Warning Passages in Hebrews (Part 1)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour ,� so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the

Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and we are talking about Jesus.

Why No Compromise Radio, a ministry? Well, years ago, when I did some hosting here locally in Worcester, Massachusetts on a radio show,

WVNE 760, Tom Krause�s show, what was that called? Guest hosting, yeah,

I know, but what was his show called? Whatever it was called, I got to be a guest host for a while, and then the station said, �Well, we�ll offer you your time slot, and if you pay, you could have a show.�

I thought about it, asked my wife, �Hey, I need a title ,� and she said, �No Compromise Radio.�

No -co -radio. Anyway, that is what we did, and we are on Monday through Friday, now via iTunes only, can�t afford the radio.

If you would like to pay for the radio, we would love that. If you live in a place,

I don�t ask for money, but I could do this. If you live in Arizona and you want this show on, and you want to pay for it, we�ll arrange it.

If you live in Georgia, you want the show on Monday to Friday, we�ll arrange it. Monday is a sermon, Tuesday is supposed to be a

Tuesday guy, Wednesday is supposed to be me interviewing people, that�s going to start up again soon, Thursday, something positive,

K -love, heartwarming, just, you know, here�s a doctrine, what about this?

And then Friday, you know, maybe go after somebody, you know, if Lecrae writes something dumb or something, we talk about it.

I need to study that more, see how that�s done. I say dumb things too, so be careful.

I�m drinking a little, I don�t know, some type of Monster. Is that good for you? At least it�s not aspartame, what can

I say? Today, I don�t know what day this is going to air, but we�re talking about Jesus and when the

Sunday school kid says, you know, I like Sunday school today, and you say as a parent, what did you like about it?

Well, we had fun. What was the Sunday school lesson about? Jesus. That�s actually pretty good. I�ve been preaching through the book of Hebrews, and as we looked at last time, the sermon, yes,

Hebrews is a sermon, 13 .22, chapter 13, verse 22, says it�s this exhortation, public exhortation, it�s all about Jesus, and he is greater, and Jesus is greater than angels, he�s greater than Moses, he�s greater than Aaron, he�s greater than any high priest, he�s greater than the old covenant system itself, he is greater.

And he is so great, you should get your eyes focused on him, fix your eyes upon him, chapter 12, verse 2.

There are commands in Hebrews, right? We don�t believe in just indicatives or gospel only.

There is the law, I heard one man describe it, you know, entrance into heaven would be described as do this and live, just obey perfectly and live, and of course

Jesus did that in our place, and then now our response is live and do this, that might just be right.

Chapter 13, marriage bed is undefiled, you should hold it with that kind of attitude, be content with what you have, remember your leaders, obey your leaders, there�s all kinds of things that it says to do.

And also sprinkled in within the sermon, he has these warnings.

Chapter 2, 1 and following, there�s a warning. And we come now to the second warning, chapter 3, verse 7 and following.

And I�m going to read through this with making a few comments, and then we�re going to talk a little bit about warning passages and how to interpret warning passages.

Can you lose your salvation? Do you keep your salvation? Do you have to work to finally be vindicated of your salvation?

Is there a final justification of works? Lots of questions that people ask.

The place of good works, and what do we do? And if you see chapter 3, verse 7, he says, therefore, as the

Holy Spirit says today, if you hear his voice, and he�s going to be quoting from Psalm 95, and the issue is going to be

Israel not getting into the promised land because of unbelief.

Do not, verse 8, harden your hearts as in the rebellion on the day of testing in the wilderness where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years.

Therefore, I was provoked with that generation and said, they always go astray in their heart.

They have not known my ways. As I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest.

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an unbelieving, evil heart, leading you to fall away from the living

God. They could not enter these Israelites because of unbelief.

What was the root? What was the, as some call it, the master sin there in the wilderness?

I�m going to sneeze. Is it true that if you say, bless you, then the demons don�t go up your nose after you sneeze?

