Doom of Apostates (Part B)

To this day, you have Christians who keep coming back to the same argument, can never get it figured out, can never receive it, it can become problematic if you're not careful. What did Jewish, the Hebrew laying on hands lack?

We're pointing it out for each one. It lacked Jesus Christ. They took that animal to the temple and they laid their hands on him.

They were not able to get it. They were blocking Christ out. They were saying your work, your death on the cross just wasn't enough. Only scripture knows the heart. If I follow the word of God, I'll be alright. If I start mixing into the word of God, I'm going to head into dangerous waters.

He says let us go under perfection. Paul, when he wrote to Timothy, he said meditate on these things. Give yourself entirely to them, which many don't want to do. I need to save 90% for me and 10% for God. I mean, we do that with the offering box, do we not? Well, I do that with my life.

I don't think anyone would come out and say that, but many do it. He tells Timothy, meditate on these things. Give yourself entirely to them that your progress may be evident to all. It's a witness.

It's called a testimony. People can look at you and say, man, when I'm around you, I feel like I want fire too. Or when I'm, you know, iron sharpens iron. Make each other stronger.

So we are to go on to perfection. It's just not laying again the foundation. Foundations are not to be laid over and over again. You're supposed to build on them. You're actually supposed to do something with a foundation other than lay it. That was nice.

Let's do it again. Well, that's what they were doing. Foundation is critical, but it is not enough. And the structure is critical, but without a foundation, it won't be a structure very long. So he hits six principles here that are all of Jewish origin, but only Christ in fulfillment. And that is one of the disconnects that the early Jewish Christians were struggling with. Our faith is built upon the Old Testament, but it is a development and a fulfillment of those things in the Old Testament.

And this is where they were getting into trouble. We know John the Baptist, he was baptizing people, but his baptism was a little different than the baptism that we have as Christians. Luke 3, speaking of John, he went into the region all around Jordan preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. And we believe that.

But we have more information. If that's all we had, we would be thinking about the Jewish cleansing rites, and that's where this is going. He says, not laying again the foundation of repentance of dead works. Judaism's view of repentance was missing one critical thing.

Jesus Christ. That's what it was missing. That's what they were going back to. See, when they were going back to the temple and saying, well, I've come and I brought my sheep to be offered. Aren't you a Christian?

Yeah. Was that Christ the fulfillment? Aren't these things just symbols of what he fulfilled?

And that these things not only are no longer necessary, but forbidden. Because he is the Lamb of God. There is no other lamb to bring before the throne of God.

He and he alone. And so this he's dealing with. First, repentance and faith both have to do with conversion. There's no conversion without repentance and there's no conversion without faith. There's no salvation of the soul. Conversion is what it's all about for the unbeliever. And if there's anyone here, you've not opened your heart to Christ. You've not been born again. The only thing that the Holy Spirit is speaking to your heart is about converting you from doing life your way to coming under his lordship and doing it his way. You see, repentance deals with personal sin.

My wrong, my wickedness, my being separate from God. Jesus said, I tell you, unless you repent, you will perish. Luke's Gospel 13. Now understand, for the believer, for the believer who is not mingling these things and struggling, I have to put this sort of a savor-mercial in, because the heat of the sermon is someone who may be a Christian and you're struggling with some sin and you think that you just have nothing but condemnation now.

That is not the case. We'll get to the difference between the backslider and the apostate momentarily. These were becoming apostates.

They were actually leaving the faith. Again, Paul writes to Timothy, we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully. See, the New Testament recognizes the Old Testament under the authority of the new, but it says the Old Testament moral code is perfect. Thou shall not kill, covet, steal, adulterate, lie. But when it comes to salvation, it is weak.

It's not able to do it. So I have to read a few verses to make sure you understand this. You say, wait a minute, are you saying Abraham and David weren't saved? They weren't able to go to heaven without Jesus Christ. They went to righteous Sheol when they died.

