The Danger of Drifting (Hebrews 2:1-4)

Kootenai Church

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Father, you are so merciful and kind to us, and we're grateful for this opportunity to study and to look at your word. We pray that you would give us the wisdom that we need and the illumination that we need by your

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Holy Spirit to understand the deep things of your word and to make right and true and proper application of these things to our lives.

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May you be glorified through this time and help us. We pray as we study and think and and obey your word.

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We ask this in Christ's name. Turn your Bibles to the book of Hebrews, to chapter two, chapter two.

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Always feels kind of novel when we start another chapter of the next chapter in a book, because it feels like we're making some progress in the book.

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We've been so long in chapter one and we go to chapter two. And you think, oh, that's that's good. We're moving along this finally and obviously starting another subject.

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And then I have to remind you that the chapter divisions are completely artificial and we're not there in the minds of the author or the original hearers, and they're just there for our convenience.

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So we're really just at the next sentence in the book of Hebrews, not necessarily the next chapter. And we haven't really moved on to another subject either, because the author is still comparing

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Jesus to the angels. In fact, that is the subject matter all the way through the rest of chapter two. Having come out of chapter one and seen the author's description of the glories of Christ and his unparalleled and infinite majesty and glory that he is divine and he sits at the father's right hand and looking at all of those

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Old Testament passages that describe the Lord Jesus Christ and what they were to expect in a savior.

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We might come out of chapter one and say to ourselves, well, what else needs to be said? Certainly nothing else needs to be said about Jesus superior to the angels.

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And yet there's a lot more that needs to be said, because five more times in chapter two, he is going to mention angels as he continues this comparison between Jesus and the angels.

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He's described Jesus in chapter one, and there's no comparison description wise as to the nature of Jesus compared with the nature of angels or the position of Jesus compared to the position of angels.

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But then in chapter two, he's going to get into the ministry of Jesus in comparison to that of the angels, really fleshing out the idea of the angels are here to serve

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Christ. They do his bidding. And what has Jesus done for a while? He was made a little lower than the angels.

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And that's kind of the subject matter of most of chapter two. And what that means in terms of him being made lower than the angels, that he is that he suffered death and he tasted death for everyone and what that means for us.

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So that's the subject matter of chapter two. So we're still comparing Jesus with the angels. As we get into chapter two in verses one to four versus one to four, something like an interruption in the flow of thought.

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Just it's a brief one versus one to four. It is as if in chapter one, the author is described to Jesus in such alluring and magnificent and majestic words.

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He has painted this glorious picture of Christ. And then before continuing with the argument that really starts in verse five of chapter two, in those four verses, he steps aside as it were for just a moment and exhorts his readers to pay close attention to what it is that he is saying.

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He jumps out of the flow of his argument to stop and pause as if to say, now, listen, listen carefully to what

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I am saying. Take heed to these things, pay close attention to them, bring them into your heart, as he says in verse one, lest you drift away.

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Verses one through four is the first of five warning passages in the book of Hebrew.

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What is a warning passage? We've made reference to this periodically in the introduction and a couple of times in chapter one.

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The warning passages are these passages in Hebrews that appear to be directed toward genuine

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Christians that warn the hearers of drifting away or falling away or of shrinking back.

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And they they appear to threaten an eternal judgment for those who would drift away or fall away or to shrink back from salvation.

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And these are familiar, probably to many of you, because if you've ever had a conversation with somebody who believes that you can lose your salvation, they will inevitably turn to one of these passages in the book of Hebrews, most likely chapter six, because that seems to be the linchpin.

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But chapter six is not the first warning passage. In fact, it's not even the second warning passage. It's the third warning passage.

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There's this warning passage in chapter two versus one to four. There's one that starts in chapter three and goes into chapter four.

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There's one that starts in chapter five and goes into chapter six. There's one in chapter ten and there's one in chapter twelve. Those are the five warning passages in the book of Hebrews.

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So we need to do a little bit of groundwork to kind of lay the foundation for understanding these warning passages.

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And that's what I'm going to do this morning. And then we're going to be looking more intently at verse one of that warning about drifting away and to whom that is addressed.

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The warning passages in Hebrews have a number of things in common. And here are a couple of them. First, most of them, almost all of them appear in the midst of other discussions like this, where the author is comparing

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Jesus to the angels. And then he stops, pauses the argument and says, now, pay attention. If you drift or fall away from this truth, these are the truths you need to be listening to.

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There is a judgment that can come. And then he continues the argument. The other warning passages are similar to that.

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The one in chapter six takes place in the middle of the discussion on Melchizedek and the Melchizedekian priesthood.

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That is high and lofty theology about the Lord Jesus Christ and how his priesthood is better than Melchizedek's priesthood.

