[Transcript represents full sermon's text]

       Continuing in Hebrews chapter 10. Starting in verse 19: “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (ESV).

       Discussed in our last message was the importance of Christ’s shed blood making us perfect in God’s eyes—for this is what the Law required. The requirement was perfect human blood to totally take away sin, and that’s what Christ provided, and he took away the sin of the whole world for anyone who chooses to believe. Since Christ accomplished this, it was no longer needed for people to sacrifice animals to temporarily cover their sin. Thus, it is a “new… way” as the writer put it. It’s also a “living way” since Christ’s sacrifice stands permanent because he rose from the dead. It’s not that he needs to continually suffer, or that we should have an image in our heads, or on our crosses, of Jesus continually suffering. His past suffering was once and for all, and that suffering is done. Not only is Christ living, but also we too are now living. We are new creations, indwelled by the Spirit of God. Indeed, the whole thing is a totally new way. We recall this was demonstrated in a physical picture, a physical sign, at the cruxifixction when the curtain in the Temple of God was torn into two. This sign signified that the old, dead way was done. It showed that man and God no longer had to be separated due to man’s sin. It’s an incredible thing. Provided was the answer that humans needed all along, going all the way back to the beginning when the first sins occurred.

       All of this leads to the conclusion that, with Jesus in the flesh as our new high priest, and unlike the old, that we can be close to God. Needless to say, in drawing close to God we want to do that with “a true heart” as the writer said. That means we want to come to God through Christ, and not try to approach him through the old system. For any Jewish person listening, the way one now approaches God is through Jesus Christ, through having faith in what he accomplished. That’s not a scary thing, not a thing to immediately turn from and dismiss. It’s not a thing to be dreaded. It’s a wonderful thing. In our hands is “full assurance of faith” as Christ’s sacrifice is perfect in that it covers any and every sin. In contrast, this is, to the animal sacrifices of old, for the only covered certain sins, and other sins really couldn’t be dealt with. Now, when we approach God under Jesus, there’s no need to be concerned about any outstanding debt we may have, or something that might come up which would separate us from God. The common Evangelical image becomes true, that when God looks on us standing there, he sees us as perfect—a total law keeper (if you will; or likely better stated, with a perfect heart). That’s what God sees. We have this righteousness imputed to us. We have to have it imputed because our flesh still contains the sin-nature, so we are still capable of sin until we obtain our new resurrection bodies.

       Yet the whole benefit behind all of this is really for us, as humans, just as much as it is for God. Just as God’s holiness isn’t affected by any sin we may have committed, so it is that when we approach God we actually can have “full assurance of faith” because, and the writer notes two things, since we have had our sin washed away by Christ’s blood which leads to a pure conscience and since we have already been washed with water that has totally cleansed us (in contrast to the Old Testament water ceremonies of which couldn’t make anyone permanently clean). Now, when we approach God in prayer or mediation, there is no need to be afraid that he’s going to be bring up a prior sin that we’ve already repented of. There’s no need to be afraid of any punishment either. It is a true father-son or father-daughter interaction. The more time we spend together, the closer we will be. Naturally expressed by God are fatherly types of emotions toward us. This was Jesus’ whole point when he was on the earth talking with the Israelites. Often, he would refer to God as “Heavenly Father.” Now we could also hold in mind the fact that when we approach God we have been water baptized, and we understand that water baptism represents the washing away of sin for us, and that we have chosen to live a new life. That’s probably not what the writer of Hebrews has in mind, but it’s a good image. Rather, the writer probably has in mind the old Jewish cleansing ceremonies, which body parts as well as vessels were washed for cleanliness.

       Verse 23: “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” (ESV).

