“The Apostates, Part 5” – Hebrews 6:4-6

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Angels and End Times Part 6 (Daniel 11:40-45)

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And please turn in your copy of God's word to Hebrews chapter six, if you're not there already. And when you find your place, let's pray together before we begin.

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Our Father, we pray that you would accomplish your purposes in our hearts today through the preaching of your word.

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We ask that you would use your word to edify and equip and encourage your people. We pray that you would use your word to draw unbelievers to a saving faith in Jesus Christ.

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And we pray that you would use your word and the warnings of it to prevent the treachery of apostasy by any who are here today.

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That you would be glorified through this, we pray, and that you would grant us a clarity in the speaking of your word and the hearing of your word and the understanding of your word by the person and power of your

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Holy Spirit for the glory of Christ and the majesty of our triune God.

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We pray these things in the name of Christ our Lord, amen. Well, today's message is titled

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The Apostates, Part Five, for two different reasons. First, because I'm not very imaginative or creative, and so it was easy just to add a five and replace the four.

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But second, and more significantly importantly, because we're not quite done talking about this group of people in Hebrews chapter six, which we are calling apostates.

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And a few weeks ago, we observed that there are five statements, not four, five statements that describe this group in Hebrews six.

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And four of them are positive, and one of them is a negative. And the negative one is that they've fallen away, and the four positive ones we have already looked at.

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And I suggested several weeks ago that we were gonna set aside the negative consideration just for a moment so that we could make sure that we understand the identity of this group that is described by these four positive phrases that are here.

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And today, that's what we're doing, is picking up that fifth and final description. They have fallen away from the faith, or they have fallen away, it says, and it is impossible to renew them again to repentance since they again crucify to themselves the

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Son of God and put Him to open shame. So verse six is our text for this morning, and that's what we're gonna be looking at.

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We have already examined these four positive characteristics, four positive things that are said about this group, all of which are blessings, they're good things, they're positive things, that they have been enlightened, that they have tasted certain things, and that they have been partakers of the

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Holy Spirit. We've looked at those four. Now, if those four things describe a genuine and true

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Christian, a believer, somebody who really has salvation, then the phrase in verse six would seem to suggest that they have fallen away or departed or lost that salvation.

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And some people say that these are true believers, but they have other ways of describing or getting out of this seeming statement by the author that these have lost salvation.

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They would suggest, for instance, that the falling away is not falling away from faith, or they have some other way of explaining that.

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Or they would suggest that verse eight, and the fire and the burning that is described there is not eternal judgment. And I've suggested to you that these four positive phrases, the enlightening, the tasting, and the partaking, that these are words and phrases that do not carry the weight that is necessary in order to make the case that these are genuine and true

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Christians. That being, that's an amber alert. It would be nice if they would consider us and not send out amber alerts during church, but that's the way it is.

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So these four statements, that they have been enlightened, that they have tasted, and that they have partaken of the Holy Spirit, these are phrases that describe the outward experiences of the blessings of the new covenant by people who are close to believers.

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To be enlightened is simply to understand certain things about the gospel, to be taught to some level. To taste of these things is simply to have a genuine, real, true experiences of the power of God, the person of Christ, the word of God, and even the

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Christian community and the various blessings that fall upon God's people. And to be a partaker of the Holy Spirit, an associate of Him, is not to actually possess the

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Holy Spirit, but it is to participate in some way and to associate in some way with Him and His work and the blessings that He pours out upon people.

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All of those things are things which can be experienced externally. They are superficial things, they are things that do not require one to be saved.

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In fact, all of those things could be used to describe Judas Iscariot. And they do, they would describe

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Judas Iscariot. These are things that all come short of salvation, so there is no reason to believe, from those first four positive descriptions, that these are genuine

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Christians that are being described here. So now we tackle this phrase, what does it mean that they have fallen away?

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And you'll notice that verse six, which we're looking at today, is really all a description of this, what it means to fall away.

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They have fallen away, and because they have fallen away from something, it is impossible to renew them again to a condition or a state of repentance.

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Because that act of falling away means that they have again crucified to themselves the

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Son of God and put Him to open shame. All of that describes this act of falling away of spiritual treachery.

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We're gonna look at all of verse six today, we're gonna give consideration to three different things. What is it that they fell away from?

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What does it mean to fall away? And what did they fall away from? Number two, what is this repentance? And why is it impossible to renew them again to this state of repentance?

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And third, what does it mean that they crucified to themselves again the Son of God and put

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Him to open shame? All three of those phrases really need an explanation, that's what we're gonna do today. So let's begin, first of all, with what it means that they have fallen away.

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And it's important to remember that this fifth description is not a conditional one. I mentioned this weeks ago, and I'll just remind you, if you're reading an older translation like the

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King James, it says if they have fallen away, there's no condition in the text at all. It is simply a list of five things that are true of this group.

