How Shall We Escape If We Neglect Such A Great Salvation? - [Hebrews 2:2-3a]

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Kim and I have lived in Massachusetts almost 20 years now, and over the years, if there's something particular to Massachusetts, I like to read about it, whether it's the perfect storm incident up in Gloucester, or maybe the finest hours down in Chatham with that great
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Coast Guard rescue, or even, I hate to admit it, Whitey Bulger things. If it's
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Massachusetts related, I like to read about it. There's a lady named
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Elizabeth Needham, and her connection to Massachusetts was that she was buried at Manchester -by -the -Sea, and she wrote a hymn.
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We've been singing some new hymns, but she wrote a hymn that I would guess to imagine nobody here has ever sung that hymn.
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And as I read the hymn, you'll probably realize why nobody sings this hymn.
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Elizabeth Needham. When the king in his beauty shall come to his throne, and around him are gathered his loved ones, his own, there will be some who knock at his fair palace door, to be answered within, there is mercy no more.
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The haunting refrain is the title of the song. I have never known you, I have never known you,
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I have never, I have never, I have never known you. They had known whence he came, and the grace which he brought.
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In their presence he healed, in their streets he had taught. They had mentioned his name, and their friendship professed, but they never believed, for of them he confessed.
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I have never known you, I have never known you, I have never, I have never,
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I have never known you. Now the righteous are reigning with Abraham there, but for these is appointed an endless despair.
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It is vain that they call. He once knocked at their gate, but they welcomed him not, so now this is their fate.
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I have never known you, I have never known you, I have never, I have never, I have never known you.
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O sinner, give heed to this story of gloom, for the hour is fast nearing that fixes your doom.
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Will you still reject mercy, still harden your heart? O then, what will you do as the king cries, depart?
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I have never known you, I have never known you, I have never, I have never,
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I have never known you. We don't sing that in churches today, do we?
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If we ask the question, why don't we sing it? To ask the question really is to answer it.
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It's uncomfortable to read, it's uncomfortable to sing, it's uncomfortable to listen to.
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But as uncomfortable as that song is, it echoes a very biblical truth.
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How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? The question at hand really is, do you believe the
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Lord Jesus Christ? Are you born again? Are you trusting in the risen
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Savior? If you'll take your Bibles and open to the book of Hebrews, please.
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We're in a warning passage. And it is heavy on warning.
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Except the preacher, the writer of the book of Hebrews. He's a pastor, and he wants what's best for his people.
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Everyone who listens to this message, whether it's today or of course back in the context of the book of Hebrews.
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The pastor doesn't want people. The preacher doesn't want people.
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I don't want people to be self -deceived. Deception is real. Jesus didn't want people to be deceived.
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Paul didn't want that. And in the Bible, there's a difference between what you say and what you really are.
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There's a difference between profession and possession. Exodus 20 talks about there are gods that are false gods.
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Matthew 7, Jesus says there are prophets, but there are false prophets. Matthew 24, there are not just Christ, but there are false
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Christs. Galatians 1, there's not just the real gospel, there's another gospel.
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There are real sisters and brothers in Christ. And 2 Corinthians 11 says there are false brethren.
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Did you know 2 Corinthians 11 says there's not just a Jesus, but there's another Jesus. And in the
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Bible, it teaches that there's a faith, but it's not a faith that saves.
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It's a false faith. It's a deceived faith. You not only have self -deception that can come from within, because our hearts are wicked and deceitful, and we don't know ourselves, but then you've got the satanic influence as well.
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I read some time ago that in America, 500 ,000 people, I'm sure the number's a million now, have false credentials, false degrees.
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That when you call up the university and check on the person, it's fake. I wonder if your faith today is fake.
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I wonder if it's real. I wonder if it's saving faith.
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You have a knowledge of Jesus, and you assent to that, and then you really trust in Him.
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I wonder if you're trusting in your baptism, or you're trusting in your goodness, or trusting in your parents' faith.
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Oh, that'll work. I'll trust that I'm part of this family. That will get me in. John 2, the text says,
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Many believed in His name, but Jesus did not commit Himself to them. John 12,
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Many believed on Him, but because of the Pharisees, they did not confess Him. Friends, you can be so close to the truth, and yet be so far away.
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Luther himself teaches Galatians, and the Psalms, and Romans, and he's not even a believer the first time he teaches them.
