Is it possible for someone to profess faith in Jesus Christ and then later change course and begin to drift away? Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg teaches what the book of Hebrews says about those who persist in their faith and those who fall away. His message is titled, Keeping Near, Keeping On.
It's from our series called Fix Our Eyes on Jesus. Now, as we open our Bibles, we're certainly not interested in simply hearing the voice of a man giving his ideas on an ancient book. But it is our conviction that when your Word is truly preached that your voice is really heard, and so we sit listening for your voice alone. Hear our prayers, for Jesus' sake.
Amen. One of the recurring themes of the letter of Hebrews is the fact that continuance in the Christian life—keeping near and keeping on—is one of the key tests of the reality of our profession of faith. In the same way as few of us, in being asked about the reality of a marriage relationship, would go in our pockets and produce a legal document—a wedding certificate, if you like—few of us would want, in talking about our Christian experience, to think about it as some static event that was locked somewhere in the past.
With marriage, we would talk about the up-to-date nature of what is going on—the privileges, the joys, perhaps the challenges, the struggles—but nevertheless, we would have things about the relationship to say concerning the last twenty-four hours. And so it is that in Christian faith, our expressions of its reality ought to be directly related to our present-tense experience. And throughout the letter, in order to make sure that people don't wander from the track, the writer has been providing a succession of promises and warnings—the promises to be brought to our hearts for our encouragement and the warnings to be heeded so that we don't end up in By-Path Meadow. The warnings—and some of them are severe, as is the one to which we're about to turn—should not be misunderstood to teach that genuine believers can fall away and be lost, but rather, just in the same way as accidents are prevented by people obeying the warning signs that are put along the road for our safety, so accidents are prevented in the dangerous journey of Christian testimony to prevent us from falling off the track.
And I want to remind you of one or two of these warnings. First of all, in Hebrews chapter 2 and in verse 1, the writer says, We need to pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. So that we do not drift away.
In other words, there's the possibility that some who profess faith will drift away. What is the antidote? Pay careful attention. Pay careful attention to what? To what you have heard.
What have you heard? You've heard the message of the gospel. Chapter 3 and verse 6, similar emphasis. We are, he says, his house, if—important word—we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast. If we do not hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast, then of course we aren't his house.
That's what he's saying. Verse 14, we have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. These people started off with a great show of faith, with a great burst of enthusiasm. They were like plants that just seemed to spring right out of the ground, and they were up in no time at all. And people said, My, this is a marvelous garden.
This is a terrific crop. What an amazing response to the witnessing and preaching of the Word of God. And then you turned around, as it were, and you turned back, and they'd all begun to shrivel, and they began to die. That's the parable of the sower, incidentally.
Some who received the seed instantly bloomed and instantly faded, and their instant fading was an indication of the fact that there had never been a realistic root structure so as to be indicative of genuine faith. The New Testament warns us both by precept and by example that some professing Christians may not persevere in their profession of Christ to the end of their lives. It's a solemn thought, but it is clearly there on the surface of Scripture. Verse 2 of chapter 4, For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did. But in the case of these individuals, we're told the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard it did not combine it with faith. The salutary reminder that it is possible to attend a church like Parkside Church, to listen to the ministry of the Word of God from the servants of the Word of God in this place, and for it to be like water falling on concrete—absolutely impervious to its truth. All kinds of information rattling around in our heads, nothing that has reached our hearts, nothing that has commandeered our wills, and nothing that has changed our lives. That's one of the reasons that James says, Don't just be hearers of the Word, but be doers also, as if somehow or another there was an option.
Like, you could just be a hearer, or you could be a hearer plus a doer. That's not what he's saying. He's saying it is in the doing of the Word that we reveal the fact that we're genuine hearers. Because even the pagans can hear the Word, but it's of no value to them, because they don't combine it with faith. When we combine it with faith, then we do what it says, and it is in the doing of what it says that we give reality to the fact that we have ears to hear what is being proclaimed. Chapter 6 and verse 8, in a very graphic picture, describing a horticultural scene, an agricultural scene, as being indicative of life, he says, land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed, and in the end it will be burned. And he is using that there as a picture of the lives of men and women who, in hearing the Word of God, do not produce the fruit that God intends but instead produce weeds and thistles and thorns.
