Bible Study

Well, now that I have you all seated, if you'll please stand. And bow your heads. Father, we come before you very humble and just thanking you so much for letting us come together as your people. To spend time together, Father, we thank you for the food that we had and the fellowship we have. But we also thank you most of all for this word. We get to come into your Bible, the tool by which you teach us, knowing that you guide us through your spirit. We ask that you do guide us tonight through your spirit, that we can come to a deeper understanding of this very important passage in Hebrews. And in doing so, we can learn and we can grow by it and we can become your children, Father, which is the purpose that you have for every one of us. So when Christ comes back, we can be changed into one of your children forever. And we thank you so much for that knowledge and this opportunity.

So we praise you and we ask all this in Christ Jesus' name. Amen.

I'm in town. We're working on three different Beyond Today programs, three totally different books. We're working on one program that's about the prophecies about the temple in Jerusalem.

Basically though, we talk about there is a prophesied coming temple, but that shouldn't be our focus. Our focus should be becoming the temple of God now. God is working with people and creating a spiritual temple. The second program is about demons. There's so much fascination with that subject that we decided to go ahead and do a program about it. It's just a basic biblical explanation. It's a subject we have to be sort of careful how we touch and go through. But that on just demons and who Satan is and that subject.

The third one we're doing is a very controversial subject. Steve Myers is doing a program on pornography and discussing with mental health experts how that is actually so dangerous and destructive to the human mind. But there is hope if people will turn to God like any other sin that can be dealt with and overcome. We've been going through some real tough subjects over the last couple of months. Abortion, homosexuality, pornography. There will probably become a time in the near future where we won't be allowed to discuss those subjects.

Just the way that the FCC is going and certain laws. But we better cover them while we can and get them out there and get them on the Internet where you can never destroy something when it gets on the Internet. You can stay out there forever someplace. Although I told Steve and Daris and I, he said, you know when they shut this down, the three guys that go to jail is us. So I'm not sure we're doing such a good thing.

Well last time Mr. Myers dealt with the book of Hebrews. You've been continuing this book of Hebrews. We'll continue that again tonight. Last time he talked about the last two Bible studies was talked about the Day of Atonement because that was in Hebrews 8 and 9 and 10.

The Day of Atonement, the typology of the Day of Atonement and what we learned from it. How all those things were symbols of a reality of the work of Jesus Christ. Last time Mr. Myers talked about the Holy of Holies and how when you look at that tabernacle, you look at those sacrifices, that Holy of Holies symbolizes the very throne of God.

And how because the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, when you pray, when I pray, we can have boldness to go before that throne because God gives us that privilege through Christ. So you have these chapters here that are dealing specifically with this Old Testament typology of the reality of Jesus Christ. Then it appears here He's changing subjects, but He's really not. It's interesting how this book is constructed because the rest of what we call chapter 10, remember this book originally had no chapters and verses that's added in, is a segue to chapter 11.

Chapter 11 is the faith chapter. So you have all this discussion of this typology of the Old Testament and how it reflects Jesus Christ, and then you have the faith chapter. And what we're going to do here tonight is cover the connecting point between these two subjects.

So let's pick it up in verse 23 of chapter 10. Because yes, finished in verse 20, He talks about how Jesus is the high priest over the house of God. He talks in 22 that we can, in the full assurance of faith, that we can come before Him. Then verse 23 starts this segue into what's going to end up being chapter 11. He says, Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised us faithful, and let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some, and exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching, the day of course being the day of the Lord.

In the book of Hebrews, of course it was written primarily to its first audience, we're Jewish Christians. And He's dealing with trials and tribulations they're going through as Christians.

Remember Hebrews wasn't written to the world. They're written to the church. And there were Jewish Christians who were going in particular trials, not only just the trials that comes from being a Christian, but they were being persecuted because they were seen as traitors to Judaism. They were seen as traitors to the God of the Old Testament by their own country people, by the people of the Jewish race. So He's encouraging them all through this book. And here He gives three encouraging statements that they should do. Paul's always very active. Paul's very fascinating to me because sometimes he argues like a rabbi, and sometimes he argues like a Greek philosopher. And sometimes he'll do the same thing in the same sentence. He'll argue both ways. Because he was trained in both. But here in Hebrews, he's very much, he's thinking in the Jewish mindset. And he's trying to encourage them.