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It's alleged that Abraham Kuyper, the great preacher, was preaching, and one of his congregants thought, you know what, this guy's not even a
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Christian, and this woman, who suspected he wasn't a believer, met with him privately, preached the gospel to him, and he responds,
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You can be close, and still so far away. And of course, as we've said many times, if you know you're going to hell,
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I have pity on you, and I'm sorry about that. But you realize when you close your eyes, you know you're not going to heaven.
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That's one thing. But these readers, some of these readers, maybe some of you, thinking that you're going to go to heaven, and then in that first second, when you wake up, as it were, after death, to not be in heaven.
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And so the writer wants to warn. He's not being mean, or rude, or crude. He's being sober.
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To think soberly. To think eternally. To think with consideration.
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Do I really believe? Now, sprinkled in the book of Hebrews are these warnings, with a capital
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W. But remember, the big picture, the writer of Hebrews is saying, We have a high priest.
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Oh, Jesus is a prophet, yes. He's a king, yes. But he's a priest. He's a mediator.
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He's an arbiter. He's a referee. He's an umpire. The great holy Father. God the
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Father. And now we're sinful. We need a go -between. We need someone who can put his hand,
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Job 9 says, on God, and put his hand on man at the same time, to be that high priest.
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And that name of that high priest is Jesus, because he's fully man and fully God. And everything about the passage talks about Jesus as the high priest.
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But you can imagine, when you're talking about biblical truth, doctrinal truth, every once in a while, it's good to be reminded, this is an eternal, weighty matter.
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We just can't come to church and go, Oh, okay, whatever. Faith in Christ, believing in Jesus Christ with knowledge, assent, and trust, is the most important thing that you can ever address.
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Because how would you like to hear those words from Elizabeth Needham, except not from her, but from Jesus, when he says in Matthew 7,
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Depart from me, I never knew you. And as your pastor, I don't want any of you to hear that.
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I want you to say, I do, in fact, believe in the high priest. I do have faith in him.
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Now, we're in Hebrews 2, and let me read verses 1 -4, as we're in the second part of this warning.
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Last week we looked at how to avoid doctrinal drift, spiritual drift, emotional drift.
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It's by focusing on Christ, paying attention to him. And we're going to move into the second aspect of how to avoid spiritual drift.
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But let me read the passage first. Hebrews 1, of course, has talked about the excellence of Jesus over angels.
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What a great high priest he is. How eternal he is, even as we heard Pastor Steve read
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Psalm 102. And then it says, okay, there's a truth. There's not just doctrine, but there's a response.
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Therefore, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.
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For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?
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It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard. While God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the
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Holy Spirit distributed according to his will. He starts off, if you like, a grammatical outline.
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He starts off with an imperative. He moves to a purpose clause, and then he gives an explanation.
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But for us, the preaching outline is simple. How to avoid spiritual drift.
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And again, verse 1 that we saw last week. You have to keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. Pay close attention to what we have heard.
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And what have we heard? We saw last week, chapter 1 is what he's referring to. All these truths about Jesus who sits down at the right hand of the
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Father. These truths about Jesus who's the eternal creator. These truths matter.
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And that word, remember, drift away? It's got the connotation of someone's going in the wrong direction.
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Have you ever seen someone drive down the wrong side of the freeway? That's the idea. Danger. Somebody's going to get killed.
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It's got the idea of you've got a ring, and it slips off your finger. It's got a nautical sense where you're not looking at shore, so you don't notice that you're just going downstream.
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It's like the writer of Hebrews says, if you look to shore and find a fixed point, a fixed tree or building, you'll realize you're drifting.
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Except for the writer of Hebrews says, look to the shore that Christ Jesus stands there, and look at Him, and you'll realize if there's drift.
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And the word also can mean if something goes down the wrong pipe. Something goes down into your windpipe.
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Several years ago, Kim was out of town, and I had the kids, and they needed to get to Awana, and I was trying to do all this stuff.
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I'm the kind of guy that if Kim goes, I still try to make something for the children to eat that's not
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McDonald's just because I'm prideful, and I want to think that I can boil water and put pasta in it, take some sauce and pour it in.
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And so I was cooking chicken for the kids, and I was trying to balance everything. They were little, and I overcooked the chicken, and my windpipe is already too small, and I choke on food all the time.
