or the modern men who were all caught up in modernism and denied that hell existed.

06:12

He believed that the doctrine of eternal judgment and damnation was a benighted idea that belonged to a bygone era, a bygone age.

06:20

And so this man got to this church and he candidated, he was asking the church to hire him and the church responded and said, well, you come here to tell us that there is no hell.

06:30

If that is true, we don't need you. If that is false, we don't want you.

06:36

And either way, we can get along just fine without you. Because that church understood that being faithful to the word of God requires that we be clear on this doctrine of eternal judgment and justice no matter how uncomfortable it makes us.

06:48

If we're going to be faithful, we have to be clear and communicate to sinners that if they will not repent and if they refuse the grace that is offered in Jesus Christ, they face nothing but in the words of verse 27, the terrifying expectation of judgment because it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living

07:04

God. And that is our text this morning. Verse 31, mercifully, we will get all the way through the end of verse 31 before we're done today and get on to what you call more cheerful,

07:15

I'm not sure there's more cheerful subjects. Well, yeah, there are more cheerful subjects. I'm not sure I can present them any more cheerfully than I'm presenting this, but we'll get on to different subjects,

07:24

I guess we should say, in verse 32 next week. Because the warning passage continues all the way through the end of verse 39, but there is between verses 32 and 39, no real mentions of the judgment, at least that is not the emphasis of those verses.

07:37

The author changes his focus a little bit to move off of the subject of eternal damnation onto the marks of true regeneration and the ultimate perseverance and preservation of his people, of the true believer.

07:52

And the next mention of that judgment is in verse 39. Look at it, the last verse of chapter 10. We are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.

08:02

And there, the ultimate destiny of both the make believer and the real believer are mentioned there.

08:07

We're not of those who shrink back to destruction, we are those who persevere to the preserving of the soul. And that's the next mention of judgment, as the author clearly delineates between these two groups of people, those who pull back from the truth and perish, and those who persevere in the truth unto everlasting life.

08:25

But verse 31 is our topic, or our text for this morning. And we're going to examine three elements of this verse.

08:31

First, the description that it gives us of God, that he is the living God. Second, the description of the plight of the sinner, that he falls into that God's hands.

08:39

And then third, the description of the judgment that the sinner faces, and it is one word, terrifying. So you can see that we're kind of going to back into the verse, as it were, going from the end of the verse back toward the beginning, as we look at God, and then the plight of the sinner falling into the hands of that God, and then that description of his judgment, which is terrifying.

08:56

And the reason for that is because we have to understand who this God is, and what his essential nature is, before we'll understand why it is that falling into his hands is a terrifying thing.

09:10

If your notion of God is wrong, and you think that he is just a big, avuncular deity in the sky, who is never worried about sin, who never exercises righteousness, who is never concerned about eternal justice, or any of those things, then of course, you will never think that falling into his hands is a fearful thing at all.

09:27

But once you understand what it means that God is a living God, and who this God is, then we can understand why falling into his hands is a terrifying thing.

09:36

So first, the description of God that we have in verse 31. He is called the living God. This phrase, living

09:42

God, is used of God four times in the book of Hebrews. It's interesting how the author uses it. He uses it back in chapter nine, verse 14, to describe true believers who serve the living

09:51

God. Hebrews 9, 14, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living

10:01

God? There he describes the difference, the distinction between serving dead works, even if that means idols, and serving the living

10:09

God. In Hebrews chapter 12, verse 22, he uses the term living God to describe the one who possesses and indwells the city that we have been given.

10:18

Hebrews 12, 22, you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem, to the myriad of angels.

10:24

That is our eternal abode and our eternal blessing. Then he uses it twice in warning passages, once here in chapter 10, verse 31, and once back in chapter three, verse 12, where he says, take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living

10:41

God. If you fall away from the living God, what will become of you? What will happen to your life? Where will you stand?

10:47

What will you do? And that's the warning passage that deals with the children of Israel who came out of the land of Egypt, and he describes them as an evil and unbelieving generation.

10:57

And he warns us about having an evil and unbelieving heart. That generation, by the way, I said something in regards to that generation last week, and I need to correct this as an aside.

