Do Not Pray For Apostates

1 John 5 and the Confidence of Prayer

Well, please turn in your Bible to 1 John 5 preaching day will be from 1 John, chapter five, looking particularly at verses 16, 17. I'll begin the reading in verse 13. Please stand when you have that for the reading of God's word.

Let me go ahead and begin reading in 1 John 5, verse 13. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything, according to his will, he hears us.

And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him. If anyone sees his brother committing a sin, not leading to death, he shall ask and God will give him life to those who commit sins that do not lead to death.

There is sin that leads to death. I do not say that one should pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death. You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, this morning or this afternoon, as we consider this passage, this difficult text, I pray that you would give us clarity, that you would give us wisdom, and that you would give us a great sense of power as we pray, that we would know how to pray and of the great assurances that we have in prayer.

In Jesus' name, amen. Well, this is a confessional church. We have a confession of faith, Second London Baptist Confession. You may know that many churches that have this confession deviate in various areas.

Some places they claim that, some places they state it directly in their constitution that they don't agree with certain sections. Other places they say they agree, but in practice it may look different.

There is no place in the confession where I've seen more people who claim that they affirm the confession deviate from this. And that is, on this point, 22 .4 in our confession. Now that phrase, that we shouldn't be praying for those who have sinned the sin unto death, clearly that is coming directly from this passage.

1 John 5, 16. And so what is the sin unto death? It is very simply apostasy. I won't beat around the bush. That is what I've very straightforwardly entitled this. Do not pray for apostates. This is a direct message.

We will get to how we know that this is apostasy in a moment, but this is the application. It's one that very few practice, very few believe. They might understand that we should not pray for the dead as though there's a purgatory that they should be removed from.

However, they do think that it is right to pray for apostates, for those who have sinned the sin unto death. In fact, often what you see when people apostatize, when they leave the faith, not only do people affirm that it would be okay to pray for such a one, but they actually encourage people to pray for this one.

I believe this muddies the waters of God's decree and what he has declared to us is his plan for salvation. So let's go through this in steps. First, why do we pray for those who have sinned? Secondly, what is the sin unto death?

And thirdly, why should we not pray for the one who has sinned the sin unto death? So first, why do we pray for those who have sinned? This passage, I'll read it again. If anyone sees his brother committing a sin, not leading to death, he shall ask and God will give him life to those who commit sins that do not lead to death.

Because God gives life. God answers prayer. It is really that simple. God is a gracious and merciful God. He restores people from the pits of despair. He grants wonderful graces and he does all this freely and through prayer.

He has chosen to answer prayer and he answers bountifully. So we should go to him in prayer. Maybe, you know, those who have sinned great sins. Maybe you know those who have sinned small sins and maybe that person, even yourself, that you should pray for yourself and your own spiritual condition.

You should pray for the spiritual condition of your brothers. And God answers bountifully. Now, why is it that so few people pray for their friends who have sinned? Why is it that so few people pray for the spiritual endurance of their fellow brothers?

I think it's because we doubt the goodness of God in answering these prayers. But God is rich and full of mercy. He answers these prayers mightily. You know, if you could, if you could see the effect of your prayers, I think you would be much more motivated to pray.

If you could imagine a jar being filled with your prayers and once it reaches that lid, then you will receive the particular answer you were looking for. You would just keep going. If you knew that it took, let's say, 50 hours to save someone.

Now, I'm not saying it works like this, but if you could see the effect of your prayers, you would endure all things to get some of the things that you're praying for. But because people don't see the effect, they don't do it.

And what is that saying other than they don't know whether or not it's really possible that such a prayer would be answered. But God answers prayer bountifully. And so we should pray, we should pray with perseverance.

You know, and this is, this is true, not just of being able to visually see it, but just that truth to know that it's possible. Think about how many things people have been able to accomplish just because they believe it's possible.

Now, I bet I could research and find lots of examples of this, but the one I came up with was in 1954. Before that, a lot of people just assumed that it would be impossible for a human to run a mile in under four minutes.

It just couldn't be done. Someone broke the four mile mark that year. And then immediately after, a number of people broke the four minute mile mark. You know, getting three minutes and 50 whatever seconds, right?

Once people realized it was possible, they were willing to put in that effort to do it. If you realize what was possible to be accomplished through prayer, how much more would you pray? How much more would you be like that runner who runs the race to get the prize?

God answers bountifully in prayer. Let us not doubt him. Let us pray for the one who has sinned. And let us pray that God would restore him and grant him life. But now, what is the sin unto death? It is a real thing.