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And I'm trying to do a bunch of things, and I take a bite of chicken. It's dry, and I'm trying to get the kids, and that thing gets stuck there.
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So every three minutes, my throat fills up with spit, and I feel like I'm going to drown, and it could be deadly, blah, blah, blah.
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And I go, yeah, but the kids need to go to Awana, so I'll drive them down to Awana. So I dropped off the kids, and I thought, well,
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I have an hour and a half to get to the ER and back. Then I thought, well,
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I've got some videos in the car, too, that are due at the West Boylston Library, so I would hate to leave those with Kim if I die.
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And so let's just drive by. I put them in the thing. I drive up to the ER myself, tell them
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I'm choking. Like, what? I'm choking. And every three minutes. And so they finally put me in the back, and by the way, it was funny.
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They ran out of room in the ER, and so they put me like in the psych ward ER. It was perfect.
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I can still remember a guy saying, I told you I wanted a pretty nurse. I mean, wherever I go,
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I think I'm in charge. I'm the pastor, and I wanted to correct him, but I was choking. I went to a particular hospital, because I thought the
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GI lab would be open, and I know some about medicine, but they didn't have it open, so I have to wait. And they're like, you've got to wait eight hours, where every three minutes
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I'm going to die, and it could go down the wrong pipe. I could die. So finally I said to them, do you have any
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Ativan? Do you have anything that would just relax me? Well, I can't eat it, because I can't swallow, but she said
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I'll talk to the doctor, and so she came over, and she gave me a little bolus of Ativan. First time I've ever had it.
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It was so nice. Oh, I know why people get hooked on Ativan.
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Oh, crazy psych ward, no problem. Everything, it is well with my soul, but I still got the chicken in my throat.
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I've got the problem, but the Ativan has masked the problem. And here's this problem of drifting.
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Christians and non -Christians both can drift, but they're not taking
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Ativan, they're gorging themselves on the philosophies and methodologies of the world.
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They're gulping down worldly methodologies and ideologies and philosophies, and they don't even notice.
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They're drifting, they're choking, but they're looking at everybody else.
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And compared to you, I'm not choking that much. Compared to that guy who wants the pretty nurse, I'm doing pretty good.
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Instead of saying, wait a second, I need to focus on the standard. I need to focus on who Jesus is, and then
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I'll see. I've drifted. You can't say, well, compared to my wife, I'm more spiritual these days than I used to be.
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Or, you know, compared to those other people at church, or compared to the other deacons, or compared to my neighbor. What the writer's wanting you to do is say, remember
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Jesus? Remember when you first got saved? And you remember He was everything for you?
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And you didn't care what the world said. You didn't care how loud of a megaphone they said it through. It's all about who
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Jesus is. And I've just focused on Him. It's almost like if Peter, after he denied
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Jesus by the fire, he talks to all the other people, it's fine, but he looks back to Jesus and he realizes, the
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Lord has seen me and I've realized how far I've drifted. It's possible to drift.
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Look at what he says, lest we drift away from it. Don't be asleep at the wheel.
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It just takes you right into the wide gate. That's all. This isn't some awful sin in the sense of repulsive, sense of terroristic, a sense of murder.
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This is, I just don't really care that much anymore. Just neglect. And the writer here, remember last week?
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Pay attention. He uses the same language in chapter 3. Hold fast, it's translated there.
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Chapter 10, hold fast. Pay careful attention.
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The literal Greek word for pay attention means toward and have.
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Or hold and toward. Look right at it. Commentator Gouge said, the duty here is intended as a serious, firm, and fixed settling of the mind upon what we hear.
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A bowing and bending of the will to yield unto it.
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Same language used in 2 Peter 1. You do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place.
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You don't want to drift. But here we move into verses 2 and 3a. Avoid spiritual drift by paying attention to the person and work of Jesus.
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And secondly now, how do you avoid spiritual drift? Acknowledge that the ultimate drift is unto damnation.
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Acknowledge that the ultimate drift is unto damnation. So you're going to want to run from that.
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You're going to want to stay far away from that. What happens to people when they reject the message of Jesus?
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That's the ultimate drift. The warning here, have real faith.
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Make sure you have the right object of your faith. Make sure you're really believing. And I ask you the question, do you believe?