11:05

I said in a comment that I kind of came off of the cuff, I said that Moses and Joshua and Caleb were the only ones who were alive who had come out of Egypt and entered into the land of promise.

11:16

Everybody else had died. That was not true. Someone pointed this out to me, for which I am very grateful, that that judgment fell on those who were 20 years old and above.

11:23

So there were people who were under 20 who would have come out of Egypt and entered into the land of promise, and they would have been 49, 50.

11:32

Yeah, you do the math on that. My job is not math. My job is preaching. So that's the correction. Now, this description of living

11:38

God, this is an attribute that God possesses. And it is impossible to distinguish between an attribute that God possesses and an aspect of his essential nature.

11:49

If God has an attribute, it belongs to him in fullness and to an infinite degree, and it is an attribute that encompasses and coordinates with and is in concert with all of his other attributes.

12:04

So anything that we can say that is true of God describes not just how God is toward us, but how

12:11

God is in his nature and in his character. It describes his essence, his substance.

12:16

And here he is described as the living God, which means a number of things. I'm gonna walk through this a little bit.

12:21

It means some things that we are familiar with and probably some things that we maybe don't think about as often. First of all, that means that he is the source of all physical life.

12:29

Everything that moves and lives and has its being derives its life from God. Everything that lives, lives because he wills it to live and because he gives it life.

12:38

So all life that we have, physical life, is all derived from the God who is the living God. And every day of your life, from the moment of your conception to the moment of your death, all of those days were written for you in his book before there was yet one of them.

12:53

He has scheduled the day of your birth, he has scheduled the day of your death. Nothing can alter that, nothing will alter that.

12:59

You live today because he wills you to live today. You will die someday because he wills you to die someday and he no longer wills for you to live that day.

13:07

So all physical life comes from him. All creatures own their life to him. Men, women, children, all that lives, all of the created animals, all the angels, everything that has life and breath, everything that lives derives its life from him because he is the living

13:21

God. So he is the source of all physical life. And then he is also the source of all spiritual life because we are fallen in Adam and born dead in our trespasses and sins and we are without any life in this world and without any capacity inside of our spirit and soul to commune with this

13:37

God who is the God of life. We are dependent upon him to give us that spiritual life. And so all people must be born again, they must be raised from the dead and it is the work of the spirit who causes us to be born again, who regenerates us and our only hope for having any spiritual life is that the spirit of God by his sovereign will in accordance with the will of the father and the son will regenerate us and give us new life and turn us from our sin and create in us the faith to believe that message.

14:06

That is necessary for salvation. Otherwise we will remain dead in our trespasses and sins.

14:13

So the sinner's only hope is the regenerating work of the spirit. And the spirit is able to do that and give spiritual life because he is the living

14:19

God. But third, and something that you might not think of as often, the fact that he is the living

14:26

God means that he is the underrived source of all life. In other words,

14:31

God does not derive his life from other sources. Jesus described this in John chapter five verse 26 when he said just as the father has life in himself even so he gave to the son also to have life in himself.

14:43

Notice that Jesus doesn't say that he's just the living God as if he got life from someplace else but he has life in himself.

14:50

There's nobody and no thing to which God can give credit for giving him life.

14:57

He has life in himself, by himself, of himself. And it is impossible for the one true and living

15:04

God to be anything but life in himself and by himself and unto himself.

15:10

He has underrived life. He doesn't derive it from anyone else. He doesn't take it from anyone else.

15:16

He didn't begin to live. And Jesus in John chapter five, when he was describing that, that the father has life in himself even so he gave to the son also to have life in himself,

15:24

Jesus was arguing in John chapter five for his own divinity. It's in that chapter where he says the father's been working until now and I am working.

15:31

And I do nothing except everything that the father gives me to do and I do everything the father gives me to do and I do nothing that the father does not give me to do.

15:38

And Jesus said in that passage, John chapter five, that he was given judgment over all mankind and he says in John chapter five that he gives life to whomever he wishes so that that life -giving ability is something that the son has as well as the father and as well as the spirit.

15:52

All three persons of the Trinity have life in themselves. That's why Jesus said in John chapter 10, nobody takes my life from me but I lay it down on my own accord.

