A Study of the Book of Hebrews
Jesus
is Better
Sermon # 17
“The
Danger of Playing Church.”
Hebrews 10:26-31
Because our daughter Nikki grew up in a
Pastor’s home, when she was small she and her friends sometimes played a game they
called “Playing Church.” Now “Playing
Church” had a lot of variables but there were couple of things that were constants.
First, Nikki was in charge and secondly, somebody is going to get “bab-a-tized.”
So all her friends and some of their pets got “bab-a-tized.” Now there is nothing wrong
with children playing church but there is something inherently wrong with adults “playing
church.”
This morning we come to the fourth and last
warning passage in Hebrews, (2:1-4, 3:7-4:13, 5:11-6:20) and it is by far the most serious
and sobering. Here we are faced with the fact that there are only two possible responses
when one is presented with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
One either goes on to believe, and is saved or one stops short of actually
believing and becomes apostate. Apostasy can be said to be the most heinous of sins,
because it is the most deliberate and willful form of unbelief. It is not a sin of
ignorance, but rather of rejecting known truth. Apostasy is the sin of rejecting the
gospel for which there is no forgiveness.
Some people in our world today obviously
consider that their involvement with the church at some point in their lives as adequate
cover from the wrath of God. These are individuals who although they may have been a part
of the Church, really are not believers. Outwardly they appeared to share in the blessings
of God, but inwardly their hearts is unchanged. The visible church does not contain a pure
body of genuine believers. Not now, nor has it ever! As much as church leaders try, as
closely as Scriptural principles are adhered to, absolute purity is impossible in this
world. Tares are going to be found among the wheat. Goats will be found among the sheep.
But the day will come when the Lord distinguishes between the wheat and tares, the
goats and sheep. In that day there will be no more hiding and masquerading as Christians.
The question we must ask ourselves is, “What will that day expose about me?”
There is no clearer
text of the sobering reality of playing church than the one we will
Turn with me to
Hebrews 10:26 where we will see
First, The Characteristics of Apostasy
(v. 26) “For if we sin willfully after we have
received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.”
There are two very clear characteristics of
apostasy given in verse twenty-six.
· There is sufficient knowledge to be saved.
John MacArthur says, “Every apostate is an
unbeliever, but not every unbeliever is an apostate.” There are many
people who do not know the Gospel, they have never had anyone explain to them the saving
message of Jesus Christ. This is not true of an apostate. An apostate knows the truth
intellectually. They can quote chapter and verse. They may even attend a local church, but
their hearts are far from God. They know the truth, but they have refused to receive the
truth so that it might transform their lives.
One scripture the comes to mind when we
think of this subject is 1 John 2:19, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with
us; but they went out that they might be made manifest,
that none of them were of us.” John says that some who had made a profession
of being Christians in that day had all the outward trappings of being Christians. They
bore the Christian name, and they identified themselves with some local assembly, some
church. They were baptized, immersed, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit. They took the bread and the cup at the communion service. But John says that the way you can tell whether or not one
is really a child of God is that eventually a man will show his true colors and will leave
the assembly of God if he is not a child of God. He will withdraw from the
Christians, the body of believers, and he will go right back into the world. To know God’s
truth, to study about it, to hear about it, perhaps even identifying with a body of
believers and then turn away, that is to become an apostate.
Does this happen today? We see it when we
see young people that grow up in the church with Christian parents. They have heard the
gospel on a regular basis. They may have even professed to be Christians at some point in
their early years and gave outward appearance of being serious. But the day came when they
were challenged about the gospel and rather than believing God, they embraced a lie. Not
repenting of such sin they continued to grow cold toward any thought of divine truth. The
years pass and they care nothing of the church of Jesus Christ, easily forsaking the
church because they have forsaken the gospel of Christ. They shunned warnings with ease.
Their heart gets harder. They may even still be able to rattle off the basic elements of
biblical truth but it means nothing to them. In willful defiance they turn away from
Christ, the gospel, and the church.
·
There is a willful and deliberate denial of
the truth.
