Good morning, everyone. Good
to see each of you. It's good to be here. Turn with
me again to Hebrews chapter 10, if you would, please. Hebrews
chapter 10. Last week we, or not last week,
but last time I should say, we touched a little on verses 30
and 31, but very little. This week, I've been thinking
a lot about these two verses. Men and women will never truly
value a Redeemer until they have a clear consciousness of the
ruin in which they need to be redeemed. God in His mercy and
His grace first shows us our sin, our need of Christ. And until He does, a man or a
woman will never have a need of a Redeemer until they see
the ruin that they're in, the preciousness of mercy is best
known and humbly received by those whom God has revealed their
sin and the terror of His holy justice. God is a holy God. He will by no means clear the
guilty. We say that all the time. I hope
we truly hear that. It's not just a saying, it's
the truth. He will by no means under no
circumstances clear a guilty man or a woman. He's too holy
to do so. Men act as if religion's just
a game, where if they don't win the first time, they get another
chance and then another to learn the rules and to get it right,
but that's not the way it works. If a sinner ever really sees
who God is, if they ever truly see that God is angry with the
wicked every day, that God loathes and God hates their sin, I've
heard it said many times, and I understand what men mean when
they say it, that God hates sin but loves the sinner. Well, listen,
you can't separate the two. Sin's what we are. We sin because
we're sinners. God will take vengeance on the
sinner. That sinner will see that it
is really most definitely a fearful thing to fall into the hands
of the living God. But God has been preached in
our day as one who men and women do not fear. Now, most of you
here this morning, I know quite well you desire to grow in the
grace and in the knowledge of the Lord. I don't believe you'd
be here if you didn't. You know something about the
hammer of God's law, and you certainly know something about
God's holy justice. You desire to walk in the holiness
and fear of God, and by God's grace, you've seen that the only
way that you can is in and by and through Christ. The religion
of the world says straighten up and fly right, and you say
you can't. You wished you could. Like Paul,
we want to do what's right, but we don't. We can't. Yet those
who reject Christ and insist on trusting in their own will,
their own work, their own way, their own worth, no doubt have
yet to see the consequence of doing so. Now in the verses before
us, the apostle again pleads with professing believers, those
who say they love Christ. to consider again the seriousness
of this matter. I have a son, most of you know,
that's been incarcerated now for three years. It's hard to
believe it's already been that long. He's been in state prison
now for a year and a half, and while in prison, he's once again
found religion, but not Christ. Big difference. Now he hopes
to be released in early 2022. And he told me that he couldn't
wait to get out so that he could resume his work and his worship
of God. It's heartbreaking. He told me
also, he said, I know I'm a good man. I've just made bad decisions. Listen, there's none that do
it good. No, not one. We all make bad
decisions because of what we are. And until we see that we're
not good, and that we are in and of ourselves deserving of
hail. We'll never need a redeemer.
Look at verse 29. Here in verse 29, the apostle
writing to professing believers, not those who openly reject and
mock God, Christ, and the Bible, but those who profess to be illuminated,
profess to be enlightened. According to verse 32, he gives
them these sobering words. Verse 29, oh, how much sorer
punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy who hath
trodden underfoot the Son of God? and hath counted the blood
of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing,
and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace. For we know
him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me. I will recompense,
saith the Lord. And again, the Lord shall judge
his people. It is a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of the living God. Now these verses deal with
those who were without a sacrifice under the Old Covenant, and more
importantly, what the Old Covenant sacrifices pointed to, and that
being the effectual sacrifice of Christ in the New Testament.
Under the Old Covenant, the sentence for despising the law was to
die without mercy. Those who loved the law under
the Old Covenant at least had the high priest to make atonement
for them once a year. Without that, the only possible
end for a person was death without mercy. And referred to as Moses'
Law, we're told that under the covenant of old, no sin was forgiven. It was impossible, according
to verse four here in chapter 10, for the blood of bulls and
goats to put away sin. Why was it done? It pointed them
to Christ who was to come. Ever since Adam sinned in the
garden, God started pointing to his son. And the sacrifice
of the lambs that covered Adam and Eve, the sacrifice of Abel
against the sacrifice of Cain, the Passover lamb in Egypt, it
all pointed to Christ. Without Christ, there's no mercy. In that covenant, there was no
saving mercy, that old covenant, no saving grace, no gracious
forgiveness. That covenant could not save.
