A Daily Walk

Guest (Male): As believers in Christ, we should all desire a closer relationship with the Lord and to grow spiritually. Sadly, many of us can look back over the years and see that there's been little to no growth or maybe even we've gone backwards. Quite often that can be traced back to no longer being in fellowship with other believers. The Lord knows we need each other, and that's a big reason why we need to make going to church a top priority in these last days. Today on A Daily Walk, we return to John Randall's series from Hebrews. We're in chapter 10.

John Randall: One of the areas that we are to stir one another up is in the area of fellowship and gathering together. Notice the emphasis on the importance of fellowship here in Hebrews chapter 10, verse 25. It says, "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another," which is encouraging and stirring up the same idea, "and so much more so as you see the day approaching."

One of the practices that is mentioned in the early church of the first century, something that they continued in addition to the Word of God, was fellowship. That is the gathering together of the believers. It was a consistent thing in their life as the church. Assembling together, there was this blessing of mutual encouragement, of prayer, of worship, and of accountability by being together.

Over the last year, all of us experienced fellowship being hindered because of a virus that we knew very little about. The entire world was closed. We stayed home and we were isolated. We began to watch church online, but many of us came to realize very quickly how unfulfilling that was. I'll be the first to admit it, there is nothing like preaching to an empty room. It is very discouraging. This isn't a telephone. This is so weird. I didn't like it. I like to be with the people.

Decisions were made in spite of suggestions we were given, and we chose to gather together. What a blessing it has been and how fruitful it has been. People ask me, "How has it gone this last year?" It has been amazing. I'm not even kidding you. It is like the best year of ministry ever. People are like, "What are you doing?" Meeting. "Do you guys wear masks?" We don't. "Do you guys social distance?" What is that? "Do you guys hug each other?" Yes, we hug each other. We pray for each other. We're the church.

Having said that, there are those who have continued to stay away from gathering with their churches. Here is the thing that concerns me from a pastor's heart. There are some I believe that have grown content with that. They've grown content with just being at home. They think, "I don't have to be around the people. It's kind of nice. I can just roll out of bed or not roll out of bed. I can watch it from here." Then they say, "Good message. Let me worship. Never mind." It just doesn't happen.

You watch online and you grow content. Granted, I know I'm going to get something from somebody, so I'm going to preface this. I understand some people have medical issues. I'm not talking about that. I'm not talking about some people that can't drive at night because it's difficult to see, or those that don't want to drive to the outlets in the morning because they don't want to.

The online ministry continues to serve its purpose. This is the exception to be online. But I will say this for others, they've just grown straight accustomed to it. They're not in fellowship. In a real sense, they're forsaking it. They have reasons why they don't go, and they all sound good to them, but not necessarily to the Lord. This is what I've observed repeatedly throughout the years of pastoring.

The Word of God, prayer, fellowship, serving the Lord, and sharing one's faith are essential to a Christian's growth and moving forward in your walk with the Lord. When you remove one of those components, it's not long before the others will follow. Take fellowship out, Bible reading goes. Take reading the Word out, fellowship goes. Take those two out, prayer goes. Sharing your faith? No way because I don't go to church and I'm convicted.

They're all connected together. You remove those components and it's not long before the others are affected. Then what happens is you grow complacent, apathetic, and eventually you drift. This is what the writer was saying to the Hebrews. Don't drift. Don't be drifting out. Don't be getting away from what you know. Don't neglect this. You know where you're supposed to be.

This is the thing that troubles me. Guess what? Great news everybody! Disneyland is opening. Yay! We're going. Disneyland! So excited! I'm there. Happiest place on the earth, they say. My gym is opening. I'm there. I've been out for what feels like a while. I'm in. I'm going. Gym's open. My favorite taco place is back on Tuesdays. Praise God, no mask. I love tacos. I'm going there. I've got to support the local businesses. I'm a local business guy. I support them and they support me. We support each other.

Target! Hey! Target! Hey! I went into Target without a mask and nobody stopped me. Stop me! Somebody stop me! You didn't have your Calvary shirt on, did you? Actually, I did. Stop me! Great news everybody! You can now attend sporting events. Great news everybody! The movies are now showing movies in the theater now. This is so exciting. I am so excited to get back to whatever it is I'm going to get back to.

But if I'm staying away from church, listen, this is a deeper problem. This is a problem spiritually. This isn't a virus issue. This is a spiritual virus that God wants to deal with. The blood of Jesus is the cure, and repentance, and getting back to fellowship. Why is this so important? Because it says here, "especially as you see the day approaching."

Friends, I wonder if you can see the day. A lot of you guys that I know have been Christians for a long time. We're seeing things like we've never seen before. For us, maybe some of you are newer in the Lord, let us just tell you and testify that we feel like the day is approaching. I don't know when it is, but everything is pushing toward it. You can just see it. It's all pushing toward it.