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They have been enlightened, they have tasted the heavenly gift, they have been partakers of the Holy Spirit, they have tasted of the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and they have fallen away.

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Not if they have fallen away, but this actually describes a group that has fallen away. Now that seems to, if you believe that you cannot lose your salvation, that seems to make our case a little bit more difficult to defend, because it seems to suggest that there is a group who has these blessings of salvation that fall away.

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But I've suggested this is not Christians who are being described in verses four through six, but people whose spiritual condition is unknown to the author, or people whose spiritual condition is uncertain to him.

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But there is one thing that identifies them with certainty as to what their spiritual condition is.

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It's this fifth one, that they fall away. It is in the falling away that they reveal what they truly are by nature.

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It is in the falling away that all of the pretenses come off and the charade is laid aside, and their true spiritual state, in spite of all of the positive blessings they have enjoyed, their true spiritual state is revealed in that act of apostasy or falling away.

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So the word translated falling away here is a word that can only be, is only used once in all of the New Testament, it's used here in this one passage, it's not used anywhere else.

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And there are other forms or variations of this word falling that are used in the

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New Testament. And so this word means to fall away, to forsake, to turn away from something, to fall beside something, to go astray, or to miss it.

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It's the idea behind this word. To fall beside, to go astray, or to miss something.

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And given the context and the spiritual context here, this would best be described or best be translated probably as to commit apostasy, because that is exactly what is in view.

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We're not talking about a mere stumbling into sin. We're not talking about our affections being cooled for the

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Lord or falling into a state of uncertainty or having doubts arise in our heart. Given what is described in the rest of verse six, that it is impossible to renew them again to repentance because they crucify again to themselves the

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Son of God. That harsh language suggests that what we're talking about here is not simply a stumbling into sin and it's not simply having doubts arise in our hearts, but it is an act of spiritual treachery.

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Now, though the word is only used one time in the New Testament, it is used in the Old Testament, the Greek translation of the

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Old Testament called the Septuagint. That was the Greek translation of the Old Testament scriptures done a couple centuries before Jesus.

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It was the Bible of the apostles and Jesus, the one they quoted from. In fact, it is the one that the author himself quotes from in Hebrews chapter one, and in all the places where he's quoting from the

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Old Testament, he's quoting the Greek translation of the Old Testament, which is the Septuagint. So when they translated, a couple centuries before Jesus was born, when they translated the

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Old Testament scriptures from Hebrew into Greek, they used this term that is translated here, fallen away, they used it in a couple of passages in the

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Old Testament. Here are the passages, a couple of them. Exodus, sorry, Ezekiel chapter 18 verse 24.

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But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness, commits iniquity and does according to all the abominations that a wicked man does, will he live?

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All his righteous deeds which he has done will not be remembered for his treachery which he has committed and his sin which he has committed.

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For them he will die. Notice that he turns away from righteousness. And by the way, these passages in Ezekiel are describing a spiritual apostasy.

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It's describing a group of people in the nation of Israel who knew the truth and understood the truth and they looked at the truth and they turned away from it and committed acts of iniquity.

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Ezekiel 20 verse 27. Therefore, son of man, speak to the house of Israel and say to them, thus says the Lord God, yet in this your fathers have blasphemed me by acting treacherously against me.

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That's the word, treacherously. By acting treachery. They have committed spiritual treachery in what they have done.

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In both those passages we're talking about a spiritual apostasy or a turning away from the truth. So what is it then in Hebrews chapter six that these apostates walk away from?

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What is it that they have fallen away from? Some would suggest they fall away from salvation. Now listen to verses four through four and five describe a truly saved individual.

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Then what it is that they've fallen away from would be salvation, right? If they have enjoyed these blessings and this describes a believer and they fall away from that, then it is probably salvation that is being fallen away from in verse six.

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If verses four through five describe, if the four positive things describe a believer, then it is salvation that they're falling away from.

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I don't think there's any way to avoid that. But as I've suggested, I don't think that verses four and five are describing a believer.

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So what is it then that they have fallen away from? I would suggest that what they have fallen away from is this condition, this situation, this state of blessedness that they are in that is described in the previous four statements.

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They have come to an understanding of the truth. They have heard it. It makes sense to them.

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They have listened to it. They understand exactly the claims that are being made, for one. Then they have tasted, they have experienced

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Christ through his people. They know it's true and they know that it is real. And then they have associated in some way and partaken of the blessings and the work of the spirit of God by being in and among the people of God.

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And they have experienced or tasted in a very real way the power of the word of God and the reality of the word of God as they have heard it taught and preached, seen it obeyed and lived and worked out and blessing

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God's people. And then they have tasted in a very real way the powers of the age to come as they see the power of God among the people of God in the church.

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And all of this has been external. That is a place of immense blessing and grace that they are in.

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It is that that they fall away from. In other words, they have come right up to the threshold of salvation.