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And in the middle of that discussion, you have him pausing for a moment to warn about the danger of drifting or falling away.

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Second, most of the Hebrew warning passages appear to be addressed to real and genuine

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Christians. That is, as you read through them, it sounds as if he is warning true and genuine believers, those who have been saved already, that there is the possibility that they could fall away and thus lose their salvation.

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And third, all of the warning passages seem to describe an eternal punishment as being possible for these real and genuine

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Christians. That's what makes these warning passages a bit of a challenge for those who believe you cannot lose your salvation.

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And it makes them a go to verse for those who believe you can lose your salvation. Chapter six, for instance, describes those who fall again, fall away.

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It says in verse six of chapter six, them having fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance since they again crucified to themselves the son of God and put him to open shame.

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And there the author describes his readers as those who have tasted the heavenly gift and enjoyed good things. And he uses these descriptions that seem like it is describing real and genuine

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Christians. And you get to chapter 10 in verses 26 and 27. We read this 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.

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That sounds harsh, isn't it? That's that is that is describing an eternal judgment. But the author says, if we continue sinning, that's what awaits us.

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Almost as if he is suggesting that that is possible for even himself as the author. So you see, they appear to be describing real and genuine

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Christians, and they certainly appear to be describing a eternal damnation or judgment for sin. And the key question here is, to whom are the warning passages addressed?

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There are these well -known passages because those who believe you can lose your salvation go to them.

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But then when we read them, we have to ask, to whom are the warning passages addressed? Now, just last week,

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Justin preached on James chapter one, and he referenced John chapter 10, and he said in his message that if you believe it is possible for you to lose your salvation, you are believing a false doctrine.

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It doesn't make you a heretic, which means you are believing a doctrine that is false, because the belief that you can lose your salvation is attached to your understanding of the gospel and what it accomplishes.

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That is attached, not an ancillary or a secondary doctrine. It is attached at the core to what you believe the work of Christ did on your behalf.

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Did he succeed in doing what the father sent him to do? Or did he just come to make salvation possible?

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So the belief in the eternal security or the perseverance of the saints is a belief that is attached at the very core of our faith to the to the gospel itself.

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So Justin made that claim, and he went to John chapter 10 and talked about the security of the believers and then made the statement that if you believe that the father can choose somebody for salvation and the son of God can come and pay the purchase price for their salvation and then the

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Holy Spirit redeem that individual and give them new life, and then that person can fall away, you would believe the false doctrine.

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And then here I get up the very next week and I'm going to preach on a passage that seems to say the exact opposite of what

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Justin said. That sounds like fun times, doesn't it? Now, just to put all my cards on the table, I believe exactly what

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Justin said is true. And if you are here for the gospel of John, if you even read our statement of faith or you know anything about me, then you know that that is the case.

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I do not believe that one who is genuinely saved, chosen by the father, paid for by the son, regenerated by the

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Holy Spirit, can fall away ultimately to eternal damnation. It is precisely at this point in describing or preaching through passages like this that pastors and teachers are tempted to give a non -answer answer to the subject of whether somebody can lose their salvation.

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And here's how it usually goes. And I can tell some of you are smirking and laughing and grinning. So you've heard this done, haven't you?

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You've heard a pastor say, well, I took all of the verses that describe losing your salvation and I wrote them on one side of the piece of paper.

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And then I took all the verses that describe you can't lose your salvation and wrote them down on the other side of the piece of paper.

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And I found that there are a greater number of verses that teach ABC than teach

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X, Y, Z. And so I believe the ABC docker, whatever it is. Is that how we do theology?

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We just count verses. And do you understand the assumption that is at the core of that methodology? The assumption is that God, the

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Holy Spirit, is somewhat schizophrenic. Sometimes he gets it right. Sometimes he gets it wrong. He can't make up his mind.

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He vacillates between these two opinions from time to time. And he's taught both things and that there are verses in scripture that contradict themselves and contradict each other.

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And so the way we do systematic theology is we put all of them in one column and put all of the other ones in the other column.

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And these are mutually exclusive and contradictory teachings. So then we just tally them up and see which one it is that the spirit of God really meant the most when he revealed the most about this.

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That is not how we do theology. That is not how we determine what it is that we believe about doctrines or what it is the scripture teaches concerning these things.

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Many of our pastors kind of take both positions. They'll say something like, well, there are

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Bible passages that teach that you cannot lose your salvation, that you are secure in Jesus Christ and that it all depends on what

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God has done. He keeps you. Then there are Bible passages that seem to teach that you can lose your salvation and a lot of it depends on your persevering.

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And if you don't persevere, you're going to finally fall away and be lost. So scripture kind of teaches both of these things.

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So I believe that whichever one of those you say is right, you are right. And I kind of believe that it's possible to not lose you, to lose your salvation while never losing your salvation.

