The Willful Sin, Part 2 (Hebrews 10:26-27)

And let's pray before we begin our study. Father, it is with great joy that we are able to come to you and before you, and it is with great joy that we're able to open your word, because in it we find all the treasures of life and wisdom in Jesus Christ.

We find your revelation of your redemptive plan and your purposes, warnings and encouragements, things, truth to strengthen our hearts, and we are grateful that you accomplish all of these things through your word, and we pray that you would accomplish them in our hearts this morning.

We love you and we have sung your praises and we have spoken to you, and now we pray that you would speak to us through and in your word by helping us to come to a right and proper understanding of this word and its context and to apply it to our lives.

And we pray that you would be glorified through this time, that you would help us in understanding this text. In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, in Sunday school this morning, Marty talked about closed countries, countries where Christians are persecuted and what some of the believers, our brothers and sisters in Christ, endure around the world.

And there is an upside to persecution, the upside being, and we see this in the book of Acts, that when the church is persecuted, in the early church it resulted in a purer church and a powerful church.

Because when things are good and when it is fashionable and chic to do so, make -believers and fake -believers and unbelievers tend to attach themselves to the people of God, because it's the happening thing, it's the easy thing to do.

But then when persecution hits the church, those people who are make -believers find a way of not paying the cost of being disciples of Christ.

Words are cheap, but persecution is not. And when there is a price to be paid for being a

Christian, make -believers and pretenders tend to leave the church, because they are not willing to pay a steep price for something that they really don't find all that valuable to themselves to begin with.

And so one of the results of persecution is a purer church and a more powerful church. And we should not expect, we should not, we should expect that among the wheat that there would be tares, we should expect that among the sheep that there would be goats and wolves and people who pretend to be sheep, when things are easy and when it costs people nothing to be part of the church.

And then when they leave, when they depart the faith during difficult times or when they are tempted to do so because of the lust of their flesh, it shouldn't shock us that they leave.

In fact, the departure of fake believers from the Christian church should remind us of just how easy self -deception is in the realm of spiritual things, how easy it is for people to deceive themselves into thinking that they are part of God's people.

And it should remind us that being part of the people of God is not just a matter of giving an external allegiance or an external pledge to some body of truth or making verbal or mental affirmation to a body of doctrine, and being part of the people of God is not just raising your hand and walking an aisle and making a profession and signing a card, that being part of the church of Christ begins first with God's choice and it results from God drawing his people to themselves and giving them a new nature and redeeming them by and through his word in the power of the

Holy Spirit. So it is not we who make ourselves disciples of Christ by simply attaching ourselves to a church body and giving verbal affirmation to a body of truth.

We are made believers in Jesus Christ by the work of the Holy Spirit in redeeming us and regenerating us by the truth in his word.

That is how people become believers. And so you can have people who make mental, verbal, and outward affirmations of truth and doctrine who are not actually part of the people of God because being a

Christian is not just a matter of saying, yeah, I think that those things are true, and yes, I went to that church and felt a warming in my heart and a stirring and a religious sentiment and I felt sort of a fire amongst the people.

That's not what makes you a Christian. Regeneration makes you a Christian. And that is the work of the Holy Spirit that is through his word and it is the work of God who is sovereign.

He does that work. He does it through the truth, but somebody can make a mental affirmation of the truth without ever being regenerated and born again.

Well, when those phonies and those fakes leave the body of Christ, that is exactly what is being described in the warning passages in the book of Hebrews.

There are five of them and we are studying the fourth one that we are here in Hebrews chapter 10. And so we are in verse 26 and we looked at this warning passage last week, the last two weeks, actually.

We've been looking at this warning passage. We kind of gave an introduction to it and then last week we looked at the first of these three very important questions that we have to answer from verses 26 and 27.

The first question is what is this willful sin? That's an important question because it sets the context for everything that is to follow and helps us understand who it is that's being described in the passage and who it is that the author is addressing with the very stern warning that follows in verses 26 through 31.

What is the willful sin described in verse 26? Let's read verse 26 and 27 again.

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

So the three questions, what is the willful sin? And the other two we are answering today, why is there no sacrifice for it?