There is a sin that leads to death. And I do not say that one should pray for that. Now, some people have interpreted this to say, oh, well, John is, he's not saying that one should pray for that. Therefore, that means that he's just leaving it silent.

Maybe it actually is OK to pray for this. Well, I don't think John would speak that way, especially in this context that is about praying according to the will of God. In addition, we see other things elsewhere in scripture that let us know that God would not answer such a prayer.

But what is the sin unto death? It is very simply, as I said before, apostasy. It is not talking about a sin unto a physical death. This whole passage has been about eternal life. He said in verse 13, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.

He is talking to the one who is headed towards a spiritual death. And Jesus has told us in the Gospels, in all three synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, that there is one sin, particularly that is a sin unto death.

There is one sin, particularly that is unpardonable, that God will not pardon. It says in Matthew 12, 42, excuse me, 12, 31. Everything will be forgiven. God is merciful, everything except, except. Now, that is a an astounding statement that God is so merciful that he would forgive even those who blaspheme against the Son, but not against the Spirit.

What what is it that makes the Spirit different? Is not the Spirit God, just as the Son is God? Is not the Son righteous and high above all? Wouldn't wouldn't blasphemy against him be accounted as worse than any other kind of blasphemy or at least just as bad?

What is special about the Spirit? Well, we have more scripture that clarifies this to us, but just as a first taste, I will say that the Holy Spirit has a special work in the act of salvation, which is communicating the goodness of God and the truth of God to someone's heart so that if someone rejects that Spirit's message.

They have a rejected God in a far more culpable way than the one who rejects the words that they have heard without that goodness being experientially communicated to them by the work of the Spirit. And this is this is essentially what is said in Hebrews six.

Or I'm going to be coming back to Hebrews six a few times today, but it says in Hebrews six, four, for it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift and have shared in the Holy Spirit and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come and then have fallen away to restore them again to repentance since they are crucifying once again the son of God to their own harm and holding him up for contempt.

So who is the one that is impossible to renew to repentance? It is the one who has once been enlightened, has tasted the heavenly gift, has shared in the Holy Spirit, has tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come.

It's one who has shared in some work of the Holy Spirit so that if they reject it, they have blasphemed not against the Son, but against the Spirit who has communicated this truth to them. You know, and Jesus says, Matthew 10, 33, anyone who anyone who denies me before men, I will deny them before my Father in heaven.

It is the case that one who apostatizes from the faith, apostasy being from the Greek, apo, away from, stasis, standing, going away from that standing as a believer, there is no hope of repentance for that person.

Now, several people have had different interpretations of these. These are, there's lots of interpretations of this. The two most common ones I hear, the first one says that this is a hypothetical that could happen, but never has in human history.

So it is possible for this to happen, but it never, it never has. I think that that is a very foolish way of looking at this. Now, this is common. You can find some real good people who said this. Even Charles Spurgeon, this was his interpretation of this passage.

That was a hypothetical that's never actually happened before, but could. I think that this is a real warning. This does come to pass, and so it is something that is to be avoided. And more than that, Jesus was speaking to an audience who he believed had committed this sin, who in rejecting his miracles, in rejecting the goodness of what God had done by that work of the Holy Spirit, had committed this sin, a blasphemy of the Spirit.

Now, another interpretation that people have for this is that this is simply the sin, blasphemy against the Spirit, is simply the sin of continuing in unbelief all the way to the end of your life so that you die in a state of unbelief.

Well, Jesus had spoken to, had spoken to people who were living that he believed had committed the sin. And moreover, think about the words that he says. This will not be forgiven either in this age or in the age to come.

This is not just something that is true, that someone has committed this if they make it to the end of this age. No, rather, this is something that is true now. One who commits this blasphemy of the Spirit will not be, will not be forgiven.

Let me, let me go ahead and clarify and tell you a few things that I'm not saying. First of all, I'm not saying that one can lose their salvation. The one who has been justified by God, who is right with God, cannot lose that standing with him.

This work of the Holy Spirit that I speak of here, that Hebrews 6 speaks of, is not a work of salvation. Rather, it is an act of, is an act of a special communication of that truth of God, of that goodness of God that does not involve a regeneration of the soul.

Secondly, I'm not saying that God would ever reject anyone's repentance. A lot of people worry when they read these passages and they have some thought in their head, maybe they're entertaining the idea of what would it be like to blaspheme the Holy Spirit?

And they think that they've come across a thought that blasphemes him. And they think that maybe they have lost their salvation by thinking such things. No, if you come to God with repentance for whatever thought you have, you will be, you will be granted great mercy.