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And though you cannot lose your salvation, you just might lose your salvation. Now, let's move on to the next verse. That's how it's handled.

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Right. And they will suggest that these are these are conflicting doctrines like belief in the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man.

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Those two doctrines are not mutually exclusive. You can we can affirm that God is absolutely sovereign over all things, every decision of every man on the planet, while at the same time affirming that man himself is responsible for his sin.

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And God is not to blame for that sin. Those are not contradicting doctrines. Those two doctrines there that we feel a tension between them, but they do not contradict one another.

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Now, if I were to say God is sovereign and man is sovereign, that's contradictory doctrine. It is a contradiction to say you cannot lose your salvation and you can lose your salvation.

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So if you find somebody who tries to take this middle road and say that both of these are true at the same time.

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You have not found somebody who has systematized their theology. You have found somebody who's just scrambled their theology to be an incoherent muddled mess.

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In my humble opinion, the third option for these is to suggest that the truth ultimately cannot be known about this subject.

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That God has kind of warned us one way and yet promised us the next way. And so somewhere in this mystery,

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God has not chosen to reveal that truth to us. I don't believe that either. I believe the truth can be known about this and that what we ought to do is to is to systematize the teaching of scripture and find.

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So here's how here's how we approach the subject. It is this. We begin with the assumption that scripture is internally coherent and that it is internally consistent, that there is one author and he has revealed his mind on this and he has revealed it clearly enough that we can know.

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And inside the revelation of scripture in all 66 books, all of those passages understood within their own historical context and within the context of the book itself.

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Every one of those passages can be brought to bear upon the subject and we can look at it and there is no contradiction.

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We're not counting verses. We're not affirming contradictory things. We are bringing together the systematic teaching of scripture understood in its own context, and it will be consistent.

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I have heard all three of those ways of approaching the warning passages and this this issue over the course of my

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Christian life from various sources, and it just makes me apoplectic when I hear apoplectic, maybe suicidal, maybe homicidal.

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I don't know which I'm sidle of some sort. It bugs me because it assumes that it's inside of scripture.

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There are these contradictions and that God has not spoken clearly on the subject. And I do believe that God has spoken clearly on the subject.

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So in terms of our study of Hebrews, here's how we approach it. Each one of these five warning passages needs to be examined in the light of its context, of its context, of the entire book of Hebrews, in light of the context of the book itself in terms of its historical setting and the audience to whom it is given and the type of literature it is.

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And the book of Hebrews needs to be understood in the context of all revealed scripture on the subject of salvation.

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So when we approach the book of Hebrews, what do we find? We find that the teaching of the book of Hebrews is that Jesus Christ, the infinite and eternal

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God, the second person of the Trinity, has made purification for sins. And he has sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.

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That that great high priest has, by his own blood, offered a sacrifice, a once and for all sacrifice that is perfect and able to accomplish and has accomplished everything that sacrifice was intended to accomplish.

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Every last thing. He did not fail. He did not attempt. He came and he did.

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So he said that it is finished and his sacrifice has accomplished everything that it was intended to accomplish.

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He is able to save to the uttermost all who will come to God by faith in him because his blood has perfectly paid the price for all who will trust in him.

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And it has successfully done exactly what he intended it to do. That's what Hebrews teaches. Now, if you are in Christ.

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The book of Hebrews says he has offered that sacrifice for you and all of your sins are completely atoned for and paid for.

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There's nothing else that needs to be done. So what then do we do with the warning passages of Hebrews?

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It all comes down to to whom do we think these warning passages are addressed? Hebrews and scripture teaches that there are a group of people who are perfectly secure.

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That is Christ's sheep. The Bible also teaches and Hebrews is also addressing a group of people who are not secure.

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The group of people who are not secure are the ones who are not his sheep, but they look like his sheep.

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They sound like his sheep. They pretend to be his sheep. They even sit among his sheep on a

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Sunday morning. But they are not his sheep. Those people are not secure. Those people are in danger of falling away from the truth that they have seen.

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They are in danger of drifting away from the truth into eternal damnation. A truth that they have given mental assent to and acknowledged.

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These warning passages, I believe, are addressing that second group of people. They're not secure. They need to be warned because they're very close to the truth.

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They've made mental assent to it. They have acknowledged that it is true, but they have not been born again and changed and saved and secured by that truth.

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So here's our outline for this warning passage. By my estimation, it's going to take about three messages to work our way through these because there is a lot in here.

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And even even the statement in verse four, which is, I don't think, intended to be a theological statement in terms of of what the author is trying to argue, but it is a statement that is loaded with some good theology.

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We have to unpack that on its own. We're going to look today at the danger of drifting in verse one.