And so he gives them three practical points of encouragement in these verses. The first one here in verse 23 says, "'Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.'" The confession of our hope. Hebrews is a book of hope. I'll show you in a minute. We don't recognize hope as one of the themes through this book. And hope is a positive expectation of something. I'm popping a lot here. Let me move this.

It's a positive expectation. You're looking forward to something. I don't have hope in yesterday's lunch. I already ate yesterday's lunch. I really hope I get lunch tomorrow.

And I have a positive expectation that I will. So it's a positive expectation of something that's going to happen, something that's going to happen in the future. It is an emotion.

But what Paul's going to show them here is you can have the emotion of hope. And if it's not founded in a reality, a reasoned reality, a reasoned future, then after a while you'll lose it. You'll lose the emotion. Now how many politicians have run a campaign on hope? Hope. Hope. But never defined. Hope. Or it's very vague. Hope for the future.

Hope for a better life. Well, what happens after you don't get hope for a better life in six months or a year or two years? Everybody says, you cheated me. We'll put in someone else because you know what they'll say? I can give you hope. We all need a positive expectation for the future. When you get to the place that you don't have some positive expectation for the future, you will literally begin to deteriorate. Your life will deteriorate.

You can die. You'll give up on life without a positive expectation for the future. So He's talking to them about hope. Now I'm going to read a few verses from Hebrews that you've already gone through in your Bible studies about hope. You can turn there if you want, but I'm just going to read these and show you where there's a theme running through the whole book of Hebrews. Hebrews 3.6 says, But Christ, as a son over His own house, whose house we are, if we hold fast, there's always this encouragement, holds fast, and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end. Remember here in verse 23, He says, Let us hold fast. He's telling these people, Don't give up. Keep this positive expectation because Christ is the head of the house. God has put Christ as the head of the house. So just hold fast. He will carry it out. And then you will have rejoicing in the hope firm to the end. You'll be there when God completes what He wants to do in your life right where God wants you to be. And you'll have a rejoicing because that expectation continues. That expectation continues. I've told my kids, I've lived my whole life believing Christ is coming back in my lifetime. You know if He doesn't, my last breath is going to be, Kids, come here.

He's coming back. Just wait. He's coming back because they have to have that expectation too. We have to live with that kind of hope. Hebrews 6, 9-12, this is very interesting.

He says, But beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you. Yes, things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this manner. Now listen what he says, For God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love, which you have shown toward His name, and that you have ministered to the saints and do minister. And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end.

He's a keep the positive forward movement because God is never going to forget what you've done. He's not going to forget how you served Him and how you served others.

That you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Once again, this hope has to do with promises. Hebrews 6, 9-20, this hope we have is an anchor to the soul, sure and steadfast, and which enters the presence behind the veil. Now remember you went through how the veil was ripped, allowing us access to the presence of God. He says, we have hope because of that. You have hope because when you're in your trials of life, you know that veil is there no longer between you and God.

You get to go right into His presence every time you pray.

In Hebrews 7, 19, For the law made nothing perfect. On the other hand, there is the bringing of a better hope by which we draw near to God. The law is good and wonderful. It is a gift from God, but there is a problem with the law. It can define good and evil. It can't save you when you've already broken it. It can only define this is good and this is bad.

You've done bad. The law requires this penalty. That's what the law does. There's a limit to what any law can do. It defines good and bad behavior, and it defines what are the penalties for breaking it. This hope that he's talking about here in Hebrews, of course, has to do with drawing near to God. And if you look back in that Hebrews 7, it's about because the work that God is doing through Jesus Christ opens up a positive future that the law could not. I love God's law. But boy, does it make me feel guilty a lot, because I should. I can't escape. The law can't take away the guilt. It can only keep saying you're guilty. So you have to go someplace through the law giver to have that guilt removed.

This is all the hope. If you go back to Hebrews 10, verse 23, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. You know, we talk about faith a lot, and our faith in God. You want to do an interesting Bible study sometime? Study God's faithfulness. Study all the promises in the Bible that God has made. Study all the promises in the Bible that Christ has made to those who follow Him. The promises God has made to His children. And He says, I will be faithful. If He's not faithful, let's give this up. This is all a joke. Because our faith means nothing if God isn't faithful.

We know that God will do what He says He's going to do. He'll complete what He says He's going to complete. If that's not true, we're doomed. So He says here we have hope.