16:00

I have authority to lay it down. I have authority to pick it up again. He has life in himself. He has power over his own physical life.

16:07

All that lives lives because of him and nothing that lives lives apart from him. So in Acts chapter 17,

16:13

Paul said that in him we live and move and have our being. In him we live and move and exist. We only live and have life because it is in him and in his life.

16:22

So all of our life is derived from him and he derives life from nobody else. Instead, he upholds all things by the word of his power and he gets his life from none so that all that exists owes its existence to his will and to his life.

16:39

Now we describe God as the living God and we describe you as a living person but when we use those two terms, even though it's the same word, we must necessarily mean two entirely different things.

16:52

We can say God is a living God and we can say Jim is a living man. That's true. We are both living but we are living in two entirely different senses and in two entirely different ways.

17:03

All my life comes from him. I only live because he gives me life but he derives life and receives life from none other.

17:10

He depends on no one for his living and he is the only one that that can be said of.

17:17

The angels owe their existence and their life, whatever that is, for them to him and if at any moment he willed to do so, the angels would cease to exist and the sinner will owe his life for all of eternity and his consciousness and for all of eternity to that God who will keep him and sustain him and uphold him in existence even in eternal damnation.

17:39

God does not receive life from another. He never began to live and he will never cease to live which means that the sinner can never outlive him and the sinner can never outlast him and the sinner can never escape him.

17:50

Because he is the living God, there will be no end to his existence and because he wills it to be the case, the sinner will live an immortal life where he will live in a sense forever in a state of spiritual death, not having any kind of spiritual life but he will be alive and conscious and in existence for all of eternity and so will us as believers, so will we as believers.

18:12

His life is never ending and never ebbing and never beginning and never waning and he never comes close to ceasing to exist and he was never close to beginning to exist.

18:25

He has life in himself. That's what scripture means when it describes him as the living God and often that phrase living

18:30

God is contrasted. It's used in contrast to contrast God, the real God with idols.

18:36

The author of Hebrews uses it four times but elsewhere in scripture, we see God referred to as the living God oftentimes in context where he is contrasted with the dead works or the deadness or the impotency of the idols of the nation, the pagan idols.

18:50

For instance, remember in Acts chapter 14 when Paul and Barnabas went into the city of Lystra and they healed the man and went in there to preach the gospel and all the people used to worshiping their idols came out and began to try to offer sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas and they called

19:04

Paul Hermes and Barnabas they called Zeus. They called Paul Hermes because he was the chief speaker of the two who's doing all the speaking and so they came out and tried to offer sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas and Paul rushed out into the crowd in Acts chapter 14 verse 15 and he said, men, why are you doing these things?

19:19

We're also men of the same nature as you and we preach the gospel to you that you should turn from these vain things to a living

19:25

God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. Notice Paul's contrast between the vain things, the emptiness of the idols, the dead idols and the living

19:34

God. Paul says to them, we're preaching the gospel to you that you would turn from the deadness of these idols which can do nothing and turn instead to the living

19:42

God. In 2 Corinthians chapter six, Paul says of what agreement has the temple of God with idols?

19:48

For we are the temple of the living God. Notice the contrast, idols. We're the temple of the living God. Our God is different.

19:54

He is in contrast to the deadness and impotence, the powerlessness of the pagan idols of the nations.

20:00

We saw that in Psalm 115 which we read earlier. Our God is in the heavens, he does whatever he pleases. No idol can say that.

20:07

That cannot be said of any idol that he does whatever he pleases because the psalmist goes on to say the idols are silver and gold, the work of man's hands.

20:13

They have mouths but they cannot speak. They have eyes but they cannot see. They have ears but they cannot hear. They have noses but they cannot smell.

20:20

They have hands but they cannot feel. They have feet but they cannot walk. They cannot make a sound with their throat. Those who make them will become like them.

20:26

Everyone who trusts in them. Psalm 115 says that the idol worshiper becomes like that which we worship.

20:32

This is why it is essential that we have a right concept of who our God is because every worshiper becomes like the thing that he worships.

