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We return once again this morning to our verse-by-verse examination of the Epistle to the Hebrews. So will you take your Bibles and turn there? This morning, we are in Hebrews chapter 10, and we will be examining verses 26 through 39 and I've entitled my discourse to you this morning, "The Terrifying Fate of the Apostate."

As I meditated upon this passage, especially this week, I was reminded a bit of my age, because with age comes the shocking disappointment of learning that someone you know, sometimes someone that you love, has apostatized. And frankly, as I grow older, I experience this with increased regularity. It is a heart wrenching thing to see this happen, to see people who fully understand the glorious gospel of Christ and then fully reject it in absolute, cold defiance. In my case, some were friends in Bible school. Some were men that I went through seminary with. Some were in Christian many ministry for years, some that I've known are pastors, even professors. Some were lay leaders, Sunday school teachers, choir directors, but all were phony. They had everyone fooled, even themselves. They all had made a profession of faith. They all attended and served in a church, but eventually they rejected it all; and this was the great danger in the early church, as it continues to be a danger today.

As we come again to Hebrews, we are reminded of the context. Like any church, including ours, the early Jewish Christian community was made up of both genuine believers and unbelievers; unbelievers who could be put into two categories. One category would be what I call borderline believers. They're really nonbelievers who would hang around the periphery of the church get involved at some level. They were intrigued, but they were unconvinced. Some were right on the edge of placing their faith in Christ, they had an intellectual understanding of the basics of the gospel, but they had never wholeheartedly given themselves to Christ. And then there were what I would call the "Christian unbelievers."  These are nonbelievers who are Christian in name only. Every church has them. We have them. They were intellectually convinced that Jesus was the Christ. They had made some superficial profession of faith which led them to believe that they truly belonged to Christ, that they were reconciled to God. But really they had never wholeheartedly committed themselves to him in the fullest sense of genuine saving faith, and therefore they remained unsaved, unregenerate. John spoke about these kinds of folks during the first Passover of Jesus' ministry - he described how in John 2:23 - ""many believed in His name, beholding His signs which He was doing." But he went on to say that because Jesus knew the true condition of their heart, he says of Jesus, that he was not entrusting himself to them.

We see the same distinctions in other passages of Scripture. For example, in Jesus' Parable of the Sower. Some, we read, are people who are so antagonistic towards the gospel that when they hear it, Jesus said, Satan comes along, and he removes the seed of truth before it even has a chance to germinate. Then there are others that get excited, and they quickly believe, they receive it with great joy, but then they also quickly abandon their superficial commitment at the first sign of testing and persecution. And then there are others who will quote, "believe until" they struggle with quote, "worries and riches and pleasures of this life." And then, of course, there were the genuine believers of whom Jesus said they are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart and hold it fast and bear fruit with perseverance.

Now the borderline believers and the Christian unbelievers are much of the focus in our passage here this morning in Hebrews 10, which, by the way, is by far the most solemn and frightening of the five warnings that we have in this epistle, he's addressing those who are most vulnerable to apostasy. Apostasy being the willful, deliberate, persistent rejection of the person and work of Christ in exchange for a profession of faith in something that is a direct contradiction to the gospel of grace, in this case, Judaism. And I might add - and we will understand this more as I go on this morning - this is a parallel text to the warning given in Hebrews chapter six.

Now let's wrap our minds, once again, around the flow of the extended argument concerning the supremacy of Christ and the superiority of the New Covenant over the Old. You will recall that the inspired writer has said to them that given all that God has done for us through Christ in reconciling sinners unto himself - through that substitutionary death - our faithful high priest has asked us to come, and he has paid the penalty for us. And this is summarized in the opening verses of chapter 10 that we studied last week. Therefore, in light of all of this, we are to draw near in full assurance of faith. We are to hold fast to our confession of hope, and we are to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. He's told them to not forsake the assembling of together of the saints, as is the habit of some, but encourage one another; and all the more as you see the Day of Judgment drawing near. Don't go back to the old sacrifices that had to be repeated over and over again, which therefore proved their imperfection; proved that they were pointing to Jesus Christ, the perfect and the final sacrifice. In light of all of this, he goes on to say, and here we come to our text in verse 26.