Why? Because He who promised is faithful. We believe God is faithful in spite of our weakness, in spite of our shortcomings. God is faithful. And we have to believe and follow that faithfulness. Now the second point, so that's the first point. The first point is have hope in God's promises. Second point in these verses is let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works. We have then, if we're going to stay on this positive course, we have a requirement to consider one another in order to stir up love and good works. Stir up is of course an action. What I find interesting in the Greek is the words to consider. It literally means perceive clearly. So you think about it. He's saying, perceive each other clearly. In other words, understand each other so that you will stir each other up. So He's telling them, look, folks, this isn't a matter of you could be some kind of independent Christian. You have to have a relationship with each other. It's required. And we are required to stir each other up to actions. One of the actions, agape, and good works. So we're required to—it's interesting. He could have said, there's a lot of words he could have used. Encourage each other. He doesn't use that word. He doesn't use the Greek word. It means, exalt, which is the word I would have thought he used. He uses this word, basically, consider each other, perceive each other, understand each other, and then stir each other up. And then the last point is, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is a matter of some, but exhorting one another and so much more as you see the day approaching. In the first centuries, as there is now, this problem comes up in the church all the time. People begin to slowly drift away from Sabbath assemblies attending holy days, even just meeting with other people than our fellow Christians. The assembling of yourselves implies the sacred assembly or the Sabbath services.

He says that you are to exhort each other and don't forsake this. We can believe that sometimes we're keeping the Sabbath and be keeping it very strictly. But if we don't see a need to participate in a congregation, because let's face it, being a congregation is messy. If you're in a congregation very long, you find out, well, this person has a problem and this person doesn't like me. And this person over here, boy, I don't even know why they allow them in the church. And then you really get scared because people start figuring out your faults. It's always messy. That's because a congregation is where God trains people for Christ to use when He comes back to clean up the mess of humanity.

This is the training ground. And we're not to forsake this because one of the reasons why is that we exhort one another. We're exhorting each other. The Greek word here is translated exhort. Exhort in modern English doesn't have a lot of meaning. How many times?

Come on, honestly. How many of you have used the word exhort in the last three days? Well, I exhorted someone today. Someone's already able to slap you for saying that. They're not sure what that means. Let me read from Vines expository dictionary of biblical words what exhort means. To admonish, but listen, to urge one to pursue some course of conduct.

It's always looking towards the future. It's different than the word comfort. You know, in the Bible you'll see two words used a lot in the New Testament for people in trials, comfort and exhort. Comfort is passive. You want peace. You want rest. You know, we all need comfort at times. We all need rest. We all need peace. Exhortation is the opposite.

Get up and move because there's a point out here and you have to go towards that point.

That point, of course, is the day. Christ returning. So He tells everybody, He tells them first, remember God's promises. Remember God's promises. Secondly, you are to assist each other in love and encourage each other in agape and in good works. And third, you must come together in worshiping God so you can exhort one another. You can keep urging each other towards that future point. And now it seems like He switches gears. But when we get towards the edge, you'll see where this all fits together in a thought process.

Because in verse 26, He begins to discuss a subject that is very, very controversial.

It is a doctrine that we hold to that is debated in schools of theology and have been debated for literally 1,700 years and probably was debated before that. And you have in some Christian groups the idea of irresistible grace. Irresistible grace says that when God gives you His grace, in other words, He pours out upon you your pardon. He gives you a pardon for your sins. That you now come into a state of grace with God and you can never break that. Sometimes it's called, you know, in the vernacular, once saved, always saved.

And the idea is that if you give your heart to the Lord, if you say, usually it's some magic words, you know, you can still in truck stops or places you can find the little tracks.

Just say these words, I repented my sins, that's explained sins, I repented my sins and accept Jesus into my heart. And then it says, you are now saved, you now have eternal life. That's based on irresistible grace, the doctrine of irresistible grace. So, you know, the guy could pray that, he now could go out and commit adultery, you know, sell drugs, kill somebody. It really doesn't matter. You say, well, yeah, there's people who commit sins. David did some of those things, but you know, David killed somebody, but he repented, didn't he? There's no need to repent because you have irresistible grace. You've got it made. This flies in the face of them. This discounts that as a doctrine. It says the opposite. So this is very important. And remember, this is written to the church. He's not writing to the world. We'll go through quickly a statement that Jesus made to the world about this. But in Hebrews, he's writing to the church. Look at verse 26.

For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. Anyone who has rejected Moses' law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment do you suppose will be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God on your foot, counted the blood of the covenant by which He was sanctified common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace.