20:39

And the idol worshiper becomes just like the idol that he worships. Dumb, stupid, ignorant, powerless, and useless.

20:45

That's the point of Psalm 115. And everyone who worships the idol becomes just like that dumb object that they worship.

20:52

There is an immutable law of the soul and law of nature that mankind is created to worship and we become just like that which we worship.

21:01

We fashion ourselves after it. This connection with God and idolatry is also seen in Deuteronomy 32 that we looked at last week.

21:09

You remember verse 30? Vengeance is mine, I will repay, and again the Lord will judge his people. That comes from the song of Moses. And in Deuteronomy 32, this is a passage that Moses wrote to warn the people of their apostasy and to describe to them the judgment of God that would fall upon the nation for their apostasy.

21:23

That quotation from, those two quotations from verse 30 come from verses 35 and 36 of Deuteronomy 32.

21:30

Listen to the very next passage, verse 37 of Deuteronomy 32. This is where God, speaking to the nation of Israel, mocks them for turning from him, the living

21:42

God, to serve the idols of the other nations. Listen to what God says, this tone of mockery. Moses writes, and he, that is

21:49

God, will say, where are their gods? The rocks in whom they have sought refuge.

21:55

Who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offering? Let them rise up and help you. Let them be your hiding place.

22:03

Hear the mockery there? When God brings judgment upon the nation of Israel for their apostasy, God's gonna say, oh yeah, yeah, where's your gods?

22:10

Have them deliver you. Those gods that you offer your drink offerings to, do they drink them? Those gods that you offer your meal offerings to, expecting them to eat them, you put the little bowl of rice down in front of the statue, does he actually eat the rice?

22:21

I can't do that. Yeah, we'll call out to that God and see how quickly he comes to deliver you from my hand. Verse 39, see now that I, listen to the language of this passage from Deuteronomy 32.

22:31

See now that I, I am he, and there is no God besides me. I have wounded, and it is I who heal, and there is no one who can deliver from my hand.

22:42

Indeed, I lift up my hand to heaven and say, as I live forever, if I sharpen my flashing sword and my hand takes hold on justice,

22:50

I will render vengeance upon my adversaries and will repay those who hate me. I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword will devour flesh with the blood of the slain and of the captives.

23:02

That's the language of Deuteronomy 32. That's God himself saying, turn to dead idols, and I will judge you, and then you'll call out for deliverance from your idols, but it will be to no avail because there is no idol who can deliver you from my hand, for I am the living

23:16

God, and I take vengeance on those who hate me. So that the judgment suffered by the apostate, the one who turns from the truth, is truly a just judgment because they turn from the living

23:26

God to serve a dead idol, and what do they get in keeping with that sin?

23:32

They get death, eternal spiritual death, not a cessation of existence. They will exist forever, but they will be cut off from all of the love and the grace and the kindness and the goodness of God for all of eternity.

23:45

You want to turn to dead idols? You want to turn to the deadness of sin? Then you get deadness for all of eternity, and you get to suffer spiritual death for all of eternity, but those who find their refuge in Jesus Christ do not have an idol, but the true

23:57

God, and he is the living God. No one should fear falling into the hands of an idol, right?

24:04

No one should fear falling into the hands of the idol. What's to fear? What can the idol do to you? He can't deliver you in good times.

24:10

He can't bless you in bad times. He can't do anything to you at all, so who would fear falling into the hands of an idol? But to fall into the hands of the living

24:18

God? That's the description of God. He is the living

24:25

God. That should strike fear into the heart of those who would choose death instead of life.

24:31

Now look at the description of the sinner's plight, that he falls into the hands of this God. It's interesting language.

24:36

It's a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God, to fall into his hands. It almost suggests like an accidental incident, doesn't it?

24:44

Like if I were to stumble and fall down the stairs, or if I were to fall into a pit or fall into a ditch.

24:50

It kind of suggests something that I didn't intend to do, but I did accidentally, didn't see it coming.

24:56

Is that true of the apostate? The apostate does not, it's not accidental.

25:02

This judgment is not accidental to the apostate. Remember, the apostate is one who goes on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth.