"For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,

"but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries,

"Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.

"How much severe punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God,

"and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and has insulted 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 terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

"But remember the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings,

"partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations,

"and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated.

"For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one.

"Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.

"For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.

"'FOR YET IN A VERY LITTLE WHILE, HE WHO IS COJING 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 to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul."

Here, dear friends, we have the most concise and terrifying passage in all of Scripture pertaining to the topic of apostasy, and I want to examine that this morning very carefully. We will look at it from three different perspectives. We will look at the characteristic, the consequences and the circumvention of apostasy. And I pray that this will bring conviction to anyone who is not wholeheartedly embraced Christ as Savior and Lord; and likewise, I pray that this will remind all of us who have, by God's grace, done so be all the more thankful for what he has done in our lives, for the power of the gospel to save and to sanctify forever come what may.

So, first, let's look at what the Spirit of God has to say to us regarding the characteristics of apostasy. Notice verse 26, "For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth..." Actually, the term "willfully" begins the sentence in the original language. It is in what we call the emphatic position. Therefore it emphasizes the heinousness of such a thing to willingly, willfully do this. This is such a clear definition of apostasy - to willfully, to knowingly, purposely, deliberately - go on sinning, which carries the idea of remaining in a state of rebellion against God even after receiving the knowledge of the truth. It's also important for you to know that the term "knowledge" in the original language is a strengthened form of that particular word denoting one who has an in depth, clear understanding of the truth about the finished work of Christ as revealed in the Gospel. And frankly, he's restating here some of what he warned in Hebrews chapter six. Remember how he had described these folks as having all of these opportunities to come to full faith in Christ. God had enlightened their minds to the truth. He had allowed them to be in association with, or in the company with, his Holy Spirit. He allowed them to have a taste of heavenly gifts - his word, a taste of his power - that will one day dominate the earth and his promised kingdom. Yet they were still undecided. In light of all of that, they weren't fully committed. They were yielding to the pressure of persecution, and so they had not wholeheartedly placed their trust in Christ. And he says of them, for those who have fallen away - those who have fallen away from the full light of divine revelation and the offer of salvation, not from salvation itself, but from the light of that for those who have fallen away - it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame. In other words, if with full knowledge and with all of those opportunities to embrace Christ, you still choose to fall away from Christianity, fall away from the truth of the gospel and fall back into Judaism, there's no hope for you. That's why he went on to say, it is impossible to renew you again to repentance. Not only is there no greater evidence that can be offered, but the greater the rejection, the greater the judgment. And this is what he is restating here in Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 26, "For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins." In other words, if the sacrifice of Christ is not enough for you and you believe you have to go back and keep sacrificing animals, or go back and participate in some form of religious legalism to earn for yourself that which you believe Christ did not earn, and you are without hope, because Christ is the only sacrifice that can provide access to God.

The first predisposition is a love of the world. This is like Paul's associate, remember Demas, who deserted him, and probably the Lord as well, because he, quote, loved this present world (Second Timothy 4:10), he loved this present world. This can include the kind of person I referenced earlier in Jesus' parable of the soils. Remember, the seed of the gospel is sown among thorns and the hearers. They believe, so to speak, but gradually and sometimes unwittingly, they begin to jettison their superficial commitment when, as Jesus says, quote, "'The cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the pleasures of the world choke the word and it proves unfaithful.'" And eventually that person becomes aware that they've just kind of abandoned Christ completely, but it doesn't really bother them. I've seen this too many times to count, especially among young people. The seductions of the world that is so powerful, that in their weakness and their ignorance and their folly, they just wander off into secular humanism, into a fool's paradise, where a person essentially worships themself and the world. They love themselves and the world, they don't love Christ. They prefer ungodly friends, ungodly philosophies. They end up dating unbelievers, marrying unbelievers. So they reject the life changing truths of the gospel; they reject the Lordship of Christ, and they prefer to be ruled instead by the lusts of their own flesh. Those of you who have been at Calvary Bible Church for many years can look around with me right now and see where some of those people used to sit. I could name many Demas' that were once here but are now gone. Some of them grew up in the church. Some of them served in the church for years. They're no longer here. In fact, they're no longer in any solid church. It's not a priority anymore. And sadly, some of you will eventually drift into a world of apostasy, if you're not careful.