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They have seen the truth and understand the truth. And then staring the truth right in the face, they fall back or turn away or fall beside that.

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They depart and leave that situation, that condition. It is not salvation that they are falling away from.

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It is the truth of God that they have fallen away from. They have walked away from the condition that is described in these first four phrases.

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Leaving and departing from among the people of God, they leave that blessed state of enlightenment and that blessing that is to experience and to know and understand those things.

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Even though they are not saved, they are experiencing in a very real sense the religious reality of the people of God.

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And they turn and they walk away from that. So what then does it mean, second of all, that it is impossible to renew them again to repentance?

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What is this repentance? Now, some have suggested, those who believe the fact that you can lose your salvation, they would say that this repentance is saving and salvation repentance.

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And if it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, then that would imply, of course, that they had been brought to repentance at some point in the past, right?

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And if they have been brought to repentance and they have repented and then they have believed, then they are saved.

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If this is a saving repentance that these people have been brought to and it is impossible to renew them again to that place of repentance, then this would suggest that their repentance had been genuine and true at some point and that these were genuine believers.

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I had a, have you ever met somebody who believes you can lose your salvation and then they believe that you can lose your salvation, you can come in and out of salvation or fall in and out of salvation, hop in and out of salvation like you do a swimming pool on a hot summer day or something like that and then it's back and forth and in and out.

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If you believe that you can lose your salvation, so here's the difficulty for the Arminian position or for that position, it says it is impossible to renew them again to the state of repentance.

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So that would seem to teach them that if this is teaching that you can lose your salvation, that it's one and done. Once you fall away, you can never come back.

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Now see, that's not what most Arminians believe. Most Arminians believe that you can be saved and you go forward and you rededicate your life and then you fall away again and you come back and you pray the prayer again and you get saved again and I'm gonna get baptized all over again because the first one didn't take and so they're in and out of salvation, back and forth.

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That's what most Arminians would believe concerning salvation. I worked with a guy one time right after high school on a construction site and I found out he's a

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Christian, claimed to be a Christian, said he was a Christian. I thought, oh great, me too. We started having discussions and then I started noticing that on Monday mornings, he would show up hungover and he would show up and his weeks would just go horrible.

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He'd talk about how things were going with his wife and what he was doing in the evenings and drug use and slipping in and out and all these various immoralities and I started to ask him, if you think you're a

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Christian, you must be terrified at night because you're living in a sin in such a way that you're actually falling away from salvation.

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You're unsaved more often than you're saved. I had to explain this to him and he believed that some

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Monday mornings, he'd show up not hungover but just on a glory high because he had gone to church Sunday morning and Sunday evening and he had rededicated his life and come forward and prayed a prayer and checked a box and he had the rededication so he'd be on a, man,

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I'm walking with the Lord but by Friday of that week, he was right back down again at the bottom of the valley and this is what it was like for him, up and down, back and forth, in and out and this was right after I got out of high school so I didn't know enough about doctrine to even defend my belief that once you were saved, you were always saved but he seemed to prove that somebody could be saved and be in and out of salvation and back and forth and I told him,

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I don't believe that and now looking back on it, guess what I question? Whether or not he was even saved to begin with.

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This is somebody though who seemed like he had been enlightened to a certain point, he had certainly tasted certain experiences and realities and he had participated in with the work and the blessings of the

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Holy Spirit but there couldn't have been any life there. If you're an Arminian, then you believe that this teaches you can lose your salvation, then explain to me what it means that you can never be renewed again to a point of repentance because that would be one and done.

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Now not every Arminian would teach this. Some Arminians would say that this is only addressing the person, not who goes back and forth in and out, hops in and out of salvation but that this only addresses the spiritual state and the spiritual condition of the individual who once and for all completely repudiates what they believe and turns and walks away and profanes

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Jesus Christ never to come back. That it is impossible to renew them again to repentance. Well, what is this repentance?

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The meaning of the word repentance here is the Greek word metanoia. It is sometimes used in scripture of the saving repentance that is accompanied, that accompanies salvation, that accompanies eternal life and that is the gateway to eternal life.

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We couple that with faith and repentance. It's the repentance from dead works. It is a turning from sin to God.

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That is how it's used in scripture. That's not the only way that it's used in scripture. Sometimes it is used of simply having a change of mind or even a change of behavior.

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And just as there is, in fact, in Thomas Watson in his book on repentance, The Old Puritan, he has a whole chapter in there called

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Counterfeit Repentance because just as there is a faith that cannot save you, a dead faith that is not accompanied by works, a dead faith that is in the wrong object or just simply a belief, a mental assent to something, just as there is a faith or belief that cannot save you, so there is repentance that is not toward God.

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Paul talks about this in 2 Corinthians 7 verse 10 when he says the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret leading to salvation.

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See, there is a sorrow according to the will of God that produces a repentance leading to salvation.