       The exhortation for readers, for the listeners, is to stay true to the faith, to stay true to the faith, and this no matter what happens. Recall, again, the context by which he is saying these words. Some people had decided to leave behind the ‘Jesus’ part of their faith, and simply to get back to practicing the Jewish Law of the Old Testament without view of the new things. Persecution was a factor that could lead individuals to make this decision. Of course, for us Evangelical Christians in the twenty-first century, the temptation is likely more due to sin, and the world around us. Perhaps there is a draw to sin—to living a life without Christ’s influence. Maybe persons what to freely drink, use drugs, or do whatever they want with their bodies without regard to what the Bible says. Folks are tempted along by friends who aren’t Christian. Even family members can try to discourage people who are new to the faith. Perhaps someone is even of a different religion, and they come to Christianity. The family members who remain in their old religion can try to dissuade them. Whatever it is, whatever it is, there can be different kinds of forms of temptation to waver, to give up the faith. Even for the person who’s been in the faith a long time, the temptation can come. Maybe an individual hasn’t gotten something out of life that they hoped to get, and they are disappointed with God. That’s another thing that can happen. Or, perchance something bad happened that totally changed their life. That’s a big one. That’s a big one. Thus, there are all kinds of circumstances that can lead persons to want to choose to give up the faith.

       One thing to remember is that no matter what happens in our life—no matter how ugly—that it does not affect God’s promise to us of eternal salvation. Explained for us, then, is why the Apostle Paul instructed us to focus on the next life more—to set our minds on those things. Even Jesus made this argument basically when said to store things up for the next life. A fickleness can be about this life. Truly, at the end of the day, anything can happen. Death surrounds, people can leave, money can be lost, possessions can be damaged or disappear, positions can be taken away from us. The litany of the kinds of circumstances that can happen we are well aware of. Fear can well up inside us as pertains to life, and we can be tempted to go in the reverse direction. Our minds can produce and beget for us a miserable life. At the end of the day, God has given us our lives. Truly, our lives are to enjoy. Jesus didn’t say, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am harsh and expecting, and you must work hard for your souls. For my yoke is hard, and my burden is weighty.” It’s funny isn't it? That’s how the minds tend to think about the Christian life—some kind of variation of that. Actually, he said, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:29, ESV). Thus, the necessity to have a positive focus comes to us, to be surrendered as pertains to everything. We ought not have a negative, pessimistic attitude, and at the same time, we need to have a loose grip. It is an interesting dichotomy, but an important one. Balance is the key, to not be so negative we are miserable, but not to be so positive we are expecting everything to go in our favor.

       Another exhortation presented for us is that we should be about good works in some way, shape, or form. We all understand that each of us has been gifted by the Spirit to be able to do something. Of key importance is to remember that we may not always, every Sunday, be utilizing our gift and doing something. That seems unrealistic, especially the bigger the church. The important thing is to be doing something every once in a while. Nevertheless, what is interesting is that the word the author uses in the Greek for “stir up” appears to have a negative ring to it. Now, it’s certainly not the speaker’s custom to get into the Greek, but in this case it seems to be something that is beneficial for our understanding. So, it would seem that the author is telling the Hebrew Christians that they are “to stir up one another to love and good works” versus stirring up one another to other things, like say arguing in regard to this and that or even being lazy and not doing anything to contribute to the body. Both these areas can be temptations depending on the person. The temptation for some is to overwork (the speaker can testify to this for himself) and some are tempted to under-work. A feeling can well-up in the mind that one must be doing something, and if they are not, that they are slacking, and a guilty vibe can set in. On the other hand, one can become sidetracked with other things, like socializing or wanting to get home, or whatever, and not want to contribute to people at church at all. This temptation to laziness is often brought about by distraction. Naturally, again, balance is the key.