Allegedly. Rebellion, disobedience, complaining all stem from they weren�t taking

God as a word. They weren�t believing God. God, we don�t believe that you�re good. We don�t believe in your promises.

We don�t believe how you�re providentially working things out. Verse 13, but exhort one another every day as long as it is called today that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

You�ve got a hard heart because of sin, callous, you might want to fall away.

You better be careful. So exhort one another, encourage one another. God has kept his promises and will keep his promises.

God is faithful. God providentially works. God is a Savior and we are to look to one another, to hear those kind of words as we exhort one another so that our faith is strengthened.

Verse 14, for we have come to share in Christ if indeed we hold our original confidence to the end.

Evidence of saving faith is you hold fast to the end.

Again, obviously this is not you could lose your salvation because of the word �if.�

The Bible teaches many things and even with a good little footnote here in the ESV Study Bible, no one is able to snatch them out of the

Father�s hand, John 10. He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, Ephesians 1.

What�s happening? If you do become one of these kind of people that stop believing, you will prove.

You give evidence. You give supporting argument for you were never saved in the first place.

But if you persevere, you will show evidence that in fact you are a real believer. God uses these exhortations to get real believers to the end.

There is an end. You�re going to make it because you�re justified, not condemned, and the means to get you to the very end in the human life is and are things like this.

Should you ever say to yourself, �Am I a Christian ?� Well, I think that�s a good question to ask, but if you say, �Am

I a Christian because of all the deeds I�m performing or am I still believing in the object of my faith ?� Those are two separate things.

Verse 15, �As it is said, �Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.

For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses?

And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?

And to whom did he swear that he would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient ?�

So we see, verse 19, Hebrews 3, that they were unable to enter, here this is important, because of unbelief.

In these last few verses, he is quoting Psalm 95 again.

What is the issue? Promised land is no good? Well, the promised land was great, but they couldn�t get in because of unbelief.

Why is the writer? Why is the author? Let�s just say it�s Paul. I don�t think it is.

Why is he saying these things? What�s the big point? What�s the big picture? Believe.

You�re going to turn your back on Jesus? No. Look at the desert.

If I could just take you back in time, let�s go to the desert and see the millions of people, hundreds of thousands strewn across the desert, buried for unbelief.

There�s no hope anywhere else. Nobody else is going to be a sin bearer. You can�t save yourself with your own self -righteousness and your own religion, philosophical arguments.

Jesus is greater than Moses, and while we�re talking about Moses, what happened out there in the desert?

I can see very clear parallels, parallelograms, rhombus.

This is like a theological rhombus. I�m the

Frito Bandito. I played that for the kids the other day, the Frito Bandito. Don�t you see the parallel?

Israel, promised by God to get into the promised land, that he�s faithful, he�ll be there.

He gives manna. He gives quail. He gives water. He doesn�t let their shoes wear out.

Nah, it�s taking too long, I�m not going to do it. Give up.

Turn my back. I can�t take God at his word. I�m not going to believe him. Bang. Here�s the parallel, persecution, temptations to go back, family problems.

You�re someone who said, even today listening, I wasn�t a believer for a long time. I came out of such and such a religion, and the pressures are almost too great to bear.

Friend, I feel your pain. I hear your pain. I know it�s real, but if you go back, there�s no hope for you.

There�s no hope. You have to believe in Jesus. Keep believing. And Moses might have been faithful in the desert, and it says

Moses was faithful in all God�s house. It doesn�t mean perfect, but he was faithful. He kept believing. Even though he sinned, he kept believing, but these other people, they didn�t, and the context is slain in the wilderness.

Don�t be unfaithful and unbelieving like Israel in the desert. And so the writer

Hebrews, in this sermon, talks about Psalm 95. It�s really a sermon, the section on Psalm 95, because it�s the first section, 7 through 11 is the passage, and then his little sermon, his exposition, begins in verse 12 to the end of the chapter, and maybe even a little bit farther.

