I'm going to take your Bibles
and turn me to Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12. We'll be looking at verse 15
this morning. Hebrews chapter 12 and verse
15. As we've come in our study in
the book of Hebrews, we have seen the great witnesses of faith
in the Old Testament. We have seen that we are compassed
about with a great cloud of witnesses concerning faith, lasting, enduring,
true, saving faith. And we as believers in Christ
are encouraged, admonished, and exhorted to always look unto
Jesus who is the author and finisher of our faith. We've also come
to see that the Lord chastens those who have true faith. The Lord always chastens his
children, not as a tyrant, but as a father, as one that loves
us and cares for us and knows our best, the best things for
us. And so these Hebrews who have
been tempted and tested and tried and troubled in many different
ways that we even have not experienced the great troubles that these
believers had gone through concerning the rejection of their families,
their synagogues and all that they knew. They were tempted
to leave off the gospel and go back to that old form of the
law. And so Paul, regarding this idea
of chastening of God, he tells them, yes, it's going to cause
you to be weak. God is going to press you beyond
your measures so that you can see your own weakness. And when we are, he says, make
your path straight, verse 13, lest that which is lame be turned
out of the way. Let it rather be healed. Follow
peace with all men and holiness, without which no man shall see
the Lord." And then he gives this exhortation,
looking diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God. And that's the title of the message.
What is it to fail of the grace of God? What is the apostle telling
us? regarding the failing of the
grace of God, unless, look diligently, unless any man fail of the grace
of God. We who are believers in Jesus
Christ, we know this, that we have been blessed by the grace
of God and have been set free from the law. This is altogether
a basic and rudimentary principle of the Scriptures, of salvation,
that we have been set free from what the Apostle called the law
of sin and death. Now, he's not saying that the
law is evil, but the law is good. The problem is us. We cannot
obey the law. But to be saved, to be a believer
in Christ, means that we are absolutely, completely free of
the law. We no longer have to bear this
impossible demand. This is a result of grace. This
is a result of grace, is freedom from the law. The law demands
perfect obedience in all things that are written in the law.
Which we could not, by reason of our dead and depraved nature,
obey. None of us could have obeyed
them. Not any part of the law. We could not, by reason of our
depraved nature, nor could we fulfill the law because we had
already failed the law. does not say, well, as soon as
you understand the law, then you are to obey the law. No,
the law does not give any excuse as far as understanding. The
law demands perfection from the beginning. But the problem that
we face is that we are all sinners by birth. This is not something
that we are born with a clean slate. And then when we do something
evil, it's then we become wicked. No, we are born dead in sins
as a result of Adam's transgression. As a result of our father's wicked
and evil act, we all are made sinners. And therefore, it is
impossible, even if we were from our youth, to obey the law of
God, if it were even possible. We still have the problem of
the sin nature we inherited that is totally against the law of
God. The natural man receiveth not
the things of God, for they are foolishness to him. He can't
know them. Man cannot understand and nor
be subject to the law of God. And if any man desired to be
under the law of Moses, it's because they've never actually
listened to the law. If you desire in any part to
remain under the law, it's because you've never heard the law. You've
never listened. The law does not ask you to do
anything. The law demands you to do it. The law is not pleading with
you to stop lying. The law says thou shalt not lie. The law is in no uncertain terms
an absolute and holy principle that demands perfection on every
part. Galatians chapter 4, verse 21,
Paul says, Tell me, you that desire to be under the law, do
you not hear the law? You know, it's amazing how we
can read things but actually not understand what we're reading.
I remember getting this thing to teach me about children who
have learning disabilities. They put this thing in a third
grade reading level. Every word on there was a third
grade reading level. And I could read every single
word on this piece of paper. But when I got finished, it was
a legal document is what it was. I couldn't understand anything
in that document. Even though I could understand
the words, I had no idea what it said. The law is much the
same way. You can hear it. But have you
really heard it? Because the law is an absolute
principle and most people don't even see the laws that they see
it as a guide of some sort, as some way to just, you know, make
it through that they could just do their best. You've not heard
the law. Do you think that's what the
law is saying? Have you heard the law? And then
he gives that illustration of the promised son versus the son
of the bondwoman. The son of the bondwoman was
cast out and it was only the son of the promise that was allowed
to be the heir. And this was an allegory of two
distinct religions. Works and grace. Works and grace. The promised seed was born of
grace. But the son of the bondwoman
was a picture of the law, and the result of all who desire
to be under the law will be cast out into damnation. All who are under the curse of
the law, all who are under the law are under the curse of the
law. Paul says in Galatians 5, 2, Behold, I, Paul, say unto
you that if you be circumcised, If you try to maintain one portion
of the law for yourself, for your own justification, Christ
shall profit you nothing. He said, I testify again, just
in case you missed it. I know that you heard me, but
I want you to hear it again, and I'm testifying to this again,
that if a man be circumcised, he is a debtor to the whole law. The whole law. And Christ has
become of no effect unto you who are justified by the law."
