The LORD Promises Vengeance

Hebrews 10 and the Warning Against Apostasy

Turn with me, please, once again to the book of Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 10. The book of Hebrews, chapter 10. Before we once again listen to the very sobering words of this text, let us ask the Lord to bless our time together.

Once again, our Heavenly Father, as we open your word, we confess our complete dependence upon you. And Lord, we ask that you would meet with your people here this day, that you would cause your word to be clear and understandable in our hearts.

And Lord, that we would understand what you would have us to learn and how you would have us to live in light of what this text tells us. We pray in Christ's name. Hebrews chapter 10, beginning at verse 19.

Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he inaugurated for us through the veil that is his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. For he who promises faithful. And let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another in all the more as you see the day drawing near.

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.

Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severe punishment do you think you will deserve who has trampled underfoot the son of God and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and has insulted the spirit of grace?

For we know him who said, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, and again the Lord will judge his people. It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But remember the former days when after being enlightened you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated.

For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one. Therefore do not throw away your confidence which has a great reward.

For you have need of endurance so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what was promised. For yet in a very little while he who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one shall live by faith and if he shrinks back my soul has no pleasure in him.

But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.

Amen.

Cultural Hostility Toward Christianity and the Need for Judgment

Just over the past weekend I was sent a link to a video of a radical pro-homosexual advocate who was speaking why I do not have any earthly idea at a high school journalism conference. Might tell you something about the journalists of the next generation and where they're coming from but he was speaking at this particular conference.

I wish I could have linked to the video but because of the language that he used while speaking in a young people's conference I really couldn't. It was too profane. This is a man who appears regularly in the quote-unquote mainstream media.

I'm not really sure what that means unless that stream is the stream going right over the cliff into destruction and perdition but he appears very regularly there and has been arrested for engaging in voter fraud and all sorts of interesting things like this.

But the essence of his presentation he began to simply savage the Bible and the Christian faith. He was not just critical of it. He was savaging it. Now I suppose I should mention that there was something somewhat positive about this video and that was the camera was showing he was on a big screen and the camera was showing that and as he began his diatribe, his filthy diatribe against the Bible all of a sudden I started seeing young people walking past the camera.

And they weren't walking toward him. They were walking away from him. In fact a large number of them got up and walked out. I suppose that's a positive thing that we need to know and need to recognize.

He then savaged them which gives you some idea of what this type of individual was all about. But that kind of behavior never could have happened when I was that age. Never would have happened. They would have shut that feed down even if we had video feeds like that back then.

They would have shut that down immediately as soon as the profanity and everything else started but not today. Not today. And in that very same area, he's from the Seattle area, in that very same area I just read a report about a rather large church up there, a controversial church, the Morris Hill Church, that had numerous windows broken out just recently and a pro-homosexual group claimed responsibility for that.

You don't hear anybody in our culture going, oh that's just terrible. Instead, people thoughtfully sit back and they stroke their chins and they go, well you know, if those Christians just would stop saying the things they're saying they wouldn't be engendering this kind of hatred.

And besides that, those Christians, they're guilty of so many things. They're guilty of bullying and everything else and so it's okay. This is not the first time in the history of the Christian people that societies have engendered mindsets and ways of behavior that has led to the persecution of Christian people.

It's never rational. It's always an irrational thing. But it's there, it has happened, and it happened in the early church. We have been working through the book of Hebrews for quite some time. It would help if I preached from Hebrews every time I had an opportunity of preaching, but I don't always do that, so it's taken us a little while.

But certainly most of us who have been here recognize that this has been a consistent exhortation to those early believers who were under great pressure to remain faithful to their confession of faith in Jesus Christ.

And we've noticed that it's primarily addressed to Jewish Christians. The evidences and proofs have been derived from the Jewish scriptures primarily. And we know that what they were being called back to was to offer that sacrifice, to go back into the temple and offer sacrifice, and by so doing saying, no, the sacrifices are continuing, the old covenant sacrifices are enough, and therefore there is no new covenant sacrifice in Jesus Christ.