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Next time we are together in a couple of weeks in Hebrews, we're going to look at verses two and three, which describe this judgment that the readers are in danger of falling into.

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And then we're going to look at verse four, which describes the testimony of Scripture being authenticated by apostles and prophets and by those who did signs and wonders.

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So we have to address that. What is the role of signs and wonders? Does verse four speaks to that? And it's a verse loaded with theology, even though the author is kind of buttressing the rest of the argument with it.

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It really needs to be unpacked on its own because there seems to be a lot of confusion about modern day revelations and apostles and prophets and signs and wonders and the rest of it.

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So we'll deal with that in due time. So we're looking first today in verse one, this danger of drifting.

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Verse one is all the further we're going to get. Let's read together these first four verses. For this reason, we must pay closer attention to what we have heard so that we do not drift away from it.

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For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?

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After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard God also testifying with them both by science and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the

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Holy Spirit, according to his own will. Now, one of the challenges that we face, and you may have noticed it, you may be thinking of it already, is how the author uses the term we rather than you all the way through the passage.

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You might have noticed it. He says in verse two, this reason we must pay close attention to what we have heard so that we do not drift away from it.

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If the word spoken through angels proved unalterable and every transgression disobedience received a just penalty, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?

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After that salvation was first proclaimed to the Lord and then to us by those who heard him. Notice the repetition of that inclusive second person pronoun.

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So the author seems to be including himself with that group. And that's why it appears as if the verses are addressed to genuine

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Christians. It almost appears as if the author himself places himself in the camp of those who are in danger of this judgment described in verses two and three.

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That's a challenge. We'll deal with the challenge a little bit later on. But I just want you to notice it at the beginning so that you are aware of it.

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Now, let's look, first of all, at our duty, our duty. And then we will look at the danger in verse one, the duty.

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For this reason, we must pay closer attention to what we have heard. When he says that we must pay for this reason at the beginning of the verse, if you just jumped in here and you read for this reason, we must pay closer attention.

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The first question you would ask would be what? For what reason? For this reason.

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This is the author's way. I shouldn't say it's the author's way. It is a clue to us, I guess I should say, that we ought to glance back at chapter one and remember what it is that is causing him to give this exhortation at the beginning of chapter two.

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When he says for this reason, he is pointing us back to the chapter one. And I'm not going to go back and review all of chapter one, but we could summarize chapter one into two sentences.

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You said, Jim, if you could summarize chapter one into two sentences, why did it take you 14 weeks to go through? You should have been able to just give us maybe two messages at the most or maybe just make it two points, right?

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Chapter one can be summarized into two sentences. And these two sentences is number one. God has spoken in his son.

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That's chapter one, verse one and two. God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets in many portions in many ways in these last days has spoken to us in his son.

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He is reminding us of that revelation of God that is in the person of Christ. That is clearer. It is better.

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It is it is more exalted. It is it is far more profound than the amount of information and detail revelation given in the

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Old Testament. It completes the Old Testament. The Old Testament got spoken these ways, these last days.

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And this final revelation he has given to us, the son that has spoken in his son. Second, that son is greater than the angels.

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The angels were in some way communicated the Old Testament revelation, the old covenant in the new.

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It is not the angels who have given that to us. It is the son who has given to that to us. And so since God has spoken in his son, since that son is greater than the angels, he is exalted.

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He sits at the father's right hand. The other pauses and says, now, because that is true. Listen carefully.

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You and I are on the look for understanding how deep and profound and rich and significant that revelation is.

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That's the idea for this reason, because God has spoken and it is in his son. You need to listen to this.

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Not that you don't need to listen to the Old Testament, but the heightened revelation and the heightened clarity of that revelation demands our attention.

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So that's what this reason is for. We must pay closer attention. And we'll return to that phrase in just a second to what we have heard.

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And what is it that we have heard? He is assuming here that his readers have received the revelation that is in Jesus Christ and an understanding of the gospel.

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He is describing people who have heard the truth. They've heard it preached. They have heard it proclaimed.

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They they have heard it testified to. They've heard it in people's testimonies. They have received at least audibly the word of God as is communicated to others.

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They understand the truth. They have they have looked at the truth. They have made mental assent to the truth.

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At least he is. His audience are not a group of people who are ignorant of the basic truths of the gospel.

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They have come to understand who Christ claimed to be and what the Old Testament says is true of the Lord Jesus Christ. They've understood all of that.

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They get all of that. And he is telling them that they need to pay closer attention to that truth, which has been communicated to them, that Jesus Christ is the

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Messiah, that he is the savior of all who trust in him, that he has made purification for sins, and he has sat down at the father's right hand, the right hand of the majesty and high.

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Now that was communicated in verse four and three. There's a verse four. Yeah, that was communicated to us in verse four.