For we know Him who said, vengeance is mine, and I will repay, says the Lord. And again, the Lord will judge His people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Now, He's not talking here to the world. You know, the whole discussion about the Day of Atonement, Jesus Christ, the whole discussion of Hebrews, the first two chapters of Hebrews is about how Jesus isn't an angel, which was an idea that had already come into the church at that time, that He, and of course there's major groups today that believe that Jesus was an angel. So He spends those first two chapters disproving that. This whole thing is written to believing Hebrews who are part of the church. And then He tells them, if you sin willfully, then there reaches a point where you have nothing left but God's eternal judgment. So what is, we call this the unpardonable sin, the sin God won't forgive. Over the years I've had many people come to me and talk to me about how I think I've committed the unpardonable sin. A situation I dealt with many, many years ago, early in my ministry, I felt so bad. This man wasn't in the church. He called me to come over to his house. I wanted to see him and his wife. He was emaciated. He had a terrible yellow color. He was obviously sick. He said, I have AIDS. I have AIDS because I committed a terrible sexual act and God's going to kill me because of it. He won't forgive me. So I spent all this time trying to explain to him, God will forgive you. His wife kept saying, I forgive him. They had little children. She says, I literally forgive him. He was drunk. It's not him. This isn't normal for him. I've known this man for years. I will forgive him. He doesn't even drink.

So this was just a really odd thing. He went out drinking with some guys and they got him drunk and well, terrible thing happened. I tried to help him. I left. I don't remember.

It's been so long. It's probably a month, two months, three months, whatever it was later. I went to see him. He was even sicker. And I said, what did the doctor say about your AIDS? He says, well, I just, he was just angry. He says, well, of course, we discussed again. He could not accept that God will forgive him. I have committed the unpardonable sin.

And I asked him about what the doctor say, how long far he is in his AIDS. Of course, back then they get him near the programs they have now. He said, well, it's really a shame.

He said, my main doctor got upset with me because he said, look, I've done every test there is. You do not have AIDS. Now the man was dying. So he went to an AIDS clinic and they literally threw him out. The doctor yelled at him, get out of my AIDS clinic. I have people here who are dying. And he says, they just won't accept that God is killing me through AIDS because I have committed the unpardonable sin. What is the unpardonable sin? Is it murder?

Is it homosexuality? I've had people tell me that they would never come to a church if there was one person there who had been a homosexual. I said, well, they don't go to our church. You know anybody in your congregation who is a homosexual? No, but don't come to our church because I'm sure somebody will show up sooner or later. Well, what is it?

Is it getting drunk? Is it committing adultery? Is it what is the unpardonable sin? Well, remember he's talking to the church here. And he says that you have to sin willfully. So some people will say, okay, what that means is if I know what I'm doing is wrong. Well, of course, if you have God working with you, most of the things you do you know you're doing wrong.

I know I shouldn't be losing my temper right now. I know it! But you do it anyways, right?

I know I shouldn't be doing this, but you do it. And he said, well, I've sinned willfully.

That's it. God doesn't have anything to do with me anymore. This willfully has to do with an attitude that you willfully continue in the sin. Now, everything we've been through to Hebrew shows that if anybody who repents is forgiven, there is not a singular act, okay? If we look at the unpardonable sin as a singular act, name a sin God won't forgive.

I can't find anything in the Bible He won't forgive except one thing. And it has to do with an attitude. It has to do with the decision-making process of the person, which means that the unpardonable sin can be any act. It can be something very simple. Yes, an unrepentant, hardened criminal could commit the unpardonable sin. So could a really good Sabbath keeper that keeps the Holy Days and knows you don't have an immortal soul and hates his brother?

It's not a singular act. It's a viewpoint. And let me show you what He explains what the viewpoint creates. Let's look here at verse 28. By the way, verse 28 here, this is actually a quote from Deuteronomy. And it's interesting because He starts with Deuteronomy and ends with a backache here. He starts with two different Old Testament scriptures to prove His point. Deuteronomy 17, 2-7 talks about this two or three witnesses, which is good for us to remember, too. You can't convict somebody without two or three witnesses. It doesn't say two or three accusers. It's two or three witnesses.

Interesting, just a side point about the law of God. The law of God, it was better to let a murderer go free than the stone and innocent man, because the idea was God will bring about justice. God will bring about justice. That may sound strange, but you look at, you could not convict somebody without two or three witnesses. One witness, you could see somebody kill somebody and they couldn't be convicted. It was always better that the innocent be protected. The idea was God will hunt you down, because the protection of the innocent was so important.