What does the author mean by that? And what is the judgment that is being described in verse 27, this fiery fury that will consume the adversaries?

So what is the willful sin? Last week we saw that the willful sin is not a sin that you commit in a moment of weakness or from a state of ignorance, but rather that it is a deliberate, willful, thought out, well -considered, intentional act of sinning against the truth and that what the author has in mind is a turning away from what you know to be truth and a rejecting entirely of the gospel itself and an embracing of being an enemy with God.

It is an apostasy that is being described, not Christians who are losing their salvation. It is an act of sinning in spite of, or we might even say against the truth.

They do this having received a knowledge of the truth. They understand what is true. There's nothing else to be said to them.

There's no other piece of information that they need to know. They've heard the gospel. They have seen the gospel lived out.

They've seen the fruit of the gospel. They have been close enough with the Christian community so as that they can even enjoy some of the blessings of God to fall upon that community because they are in and amongst those people and their enjoyment of those blessings are external.

They are superficial and on a superficial level, but they are enjoyment of those new covenant blessings nonetheless, and so they have received fully a knowledge of the truth.

They know exactly what it is that they are rejecting and turning away from and yet they turn away willfully, deliberately and considering what it is that they are sacrificing and what it is that they are losing.

It is in fact a refusal, this act of apostasy, it is a refusal to heed the last three exhortations that we looked at previously, to draw near, to hold fast, and to gather together with the people of God.

We are commanded to draw near with a sincere heart and full assurance of faith, having our heart sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

The apostate doesn't do that, doesn't draw near. We are commanded to hold fast the confession of our faith without wavering.

The apostate doesn't. He compromises the truth. We are commanded to not forsake the assembling of ourselves together. The apostate doesn't obey that either.

He forsakes the assembly of the Christians. So we're commanded to draw near, to hold fast, and to encourage others to do the same by not forsaking ourselves.

The apostate disobeys all three of those. Rather than drawing near, he walks away. Rather than holding fast, he lets go and denies and compromises the truth and rather than not forsaking the assembly, he forsakes the assembly of the church.

We're commanded to gather together and he departs from the church. Apostasy is not just a matter of physically getting up and walking away from the body of Christ.

It also has to do with your attitude and your response to the truth. We've seen a form of apostasy this last week.

This last week, I don't know if you caught the news or not, but this last week, Saddleback Church in California and Rick Warren ordained for the first time in their church's history, three women as pastors at Saddleback Community Church.

To the applause of the entire congregation. To the applause of the congregation. Now, when

I preached through the warning passage and talked about apostasy back in chapter six, right after that, Joshua Harris did his thing and apostatized and soon after him,

Marty Sampson. Now I'm preaching in Hebrews chapter 10 and we see a real life example, doctrinal theological apostasy happening on a national stage in our own country.

So one of two things is true. Either I have some magical ability to create apostates by preaching on apostasy passages.

That is possible. Or number two, we are living in such a time that no matter when

I decided to talk about apostates, we would have a ready and relevant and recent example right at our fingertips to point to.

I think it is the latter. They say, if you believe that women should be pastors, does that mean you're going to hell?

No, not necessarily. You can be ignorant of that. But listen, if all of the leadership at Saddleback Community Church is ignorant of that, they need to get up and run because that means there is nobody in leadership who is qualified to handle the word of God, which means it's not a church.

If they aren't ignorant of it and they know it and they've done it intentionally, that means everybody in that church should get up and run because every last leader is a wolf.

So they're either ignorant or they're wolves. There are no other options. There is no third option.

Either way, it is not a church and it is real life theological apostasy unfolding on a national scale around us.

And within a month, and these sermons are not intended, none of this is in my notes, but these sermons are not intended to be like a apostasy update for the week type of a thing.

But within a month, the Southern Baptist denomination is going to meet and you know what they're going to have conversations about? Whether they should be ordaining women to ministry.

There's not an example, sorry, there's not an exception to this rule. The minute a church or a denomination begins to ordain women into positions of ministry as pastors and recognize that, the very next step is guess what?

Should we consider ordaining homosexuals every single time? There are no exceptions.