They did not go into paradise. Only Jesus opened that door, Romans 8-3, for what the law could not do and that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh on account of sin. He condemned sin in the flesh, of course on our behalf. Hebrews 7-19, for the law made nothing perfect. On the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope through which we draw near to God. And of course, that's Christ. Galatians 2 19 and 21, for I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. He's just saying, my Old Testament understanding was damned in my soul. It wasn't until I grabbed the New Testament understanding. That's the case of Paul.

What was he doing? He was killing Christians, going after Christians. He had no problem watching Stephen, that righteous man, full of the Holy Spirit, be stoned to death. He would have thrown a stone too had he not been a Pharisee and prohibited by the rabbinical laws. He continues in Galatians, I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, Christ died for nothing.

Galatians 2 verse 21, you cannot bring sheep to the temple and say you're a Christian. And that's what he is saying when he said, I do not set aside the grace of God, if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing. But he didn't die for nothing.

He died for me. He died for anyone who wants to come to him. Levitical system, it really, as I said, it never provided forgiveness of sins, it promised the forgiveness of sins. It illustrated it in the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing, that he would again be restored. Because man is not born in a restored state to God. He was born in a sinful state as a child of Adam.

The prophets, they promised the coming of forgiveness from God through Messiah. And Christ said, I've not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill the law. And so he says, and of faith. You don't want to leave the conversation of repentance. And you should, because you should already understand that. You've repented, you understand what that means. Now you want to just talk about faith.

It's the heart God would. He's not saying these things aren't necessary. He's just saying you're not advancing beyond these things. These are the ABCs of our faith. Faith addresses a personal God.

As holy and righteous and high and we are not those things. And yet, we trust that he can make us acceptable to him. That God is indeed God, not applying for the job. He is God.

He doesn't need me to see that and say it, but he wants me to. He'll be no less God whether I do or not, but I'll be much better off if I do. And so we'll read later in Hebrews 11, without faith it is impossible to please God. But those who come to him must believe that he is a rewarder. That he rewards those who trust him. And so Judaism's view of faith was missing one thing.

Jesus Christ. And that's what he's working with and you'll meet people like this today that call themselves Christians and think there's some other way to salvation. Acts chapter 20 says this about Paul testifying to Jews and also to Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. So what was Judaism's faith missing? Same thing repentance was missing.

What was that? Jesus Christ. So we love him. We absolutely love him when we sing of his love and his mercy and his holiness.

We are moved emotionally and rightfully so. And the best has not yet come. There will be a day in heaven when we will stand clean, cleansed forever. Never again in jeopardy of anything harmful.

And we will sing, sing, sing. There used to be a prison named Sing Sing. This is a different one. Not a prison.

Sing. Verse 2, of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. So he's saying, I know you want to just keep talking about this stuff. But there's more to the faith than this. This doctrine of baptisms, ceremonial washing with water. The Jews were big on that. That's why one of the reasons they were so receptive to John. God in his wisdom used John to do this to open the door for Messiah. That's why John is known as the forerunner of Messiah.

One of the reasons why. Baptisms here is plural, not singular. It's not my baptism, it's the washing, the immersing with an S. Because it is talking about the Levitical system of ceremonial washings. The rites of cleansings. And they incorporated this into everything. By the time the rabbis were doing it, every house had a little mikvah, a little tub just for this purpose.

Well, it wasn't all bad. The priest used it. It was one outside the tabernacle, this laver. Solomon made a giant one on the shoulder, on the backs of oxen. Cleanliness is next to godliness.

Nothing wrong with that in and of itself. But again, they were using it in the place of advancement in the faith. In fact, archaeologists have unearthed mikvahs in Israel all over the place.

In the old city of Jerusalem and Masada. I mean, they were very big on this thing. And so these Jews were having a difficult time trusting Jesus for their salvation and completeness. And so they were reaching back to those things that they grew up with. And that they felt very comfortable with. That they had wonderful childhood memories of. I remember when dad would take me down to the temple and the mikvah were there and we would go and we would cleanse.