Anyways, after that two or three witnesses, he talked about Moses' law. That's back in Deuteronomy 17. He says, How much worse punishment, verse 29, do you suppose will be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God under foot? First point, the unpardonable sin involves trampling the Son of God under foot. That means you could be a believer in God. You can actually be a believer in Jesus Christ. But you trample on Him. How can people trample on Him? I don't know. I think of John 1, people who refuse to accept Jesus Christ as the Word, the eternal Son of God, or as God.

He is God. There are people who refuse to see that. John 6, 22 through 23, Jesus makes a remarkable statement there. He says, You must honor the Son the same as you honor the Father. Now, I wonder what that meant years ago. So I looked up, I don't know Greek. I only have an entire shelf of Greek dictionaries at home.

So for me to do Greek research is an enormously painful experience. I looked up every word in that verse. You know what it means? You must honor the Son the same as you honor the Father. That's exactly what it means. There are people who trample the Son of God under foot because they don't love Jesus Christ. Sometimes we're a little afraid to say that.

Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, that sounds Protestant. But every one of you when you were baptized, you know you made a promise. At least everybody I've ever baptized and everybody I've ever seen baptized and everybody I've ever asked before they were baptized, the minister said, Jesus said, If you do not love me more than your mother, your sister, your mother, your own life also, you cannot be the mind of the disciple. He didn't say you don't love the Father.

That was a given. I know you love the Father. If you don't love me more. In fact, it's interesting in John 16, Jesus says, When you pray, you won't ask me. You will go right to the Father because of me. You won't ask anything and I won't even answer you. The Father Himself will answer you. And then He says, You know why the Father will answer you?

Go back and read that in John 16. He says, Because you love me. If you want your prayers answered, we have to love the Son of God. Or is the Father saying, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you're not acknowledging the high priest here beside me.

You're not acknowledging the sacrifice. That's why Jesus said, I won't answer you, but you'll pray in my name. See, we could trample the Son of God on your foot and still appear to be very good lawkeepers. There's a lot of ways that we can do that. The unpardonable sin, part of this is an absolute trampling of the Son of God on your foot. It is a Christianity without real relationship with Christ.

The second thing that's part of this unpardonable sin is that they've counted the blood of the covenant by which He was sanctified a common thing. Counted the blood of the covenant by which He was sanctified a common thing.

That's why this is written to the church. The world doesn't have a covenant with God.

You have a covenant with God. At baptism, you made a covenant. And the sign of that covenant was, you were baptized, have hands laid on you, and God sealed you with His covenant by giving you His Spirit. Right? So you're in a covenant with God. You're in a personal covenant with the Almighty God, made possible because you said, yes, Father, I want you to take Christ's blood as my sacrifice. I want my sins to be washed in His blood. And I wish to be in a covenant with you so that I could be your child, so that I could receive your kingdom. That's the covenant you made. Now, the unpardonable sin gets to the point where the person counts the blood of the covenant by which He was sanctified, made holy. When you receive God's Spirit, we become holy people. By which we were set apart by God, we consider it a common thing. In the process of committing the unpardonable sin, the person no longer counts their covenant with God as having any meaning. It really has no meaning.

You see, it's not just a single event. Oh, it can be a single event, but this has to accompany it because you can commit a sin, return to God and say, I have sinned. I beg you to forgive me. And your Father says, ooh, you're going to pay a penalty for this. I'm not going to stop the natural consequences of this, but come here, daughter, come here, come on. I still love you. You see what I mean? It's not a broken relationship, even though bad things may happen. What's happening here is a breaking of the relationship that becomes permanent. So we always look at the event. And what we're looking at is the event that's usually a combination of a lot of things. Usually, if you're worried about, if I committed the unpardonable sin, you probably haven't, because if you had, you wouldn't have. Because you've actually counted the blood by which you were sanctified, a common thing. Earlier in Hebrews, Hebrews 6, this same thing was written about. And here, this is something that's really on his mind, because he covers it twice in this book. So here he talks about the same thing. Hebrews 6, verse 4, For it is impossible for those who are once enlightened. Now notice, who's he talking to? Not the world, people who are enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit. A specific group of people, right? People who have taken and become part of the covenant. These people have received God's Spirit. They were repented. They were baptized. They had hand laid on them. They received God's Spirit. They are now in this intimate relationship with God.