There are no exceptions to that. Because once you start down that slope and down that compromise, it is a logical progression that takes you right into full blown apostasy and denial of the truth.

We're seeing it unfold. So that's your good news update for today. Now we need to look at the second question and the third question.

The second question is why is there no sacrifice for it? He says if we go on sinning willfully, deliberately, after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin.

What does the author mean by that? That there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin. Understanding the willful sin, what it is that he's describing there, helps us to understand why there's no sacrifice for it.

And I'll tie all of this together in a moment. But we have to back up just a little bit and remind ourselves of the context. This is not the first time that the author has spoken of a sacrifice in the book of Hebrews, is it?

No, it's not. He's been talking about sacrifices for a number of chapters now. In fact, we can go all the way back into chapter two and three and look at passages that deal with the sacrifice.

But even most recently, to our context here, beginning in chapter seven, he started talking about a new priesthood.

He started talking about a priesthood and a new priest and why a new priesthood was necessary, because the old priesthood was unable to perfect the worshiper.

And it was just a symbol and a sign, a type of the priesthood that was to come. So because the Old Testament priesthood was unable to perfect the worshiper, a new priest had to be ordained, and not a priest according to the order of Aaron, but according to the order of Melchizedek, a brand new priesthood.

And this priest would be one who lives forever and who is perfect. And this priest would offer a better sacrifice, offering better blood, his own sacrifice, securing for us a better hope, initiating a better covenant built on better promises and provide for us a better hope and a better future than anything that was anticipated or expected as a result of the

Old Testament, the old covenant in the Old Testament. So now we have a better priesthood and a better sacrifice and a better covenant.

He describes this in chapter seven, verses 18 and 19. For on the one hand, there is the setting aside of a former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness, for the law made nothing perfect.

And on the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope through which we draw near to God. So he has been talking about sacrifices and specifically, he has been talking about the glories and the majesty and the purity and the sufficiency of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ in comparing that sacrifice and all that it has attained and all that it has provided with the sacrifices that were given and offered under the old covenant.

And so we have seen as the result of Christ coming and doing his work, he has done what the old covenant could never do.

So he has offered a better sacrifice, giving us a better standing, providing for us the fulfillment of better promises.

This is all summarized in chapter 10. And now we're talking about here our immediate context, beginning in verse 10.

By this will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time, the same sacrifices which can never take away sins.

But he having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until his enemies be made a footstool for his feet.

For by one offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. That is the

Zenith, that is the climax, that is the mountain peak of theology that we get to in verse 14.

And from there, he goes on to describe the implications of that great truth, that Christ has done this.

He has fulfilled all of the Old Testament sacrifices. He has perfected those for whom he has made the sacrifice.

He has perfected the ones for whom he has died and he has perfected them forever. That is all the security of the believer that is described in that passage that I just read to you.

And so in view of the fact that the author has been saying that the sacrifice of Christ is a fulfilling sacrifice, that has fulfilled all the

Old Testament types and shadows, that has fulfilled all of the Old Testament sacrifices, and so those are no longer needed and those are no longer in play at all.

And the author has made the case that the sacrifice of Christ was a perfect sacrifice because he was an obedient son and the pure, spotless, perfect lamb of God.

Because he was sinless, he was able to offer himself morally without blemish in any way as a sacrifice to God on behalf of those who were morally blemished, that's you and I.

So he is a fulfilling sacrifice and a perfect sacrifice and he is a sufficient sacrifice. In Jesus Christ, God accomplished the redemption of his people so that in Christ, all of the sin of all of God's people who have ever believed and ever will believe was laid upon the son and all of their guilt and all of their sin was expiated, satisfied, taken out of the way, propitiated and atoned for so that that price was paid.

And there is therefore now nothing more that is needed to pay a price. There's no more price to be paid. There's no more atonement to be purchased.

There's nothing else to be secured or perfected. He has perfected for all time those for whom he has died.

The work has been entirely done and all of the price has been paid because it is a fulfilling, a perfect and a successful sacrifice and it is also the final sacrifice so that in Christ that one offering has replaced all of the

Old Testament offerings and it has done what none of them could ever do and therefore there is no more sacrifice to be made.