That covenant gave no hope of eternal life. And the benefits
of that covenant were temporal, but it did give that person some
sense of well-being when they died, if they saw Christ in those
blood sacrifices. Now those Hebrews that had heard
the gospel continued to believe that a combined personal merit
with the meritorious work of Christ was needed in order to
be saved. In other words, we've got to
help God out a little bit. Men and women still believe that
today. The majority of religion believes that. The majority of
churches today preach that. Oh yeah, you're saved by grace,
but no buts. You're either saved by grace
or you're not saved at all. And in order to trust in one's
own merit, along with the merits of Christ, is a much sorer punishment,
according to God. It's to trot underfoot the Son
of God and count the blood of Christ to be an unholy thing.
For those who do so, there remains no more sacrifice for sins. What
does remain is the wrath of God and the judgment of God in the
most severe form. How much sore punishment. And as we discussed last time,
vengeance is just not merely wrath. Vengeance is anger that's
built up over time and it's deliberately purposed to inflict revenge and
retribution and retaliation and justice on someone. In God's
case, vengeance is punishment to be inflicted in order to avenge
the injury and wrongdoing inflicted upon His Son. Make no mistake
here, God will not and does not tolerate any rival to the person
and work of His Son. None. It's a fearful thing to
fall into the hands of the living God. It's especially so when
we remember the character of God. Having the scriptures as
our guide, we see that the God of Abraham is infinitely different
than the universal father of modern day religion. You talk
to a man about his God, it won't take you very long to figure
out that he is in no way, shape, or form like the God that you
serve. When Adam fell, the whole human
race was subjected to sickness and death. Men whine out of their
disgust of God's justice and they doubt the reality of eternal
punishment and they question by saying things like, would
a father really do that to their children? Would God really do
that? Well, God loves so much. God
so loves the world, surely he wouldn't do that. Yes, God is
a loving father to those who love his son, but he's a holy
and just judge to those who don't. The sinner's business is not
to imagine what God should be, but to find out by searching
the scriptures what God really is. In the flood, God destroyed
all flesh from off the face of the earth with the exception
of eight souls, eight people. Narrow is the way that leads
to life, and few there be that find it. How few? Well, in this
case, eight out of all those on earth at that time. I don't
know how many there were. I'd say multitudes. Mr. Spurgeon said millions. Can you
picture the horrors of that awful day when the fountains of the
great deep were broken up and the rains descended from on high? All who lived then, like ourselves,
were destroyed in one single blow. God wiped them out. All but those who were on the
ark perished. Can you hear the shrieks and
the cries and the moaning and the groaning? It's a horrible
thing to think about. It's a horrible thing to try
to imagine in your mind. Can you see them running to the
mountaintops, trying to get to the highest point? Can you see
them struggling for life in the devouring flood? Can you hear
their cries of agony as they drown under the pouring down
of God's wrath and judgment? Who did all that? It's the holy
and just God who hates sin, who will by no means spare the guilty.
That's who did it. How about Sodom and Gomorrah
and the other cities of the plain? You remember them in our study
of Genesis. Those cities were filled with
inhabitants and they were happy and they were cheerful just as
men and women are today. They found their happiness, however,
in sin and their sin provoked God to anger. And after a personal
visit by Christ himself, what did God do? He sent fiery hail
called brimstone from heaven. Can you hear their vain cries?
The burning flesh, the horrific smell, death was everywhere you
looked. Peter speaks of Sodom and Gomorrah
being turned into ashes. God making them an example to
those who should after live ungodly. They're an example to men and
women today. Well, let's go to Egypt. God
said, let my people go. Pharaoh said, who's the Lord
that I should obey him? And by the way, I'm not gonna
let God's people go. Oh, you're not? God says you
are. And all the horrific plagues
that were sent by God, the slaying of the firstborn of all in Egypt.