The Greek word for “willfully”
(hekousios) means, “voluntarily, willingly, of one’s own
accord, to sin willfully as opposed to sins committed from ignorance or from weakness.”
In the Greek “willfully” is the first word,
laying stress on the defiant nature of the sin it describes. John MacArthur writes in his
commentary on Hebrews, “Willfully… carries the idea of
deliberate intention that is habitual. The reference here is not to sins of ignorance or
weakness, but to those that are planned out, determined, done with forethought. The
difference between sins of ignorance and sinning willfully is much like the difference
between involuntary manslaughter and first-degree murder. …It not only is deliberate,
but is an established way of thinking and believing. It is the permanent renunciation of
the gospel, the permanent forsaking of God’s grace.” [John MacArthur, The MacArthur New
Testament Commentary –Hebrews. (Chicago: Moody, 1983) p. 273.]
Judas Iscariot is the epitome of apostasy
in that no other rejecter of Christ did so with so much exposure to Christ’s love and
grace. He had sat while the Lord Himself had taught; he had witnessed the miracles with
his own eyes. He had experienced intimacy with Christ that only a few were given. For
three years he had lived with the truth incarnate and yet he turned his back and betrayed
Jesus.
Secondly, The Causes of Apostasy
This morning I want to share just a few
things that can cause apostasy. (Drawn from McArthur. Pp. 274-275)
First, there is Persecution. What will drive a
believer closer to the Lord will drive the unbeliever further from Him. Whenever the
church has been persecuted the faithful have become strong and those who don’t really
believe have left. When hard times come the apostate will not only leave the church but
sometimes join the persecution. Some apostates not only turn away from the church but turn
against it. I have often told the story of Ted Turner and how he turned from the church
when his sister died. He seems to be a perfect example of an apostate. One who had
sufficient knowledge to be saved. A person who at one time associated with believers but
who because of a crisis in his life turned from the church. But he not only turned from
the church, he turned against the church.
Another thing that can
cause a person to turn away into apostasy is false teachers.
Where persecution
frightens unbelievers away false teaching entices them away. When unbelievers get fed up
with the Gospel, or when the Gospel demands more than they are willing to pay, they can
usually find someone who will feed them something they find a little palatable with their
life- style. In 2 Timothy 4:3 Paul says, “For the time
will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own
desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers.”
Temptation can also lead to
apostasy. Sometimes this temptation comes in the form of many small temptations over a
long period of time and a sometimes strong temptation that comes very suddenly. But
regardless of how it comes, it is successful because the person does not have the
resources in and of themselves to resist.
But perhaps the
saddest cause of apostasy is neglect.
A person can put off making a decision for so long that they actually lose the
opportunity. Not to decide for Christ is actually a decision against Christ.
Third, The Results of Apostasy (vv. 26-31)
The results of
apostasy are terrifying in prospect.
· There Is No More Forgiveness
(v. 26) “For if
we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer
remains a sacrifice for sins.”
Anyone who rejects the
sacrifice of Christ for our sins will not find any other means of removing their sin. If
you reject the one and only path that God has provide to heaven, then you have in essence
committed the unforgivable sin.
· There is Greater Judgment.
The greater the sin the greater the
This judgment is deserved because apostasy is
a personal rejection of each member of the Trinity. Verse
twenty-eight states, “Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies
without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. (29) Of how much worse punishment, do you
suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the
blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit
of grace?” (30) For we know Him who
said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. And again, “The
Lord will judge His people.”
What I want you to
notice is how this rejection is directed to all three parts of the Trinity in verse
twenty-nine. First, it regards as nothing the Father’s sacrifice of His only son, “trampled
the Son of God underfoot.”
Secondly, regards
the shed blood of Christ on Calvary as nothing, “counted
the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing.” Third, “insulted the Spirit of grace” that is the apostate disregarded the work
of the Holy Spirit in the work of salvation.
This last warning
closes in verse thirty-one with chilling words, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the
living God.”