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This message was communicated to them from the Lord himself, the God who has spoken in his son.

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It came through Christ. Then it came to the apostles. The apostles were sent out. And verse four says

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God testifying with them both by signs and wonders and by various miracles. So verse three says it was first spoken to the

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Lord and it was confirmed to us by those who heard. So the author of Hebrews and the audience of Hebrews were.

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Third, second hand, I was getting mixed up because it's like counting from zero A .D. There's a hand in there that shouldn't be there, that is.

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It's a second hand testimony concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord gave it to the apostles and the apostles have communicated it to them.

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I want you to recognize for a second we are in the same boat as the recipients of the letter of the Hebrews. Right. Lord has not spoken to us in terms of being first person revealed to us in person.

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We have not walked with the Lord. He has not spoken to us in that way, but he has spoken to us through the testimony of the apostles.

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So we have in the New Testament the testimony of the apostles. We have the biographies of Jesus Christ in the Gospels. We have the record of how that how the news of Christ was spread in the book of Acts.

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We have Christ explained in all the epistles, and then we have Christ expected in the book of Revelation. And so the New Testament is the testimony of the apostolic band concerning the

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Lord Jesus Christ in his earthly work and what it means and what we are to expect because of. So we have we are in the same boat as the keepers.

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We have not received firsthand from the Lord. We have not. We have received it from the apostles in the sense that what we have in the

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New Testament is the apostolic writings and the apostolic testimony. So we are to pay close attention to this.

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He says the word pay close attention is a word that means to give attention to to take heed, to be alert, but to hold firmly.

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It was a nautical term. It doesn't mean naughty like as a bad. It was a nautical term used in seafaring language to describe bringing a ship to land, to secure it in the harbor or of holding to a course out on the water or to securing an anchor.

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It's the idea behind it. It is you have to pay close attention, pay attention to this. See, hold on to it like you would hold on to an anchor and steer your course right so that you do not miss the harbor.

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That is the language that is being used there. And that is the nautical term there seems intentionally used because the word drifting, which we'll look at in a moment, is also a nautical term.

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It's also a seafaring term. So the danger is that we might drift. And the duty, therefore, is that we might hold firmly to or hold fast to the word or the message or the truth that we have heard.

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We have heard it with our ears. And he is exhorting his leaders, readers to grab onto that and to use that truth to take them securely and safely into the harbor of the

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Lord Jesus Christ and his his refuge from the wrath of God as it were. This, I think, is the application here for us as Christians is this.

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I think that one of the ways, obviously, one of the ways that we show our affection for the Lord Jesus Christ is by giving heed to his word.

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We know we know who those are who love him because they are the ones who obey him. Right.

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If we love him, we will keep his commandments. That is what he said. If we love him, we will obey him. It doesn't mean that we're perfect, but it doesn't mean that we are striving and walking in obedience to him.

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And one of the ways that we show our affection, our gratitude to the Lord Jesus Christ is by living lives of obedience to him.

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We seek to obey him, want to honor him in all that we do. We want to walk with him. And that is how we show and demonstrate our love for and our affection for the

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Lord Jesus Christ into the opposite of that would be to simply ignore it. When we hear the word of God preached or taught, when we when we read it, when we study it and we think about it, we meditate upon it and we have a truth that grips our hearts.

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If we just kind of say, maybe next week, maybe next month, I'll get around that. Or we greet it with a cold indifference.

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And we think that obedience to these things are optional and that is really not what we ought to be doing right now.

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We can do something else better with our time. If that's the approach that we have towards scripture, then we are in danger ourselves of drifting from this truth.

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And show our affection for the Lord Jesus Christ by willing and lovingly obeying him. So in this context, the idea of paying attention to something means to hold on to it firmly, to hold on to it firmly, lest we drift.

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And that's the danger that is mentioned in verse two. We're going to get to who it is, to whom this is written in just a second.

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But I want you to notice the danger. The danger is drifting. Drift, the word drift, as I mentioned, is a nautical term as well.

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And one used by seafarers. It was used of a ship that would drift off course or drift past something.

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It was used of a ring that would slip off of a finger. It was used of something that would just slip away. Used of a ship that had been allowed to drift past the harbor because a sailor forgot to attend to it.

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He forgot to anchor or he neglected his duties. And so in his neglect, things just slipped away there.

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If you're reading the King James version, then there's a translation issue that needs to be corrected here. The King James makes it sound as if what drifts or falls away is the truth from us and the original language that it is the we who drift.

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It's a personal action. It's something that he includes himself. This is a personal activity. We are the ones who drift.

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It's not the truth that drifts from us. It's we who drift from the truth. So the King James translates it this way. Therefore, we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.