This is what the author means in verse 18 when he says, now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin.

If forgiveness has been acquired and achieved by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, then no further sacrifice after that is necessary.

So, having accomplished all the redemption of God's people, no further work is needed.

No further sacrifice can be given. There is no development in the plan of God for a future payment for sins.

We're not waiting for any kind of atonement or payment for our sin at any point in the future.

It has all been done. This is the knowledge of the truth that they had received and that they were considering turning away from.

Everything I've just laid out for you. That's the case that the author's been making since chapter seven. A fulfilling sacrifice, a sufficient sacrifice, a perfect sacrifice, a final sacrifice, there is no more sacrifice that is ever going to be offered or ever needs to be offered.

And so you notice the language in verse 18 is similar to the language in verse 26. Now, where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer an offering for sin.

Look at verse 26. If we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin.

Notice the phrasing is similar. No longer an offering for sin, no longer remains a sacrifice for sin.

That connects verse 18 and verse 26 because here's what the point of the author is. Since the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is perfect, no other sacrifice is necessary.

Now listen, if the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is rejected, no other sacrifice is available.

Since his sacrifice is perfect, no other sacrifice is necessary. If his sacrifice is rejected, no other sacrifice is available.

So what is the point of verse 18? The point of the verse 18 is that Christ, because his sacrifice is perfect, no other sacrifices are necessary.

There no longer remains any more offering for sin. Nothing else is necessary. What's the point of verse 26?

If you reject that sacrifice, no other sacrifice is available to you. You're gonna turn from that and you're gonna turn to what?

To turn away from that knowledge of the truth which you have just heard me explain to you, to know all of that and to walk away from it.

It's like, it would be as if, it would be as if you were a man who walked into a doctor's office and you knew that you had some sort of a disease, something was wrong with you.

And the doctor ran all of these tests and did some scans and x -rays and blood work and everything and you came back in for your consultation.

The doctor would sit down and explain to you, look, you've got this disease. And here's the pictures of what the, we took the scans.

You can see the blotches here, the dark areas. This is what's plaguing you. You're gonna die from this. And here's the blood work and all the results.

He shows you the blood work. And then he shows you all the other test results and everything else that they've done. And you did it. Your chances of surviving this are zero.

You are going to die. And he tells you what the disease is and you have heard of this disease before and you know other people who have died from this disease.

In fact, everybody that's been diagnosed with this that you know of has died from this disease. But then the doctor says to you, but there is a cure.

This cure is 100 % effective. And everyone who takes this cure is cured of the disease.

If you do not take this cure, you will die. Everybody who does not take this cure dies. But if you take this cure, you will live.

It's 100 % effective. If you take the cure, you live. If you do not take the cure, you died. And then you think about it and you think,

I know people who have been diagnosed with the same disease who have refused to take a cure and all of them have died. And I know other people who have taken this cure for this disease and been diagnosed with the disease and they take the cure and all of them have lived.

And I've seen them go on living even having taken the cure for this disease. And you go through all of this in your mind and you consider all of this.

You know the truth. You see it. You see your disease. You see the cure. The cure is 100 % effective. Don't take the cure.

You're certain to die. Then you turn around, you walk away and reject the cure.

What is the disease? It's sin. Everybody is diagnosed with it.

If you die with it, you will die from it. And if you die without taking the cure, which is

Jesus Christ, you will go on dying forever. If you receive Jesus Christ, you will live.

Now the one who sees that from amongst the people of God, he sits among us and he sees people who have taken the cure and they live and he sees the fruit of that living.

He knows that they are alive spiritually. He sees it. It is demonstrated to him. He knows that other people who reject that cure, they die in their sin and they perish everlastingly.

He understands all of that and then turns and walks away from the cure, never to take the cure. If you reject that cure, there no longer remains a cure for your disease.

There's no other cure. This is it, the doctor says. This is 100 % effective, reject it and perish.

You to walk away from that, what else is the doctor gonna give you? No vitamin C, vitamin D, placebo, shot of this and injection of that.

What else do you have? If you reject that cure, there no longer remains any other cure for that disease.

That's the point of verse 26. Since the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is perfect, no other sacrifice is necessary.