Jesus Christ's blood has been applied to them, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put him to an open shame. They will not repent. They cannot repent. They literally flip back to what they were before God called them, and in such a hardened state that they will no longer respond to God. He's warning these people. He's warning the church, don't do that.

Now, I said there was one place Jesus talks about this, at Matthew 12. Let's go ahead and read it. Matthew 12. We'll come right back to Hebrews. Matthew 12, verse 34. Verse 24, the Pharisees heard it, and they said, talking about Jesus Christ, He cast out demons except bells above the ruler of the demons. In other words, everything the good that Jesus did as the work of God, their response was, ah, these are demons causing Him to heal the blind. These are demons causing Him to cast out demons. These are demons causing Him to teach from the book of Isaiah. And the answer is, explain to me how Satan would fight against himself. That didn't even make sense. Satan's fighting against himself here. Then he says in verse 31, Therefore I say to you, now this is interesting because he's not talking here to people who have God's Spirit. Hebrews is talking specifically to the church. Jesus gives us another warning here. Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anybody who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either this age or the age to come. What he's telling these people is, what you don't understand here, he says the Word, what John called the Word, the Logos, the one who was the angel of the Lord in the Old Testament, the one who at times was actually Yahweh in the Old Testament, the one when David said, My Lord said to His Lord, this was the Lord of David. Now if you put all the New Testament together, this is all taught throughout the New Testament. And what he's telling it is, God is here. The power of God's Spirit is working here. And if you say that is of Satan, you're in danger of losing eternal life. It's a very dangerous thing, even if you don't have God's Spirit, to be in the presence of the very work of God. The Messiah was on earth, and they openly defied Him while they were standing there saying, ah, your power is of Satan. So we have to be careful not to... It is possible for someone not to have God's Spirit, but deny it so fervently that they're in danger of becoming so hardened that they'll never repent, because He wasn't talking to converted people.

Now, we're back in Hebrews. He is. So primarily when it talks about the impartable sin, primarily it has to do with the church, at least the discussion in the Scripture, because most of the world hasn't been called yet. Since most of the world hasn't been called yet, it's not their time yet. They're not being eternally judged. Remember, there's two kinds of judgment. There is temporary judgment for sin, and there's eternal judgment. You and I suffer temporary judgment all the time. Go out here and get drunk and wreck your car into a tree, and you will suffer the temporary judgment. Now, because God doesn't want to give you eternal judgment, you probably live. You only wish you would have died, okay? Because God doesn't want to give us eternal judgment. But there's always a temporary judgment. Eternal judgment is what God's working with. Of course, He protects us from the temporary judgment sometimes, but He's looking for salvation. So what we're looking back at Hebrews here in chapter 10. There's a third point here. So, they trampled the Son of God under foot, they count the blood of the covenant by which He was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the spirit of grace. The spirit of grace. Grace is usually used in the terms of a part it given to us that we do not deserve. And that's usually how the word grace is used.

But when you go through the entire Bible, and even in the Old Testament where you'll find a Hebrew word that's translated grace, you will find a theme that says it's more than that. Grace is anything that God gives anybody that they don't deserve. A good thing.

Anytime God gives a good thing to somebody that they don't deserve, that's grace. So when you get down to it, the fact that you just took a breath is the grace of God. The law was one of the greatest acts of grace God ever did before He said Jesus Christ.

Okay. Here's how you define right and wrong. You and I didn't make up the Ten Commandments.

They're absolutely brilliant. Why did God give the Ten Commandments? His grace.

I'm going to give you something. You can't make this up. And He gave us the Ten Commandments.

Jesus Christ, of course, coming was the ultimate act of grace so that we can have a pardon that we can't do on our own. If it was possible for a person to come along and say, oh, I understand the law of God. I'm going to keep it perfect in letter and spirit for the rest of my life.

And they could do it, which is impossible. But if they did, they would still suffer eternal death because of what they did before that point.

So God, everything we have is an act of grace. And He says here, the problem with this willful sitting is the person so hardened, they won't repent. They won't say, I'm wrong. They won't change because they've become so hardened and they reject God's grace.

I remember when I was dealing with this man that was dying from AIDS who didn't have AIDS.

I called a long-time minister in the church. And I said, what in the world do I do? Because I was assistant pastor. I talked to the pastor, and the pastor said, I don't even know what to tell you to do. I've never seen anything like that. I called a long-time minister in the church.