Oh, that was such a sweet time. And then here comes the apostles who also had those experiences. But said, I count it all loss for Christ. I have something far better than a tub of water. I have the Son of God.

He's in my heart. He cleanses me from the inside out. Even when I mess up, I have recurrent cleansing.

It's automatic. Comes with belonging to him. It is the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses me from all sin. Not the water in the mikvah of the Jew. So Judaism's view of baptism was missing one thing.

Jesus Christ. So you understand when he starts off, God at various times and in various ways spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets has spoken to us in these last days through his Son, Jesus Christ. That's how he starts off this Hebrew letter. And he never lets off the gas pedal. In fact, he guns it every now and then as he did at the end of chapter 5. He's talking about the high priest and then he says, you're babies. It's almost as though he's into this. The Lord is so great that he has a flash of what they're doing with him.

And then he calls them out on it. And so they needed to abandon these things, not blend them, not salvage. They needed to be full out for Christ, stand up and tell their relatives, listen, we've got the Messiah. He is all that we need. Now we walk by faith, which will be quoted in this Hebrew letter, which started way back in Habakkuk. It finds its way in the Roman letter and the Galatian letter in the Hebrew.

It is that important. The just shall live by faith, not by all this ritual. The laying on of hands is next. The Old Testament acts symbolize the sinner was identified with the slaughtered. In other words, you take your sheep to the temple and you lay your hand on that animal. And you're saying, I am the one that should be killed for my sin. But this animal is a substitution. It's a substitutionary sacrifice.

In my place, the animal will be slain, this innocent animal. It goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. Christ is the Lamb of God, though. He is the one that we touch. He is the one that we lay hold of, not some beast in our place.

Those things had their time, but they're spent, they're done now. And when he gets to the 10th chapter, he's going to tell them right out that if you still sin that way, you're done. It causes a lot of confusion to Christians, and we'll cover it a little bit this morning. But it is the Old Testament act of going to the temple and having the sin identified with the sinner through the animal who is about to be slain. Now, in the New Testament, as with faith and repentance and baptism, you see, these things have moved on in the New Testament.

They've developed, so too with the laying on of hands. In the Old Testament, they would lay hands on the new leaders that were coming up. Joshua, they laid hands on him, and for example, in the New Testament, also the Holy Spirit would single out his leaders, and they would lay hands on them and pray for them, a practice that we still carry on to this day.

Acts chapter 6, speaking of the deacons, the servants that were raised up in the church, Peter said, bring the seven men from among you, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. And then it says, they sat before the apostles, and when they had prayed, they laid hands on them. And so you have the Old Testament laying hands on the animal. You have the New Testament laying hands on the sinners for blessings. You have the Jewish Christians arguing these two points, trying to figure it all out and never moving past it. To this day, you have Christians that keep coming back to the same argument, can never get it figured out, can never receive it.

It can become problematic if you're not careful. What did the Hebrew laying on hands lack? They were pointing it out for each one. It lacked Jesus Christ. They took that animal to the temple, and they laid their hands on him. They were blocking Christ out. They were saying, your work, your death on the cross just wasn't enough. So I brought this sheep here to make you happy. I brought this sheep to you, Father, because the death of your son from me just doesn't quite do it. So you have Christians that say, you know, the Bible just doesn't quite do it. We need to mix it in a little bit.

We need some Freud and some, you know, Maslow, we need some of these psychologists to tell us about how we should live in a sinful world, because the Bible really doesn't do it. And lap, lap, lap, lap, lap. They lap it up, many of them. Don't you be guilty. You say, well, I did that once. I know, that's okay.

You're not doing it now. His divine word, Peter said, has given to us all things necessary for life. How to live, how we are to please God. The resurrection of the dead is next. There's life after death, an ongoing topic with them. It's not a bad topic.

None of these are bad topics. But they wanted to know about the future, what was coming. So they stayed on these topics of resurrection and judgment. Well, the Old Testament taught on these things. David ended his 23rd Psalm with what? And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever and ever.