They are being called to make that sacrifice, and in so doing say, Jesus Christ was not who he claimed to be. And so we've seen the argument as it has been developed, and we're really at the end of the theological argumentation.

And now we are entering into, we've actually finished pretty much, the last warning passage, and now we're entering into the section of exhortation, and then toward the end of the book, that application of the theology that has been given to us as we are to live the Christian life.

And so the last time that we looked at this text, we looked specifically at that very difficult text, verse 29, how much severe punishment do you think you'll deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God as regarded as unclean or common the blood of the covenant by which he, and we argued at that point that he was the Son of God, was sanctified, and has insulted the spirit of grace.

And so we want to begin working through the last section of chapter 10, hopefully not doing what some sports teams do. Everybody that knows the book of Hebrews knows that chapter 11 is right around the corner.

And we're going to have the discussion of faith and the heroes of the faith that is coming. And so sometimes I think that chapter 10, verses 30 and following just sort of disappear. They don't get much attention because once we've dealt with the weighty issues in verse 29, it's just sort of a flyover section before you get to the more famous material in chapter 11.

But in reality, I think there are some very important things that we, living in our day and age, can take from what is in this text. For after talking about the great judgment that must come upon the one who has insulted the spirit of grace, who has been amongst the people of God, has been instructed in the truth of God, and yet would go back and would offer that sacrifice, would walk away from the revelation of God and Jesus Christ and say, No, that's a lie.

The resurrection was not true. God has not testified that this was truly the Messiah. After hearing those words, we then have, For we know him who said, Vengeance is mine, I will repay. And again, the Lord will judge his people.

Both of these are Old Testament texts. Both of these come from the Old Testament in Deuteronomy chapter 32, and in Deuteronomy chapter 32 verse 35 and verse 36. If you remember back in Deuteronomy chapter 32, you had that restating of the law, and the stating of the covenants, the blessings and the cursings, and then this section is one where the Lord knows the stiff-necked nature of these people.

And so there are strong words of warning and exhortation found there in Deuteronomy chapter 32. And so the writer reminds them that God has always said that it is his intention to have a holy people. That is that it is nothing new that God would bring judgment even in the midst of the people of God.

Vengeance is mine, I will repay, and again, the Lord will judge his people. Now the problem that normally comes up when someone addresses this text, and normally when we're addressing this text, we're talking with folks who maybe, for example, believe that a true regenerate believer can lose their salvation, you can be united with Christ, but then severed from Christ and not abide in him, and Jesus will not save all of those who are given to him by the Father, and all the rest of that kind of thing.

And normally that's what we are focused upon, and as a result, we lose track, I think, of one of the most important elements of what is being said here. There is an absolute necessity, and it is a good and positive thing, that God does bring judgment into the congregation.

You may recall a number of months ago I preached a sermon called The Blessings of Apostasy, and one of the issues that I brought forth was, if God never brought judgment into the congregation, if he never exposed sin, if he never exposed hypocrisy, if he never allowed pressures to be brought to bear that would result in people who had made a false profession of faith moving away from that, maybe going into rank apostasy, rejecting the faith, or going into false religion, or whatever else it might be, if God never allowed that to happen, then what would happen to the church?

The church would become filled over time with unregenerate people. You could not recognize the difference between those who had a true and abiding faith and those who did not. And when persecution would come, there would be no vindication of those who are true disciples of Jesus Christ.

Part of judgment that is found in this text, part of what is good about the Lord judging his people, what is good about that is that there is a vindication. When you see the judgment of the unrighteous, what is the flip side of that?

What is the necessary corollary to that? The vindication of the righteous. Now this would be something that should be pretty much natural to everyone who has the opportunity of coming here on a Wednesday night, which I hope you all will avail yourself of, because we preach through the Psalter.