Now, this follows all the way through. When you get to chapter 10 and to verse 25, you find that he is issuing an exhortation there, which needs to be understood in light of all of these warnings. He says, Let's not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing.
Why not? Because absenteeism from our gatherings may reveal an absenteeism from the Lord Jesus himself. It's difficult to say which comes first in the life of a backslider, whether they absent themselves from worship first and then they drift away from Jesus. I think in most cases they drift away from Jesus, and then they absent themselves from worship. They don't read their Bibles, they don't pray, they're not involved, they don't witness, they have no personal worship, they have no interest in things, but they keep up the pretenses by showing up at the gathered meetings. And then eventually they drift away from the gatherings, and it becomes apparent to the general public, Oh, there must be something wrong with Joe, there must be something wrong with Karen, whatever it is.
What is it? Well, it is that they haven't been heeding the warnings that have been there all the way through, and now, finally, it has become a matter of public and obvious experience. That is why, you see, when we exhort one another to attend the meals on the Lord's Day, it may all seem very self-serving on the part of those of us who have been called to the task of preparing the meals. But, loved ones, it's not ultimately about that. It is because God has ordained the means whereby men and women will continue to the end and be saved. And one of the key means that he has ordained to ensure that you and I don't become castaways is the gathering of his people in the experience of worship and in the study of the Scriptures.
And we neglect the means to continuance at our peril. Now, it is no surprise to me, then, to discover that after this statement in verse 25, he comes to issue one of the most solemn warnings in the whole of his letter. It is akin to what we saw in chapter 6 and verses 4–8, which, those of you who know the Bible, know theology a little bit, know that these are the apostasy passages in Hebrews. These are the passages in Hebrews which describe people who turn their backs on the Lord with such a dramatic and decisive expression of their rebellion and continue in that perspective to the end of their lives, revealing thereby that although they once walked the walk, talked the talk, sang the songs, hung with the crowd, that in point of fact they were never genuinely belonging to Jesus at all. And so, in the course of things, not because it's pleasant but because it's necessary, we find ourselves under the instruction, first of all, of this solemn warning which is contained between verses 26 and 31.
I will try to balance my time in such a way so as to finish on a positive note—not simply because I want to be positive but because the balance of the text here moves in that direction, and I would be doing a disservice to the thought that is expressed if I only got as far as my first point. So, we are not those who shrink back and are destroyed, but we are those who believe and are saved. There's two groups here.
They all start out on the same track, they all say the same things, they all march to the same drumbeat, but some shrink back and are destroyed, and some continue and are saved. The question is, which group are you in? And just in case we're in the wrong group, he issues a solemn warning. Because clearly, as you read verse 26 and following, there were those who had not simply neglected the gatherings, but they had drifted from their own particular moorings to the truth of God in Christ—that what may have appeared at first in their lives as an evidence of spasmodic doubting had grown to persistent unbelief and had now expressed itself in a convinced opposition not simply to the followers of Jesus but to Jesus himself.
Now, this is very, very important that we understand what is being written off here. This is, as I said, akin to Hebrews chapter 6. When we studied Hebrews 6, 4–8, we noted that the writer was clearly not referring to genuine believers who had failed, who had stumbled, who had temporarily lost interest in the things of Christ.
If we're honest, that experience is something through which all of us will go from time to time. He is not describing that. As Calvin says, there is a great difference between individual lapses and a universal desertion of this kind. This is not somebody who woke up one morning and didn't know whether he wanted to be in the army anymore, who couldn't decide whether he wanted to put his uniform on and go out and parade, and somebody had to come to him and say, Hey, you missed! Don't do that again tomorrow."
And he was back again tomorrow. This is not someone who had a temporary lapse. This is someone who was a total deserter—took their uniform, trashed it, burned it, said, I have nothing to do with this. I have no interest in this. I'm out of here.
I'm gone. It is as if I was never a member of this. That is what he is describing. That is very important, because sensitive souls who had the least indication of the fact that they may be finding themselves in the chapter will apply this to themselves and make themselves psychologically unstable, while those of us who are proud and boastful don't apply it to ourselves, and we need to be made unstable.