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Now here's what the writer is doing. When angels delivered the Mosaic Law, if you broke that law, there was punishment.
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When you break the law, the law breaks you. I did the song last week.
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It's in my mind, Charlie, so I'll just do it. I fought the law and the law won. When you fight the law of God, you lose.
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This is the law that he's going to talk about. We'll read it again. Delivered by the angels. Mosaic Law delivered by the angels.
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And if you broke that, there was punishment. What's going to happen to people who would say, you know what, this revelation from Jesus, Hebrews 1, the revealing of God's mind through Jesus and his apostles.
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If angels brought the law and you broke that and it broke you, do you think you're going to get off the hook when
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Jesus brings the new law? If the law communicated through angels was met with justice,
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Jesus, the greater than angels, when he brings truth and you reject it, there's going to be eternal ramifications.
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Now, I know what you're thinking. If you're thinking through these issues with warnings, you're probably saying, yes, but I don't think you can lose your salvation.
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That's true. And these truths are taught side by side. There's a great high priest.
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We have confidence. We can enter into his throne room with grace when we need help in time of need.
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It's all true. But it's also true for the pastor, the preacher, the author of Hebrews, and for me to say to a mixed congregation where I know some of you really believe in the right high priest and some of you have less than saving faith, for me to give the warning.
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Because the warning helps Christians. Hey, I don't even want to go there. I don't even want to get started down that track.
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I don't want to get over to the very edge of Niagara Falls. What if I slip in? So I want to stay far from that.
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I don't want to get close to it. But for the unbeliever, he needs to hear this message.
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There are truths about Christ. Do you really believe? So he's preaching to believers and unbelievers.
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It's a mixed congregation. And he's saying genuine faith believes in Christ Jesus.
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Let me just show you something because it's going to help you with the other four warning passages. Look at chapter 3, verse 16, please.
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And you can see, kind of, there's two schools, two sides, two attitudes, two gates, narrow gate, broad gates.
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You can tell as he's preaching this exhortation. Chapter 3, verse 16.
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Chapter 4, verse 2. The message they heard did not benefit them because they were not united by faith with those who listened.
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Did you see that? There's a message that comes from God. Some receive it. Some don't.
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And he's talking about that in the book of Hebrews. If you go to chapter 6, there are different kinds of soils too.
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There's a different response to God. You respond with faith or unbelief. Same thing with these soils.
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Hebrews 6, 7, and 8. Chapter 6, verses 7 and 8.
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For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it and produces a crop useful for those sake it is cultivated receives a blessing from God.
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That's one kind of land. Soil. But if it bears thorns and thistles it's worthless and near to being cursed and its end is to be burned.
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Two roads in Matthew 7. Here there's two kinds of soils. He knows he's preaching to believers and unbelievers.
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Chapter 3, there's an evil, unbelieving heart that he's preaching to even though in chapter 10 he's preaching to people with hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience.
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Those are two separate people. Those that receive the word by faith and those that say, I won't believe.
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The righteous lives by faith. Hebrews 10. And it doesn't shrink back.
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Some people come to these warning passages and say you can lose your salvation. That's impossible. Some people say, you know what?
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This warning is only for temporal things. There's going to be temporal judgment. That's not what he's talking about.
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And other people say, well, it's just a theory. That's not what he's talking about either. Hold fast to the end by faith.
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This pastor wants his listeners to be diligent, to be vigilant to make sure they believe.
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And the real issue here, friends, is not deeds that follow faith. It's about real faith.
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Do you believe? Heidelberg Catechism, question 52. What comfort is it to you that Christ shall come to judge the living and the dead?
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He's talking to believers. Is there any comfort that Jesus is going to come back and judge people? What would you say to that?
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What's the comfort that Jesus is going to come and judge people? Answer, that in all my sorrows and persecutions with uplifted head,
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I look for the self -same One who before offered Himself for me to the judgment of God and removed all curse from me to come as judge from heaven who shall cast all
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His and my enemies into everlasting condemnation, but shall take me with all
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His chosen ones to Himself into heavenly joy and glory.
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What's the comfort for a Christian that God is going to come back as judge? We've already been judged.
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Jesus has accepted our punishment. We're forgiven, justified, redeemed.
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He's not saying, you know, what's my only hope? I've been doing enough good deeds. This isn't about the good deeds that follow justification.