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And what is it that slips away? Things that we have heard as if it's as if we are the rock and the things slipped out of our mind through lack of attentiveness.

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This is a personal verb. And it is the we who drift. It is the danger is of people who have heard this truth drifting away from this truth.

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I want you to notice a couple of things about the analogy or the metaphor here that the author is using. Notice how much effort is needed to drift.

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How much effort do you need to put forth to drift? None. You go out and float the

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Pack River. You start up at whatever it is, bridge, and you float down to whatever it is, bridge. How much effort does it take to just float the

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Pack River? Other than staying out of the off the logs and out of the weeds? Do you really have to do anything? No, I just lay in the inner tube and you just float down the river and enjoy the time.

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Now, if you want to go upstream, it takes some effort, right? If you want to go over and hit a shore that you're not directed to, you have to take some effort.

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But in order to get from point A to point B, it doesn't take any effort at all. What we have to work at is not drifting.

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That takes the effort. That takes the energy. That takes discipline and hard work. We have to work not to drift, but we have to work to not drift.

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Second, I want you to notice that this drifting is a slow thing and not a fast thing. The imagery here is not of a motorboat speeding past the harbor.

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The imagery here is of a boat just caught along with the current, just going its way and just slowly drifting off course.

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That's the imagery. We would never say of a boat that raced past the dock, Oh, look at him just drifting by.

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Never say that. No, he's in the boat. He's motoring by. It's intentional. It takes effort and energy to do that. But if something's just drifting by, we use the term drifting by.

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It doesn't take any effort. It's a slow thing. It's not a fast thing. Drifting can be slow and almost imperceptible.

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Most people don't wake up, jump up and run toward hell. Most people just drift into hell.

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They just drift into it. Not that they're not putting forth the effort, right? They pass, they float past the harbor of God's refuge from the wrath of sin on his sin, and they float right past that into eternal damnation all the while looking at the safe harbor.

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That's the imagery. But through neglect, through lack of energy and lack of effort, through lack of paying attention, you drift right by into eternal destruction.

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That is the path that most people are on. They're just drifting into eternal destruction. And notice, thirdly, that this is not a sudden thing.

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The author does not say you need to pay close attention less on your path. You make a sudden U -turn and go 180 degrees in the opposite direction.

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He doesn't say that you need to pay attention lest you suddenly fall off immediately into a niche. What is the imagery?

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A slow, almost imperceptible change, just a slow but steady and gradual drift away from the truth.

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You look at the lives of men and women who have apostatized from the truth. It doesn't happen overnight.

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You know how it happens over the course of years, maybe even decades. And it seemed rock solid at one point.

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They love the truth. They preach the truth. And then you kind of say, well, there's something just a little bit off with that.

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Just not quite right. And half a decade later, you're thinking, no, that's just not right. And then a decade later, you think that guy is a rank heretic.

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How did it happen? Slowly and imperceptibly. Now, some people walk right out and they don't even bother putting on the sheep's clothing for anybody with the ability to discern.

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They are rank heretics fit for damnation. They fit the description of second Peter and Jude. But I went to Bible college with a number of people today who have long ago drifted and departed from the faith.

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They seem more knowledgeable. Well, they were more knowledgeable than I was concerning true things at the time.

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But today they are nowhere to be found near anything remotely remotely close to Christian.

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It's a slow and imperceptible drift. It's not a veering off course. It is something that is slow and steady.

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And what is it that we drift from? It is the truth. We are to not drift away from it. What is the it?

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We must pay close attention to the things that we have heard. The thing that we have heard is the message of salvation in the gospel.

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And if you do not seize hold of that, when you have the opportunity, you will drift away from it. That's the message of salvation.

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If you do not seize hold of it, grab hold of it, pay close attention to make sure that you have embraced the truth of the gospel.

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You will drift right past the harbor of it unknowingly into eternal destruction, all the while looking right at the harbor itself.

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Just through neglect, lack of effort, lack of discipline, lack of caring about it, that you just drift into eternal destruction.

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Now that raises the question, to whom is this addressed? Let's deal with that. We kind of dealt with verse one. Now let's go back to this question of to whom is this addressed?

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Is he talking about a danger that is posed to real and genuine Christians? Can we drift away from the gospel slowly and imperceptibly to the point that you being saved today, two decades from now, will be completely lost and in perdition and perish in eternal flames?

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Because starting today, you slowly drifted away from that truth and then right into damnation.

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Is that what he is suggesting? He does use the term we, which I'll address here in just a moment. And so this is back to that issue of can

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I be saved? Or can I lose my salvation? And let me put again all my cards on the table.

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I do not believe that you can lose your salvation. We went through the gospel of John and we saw John make the case over and over again that those who are truly his sheep, he saves, he secures, and he sanctifies everlasting.

