The Point of No Return

As the sin offerings and guilt offerings are described in Leviticus 4 and 5 the word “unintentional” is used 6 times.

Unintentional. It means you did it unwittingly, unaware, accidentally or inadvertently.

Unintentional describes piles of broken things, appointments you forgot about, and that door ding you put in that nice truck in the parking lot.

Leviticus 4 says that you can sin in the same way that you spilled coffee down your shirt; unintentional.

The guilt offering mean though unintentional, sin is sin. But the grace of God is good for the sins we didn’t see coming.

The Gospel of the Guilt Offering

Leviticus 4 and 5 is the gospel of the guilt offering. Though these chapters read like odd rituals they communicate critical Biblical truths. These are the seeds of the gospel that we see sprouting and bearing fruit in the New Testament. When we make the connections between Old Testament and New Testament the Bible becomes pretty exciting. Notice how the principles of the sin offering connect with the gospel as revealed in Romans.

In Romans 3:23 we read “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” in Leviticus 4 and 5 you see that all have sinned from the priests to the elders, to the fathers, to the daughters (4:2, 13, 22, 27)

Romans 6:23a tells us that the wages of sin is death. We see in Leviticus 4 that God doesn’t just let it go. So “if anyone sins (4:2)” the solution isn’t to do 3 good things to make up for the one bad thing. The wages of sin is death.

Romans 6:23b, “but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The good news is that God has made a way for a sacrifice to pay the price. The Son of God becomes Leviticus’ lamb.

Leviticus 4 and 5 is a tangible picture of the truth of Romans 5:8, that God demonstrates His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. The passage starts out, “If anyone sins.” The sacrifice is spelled out before it ever happens.

Romans 10:13 tells us that “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” And see them all there in Leviticus 4 and 5. Forgiveness is available to all of them. There is a sacrifice from the greatest to the least of these.

Intentional Sins

But the text leaves us asking an uncomfortable question. Where is the sacrifice for those other sins? You know the ones I’m talking about. These are the sins we knew were wrong but did it anyway. We don’t always sin like we spill coffee. Most of the time we sin like we drink coffee. We drink it because we like it and we can’t do without it.

What about our “intentional sins?” Where is the sacrifice for these?

The question leaves you and I flipping through the pages of Leviticus searching for a sacrifice for our intentional sins. And as you turn the page on Leviticus 27 you find that there is no sacrifice for our intentional sins.

So here comes a disturbing question.

When it comes to sin can you pass the point of no return? Can you get to a place where there is no more grace? Is there a point of no return?

The Biblical answer to the question is, “Yes. You can sin and pass the point of no return.” There is a place where there is no more grace.

A lot of Baptists will bristle at that statement because Baptists generally believe that you can do whatever you want, whenever you want and God will forgive you anyway. In challenge to that line of thinking I want to submit a passage of Scripture for your consideration.

Hebrews 10:23–27 ESV

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.

This passage reflects this truth of that missing sacrifice in Leviticus. If one goes on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there is no sacrifice for that sin. You can read all of Leviticus and you will find no offering God accepts for “I knew it, but I did it anyway.”

And guess what. There are 4 more passages in Hebrews that seem to be saying the same thing. Yes, you can sin past the point of no return.

The Face of Past the Point of Grace

So now the question becomes, who would do such a thing? Who is that hopeless person so hardened in sin that even God has given up on them?

We all know that Chicago has become a violent, murderous city. On August 7 a female police officer made a routine traffic stop and lost her life.

On Tuesday morning I was surveying various online news outlets and they had released the pictures of two of the suspects in the slaying of this young woman. They are brothers. One of them has a tattoo under his eye, it’s a word I couldn’t make out, but it clearly has blood dripping out of it. These guys have a long rap sheet. Knowing what they did their mugshots just look evil.

Are those brothers the kinds of people that Hebrews 10 is talking about? Murderers? Cop killers? Surely those mugshots could be put in the category of past the point of grace. Right?

I have no authority to tell you where those guys are with God. But I can say with certainty that the people addressed in Hebrews 10 hadn’t just killed a cop.

So who are these people past the point of no return? Let me allow you a moment to mentally create their mugshot. How evil are they?

Fortunately for us the Bible does give us an example of a person past the point of no return. His story is told in Numbers 15. And it’s told in much the same way that Webster’s dictionary defines a word. You get a word, a definition, and an illustration.

The word of the day is “high hand.” It means to sin intentionally. You know full well what you are doing.

Numbers 15:30–31 ESV

But the person who does anything with a high hand, whether he is native or a sojourner, reviles the Lord, and that person shall be cut off from among his people. Because he has despised the word of the Lord and has broken his commandment, that person shall be utterly cut off; his iniquity shall be on him.”

Listen to the evil of it. He reviles the Lord. He has despised the word of the Lord. He has broken his commandments. “Revile” means that he blasphemes God. It’s the idea of taunting. I heard what you said. I know who you are. I know what you’ve called me to do. But I don’t want to do it. And I’m going to do what I want to do and I don’t give a rip what a holy God thinks about it.

Who would do such a thing?

Now, here comes the illustration.

Numbers 15:32–36 ESV

While the people of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. And those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation. They put him in custody, because it had not been made clear what should be done to him. And the Lord said to Moses, “The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.” And all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death with stones, as the Lord commanded Moses.

So what’s the Bible’s mugshot of a blasphemer, this man who so taunts God that he has passed the point of grace? What is the image of a man who has taken sin too far?