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This is about faith in Christ Jesus. Do you really believe? Spurgeon, seeing
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Christ is so excellent in His person and seeing the Gospel has such a glorious author, let us take great care that we esteem
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His person, revere His authority, reverence His ministry, and believe His message.
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And let us take heed that our memories be not like leaking vessels suffering the word at any time to slip or to run from us.
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Verse 2. Look at Hebrews 2. There is retribution physically, temporally, for those that disobeyed the message brought by angels.
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For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape?
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And what he means is, how shall we escape since we now have someone greater than the angels, Jesus? How shall we escape spiritually?
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Angels were doing temporal things. Now spiritually, eternally, if we neglect such a great salvation. When we willfully reject
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Jesus, is there any hope? It's football season and when you watch people play football.
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When I was younger, I was never a running back. I couldn't run that fast. But I wanted to be a running back for one main reason.
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Well, two reasons. I wanted to score touchdowns and be famous. Number two,
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I wanted to stiff arm people. There's just something about that. Somebody's running and you just take your hand, this flat part right here, and just jam it up under somebody's chin.
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And they just kind of wobble off. You're like, I just can't wait to do that to somebody. Sometimes I feel like that when
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I'm counseling people over here. I'm just like... Just kidding.
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The truths of Jesus, the eternal creator, the only sin bearer, the
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God who made you, the God that you've offended, He offers clemency.
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Lay down your weapons. Bow in faith. And the response that's a damning response is the stiff arm to Jesus.
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I don't care who you are. I don't care what you've done. Don't tell me what to do. Don't lord it over my life.
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I could care less. See, even as I talk about that, if you're a Christian, you're thinking, you know,
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I can't ultimately do that. Jesus has paid for all those. But boy, I want to just stay close to Him. I just want to walk with a clean conscience.
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I don't want to get anywhere close to that kind of attitude. Willful rejection for the
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Israelites meant that they suffered temporally. They don't get to go into land.
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Right? You do all these things against me, God said, no land for you.
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But now for the person who's heard the claims of Jesus and has said, here's the stiff arm. It's not like you don't get to go to the promised land.
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It's you don't get to go to heaven. If a law delivered through angels that had temporary, temporal, physical judgment was true every time, now all of a sudden we're like, well, we're just going to play around with who
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Jesus is. The message declared by angels proved to be reliable.
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We learned back in chapter 1, Deuteronomy 33 and Galatians 3 and Acts 7 talks about how angels were delivering the law of God and the law of Moses.
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Turn to Deuteronomy 28, please. Deuteronomy 28, and I could ask you the question, does
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God treat sin lightly? Deuteronomy 28 is a nice section of Scripture that shows us exactly what
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Hebrews 2 is talking about. Temporal judgment for willful disobedience, not believing in God.
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You're not going to take me at my word. You're not going to believe that I can have water come out of the rock. You're not going to believe that I can give you the right leader,
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Moses. You're not going to believe that I can rescue you from Egypt. You're not going to believe that I can give you manna every day.
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The whole issue is unbelief. This book is about unbelief. You either believe or you don't. And if you believe, there are things that you can respond with, but it's all about belief.
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And here, when you don't believe God's Word delivered by angels, how did
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God treat that? As a boo -boo? As a syndrome?
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As an illness? As a disease? Or did He think, that is high -handed sin and you're not going to the
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Promised Land and I will judge you. The argument is from the lesser to the greater.
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Now let's look at the lesser. Deuteronomy 28 .15 These aren't really verses that we would want to underline because they're not heartwarming and frankly, they're not meant to be.
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They're to make you to run to God and believe. Deuteronomy 28 .15
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How does God treat sin? How does God treat His law that's broken that was delivered by angels?
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But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God or be careful to do all His commandments and His statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.
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Cursed shall be you in the city and cursed shall be you in the field. Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
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Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of the ground and increase of your herds and the young of your flock.
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Notice all the temporal curses. Cursed shall you be when you come in and cursed shall be when you go out.
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The Lord will send on you curses, confusion and frustration in all that you undertake to do until you are destroyed and perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds because you have forsaken
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Me. The Lord will make the pestilence stick to you until He has consumed you off the land that you are now entering to take possession of it.
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The Lord will strike you with wasting disease and with fever, inflammation, fiery heat and with drought and with blight and with mildew.
