Deliberate Sin
Notes
Transcript
Last week, we were able to truly rejoice in the Superior Cleansing that Jesus provides.
For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.
I wanted to clarify one comment I made about Aaron.
Make sacred garments for your brother Aaron to give him dignity and honor.
Then Moses brought Aaron and his sons forward and washed them with water.
He put the tunic on Aaron, tied the sash around him, clothed him with the robe and put the ephod on him. He also fastened the ephod with a decorative waistband, which he tied around him.
Then Moses took some of the anointing oil and some of the blood from the altar and sprinkled them on Aaron and his garments and on his sons and their garments. So he consecrated Aaron and his garments and his sons and their garments.
Consecrated, made holy, sanctified
They were consecrated on the outside…
let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.
We are consecrated, sanctified, made holy with dignity and honor from the inside out.
This is the climax, the high point, the culmination of the argument that what we have in Jesus is far superior to Judaism, or any other religion that is based upon our works, or religious rituals. For religious rituals can do nothing to cleanse us, deal with our guilt and shame, clothe us with dignity and honor, and open the way for us to come boldly into the presence of our God, Creator and Lord! Jesus alone made that possible when he sanctified us, or made us holy from the inside out.
For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
We have been made perfect forever!
And, we are still growing into that new identity in Christ.
So, the author of Hebrews continues on after this climax with a number of exhortations, and a warning, and then encouragement.
The Exhortations - Hebrews 10:23-25
The Exhortations - Hebrews 10:23-25
Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.
And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds,
not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.
Hold Unswervingly -
Reiteration of the continual exhortation throughout this letter.
But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory.
We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end.
Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.
We hold firmly to our faith, with is the hope that is an anchor for our soul!
We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain,
Hold unswervingly!
Hold unswervingly!
We firmly believe in the perseverance of the saints. And we know from the scriptures that the saints, persevere in faith!
And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds,
not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Spur one another on, and do not give up meeting together
Spur one another on, and do not give up meeting together
Spur - stir up, provoke… here in a good way… Acts 15:39, Paul and Barnabas
Deut 29:28, Jeremiah 32.37, God’s furious anger and great wrath
Meeting together, how can we encourage one another, how can we spur one another on if we do not meet together?
Eph 3, Paul’s prayer that we may as one body… Eph 3.17-19
so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,
may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,
and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up
until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.
Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.
From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
The Warning - Hebrews 10.26-31
The Warning - Hebrews 10.26-31
If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left,
but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.
Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.
How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?
For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.”
It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Pay attention to the descriptions.
If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left,
but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.
How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?
Notice these descriptions.
Some would take this as someone who has backslidden, and now faces punishment. A reason for that is the term, sanctified…
What is sanctified? Made Holy. Or, more specifically set apart. But are all that are sanctified saved?
For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.
But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves.
Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute.
In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.
If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.
It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.
Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,” and, “A sow that is washed returns to her wallowing in the mud.”
The nation of Israel was set apart, made holy to the Lord.
However, even though they were all sanctified, set apart, given the privilege of knowledge of the Lord, were they all saved?
No. The author of Hebrews spoke to that earlier...
Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt?
And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies perished in the wilderness?
And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed?
So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.
Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it.
For we also have had the good news proclaimed to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed.
And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.
Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.
Warning - Deliberate Sin
Warning - Deliberate Sin
but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.
For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.”
They are a nation without sense, there is no discernment in them.
If only they were wise and would understand this and discern what their end will be!
How could one man chase a thousand, or two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, unless the Lord had given them up?
For their rock is not like our Rock, as even our enemies concede.
Their vine comes from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are filled with poison, and their clusters with bitterness.
Their wine is the venom of serpents, the deadly poison of cobras.
“Have I not kept this in reserve and sealed it in my vaults?
It is mine to avenge; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them.”
It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Encouragement - Hebrews 10.32-39
Encouragement - Hebrews 10.32-39
Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you endured in 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 has promised.
For, “In just a little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay.”
And, “But my righteous one will live by faith. And I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back.”
But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.
Do not throw away your confidence
Do not throw away your confidence
Persevere
Persevere
So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.
For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.
“See, the enemy is puffed up; his desires are not upright— but the righteous person will live by his faithfulness—
But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.
And what exactly is faith? Next week, Hebrews 11.1-3, What is Faith?
Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
This is what the ancients were commended for.
By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
