Abandon Jesus Abandon Hope

LaRue Baptist Church, OH

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Please stand in honor of the reading of God's word. Old Testament scripture reading this morning is found in Deuteronomy chapter 17, verses 8 through 13.

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If any case arises requiring decision between one kind of homicide and another, one kind of legal right and another, or one kind of assault and another, any case within your towns that is too difficult for you, then you shall arise and go up to the place that the

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Lord your God will choose. And you shall come to the Levitical priests and to the judge who is in office in those days, and you shall consult them, and they shall declare to you the decision.

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Then you shall do according to what they declare to you from that place that the Lord will choose. And you shall be careful to do according to all that they direct you.

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According to the instructions that they give you and according to the decision which they pronounce to you, you shall do.

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You shall not turn aside from the verdict that they declare to you, either to the right hand or to the left, the man who acts presumptuously by not obeying the priest who stands to minister there before the

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Lord your God or the judge, that that man shall die. So you shall purge the evil from Israel, and all the people shall hear and fear and not act presumptuously again.

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New Testament scripture reading is found in Hebrews chapter two, verses one through four.

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Therefore, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard lest we drift away from it.

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For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?

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It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard. While God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the

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Holy Spirit attributed according to his will. You may be seated. Take your

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Bibles this morning and turn to Hebrews chapter 10.

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Before we look at this text and while you're turning, we forgot to mention there's a thank you note from the

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Ardreys and the Greens in the bulletin. Please take note of that. I think in that wedding,

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God showed his kindness in working through this body. I'm glad to be part of this body, not just because I get to preach.

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Because the preaching part's really fun. You gotta know that. I'm glad to be part of this body because of what

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God's doing. All right, Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10,

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I'll begin reading in verse 19, reading through verse 31. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

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Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

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And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.

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For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.

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

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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?

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For we know him who said, vengeance is mine, I will repay.

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And again, the Lord will judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living

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God. Let's pray. God, open this text to us now.

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Give us power and strength by it. Teach us. Motivate us.

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Use this for your glory and our good. Father, we're not here playing religious games, just preaching a sermon, because sermons are part of what we do, but we are here to listen to the very voice of God as he addresses us in the life and the difficulties and trials and temptations that we face.

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Make this word come alive, we pray, in Jesus' name. I've been going to cross -country meets lately.

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It's because four of my grandchildren are running cross -country, and a number of the kids from our congregation are also running.

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And I can't think of a worse torture than running distances. I about die when

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I run to my mailbox. Now, what's the key to running distances?

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What's the key to running cross -country? The key is perseverance. You must not quit.

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No matter that your lungs are screaming, we're going to explode any second, and your legs are yelling permanent damage if you continue in this crazy activity.

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You keep going, you persevere. You don't give up, you don't give in.

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Now, why? Well, for one reason, there's something that tells you it's worth it.

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There's a reward at the end of it. On the other hand, if you don't finish, you'll be ridiculed.

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You'll be the kid that they drive in on the golf court because you didn't finish, and everybody will know it.

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There's maybe the fact that the coach will kick you off the team, or quite possibly, you know your friends are gonna ridicule you if you don't keep going.

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Positive or negative, you have reasons for not giving up, for not giving in.

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Now again, that's where we find ourselves in this text in the book of Hebrews. These folks that he's writing to have been tempted to abandon

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Christ, to abandon the hope they have in Christ, and to go back to the old ways. They're in danger of quitting, of giving in.

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And that's where you might be today. You might be there. You might be in a place where you're saying to yourself, the cost is too great,

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I don't wanna keep going. Or you might be in danger of just drifting away, letting other things cloud your vision of Jesus as your only hope.

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And so our writer in our text seeks to motivate you to persevere.

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He wants to motivate you to persevere in the faith, to finish the race.

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Now recall that beginning in chapter 10, verse 19, our pastor writer turns to his final exhortations and warnings from here on to the end of the book.

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It's these warnings and exhortations to keep us going, right? And it's all based on everything that he said up to that point about the superiority of Jesus over everything else.

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Now he's just told you that because of Jesus, you should draw near to God, you should hold fast to your confession, and you should encourage one another.