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No question. All whom the father has given to me will come to me. The one who comes to me, I will certainly not cast out.

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But for this reason, I have come down to do the will of the father. And what is the will of the father? That all who he has given to me, I will save them and give them eternal life and raise them up on the last day.

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This is why he came to do that work. So I do not believe that one who has been chosen by the father and paid for by the son and redeemed and regenerated by the

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Holy Spirit can then turn around and drift away into eternal destruction so that when the son gets to heaven, he says,

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Well, father, I know that you gave him to me and I know I paid the price for him, but I just couldn't keep him to heaven.

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I couldn't keep him, get him all the way there. That's not possible. It's not going to happen. So for a genuine Christian, I do not believe it is possible for you to lose your salvation, but I do believe it is possible for those who are not truly saved, but think they are saved and not truly saved, but pretend to be saved.

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I do believe it is possible for them to perish. Why? Not because they lost their salvation, but because they have pretended to have something that they never truly had to begin with.

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So I think that a systematic teaching of John and of Hebrews and all of scripture teaches that this danger that is being described in verses one, two and three is not a danger that is posed to genuine

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Christians, if the danger that we are talking about is the danger of finally and fully losing your salvation.

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Those who believe that salvation can be lost would say that this is describing true believers. Those who believe that salvation cannot be lost say that this is describing make believers people who think they are believers, but are not, and that the warning is issued to them.

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This then would be describing people who see the truth. They understand the truth. They give mental assent to the truth.

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Maybe they grew up in a Christian family and were baptized when they were young and grown up in the church. And every

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Sunday they sit in the congregation. They say, yep, that's true. Yep, I believe. Yep, I know. I'm there. Yep. Everything he says,

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I believe it's all true. But they have never embraced that truth. They have never forfeited and given up their sin and turned away from that idolatry to embrace the true and living

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God. They've never repented and believed it in a saving way. They are like a number of people that we saw in the

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Gospel of John, believing unbelievers or unbelieving believers. We saw in John that John uses the term believe in two different ways to describe people who gave a mental assent to the truth and said,

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Yeah, I believe it. Like John chapter eight, for instance, these people who believed upon him and they gave mental assent to it.

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And then Jesus said, You're still in darkness. You still love your sin. You're in bondage to the sin. You need to be set free.

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And those people said, Let's grab some stones and take him outside and stone him. That was their response to that.

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Do believers, real, genuine believers try to stone the Lord Jesus Christ and suggest that they have a sin problem?

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Genuine believers don't act like that, but make believers do. And John said John uses this in chapter two, in chapter six, in chapter eight, in chapter ten to describe end of Judas in John chapter 15.

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That is the distinction that is made in John's Gospel over and over again between real, genuine believers and people who profess to believe, but do not actually believe.

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It is this group, those who profess to believe, but do not actually believe that the warning passages in Hebrews are written to.

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And here's the evidence of that from the book of Hebrews. And I'll give you a couple of examples. The author is obviously aware of his audience.

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He knows who his audience is. And all the way through the book of Hebrews, we see, because there are five morning passages from time to time.

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He speaks of he speaks as if he is talking to people whom he knows to be genuine believers. He'll say to them things about the death of Christ and the work of Christ on their behalf.

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And he's talking to genuine believers who are secure in their salvation. And then there are times when he will switch paths as a word and begin to address those whom he suspects are probably not believers.

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And they need to be warned. They need to be encouraged. They need to be pushed toward embracing finally and fully the truth of the gospel.

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And every congregation has a mixed group of people like this. Even ours does, I believe. Look, in a group that's this size, there are bound to be people here who are genuine believers.

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I know that there are bound to be people here who are make believers. You are titillated by the truth.

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You're excited by it. You're intrigued by it. You're giving this Christianity thing a whirl. There are people here who have grown up in Christian families.

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You think you have understood the truth. So I was baptized as an infant. My parents baptized me. I've been in the church my whole life.

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But you've never embraced it yourself. And so on a Sunday, on any given Sunday, I've done this. When I present the gospel, there are times when

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I address our entire congregation as if all of us are believers. And there are times in which

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I address our congregation as if all of us are unbelievers. And that, I think, is a very balanced approach, because there are times when

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I'm speaking specifically to people who might be sitting here who have never embraced the truth. Some of you I have known for days.

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Some of you I have known for decades. But I don't know any of your heart. I can't see that.

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I can't look in and see what your heart is. So all I can do is all anybody can do from a pulpit is to preach the truth and to be aware that the audience at any given time can be very mixed with people.

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And that is what the author is doing. So then why does he use the word we? Here's why he uses the word we.

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He is identifying himself with his listeners. And I do this constantly. And any preacher or teacher does this constantly.