       Also brought up by the writer is the fact that some of the Hebrew Christians were failing to gather together with the church body. Why don’t we try to think about the context of the passage. The context is probably more in line with Jewish Christians who feel they don’t need to meet with other Christians in order to be classified as Christians. That is, they simply want to remain in their synagogue and not go to any additional Christian services, but they want the Christian name. It appears to be something like that. Of course, that won’t work. That’s not what God wanted for them. He really didn’t even want them going to Christ-less synagogue services anymore. The old way was becoming obsolete, as already been relayed to us. Not unexpectedly, we see this type of problem manifesting itself in our modern Christian times. Nowadays, the problem appears to be that there are certain people that say, “Oh, I just watch service on the streaming on Sunday mornings. I don’t actually go to service.” The speaker has actually had two Christian persons tell him this in recent times. and there certainly was surprise that came over the mind. But then again, not really after thinking about it. Staying home to watch a service on streaming seems to make sense if one is particularly elderly or even sickly, but otherwise it doesn’t make sense. If one is that touchy that they cannot get along with anybody then certainly there is a problem at hand. One needs to evaluate that—to take that into consideration. With all the church options available in America, there just is no reason why an individual can’t find some service that they can attend. Even if a person starts by going, say twice a month versus every week, that’s a positive step.

       To the forefront of our minds, with eternity in perspective, let us remind ourselves that “the Day” is “drawing near.” The author said, “as you see the Day drawing near.” The Rapture is coming to mind for some of us; yes, we are awaiting the Rapture. That is good. The Second Coming comes to mind for others. Perhaps that’s what the author meant. Understanding is present that Christ will come back at The Battle of Armageddon (and, assuredly, some people don’t believe in The Rapture). Regardless, what the author likely has in mind in the verse, since he was just talking about our behavior as Christians in attending services, is that of our individual Judgement Day. In all probability, that’s what he is thinking about. Each of us are going to stand before Christ and give an account of our lives—give a summary, a presentation even, of what good we did while we were alive on the earth. It seems a little daunting, doesn't it? However, maybe not so much if we know we are doing that what we are supposed to be doing. It only feels bad if we think inside of ourselves that we likely aren’t practicing our faith a well as we should be. Only we ourselves know what are doing right on a weekly basis. Of course, let’s try not to let undeserved guilt crop up. A lot of people may be doing more than enough, but feel like they aren’t. And hopefully were not prideful, thinking we doing more than everyone else and are better than everyone else. Again, we need to keep things in balance. But it’s good to mindful of the Day that is to come, that the evaluation is going to occur.

       Now we arrive at the second infamous section in Hebrews, with the other being Hebrews 6. Verse 26: “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. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

       Interestingly, out of the context to Hebrews, this passage does seem scary, and one can see why it has lead to fear among many Christians through the centuries. Truly, it is scary for one who does what it’s saying not to do. The breakdown seems to be that one who goes “one sinning” is the one who, after knowing the Gospel message and accepting it, turns around and tries to go back to Judaism and forsake the Jesus Christ part of his belief. This would be the one who is “sinning.” What the author is saying is that for one who does that that there is no other option for the person to become right with God. One cannot rely on the animal sacrifices because that system is becoming obsolete (really, has already become obsolete) as the writer told us at the end of chapter 8. What he’s saying is that for the Jewish person wishing to go back to the Law, and abandon the Christian way, at that point there’s no hope of being saved from one’s sins. All that person has left is “a fearful expectation of judgment.” So, what will happen to that person if they continue in their Judaism and die having denied Christ is that they will go along with God’s adversaries in judgment—the fury of fire—for really they have become adversarial to God themselves. To back up what he’s saying, the author points out that in the Jewish Law, bad would happen to one who set aside that system. And it’s no different with setting aside Christ. It leads to trampling “underfoot the Son of God” and to profaning “the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified” and to outraging “the Spirit of grace.” It only makes perfect sense that way. Like Judas Iscariot has this individual become, and he or she has betrayed Christ. Only vengeance can wait such a person.