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Just as there is a repentance that leads to salvation, there is a repentance that does not lead to salvation. That is why

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Paul distinguishes between a repentance that leads to salvation and an ungodly or worldly repentance.

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Acts chapter 11 verse 18 says that God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life.

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You mean there is a kind of repentance that does not lead to life? There is, just as there is a belief that does not lead to life and a quote unquote faith that does not lead to life.

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We saw this in John chapter seven, didn't we? We saw all of what we called back then believing unbelievers or unbelieving believers.

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You say, well, that sounds like a contradiction term. No, it's not. It's the people who believe, quote unquote, they give mental assent to something, they come to Jesus, but they don't have life.

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And we saw this in the crowds in John chapter six. Do you remember that? They came to Jesus for food. They came to Jesus to see the signs.

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They came to Jesus because they were expecting him to overthrow Rome and establish a kingdom. They came to Jesus because they wanted the top seats in the kingdom that he was going to establish.

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They came to Jesus because they liked the miracles that he did. They came to Jesus because he confronted the religious leaders.

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They came to Jesus for all of those reasons. And finally, Jesus confronted them and said, you cannot truly come to me unless the

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Father who sent me draws you. You are unable in and of yourselves to come to me for eternal life.

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And this offended them and they turned and walked away. And we went from thousands of people following him to 12.

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And one of them was a devil, John chapter six says. Even Judas stayed through all of that. There is a faith and there is a belief.

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We see it in John two, in John six. We see it in John four with people who believe Jesus because of the signs.

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We see it in John six with people who believe Jesus because of the signs. We even see it in John chapter eight where it says that they believed in him after he had given them a certain discourse.

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It says that the people believed in him and then Jesus said, yeah, you're still a slave to sin. And they said, where are the rocks? So pick up rocks and throw at him.

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These were the same people that John eight says believed in him, quote unquote. There is a repentance that does not lead to life and there is a faith and a belief that does not lead to life.

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Both saving repentance and saving faith are gifts from God. And the author here is distinguishing between true repentance,

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I think, and a worldly or fake repentance that does not lead to life. Peter describes false teachers who do this very thing.

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He says, after they've escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and their latter state becomes worse for them than the first.

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It would have been better for them not to have known the way of truth or righteousness than having known it to turn from it because the scripture is fulfilled.

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It says, like a dog returns to its vomit and a sow having washed what's wallowing in the mire.

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These false teachers, for a period of time, however brief it is, they managed to escape the worldly and moral pollutions of the world and the world system and all of the temptations through their knowledge of Christ.

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But because their heart is not changed and their nature is not changed, they go right back to their former state. Like a dog going to eat its vomit, what it left up at one point, it picks up another.

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I know, it's Peter's words, not mine. If I'm ruining your lunch, don't blame me. But that thing which they gave up and got rid of for a period of time, they go right back to that.

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The defilements and corruptions of the world, that's what a false teacher does. That's what an apostate does. Having reformed their behavior for a period of time, having claimed a certain belief and faith in Christ and even having felt a sorrow and a grieving over their sin, it is a sorrow that does not

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Godward. It does not lead them actually to God. And another form of false repentance or fake repentance is having a remorse over the consequences of sin and not over sin itself.

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You see, for those who have a fake repentance, it is not the committing of the sin that they hate, it's the consequences of the sin that they hate.

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The drunkard loves his drink and he loves his drunkenness. It's the hangover he hates.

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And the adulterer loves his pornography and his fornication and his adulteries and the lust of his flesh, he loves those things.

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But he truly does hate the effect that it has upon his wife and his children. And the adulterer does not, the gossiper, the slanderer, does not hate the gossip and the slander.

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They hate to see the travesty of the ruined reputations and lives that it brings to other people.

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See, it's not the sin, it's not the committing of the sin that they hate, the sin they still love, but the consequences of it they hate.

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And so they sometimes will give up or reform their behavior in order to avoid the unfortunate, unnecessary, and uncomfortable consequences of their behavior and their sin.

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But that is not biblical and genuine repentance because the orientation towards sin has not changed.

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The love for sin has not changed. When those things are changed and it is accompanied with saving faith and a new nature, both of which are the gift of God, then you have true and genuine salvation.

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So what type of repentance is this? Well, what type of repentance accompanies an understanding of the truth that can result in someone having sorrow for their sin and even grieving over the consequences of their sin and may even resolve that they are gonna give up certain sins and transgressions for a period of time.

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But then that resolve and that remorse never actually results in a changed nature. It is not accompanied by faith and belief in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. And so that remorse and regret over the consequences of the sin simply causes them, for a period of time, having given it up, to go right back to it.

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They're never actually set free from sin. They just stop sinning for a period of time. But they're never actually set free from it.

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They're never actually delivered from the slavery and the bondage to sin and the consequences of sin. They just simply reform their behavior for a period of time.

