Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Prayer Meeting Lesson Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/pm/pm20110427.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Hebrews: The Superiority Of Christ To Errant Religions
Part V: The Superiority Of Christ's Priesthood To Other Priesthoods, Hebrews 5:1-10:39
H. Applying Christ's Superior Priesthood, Hebrews 10:19-39
2. Warning Of Severe Discipline For Defecting From Christ
(Hebrews 10:26-31)
  1. Introduction
    1. Once one trusts in Christ as his Savior, God unconditionally eternally secures him in his salvation status.
    2. However, critics of this belief in eternal security complain that it fosters sinful living in Christians because they do not fear any consequences for ungodliness! Actually, there are troubling consequences for willful in the Christian life, a fact that Hebrews 10:26-31 clarifies (as follows):
  2. Warning Of Severe Discipline For Defecting From Christ, Hebrews 10:26-31.
    1. The author of Hebrews was writing to Christians who were tempted to leave the Christian faith and revert back to some form of Judaism, cf. Hebrews 13:9-12. For this cause, he had written to persuade his readers of the vast superiority of the Christian faith to dead Judaism, Hebrews 13:10, 13-14.
    2. However, not only did the author seek to persuade believers of the superiority of Christianity over dead Judaism to keep them faithful to Christ, he warned of severe divine discipline for leaving Christianity, a discipline that does not mean the loss of salvation, but severe experiential punishment, Hebrews 10:26-31:
      1. If a believer rejects Christ's sacrifice for sins in returning to dead Judaism, since there is no other sacrifice for sins, there is no other hope for settling the sin issue, Hebrews 10:26.
      2. In such a state of sinful rebellion against the truth of Christ's sacrifice, the believer can only fearfully expect the fiery expression of God's anger in His discipline, Hebrews 10:27.
      3. This divine anger expression is not hell fire as if the believer were to lose his salvation, for one is unconditionally eternally secure in Christ, John 5:24. Rather, the author of Hebrews warned of experiential judgment akin to how people in the dispensation of the Mosaic Law were physically slain by God under the testimony of two or three witnesses, Hebrews 10:28 with Deut eronomy 17:2-5. [Illustrations of this fiery experiential divine judgment would be God's sending a literal fire to burn up people who complained in Numbers 11:1-2 and Korah's rebellion (Numbers 16:31-35) where the ground opened up and swallowed alive many of the rebellious ones while fire also came out from the Lord to burn up men who were offering incense in violation of the Mosaic Law.]
      4. Accordingly, for believers today who act worse than these Old Testament people in treading under foot the Son of God by forsaking His sacrifice in returning to dead Judaism (Heb. 10:29a), and who thus view Christ's sacrifice and His New Covenant as unholy, and so mistreat the Holy Spirit of grace, their experiential punishment can only be far worse than that of Old Testament people! (Heb. 10:29a,b)
      5. After all, Scripture reveals that our holy God is intolerant of sin, that He will judge it, Hebrews 10:30:
        1. The author of Hebrews cited Deuteronomy 32:35-36 to show that God promises to repay those who do evil with the appropriate divine discipline. (Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978, ftn. to Heb. 10:30)
        2. The author of Hebrews also cited Psalm 135:14 to show that God will indeed judge His people, Ibid.
      6. This discipline of the Lord is not only dreadfully painful, but terribly frightening, and the author of Hebrews added that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God in the sense of coming under His sure, terrifying and dreadful discipline! (Hebrews 10:31)
    3. By way of application today, the believer must realize that to abandon Biblical Christianity for some other dead religious entity is to invite the certain, frightening, severely painful discipline of Almighty God!
      1. [Other rebellious sins are despised by God, and He severely punishes them, cf. 1 Cor. 11:29-31!]
      2. We know from 1 John 5:16a,b that a believer can commit a sin that is so rebellious in God's eyes that He prematurely ends that one's physical life. Indeed, other believers are not required of the Lord even to make intercessory prayer in cases they consider might require such divine discipline, 1 John 5:16c.
Lesson: May we not defect from Christianity or commit some other spiteful sin God abhors even though we possess unconditional eternal salvation security, for God can still frightfully, painfully punish us!

Application: May we revere God and depart from evil practices to avoid His severe, terrifying discipline!