       Invariably, then, comes the question, and this especially if we believe that once an individual is saved they are always saved, is how is this possible? How would it be possible for a Jewish person who was saved as a Christian to now become not a Christian anymore? One way to look at it, and this was discussed in Hebrews chapter 6, is that this is a unique situation to Jewish persons. That is, those who are of God’s original chosen people could in fact become unsaved if they abandon Christ, and this because they are God’s chosen, had the Mosaic Law, etc. That’s one possibility. Another possibility is that the individuals were never truly saved, that they only believed in name only or something like that, but their hearts hadn’t truly been converted. So, when the writer says “has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified,” that would be referring to the fact that when Jesus died on the cross, salvation was made available to everyone. Everyone can be saved, not just pre-chosen folks. Now, for the full five-point Calvinist-minded person, that doesn’t work. Of course, the Armenism-minded folks believe that loss of salvation is possible if one chooses to give it up. So, it all depends on which way a person approaches things. Nonetheless, the good aspect of the whole thing is that for the individual who believes in Jesus and is willingly choosing to follow him, there is no concern. Even if one has a moment of doubt, and everyone (yes, most definitely everyone) has had those moments, that’s not what we’re talking about. God isn’t quick to change his mind about a person. But in either interpretation, it would be said that the second Old Testament quotation of “The Lord will judge his people” would be referring specifically to the Jewish people. That is, unless one wants to say that technically all people belong to God, since it is his world after all.

       Verse 32: “But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward” (ESV).

       The text appears to be pointing to the fact that these Jewish individuals had really stood for Christ at one point or another. They had “endured a hard struggle with sufferings.” Apparently, this included being mocked in public by some Jewish brothers and sisters for their belief in Christ. And perhaps physical violence had also occurred. Yet, even if that wasn’t going on, these Hebrew Christians had stood with brothers and sisters in other areas where persecution was occurring. This second area is the one most of us in the United States would be familiar with, to draw things to our current day. We have stood with various missionaries around the globe whether that be through prayer, sending of goods, or donating money. We are familiar with this. A lot of us even do it informally in that when we see something in the news, we stop for a moment and send out a prayer. Those little prayers matter. Surely, we are also familiar with prison ministries. A lot of churches have prison ministries. But these brothers and sisters had even had their property plundered, and that with a positive attitude the writer tells us. Now, that was likely non-believing Jewish persons or governmental soldiers taking their stuff or it could have even been the Christians selling there stuff to support others. Both instances could have been occurring. Due to the immense troubling situation, these believers were looking at the eternal, and they had great confidence in what they believed about Jesus—that he died, was buried, and rose again for them. The sights were set on the reward they would receive later after this life. This is deep stuff from our vantage point.

       Finishing up for today. Verse 36: “For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. For, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls” (ESV).

       Again, with the Hebrew Christians in mind, the encouragement to them is to stay in the faith, the stay in Christianity, and not go back to Judaism which doesn’t include Christ. They “have need of endurance” as there is likely going to be more hostility to come. That bad things happening probably aren’t over. And even if things get better for a while, persecution could arise again. All this is in view that at some point, and we don’t know what that point is, as they didn’t know, Christ is going to return. Again, the belief is present that we will exit the earth in The Rapture, and of course many others believe Christ isn’t coming again until The Second Coming at The Battle of Armageddon. Altogether, the point is that Christ is going to come. A certain moment will come when it is time—when The Times of the Gentiles are concluded. Just like with anything in life. We wait for the time to drive—to get our driver’s license. We wait until we turn 18 years old and are considered an adult. We wait for our college graduation. We wait for our wedding day. We wait for our first child to be born. And so on, and so forth. Well, at some moment or another the chief thing is going to happen, and that is that Christ is going to call it ‘time.’ He’s going to say, “Time’s up, and I’m moving the program forward.” For the Jewish person who’s become a Christian, you want to stick with your faith, and never go back to Judaism. For anyone else, if you have come to believe in Christ, you need to stick with him. If you have questions, honestly ask for and seek the answers. Don’t get caught up in a life situation that leads you to stumble—“This person died. I lost my boyfriend. My wife divorced me and took the kids. My house burnt down with all my possessions.” Whatever it is, whatever we go through, we don’t want to give up Christ. He’s our foundation, and he is faithful to the end.

- Daniel Litton