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What type of repentance is it that can abandon someone, that can bring someone to a point of enlightenment and understanding and experience, but then that person is able to turn and walk away from and completely repudiate that truth that they know?

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Does that sound like biblical repentance? Does that sound like the gift of God to you? Does that sound like something that delivers people from the power and the penalty and the persuasiveness of sin?

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Does that sound like a change in orientation towards sin? That is not saving repentance. There's fake belief and there is fake repentance.

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It seems that these people in Hebrews 6 had enough of the teaching that they had received an explanation, an understanding of the gospel.

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They had actually been brought to a place of remorse and regret over their sin and now having been brought to that point and stirred the truth right in the face, they have turned and walked away from that and now it is impossible to renew them again to repentance.

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And before we talk about what the impossibility is, let me remind you, Christian, you and I have experienced all four of these things, the enlightenment, the tasting, and the partaking.

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All of those blessings we have received and all of them, in most cases, are preliminary to our actual salvation.

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That should be pointed out. The enlightenment, the understanding that we receive, feeling the weight of our sin and our guilt, understanding the judgment of God, what must happen, the necessity of an atonement to pay the price for my sin, we understand that.

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We see it, we behold Christ, we see in him a beauty, we see his people, we see the reality of these things, we become convinced of the truth of these things, we partake and enjoy certain blessings that come to us because of our proximity to other

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Christians. We have very real religious experience that testify to the truth of what it is that we have heard. All of those things happen preliminary to our actual salvation.

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And none of them involve saving faith. None of them must involve in saving faith. Now, all of those things can issue or result in saving faith, but not always.

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In the case of these apostates, it certainly doesn't. They turn and they walk away from this. They turn from the truth, and so it is impossible to renew them again to salvation.

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Now, some would say that the impossibility is simply an impossibility for men, not for God. With God, all things are possible.

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And so this just is describing that it is impossible for us to renew them or to drive them again, to bring them through the preaching of the truth or the teaching of the truth, again, to this place of repentance.

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And I would say that that is true, but it is always impossible for us to bring anyone to that position because we can't grant repentance.

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We can't give repentance. We can't bring somebody to repentance. So it's always impossible for us to do. It seems a bit redundant to suggest that.

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Others have suggested that the impossibility here is simply describing God's normal way of working, that it is not impossible in the sense of man and God doing this, but we should not expect

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God to bring these people back to this place of repentance, to true salvation, because that is not the way in which

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God normally works. I would suggest a third option of impossible, that it means impossible.

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It is impossible because in the act of apostasy, they repudiate the truth with full knowledge of it.

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And having walked away from that, they can never be brought back again because in the walking away from that truth, their heart is so hardened, their conscience so seared, and their eyes so blinded that they will not come back to the truth.

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And God, in that act of walking away, is turning them over to a path that inevitably results in their destruction.

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That is why it is impossible, because God has promised to damn or to judge everyone who has committed this serious sin of spiritual treachery.

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I would suggest that. That's the position I lean to. It doesn't mean that anybody who, how should

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I phrase this? It doesn't mean that you and I are always able to tell who has committed the sin of apostasy, because we see people who play with the truth a lot and even step away from the truth for a period of time, and then they court it.

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And when has somebody crossed that point of no return where God says simply that I'm giving you up to destruction because you have walked away from so much light?

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I don't think that is always easy for us to tell. And so we ought to say he or she is an apostate very, very reluctantly, because we don't know when they have crossed that line.

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But there seems to be some line that is crossed by this group of people that means that God has given them over to destruction, and so renewal to repentance to that place where they can be saved is impossible, because that is not the way that God works.

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He will not do that. Now what does it mean that they crucify to themselves the Son of God? So we've looked at falling away. We've looked at what it means to repent in this sense and to not be renewed and possibly be renewed again to that state.

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As third, what does it mean that they crucify to themselves the Son of God and put him to open shame? Notice the connection between the impossibility being renewed to repentance and this crucifying to themselves openly the

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Son of God. There's a connection here. It is impossible to renew them again to repentance, because this act of apostasy is basically the again crucifying to themselves the

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Son of God and putting Christ to open shame. What does that mean? Well, it doesn't mean that they are actually involved in some physical act of reenacting the crucifixion.

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Let's get the ludicrous out of the way. It doesn't mean that they were involved in the original death of Christ and called for his blood and were there pounding the nails into his wrists and his feet.

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It doesn't mean that. But it does mean that in this act of apostasy, in their own minds and in their own hearts, they have reached the very same verdict that was reached by the people who rejected

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Christ to begin with. Let me illustrate what that means, what I mean by that. Why was

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Jesus crucified? You say, well, because God was atoning for the sins of all who will believe upon him.

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He died in our stead because he is the sacrifice for our sin and that's why

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Jesus was crucified. No, I mean not from God's perspective or our perspective, but from the perspective of the Pharisees and the Sadducees and Caiaphas and the high priests and the religious leaders in the nation of Israel.