Listen to this, "...but you are fallen from grace." The same
idea, the same principle here that the Apostle is using in
Hebrews, that lest any man should fail of the grace of God. What
is it to fail of the grace of God? It is to lean on the law. It is to lean on the law. Instead
of grace. The law is an all or nothing
principle. There are no shades of gray with
the law. Either you are perfect in obedience
or you are a sinner condemned and damned before the law. There's no middle ground with
the law. But herein is the grace of God
revealed by Jesus Christ, because He Himself has honored the law
perfectly. This is to whom we are looking
diligently. Everyone who is a true believer
in Christ looks diligently to Christ, lest we should fail of
the grace of God by looking to the law. We who have been born of the
Spirit of God, to faith in Christ, by His grace and by His righteousness
that He Himself has provided. The righteousness of God that
Christ has provided, He has also imputed, charged to our account,
the righteousness of God, and He Himself has imparted that
righteousness to every one of us in the new nature. A true
believer has the righteousness of God. So what then can the
law require of someone who is righteous? What does the law
demand of you who are righteous? The law of God demands righteousness,
but if you're righteous, what good is the law? What is the
necessity of a law to a righteous man? There's no need. There's no need. If everybody
in this nation were to obey the laws of the land, what need would
we have of police? What need would we have of judges?
What need would we have of those things? We wouldn't have a need
for any of those things if everyone were to obey the law. If everyone
were to be righteous, you would have no need of law. The only thing that the law can
do for a believer in Jesus Christ is pronounce our acceptance with
God. That's all. It can do nothing
else. Not to a righteous man. It can
only pronounce that we have peace with God. Not because of our
obedience. We do not, in any way, give any
credit to our obedience to the law. If you are a true believer,
you've heard the law. You know what the law says. You
know what you've done. You know who you are. You know
you are a sinner by birth, a sinner by choice, and the only hope
that we have is in Jesus Christ, who has provided the righteousness
for us and imputed it, imparted it unto us, so that the law,
in looking to us now, has nothing to say to us. No need for the
law. Because we are made the righteousness
of God in Him, in Christ. And we have peace with God. And
so then we are set free. The Gospel is a message of true
freedom. True freedom from the law of
sin and death. Now, does this mean that we are
anarchists? Because that's what people would
contend with us who believe we are free from the law and have
no need of the Ten Commandments or any other part of the law.
They contend that we are antinomians, that we don't have any use for
law. That's not true at all. We have exchanged the yoke of
bondage of the law for the yoke of Christ. We are under the law
of liberty, under the law of faith, the law of love. Jesus said, take my yoke upon
you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and
you shall find rest under your sofa. Rest. For my yoke is easy. I love the yoke of Christ. I
love being His servant, because it's an easy yoke. I couldn't
bear the yoke of the law. When I look at the yoke, I'm
not even under that yoke, but when I look at it, it brings
me to tears, because there's no hope there. The only hope
is that Christ has put me in His service by grace. We are free. If the Son shall
set you free, you shall be in free indeed. Perfectly free. Well, what are we free from? Or what are we free to? When
you're free from something, you're free to something. When you're
free What does it mean to be free? We who are born in sins were servants
of sins, but now we are no longer servants of sin. You see, to be a servant of sin
is something I desired to do. When I was lost and in my sin,
sin is what I wanted. Sin is all I wanted. But now
that I have been set free to see what sin is, I desire it
no more. I hate it. I despise my own nature,
my own character. I despise my faults. I despise
my sin that I see it every day. I despise these things, but I'm
free from it. It no longer has a rule and reign
in my life as it once did. I'm free from the yoke of my
sin, my old nature. We are free from the demands
of the law. Free from do this, or do that,
or don't do this, and don't do that. Free from that. Touch not,
taste not, handle not, which things with the using perish.