And one night, can you hear the cries throughout that powerful
city? Thousands upon thousands of mothers
and fathers crying and grieving over the loss of their firstborn
child. Don't forget the destruction at the Red Sea. Pharaoh and his
host descended into the midst of the sea and they perished
there as God's people crossed on dry ground. We rejoice in
the fact that Israel was preserved, but what a fearful thing it was
that Egypt would be destroyed. And you consider, I don't know
how many was in that army, but you consider all the widows and
the orphans left from that. And men would say, oh, God's
too good to do that. God loves too much to do that.
Does he? Is he? Will men accuse God of
cruelty because of these things? Well, they will if they see God
only as a God of love and not a holy God of justice. Those
who accuse God of injustice, beware, it's a fearful thing
to fall into the hands of the living God. How unsearchable
are his judgments and his ways past finding out. Romans 11 three. Remember the slaughter of the
Canaanites? The Hittites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, all those
other ungodly nations were all given the edge of the sword according
to God's command. Now I profess to you that I don't
understand the ways of God. Who am I that I should understand
them? Should the potter's vessel think
to understand the potter? Yet God's people bow and believe
that God is just and he does what he wills in the armies of
heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. And we bow to that,
knowing that he does that which is right. And God doesn't do
it because it's right. It's right because God does it.
The thousands smitten by pestilence in the time of David when he
numbered the people. Thousands. Moses said, God repays
them that hate him to their face. To destroy them, he will not
be slack to him that hated him. He will repay them to his face. That's a fearful thing. The Apostle
Paul talks about the severity of God. But we don't want to
talk about that. Let's talk about his love. It's
a fearful thing, the severity of God. It was the compassionate
and tender Christ who cried and still does, come unto me, all
ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. But it
was the same Christ that said, fear not them which kill the
body, but are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear him
who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell. The same Lord,
the same compassionate Christ. Have you ever read in Matthew
chapter 13, verse 41, the words of our Lord, which said, the
son of man shall send forth his angels and they shall gather
out of his kingdom all things that offend and them which do
iniquity and shall cast them into a furnace of fire where
there shall be welling and gnashing of teeth. Christ said that. And
this terrible list of scriptures is far from being exhausted.
We could just go on and on and on. We could read about the rich
man and Lazarus and that great gulf fixed between the two. The
rich man saying, let Lazarus come dip his finger in the water
and touch my tongue in this place of torment where the worm dies
not. We could look at Judas of whom
it was said it would be better if he had never been born. What
about those who have a millstone hanged around their neck and
cast into the depths of the sea? Let's talk about God's love.
Let's talk about prosperity. Let's talk about what we're doing
for God. That's a happy thing to talk about. What a fearful
thing to be punished for sin. It's the child of God's only
hope that in order to receive the pardon of sin, it was necessary
that God himself should become incarnate, should become a man.
See, only a man can save thee, but it's gotta be a perfect man.
So God became that perfect man. And it was necessary that the
Son of God, who is God the Son, should suffer death in our room
instead. Somebody perfect's gotta keep
the law that we couldn't keep. Somebody that's perfect has got
to satisfy God's justice in order for us to be spared from the
wrath of God to come. God did it. That's the gospel. God did for you and me what we
couldn't do. Substitution, you hear it all
the time. And we don't add anything to
what God did. We better not. That's what was
going on here with the believers, the Hebrew believers. We dare
not add anything to it. How much sore is the punishment
upon those who do? And yet the conscience of every
man and woman, I'm convinced of this, tells them that there
is a wrath to come. In Romans 1, Paul very well elaborates
on that, saying that we're without excuse. All we have to do is
look at God's creation and see that there's a God. And I believe
it's instilled in the conscious heart or soul of every man and
woman to know that there's a God, and yet man turned their back
on Him and they want nothing to do with Him. Is that not a
fearful thing to consider? Falling into the hands of a living
God? The hands of a holy and just
God who hates sin? The hands of a God who's angry
with the wicked every day? It's a fearful thing. Unless
you believe and are prepared to say this text is a lie, then
wouldn't you search out a way of escape? It's what God's people
do. I don't want any part of that.
I don't want any part of judgment. I don't want any part of falling
into the hands of a living God who's angry with the wicked every
day, me being wicked. How can we escape if we neglect
so great a salvation? We can't. So we must not neglect
it. We need to search this book.