What is being said here, rather, is that repentance will not be granted to one who has committed this sin. So in other words, if you come to God with repentance, he will indeed forgive you. But as repentance itself is a gift from God, his Holy Spirit giving you a heart that desires repentance, that is what will be withheld from you, is that new spirit that comes to God in repentance.

I'm also not saying that one who denies Christ insincerely or out of coercion, that this necessarily applies to them. For example, Peter denied Christ. He was restored. That's not what I'm speaking of.

I'm also not speaking of the child who grows up in the Christian faith and leaves once they hit adulthood. These are all outside of what the scripture speaks of. There is a difference in the parable of the soil between the rocky soil where the faith never took root and it blows away at the first storm and the thorny soil that takes root, but it is an evil root, it is a bad root.

This sin of apostasy is not the first, it is the latter. And we can see that once again in Hebrews 6. The author of Hebrews even alludes to that parable of Jesus saying,. So alluding to that parable, he speaks of the thorns and thistles.

So one who floats away because of persecution, the child that grows up in the church life and then is tempted away by the world. These are very different. These are very different things than what I'm speaking of.

One who has truly experienced the goodness of God, the power of the kingdom, and then falls away apostatizing, crucifying the Son of God twice over. One time by their own ignorant rejection, the second time by their willful rejection of him.

Praying According to the Will of God

So why is it then that we should not pray for the one who is sent unto death? Very simply, we are called to pray according to the will of God. Jesus taught us in the Lord's prayer how to pray. And he prayed, James 4 .3 says that many times we ask and we do not receive because we ask in order to spend it on our own pleasures.

We're not praying according to the will of God. We're praying according to our own will in those cases. And consider even the context of 1 John 5, what it had said in 1 John 5 .14,. And whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.

So John is teaching people how to pray. And John is saying, if you pray according to God's will, you will receive the things you're praying for. The implication there, of course, that is if you pray against God's will or something other than God's will, you will not have the things that you are praying for.

We are called to pray according to God's will. And to pray against his will is not just something that's permitted, but not very profitable, is something that is condemned. We should never pray against God's will.

I had one person in a Bible study one time who asked me about universalism. He says, I know the Bible seems to say that not everyone will be saved, but wouldn't that be a good thing if everyone would be saved?

Shouldn't that be something that we hope and pray for? You know, I pray for the salvation that everyone would be saved, that I'm wrong about what the Bible says and that there's actually a salvation for every single individual, you know, without exception.

A lot of people think that that seems humble. You know, maybe I'm wrong about this. Maybe universalism is true. But God has revealed in his word that universalism is not true, that there are only some who will be saved, that the way is narrow and few will find it.

And so what that person is doing is not humble. Rather, it's pride that says, I know a better end than the one God knows. And I'm going to pray that that better end is reached than the one God has decided and revealed in his will.

We should not pray against God's will. We should pray for his will and we should recognize that this is God's will. If we don't like it, God is not the one at fault. We are the ones at fault. We need to change how we think about salvation in order to understand the goodness of this truth.

And so some people might respond at this point and say, well, how is this matter supposed to be discerned? Maybe it's true that maybe it's true that God will not save an apostate. However, can this be discerned by us?

You know, shouldn't we just acknowledge that maybe we can't know? Well, first of all, John is saying that it can be known when he said, I do not say that you should pray for such a one. This is something that indeed can be known.

And it requires it requires. Yes, discernment. Let me let me tell you what you should be looking for. Should be looking for exactly what Hebrews six describes. Those who have once been enlightened, have tasted the heavenly gift, have shared in the Holy Spirit and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come.

This is someone who has truly experienced the goodness of God's kingdom. Now, what does that look like exactly? You know, that discernment is hard to develop. It is something that just before at the end of Hebrews five, it had said, but solid food is for the mature, those who have their powers of discernment, trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

You know, it does require a lot of practice to discern this. However, it is something that can be discerned. It is something you should be looking for. It's not something where humility would say, oh, well, I can't discern this.

Therefore, I shouldn't know. You are called to discern this so that you may pray according to God's will in no other way. Let me give you one example from church history. After Constantine, there were several emperors, and one of these was named Julian.

And Julian was also known as Julian the Apostate because he had apostatized from the Christian faith. And Christians of the time, now I don't have as many historical resources as I would like on this, but Christians at the time, to my knowledge, did not pray for his salvation because they understood that this was not something you could come back from.

This is not something that God would grant repentance for. In fact, if you've ever heard of Gregory of Nazianzus, that is, he's one of the church fathers that's responsible for developing the doctrine of the Trinity after the time of Nicaea.