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But why should we do those things? Why should we do those things? Well, at the end of verse 25, notice what he says, encouraging one another and all the more, as you see the day drawing near.

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He said, you ought to be doing that, you ought to be encouraging one another because the day of judgment is coming and it's drawing near.

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And then in verse 26, he says, for, always pay attention to the fors and the therefores.

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All right, he's telling you here that we need to encourage one another so that we do not go on sinning deliberately.

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Encourage one another because if we go on sinning deliberately, there's a price to pay.

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So encourage one another so that you do not sin deliberately. Here then, again, he warns you so that you persevere in your faith, that you persevere in your dependence on Jesus.

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So let's look at our text, verse 26. For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.

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

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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?

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For we know him who said, vengeance is mine, I will repay.

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And again, the Lord will judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living

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God. So here again, he's motivating you, he's pushing you to persevere in the faith, to not give up, to not give in to what's going on and not give up on Jesus.

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And he does that by saying to us, first of all, consider the judgment. Verses 26 and 27, consider the justice.

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28 and 29, consider the judge. Verses 30 and 31.

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Are you in danger of giving in? Are you in danger of giving up? The first thing he says then is to consider the judgment.

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He says there is a danger of sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth.

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The knowledge of the truth. He certainly refers to the gospel here. The saving knowledge of who

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Jesus is and what Jesus has accomplished. He is the high priest who has gained for us access to God.

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And not just any high priest, he's a sympathetic high priest. He is the final, superior, forever priest after the order of Melchizedek.

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And he is God incarnate. His sacrifice achieves forgiveness of sins, initiates the new covenant and secures your eternal redemption.

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That's the knowledge of the truth. That's what we know. That's what he's told us. And he says there exists a real danger of sinning deliberately after you believe this gospel, he says, after you've embraced the gospel.

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Oh no, you say. Oh no, can that be? Because when

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I sin, 99 % of the time it's deliberate. It's not like I happen to sin.

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I deliberately sin. What hope is there for me? Well, for one thing, you've got to understand, when he talks about sinning deliberately, he's not talking about the fact that you've done something wrong, you did it intentionally.

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He's talking about the deliberate sin of abandoning

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Jesus as your hope, as the only sacrifice for sin, of abandoning that.

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You've embraced it and now you're abandoning it. Remember, that's what the audience was to whom he's writing.

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They were saying the cost of following Jesus is too great. You know what? We'll take the pressure off.

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We'll go back to the old ways. We'll go back even to the ways that God gave us under the old covenant.

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And what he's saying is that is sinning deliberately. All right? That is abandoning your hope.

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He's talking about a faith that continues to persevere, that perseveres in its dependence on Jesus, not on anything else.

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You know, growing up, I was introduced, and I don't know how. I don't think my father taught me this.

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It was in the atmosphere we lived in the evangelical Christianity of that day, what

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I would call magic formula faith. Magic formula faith that says once you believe in Jesus, it doesn't matter what you do.

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You've believed. You've said the words. You're in. And you've said the words, and so therefore you can live however you want.

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I mean, it's not good, but you know, just live however you want. It doesn't matter. You're in. And you can even become an atheist.

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It doesn't matter. You said the words. You're in. Magic formula faith.

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No. To abandon the Lord Jesus is to commit the deliberate sin that he's talking about here.

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Not magic formula faith, but persevering faith is what he's talking about.

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We continue to depend on Jesus. Now, if you sin in this fashion, what does he say?

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He says you close off the avenue to forgiveness. You see, to abandon

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Jesus is to abandon any hope of forgiveness. It's to close off the avenue to forgiveness. Note what he says.

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There no longer remains a sacrifice for sins. If you defiantly turn away from Jesus, no sacrifice for sin remains.

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There is none. To say there is no sacrifice for sin means there's no forgiveness for you.

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You cannot receive forgiveness from Jesus because you've repudiated him. You cannot receive forgiveness through the once for all offering of Jesus if you defiantly reject him.

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Forgiveness only belongs to those who continue to trust in Jesus for forgiveness. I remember a young couple.