There is a danger to not believe, to unbelief. There�s a danger. Heed the warning.

Look at the desert. Learn from their example. Don�t imitate them. First Corinthians chapter 10, same type of thing.

These people serve as an example. When there�s trouble and trials and difficulties and circumstances that are pressing you, and you�re tempted to go back and turn your back on Jesus, there are consequences.

Don�t. Keep believing. Keep trusting in God�s Word. Even the word �therefore� at the beginning of chapter 3, verse 7, every one of these warning passages, just make sure you see the context and make sure you see the whole book for what it is.

Therefore, therefore, therefore compared to what?

Therefore, going back to chapter 3, verse 1, where it talks about Jesus makes you holy brothers, you�ve got a heavenly calling, he�s the apostle, he�s the high priest, he�s faithful, he�s the builder of God�s house, he�s the son,

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, you�re to be believing in this Jesus, therefore, what?

I�ve got to turn my back. There�s nowhere to go. Keep believing.

What we looked at last time was a little bit of what it says at the end of chapter 3, verse 6, �Hold fast our confession.�

No, �Hold fast our confidence and our boasting and our hope. We are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting and our hope.�

If you take a look at this passage, these warning passages at all, in total, any of them.

And basically, forget what the rest of the book is about. Jesus is the great high priest.

Jesus finished the work that God gave him to do, the once and for all sacrifice.

Chapter 1, chapter 3, chapter 9, chapter 10, the list goes on.

And then say, well, you know what these warning passages, they teach that you�ve got to keep yourself saved.

Really? That�s what you get out of it? You�re not even reading the book in its context.

Are you reading these warning passages in light of Jesus?

Are you reading Jesus in light of these warning passages? I think it makes a difference. Are you believing in the mediatorial role of Christ Jesus, his redemptive work, his resurrection, and resting in him alone?

That�s the question. I didn�t say, did you ever sin? I just said, are you believing? You are in God�s house if you hold fast.

You are not in God�s house if you don�t hold fast. That proves, is your faith real or is it spurious?

Is it fake? Is it a faith that doesn�t save? There is a transitory faith.

There is a faith that falls on rocky places, Mark chapter 4.

Real faith as an object on Jesus and such a faith that has been granted by God perseveres to the end.

It keeps believing. I didn�t say it doesn�t ever sin. It keeps believing. Moses, in fact, sinned in the wilderness.

How did he not make it in? He didn�t hold himself. He couldn�t save him. He didn�t keep himself saved.

No, but he kept believing. That�s the point. Christians persevere.

If you look at that �if� and automatically go, well, see, there you go. No assurance. No, no, this is supposed to give real

Christians assurance. Keep believing. And how do you get your assurance? Well, you get it from Jesus and then you realize what he�s done in your life.

You�re still persevering through cancer, through the miscarriage, through the loss of your mom, the list could go on.

And I just say those things because I thought, you know what? Those were hard.

The miscarriage was hard. The cancer was hard. Losing mom, hard.

Those things are hard. I mean, you have your own lists of hard things. What were my options?

I did a lot of sinful things during the big trials of my life. But thankfully, praise the

Lord, what I didn�t do, I didn�t say, �God, you�re not good. I don�t trust in your providences. I don�t trust in what your son did.

I know you�re out to get me, and what you�re doing is wrong.�

Thankfully, and to the praise of the glory of his grace, I didn�t do all that. I doubted what?

Not his word. I was myself. I was thinking, you know, I�m anxious, I�m fearful,

I�m complaining, I�m, you know, whatever it was, those things were all true.

But I never once said, �I don�t believe that Jesus died on the cross.� I was thinking, that�s all I�ve got.

I�m all in. I�ve said many times before on No Compromise Radio, and I don�t know how, it�s important to me, maybe it just makes no sense to you.

But I�m willing to go to hell if Jesus isn�t my

Savior, if Jesus isn�t who he said he is in the Bible.