I want to digress for a moment. We have to answer the question, why would anyone do this? And yet, the reality is, most people do. How can people hear the truth and reject it with full knowledge? Now, obviously part of that answer lies in the fact that man is depraved. We are all born in rebellion against God. We are at enmity with God. We are spiritually dead, blind and so forth. Paul says there is no fear of God before our eyes. That's just our natural predisosition. But God gives us some insight into some other contributing factors to apostasy, and I wish to give you four of them this morning. Four sinful predispositions that can cause a person to be uniquely influenced by certain dynamics that exist in this fallen world that would cause a person's heart to become increasingly hardened to the truth.

Now, not everyone who leaves the church for unbiblical reasons is an unbeliever. Sometimes people leave for unbiblical reasons simply because they're immature. They've got other agendas. They've got life dominating sins, but in either case, folks like that will not last long in a New Testament church. It's just too uncomfortable. They will become increasingly uncomfortable with convicting truths of the Word of God, and their hypocrisy will eventually be exposed. And so what happens then is they will gradually wander off in their heart, and eventually physically, into the world that they love.

Not only will a love for the world will make a person vulnerable to apostasy, but secondly, a fear of man. You see an apostate fears man more than he fears God. So if their professed faith becomes a target of persecution, they'll quickly cower in fear, and they will change their uniform and join the enemy. These are the rocky ground, phony believers that Jesus described, who, according to Matthew 13:21, "receives the word with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the world, immediately he falls away." Now many of the early church false professors that are being addressed here would fall into that category, as do some of you. In fact, I have wondered at times what our church would look like if suddenly our lives, our families, our jobs, our our properties, were all placed in jeopardy. I wonder how many of you would still be here; would still name the name of Christ.

A third sinful predisposition is an intolerance of the truth. This is what the Bible calls a fool that has no fear of God, therefore he has no fear of his word. He can't stand the hard truths of the gospel. He can't stand the truths of Scripture. He can't stand preaching. So he will deliberately reject Christ and choose instead to become an agnostic or to become an atheist or embrace some pagan religion. Or others will gravitate to some counterfeit form of religion. They hear the word they don't like what they're hearing, so they will twist it, they will distort it, they will reshape it, they will add to it, detract from it, until it says what they want it to say. Paul addressed this in Second Timothy four and verse three, "They will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to the myths." The turning away is in the active voice. It's something that they will deliberately choose to do. The "turning aside to myths" is in the passive voice, which means the myths will overtake them without them realizing what is happening. Now, these people will never say that they reject Christ, and yet they will join some apostate religious system, like Mormonism, or like Roman Catholicism, or like the Eastern Orthodox Church. Perhaps you're aware of of a very popular figure in evangelicalism, man by the name of Hank Hanegraaff, the Bible Answer Man, who has recently been chrismated, or in other words confirmed, into the Eastern Orthodox Church; an apostate form of Christianity that believes, for example, that church tradition and Scripture have equal authority; a religious system that discourages individuals from interpreting the Bible apart from tradition. A system that believes in the perpetual virginity of Mary, prayers for the dead, the baptism of infants without any reference to individual responsibility and faith in Christ, that believes in the possibility of receiving salvation after death, the possibility of losing one's salvation, the utter indifference to the five solas of the Reformation that you see around us. And folks stories like this abound. People who know the truth of the gospel and yet reject it in favor of another gospel - a false gospel - a counterfeit Christianity. And this was a huge factor among the early Jews who would consider Christianity, they would hear all of the truths, but for various reasons, especially persecution, they didn't like what they were hearing, and so they would fall back into their comfort zone of Judaism.

