Hebrews 10:26-27 – When It Runs Out – Bible study

Hebrews 10:26-27 When It Runs Out When you hear a title like that, you should ask the question, "When WHAT runs out?" If you are, I will tell you that I do not know for certain. The text while very solemn is also somewhat vauge. In the text, you can tell something has changed, somethng is missing, some- thing ran out; but the text never specifically tells us what. My guess and supposition is that Gods grace ran out. So I could entitled the message When Gods Grace Runs Out, but I will not. Heb 10:26 For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, 27 But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. This is a frightening Scripture. In my opinion, probably the 2nd most frightening text in the Bible. It should frighten the lost. It has frightened the saved. Lets look at it with three thoughts. I. Solemn Warnings – This text does not have a solemn warning. It has at least three. A. It can run out. 1. What can run out? a. I think the writer is telling us that grace can run out. b. Those that have heard me for awhile know that I have to give words a definition for my small brain to understand them. c. The definition I have given to grace is God working. (1) God working to save us. (2) God working to change us. (3) God working to help us to go right in a wrong- going world. 2. Two questions come to my mind: a. What would happen if grace ran out? (1) We dont really know for no living human being has ever seen a day when Gods grace ran out (2) The best we can do is guess. (3) My guess is that some of the tools that God uses to work in this world would be removed. (a) Mercy – Mercy keeps us from being destroyed when we do something wrong. (b) Forgiveness – Is God paying for our sins so we can have a relationship with Him. (c) Kindness, compassion – Is God using good like a carrot to move us in the right direction. (d) Conviction – Is the shock of Gods shock colar when we are going the wrong direction. (4) Everything that is good from God would cease. b. Can Gods grace really run out? (1) \#26\ says it can, at least for SOME. (2) That leads to the second horrible fact. B. When it runs out, there is no hope. 1. \#26\ The Bible writer said it this way, "there remains no more (or no other) sacrifice for sins." 2. That means that there is no plan B. 3. There are no "do-over"s, second chances, or alternate routes; and any religion that says otherwise is just plain lying. a. There is no purgatory. b. There is no reincarnation. c. There is no soul sleep. C. When it runs out, all that is left is a fearful, certain judgment and fiery indignation. 1. No one alive has ever seen the kind of judgment of which this verse speaks. 2. However, there have been some who have seen what their friends and family experienced when grace ran out for them. a. Noah got to see what it was like for the whole world to run out of Gods grace from Gen 7-9. In fact, according to \#1Pe 3:20\, all but eight perished in the flood waters. b. The few Jews who obeyed God and surrendered to the Babylonians got to see grace run out for the nation around 586 BC. Most of the others either died or carried off as slaves. (Kings, Chronicles, Jeremiah, and Lamenations) c. Lot and his two daughters got to see what it was like when Gods grace ran out on the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. No one else in the immediate arrival survived. (Gen 19) d. But Gods grace can run out on individuals as well. (1) Gods grace ran out on Pharaoh. (Ex. 1-18) (a) The Calvinists like to use Pharaoh as an example of God arbitrarily damning a human soul, but there is no indication God did that. (b) The indication is that another hard-hearted sinner just continued doing what he had always done until God cut His grace off and sent him to hell. (2) The same thing happened to Nadab and Abihu, who in Leviticus 10 offered strange fire before the Lord; so God killed them. (3) We could also talk of: (a) Korah and his band of rebels. (Numbers 16) (b) Ananias and Sapphira (#Acts 5) (c) And many others. (4) I dont mean to be cold and heartless, but many people like to use the song from the 60s as their theme song, "I Did It My Way," then when God gets fed up with their sin and turns off the grace, they want to call God harsh and cruel. God was not harsh or cruel. Their grace just ran out! 3. Of course the judgment spoken of here is not just a harsh death. Its a harsh damnation, and it lasts forever. Notice the description. a. God called it a judgment. (1) We have all felt some elements of Gods judgment in this life, but this is the judgment that one does not walk away from! (2) It is the eternal one. b. Then it is called "of fiery indignation." (1) I get the indignation part. God gets slandered, blasphemed, ignored, defamed, and defaced until He has had enough and turns off the grace and spues out His wrath. (2) What is puzzleing to me is that God puts the word fiery in front of indignation instead of judgment. (a) Anyone who knows anything about hell and the Lake of Fire know that is where the fire is! (b) I dont know if it means anything that God put the word fiery in front of indignation or not, but it struke me as odd. c. The it is a certain judgment. (1) The fact that so few believe in a literal, burning hell is not a sign that we have gotten smarter and cast aside our religious fantasies and fairytales. (2) It is a sign we have gotten too arrogant to believe for that judgment is certain. d. And the writer called it a fearful judgment. (1) There is no place worse than hell. (2) There is no place and nothing to be feared more than hell. (3) The fact that people today do not fear hell, does not mean hell has changed. (4) It simply means people have gotten more foolish. II. \#26\ Specific Group A. These verses are so abundantly clear, that we do not have to guess either about to whom these solemn truths were directed or why. He 10:26 For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth. B. Willful sin can cause Gods grace to run out, especially after one has received understanding of truth. 