Now listen, I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I don't wear tin foil on my head or go to all these little things and try to find out. I'm a Bible guy. You know that. So I'm always going to come back to this and I'm going to balance it out. But I will say this, I believe that the world is being conditioned more than it's ever been conditioned. How easy is it for you? I just went on a plane. When I walked up to the plane, the first thing they did was put the thing to my head. I hate this part. They took my temperature. I was good and I got on the plane.

I'm just saying it's so easy. You want to get on this plane? Let me hit your head real quick. All right, you're good. You want to get on this plane? Put that on your face. Okay, I'll put it on my face. You want to come into my store? I just need to see verification that you've been there or had this. Just show me. That's it, it's simple. Let me just wear you down because now you're so tired of having this thing on your face. By the way, it doesn't do any good.

Anyway, I'm going to get my opinion in there. I don't care. Sorry, I'm not trying to do that. The thing is, don't neglect fellowship. That is the point I'm trying to make. But I digress for a moment to say that it's not surprising to see the world just conditioning. I'm so tired of wearing this thing. Fine, just do it. I'm done with this. Okay, we wore you down. Good. And by the way, if you got it, I'm not saying you shouldn't have got it. If you haven't heard "To Vax or Not to Vax," it's a podcast I just did. It's eight minutes long. You can listen to it if you want. It tells you where I stand on the issue.

What I'm saying is we're being conditioned. We're being conditioned to where I'm tired of it. Fine, just look at it. I've got the proof. Let's go. I don't think this is the Mark of the Beast. But what I am saying is it's not going to be a jump when the church is gone and then suddenly things go chaotic and we've got to implement all these things. We're ready for it. Whatever you need. We're ready. You need a mask? Fine, put a mask on. You need to give me a mark? I'm good. I'm going to need to buy and sell.

Guys, it's just ramping up like we've never seen before. And all these people that say, "Oh, you guys, Mark of the Beast," joking about it like this is just a joke. It's not a joke. The technology and everything is all there. Guys, there's only one thing that's standing in the way of it just making its way through, and that's the church of Jesus Christ. When the church is gone, listen, everything goes forward. There's no more restraint to evil. There's no more light. There's only darkness. That's what's coming.

The point was, especially as you see the day approaching, we need to be together because we are, more than I can ever remember, bombarded by lies. Lies in every single direction you look. Is that true? I don't know, is it? Fact-check it. Well, the fact-checkers are liars. You don't know. Who checks the facts of the fact-checkers? You're such a fact-checker. I'm just not into it. You don't even know. But what I'm saying is that's why we need to be together and be in the truth, especially as you see the day approaching.

Sorry, that was a total rant. I don't normally do that. Let's get back to the Word. But you know, I just want you to know fellowship is important. And if you're not here yet, can I encourage you, if you don't have a medical condition, in love, come. No one's going to judge you if you show back up if you've been missing. You might think, "I don't want to go back now because all those people were there and I haven't been there the whole time and they're going to know that I wasn't here. They're going to say, 'Where were you?'" I don't think I can deal with that. Listen, you are loved. We miss you. Come. We miss you.

All right, verse 26. Here goes where it goes a little deeper. "For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. Anyone who has rejected Moses' law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment do you suppose will be thought worthy of those who've trampled the Son of God underfoot, and counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay,' says the Lord. And again, 'The Lord will judge his people.' It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God."

Here before us is another difficult passage in Hebrews, and there are a few of them. When studying difficult passages in scriptures, whether they be in Hebrews or some other passage of scripture, it's really important to remember to read things in their context. Read verses before, read verses after, lest you take something out of its context and present something that doesn't connect with the rest of scripture. That's how weird things get started. Cults get started, strange aberrant doctrines get started by taking things out of context. So it's really important to understand who he's writing to, what the situation was, what they were being tempted to do when you read this particular passage that is rather difficult.

But let me say that there are a few differing opinions. For one thing, some suggest that the writer here at this point is referring to what is called apostasy. That is a turning away from Christ, one who renounces their faith in Christ. "I'm not a Christian. I don't believe that anymore." And I'm totally apostate. There are examples of that in scripture and there are warnings against it in scripture. So it must be possible if there are warnings concerning don't do it. And it says what it says.

Some people think that it's speaking of apostasy. Others suggest that in light of the context, the Hebrew believers who had believed in Jesus were born again. They received Christ. They had trusted in Him for salvation. They had experienced persecution for their faith. And so some of them, as we've stated, were going back to the old way of life because of the pressure they were feeling. They were being ostracized from others, and so they just didn't want to deal with that anymore. "Okay, fine, we'll go to the sacrifices. Okay, fine, we'll go back and do that. We won't follow Jesus anymore."

So it appears that the writer is saying to them, "If you leave what you have in Christ, what we just described, access and an advocate and the blood of Christ cleansing you and drawing near and holding and all that you have in Him, your conscience on the inside, if you leave all of that that's provided for you and you go back to, you leave the better covenant, the better promises and all of that, and you go back to this and you decide to sin willfully in light of all that you know, here's something you need to understand. Those sacrifices that you're offering will do you no good. They cannot cleanse you."