25:10

He doesn't stumble accidentally into God's judgment. He chooses intentionally God's judgment because bowing the knee to the king of heaven, as gracious and loving as he is, is unthinkable to the apostate.

25:21

And so he rejects the truth and instead chooses willfully to sin against what he knows to be true.

25:27

This is what makes him an apostate. So this is not an accidental falling into the hands of the living

25:32

God. The apostate is not going to wake up in eternity under the judgment of God and think to himself, phew,

25:38

I didn't see that coming. No, he will say, I saw this coming. I was warned that this was coming. I was told that this was coming, and my conscience bore witness to the fact that this was coming.

25:47

This is no shock and no surprise whatsoever. That word falling into means, the definition of it is to, and not the

25:53

English word, but I'm talking about the Greek term that is translated falling into. It means to experience something, to be delivered into a condition, or to come under the power of something.

26:04

It's used in scripture of falling into temptation and a snare, of falling into a pit, of falling into condemnation and reproach, and of falling into the hands of robbers.

26:14

And you can see in each one of those usages how the word has the idea of coming into a condition or situation or being delivered into the power of something so that you experience that thing, like falling into the hands of robbers.

26:28

It's used of God's hand and the hands of others positively in scripture. I should say the phrase falling into the hands of somebody or the hand of something is used positively.

26:36

Ezra 8, verse 31, and the hand of our God was over us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy and the ambushes by the way.

26:44

Notice there that God's hand, his power, his active blessing was over them and delivered them from the hands of enemies so that they are in the condition or under the power of one hand and therefore kept out of the condition or power of another hand.

26:58

Ezra 8, verse 22, the hand of our God is favorably disposed to those who seek him, but his power and his anger are against those who forsake him.

27:06

Notice the contrast there between the hand of God which is favorable to those who seek him and the power and anger of God which is against those who hate him and are against him.

27:17

Then it is also used in scripture negatively like Judges 2, verse 14. The anger of the Lord burned against Israel and he gave them into the hands of the plunderers who plundered them and he sold them into the hands of their enemies around them so that they could no longer stand before their enemies.

27:32

There the idea is that they are delivered over or given over into the hands of other people who are able to do with them as they please and nobody can deliver them from that hand.

27:41

They have complete control over them because they've been given over into their hands. Sometimes that phrase and that idea is used together both positively and negatively.

27:50

Psalm 138, verse seven. Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you will revive me. You will stretch forth your hand against the wrath of my enemies and your right hand will save me.

27:59

God stretches forth his hand against the enemies of God's people and he uses his right hand to come and to save those who trust in him.

28:07

Hand here is obviously an anthropomorphism. It's a figure of speech used to describe an attribute or an action of God in a way that you and I can relate to because we are familiar with the idea of hands.

28:20

Hand is usually something that symbolizes the instrument of power or activity or work or endeavor.

28:26

We speak of putting your hand to something. We speak of delivering into somebody else's hands or your fate is, we would even say your fate is in the hands of another.

28:36

We use language like that to describe being given over into the condition of somebody. It describes somebody's initiative or their prerogative, their control, their rule or their sovereignty.

28:46

And so to fall into the hands of this living God means that you fall under, come under the power, the control, the authority, the work and the activity of this

28:56

God and that is ultimate power and ultimate determination. To fall into the hands of an enemy is one thing but to fall into the hands of the ultimate enemy who lacks no power and no ability and will show you no grace whatsoever, that is indeed a terrifying thing, is it not?

29:15

That's what it means to come into his hands or to fall into his hands. It is to be given over into that condition of his control, his power and then he does with you as he pleases.

29:27

That doesn't mean right now that God is not sovereign, that we are not all in somebody's hands but just the imagery here is being used of that final judgment where one is turned over into hands that are in no way favorable to them.

29:39

Third, this is used to describe the sinner's judgment and there's just one word that's used, terrifying. It's the same word used in verse 27.

29:46

There no longer remains a sacrifice of sins but a terrifying expectation of judgment, same word. And here that word is used, terrifying.

29:52

It means fearful, frightful, dreadful. This is a cause of great dread, the fact that the apostate does not fear the judgment of God that he goes on in this life and he doesn't lose sleep every night and tremble every night at the thought of falling into those hands, shows just how deceived and hard -hearted and impenitent and bald -faced the apostate is in his hatred for God and his despising of the truth.