If the sacrifice of Christ is rejected, there no longer remains any other sacrifice for sin.

There is nothing in the past, if you turn away from this willfully, there is nothing in the past that you can turn to that will remove your sin.

There is no other present remedy that will expiate your guilt and there is no future sacrifice or program that can take away your eternal damnation.

This is the only cure. It was provided, it is the cure today, it will always be the cure, there's nothing else to come.

If you reject it, there remains no other sacrifice, there remains no other cure for your disease.

This sacrifice being accepted by God, being perfect in its nature, being more excellent than anything else, being a fulfilling sacrifice, a sufficient sacrifice, a perfect sacrifice and a final sacrifice, if you reject that, there is no other sacrifice for sins.

Where else will you turn? And this was the question that the author is placing before the audience of his day.

They had, having left the old covenant forms and features and the tabernacle and the sacrifices and they had come into this, been part of this community, at least externally, though not saved, and now these people are considering turning away from that and going back to the previous sacrifices, going back to the previous provision.

And the author is saying Christ has fulfilled all of that, it's all obsolete, it's all done away with, and now if you turn away from this one sacrifice, this one cure, there is no other sacrifice.

No animal, no lamb, no ox, nothing can atone for your sin. There is nothing you can give that will supplement this sacrifice or replace this sacrifice.

If you walk away from that, there remains no other sacrifice for sin. And what the author has been trying to show them is that every other sacrifice is ineffective.

Hebrews chapter 10 verses one and two, the law, since it is only a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very form of the things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near.

Hebrews 10 verse four, it's impossible for the blood of goats and bulls and goats to take away sin. Hebrews 10 verse 11, every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices that can never take away sins.

And then he says, this sacrifice has done that work, having perfected forever all those for whom it was made, and if you turn from this sacrifice, you're turning from the cure, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin.

This is the only place you can turn to. So walking away from that sacrifice to go back to bulls and goats and a tabernacle and a temple and a defunct priesthood and an obsolete covenant, to abandon all of that is to trample underfoot the son of God, to regard as nothing the blood of his covenant by which he was sanctified, and it is to insult the spirit of grace, the rest of the passage says.

So if you do all of that, that is a high -handed act of treachery. And you say, Jim, but I'm not in danger of sacrificing all of that.

I'm not in danger of walking away and going and offering bulls and goats this afternoon. I'm not putting my hope in another priesthood.

Well, your act of apostasy, if you walk away from this truth, is even worse than the first century Christians as act of apostasy, and here's why.

They were going to turn back to a system that God himself had ordained and that had been part of their system and part of their covenant and part of their culture for 15 centuries.

They had something that was mediated through angels and given to them by Moses and all of that truth that they had enjoyed. They were turning back to that, and God says that's a high -handed act of treachery.

If you go on sinning and you turn back to that to receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains any sacrifice for sin, but you just have judgment to look forward to.

How much more the person who doesn't turn back to something that God had at one time used and ordained, but how much more the person who says, no,

I don't think I need any atonement for my sin. I'm fine to stand before God on the last day dressed in the robes of my own self -righteousness, who doesn't even turn back to something else but turns to nothing and just says he's comfortable with that.

How much worse is the person who having received all of this knowledge and that truth turns away from God?

Well, that's a high -handed act of treachery against the truth, isn't it? It's one thing to turn back to something that God had used for 15 centuries and ordained for 15 centuries.

It's quite another thing to turn back to nothing and to just say, no, I'm fine by myself. I don't need any sacrifice for my sin.

I'm fine with my own righteousness. If they went back to that dead system, they deserve judgment.

If you turn back to nothing, then you deserve judgment. Since his sacrifice is perfect, no other sacrifice is necessary.

If his sacrifice is rejected, no other sacrifice is available. Now, what is the judgment that's being described here?

You didn't think we were gonna get to the second question today, but we are. What is the judgment that is being described in verse 27 when he says, "'There no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,' but," here's the description, "'a terrifying expectation of judgment "'and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.'"

Now, we've noted that this language is stern language, and it is very stern. It's very serious.