We study through the Psalter over and over again. Yes, that's what we do. It's not just because we like tradition so much, but it's just a good thing to do that. And what do we read in the Psalter? Over and over again you hear about God's judgment, but what do you hear the psalmist saying?

Vindicate me. Lord, bring vindication for your people. Well, how does God bring vindication? Think about David's life. Think about any of the prophets. We're studying through Jeremiah right now in the evenings.

How is vindication brought to Jeremiah? Well, there's a lot of judgment involved. There's a lot of judgment involved. There was a judgment of the evil. When that takes place, the righteous are vindicated.

That is, their righteous standing is demonstrated and illustrated, and God's justice is likewise shown. Let's face it. One of the objections that is raised against the Christian faith is we look around and we go,.

Look at all this evil.

I don't see any judgment coming. Well, you need to have spiritual eyes really to see a lot of it. But for many people, it's like if God was really there, this judge, this type of evil would have to be judged.

There would have to be something I could see right now that would tell me that God is concerned about good and evil. We've heard people make that kind of an argument. And so when judgment does come, yes, it shows God's wrath against evil, but it also vindicates the righteous.

They may have suffered long before it came, but vindication comes. And of course, our ultimate hope, is it not, is that in that final day, there will be judgment and there will be justice. There are things that happen in this life.

There are nations that rise and fall, and there are innocent people. We think of things going on today where there are evil governments that murder innocent people. And we don't necessarily see in this life that those individuals responsible for that experience justice.

But we hold on to that firm promise of God that justice will be done. Justice is the very foundation of His throne. And there will come a day when judgment will be done. And that is something we hold very, very firmly to, and indeed must do so.

But we recognize that when that judgment will be done, God will be vindicated in that process. And He will be vindicated in the fact that He has graciously redeemed a particular people. And the method by which He did so, through the Lord Jesus Christ, will be shown to be the only way by which His justice, His holiness, could be fulfilled as well as His love, mercy, and grace demonstrated.

And all of the created order will see this. And the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, will be glorified in that reality. And that is something we can hold on to, and the world can never take that from us.

So, the writer reminds us, this is nothing new. God had said long ago, vengeance is mine, I will repay. The Lord will judge His people. It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Now, some have actually said, have pointed out, that there is one instance in regards to God bringing judgment in David's life for sin amongst the people, where David said, well, let us fall into the hands of God.

Let us allow Him to determine what the punishment will be. And so, maybe this is sort of a positive thing. But I think if you just follow the context, the reality is that what is being stated here is that there will be judgment.

And it is a terrifying thing to consider the judgment that comes from the living God. It is one thing to think of a cold force, say, a principle out there that, well, justice will be done. But we are talking about the living God is the one against whom sin is directed.

And the judgment that will come from Him will be absolutely just, but it will be a terrifying thing. It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. And may I suggest that there was a time in our land when those words would ring in the hearts of men and women, boys and girls, in a way that is very rare today.

We think of what happened only a few hundred years ago. And we think of the preaching of men like Jonathan Edwards and others who preached this text and who talked about sinners in the hands of an angry God.

And men would begin weeping. And women would begin weeping. And children would be focused upon what was being said. And yet today, when those same words are spoken, you have one of two primary responses.

You either have the rude scoffing and mockery of so many. Or what's worse, in my opinion, is you have the apathy of the majority. They don't even seem to have ears to hear the warning of what is coming.

They live their lives suppressing the knowledge of that. When you actually step back and with biblical eyes look at them, you see that they're investing their lives in surrounding themselves with things so that they don't have to think about what's really important.

They surround themselves. I mean, the younger generation is really uncomfortable with silence.

Have you thought about that?

The younger generation has always got something in the ears. Has always got something going to draw the mind away lest that mind begin to turn toward the future and eternity and my responsibilities before that God I know is really there, but instead we have this apathy.

We have this deadness amongst so many in our land. We can identify some of the reasons. I've talked about it many times, the secular humanism that is encroached so much. But I also think it's part of God's judgment.