A final predisposition is indifference to the truth. These are folks who hear the gospel, they even like what they hear, but they have no sense of urgency about it. It's not that big of a priority. They don't really see the heinousness of their sin, nor the holiness of God. They don't see the glory of the cross. They don't see the power of the cross, and so they just kind of ignore it and get swept up in life, get involved in school, in their careers, in their family, get busy with other things, and they end up ignoring God's command to repent and place your trust in Christ. You remember in the warning in Hebrews chapter two and verse one, he says, "We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard." These people don't, they are just kind of indifferent to it. We must do this, he says, "so that we do not drift away from it." You see, folks, we always drift away from the truth,  we never drift towards it. In verse three, he went on to say, "...how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?" Well, there's four predispositions that can make you vulnerable to apostasy: the love of the world, the fear of man, intolerance of the truth, indifference to the truth, all contributing factors to causing your heart to become so hard that you willfully reject God's provision of saving grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Folks, it's frightening to clearly understand the gospel and then deliberately, in a state of defiant rebellion against God, choose to go in a different way. Well, there we have some of the characteristics of apostasy.

Let's look secondly at the consequences of it. Notice again verse 26, "For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries." You know, it's absolutely amazing to me to see how our sinful flesh can just kind of block that out. I've talked with men and women before about the gospel and seen them, when you come to the topic of eternal judgment of hell, I've seen them and heard them and watched them laugh out loud at what they would consider to be such a ridiculous myth. I remember one guy said, "My God is a God of love, not a God that would send people to hell." I remember another guy saying, "Well, if hell is real, at least I will be with my real friends and not with a bunch of hypocrites in heaven." Folks, those are the words of a fool. I remember giving the gospel to one man on his death bed, the family asked me to come in. I had given it to him before, a man that had heard the Gospel before, but instead of humbling his heart in repentant faith, he raised up at me, and he growled at me with a hideous, loud roar that could only be described as demonic. That's the heart of an apostate. But folks, please understand the sinner may scoff at divine judgment, he may try to seal it out of his mind, but it's always gnawing at him because he knows that it is true, and we know that because of what God has said in his word. For example, in Romans one and verse 18, we know that,

"the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; because God has made it evident to them."

And although a man will try to suppress the truth in unrighteousness, in the quietness of the nigh his conscience will continue to accuse him, because as we come back to Hebrews 10:27, he is having, "a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries" of a holy God. Folks, this is why so many people are addicted to drugs and alcohol and entertainment and materialism, to somehow silence the accusing conscience, the reality that they are responsible to a holy God and they're not right with him. You know, this kind of attitude is frightening to behold in someone who knows nothing about the gospel, but folks, it is absolutely terrifying to see it happen to someone who knows the truth. Oh, the stubbornness of an evil heart; the damning power of the sin nature. Indeed, as Jeremiah said, "The heart is more deceitful than all else, and is desperately sick. Who can understand it?" But this is the heart of an apostate. Men and women who know the truth, who will sing the truth, who will preach the truth, who will tell other people about the truth, but they're tares amongst the wheat, some will even suffer for Christ. The Christ that they have made up, but then eventually they will turn their back on him, and in open defiance, turn their back on God.

Jesus described what will happen to them in Matthew 13, beginning in verse 38 he says, "The tares," in other words, the false believers that live amongst the true believers,

"'are the sons of the evil one; and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels.

"'So just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age.

"'The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks and all those who commit lawlessness,

"'and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'"

So many other passages attest to the same truth. I think of what Paul said in Second Thessalonians, one beginning in verse seven,

"...the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels and flaming fire,

dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

"These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power."

Folks, this should stir each of us who know and love Christ to prayer and to have a zeal for evangelism. Whenever I think of the reality of eternal judgment, I find myself being stirred deeply within my soul for loved ones and friends who I know do not know Christ.