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We were going through premarital counseling together. And I remember this particularly because they happened to be driving me to the airport and we were doing a counseling session in the car.

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And I had said, so when did, I said to the bride -to -be, so when did you believe in Jesus?

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She goes, like this morning. And I thought, perfect answer, right?

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It's not that I can look back to some historic thing where I said the magic words and now I'm in. It's I'm trusting him this morning.

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Folks, I'm telling you right now, you gotta operate that way.

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Jesus is always our savior and I must always be resting in him. I must always be resting in him.

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He says if you abandon Jesus, not only do you close off the avenue to forgiveness, but you embark on the avenue to judgment.

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Again, note, there's a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.

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Please note that turning away from Jesus makes you an adversary, an enemy of God.

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Note that the way you treat your son is gonna, God's son will determine your relationship to the father.

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You turn away from Jesus, you get God as an enemy. You are an adversary to him.

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And as an enemy of God, you should expect judgment. What does he call it? A fury of fire, a fury of fire.

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Have you ever been accidentally burned? You know, you're lighting the candle and the flame licks up along your fingers.

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You go, ah, that hurts. Or you've burned it bad enough or you gotta run it under the water. Or maybe you've burned it bad enough or you've had to have a skin graft.

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Okay? That's certainly painful. But the writer refers here to a judgment of fire directed at people by the fury of God.

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A purposeful destruction of his enemies. Now look, this is not a caricature of God that I am making up.

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It's in the text right here. A fury of fire.

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A zealous, furious judgment that God unleashes on anyone who abandons

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Jesus. We don't hear much about that God today, do we?

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That's what it says right here. And folks, I'm telling you, it uses the word fury.

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God is angry when you turn away from his son. You might ask, how do people abandon

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Jesus and thus sin deliberately? Consider those who left us many years ago and became part of the remnant cult that grew out of the

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Weigh Down program. Consider that for a moment. To them, they latched on to the words of Jesus in Matthew 7 that says, only those who do the will of my

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Father will enter the kingdom. They isolated those words and say, you've got to do what

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God says or there's no hope of heaven. Well, what about Jesus? He died for sin. Yes, Jesus died for all the sins that you committed before the point where you realize that you need to do the

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Father's will. He pays for all that, but now you, you have to do the

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Father's will or you don't make it. Now, some might say, well, they misunderstand the work of Christ.

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No, they have repudiated Christ. They have defiantly rejected him.

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They have not. They don't just have a misunderstanding. They are adversaries and enemies of God.

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I remember a couple that once enthusiastically, seemingly embraced Jesus and enthusiastically wanted to follow him and they became part of our church and Becca and I were discipling them and after a number of weeks, the issue of abortion came up and it became very clear.

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Oh man, they were all about abortion, right? All about, I can still remember this, all about these poor people having babies that would just overburden us with taxes.

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Need to get rid of those. Need to give them the freedom to get rid of those and you know, we didn't panic.

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We didn't panic. Okay, these are young Christians. It's just, we're gonna disciple them. We're gonna keep going, but you know what?

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They walked away. They walked away and you know what?

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I don't think Jesus was ever on their radar after that. He just wasn't an issue then, right?

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What about the man who blatantly disobeys Jesus by divorcing his wife and yet he claims to be a

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Christian? He says, I believed in Jesus, magic formula. I believed in Jesus, I'm okay.

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He may delude himself into thinking that he's a believer but Jesus really means nothing to him, not really.

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Jesus just isn't part of his thinking much, probably anymore. There's no sin that he needs to repent of.

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That's how you commit this deliberate sin. You abandon

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Jesus. It is dangerous to abandon Jesus. Well, you say, that seems to be a bit extreme if you ask me.

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Well, then you need to consider the justice, verses 28 and 29. Now, all through the book, our writer has contrasted

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Old Covenant and New Covenant. Remember, he's just been going back and forth and contrasting the two.

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And he says, well, let's look at the Mosaic Law for a moment. Let's look at the

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Mosaic Law for a moment. Some in that day set aside the law given to Moses.

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Now, when he uses that word set aside, he does not mean, for example, someone looking and seeing some lesions on his skin and saying to himself, oh,

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I need to show that to the priest. Ah, I'm not going to worry about it, right?