Only Jesus can cleanse you. So if you're turning from Him and you're going back to, now you sin and now you're going to go offer a sacrifice in the temple, just know the only thing you can expect to find is judgment because the old covenant is canceled. It's no longer in place. There's a new covenant. There's a new and living way that comes through Christ. He's the only way. So if you're going to go back to a different way, just know there's only judgment that's going to follow. You're not going to find what you're looking for or what you have in Christ.

That's what some believe that he is seeking to express. You can't find forgiveness in the old system. It's not there. It's only found in Christ. The only thing you can expect to find is judgment. This system doesn't provide what you need. Only Jesus can. They were turning away from the finished work and turning to something else that couldn't save them, that couldn't forgive them.

And here's what's startling, what he says in doing that. This is where it gets heavy. He said, and you'll notice the words there are very descriptive. "You are trampling the Son of God underfoot." That's a heavy thing to say. "You are counting the blood of Jesus as nothing." And he says, "You are insulting," notice the passage, "insulting the Spirit of grace."

So if you are turning away from what Christ has done, His blood shed for you, all that He's provided for you, He's your advocate, He provided access, He's forgiven you of your sin, atonement, all of it, you turn from that and go to this, here's what you're actually doing. You're saying that doesn't mean anything to me. You're saying, "I don't care about the blood of Christ. It doesn't matter to me. I'm going back to this. So what?" You're trampling it under your foot. You're insulting. You are insulting the Spirit of grace.

The Spirit of God that drew you to Christ, the Spirit of God that showed you how to get saved, the Spirit of God that was working in your life, you're turning from that and going to these old things. What you're doing is you're insulting the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit's a person. He can be insulted and grieved and even blasphemed. So by going back to these old things, this is what you're doing. And folks, let me just say this. This passage says what it says. Sometimes people want to find out, "Who is this speaking about?" Here's what I know. I don't want it to be me.

Whoever he's speaking about, I don't want to be this person. That's what I know for sure. You can debate and you can read the arguments and you can read the commentaries about, "Well, I think because of the Greek word, it might be because..." Great. I don't want to be this person. I know that 100 percent. The last thing I want to do is if it's trample under, trample the Son of God under my feet, to count the blood of Christ as nothing, to insult the Spirit of grace, I definitely don't want to do that.

So whoever this is, you don't want to be them. This is a warning. That's what this is given. The author is addressing here, as someone wrote, a potential category of people who it would appear are genuine believers, but whose lives are so contrary to a life of faith and obedience to Christ that they are visibly indistinguishable from unbelievers. That's what we're talking about here. They are believers who it appears have backed away from Jesus rather than drawn near to Jesus.

They've withdrawn from the community of spiritual growth and fellowship and they've kept themselves away. That's why there's an exhortation to don't neglect this, especially as the day is approaching. They've become isolated from accountability and such they betray their confession of faith in the person and work of Christ, the only one whose work can pay for their sins. They've been born again, but they go on sinning willingly, knowingly, and continually. I don't want to be that person. Some of us, that was our testimony and it's a miserable thing to be in this place.

This isn't just a stumble or, "Man, I blew it. I'm sorry." It isn't just a stumble. It's not just a season of rebellion or a struggle against temptation of sin because we all experience that. That's not what's being spoken of here. What's being spoken of here is an outright opposition to the gracious, loving, merciful Heavenly Father that's provided everything we need through the person and work of Christ. And you're saying, "I'm good. I know it, I believe it, but I definitely doesn't affect me." It's a fearful thing to live that way. It's very unsettling.

But here's the good news, folks. That will not be us if we just keep drawing near. Keep pressing in to Jesus. Keep loving Jesus. Keep reading the Word of God. Allow the blood of Christ just to continually work in your life, applied to your life. You have access to His throne. You have an advocate in Jesus. You're not neglecting fellowship with God's people. These are the things that keep us straight. They keep us on the straight and narrow. They keep us in line. The rod and the staff, they are a comfort to me. My shepherd loves me, and as I draw near to Him, I'm not going to become this person. I don't want to be this person.

Guest (Male): Hey, don't go away. Pastor John Randall has more to say and we'll have that for you in a minute here on A Daily Walk. We're going through the New Testament right now. We house our recent programs at adailywalk.org and at oneplace.com. You'll find them on our mobile app as well. Do a search for Calvary South OC and download it for free today. At the beginning of a new year, it is a great time to commit to go through a daily devotional, and we'd like to get one into your hands. It's called "Drawing Near," and it's authored by John Randall. To get your copy, call 877-244-3700. Our staff is standing by to take your call and they can help you with your order. That's 877-244-3700. Or order online at adailywalk.org. Thanks for listening and for your support of our radio ministry. Join us next time for more from Hebrews chapter 10 as Pastor John helps us to Draw Near and Hold Fast here on A Daily Walk.