In fact, it's some of the harshest language that we find anywhere in Scripture, not coming from the mouth of Jesus himself.

You wanna read harsh language, turn to Matthew 23 and read his denunciation of the Pharisees and the scribes.

You wanna read harsh language, you can turn to some passages in the book of John where he excoriates those who rejected him and turned away from him and denied the truth, calling them sons of Satan.

But outside of the words of Jesus, this is some of the harshest judgment language that we can find anywhere in Scripture in this warning passage.

And this is the harshest language to be found in any of the five warning passages in Hebrews. All of the warning passages have some warning of judgment in them, either implicit or explicit, and here it is not only explicit, but the author is emphasizing the judgment that is described here.

He is camping on this. You see it in verse 27. He speaks of the terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.

In verse 28, he describes those who die without mercy. Verse 29, a severer punishment.

Verse 30, vengeance is mine, I will repay. And verse 31, terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living

God. This warning passage is stacked with some warnings about judgment.

But what is the judgment that is being described here? You'll notice that there are three in our broader passage from verse 26 through 31.

You'll notice that there are three quotations from the Old Testament. Verse 27 has the quotation there at the end of it, the fury of a fire.

Then we find in verse 30, two more quotations from the Old Testament. Vengeance is mine, I will repay.

And again, the Lord will judge his people. This judgment motif obviously comes from the Old Covenant, from the

Old Testament, and the author is quoting their passages that describe the wrath of God and God's righteous indignation against sin.

And he is doing this because the author sees a continuity between the Old Testament and the New Testament in terms of God's judgment.

All of the illustrations of God's judgment in the Old Testament are there for us to learn from and to see and to appreciate.

And so when we get to the New Testament, we don't suddenly have a break where we say, the Old Testament was a

God of wrath and anger and he was judgmental and he was always having a bad day. But then we get to the New Testament, Jesus is all about love and mercy, and he really came to correct the description of God from the

Old Covenant. No, the Jesus of the New Covenant is the God of the Old Covenant, and the Jesus of the

New Testament is the God who spoke these very warning passages in the Old Covenant into existence.

These passages that he has quoted here are the words of God himself, which Jesus was the second person of the

Trinity, God in human flesh. These are Jesus's words. So there's a continuity between the Old Testament and the

New Testament in terms of the judgment of God against sin. And all of those examples of judgment in the

Old Testament were intended to show us what a God of wrath and a holy and righteous God would do against sinners who did not repent and believe and avail themselves of the provision of salvation and atonement in Jesus Christ.

All of those examples of judgment in the Old Testament are there for us to learn from. Now, notice that the author does not in any way shy away from the subject of hell or judgment.

It's embarrassing for us, isn't it? To talk to people. Sometimes when we present the gospel or we talk about hell, we do so almost with an apologetic stance or an apologetic tone.

As somebody might ask, what happens to people who don't repent and believe and trust Christ for salvation? Well, I don't know, man, it's,

God talks about hell, fire, stuff, bad, bad, lots of pain, and I don't know.

How long does it go on for? I don't know, a long time. You know, we kinda, we wanna shy away from that and sort of soft pedal it.

Notice that the author does not do that at all. Jesus never did. Jesus spoke more about hell than he did about heaven. Hell is for reals.

Hell is for real just as heaven is for real. I don't need a four -year -old to tell me that or to write a book about it, but hell is a real place and there are people who are there right now suffering for their crimes against God and there are more people who will go there in the future and there are more people who will enter there today and suffer for their crimes against God.

Hell is a real place. The Bible does not apologize for it. God does not apologize for it. Jesus did not apologize for it.

In fact, in hell, the justice of God is vindicated and his glory is revealed in that he delivered an untold multitude of people from that eternal damnation and delivered them into his eternal kingdom and his justice is poured out on those who deserve that justice and so God is glorified even there in the presence of hell.

And so if God makes no apology for the biblical doctrine of hell, which is conscious eternal torment for all who will not repent and believe, you and I should not make any apology for the biblical doctrine of hell and we should be honest about it and tell sinners about it and say, if you turn from this, imagine how much more severe your punishment will be having received this truth and rejected it than if you had never heard this truth to begin with.

