Salvation in Full Color Final Question | Clip from Final Warning

The Final Warning and Its Applications to Young and Old

So, certainly, the final warning is quite frightening. He gives a couple of applications to two different age groups. Do you want to walk us through that?

He gives an application to the young person. It is a good warning when you are young to hear what God is saying to you and to respond, not to put it off and think that you can ignore God's warnings as a youth and not be affected.

You may be hardening your neck in a way that suddenly, this destruction comes without remedy. And then a warning to the aged person who has been ignoring God's warnings. How much time do you have before suddenly God comes?

Yes, this is not a sin that we leave behind as we grow older. There are some sins that seem to lose their grip on us little by little as we mature. But some sins seem to accumulate strength. And I think this would be one of them.

If we are not careful, hardening will become a more natural response as we become older. Because if you are the older person in a situation, pride tends to kick in. And you think, who are you, young person, to tell me?

I am in my 60s now. You are in your 20s. You are a little kid in my eyes. That is different than when you were in your 20s and a 60-year-old sat you down in a kind way and said, have you considered this?

And you think, wow, I am just a kid. I have got so much to learn. There are a couple of other applications before we close. One is, he says that the more stupid and hardened the sinner... So, stupid as in the sense of stupefied, blinded, unaware.

The more hardened the sinner, the nearer to destruction he is. But he does not notice it. So, it may be that reading a sermon like this, we might say to ourselves, well, of all the chapters in the book, this is one that I am not in danger of that.

I am not hardening my heart against God. And I am not on the verge of a sudden, everlasting destruction without remedy. But the very nature of the hardening, he says, means that it is the most hardened that recognize the danger the least.

So, they are closest to the edge, but convinced they are furthest from the edge. So, what a terrifying thing. And what a kindness of the Lord, that it is not just through the Bible, or just a preacher, or a Christian in church, or a parent, or a friend, a spouse, or life's events, or the changes we see in someone around us.

But he gives us, and it is not an exhaustive list, but he gives us seven different ways that God kindly interrupts us so that we do not ever become the hardened man or woman on the precipice, thinking we are the safest.

What if he left us to ourselves? You know, like we prefer, sometimes. Well, this is the last chapter of the book. And so, Chuck and I felt like a great application, really, for the whole book is a simple question.

Twenty sermons on one of the most significant themes that we can find in Scripture, from the character of God all the way down to the final warning. And in between those two bookends is the work of our rescue.

So, certainly, it would be hard to find a more significant selection of chapters. Our question for ourselves, our question for our listeners, is this. Are you more receptive, more tender, more eager to change in very concrete ways at the end of the book than you were at the beginning?

Or have you become just a little harder, so that when we read these final sermons, we blame someone else, we say, it's not me, or we get down into a puddle of despair, but ultimately, we don't repent.

So, do not let that be the case with you, young or old. It's a kindness of the Lord to wake us and to alert us. We really do appreciate being able to interact with you through the comments. So, if you have questions or just comments you'd like to leave, leave them below and we'll get back to them as we have a chance.