We need to search the heavens in prayer with God to show us
that way. We must confess our sin, trust
in Christ, whom God has sent as a propitiation for our sin. If we trust in Christ, there's
pardon for us. Shouldn't we go on into the deeper
things of God? Is there anything deeper than
that? Trust Christ is the true way of escape. To rely on Him,
you shall live. We live in a day where men don't
know anything about God's holiness and justice. They just know.
Men have imagined God to be such a one as they are. They see God
as a desperate old man who stands on the portals of heaven and
wrings his hands and loves everyone and desires to be loved by everyone. That's an insult to God. That's
why they beg men to give Jesus their heart. And that's why they
beg men to make Jesus their Lord. And that's why they plead with
men to let go and let God. We don't let God do anything.
God's not worshiped with men's hands as though He needed anything. And I'm so glad that my Heavenly
Father doesn't need me. seeing that he giveth to all
physical life, breath, and everything they need to live in this world,
even those that hate him without a cause. So it doesn't have anything
to do with our hands. Haven't we? Haven't we? Haven't
we? Depart from me, ye that work iniquity. I never knew you. That's the key. That's the gospel. It's a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of a living God. Men and women believe that God's
not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. I wish I had a dollar for every
time some freewill unbeliever said that to me. Well, preacher,
isn't that what Peter wrote in 2 Peter 3, 9? Yes, but who did
he write it to? If I handed you a letter and
said, read this, you know, the first thing you question is,
well, is it written to me? So you go back to the beginning
of that letter to see who it was addressed to. In 2 Peter
1, verse one, we're told he wrote those words to them that have
obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness
of God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. That's who he's not willing
that any should perish. That's who he's talking about.
Any man or woman who's put their trust and faith in the righteousness
of God, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the righteousness
of God. God's not willing that any of
them, any believer who's trusting in Christ's righteousness as
their own should perish. Not the whole world, not those
that shake their fist in God's face and hate him without a cause,
no. And God's gonna see to it that every single one of them,
everyone that believes in Christ, that every single one of them
repents and is saved to the uttermost if they come to God in, by, and
through the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what this book teaches.
He's able to save to the uttermost those that come to God by Christ. God helped me to get to Christ.
God helped me to believe and trust in Him. My only hope of
eternal life So are we gonna believe man or
are we gonna believe God? Are we gonna trust in what this
religious world says to be true or are we gonna trust in God
who is true? Paul said, for what if some did
not believe? Shall their unbelief make the
faith of God without effect? Your unbelief doesn't change
anything, not when it comes to God. Paul said, God forbid, yea,
let God be true and every man a liar. In closing, just turn
back a page or so to Hebrews chapter nine. You may not even
have to turn, but look at verse 26. I want you to see the good
news. Verse 26, for then must he, speaking
of Christ, often have suffered since the foundation of the world.
And now once in the end of the world, hath he appeared to do
what? To put away sin. How? By the
sacrifice of himself. Now look at this, verse 27, and
as it is appointed unto men once to die, we're all gonna die once. It's appointed unto men once
to die, but after this, the judgment. It's appointed that we all die
physically, but that's not the end as some think. After death
is judgment. Judgment is a fearful thing.
Without Christ, we fall into the hands of the living God with
whom we have to do. And if we're without Christ,
we fall into hands of wrath and judgment. And that's a fearful,
fearful thing. But the gospel is seen so clearly
in verse 28. And this is my hope. This is
my comfort. This is my assurance. I know
it is yours, too. So Christ was once offered to
bear the sins of many. Not all, not the whole world.
For God so loved His people in the world that He gave. God loved
men and women out of every kindred tongue tribe. That's what He
means by world. But He was once offered to bear
the sins of many and unto them that look for Him shall He appear
the second time without sin unto salvation. By God's grace, I'm
looking to Him. And by God's grace, I'm looking
for Him. And when He appears in Him, I'll have no sin, for
in Him is salvation. That's the only place it can
be found. In Christ, I have nothing to fear. For in Christ, the hands
of God receive me, caress me, keep me forever in Christ's presence. But to not trust in Christ is
a fearful thing, to fall into His hands. hands of wrath and
judgment and eternal condemnation, but his hands to the believer
are the most precious things there is.