Well, next, I want you to notice what an apostate does in the eyes of God and how their sin will result in even greater judgment than the average unbeliever who really knows nothing of the gospel. Beginning in verse 28 the writer goes on with his argument, and he uses an illustration that the Jews would have been very familiar with. He says, "Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses." Now, every Jew understood this. When two or three witnesses confirmed the fact that someone had violated the Law, a guilty verdict with the punishment of death was never questioned. But where he's going with this is there was never an offense under the Old Covenant to compare with the sin of apostasy, therefore, the punishment is far greater.

Notice verse 29, "How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God..." To trample something under foot was an expression used to describe the most extreme form of disdain and disrespect. It's as though you are saying, "You are as worthless and filthy as the dust that's under my superior feet." That's the idea, and folks think about it, what impudence to know what God has provided through his Son; to know what the Son endured on behalf of sinners, and then to reject it in the context here of Judaism; to go back to the sacrificial system of the Old Covenant that pointed to the reality of the sacrifice of Christ. I mean, folks, that is an inconceivable act of defiance. The Law of Moses was a shadow of the coming Redeemer who would be the fulfillment of the law. So to see that, and to understand that, and then turn your back on that, i's incomprehensible. How much severer punishment must that kind of blasphemy deserve?

Not only are you trampling underfoot the Son of God, but secondly, you're regarding, or considering, "as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified." Now a technical point here, real quickly, the word "he" is not referring to the apostate, which is how many will interpret this passage in order to argue how a man can lose his salvation. But in the original language, the closest antecedent is not the apostate, it is the Son of God. The "he" refers to Jesus. An apostate has never been sanctified. They've never been justified. They've never been set apart unto God, proven by the fact here that this person regards the blood of the covenant as unclean. A true believer would never do that. So the "he" refers to Christ, in fact, we understand this better, let me give you an illustration, in his high priestly prayer in John 17:19, Jesus prayed to his Father, saying, 'And for their sake, I sanctify Myself,'" or consecrate myself, "'that they also may be sanctified in truth.'" In other words, Jesus totally set himself apart to do the Father's will in securing our salvation, so that we might also be set apart unto God, through faith, in his sacrificial work.

So again, the author is saying it's utterly unfathomable to consider the Son of God as worthless, as filthy; the one who poured out his very blood and became sin for us that we might have his righteousness. To reject the gospel of Christ is to count Christ as worthless. And by the way, to count Christ as worthless is to count the Father as worthless. This is just unspeakable blasphemy, sacrilege of the highest order. And folks, this is how God views an apostate.

Not only does this kind of person trample underfoot the Son of God in regard is unclean the blood of the covenant, but also it says that he "has insulted the Spirit of grace" I mean, think about it, the Spirit of God came to convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment. It is the Spirit who has given us his word. It is the Spirit who puts the glory of Christ on display. It is the Spirit who brings the truth of the gospel to sinners. Again in Hebrews six we read about this, remember how so many of those people, he said, had "once been enlightened." In other words, they had been informed, they had been instructed about the gospel of Christ, and they had tasted of the heavenly gift. In other words, they had enjoyed some measure of that gift through common grace. They got a little flavor of the new life of kingdom blessings. They tasted it, they sampled it, but they never drank him in. They never ingested him fully to be saved. They were told that you've been "made partakers of the Holy Spirit." And again, the unbelieving Jews had shared in common association with the Holy Spirit. They had not been born again  - some of them have, but he's addressing those that haven't - they were constantly exposed to the Word of God, the works of God. Some of them may have even shared in the power of the Spirit. Some of them may have been healed. Some of them may have eaten of the five loaves and fishes. They shared in the Spirit, but they did not possess him. To experience all of that and then walk away from it? What an incomprehensibly heinous offense to the Triune God.

Dear friends, the consequences of apostasy, verse 27, "a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries....For we know Him who said, 'VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY.' And again, 'The Lord will judge his people.' It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of a living God."