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Why was Jesus crucified? He was crucified because he claimed to be the son of God. In Matthew chapter 26, before Caiaphas, Caiaphas said to him, tell us whether you're the

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Christ, the son of God. And Jesus said to him, you've said it yourself. Nevertheless, I say to you, the day will come when you will see the son of man return to the cause of glory.

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And you know what Caiaphas said to that? Well, Caiaphas understood exactly what he was claiming. And Caiaphas tore his robes and said, he's blaspheming.

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What more do we need if we have witnesses? You've heard it with your own ears, what he is claiming to be. He's claiming to be divine.

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He's claiming to be the son of God. This was his claim and they understood exactly what it is that Jesus was claiming. And that is why they rejected him.

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Then everybody who was gathered around them said at that trial, you're right, he is blaspheming. He is worthy of death.

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Listen to that verdict. He is worthy of death. That is the verdict that they came to. Having heard the truth and understood the truth, standing there face to face with the one who is the truth, they said, he deserves death.

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They were saying, he is a liar, he is a fraud, he is a charlatan, or he's a lunatic. But he is most certainly a blasphemer.

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And listen, Jesus' statement was blasphemy if it weren't true. It is either true or it is blasphemy.

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If it is true that he is the divine son who even while he walked the earth, held the universe in place and did all of the work that the father gave him to do, if he was a divine being, the divine messiah, the divine king, the one who is able to forgive sins, who created the world, spoke, and everything was brought into existence, if he is that one, then it is not blasphemy for him to claim to be

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God, because that's true. But if he is not that, then it was blasphemy for him to claim to be God. And what was the verdict of the crowd who gathered around and called for the blood of Jesus and wanted to set

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Barabbas free? Their verdict was that the death of this blasphemer is deserved, it is warranted, and it is right.

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That is what their verdict was. So what does it mean to crucify to himself again, or crucify to yourself again the son of God and put him to open shame?

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It means that I am siding with those who called for his blood. That is the conclusion that an apostate comes to.

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Looking the truth in the face, they step away from it and say it is all a lie, even though they know in their hearts that that is not true.

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They say it is all a lie, Jesus is not the son of God, he is not a perfect God offering a perfect sacrifice to provide a perfect atonement and to perfect forever all those who are included in that atonement.

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Instead, they are concluding that this man who claimed to be the son of God was either a liar or he was a lunatic, but nonetheless, he is a blasphemer and he deserved the sentence that was issued against him.

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The verdict is he is a liar and a fraud, he deserved to be crucified, and they are saying in their hearts and in their minds what happened to him is just and right, and if it were to happen again today,

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I would side with those who crucified him and called out for his blood. That is the treachery of the sin of apostasy.

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It's not being uncertain about what is true, it's not sitting there and listening to me preach and saying, ah,

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I don't know, I don't know if I agree with that entirely, that's not apostasy.

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Apostasy is not falling into a certain sin, apostasy is seeing the truth, knowing that it is true, there is no more proof that can be given, because no more proof is necessary.

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You've had these very real experiences, you have tasted these things in a very real way, you have heard these things, you understand these things, you have been enlightened, and instead of responding in repentance, true repentance in faith, you turn and you walk away from all of that and say that is all nonsense,

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Jesus Christ was a liar or a lunatic and he deserved what came to him. It's all a charade.

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That is the spiritual act of treachery or apostasy that is being described here. And notice that it says the result of this is that they put

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Christ again to open shame. They openly shame him. The one who has received so much light, when he turns away from it, it is a public act of refusal and of reproof of the

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Christian faith and the Christian truth. All apostasy is public, to one degree or another.

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All apostasy is public, because the one who is alongside of the people of God and experiencing those things and hearing the word of God who is trying out the

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Christian thing and has come to pretend and fake it all the way to a certain point, when they finally turn and they walk away, it is a public shaming of the name of Christ and the claims of Christ and the people of Christ.

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It is putting Christ to open shame, because in doing that, you are walking away from those people, believers, and saying to everybody else in the world, your friends, your associates, your coworkers, your family, everyone else, you're saying,

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I deem that to be wrong and immoral and wicked and that Christ is a fraud.

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That's what you're claiming. And every apostate is a public apostate, to one degree or another.

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How many people have you known who have committed this kind of apostasy? I've known a few, more than a few.

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I wish it were only a few. I've known a number of people. Bart Ehrman is probably the most popular, the most well -known apostate of our day.

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I don't know if you know who Bart Ehrman is. Raise your hand if you've heard the name Bart Ehrman or you know who Bart Ehrman is. Okay, good, quite a few of you.

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Bart Ehrman was a student at Moody Bible Institute and having studied for years the claims of Christ, he claims to have been a believer and then he claims to have turned around and walked away from all of that.

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And now he spends his time and makes his money publicly blaspheming Christ and fighting against the Christian faith for he has openly and publicly repudiated all of it.