For we see in a number of instances in the prophets that one of the ways he brought the certainty of his judgment to bear upon the people was he just gave them a spirit of stupor. Like the proverbial frog in the boiling water.

He'll jump out if you drop him right in, but if you just slowly turn the heat up, he'll sit right there. That's what the people of God were so many times like. And that is what we see around us. It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

If you said that to most of the people you know in your life, out there in the world, what would they think? Would not many of them go, what kind of a God do you have? My God is all loving. There's nothing terrifying about falling into his hands because he's just going to cuddle me up.

Isn't that the God that many people want? The great, great grandpa in the sky that just winks at everything. Doesn't take into consideration any of his own holiness or justice.

No, no, no, no.

He'll accept anybody right as they are. He's never revealed his law.

No, no, no.

It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. So many today have a God of history. A God of tradition. A God of the past. A God of their parents, their grandparents, of generations past.

But the living God? The present God? The God that observes me in all of my actions and all of my thoughts? Some of you remember, since he passed away only a couple of months ago, a man by the name of Christopher Hitchens.

Christopher Hitchens was an atheist. He loved to debate Christians. I was a month and a half out from getting to debate Christopher Hitchens when he got his diagnosis of cancer, which took him in less than a year.

So I had listened to much of Christopher Hitchens. A very, very brilliant man. A great mind. Widely read. A tremendous speaker. And yet, if you've listened to him, you know that one of his primary arguments, one of the things...

Well, it wasn't even an argument, even though he used it as an argument. One of the things that revealed what really filled his heart was his hatred of this concept that we would ever fall into the hands of the living God.

He said the God of Christianity, to worship him is like living in a celestial North Korea. Where your every thought and your every action is monitored by this despotic being. And the thing that was actually refreshing about Christopher Hitchens is that he was honest as a blasphemer.

If you're going to blaspheme, blaspheme honestly. The only thing worse than being a blasphemer is a dishonest blasphemer. Then you're just multiplying your guilt. And yet there are so many of those. He was an honest blasphemer.

He hated the idea that God would judge his thoughts. It kept coming up all the time out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And evidently there was a recognition on Christopher Hitchens' part that if the biblical God existed, then that which filled his mind and that which he knew he loved would be judged by God.

And he hated that.

He hated the Christian message, all of it, the atonement, all of it. Ironically, he would be a testifier to the truth of verse 31. It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of a living God. So he just had to say that living God didn't exist.

Had to mock those who would follow him. But that wasn't an argument against the reality of this verse. In fact, he admitted the reality of this verse.

He recognized it.

We must pray that as we present the Gospel to others in our day, we must pray and we must ask the Lord, by your Spirit, bring spiritual life so that these words can be understandable. For the one who has been dulled, the one who has been numbed by the society in which we live does not understand the terror that is spoken of here.

It is a good thing to fear the wrath of God. For only the one who fears the wrath of God will seek a Savior. Only the one who fears the wrath of God will seek salvation. When we, because we don't ourselves fear God, when we mute, when we lessen, when we edit, when we water down the Gospel message for fear of the face of men, because we know that there are certain words that we'll have to use, certain concepts that we will have to introduce, that the unregenerate in our day hate.

When we present only one aspect of the Gospel,.

And it may be a true aspect.

We may speak much of the love of God. We may speak much of God's grace and God's mercy and God's loving kindness and God's tenderness and His long suffering and His patience. And all of those things are true.

But none of those things are ever presented to us in Scripture, apart from the ever real backdrop of God's absolute holiness and wrath against sin. And when we present them, knowing that the person to whom we're speaking does not have those categories in their mind, and might actually think we don't have those categories in our mind, that we aren't presenting that God, that in fact we are distancing ourselves from that concept of wrath and judgment.

We're not only deceiving ourselves, we're deceiving them. And those truths we might explain to them about all those good things actually become untruths because they're not in the context that the Bible actually presents them in.