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They shall pursue you until you perish. And the heavens over your head shall be bronze and the earth under you shall be iron.
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The Lord will make the rain of your land powder. From heaven dust shall come down on you until you are destroyed.
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Notice the temporal judgment for disobedience and stiff -arming God. The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies.
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You shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them. You shall be a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth and your dead body shall be food for all the birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth.
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There shall be no one to frighten them away. The Lord will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with the tumors and scabs and itch of which you cannot be healed.
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The Lord will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of mind and you shall grope at noonday as the blind gropes in darkness.
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And you shall not prosper in your ways and you shall be only oppressed and robbed continually and there shall be no one to help you.
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And the list goes. Verse 45,
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All these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed because you did not obey the voice of the
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Lord your God to keep His commandments and the statutes that He commanded you. They shall be a sign and wonder against you and your offspring forever.
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Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart because of the abundance of all things.
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Therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you in hunger and thirst and nakedness and lacking everything.
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Since God judges sin temporarily like that for Israel, the greater revelation, greater than angels, greater than Moses comes along.
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Jesus Christ. And He offers forgiveness. And you say, you know what,
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I won't do anything about it. I refuse to do it. In my mind I've concocted a Jesus. And the
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Jesus is a God who doesn't judge. He's tolerant. And He's kind of like a grandpa.
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And He's kind of like, when I saw that movie years ago, Oh God. And I've got this little caricature of Jesus.
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Kind of little buddy Jesus. Friendly Jesus. The writer of Hebrews is saying,
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He's a high priest to those who believe. But if you don't believe, you're going to go straight to perdition.
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I'm just going to kind of trifle with things. I'm just going to kind of play light with them. It's not really that big a deal to me.
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And you can imagine, it's almost like these listeners of the book of Hebrews are outside listening to the message and they can see the temple over there.
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They can see Solomon and his great temple and the gold and the marble and everything else.
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That seems to be better. I could ask the question this way.
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Is any punishment too severe to the person who gives
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Jesus the stiff arm of unbelief? When you hear the
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Gospel, no response is a response. When you hear the Gospel, I'll believe later, it's a response.
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Grave danger. Not just danger, but grave danger for those who disobey the
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Gospel. Turn their back on Jesus when He says, it is finished. Do you see in Hebrews 2?
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Temporal judgment by the law given through the angels. Greater law, greater teaching delivered by Jesus.
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If that's ignored, there's going to be worse punishment. It's going to be not physical, not temporal, but eternal.
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And here's the question. It's a rhetorical question. And it's got a negative built into it in the
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Greek. That's the force of it. How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?
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How shall we escape it? Friends, there's no escape if you neglect it. The word neglect, to ignore, to pay no attention.
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Remember those parables that Jesus told and one of them is in Matthew 22 about the wedding feast for the
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Son. And He sent the servants to call those to be invited to the feast, but nobody came.
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The text says, using the exact same word that's used here in Hebrews, they paid no attention and went off.
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It's the danger of neglect. The danger of unbelief. There is no hope.
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There is no escape. If I were to read you 2 Thessalonians, you would say, this is something that I need to avoid.
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This is what I need to do. I need to run to the cross and keep on believing if I'm a Christian or if I'm not a
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Christian to repent and believe. God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us.
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When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know
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God and on those who do not obey the gospel of the Lord Jesus, they will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the
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Lord and from the glory of His might. You have to be delivered by this great
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King by faith and by faith alone. Hebrews 12 says,
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See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused
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Him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject Him who warns from heaven.
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It's a sober warning. It's a real warning. Jesus, greater than angels, said in Matthew 5,
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I say to you, everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the counsel and whoever says you fool will be liable to the hell of fire.
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Jesus, love incarnate, said in Matthew 16, For the Son of Man is going to come with His angels in the glory of His Father and He will repay each person according to what
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He has done. How shall we escape?
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There's no escape. There's no possible escape. The only response is a true faith in the
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Lord Jesus. No wonder
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Jesus said in Matthew 7, Enter through the narrow gate for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction and there are many who enter through it.
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For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life and there are few who find it.
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And to compound things, beware of false prophets. What are they going to do? They're going to tell you the gate's wide to go to heaven.
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They come to you in sheep's clothing. They look like preachers and pastors, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
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It is Jesus who said, Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father, that is, believe, who is in heaven.