There is therefore an expectation, the verse 27 says, a terrifying expectation of judgment.

It's almost as if the author is saying, what else would you expect but eternal damnation if you turn away from this truth?

You have no offering for sin and if there is no offering for sin and your sin has not been paid for, what do you have to expect?

What else would you expect? Do you expect God to pervert eternal justice by turning his eye away from your sin?

Do you expect God to compromise his eternal standards and his holiness and his righteousness by simply letting guilty people go free?

That is not good. That is not loving, righteous, holy, or just. What else should you expect except the terrifying expectation of judgment?

And, the verse says, a fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries. That is a quotation.

You say, this is first of the three quotations from the Old Testament. Where does that come from? It comes from Isaiah chapter 26, verse 11.

Here's how it reads. Oh Lord, your hand is lifted up, yet they do not see it. They see your zeal for the people and are put to shame.

Indeed, fire will devour your enemies. That's the passage that the author is quoting from there.

Indeed, fire will devour your enemies. There are other Old Testament passages that describe the wrath of God in similar language.

Zephaniah one, verse 18, neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them on the day of the Lord's wrath, and all the earth will be devoured in the fire of his jealousy, for he will make a complete end, indeed a terrifying one, of all the inhabitants of the earth.

Zephaniah three, verse eight, therefore wait for me, declares the Lord, for the day when I rise up as a witness, indeed, my decision is to gather the nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out on them my indignation, all my burning anger, for all the earth will be devoured by the fire of my zeal.

Isaiah 64, verse two, as fire kindles the brushwood, and fire causes water to boil, to make your name known to your adversaries, that the nations may tremble at your presence.

Notice how the judgment of God and his indignation is likened to fire and to a burning. In fact,

Jesus himself, when he spoke about hell, he borrowed some of the Old Testament imagery. So, for instance, in Mark nine, verse 46 and verse 48, when

Jesus described hell as the place where their worm will not die and the fire is not quenched, he was quoting

Isaiah 66, verse 24. Then they will go forth and look on the corpses of the men who have transgressed against me, for their worm will not die and their fire will not be quenched, and they will be an abhorrence to all mankind.

That describes eternal damnation. Hell is a place where the best analogy you can give is you are being consumed by worms, but you are never consumed.

A body that is being eaten by worms, the worms are never full, the worms never stop consuming, and yet what they are consuming is never fully consumed.

It goes on forever and ever. Or a body that is being burnt, being consumed by flames, but the flames are never satisfied, and the body is never destroyed, but it goes on forever and ever.

Where the worm does not die, but it consumes forever, and where the fire burns and never goes out, and what is eaten and what is burned is never consumed or destroyed.

That is the eternal damnation. That is the eternal state. That is what apostates deserve.

Why? Because in their act of apostasy, they reveal that they themselves are the adversaries of God.

An apostate can walk right up and see the truth, read the truth, understand the truth, experience the truth, see it lived out amongst them, knows that he is diseased and dying, sees what the cure is, sees other people healed by that cure, fellowships with them, is close to them, and then turns and walks away from that.

The only way you can describe such a person is that they are an adversary of the truth, an adversary of the very

God who made that provision in Jesus Christ for their sin. And that fury of a fire will consume the adversaries.

The one who turns away reveals his enmity against God because he turns away from the brightness and the fullness of glorious truth in Jesus Christ.

In Scripture, judgment for eternity is always connected to the amount of light that is rejected.

You say, why is this, and this is not the last of the stern language that is used here, why is this warning so stern and so serious and such brutal language used?

It is used because the apostate is one who departs from the truth and his judgment, he is somebody who puts himself in a place where he is absolutely without any excuse.

There's nothing else for him to hear. There's nothing else for him to know. There's no other information that will change his mind.

He sees it all, he understands it all, and he refuses to bow the knee. He has received all of that light.

And the biblical principle is this, that greater light brings greater responsibility. Greater light brings greater accountability and thus greater judgment.

Jesus spoke of this in Matthew 10. He says, whoever does not receive you or heed your words as you go out of that house or city, shake the dust off your feet.

Truly I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city.