And the apostate, will hear that and kind of say, "I wonder if somebody's texting me right now." It's amazing. Folks, when a man looks at the infinitely glorious gift of God's free gift of salvation through faith in Christ, and then shakes his head in rejection and turns around and walks away, choosing some other religious system or none at all, there's only one thing left for God to do, and that is to pour out his judgment upon that sinner, so that he will pay for eternity what Christ paid for him on the cross, had he placed his faith in Him.

So we've seen the characteristics and the consequences of apostasy. Finally, the circumvention of apostasy. In other words, how do we avoid this? How do you evade this? And here's where you see just the heart of a true shepherd coming along side these dear people. Remember, we're hearing this letter one Sunday at a time over many months. They're hearing it all at once and probably many times. And so with the heart of a true shepherd, he balances all of this terrifying warning with words of loving encouragement. He knew his congregation well. He knew that some of them were borderline believers, those non-believers who were intrigued but not convicted of their sins, they were still unconvinced. And he knew that he was writing to Christian unbelievers who thought they were saved, but they were Christian in name only. They were intellectually convinced that Jesus was the Christ, but in reality, they had never really wholeheartedly committed themselves to him in the fullest sense of genuine saving faith. And like every church, these tares are growing up amongst the wheat. And so he addresses them, and he asks them to do two things that will move them to full belief, to full saving grace, which will result in faith so that they will persevere to the end come what may.

He asks them first, what I like to say is , ust remember your suffering, sympathy and sacrifice. Notice what he says in verse 32, "But remember..." the term actually carries the idea of pensively reflect, think deeply about what has happened; remember, pensively, reflect upon, "the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of suffering, partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming strange or sharers with those who were so treated." In other words, he's saying, I know some of you don't really know Christ, but many of your friends and your family consider you to be a Christian because you live in close association with fellow believers. Therefore you have been persecuted along with them. You've shared in suffering, reproaches, tribulations, and yet he's in essence, saying, but you're still here, isn't that good? You're still here. You're still a part of the church. At some level, you're still being drawn to Christ. You haven't turned your back on him.

Verse 34, "For you showed sympathy to the prisoners..." Evidently, some of their friends, and maybe family members, had been in prison for their commitment to Christ, and when you would go and help them and visit them, you would be openly identifying with them and be guilty by association. You might say you showed sympathy to the prisoners. You accepted fully the seizure of your property. Some of them even lost that. "Knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one." So in other words, some of you have sacrificed greatly for your commitment to the New Covenant, even though you haven't fully embraced it, for the possibility of a quote, "better possession and a lasting one." Think how far you've come, he's saying.

Remember your suffering, your sympathy and your sacrifice. But secondly, anticipate the promises that can be yours. Notice what he says in verse 35, "Therefore..." in other words, in light of these magnificent truths that you now understand so clearly, but which you have not yet embraced wholeheartedly, in light even of all you have endured to this point thus far, "Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance..." - in other words, staying power - "so that when you have done the will of God..." and of course, that would be to fully embrace Christ as Savior and Lord. When you have done that, "you may receive what is promised." You see, it is one thing to know the promises, but it is altogether something else to receive them, to fully possess them.

And he goes on to say in verse, 37,

"'FOR YET IN A VERY LITTLE WHILE, HE WHO IS COMING WILL COME, AND WILL NOT DELAY.

"'BUT MY RIGHTEOUSONE SHALL LIVE BY FAITH; AND IF HE SHRINKS BACK, MY SOUL HAS NO PLEASURE IN HIM.'

"But we," as true believers, "are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul." You see, genuine faith is the key. We become righteous by faith, and the righteous shall live by faith. You know the truth, so now embrace it with all of your heart. I like what John MacArthur said, quote, "Knowledge of the gospel is essential. Suffering for the gospel is possible. Serving others, especially God's people, in the name of the gospel is fine, but only faith will bring salvation and the persevering of the soul."