It's one of the challenges of dealing with the apostasy passages. You get all the telephone calls from the people who don't need to call you, and you get no telephone calls from the people who need to. Such is the perversity of the human mind. Oh, I don't need that. Yes, you do. How do you know?
Because you just said you didn't need it. So let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he falls. Let she who has ears hear. These are individuals, we're told, who have received a knowledge of the truth, they have recognized to some degree the validity of the gospel, they have embraced it at least intellectually as a formulated system of life and belief, but they have never experienced it as a life-giving force, something that transformed and changed them.
And it is of these people that he is speaking. Once again, Pilgrim's Progress is probably my biggest help as I study Hebrews, especially in these passages. And if you remember your Pilgrim's Progress at all, you will remember that one of the characters to whom we're introduced along the journey—page 176 in this version—is a chap by the name of Temporary.
Temporary. And Christian and Hopeful are talking to one another, and Christian says, Well then, did you know about ten years ago one temporary in your parts, who was a forward man in religion then? Hopeful says, Know him?
Yes! He dwelt in Graceless, a town about two miles off of Honesty, and he dwelt next door to a guy by the name of Turnback. Christian says, Right, he dwelt under the same roof with him. Well, that man was much awakened once. I believe that then he had some sight of his sins and of the wages that were due to sin.
Hopeful says, I'm of your mind. For my house not being above three miles from him, he would oftentimes come to me, and that with many tears. Truly, I pitied the man and was not altogether without hope of him. But one may see, it is not everyone that cries, Lord, Lord, that shall be saved. Christian says, He told me once that he was resolved to go on a pilgrimage as we go now.
But all of a sudden he grew acquainted with one, saved self, and then he became a stranger to me. And then it goes on to describe the way in which that might happen to an individual. It goes on to describe the way in which backsliding takes place.
It's a kind of old-fashioned word that's self-explanatory—sliding backwards rather than marching forwards. Christian says, I think I know how it happens. Hopeful says, How does it happen? He says, Well, this is how it happens.
This is what people do. First, they draw off their thoughts, all that they may, from the remembrance of God, death, and judgment to come. So they quit thinking about God—life, death, eternity. Then they cast off by degrees their private duties, private prayer.
They cease to curb their lusts. They don't sorrow over sin. Then they shun the company of lively and warm Christians.
They go with the wrong crowd. Then they grow cold to public duty—the hearing and the reading and the godly communion of the saints and the like. And then they begin to pick holes, as we say, in the coats of some of the godly. And that devilishly, that they may have a seeming color to throw religion. And then they begin to adhere to and associate themselves with carnal and loose and wanton men. And then they give way to carnal and wanton discourses in secret. And glad they are, if they can see such things, in that they are counted honest, that they may the more boldly do it through their example. And after this they begin to play with little sins openly. And then, being hardened, they show themselves as they are, thus being launched again into the gulf of misery. Unless a miracle of grace prevent it, they everlastingly perish in their own deceivings.
Now, that is heavy duty. And that is the reason why the Bible—and Hebrews in particular—is replete with these warnings. We're not those who shrink back and are destroyed, he says. We're not these individuals.
What do these individuals do? Well, verse 29 tells us. First of all, they trample the Son of God underfoot. What does that mean, to trample the Son of God underfoot? It's the same word that is used by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, where he talks about salt that has lost its savor.
He says, It's good for nothing, but you might as well just go and walk on it. It's the same word that he uses later on in the same gospel to describe what the pigs were doing to the pearls. He says, You don't cast your pearls before swine, because they'll just go and get their hoofs all over it.
And here the writer says, That's what these individuals have done. They have trampled all over Jesus. It's the reverse of what Paul is saying in Philippians 3. Remember in Philippians 3? He says, There were all these things in my life that used to be so significant to me, all of my religion and all of my good deeds and all of the things that I attach significance to. And he said, But when I got a sight of who Jesus is and understood why he had come, then I counted all this stuff as garbage for the sake of knowing Jesus Christ. This individual counts Jesus Christ as garbage for the sake of knowing all this other stuff. That's what it means to trample him underfoot.