There will be degrees of punishment in hell because there have been degrees of sinfulness and degrees of light rejected.

And Jesus said it would be more tolerable for Sodom than for the city that you enter into who rejects your teaching.

Why? Because Sodom did not have the king of kings to come and hear from. Sodom did not have the preaching of the apostles in it.

It didn't have any of that. Capernaum and all of those other cities had received more light, so their judgment for rejecting that light would be more severe than cities who had turned away and rejected lesser light.

So Jesus said again in Matthew 11, and you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you?

No, you will descend to Hades. For if the miracles which had occurred in Sodom, which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day.

Nevertheless, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you. Why? Because Capernaum had the preaching of the apostles and Capernaum saw the miracles of Jesus.

Capernaum was Jesus's hometown on the Sea of Galilee where he did most of his miracles and spent most of his time when he wasn't traveling throughout the land of Israel.

Talk about light rejected. And that whole city turned their back upon him. And Jesus said, it'll be easier for Sodom in hell than it will be for those residents in the city of Capernaum.

Why? Because of the amount of light that they had rejected. Now you understand why the author says in verse 29, how much severer punishment do you think he will deserve?

Who having seen all of that light, tramples underfoot the son of God, regards as unclean the blood that he shed to secure that covenant and insults the spirit of grace.

More severe punishment. If Capernaum's punishment, if Capernaum's punishment was worse than Sodom, because Capernaum received all of that light and Sodom did not.

Now, if Capernaum's punishment is gonna be worse than Sodom, how much more punishment do you think that the apostate would deserve who has more revelation than Capernaum received?

Because we have in scripture, the miracles of Jesus, the teaching of Jesus, plus the teaching of his apostles and the

New Testament revelation. How much more severe do you think an apostate's punishment will be than Capernaum's punishment?

Now you're sitting here and you're saying, John, I don't even know what to do with this. I would just appeal to you, if you're not a believer in Jesus Christ, you've never repented of your sin and trusted him.

Today is the day of salvation. Do not harden your heart. Repent and believe and respond to the message of God's gracious offer of salvation in Jesus Christ.

You're a sinner who deserves judgment. You deserve the fiery fury of a fire that will consume the adversaries.

Why? Because you were born in sin, born in your trespasses and sins, born an enemy of God. And you're an enemy against him in your mind through wicked works and you violated his law and you have rebelled against him and you have failed to honor him as you should and you deserve the wrath of God.

It would be a good and right and just thing for God to do to punish you for your sin. But he has provided for you a savior in the person of Jesus Christ who has made that sacrifice and paid the price for the sin of all who will trust in him.

Come to him, flee to him, ask God to save you, turn from your sin and believe upon the son and you will be born again.

You will be adopted into God's family and all of your sin is paid for. Reject that knowledge, reject that truth and your expectation is in verse 27, a terrifying expectation of judgment and a fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.

Die an adversary of God and you will suffer eternal damnation justly. Die a child of the

Lord Jesus Christ by repentance and faith, having your sins forgiven and you enjoy the blessings and the glories of eternal life in him forevermore.

Those are the two options. The apostate receives a severe judgment because they turn away from that great message of salvation and instead trust in the filthy robes of their own self -righteousness on the last day when they will stand before that holy

God. Let's pray. Father, we praise you for the provision of salvation in Jesus Christ.

You have been merciful to us beyond what we deserve. You have given to us the salvation from our sins and from that fury and that fire which will consume your adversaries.

And so as those among us here who have been redeemed by that sacrifice and know of our salvation, we praise you that you have delivered us from that wrath and that you have chosen by your grace to glorify yourself by giving us redemption and forgiveness and eternal life.

We pray for any who are here or listening to this who have not yet trusted Jesus Christ for salvation.

We pray that you would show them their need for a savior and bring them to repentance and faith. May they call out to you for your mercy for they will find it and they will find a savior who will gladly welcome them and has promised to keep them and to raise them up on the last day.

We thank you that salvation from eternal death is given to us in a savior and that that savior has offered a sacrifice sufficient, perfect, and final for the redemption of all who will believe.

May all of us who are here find deliverance and safe harbor in your son, that we may rejoice in glory in you everlastingly.