We need to pray that the person to whom we're speaking will understand that it is a terrifying thing to fall in the hands of the living God. And that is exactly where they are. You remember if you've ever read it.

And it's a shame that it's one of the only sermons of his that people have ever read. But you remember that some of the illustrations that Edward used when he talked about sinners in the hands of an angry God, Edwards talked about walking on a bridge and the boards are rotted out and you're over the very precipice of hell.

Now, that really works for me because I am terrified of heights. Pastor Frye loves to remind me of when we lived here, for one year we did what Warren has done for 57 years now. And one Sunday night or Wednesday night, I forget when it was, there was something up on the roof that needed to be done and Pastor Frye was like, well, James, just run on up there and do it.

And I'm like, now?

Up there?

And that's when Pastor Frye discovered that if I can fall off of it, I don't like it. It's not fun for me to do things like that. And so when I read Edwards and I'm thinking about what that would be like, I see some of these bridges that exist in the third world in some places where it's that narrow bridge that sways back and forth and goes across a gorge.

Not happening. You could put a million dollars on the other side. I'm not crossing that thing. It ain't happening. Can't do it. I'd pass out, something like that, fall off. Something would happen to me.

I just know. And so to think about being suspended over the very fires of hell and to have to walk across that or the idea of being on a spider's web and being just barely held above these things. At any moment, God can just open his fingers or he can fire that arrow, do whatever it is to cause me to enter into his judgment.

Very few people have any concept whatsoever of the idea, Jesus taught this.

Yes!

Jesus, lowly, meek, and mild. And guess where he taught it? In the third chapter of John. Right along with John 3 .16.

Remember?

Something about the wrath of God abiding upon who? Unbelievers. Those who have not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. But they abide under the wrath of God. And every person, the sound of my voice, who is not in Jesus Christ, God's wrath is abiding upon you.

And you might go, I seem to look like pretty much everybody else. My life seems to be pretty much like everyone else's. I don't see any wrath. The picture then becomes that of the mindless, senseless person who goes walking across one of those bridges and just looking around at the scenery and there's five sections of it out right in front of them.

And then the next step. And they never see it coming because they're too intent upon finding that one song on their iPod. They're so intense upon fulfilling their own lusts, their own desires. They're not looking at spiritual things.

They're not looking at spiritual realities. And to the person who has not fled to Jesus Christ, God's wrath abides upon that person. Now this text is specifically in application to that person who would be in the church, know what God has done in Jesus Christ, and then go back.

It's a terrifying thing to fall in the hands of a living God. But you'll notice it is a general truth being made to apply to a specific situation. But it's a general truth. And it's one we must and have to repeat in our culture because our culture is intense upon watering it down, denying it, and saying, No, I will not accept this.

Because the reality is they know it's true. If God really exists, if He really is the Creator, if He really did make us, then they know that He's revealed His law. That's why they have a conscience. They know that it's out there.

They know that truth is right there. They're busily suppressing it. And they really get angry when people come along and remind them of what takes them so much effort to forget. You wonder why there is such bigotry and hatred being expressed toward Christianity?

Yeah, some of it's because Christians can be stupid. Some of it's because of our own sin. But that does not explain the loathing of the message of Christianity that is becoming more and more the drumbeat of people in Western society.

They know it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But having given these words of warning and of judgment,.

Remembering Former Days of Suffering and Faithfulness

Notice what is said.

But remember the former days when after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming shares with those who were so treated.

Here the writer now begins to apply the stab of healing in the sense that he's said some pretty strong things. He's given strong warnings. But now he begins to build back up in the sense of looking at the congregation, warning the congregation as needs to be done.

Just because you're sitting here doesn't mean you've got your ticket punched. If you go back to the old way, if you walk away from Christ, don't blame Him. But then he's going to start saying now, we saw at the end of the chapter, I am convinced, you're not of those who shrink back.