He, in his Oration 18, which is essentially his funeral sermon for his father, said the following two things of his father, and these are in different parts of his sermon, right? In the first part of his sermon, he talked about how his father prayed like Stephen.

He prayed for those who were lost. He prayed for those who persecuted him without malice, and he loved them. He prayed for all kinds of wicked men and loved them. But then later in the letter, he says that his father prayed like Hezekiah, wishing for the death of the evil king that he knew that God had prescribed judgment for him.

Basically, he says that he watered the ground with his tears and he wore out his knees on the ground, despising the king or despising the emperor and praying for his destruction. And he attributed the fact that Julian had died soon before his father to the fact that his father had prayed so earnestly for the destruction of this emperor.

And think about this. They knew far less about major heads of state and people like that than we do today. We know, we have much more insight into the lives of other people. If they felt that this is something that could be discerned from hundreds of miles away without the internet, without, you know, mass media, how much more are we called to be able to discern these things, to know who we should pray for and how we should be praying for them?

Now, and this is true of, you know, any of these well-known cases of people who have deconstructed, you know, deconstructing being the modern euphemism for apostatizing, right, doesn't matter if it's Paul Maxwell, Michael Gungor, Derek Webb, Joshua Harris, you know, any of those big names.

All these people have some story where they have been a part of the church. They have been the leadership in the church. They have tasted the goodness of the word. They have been a part of the power of the kingdom and then have rejected God.

They are not to be prayed for their salvation. And so to go and call others to pray for them is even doubly sinful because it is calling people into temptation. Now, let me tell you about the goodness of this doctrine because once again, the problem is with us if we don't realize that what God has decided is good.

God has made everything for His purposes. Proverbs 16, verse 4 says, He has made everything for His purpose, even the wicked for the day of evil. He has made the wicked for the day of evil. He is bringing all things to His glory.

That includes having raised up some for destruction, as it says in Romans 9. And that includes having raised some up for salvation. All these things are good if you understand that God has His purposes and He's bringing everything about for His glory.

Now, I'm not saying that as we pray against the enemies of God and pray in precatory prayers for apostates, that we need to, you know, should we encounter someone in this state, uh, be, uh, be sour or cruel towards them.

Rather, we need to align our mode of disposition with God's. What it says is that God is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. He causes the sun and rain to fall upon them. And yet at the same time, it says in Psalm 139, 21 through 22, Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?

And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with a complete hatred. I count them my enemies. And so there is a way as God hates the wicked, because it says God hates the wicked in Psalm 5 and in Romans 9.

And it also says that He loves them. There's the way we are called, likewise, to love and hate the wicked. As a fellow image-bearer, there is to be a love. As an understanding that God has withheld from them, uh, repentance.

There's to be acknowledgement that they are indeed an enemy of God, and permanently so. And so as God continues to provide for them physically, as we deal with them in this physical realm, we should be kind.

But as it is in spiritual matters where God has revealed His will, that they are reprobate, that they will not be saved, we should pray accordingly. And I will, uh, yeah, add to this that if you look at this and you are so worried that some are enemies of God, you already knew this.

You already know, reading the Bible, that some are enemies of God. This should not be surprising that God has revealed that some are permanently His enemies, and there is no hope for them. Rather, you should be happy and thankful that you have been called His friend.

And what I mean by that is not merely that, okay, there are some enemies, and there are some friends, and God has called you friend rather than enemy. I mean, God has called you friend rather than even calling you a servant.

John 15, 15 says, How rich in mercy is it that God has revealed to us some of whom are not part of the elect in this life. That is a rich mercy of God, Him calling us friend to reveal His will, His purpose for the future.

That we are not merely servants, but friends in God's revelation of this to us. And so this is a wonderful kindness to us, and we should rejoice that He is doing all things for His glory, because we will benefit in that glory as we become co-heirs with Christ.

And we can know with a certainty that for all our sins in this life, and for all those that we pray for, apart from that one, that anything we ask according to His will, He hears us. And then if we shall ask, God will give Him life for the brother who has committed a sin not leading to death.

So let us thank God for His wonderful mercy, not only in saving some, but even His mercy in revealing to us that He has reprobated others. And let us pray as we ought to pray, and let us pray powerful prayers according to the will of God, prayers that will be answered, and not prayers that will be rejected as being against His will.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. Father, we thank You for giving us so much guidance and so much revelation about what You have intended for man and Your will for man. We pray that You would give us grace, that we might love Your will, that we might not despise it, and that we would eagerly pray as we ought.

In Jesus' name, amen.