In other words, here�s my point, I�m all in for Jesus. He�s the only one,

I mean, he�s my only hope. When I�m sitting there late at night researching prostate cancer stuff, and just, you know, to my shame, worrying,

I mean, trying to suppress worry, confessing worry is sin, you know, those type of things,

I still kept thinking, Jesus is my only Savior. And the wild part about it was, God had so ordained it, that I was preaching through Hebrews, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, and if the focus is on me, primarily, then

I was in trouble. Now there is a response if we hold fast, God doesn�t hold fast for us in the sense that, you know, he believes for us, or he trusts for us, he wants us to.

But it�s an evidence, it�s a fruit, it�s not the ground of your salvation. I could ask it this way, when did you get saved, you say 20 years ago,

I trusted in Jesus then, and a lot of things have happened since then, a lot of bad things, it�s a fallen world, so I ask you, are you trusting him now?

Are you trusting in Jesus now? That�s the question. I didn�t ask you if you sinned 15 years ago when your dad died and you got upset.

I ask you, are you trusting in Jesus? That�s the point of Hebrews. And if you hold fast to what?

Our confidence, that�s what it says in verse 6. We talked about this before, but just to make sure we see how this ties into the warning passage, because the warning passage says, therefore, this confidence, here�s the

Greek word. Confidence is, you are so sure about something that you can talk about it, that the words come out freely.

I�m so sure that Jesus is the one, I have confidence in him, that to enter the holy place is by the blood of Jesus, Hebrews chapter 10 verse 19.

I�m so confident, Hebrews chapter 10, that he offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins and he sat down at the right hand of God, that he�s my priest, that he�s my offering, he offered himself, that I can just talk about it out loud,

I don�t have to whisper. See, the confidence isn�t in ourselves. If we hold fast our confidence in us, no, in our hope, our confidence and our boasting in our hope, what�s our hope, us, that would go against the entire book.

You�ve got this bold, free speech that flows out because you know the object of your faith. Everything that God has required,

Jesus, the last Adam, did, and then he died for our sins. That�s the object of our faith.

This has nothing to do with us, we�re not saving ourselves, keeping ourselves saved, our boasting in our hope, and now we�re boasting.

It says not, well, hey, you are his house if indeed you boast a lot.

That would mean it�s on you. Do I boast a lot? Do I need to boast more?

How sincere is my boasting? Then it�s all inside of versus extra nos, outside of us.

This is the Protestant Reformation, took this back from Rome.

If you go inside, where�s your hope? If you go outside, oh, okay,

I might be sinful, and I go back to Moses� illustration, yes, he sinned, but he was believing, that�s why, that�s why

Moses was a good example here. We don�t shrink back, we stand with the community of faith, bold, we talk about it, instead of running back to Judaism.

The content of your hope, not the act of hoping. Moses didn�t shrink back,

Jesus didn�t shrink back, don�t you shrink back? A very practical way to put it is if you�re

Muslim and then you got saved, you�re a Christian now, you�re a Jew, you get saved, you are a person who grew up in a

Roman Catholic church and home, and then you get saved, and then it�s Christmas time, and then it�s

Thanksgiving time, and then it�s you need money for the school loan time, and they�re saying, you know what, come back, come back, and it�s so tempting,

I mean, after all, since you become a Christian, things have gotten harder for you, contrary to Osteen and all these other kind of word -faith heretics, no, no, it�s harder now when you�re a

Christian. Yes, you have peace with God, but you don�t have a lot of peace with a lot of other people, and friends, it�s only going to get harder in our lives.

With the government and intrusion and secularism and humanism and everything else, we are going to get marginalized big time and then penalized.

So don�t go back, believe, that�s the point of this warning passage, it�s going to be unbelief, an unbelieving heart, chapter 3, verse 1.

Don�t turn this into keep yourself saved, you could never do it. Keep your eyes on Jesus, keep believing, it�s outside of you to be one who�s powerful and apostle and high priest.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God�s Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We�re right on Route 110 in West Boylston.

You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.