You're not of those who have made an empty profession. You're of those who have faith under the saving of their souls. A true saving faith. I recognize that. But how does this exhortation begin? Well, remember what God's done with you in the past.

It's a good thing. It's amazing how forgetful we are. It's amazing how forgetful we are. I'm finding that to be the reality of my life as the years go by. I am becoming the quintessential absent-minded professor.

I mean, it is amazing some of the things my mind can recall, but I am so sick and tired of sitting at my computer and staring at a browser screen going, why did I open this? Every day, oh, I need to do something.

I open it, something distracts me, and then, it was 30 seconds ago.

I have no short-term memory.

It's just gone. It's just like...

And my kids will say,.

You've always been that way. You're just now figuring it out. No, that's not been the case.

But it's amazing the things we can forget, and especially when it comes to spiritual truths.

Here, the writer recognizes that when you have suffered for the Gospel, it gives you great confidence for the future. When you have suffered for the Gospel, it gives you great confidence for the future.

Think about those former days when after being enlightened, when God broke through and revealed Himself to you. The light of the Gospel came to you. You saw your sin. You saw the fulfillment of the prophets and Jesus Christ and the necessity of the atonement.

You saw all these things. You endured a great conflict of sufferings.

And he then describes two ways.

In which this had taken place. So obviously, he knew his audience. He knew what their history was. And you'll notice the partly, partly in verse 33. Partly by, the first, is partly by being made a public spectacle.

The Greek term is theatra dominoi. You hear theatra?

Theater?

That's where we get it.

A public spectacle. Partly by being made a public spectacle.

How?

Through reproaches and tribulations. Now, there may have been specific elements of this that had to do with their Judaism. Maybe this was being cast out of the synagogue. Something along those lines. But certainly, we can really enter into this exhortation and I think properly, as we think about what happens to a Christian in our society now who makes an open and clear profession of faith.

Especially a convert who has been known for the kind of life they lived before. Known to be very much in love with the things of the world. And all of a sudden, there is a conversion, a change. And oh, the world's reaction is to engage in reproaching them.

And to mock them. I think of my friend, Kirk Cameron. And the fact that the world just seems to go, well, we remember watching you on television. We know you were pretty much a rascal. So how dare you now have such an emphasis on family and faithfulness and marriage and children and morality.

How dare you take a biblical worldview. And he's reproached. And certainly, Hollywood ain't knocking on his door anymore. And these individuals, when they had made this profession of faith, they had experienced being made a public spectacle.

It wasn't just private. It wasn't just the disapproving look at work.

This was public.

Some of you have experienced that. Some of you understand exactly what's being said here. And if you don't,.

One of two reasons.

God has never put you in a position of having to experience that. Or maybe some of us have found ways to avoid it.

By coming silent,.

By compromising with the world,.

By keeping things secret.

They hadn't kept it secret. When they became enlightened, they endured a great conflict of sufferings. And that suffering came through the public humiliation that came from the mockery that was delivered to them.

But then, that would be something that they could not control because that comes from outside. That's the responsibility of others who are doing that to them. But then notice the second partly. And partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated, it would be natural for one Christian to stand with another Christian.

It's not natural.

To see a Christian.

Being upbraided, being persecuted, being mocked, and to just walk on by. The natural thing the Christians did is that they became the aid of other Christians. In fact, notice that term. You became sharers.

You know the term koinonia? Fellowship, community. Same word. They didn't have to do that. But they wanted to do that. They desired to do that. The idea of sharing one another's burdens, standing together, was natural for them.

The explanation is verse 34. For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have yourselves a better possession and a lasting one. They exposed themselves to the authorities that were engaging in this persecution because they came and visited the prisoners.

They associated themselves with those who were being persecuted.

And as a result,.

Suffered persecution themselves. This is but the beginning of an exhortation that's going to come to its real full statement in Hebrews 13, a text we've looked at before. Not in this study, but a number of years ago, where we are commanded to remember those who are in bonds as if we were in bonds with them.