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We consider that setting aside the command. That's not what he's talking about, to set aside. The word means blatant and outright rebellion.

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So, for example, turn back to Exodus 22 for a moment. Turn to Exodus 22 for a moment.

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Verses 18 through 20. You shall not permit a sorceress to live, verse 18.

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You shall not permit a sorceress to live. Whoever lies with an animal shall be put to death.

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Whoever sacrifices to any god other than the Lord alone shall be devoted to destruction, okay?

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All right, so there we see that's setting aside the law of God, to be a sorceress, right?

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To defiantly go against the god who says, worship no other god but me. That they're setting aside that commandment.

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They're openly, defiantly, outright rebellion against that commandment.

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That's what he's talking about, this defiance. Now, what is necessary then?

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Next question, what is necessary for conviction in such instances? Well, if you turn to Deuteronomy 17, let's look at verses two through six.

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Deuteronomy 17, two through six, okay? Here's what we read.

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If there is found among you within any of your towns that the Lord your

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God is giving you a man or a woman who does what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God in transgressing his covenant and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the hosts of heaven, which

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I have forbidden, and it is told you and you hear of it, then you shall inquire diligently.

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And if it is true and certain that such an abomination has been done in Israel, then you shall bring out to your gates that man or woman who has done this evil thing and you shall stone that man or woman to death with stones.

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On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses, the one who is to die shall be put to death.

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A person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness. So a writer here is referring to the fact that someone died on the evidence of two or three witnesses.

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No mercy to that person, okay? This last week, the shooter in Florida in the

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Parkland shootings some, what, three years ago was sentenced.

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The shooter who took the lives of all those kids in that school escaped the death penalty.

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He escaped the death penalty and got a life sentence. And the reason why that happened is that Florida has a law that says that a death penalty can only be imposed if all the jurors agree.

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It has to be unanimous decision. And there were three that did not believe the death penalty should ever be imposed.

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And because of those three, he received mercy to a certain degree.

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He did not die. But under the Mosaic law, if two or three testify to that sin there of idolatry, there is no mercy.

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You will die. There is no appeal. There is no, well, not all of us agree with it.

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It is you will die. It's a done deal. No appeal, no chance of escaping death.

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You're a dead man, all right? Now that's the way it was under the Mosaic law.

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And now he says, a worse punishment awaits those who reject the revelation of God in Christ.

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There's a worse punishment for that. Now what our pastor writer is doing is arguing from the lesser to the greater.

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If it's true that this happens here, then there must be something more if it happens here, from the lesser to the greater.

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The death penalty was an earthly punishment under the old covenant. But the rejection of greater revelation leads to greater punishment.

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Is that harsh? Is that harsh? No. You know,

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I remember one trip we took to Iowa. We had just bought, I think it was we just bought our very first van, okay?

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And we drove to Iowa. And if you're in Iowa, there's gravel roads. That's the way it is.

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And so your vehicles get very dirty. And I remember one time, Calvin took a rock and on the dust, on the van, wrote his name with that rock.

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And he came into the house and he said, Dad, I wrote on the van, and I remember looking at him and saying, does it have anything to do with the rock in your hand?

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Right? All right. So that's little Calvin just writing in the dust.

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But what happens if when he's 15, he takes a sledgehammer to the van?

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Is he gonna get more than he got before? Absolutely. He's older, he knows better.

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And the damage is greater, right? Should there be a harsher punishment?

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Sure. And so the rejection of a greater revelation leads to a greater punishment.

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Well, what's involved? Do you notice what he describes here? To walk away from Jesus, what does it do?

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He says it does three things. This is why it's a greater punishment. This is why it's just. It's to abandon

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Jesus means spurning the Son of God. Now, spurn here is translated in other places as trample.

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It's a word that means to trample. If you sin deliberately, that is turn away or shun the gospel, you trample under your feet the

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Son of God. That's what some of your translations are reading. Some of you have that translation. You trample under your feet the

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Son of God. To turn away from Jesus as your hope is not to fall from grace, it is to mock the giver of grace.