Don't eat that steak. It's bad for you. That's a sin. Well, it just It goes in, it
goes out. It doesn't do anything to my
soul. It just perishes. It's nothing. I'm free from the
demands of the law. Free from the law because it
cannot and it will never find any sin to continue. How is that possible? You see,
I don't understand everything. Matter of fact, I don't understand
anything I believe. But I'm not required to understand
it, I'm required to believe it. I know this, that the law can
find no sin in me. Isn't that something? The law
can find no sin in me because God himself can find no sin in
me. Because He has created in me
a nature of true holiness." True holiness. We are free from the
law. And it will never find any sin
to condemn us. And where there is no law, friends,
there is no sin. Where there is no law, there
is no sin. The Scripture tells us in 1 Corinthians
1.30, But of God, by grace, but of God, ye are in Christ. In Christ Jesus, who of God is
made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. God made Christ these things. Made Christ these things for
us. We are these things in Him. You
are the wisdom of God in Christ, who is the wisdom of God. You
are the righteousness of God in Christ, who is the righteousness
of God. You are the sanctification of
God. You are set apart even as Christ
was set apart. And you are redeemed by the blood
of the precious Son of God. So then, where is your sin? It's
gone. It's gone. Believer, God has made Christ
unto us these things. And where these things are, there
is no sin. So then, if God chose us, as
the Scripture tells us, predestinated us by His own sovereign will,
chose us in Christ, redeemed us by Christ, called us by His
Holy Spirit, how then shall we be ever separated from the love
of God that's in Christ? If God has given us His righteousness
and cleansed us with the blood of His Son, how then Can God
ever turn around and reject us? The only way that God can reject
us is if He is unjust. But we know that's not so. We
know that God is holy and just and He cannot deny Himself. It is not possible to separate
us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. You read
Romans chapter 8, down at the end of that. If God be for us,
who can be against us? Who is he that condemneth? It's
God that justifies. Who shall separate us from the
love of God that's in Christ Jesus? I tell you, I'm persuaded
that neither life nor death, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, shall ever
be able to separate us from the love of God that's in Christ
Jesus. Nothing. Nothing shall separate us. So
then, what does he mean? What is he talking about concerning
this man fail of the grace of God? Looking diligently lest
any man fail of the grace of God. What is it? If we're free
from the law and we've got the righteousness of God, how is
it that we would fail of the grace of God? What does he mean? Clearly, this is not teaching
that a man who is saved by grace will fall from grace. That's
not what it's teaching at all. One who is saved by the grace
of God in Christ is secure, is set, is permanently in Christ,
and shall never be taken out. Jesus said that we are in His
hand. And He is in the hand of the
Father. And no man shall pluck them out
of My hand. No man. For the Father which
gave them Me is greater than all. There's no man that can
plug God's people out of his hand. Clearly, we know that God's
love for us is eternal. He said, yea, I have loved thee
with an everlasting love. The answer to the law is only blessing. Salvation is only blessing for
us. And if the love of God is from
everlasting towards us, towards a man, And that man fail of the
grace of God, let me ask you, what good is the love of God? If a man fail of grace, and die
in his sins, and God said that He loved that man forever, then
what good would be the love of God? It wouldn't be any good.
It wouldn't have any power. If Jesus Christ died for the
sins of a man who has failed of the grace of God, then what
in the world does the blood of Christ have to do with salvation?
It would have nothing to do with it. It would have no power, if
that's what it means. If the Holy Spirit calls a man
to a new birth, to a new creation, and that man fails of the grace
of God and dies in his sin, then what good would be the Holy Spirit
You see, there would be no hope in that. And so this statement is not
that men who are saved will fail of the grace of God. But it is rather a warning to
everyone who professes faith to make your calling and election
true. Make your calling and election
sure. This is a statement of warning
and exhortation of the apostle. It was not that God's saints
could lose their salvation, but rather that they should make
their calling and election sure and not be deceived. So he says this to you and me
who are saved. You are a believer in Christ,
he said, looking diligently, looking diligently, looking to
what? To who? Looking to Christ, looking
to Christ diligently, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher
of our faith. And only the saints of God who
express, experience the grace of God will continually keep
looking to Christ. They'll keep looking diligently
to Jesus as their Savior. You know, the first sign of apostasy
is not indulgence in great sin. It's not. Very rarely would you
see somebody go from a state of profession of faith in Christ
to out and out sin immediately. No, apostasy is a slippery slope. It is one that starts gradually. It always begins by neglecting
to look diligently to Christ. How do you know if a man's an
apostate or a man is pretending to be a believer? Well, it starts
this way. He begins to look away from Christ.