30:15

And the reason it is terrifying is because as the author says in chapter 12, verse 29, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living

30:20

God. Those who reject him have nothing but the terrifying expectation of a judgment that is to come.

30:27

Let me read you a few verses from the Old Testament. Nahum 1, verse six. Who can stand before his indignation?

30:32

Who can endure the burning of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire and rocks are broken up by him.

30:39

Psalm 76, verse seven. You, even you, are to be feared, and who may stand in your presence when once you are angry?

30:46

Psalm 90, verse 11. Who understands the power of your anger and your fury according to the fear that is due you?

30:52

Jeremiah 10, verse 10. But the Lord is the true God, he is the living God and the everlasting King, and at his wrath the earth quakes and the nations cannot endure his indignation.

31:03

Do you hear that? Our God is the true God and the living God and the nations cannot endure his indignation.

31:09

Isaiah 66, verse six. A voice of uproar from the city, a voice from the temple, the voice of the Lord who is rendering recompense to his enemies.

31:17

Deuteronomy 7, verse 10. He repays those who hate him to their faces to destroy them. He will not delay with him who hates him.

31:24

He will repay him to his face. And then Jesus came into the world, and he corrected all that misunderstanding from the

31:31

Old Testament, right? He showed us love and grace and said, don't worry, it's totally different.

31:37

All those Old Testament prophets, Moses, those guys, it was just, they kind of got it wrong about the

31:43

God that truly exists. Is that what Jesus did? John the Baptist, when he announced the coming of Jesus, he said in Matthew three, verse 12, his winnowing fork is in his hand and he will thoroughly clear his threshing floor.

31:54

He will gather his wheat into the barn and he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Matthew five, verse 29.

32:00

If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you. It is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.

32:08

If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you. It is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

32:15

Matthew 18, verse eight. And if your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off, throw it from you. It's better for you to enter life crippled or lame than to have two hands or two feet and be cast into eternal fire.

32:24

Matthew 10, verse 28. Do not fear those who kill the body and are unable to kill the soul, but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

32:33

Matthew 13, verse 41. The son of man will send forth his angels and they will gather out of his kingdom all stumbling blocks and those who commit lawlessness and will throw them into the furnace of fire.

32:43

In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Matthew 13, verse 49. So it will be at the end of the age, the angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous and will throw them into the furnace of fire.

32:55

In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Matthew 22, verse 13. Then the king said to the servants, bind him hand and foot and throw him into the outer darkness.

33:04

In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Matthew 25, verse 41. Then he will say to those on his left, depart from me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.

33:16

That's Jesus, meek and mild. That's Jesus, the eternal judge. He is the judge.

33:24

And he will do this. He will execute judgment on behalf of the father against all of the wicked because that is the role and the prerogative that the father has handed to the son.

33:35

So that the son will execute judgment on behalf of the father. Jesus claimed this to himself in Matthew 5, verse 22.

33:42

Not even the father judges anyone, but he has given all judgment to the son so that all will honor the son even as they honor the father.

33:48

He who does not honor the son does not honor the father who sent him. Paul said in Acts 17, God has overlooked times of ignorance in the past, but he is now declaring to all men everywhere that they should repent because God the father has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness and he has furnished proof to all men by raising that judge from the dead.

34:07

That one who is the judge of all the living and the dead, he is also the refuge from that judgment.

34:13

This is the glorious irony of the gospel, that the one who is your refuge from the wrath of God is the one who will execute judgment and justice on evildoers.

34:21

He is both the judge and the refuge from that judgment. So Psalm 2, verse 12 says, do homage to the son that he not become angry with you and you perish in the way, for his wrath may soon be kindled, but how blessed are all who take refuge in him.

34:36

Do homage to the son lest he be angry and you perish in the way, his wrath will soon be kindled, so take refuge in him.

34:42

You run toward the one who threatens to destroy you in judgment because he is both the judge and the refuge from that judgment.

34:51

To those who find their refuge in him, Jesus promises in John chapter 10, verse 27, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give eternal life to them and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

35:03

My father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand.