It’s a dude cleaning up his yard on the Sabbath.Do you realize that the sort of pictures the Bible gives us of people who have sinned too far isn’t of 2 brothers with tattoos on their faces? It’s of people with campers and boats and ballfields and their blessed, busy life that no longer has time for God.

Do you realize that the picture of blasphemy that the Bible gives is not Chicago mugshots, but it’s the pictures you’ll see all over Facebook this afternoon? The picture of a person who is past the point of grace is the person who’s heard the Word, believed the Word, asked for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ to be applied to them, but now there is nothing more important to them than picking up sticks on Sabbath.

Isn’t it interesting that both Numbers 15 and Hebrews 10 describe the razor’s edge of sinning too far not with cop killers or adulterers or homosexuals, but with one’s commitment toward God in gathering for worship?

Yet there are so many people who call themselves Christians who we never see gathered for worship.

Why? It’s not because they are bad people. It’s not because they are murderers or adulterers or cop killers or have bloody tattoos on their faces. No their problem is far more silent and yet more sinister. These are the people who have been here. They have tasted grace. But they have found something much better to do than be before God. They are busy picking up sticks. They don’t need Leviticus 4 and 5 anymore. They are no longer in line for the sacrifice.

Is It I Lord?

Many of you are like Peter at the last supper. You’re wondering, “Is it I Lord?”

Next weekend you weren’t planning to be at church because your family is going to the lake and you think that I just said that you’re going to Hell.

That’s not it.

Let me clarify who I’m talking about by telling you how they got there.

Let’s go back to Leviticus 4 and 5.

Notice that 7 times in the passage we read something like, “and he realizes his guilt.”

There is so much grace in that realization that you have done wrong.

Why Wasn’t David Stoned?

Think about David. He saw a beautiful, married woman bathing herself, preparing for Temple worship. He lusted after her. He sent for her. He slept with her. He sent her home as if nothing ever happened. She later notifies David that she is pregnant. David conspires to have her husband killed and make it look like a casualty of battle. David marries the woman.

That sure sounds like high-handed, intentional sin doesn’t it? That is far from an accident.

In the primary context of Leviticus 4-5, the sort of thing this is talking about is something like a Levitical priest accidentally eating food that was supposed to be for an offering. Leviticus 4 and 5 is a safety net of sorts because there are so many laws about clean and unclean that it is hard to be mindful of all of it in every situation. So if you blow it and realize it later - no problem, God is good and He forgives.

But David knew full well what he was doing, didn’t he?

And what disturbs us is that we know, especially for those of us who have known Jesus for awhile, is that we sin more like David and less like a Levitical priest who ate the wrong loaf of bread.

Let’s go to

Leviticus 20:10–12 ESV

“If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. If a man lies with his father’s wife, he has uncovered his father’s nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death; they have committed perversion; their blood is upon them.

“Their blood is upon them” means there is no sacrifice for their sin. “Their blood is upon them” means there is no forgiveness, only consequence. They are in the same spot as the man in Numbers 15 who is picking up sticks.

So why wasn’t David stoned?

In reading Scripture and commentaries on various passages as well as just sitting before the Lord and allowing this meditation to search my own heart here is the conclusion I have come to. There is so much grace for the sinner when he realizes his guilt. And there is nothing but condemnation for the sinner when he just doesn’t care anymore.

I think what you are seeing in Leviticus 20 and Numbers 15 are people who this becomes a perpetual state of their life. They create an identity in their sin. “This is the way I want to live and I don’t care what God thinks.” They are fully aware. They have even believed at one time. But now picking up sticks on the Sabbath is the life they want to live.

So remember what happens to David. Nathan the prophet comes into him and confronts him about his sin by telling a story about a stolen little lamb.

And David is furious. You can see the hardness of his heart in this moment. He’s delusional in his sin. His mind is blind to his transgression.

2 Samuel 12:5–6 ESV

Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.”

David is in the place of Leviticus 20 here. He’s the guy in Numbers 15. He’s on the razor’s edge.

Then here comes grace against his heart. Has he gone too far?

Nathan said to David, “You are the man!”

And how did David respond then? He realized his guilt and admitted his sin before the Lord.

David still bore the consequence of his sin. It cost him dearly. But he was forgiven and found grace. Why?

Because after the confrontation he gets in line with sinners in Leviticus 14 and 15. He realized his guilt.

Conclusion:

The reason I’m sharing this with you today is to counsel you from God’s Word on the danger of sin. You can get carried away.

So how do we keep from going astray?

Stay in God’s Word.

Stay around God’s people.

Stay sensitive to God’s Spirit. (Respond quickly to conviction)

I’m meeting with some of our young guys on Monday nights in a discipleship program called Every Man a Warrior. In our reading last week it said, “In 2009 conference speaker Steve Farrar shared this shocking research. He interviewed more than 200 pastors who had fallen into disgrace by having affairs with women in their church. In doing the analysis, he discovered 3 deadly mistakes virtually every man had made. They each admitted in the 12 months before the affair started:

They had stopped having a daily time with God.

They had stopped being accountable to other men for their time with God.

They had counseled women behind closed doors.

Sin will take you past the point of grace. But it doesn’t happen all of the sudden. It’s a slippery slope you walk for a long period of time. You don’t need worship. Then you don’t need the Bible. Then you do what you want to do thinking that you don’t need to return to God.

All of the sudden you see sinners getting in line in Leviticus 4 and 5, but you think, I don’t need that and I’m nothing like them.

It’s a dangerous place, past the point of grace.

So if you are here today and you feel guilty, praise God for that grace. Respond to it, don’t resist it!