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I will say things like, if we do not trust in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone, we will perish. And I can identify myself in the verbiage that I use with those here who may not be trusting

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Christ. I am in no danger of perishing. I don't believe that for a moment. I am as secure today as I was the day that I trusted

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Christ. And as I will be 10 ,000 years from now. But rhetorically, I might identify with a group of unbelievers and suggest that we describe describe the condition of the unbeliever as if it were my own condition.

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Just last week, I had the opportunity to share the gospel with a friend that I went to high school with.

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And as we were standing there and I was walking him through what the gospel is, I said to him things like this. Without Christ, we are under the wrath of God.

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We deserve an eternal judgment because we have sinned and heaped up a guilty conscience and a guilty slave before God that we can never repay.

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But do I think that I stand under the wrath of God as I was describing that? No, but I'm identifying myself with him.

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Why? I'm describing something that apart from Jesus Christ, if we share the same condition, would be true of both of us.

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But it's not true of me. This is what the author does here in this passage. He is using the term we as he is speaking to his entire congregation, specifically targeted to certain individuals inside that congregation.

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And he uses we to identify himself with them. And so this warning passage are addressed to folks like this.

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So when he says in verse two, for this reason, we must pay closer attention to what we have heard so that we do not drift away from it.

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Is there really a danger that the author himself would drift away from it if he's genuinely saved? No, because first Peter chapter one says we are kept by the power of God for salvation yet to be revealed.

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That keeping work is the work of God. He does that. He does the keeping. He secures us for glory.

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That is what he does. But we can describe the condition of those who are not kept and are not preserved and warned them of a most certain judgment that is to come if they do not embrace the truth of the gospel.

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That's what this passage is doing. So what then do we do with this? First of all, pay close attention to what you have heard.

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Now, if you're a Christian, you're sitting here and and you're asking yourself, what does paying close attention to what we have heard mean for us?

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You are not in danger of losing your salvation or or of perishing. If you're a believer, you might be in danger of drifting from the truth of the gospel into a position where you need discipline described in chapter 12, where you need the

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Lord to bring you back into his fold or to teach you discipline in that way. You can drift into complacency and then apathy.

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You can drift into a position where your salvation is not in jeopardy, but your sanctification is or where you are playing with sin to such a degree, you have no reason to have any kind of assurance that if you are a

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Christian and you're involved in some kind of sin and you don't have any assurance of your own salvation, the reason you don't have any assurance of your own salvation might be because you have a mortified sin.

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You don't see the victory of God in your life over the sin that you cherish and you need discipline and you need to come back.

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You need to seize on to what it is that you have heard so that you do not drift off into that complacency. If you are an unbeliever here, then this book or sorry, this passage that we're looking at is written with you in mind.

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You sit here every week. You hear the truth preached. You hear the gospel presented week after week after week after week.

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I've known people who are unbelievers who have sat here for years and heard me present the gospel time and time and time again.

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This warning is to you. You are in danger through neglect, through doing nothing, through not taking heed to it, not listening.

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You are in danger of drifting right past the harbor of refuge from the wrath of God and into eternal destruction and damnation.

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It's not that you're running to hell, it's that you're drifting to hell. And you have your excuses. I understand them.

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Some of them are good. Some of them are pretty thin. You have your reasons why you have never trusted Christ.

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You have your reasons why you've never repented. You love your sin. You don't want to let go of it. The whole Christian thing in the community that you experience here is really enjoyable.

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It's fun for a season. You get to be this is where your friends are at. All of that. I understand that. But you're drifting to hell.

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You need to repent. You need to believe the gospel. Because if you do not, you will perish.

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You will experience the judgment that is described in verses 2 and 3. Because even while you sat here and heard the truth, you neglected it and did not take heed to it.

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I beg of you on behalf of Jesus Christ, repent and believe the gospel today or you will drift into eternal destruction.

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Let us pray together. Father, we thank you for a merciful and good salvation, which has secured forever those who are yours.

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And I do not know the heart or condition of any who are here today other than my own heart. Father, I'm just grateful that you do, that you know those who are yours and you mark them and you have promised to save them.

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We pray that if there are any here who have never trusted Christ for salvation, that they would heed the warning that is here in Hebrews chapter 2.

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The warning to take heed to what has been said, to what has been heard, lest they drift away into destruction.

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Grant that none who are here today may ever experience that destiny. We pray that by your grace and for your own glory, you would secure forever those whom you have loved, those whom you have chosen, those for whom the son has died, that they may receive the reward of your glory, that they may receive eternal life and that you would be honored and glorified through it.

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Draw unbelievers to yourself that you may be glorified, that Christ may be honored and that your word may be exalted and may all of us secure these things to our hearts lest we drift from the truth into either complacency and apathy and sin or into eternal damnation.