35:10

If Jesus Christ is the object of your scorn and your rejection and your hostility for the brief years of this life, you will be the object of his scorn, his reproach and his wrath for the endless ages of the life to come.

35:23

But if Jesus Christ is your savior from sin and the wrath that it deserves in this life, you are safe and secure in his hands and no one can pluck you out of them.

35:34

If you are a sinner who heaps your scorn on Christ and rejects the truth, there is no one who can deliver you from his hand when that day comes.

35:41

And if you are a sheep who is trusted in him and been given eternal life, there is no one who can pluck you out of that hand before that day comes.

35:49

This is a glorious truth. So that this attribute of God that he is the living God, he is the savior and he is the judge, this is both a terror to the unbeliever and an unbelievable and unspeakable comfort to the believer.

36:00

Why? Because the unbeliever has to fall into those hands and those hands are not in one. I owe to kindly dispose to that unbeliever who has lived his life in reproach and hostility against so gracious a

36:11

God. But for the believer who is trusted in Christ, there is nothing that can pluck us from his hand.

36:16

We have fallen into his hand by God's good grace and we can rejoice in that so that all men are in his hands.

36:25

The unbeliever, no one can deliver you from his hand. The believer, no one can pluck you out of his hand because he is the sovereign and living

36:34

God. Comfort or terror? On which side of that fence are you?

36:41

You've not trusted Jesus Christ for salvation. I got nothing to say to you except it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living

36:49

God. You've heard the truth today, you know it. There's a Savior who lived a perfect life and he died a perfect death on a cross so that in his living he might have the righteousness that you need to step into eternity and stand before a righteous and holy

37:03

God. And he offers you the benefits and the blessings of his sacrifice for sin on the cross.

37:10

If you will repent of your sin and trust in him, come to the one who is the refuge for sin. His sacrifice is sufficient to pay your price.

37:18

His sacrifice is sufficient to save you. He invites you and offers you to come to him and if you will not turn to him, you will stand before him and he will judge you.

37:26

That is his promise to you. And his promise to you also is if you will come to him, he will not cast you out. Instead, he will welcome you, he will give you eternal life and he will raise you up to everlasting life on the last day.

37:37

That is his promise. He promises you that if you come to him, he will not turn you away and no one will pluck you from his hand.

37:44

You will be safe and sanctified and secured all the way to eternity, to the last day. So unbeliever, repent and believe and trust

37:54

Christ if you have not. If you do not, there's nothing but the terrifying expectation of judgment.

38:03

Believer, all of your sins have been paid for in the person of Christ. So now as Romans 8 verse one says, there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

38:10

None. Because you are in Christ, you will never see the frown of God for any sin you have ever committed. Why? Because somebody else has borne all of the wrath for that sin.

38:20

All of that sin has been paid for on the cross in the complete, finished, perfect and infinite work of the

38:26

Lord Jesus Christ. And so there is no debt left to be paid for you on your behalf so that when you stand before God, there will be nothing but welcome and joy and pleasure and delight and no condemnation at all.

38:38

There cannot be because all of your sins have been taken out of the way as far as the east is from the west, put behind him, he remembers them no more.

38:46

And because of, by virtue of your repentance and your faith in Jesus Christ, you have been not just only forgiven, but you have been granted and given as a gift of grace his perfect, unblemished and uncorruptible righteousness.

38:59

So that when you stand in the presence of the Father, it is not just in a forgiven state, but in a righteous state as if you have done all of the good deeds that Jesus ever did and had done none of the bad deeds that warrant your eternal damnation.

39:11

Christian, this is the glorious news of the gospel. And this is what we celebrate when we celebrate communion.

39:16

We remember the price that was paid, the sacrifice that was given so that we might be delivered from the terrifying expectation of judgment and from the terrifying prospect of falling into the hands of the living

39:26

God. We wanna be picked up, plucked up and kept and made secure in the hands of that savior and not to fall into those hands with a heaping weight of sin upon our shoulders.

39:37

There is only one way to avoid that. And that is to come to the faith in Jesus Christ. Thank you.

39:44

Amen. Amen.