He said, Gary, I don't know, but you can't work with him until he wants to.

You also have to realize, he said, this man could commit the unpardonable sin.

I said, but he doesn't have God's Spirit. But he sure is rejecting the Spirit of grace, isn't he?

He refuses to repent. In this case, it's not because he believed what he did was right.

It's because he didn't believe God would forgive him. And that scared me. I never thought of that before. Could a person literally get to the place that they're so identified with their sin?

They can't accept the Spirit of grace. I just can't accept it.

No. At that point, that person believes their sin is greater than God. My evil is greater than God.

I remember a man one time arguing with me that his sins were God's fault.

If God would have never led Satan into the Garden of Eden, sin would have never been introduced to human beings. So it was God's fault that he was a sinner. I'm a man in prison today.

You know, you start down that road and you're…he's in prison today.

They insult the Spirit of grace. Of course, we know that's God's Spirit. So it's an insult of God Himself and of Christ. So we see it's just not an act. We see that these actions are accompanied with an attitude of trampling the Son of God under foot, counting the blood of the covenant by which He was sanctified, a common thing, and insulting the Spirit of grace.

And then in verse 30 there, he quotes Deuteronomy 32.

Then just as mine, at where he praises the Lord. And again, the Lord will judge His people.

He goes, he started this discussion on what we call the unpartable sin with Deuteronomy, and he ends with Deuteronomy. And the bookend is an absolute explanation of the important doctrine.

Now remember, you and I don't have to walk around fearing have I committed the unpartable sin, because if you're asking that, you haven't insulted the Spirit of grace. You're going to God and saying, I don't want to commit this sin. I want to be clean. Think of David saying, find my presumptuous sins, the ones I don't even know I have, because I sure don't want to end up here. With that attitude, you will never end up there. Ever. Because God will take you where He wants you to go, or where He wants you to go. Now let's go back, because He goes back to what He started in verse 23. It's like this willful sin part, His apathetical statement. And then He goes back to what He did in verse 23, 24, and 25. He says, but recall the former day. So He ends with, you know, verse 31 says, it's a fearful thing to fall at the hands of the living God.

Oh, my, that's frightening. But He didn't want to leave people with that frightening statement.

So He's taking them back to, but we don't have to go there. We won't go there if we will just let God take us where He wants us to go. We don't have to go there. But He reminded Christians, we can go there. He says, it is verse 32, but recall the former days in which you were illuminated. You endured a great struggle with sufferings. Partly you were made a spectacle, both by reproaches and tribulations, and partly while you became companions of those who were so treated. For you had compassion on me and chains. Paul makes a personal statement here.

And joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods, knowing that you had a better and enduring possession for yourselves in heaven. Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise. I'm going to read this from the NIV.

I like the way this is translated. He says, Remember those earlier days when you had received the light, when you endured a great conflict full of suffering. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution. At other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. You suffered along with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. So do not throw away your confidence. It will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He promised. He's back to hope. He takes them back to hope. He warns them.

He warns them. I forgot we had a camera back there and I just disappeared.

I just got my cup of coffee. But then he goes back to, I don't want to leave you with this negative message. I want to leave you with hope. Now he's going to lead into chapter 11, which is one of the greatest messages of hope in the entire Bible.

But he felt compelled both back in chapter 6 and here to remind them, with all that God has given to you, you are required by God. He holds you responsible for what He has given to you. The grace He has given to you is not cheap. It was paid for at a terrible price and we can't hold it cheaply either. But He reminds them, remember what it was like when you first came along? Remember when you first started this way and people made fun of you and your family thought you were crazy and you lost your job over the Sabbath? He says, remember those things?

But remember the joy you had? Remember, this is okay. This is for God.

This is for God. It's okay. God will take care of me. He says, remember that?

Well, if that was true, then it's true now.

And don't cast away your confidence. Don't give up. He really hears telling them, don't get caught in spiritual drift. Spiritual drift is at times as dangerous as outright sin, because you drift and you drift and you don't even know you're drifting.

That's why sometimes it's harder to obey God at the good times than the bad times.