Again, it is heartbreaking to see people attach themselves to Christ in some superficial way, but never come to a place of genuine saving faith. To drift further and further away from the truth until eventually they just ignore it, no big deal, or they reject it fully. Often, they will join some apostate religious system and suffer for a distorted Christ and a false gospel. Consider the secret letters of the Roman Catholic nun, Mother Teresa, 10 years following her death, some of her personal correspondence to her superiors was published. I read them, and what the letters revealed really shocked much of the religious world famed for her charity work in Calcutta, India. Theresa admitted that she spent almost 50 years of her life without sensing the presence of God. She bemoaned a spiritual dryness, loneliness and torture. A feeling she compared to the experiences of hell. She experienced this to the point of causing her to doubt the existence of heaven and even of God himself. She acknowledged being acutely aware of the discrepancy between her inner state and her public demeanor, and she even stated that her smile was a mask that covers everything, despite her religious fervor and selfless love to the needy in Calcutta, she described the horrors of a black hole of spiritual emptiness. Here's an example of what she said. Quote, 

"Lord my God, who am I that you should forsake me. The child of your love, and now becomes the most hated one, the one you have thrown away is unwanted, unloved. I call, I cling, I want, and there is no one to answer. No one on whom I can cling. No, no one. Alone. Where is my faith? Even deep down, right in there is nothing but emptiness and darkness. My God, how painful is this unknown pain. I have no faith. I dare not utter the words and thoughts that crowd in my heart and make me suffer untold agony. So many unanswered questions live within me, afraid to uncover them, because of the blasphemy. If there be a God, please forgive me. When I try to raise my thoughts to heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul. I am told God loves me, and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the call of the Sacred Heart?" End Quote.

Folks, this is the testimony of one who was deceived. She believed, for example, that salvation comes through Mary, the sacraments, religious works, rather than faith in Christ alone, by grace alone. As the apostle John wrote, and listen to the difference, First John five verse 10, "The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself." Isn't that great? Let me read that again.

"The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning His Son.

"And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.

"He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life."

How incredibly sad. Like so many, she was religious, she even suffered for Christ, but not the true Christ. A woman who knew nothing of the power of the indwelling Spirit of grace that satisfies every longing of the soul for all who are united to him in faith.

I was reminded even this morning of Romans eight, verse 14 and following Paul says this,

"For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

"For you have not received the spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by which we cry out, 'Abba! Father!'"

And he says this, "The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God." Unbelievers know nothing of that. "And if children," he goes on to say, "heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, so that we may also be glorified with Him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is be to be revealed to us." Folks, this is the testimony of the redeemed, but it will never be the testimony of an apostate. So I challenge each one of you to examine your heart this morning. Have you truly trusted Christ as your only hope of salvation. Is he the one that satisfies the very core of your soul with the reality of his presence? Do you experience his power in your life? Is he a priority in your life? Do you live for his glory, or do you love the world more than Christ? Do you fear man more than you fear God? Are you intolerant of the truth when you hear it? Are you indifferent to what you know to be true about your sin and the Savior? Folks, if that's the case, unless you get serious about standing one day before a holy God, your heart is going to become increasingly hardened, and you will become an apostate, and you will have no hope of glory, but only "a terrifying expectation of judgment, the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries." May God have mercy on us all, Amen? Let's pray together.

Father, in light of these warnings that cause us all to tremble, we find ourselves being even more amazed at the glory of the cross, even more thankful for the reality of genuine saving faith that is a gift from a loving God. And I pray, Oh Lord, I pray for those who are within the sound of my voice today that you will do a mighty work of conviction to those who do not know you, especially those who might think they do but they don't. Oh, Lord, protect them from themselves. Reveal to them, in a new and a fresh way, the reality of the gospel and the horrifying consequences of apostasy. And for those of us who know and love you, Lord, may these truths again animate our hearts with the zeal of evangelism, may we find ourselves being consumed with the gospel to a point where we feel compelled to share it with all of those that we know, so that others will know the living Christ, and so that you might be glorified Lord. We commit it all to you. We give you thanks. We give you praise in Jesus' name, Amen.