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And his apostasy is so public that he holds open to shame the name of Christ and the people of Christ in all of his writings and his speakings and his debates.

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He's a public apostate. He knows the truth and he walked away from the truth. There is more money to be made in writing books about slamming and blaspheming

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Jesus Christ than there is money to be made in any kind of Christian ministry. I can promise you that. Unless you're a word of faith teacher.

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Unless you're on television, there's not a lot of money to be made in Christian ministry. But if you can write a book shaming the name of Christ and publicly repudiating everything you claim once to have believed, there's millions of dollars involved in public apostasy.

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And Bart Ehrman has cashed the check from walking away from Jesus Christ. So let's narrow this down again.

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What are we describing here? We're not talking about, again, a Christian who falls into sin or is caught in a snare from time to time.

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We're not talking about a Christian who struggles with sin, wrestles with sin, who's trying to mortify sin. We're not talking about a

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Christian who commits a sin. Christians can sin and can even sin grievously at times. And there's instructions in scripture of how we're supposed to handle that in disciplining them and bringing them back to the faith and encouraging them and restoring them.

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There's passages that deal with that. That's not what we're talking about. We're not talking about a Christian who falls into sin. And we're not talking about a

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Christian whose affections for Christ are cooler than they ought to be. We're not talking about a real believer who for whatever is going on in their life, some confluence of circumstances or physiologically something is going on or they're really in a tough time and spiritually struggling that their affections for the

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Lord Jesus Christ have cooled and their heart's a little cold. We're not talking about Christians with cooler hearts. We're talking about unbelievers with hard hearts.

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So you can fall into sin. You can sin as a Christian. We're not talking about that. If you're a believer and you fall into sin and somebody confronts you and brings truth to you, you will want to make that right.

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You'll want to be restored. You'll want to deal with that. And if your heart is cooler than it should be, look, all of us go through periods of times or seasons when our affection for the

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Lord is not what it should be. Right, when you're up five times in the middle of the night with a crying baby and dealing with a sickness or an illness or pain or something like that, those things can all affect us physically, all affect us mentally and spiritually and all of our hearts can be cooler than we would want them to be in our affections to the

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Lord. And we have to fight for that joy and fight for that delight in God, some of us from season to season. Those are all understandable.

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And instead, we are talking not about any of those things. And we're not talking about every unbeliever.

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Keep that in mind as well. The unbeliever who walks in here, they hear the gospel and they're like, oh wow, now I'm gonna go consider those things and walk out the door.

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You don't say, that's an apostate right there. I mean, he had the chance to come forward and he didn't come forward. We did the altar call thing, we had him come forward and bow to me and he walked out instead.

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That's an apostate. Not every unbeliever who is considering the claims of Christ or working through issues or being drawn by the

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Lord, not everyone who puts those things off is in this camp. That's not what we're describing.

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But does this describe you? That's a good question. Does this describe you? Maybe you're sitting here and you say, you know

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Jim, I'm an unbeliever and I know that. And I've been coming to this church for a period of time and I've been putting on airs and I've been faking it.

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And yeah, I've heard the gospel. I understand the claims of Christ. I understand the sin and what it is that is necessary for me to be saved and the necessity of Christ and what he has done.

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I get all of that. I have enjoyed the blessings that God pours out in this church. I've sat here and listened to the preaching of the word and been around the worship of God's people and enjoyed all of those blessings and I've partaken in some of the things that go on here in the fellowship of the saints.

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But my heart is not there and I'm not yet a believer. And yet I fear, you say to yourself, I fear that maybe

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I have committed this act of apostasy and that I can never be renewed again to repentance. I don't want to be that person. Am I that person?

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If that's your concern, you are not that person. Because that's not what apostates do. Apostates do not care that they blaspheme the name of Christ.

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That's the mark of an apostate. They openly would cheer the crucifixion of Christ if it were to happen today.

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And they would side with those who crucified him. Because their verdict is that he is worthy of our shame.

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And so they hold openly and publicly shame the name of Jesus Christ and they think nothing of it.

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That is an apostate. And if you're sitting here and you're wondering, is that me, what do I do? I would simply say to you, you must repent and believe the gospel.

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Why would you neglect so great a salvation? Enter into the rest of God this day. Why do you strive?

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Why do you fight? Why do you kick against the goats? Why won't you just bow the knee and yield to Jesus Christ today and be saved?

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Turn from your sin, abandon it, divorce yourself from it, repent and believe and trust in the one whom

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God sent to save you. And he will save you. He will keep his promises. If you're concerned about whether or not you're an apostate, you're not an apostate, you can still be saved.

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And if you will trust Christ, he will keep his word. He will not cast you off. He will not set you aside.

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He will save you and he will secure you and you will be his everlastingly. That is his promise. Now we've spent the last five weeks kind of going through this passage, describing and defining what it is to be an apostate, who this is, who this describes in verses four through six.