1. Notice, the writer doesnt just say, "after you have received the truth," but he says, "after you have received the KNOWLEDGE of truth." a. It is one thing to give someone truth. It is another thing for them to get it, to understand it. b. When I was a child in school, the teachers were forever giving out truth. Most of it, I didnt understand. c. To receive the knowledge OF the truth means, you got the truth and you understood what it meant. 2. This Bible passage is being directed at a very specific group of people. a. A group to whom God gave truth AND they understood it. b. They got the knowledge that the truth was intended to give them, but they would not receive it. C. Let me deviate for a moment: 1. Gods grace will run out for every lost person. a. The day a lost person breaths his last breathe, grace runs out. b. It does not matter what truths you have heard and what knowledge you did or did not gain. c. When you die, grace runs out. d. That is why Christians work to get the truth to every person on the globe and to try to help them to understand it. (1) Even this year, we are tagging doors and giving tracts to those we see, asking them about their standing with Jesus Christ. (2) We have done two mail outs, and I hope we will do a third. (3) We have preached three times every week inside the building when we could and outside of the building when we did not deem it safe to do so. (4) We Facebook the message to those who will watch it there and place a recorded video and audio of every message online for people to watch in the future. (5) We give what I think is a significant about of money to missions and actively seek to make the gospel heard around the globe. e. These things we do because it does not matter if you ever heard the name of Jesus or not, the day a lost person breaths his last breathe, grace for him just ran out. f. But that is not the person to whom these words were written. 2. On the opposite side, Gods grace will never run out for the Christian. a. I do not want to give any undue comfort to the backslidden, but neither do I want to distort the Bible. b. Backsliders and carnal Christians should fear God, but they need not fear that Gods grace will run out for them; for it will not. (1) I heard part of a sermon by R.A. Torrey in which he said he received more questions about this Bible passage from disturbed Christians than any other. (a) They feared that the verses meant that even a Christian, if they sinned willfully after they had received Jesus, were damned, having no other sacrifice that could be offered for them. (b) Dr. Torrey wisely answered, such a belief cannot be true for it would create a contradiction with the remainder of the Bible. (2) And such it is. We must place this truth alongside of the remainder of the Bible and we will know that Gods grace never runs out for Christians. c. To the backslider, the Christian who is deliberately disobeying God, and to the carnal Christian, the Christians who will not grow out the dirt of this world into the light of the glorious Son: (1) ou should fear God for He will most certainly deal with your sinfulness. (2) That is what \#Heb 12:5-17\ will say to you. (3) God will chasten you as any loving parent with good sense would chasten their child, but God not cut grace off to you because you are His child. (4) God may send problems and hurts your way, God may even take you home early, but the fact that your home is heaven not hell is itself proof that God will not take His grace from you. d. So the truth of these verses was not directed to either the lost world or to backslidden Christians. D. No, these verses were directed to specific group 1. a group that the writer felt had mingled in with the church but was lost 2. a group that had heard who Jesus was, what Jesus had done, and even understood the message 3. a group that had that privilege because God Himself gave it to them 4. but a group that continued to live their sinful life as though they had not understood or ever heard that truth. 5. To that group, the writer was sending a most solemn warning. a. Grace can run out. b. There is no other sacrifice. c. All that is left is a fearful, certain future of judgment and fiery indignation. III. \#29\ Sure Insult A. The writer spoke of Gods fiery indignation. God gets riled when we insult, blaspheme, demean, deface, and defame Him. B. Some do not understand the seriousness of willfully rejecting what God in His grace has revealed. 1. It is a sin against Jesus. Heb 10:29 Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God a. In that time, they only walked on things that they had no respect for. b. Example – dirt. c. Dirt is so common, we think nothing of it. We just walk on it. d. To reject what Jesus has done for you is to think no more of Him than you do of dirt. 2. It is a sin against the holy blood that He shed. and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing a. It is to refuse to accept the blood that Jesus shed for you us to consider His sacrifice a worthless act. b. Jesus blood may mean nothing to you, but it means a lot to the Father, and He is the only One who counts. 3. It is a sin against the Holy Ghost who revealed it to you. and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? a. The only thing worse than standing before God having never heard who Jesus is will be to stand before God having heard who Jesus is. b. To know who Jesus is, to understand who Jesus is, even to believe who Jesus is, then to reject Him will earn the worst place in hell when grace runs out. C. May I suggest a course of action for you today? 1. Fear God. You will one day soon. Heb 10:31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. 2. Believe on His Son. 3. Surrender to His Son. a. If you have never been saved, be saved. b. If you are a Christian, live like God commands. And do it today, before grace runs out.