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Consider that. Turn away, it's just like, oh, I'm just, yeah, it's not for me. You are trampling underfoot.

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No, the Son of God. This is serious. To abandon

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Jesus means that you profane the blood of the covenant. To profane is to treat the blood of the covenant as something that's just common.

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There's nothing special about it. It's unclean, if you will. But what has our writer argued all the way through this book?

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What has he said? He has said that Jesus' blood secures eternal redemption, cleanses the conscience, removes sin, gives access to God, sanctifies us, inaugurates the new covenant, secures forgiveness of sins, all of those things by the shed blood of Jesus.

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To turn away from Jesus, then, is to profane that, is to treat it as nothing.

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One writer put it this way. Those who reject Jesus, however, do not seek purification by his blood.

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They reject his blood as unclean, tossing it aside as one would throw a menstrual cloth into the garbage.

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That's what you're doing when you turn away from Jesus. But what do you say, pastor?

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But it says he's gonna judge those who's profaned the blood that sanctified him.

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What do you do with that? Well, I believe he's using the language of appearance when he says such a one was sanctified by the blood of the covenant.

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They appeared to be set apart to God, but they abandoned the assembly of the saints. They turned away from Christ, and now they appear no different than the world.

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They appeared sanctified. The last thing he says is to abandon Jesus means outraging the spirit of grace.

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He means here the spirit who grants and gives grace. Under the new covenant, and what

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Jesus has accomplished for us is given to us by the spirit. He's the avenue of that grace.

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And to reject the blood of Jesus, you don't merely sin against the Holy Spirit.

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You insult the Holy Spirit. You despise the

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Holy Spirit. Now, you see then that this defiant, deliberate turning away from Jesus is a much worse sin than repudiating even the

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Mosaic Law. It's a much worse sin. Justice demands this.

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It stands to reason that a worse judgment awaits those who commit that deliberate sin.

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It's just. Justice demands it. Now, the last thing he says is consider the judge.

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If you want to persevere, consider the judgment. Consider the justice.

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But now he says, consider the judge. Verses 30 and 31. For we know him who said, vengeance is mine,

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I will repay. And again, the Lord will judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living

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God. We can be confident of the justice of the judgment because we know the judge.

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We know the judge. In fact, our pastor writer quotes two passages from Deuteronomy 32 about vengeance and judging.

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What is he saying? We know this judge. Why? Because we have centuries of revelation of him.

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Right? We know this judge. We know as you look back in Deuteronomy 32, we know that he's gonna take vengeance and we know that he's going to judge.

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Listen, don't be hoodwinked when someone says to you, the

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God of the Old Testament seems much harsher than the God of the New Testament.

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Some have even said they're two different gods. What hogwash? You see grace in the

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Old Testament over and over again and you see judgment in the New Testament. Here is one passage.

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We know the judge. We know what he's like. He's a vengeful

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God. He's a God who judges. We know that. We've got centuries of revelation that tells us that.

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We know this judge and we know that judge is one who is unerring and perfect and righteous in all his judgment.

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Look, when it talks about God's vengeance, it's not talking about God flying off the handle.

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It's not talking about God is like the boyfriend who beats to a pulp some guy who looks sideways at his girlfriend.

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He's not talking about someone like that. He's talking about someone who's absolutely perfect in every way.

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And when he takes vengeance, it's the right thing. It's proper.

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He says he is a vengeful God. Now, people in Florida, if you read any of the stories on this, many of the people in Florida, but particularly, particularly the families of the victims of that killer were stunned.

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Were stunned by the fact that he did not get the death penalty. That someone who planned how he was gonna do it do what he did, who thought about it, who planned it, how did he get away with a life sentence?

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People were absolutely stunned by that. Now, are those people heartless barbarians who do nothing but thirst for blood?

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Would you say that about the families of those children who were killed? Would you say, you're nothing but a bunch of bloodthirsty barbarians.

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Would you say that about them? Of course you wouldn't. Of course not. Doesn't it seem that vengeance against such a killing is a just thing?

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I think it does. Now, what should happen to someone who treats

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Jesus with contempt, who considers the blood of the covenant worthless, who despises the

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Holy Spirit? What would you think of someone like that?