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And I said that one of the challenges that I had to face was to make sure that my interpretation and my presentation of all of this would sort of fit the whole context and the flow of the passage.

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So let's see if it does that. Let's back up to verse 11. I'm not gonna read it again and this will be quicker than at first you might think this is gonna be.

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Let's back up to the beginning of verse 11. Chapter five, verse 11. The author is addressing a group of people that he is speaking to who are immature in their faith.

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And he is concerned about their maturity, saying again, you need to press on to maturity and don't lay again these foundational elements.

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You need to move on from maturity. And in the case of some, if God should will, that's exactly what they would do. They would press on to maturity.

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But any church or any group of people, when they move on past the foundations of the truth and they press on toward maturity, some of them will not press on with them because there is no foundation or ground for maturity.

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They have heard the fundamental and elemental teachings that are described in chapter 5, 11 through 6, verse 3.

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They have heard those things. They have understood the things of that faith. But then there is this group of people in amongst this congregation whose spiritual state the author is not certain of.

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He doesn't know where they're at. The most that he can say of them is that they have heard the truth and understood it, that they have experienced certain very real religious experiences associated with Christians, and that they have partaken in some way of the work and the blessings of the

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Holy Spirit. That is as far as he can go. Whether or not they are saved depends upon something else. Namely, whether they will press on into maturity and hold fast the confident assurance firm until the end and persevere all the way to the end, or whether they will step away from and walk away from the elemental principles of the word of God, the enlightenment that they have.

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Will they press on or will they walk away? And the minute a congregation begins to press on, the apostates will leave.

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Why? Because that's not their environment. Apostates want some environment where their apostasy can be hidden.

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And a church that presses on into maturity is going to reveal the apostates. So there are some who have been enlightened, they have tasted the heavenly gift, they've been partakers of the

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Holy Spirit, they've tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come. But then they turn away from all of that and walk away.

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They fall away. That reveals their spiritual condition, that these are not truly Christians at all.

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They walk away from the truth which is plainly visible to them, which they understand beyond a shadow of a doubt, which they have no excuse for leaving.

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They walk away from that truth and depart from that and cast their vote with those who would crucify

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Jesus, putting him to open shame. Those are the apostates. Their act of rejection and turning is a self -blinding, self -deceiving and self -hardening rejection of the truth.

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In the face of the fullness of light, they choose and embrace darkness instead and that starts them on a path toward ultimate destruction from which they cannot and they will not turn away.

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Now why would anyone do that, you say? Why would anyone see such light and truth and yet turn and walk away from it?

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Why would they do it? John gives us the answer. See, it wasn't for nothing that we spent seven years in John.

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Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil and they don't want their deeds to be exposed and laid bare by the light.

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And so though they may hate the consequences of their sin, they hate the light more and they would rather shame

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Christ openly than be shamed by the deeds that they have done in darkness and they would rather part with eternal life than part with their sin.

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That is why. That is why somebody can be brought right up to the point of seeing the fullness of truth and yet turn and walk away from it because they love darkness rather than light.

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Now that doesn't describe believers. We are light in the Lord because God by his grace has saved us and it is by his grace that he saves us and it is by his grace that he keeps us.

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But those who are apostates, they end up doing exactly what scripture promises that they will do. Verse John 2 .19, they go out from us because they are not of us.

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If they were of us, they would remain with us. But they go out so that it might be made evident that they are not of us.

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You know why apostates leave the church? So that God can reveal them as apostates and so that we might know they're apostates.

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Their departing reveals what it is that they are. John says, they were never of us. That's why they leave. Bart Ehrman, much to his protestation, was not a believer.

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He is not a believer. He never was a believer. He never enjoyed eternal life. He enjoyed all of the blessings of Hebrews chapter six but never life itself.

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But Christ's sheep, he keeps those. See, that's what he promised. All that the

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Father gives to me will come to me and everyone who comes to me, I will not cast them out. That's Jesus' promise in John six.

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And Jesus promised, I'll give them eternal life. They will believe, I will give them eternal life and I will raise them up at the last day.

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That's what he has promised. He has promised no such thing for goats but he has promised to secure his sheep.

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Goats will leave. Sheep will stay. All of them, the sheep and the sheeps, they will all stay because Christ has promised to save and secure and give eternal life and to raise all of them up on the last day.

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See, our security in Jesus Christ does not rest upon our ability, our willingness, or our faithfulness in obeying scripture.

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It rests upon the one who has promised to secure us everlastingly. That is where our hope rests.

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Let's bow together. Our Father, we love you because of the security that we have in Jesus Christ and because of the great salvation that you have wrought on behalf of all who will trust in you.

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Thank you for your tremendous mercy. Thank you for the salvation that we have as your people and thank you for the security that we enjoy in your son.

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Be pleased to draw people to yourself through this truth that you might be glorified in the salvation of many and the security of your people.