So for those of you who are here, and you're stumbling in your Christian life, and you're saying, I'd better take care, of course you should. But I presume you're not trampling Christ underfoot. They were profaning or treating as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant. Whatever else that means, it surely means that they were treating the death of Jesus as just being like the death of any man. These individuals had previously been marked by some dedication to God, by some professing of faith in Christ's blood. They had sat, if you like, at the Lord's Supper. They had suggested to themselves and to the others around them that the symbol was an expression of reality, but they were in fact the cousins of Judas Iscariot, who was real close and did the right stuff and made the right noises.
But he was reprobate. I hope we're not relying on our attachments to religious stuff, our attendance simply to religious duties. Now, for those of you who have your Bible open, you will notice that it says that they treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him.
And that should immediately strike you as a problem. Because you look at that and you say, well, if he was sanctified, doesn't that mean that he was a Christian? Can you be sanctified without being a Christian? I say, before I come to the troublesome phrase, let me lay down on a sheet of paper all the things that aren't troublesome about this particular question. Let me lay down what the Bible categorically says about whether a person can be a Christian and fall away from grace. Then I'll come back to this phrase. So what do I know? Well, I know, first of all, that Jesus said that his sheep hear his voice, they follow him, he calls them by name, he gives them eternal life, no one will ever perish, and no one will pluck them out of his hands. So I write that down and say, Jesus said, once you're in his hand, you're not coming out.
Categorical statement. Then I'll read Romans 8, the end of Romans 8. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, neither persecution or trial or nakedness or peril or sword.
All these things were more than conquerors. I write that down. Then I'll go to Philippians 1. I am confident that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. In other words, God is not the author of unfinished business.
When he starts, he completes. I'll go to 1 Peter, and I'll remind myself that we've been born again of a living hope by the resurrection of Christ from the dead. We have an inheritance that is imperishable, kept for us in heaven, and we are guarded or kept by God's power for that day. I'll go to Paul's words, I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day.
And that's just a start. And I'll proceed from there, and I will lay down the clear instruction of Scripture as to whether a genuine believer can be lost. And I will conclude on the clear valence of Scripture that it is not possible—that what the Bible teaches is that when we have been redeemed by Christ, when we have been brought into the orb of his grace, that he brings to completion the good work that he has begun in us. Then I'll come back to this phrase. And then I'll deal with this phrase in light of what I know to be true. And I will know that this phrase cannot overturn the clear and plain instruction of Scripture. Then I will make sense of this phrase in light of the totality of biblical exposition. Now, enough said.
You must go on and get your own recipe books out and cook for a while on your own. But I wanted you to know it is a little bit of a problem, and I don't want you thinking I was trying to skip it. Of course, if you want to, just go ahead and teach that genuine believers can in fact lose their salvation, and then you don't have a problem with this phrase, you have a problem with all the other verses that I just mentioned to you.
So how big of a problem would you like? That's right. That's right. Not only is God's saving grace an imperishable inheritance for believers, it represents God's longing to draw near to those who follow him. You're listening to Alistair Begg in a message titled, Keeping Near, Keeping On. At Truth for Life, we're always on the lookout for materials that reinforce the teaching you hear on this program. Today, we're offering a book that perfectly complements our current series. It's written by Ed Welch. It's called, Created to Draw Near. In this book, Ed Welch explores our spiritual lineage as believers. He starts in Genesis and traces the biblical theme of priesthood through topics like our fall into sin, God's covenant with Israel, Jesus, our tabernacle, and what all of it means in terms of our relationship with God.
Created to Draw Near shows that we're created for connection to God because we're part of a royal priesthood through our faith in Christ. We'd love to send you a copy of the book. It's yours when you give a donation to support the mission and ministry of Truth for Life. Request Created to Draw Near online at truthforlife.org slash donate, or click the book image you see on the mobile app. You can also call to make a donation.
The number is 888-588-7884. Your financial support goes directly toward fulfilling the mission of Truth for Life to teach the Bible with clarity and relevance so that unbelievers will be converted and come to a saving faith in Christ, so that those who already believe will gain a deeper understanding of the scriptures and be more established in their faith, and so that both pastors and congregants will be encouraged to rely solely on the Bible for their worship and fellowship. In the book of Hebrews, it's made very clear that God's judgment on those who drift from the truth is severe. Tomorrow, Alistair Begg helps us understand God's provision for staying the course. I'm Bob Lapine. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
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