I cannot read verse thirty-one without
thinking of the ministry of Jonathan Edwards. On
July 8, 1741 Edwards preached what has become one of the most famous sermons in history of
our country entitled “Sinners in the Hands of Angry God.”
It was a remarkable sermon for remarkable times.
The 18th century in America began what was
referred to as “The Great Awakening.” Throughout New England the Spirit
of God invaded one community after another, bringing the spiritually dead to life, and
transforming the worship of churches. It was not that there were no professing Christians
in these villages. Each little community had a village church with many of the townspeople
having been baptized into membership. But there was little spiritual reality until the
Holy Spirit began to move through the dry, dusty corpses of church members. Like Ezekiel’s
vision of the valley of dry bones, upon the preaching of the Word, the Spirit of God
breathed life.
Though neighboring villages had experienced
the spiritual awakening, Enfield, Connecticut had not. They remained stubborn and defiant,
self-satisfied with an outward form of religion; playing Christian we might say, without
knowing the peril before them. On July 8, 1741, Jonathan Edwards arose as a substitute
preacher to declare before them the word of the Lord. Remarkably perhaps, this sermon was
not new to Edwards since he had preached it previously in his own church in Northampton,
Maryland. Without any pulpit antics or pulpit pounding, Edwards read the
sermon in a monotone voice, and actually asked the audience to quiet down so he might
finish his sermon.
Edwards delivered a devastating picture of
divine judgment upon sinful men, particularly upon those who were the baptized members of
the church and yet gave no evidence of really being saved. The last verse of our text (v.
31) provided the basis for Edwards’ title, “It
is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”
was no delicate, entertaining sermon, but a striking portrait of the righteousness of God
and the sinfulness of Man. In this sermon Edwards compared sinners to
a spider dangling by a thin thread over the fire of God's wrath.
The effect of the sermon was immediate. The audience was so frightened that many attendees were found openly weeping. There were also a number of reports of swooning, outcries and convulsions from audience members. I want to share just one quotation that is too good to miss. A pastor from the Northampton area reported the effects of his sermon on people on May 14, 1741. "Under this sermon, many had their countenances changed; loosed, and their knees smote one against another. Great numbers cried out aloud in the anguish of their souls. Several stout men fell as though a cannon had been discharged; and a ball had made its way through their hearts.”
His sermon says in part, “Your wickedness makes you as it were as
lead, and to tend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell; and if God should
let you go, you would immediately sink and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottom-less
gulf… There are the black clouds of God’s wrath now hanging directly over your
heads, full of the dreadful storm, and big with thunder; and were it not for the
restraining hand of God, it would immediately burst forth upon you… the waters are
constantly rising, and waxing more and more mighty; and there is nothing but the mere
pleasure of God, that holds the waters back, that are unwilling to be stopped, and press
hard to go forward… The bow of God’s wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on
the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is
nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or
obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood.
Thus all of you that never passed under a great change of heart, by the mighty
power of the Spirit of God upon your souls, all that were never born again, and made new
creatures, and raised from being dead in sin, to a state of new, and (thus those who have never experienced) light and life, are in the hands of an angry God.” [Jonathan Edwards. “Sinners in the Hands
Of An Angry God.” Sermon Classics by Great Preachers. Complied by Peter F.
Gunther. rev ed. (Chicago: Moody, 1982) pp. 30-31]
Far from being more
tolerant of sin today, God is less tolerant because men today have the advantage of
greater light.
In Acts
17:30-31 Paul preaching in Athens says,
“Truly,
these times of ignorance God over-looked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent,
(31) because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by
the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from
the dead.”
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands
of an angry God. But remember how different it is for believers. David said in 2 Samuel
24:14, “Let us fall into the hand of the LORD, for his
mercy is great.” For
the believer no hands are as gentle as God’s hands.
Conclusion
The question we must ask ourselves is,
“Am I just playing church?” And I would like to offer in closing “Three Signs That You Might Be Playing Church”
1. You have never
made a personal commitment to Christ and His Church.
2. You know more
Bible than you live out in your life.
3. You continue to
hear God’s word preached but you are never convicted to change any of