Nothing wrong with that topic. But Judaism's resurrection lacked one thing, and that is Jesus Christ. This eternal judgment is next. How are the dead treated? Well, the Scripture indicates that there are two judgments.

There is one judgment for believers, not the judgment of the soul. That's taken care of here. But as to your rewards, I think many of you have generous hearts. You get to heaven, God's going to bless you for that. And you should share some of what he gives you with me. Just trying to help you out.

No sense in being generous if you have no one to be generous to, so I'm volunteering. But back to reality. The second judgment in the Scriptures is one for the unbelievers, and it is one to condemnation. There is going to be a degree of their judgment in hell, but it will be hell nonetheless. This you can read further in Revelation 20 verses 11 through 15. I put those verses in because I know that some may find this very much of interest, more so than some of the other topics. So, Judaism class, what does it do? It factors out Messiah. That's what keeps it from becoming Christianity.

And Christianity, of course, embraces the Old Testament, but it separates the moral code from the ceremonial code and the symbolism of Messiah, and it puts everything in its place, and it benefits from the whole thing because Christ is superior. Verse 3, and this we will do if God permits. And so, again, he's not trivializing these topics.

He's just pointing out you need more. You can't stay here. And thus, verse 4. Now, verse 4, before we get there, we have to introduce it.

This is where we would have the kettle drums beating fiercely. This is heavy now. He is saying to them, if you stay babies, you are going to find yourself on a pathway to apostasy, not because you're just staying babes in Christ, but because as babes in Christ, you are mingling in the faith that with which neutralizes the faith, cancels it out. And he's saying to them, I love you.

I care about you, and I'm not going to pull any punches. I'm going to pull the teeth out of what is biting against the faith. And so now he starts, now that's why he is going to say what he is now saying. That, where he says, for it is impossible. That for is joining what he has said, beginning in the end of chapter 5 to now, for it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit. Now he's just easing into it with them.

It is impossible. This is a fact. They saw the light, they received the gospel, they are believers. We've established that early on.

It will be established throughout the letter. For example, Hebrews 10, 32, he says to the same audience, recall the former days in which, after you were illuminated, you endured a great struggle with suffering. They were being persecuted for Christ and they took it. Many of them did not want to be persecuted anymore because they were being persecuted by Jews at this point, not Christians.

The temple was still in existence. The Romans had not yet figured out that Christianity was completely separate from Judaism. The Romans believed that Christianity was a sect of Judaism, so they left it alone.

But once they were, wait a minute, it's not the same thing, so let me get this right. The pharaohs, the Nero, not the pharaohs, the Nero, the Caesars and his senate and people in Rome. So we can persecute the Christians and not offend the Jews? Actually, you can persecute the Christians and the Jews will applaud it. And that's when the persecution of the church ramped up.

But before the Gentiles started persecuting Christians, the Jews were persecuting Jewish believers and trying to block Gentiles who were proselytes to Judaism from receiving it also. In the Old Testament, it seems that apostates were still given an opportunity to repent. Balaam had a chance to repent, King Manasseh did, and he repented and he was just out there. 1 Samuel, he says this, well he said, I'm going to read the result, he encouraged the people to give up their fake gods and come back to Yahweh. They were apostates. And so we read in 1 Samuel 7, So the children of Israel put away the Baals, that's fake gods, the Ashtoreths, and served Yahweh only. The apostates were given a way back. But the New Testament church is a little different.

Because of the magnitude of the light and who it is that is the light, because of the giving of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the believer, everything has been increased as far as value and sentence. We'd also like to encourage you to subscribe to the Cross Reference Radio podcast. Subscribing ensures that you stay current with all the latest teachings from Pastor Rick. You can subscribe at CrossReferenceRadio.com or simply search for Cross Reference Radio in your favorite podcast app. Tune in next time as Pastor Rick continues teaching through the book of Hebrews, right here on Cross Reference Radio.