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Many will say to Me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name and in Your name cast out demons and in Your name perform many miracles?
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And then I, Jesus, greater than angels, will declare to them, I never knew you.
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Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness. On that great day, that judgment day, many will say to Me, on that day of judgment.
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Can you imagine how terrible that day will be? How awful that day will be? On that day.
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I remember Luther used to say, I have two days in my calendar. Today and that day. Because for Luther it was,
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I can only withstand that day of judgment when I'm a son and not an enemy.
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And by faith I know that God has forgiven me. The Son has been punished for my sins, on my behalf, for me, because the
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Father in love, because the Son in love, He rescued me and I'm covered because I'm cloaked with the righteousness of Christ.
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That's the only way I can stand. But for those who give the stiff arm and won't believe, that day is coming.
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John 5, for not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son. Final judgment.
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So I ask you the question. I know if you're an unbeliever, you think you're going to escape.
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I know you've got a concoction in your mind just like when I was a kid and if the elevator ever broke and it was on its way down, craning to the bottom,
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I thought I would do what? I would jump at the very end. We've got all these things that we would just figure it out.
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But one day you're going to die and stand before God. And knowing about Jesus your
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Creator, knowing about this Savior who says, come to me.
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You're weary and heavy laden. I'll give you rest. I'll forgive you. I'll bear your punishment.
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All you have to do is respond by taking me at my word and to believe. You turn from your sins and turn to Jesus by faith.
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Just trust me. Do you really think when you on that day say,
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I don't care what you said. I'll do it my own way. It reminds me of a man who said, here is the religion of America.
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It's called Sheila -ism. Because this lady Sheila said, I think you know what?
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My God's not a God who damns. My God is not a God who's thrice holy. My God is a God who loves everybody.
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My God is tolerant. That's just a God of her own imagination. Her name's Sheila and she's invented a religion called
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Sheila -ism. And these people here that the writer was writing to, they were trusting in the temple, trusting in works, trusting in circumcision, trusting in all these other things.
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But the Son is better than the angels and now He's here. He dies on the cross, not behind the scenes, but openly, publicly makes propitiation so all can see.
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One time I was in Crete and it was a Greek Orthodox church and the priest, he went into the very back and closed the curtain and came into the inside and I just kept thinking, what's going on in the inside there?
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What's happening? I mean, the veil has been ripped.
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Jesus is the high priest. You've seen what He's done. And He offers mercy. Wouldn't you like to be forgiven?
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Unbeliever, wouldn't you like to have forgiveness? No matter how many times you've stiff -armed
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God, God's patience is greater than your stiff -arming on earth.
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So today would be the day. Boy or girl, young or old, union worker, carpenter worker, retired policeman, today's the day to believe because you will not escape on that day.
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Robert Cleaver Chapman wrote a song that we don't sing either. I wish we would sing it.
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I don't know how the tune goes. But for the believers, Robert Cleaver Chapman wrote this song about Jesus the high priest.
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No condemnation. Precious Word. Consider it, my soul. Thy sins were all on Jesus laid.
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His stripes have made me whole. In heaven the blood forever speaks.
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In God's omniscient ear. The saint has jewels on his heart. Jesus doth ever bear.
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No condemnation, O my soul, tis God that speaks the Word. Perfect in comeliness art thou in Christ, the risen
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Lord. Teach me, O God, to fix mine eyes on Christ, the spotless Lamb. So shall
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I love thy precious will and glorify His. I thank you,
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Father, for this day. And even though it is terrifying to think of this warning passage, we as your children were not terrified because it was
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Jesus who suffered the torments of the damned. For those three hours, your wrath was poured on Him and there's no more wrath left for us because what
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Jesus said He meant and He did accomplish salvation. It is finished. But, Father, even for us as believers, we can slip and we can drift and we can forget and we can neglect.
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So, Father, remind us of what we've been rescued from, hell and wrath forever, so that we might be about ministry and walking by faith in Christ Jesus.
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And, Father, for those that are here today, there must be some who have not bowed the knee. I just pray that you'd give them as S.
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Lewis Johnson would pray, give them no rest or sleep until they place their rest in you by faith alone.
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Oh, how you love to save sinners. How you love to confront them and to convict them and to bring your word to bear on their conscience and then give them relief, eternal relief and rest.