He begins to look away from Christ, neglecting to believe and trust
only in Christ for all of His acceptance before God. He neglects
to look to Him for salvation in every part, and in looking
to some measure of Himself to find sufficiency. That's where
an apostate always begins. He begins to turn away, looking
not to himself, I mean, not to Christ, but to himself. These
are pretenders of grace who will fail of the grace of God, even
because they've never experienced the grace of God. Men who are looking at religion,
at a Jesus who wants to save them but can't save them, they,
my friends, are apostates. They are the ones who will fail
of the grace of God, even because they don't understand grace,
never experience it. Now, these may endure under the
sound of the gospel of God's grace for a season, but their
eyes will cease to look and find some other means to attain God's
Favor. Now, a true child of God can
and will fail in His walk because sin still remains. If you were to look at a believer
at any particular time in his life, you may find a portion
of his life, and if you were to judge him based on that portion,
surely you would say, that man has no hope. Look at David. If
you were to judge him from the time that he committed the sin
with Beersheba until the time Nathan came to him and confronted
him with this sin, if you were to judge him based on that, then
you would say, well, that man had no hope. Believers can and
do fall into such great wicked sins. There's no doubt about
this. I love this illustration. If
you had some hogs and sheep and they were running down a hill
and they all fell into the mud. They all got dirty. But if you'll
notice the nature of the sheep is to get up and to clean himself
off. It's not to stay. The pig will
stay. The pig will wallow in the mud
because that's his nature. The nature of the sheep will
get out as fast as he possibly can. And God's people do. We do fail to walk perfectly
in this world. We do fail and we sin. One thing about this matter of
failing of the grace of God is I don't want to be deceived.
Do you? I don't want to spend my life
in service to Christ. and in the end find out that
all I was was a pretender. That scares me to no end. I fear that. See, a deceived man is just that,
he's deceived. Deceived man doesn't know him.
I long for God to open my eyes to know. I want to know if I'm deceived or if I truly
know Christ. We know that there have been
many who have failed of the grace of God who seemed at a time to
rejoice in the light of grace for a season. But when persecutions
arise, for the sake of the gospel, they become withered and fade
away. Once you understand that persecution
is not something huge, it's the small thing. It's the small persecutions that
cause us to look away from Christ. Not the big ones. The small ones. The ones that seem so insignificant? Demas. Demas, in two places in
Scripture, was called a fellow laborer with the Apostle Paul. Now, I'll tell you what, that's
a high commendation. He was put with a group of men that any
one of us would love to be named among those men. And yet, lastly, he tells Timothy
that Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world. For what reason did Demas leave
the apostle? It was for the love of this present
world, for the praise of men rather than the service of God. Let us be reminded that apostasy
never starts with the grand offers of the world or of the flesh,
but the fail of the grace of God is a subtle thing, and goes
mostly unnoticed by men." Listen carefully. It is the little
foxes that spoil the lion. It's the small things. how easy it is for us to serve
and defend the gospel from false preachers. That's for you who
have been on the sound of this gospel for so long, it is easy
to see those men coming and it's easy to denounce those things
as lies. You know it! It's easy for you
to see it. You know that they're liars and
you can tell men they're liars. You stand up for the gospel.
We struggle to maintain the integrity of the truth. But in all of our
labor, how easy it is for us to forget our first love. In all of our struggling, we forget that Christ is the
object of our affection. I tell you what, I can defend
the honor of my wife, but if I don't defend her in love, what
good is that defense? How often do we recount those
who seem to be strong in the faith and witness of Christ And
yet, because of their love of family, their love of home, their
love of country, the love of the worldly possessions, they
left off the worship and service of God and said, Oh, I'm saved
by grace. I don't have to do any of that. The worship of God has been put
aside by way of earthly reasoning. And soon, There was no place
for the gospel at all. It did not happen overnight. They found out they were pretenders. This is what it is to fall from
the grace of God. It is to use the grace of God
as an excuse to forsake the worship and fellowship and assembly of
God's saints. That's what it is to fail the
grace of God. Please, may God, by his grace,
let us see this warning in our day, because the laborers are
so few. Let us look diligently to the
things of Christ, to his gospel, to his preachers, to his church,
to his sheep that he fought with his own blood and forsake this
world. that would hinder us from enjoying
the presence of Christ. We should forsake everything,
looking diligently, lest any of us be found pretenders. I don't want to be a pretender. And my heart and soul is that
God, by His grace, would reveal Christ and keep my eyes on Him
so that I am not bound to fail of the grace of God. That I mind the small things, such as worship, love, faith,
hope. May God bless you and keep you,
lest any of us should fail of the grace of God.