The bad times, you're drawn to God, right? Sometimes at the good times, you just go through life. We just go through life and we lose track of where we are spiritually. And He says, don't do that. Don't drift. And once again, He takes them back to Habakkuk. He takes them to an Old Testament scripture to support His point. Verse 37, for yet a little while, and He who is coming will come and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith, and if anyone draws back, my soul has no pleasure in him. That's a quote from the Old Testament. He says, if you draw back, God will not be pleased. We can't go back to where we came. They use the analogy, we may be in the wilderness headed towards the Promised Land, but the Red Sea closed behind us. To go back, you will die.

You can't swim the Red Sea. Yet that's exactly what the Israelites kept thinking they could do.

Remember it closed behind them. We'll go back and build rafts in the desert, of course, with all the trees out here. We'll build rafts and we'll get back across. Or the Egyptians will come and get us.

Oh, won't they be happy to see us? That's what spiritual drift does. You slowly go back in your entertainment and how you spend your time and your priorities and your Bible study and your prayer and your relationship with your husband and your wife, your church attendance, your commitment to others in the faith, little sins, what we call the little sins. I might not commit adultery.

Of course, I slander people a lot. See, the little sins. And we just slide. And there's a time, you see, but I'm not breaking the Ten Commandments and I go to every feast of tabernacles and I keep every pass of them. But you're actually drifting. He warns them about that in an encouraging way, but the warning is still there.

Verse 39, But we are not of those who draw back into perdition, it can be translated destruction, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.

He says, Remember, we believe because we will receive salvation, and we won't go back to those who end up being destroyed.

We cannot go back. There's nothing to go back to.

So this is a bridge, then, what we just went through. It's a bridge with this sort of parenthetical, doctrinal dissertation in the middle of it, but of encouragement between the description of all this Old Testament typology and how it pictured Christ and faith.

And this is the connection argument or discussion between those two points.

I just want to leave a few minutes open in case there was any comments or discussion on this.

Oh, good. Anybody have a comment? Yeah?

No, what you were told was right.

The difference is, through weakness, we will sin knowing what we're doing is wrong.

And so we could be trying not to sin and we'll still sin.

I can remember my little granddaughter one time when she was two years old. We were trying to explain to her that she just couldn't take everybody else's stuff, right? This is not a real good example, but this is how God looks at things sometimes. And she was stealing is wrong. Stealing is wrong. Stealing is wrong. We went into the store and there was a big barrel of stuffed animals.

And before I could do anything, she ran, picked up all the stuffed animals, ran to every child in the store and gave them one and came back to me all excited. See, I have done good. I did not steal.

Yes, she did. But I gave it away. I mean, I don't understand here. And of course, she couldn't put all her thoughts in the sentences yet. So it was a little difficult in this communication process.

But she was so excited. She just ran up to me, just beating. I did good. But sometimes we'll do weakness. I mean, just through sheer weakness. It was like the alcoholic that's gone 10 years without a drink and gets caught in a place where there's other people drinking and saying, I can't do this. I got to get out of here. Please God help me to get out of here. And someone hands him a drink. And he wakes up the next morning and he says, God's going to throw me away because I knew I shouldn't have done it. The willful part, willful, is when you go down that path and you get to the place you don't care. This is who you are again. You're not going to fight it. You're going to try anymore. You're not going to repent. You're going to fast. You're not going to seek help. This is who you are and you've accepted it as who you are. And you've actually released God's Spirit. It's no longer in you. So that's the difference. Because we all sin sometimes though we're doing something wrong, but the struggle's inside us. We lose the struggle. And then we say, I did that willfully. Willfully, you don't care. Does that help? That's probably what said the other way. Anything else? Or we can end like four minutes early? Which I don't know if I've ever done before. Okay. Oh, I'm sorry.

What was he actually sick with? Oh, really? He wasn't sick at all?

He felt so guilty and he wouldn't accept God's forgiveness. So the mind was killing him. The mind's a powerful thing. We can make ourselves sick. He was killing himself with his own mind.

He had all the symptoms of AIDS and didn't have AIDS. So that's the scary thing. I didn't know what to do. I'm a 20 or 30 year old minister. I never faced anything like that. And I just didn't know what to do. And finally, you can't do anything. If he won't accept God and Christ's sacrifice, you can't save him. See, I wanted to save the man. We can't save. God can save.

I can't save. And that was an early lesson I had to learn. I can't save anybody. I couldn't change his mind. And he was killing himself. Okay, thanks for coming out. The next study is when?

Mr. Myers? Two weeks. Two weeks on Wednesday night. Okay, and there'll be more food. Okay, good.

Thanks for coming.