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Vengeance is required. Those are horrific.

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Beyond imagination, sins. They demand vengeance. And he is a

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God, he says, who judges his people. Again, I believe it's the language of appearance. His people, those who once belonged, who once assembled with the saints, who were called at one time part of God's people, they will be judged when they depart from the

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Lord Jesus, who turn away from the person and work of his Son. What would you think of a

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God who cared little about such offenses against him and his Son and his

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Spirit? What would you think of a God like that? Would you think he was just? No, he would not be just, would he?

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Listen, people will often say this. Well, you know, God knows we all make mistakes.

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He's not gonna throw us into hell. Let me tell you something. So this is what you say to that person.

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Okay, so Hitler made a few mistakes, Stalin made a few mistakes, oh, maybe six million of them, and maybe a few more.

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But God's just gonna pass over it. Well, no! That'd be horrible. Why? Because that's not just.

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You know what? God's just when he punishes everybody else's sins but overlooks mine, right?

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For God not to punish would destroy his justice. This God is just and he judges with unerring, perfect, and righteous judgment.

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He's one who judges. In fact, he says, if you don't understand this yet, he says, to abandon

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Jesus means falling into the hands of the living God.

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Can I say something right now? That will be nothing but absolute, to the core, unbelievable terror.

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Folks, when you think about people facing God as a judge, it is going to be absolute terror to the very core of people's being.

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You know, many people today consider Jesus, consider God nothing more than a deified Santa Claus or the divine helper who pats you on the head and helps you along to reach your greatest potential.

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That's how they think of God, but my friends, he is a terrifying

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God when you walk away from the son that he sent. It will be sheer, absolute, unbelievable, never -before -experienced terror to fall into the hands of the living

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God. Back in the 70s, early 70s, Coca -Cola launched an advertising campaign with the slogan, and I remember this,

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I remember it, try it, you'll like it. Okay, that was the campaign slogan.

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I remember that. It was everywhere, billboards everywhere. Try it, you'll like it.

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Well, you know what? Some really clever Christians came up with another clever campaign, and there were bumper stickers that started to appear that said, try

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Jesus, you'll like him. Oh, isn't that snappy, isn't it?

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How many people were converted by that bumper sticker, right? Try Jesus, you'll like him.

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But what happens if you try him and you don't like him? What happens then?

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What happens then? You know, this isn't what I signed up for. Yeah, I tried it, I didn't like him.

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It's not like Coke, where you can say, I tried it,

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I didn't like it, I'm gonna drink Pepsi. It's not like that at all. What happens is that you end up facing the terrifying specter of an angry

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God. That's what it means. You don't just try

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Jesus, you embrace him. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living

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God. God will take vengeance on people who are blasphemous in their treatment of his son.

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All right, you're running a race, my friends, and it's a race that calls for perseverance.

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Perseverance in faith, a faith that acknowledges the need of a savior, a faith that looks nowhere else for forgiveness, a faith that holds on to Jesus no matter what the cost.

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The stakes are high, you cannot, you must not quit. If you quit, if you turn away, you face terrifying judgment.

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But here's the question, why would you want to quit? Why would you want to quit?

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In Jesus, there's forgiveness. In Jesus, you have access to God. In Jesus, you have a cleansed conscience.

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In Jesus, you have an eternal redemption. In Jesus, you have a high priest who is sympathetic with you, who has walked through the same temptations to abandon

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God, but continue, and he walks with you.

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Why, why, why would you turn away from him?

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There's no reason to. The cost may appear high, the judgment is worse.

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The cost may appear high, but it's nothing compared to what you have in Jesus.

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It's worth the cost, it's worth the cost. Where are you in the race?

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Keep running, by faith in Jesus. Father, thank you for your word that does not lead us astray, tells us the real picture.

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Tells us what's really true. Would you help us today? Lord, would you help us today not to walk out of here saying,

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I don't know if I can make it, but to walk out of here saying, there's no reason.

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It makes no sense to abandon my only hope. God, help us to run the race with endurance and perseverance.

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We thank you for a savior who will remain faithful no matter what, and will walk with us and help us and strengthen us.