God's Warning To Us
Let me post the verse we’re looking at one more time so we can read it yet again to keep it fresh in our minds:
Hebrews 12:14-17 Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son.Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. He could bring about no change of mind, though he sought the blessing with tears.
In the very next sentence he tells us to see to it that no one is sexually immoral. Again not something you’ll hear much about in our churches today. Half the couples sitting in the congregation are probably living together instead of married yet nothing is ever said. They aren’t warned that they are bringing God’s chastisement down on themselves and by not warning them, it brings God’s displeasure down on the church itself. By not warning them and by not warning the congregation, the pastor gives the impression that it’s not important, that it’s even “normal” and the disease spreads, just as we spoke about yesterday. As that happens, instead of becoming holy, the church becomes more like the world. Paul even goes so far as to tell us:
1 Corinthians 5:1-6 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that does not occur even among pagans: A man has his father’s wife.And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have been filled with grief and have put out of your fellowship the man who did this?Even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. And I have already passed judgment on the one who did this, just as if I were present.When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present,hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough?
1 Corinthians 5:11 But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.
This doesn’t mean that if someone commits one of these sins that they are to be immediately thrown out of the church. It means they are to be taken aside and warned that what they are doing is wrong and asked to repent. Then if they do not repent they are to be set out of the church. Those who are saved are not to even have them over for supper! However, the church today is strangely quiet about this and allows all sorts or evil in their congregation, even though God’s Word quite clearly tells them not to. Yet this isn’t just the fault of the pastors today. We are all at fault. This applies to every single one of us. If we are sinning, then we need to repent! If we are in fellowship with someone who professes to be saved and yet is living in sin, then we need to stop immediately, repent and confess that sin. Certainly we can talk to to those people and tell the the Truth, share the real Gospel with them, but if they will not hear it, then we are to shake the dust off our feet and sadly leave them in Satan’s hands. No, this doesn’t make for a popular sermon topic today at all I’m afraid. I’m sure it probably wasn’t all that popular back in Paul’s time either.
Hebrews 12:16-17 See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son.Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. He could bring about no change of mind, though he sought the blessing with tears.
Finally we are warned to watch for those who are godless like Esau. I’m sure you all remember the story of Esau and how he sold his birthright for a bowl of stew. The NIV translates the word “godless” but it is probably better understood as “profane” as the KJV translates it.
pro•faned; pro•fan•ing
1 : to treat (something sacred) with abuse, irreverence, or contempt : desecrate
2 : to debase by a wrong, unworthy, or vulgar use — pro•fan•er
1 : not concerned with religion or religious purposes : secular
2 : not holy because unconsecrated, impure, or defiled : unsanctified
3 a : serving to debase or defile what is holy : irreverent
Esau was profane because of his intention, not just the act itself. He intentionally determined that having that food was more important and having priority over what God considered sacred—his inheritance. Are you beginning to see the picture that he is drawing for us here? In this picture the author is showing us that one group is throwing away the opportunity of salvation for the pleasures of the flesh (sexual immorality) and other is throwing it away for the pleasures of the world, that of food. They are perhaps putting off salvation so that they can have the temporary pleasure of their sins, thinking that they can be saved later. By doing that, just like Esau, they are being profane by considering the salvation of their souls as something “common” rather then as something “sacred.” They do not consider God’s offer of salvation as anything special or extraordinary—rather it simply another option to them that they may or may not someday consider.
Hebrews 12:17 Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. He could bring about no change of mind, though he sought the blessing with tears.
Therefore the Lord says that there is no possible salvation available to them later. Their hearts have now been hardened beyond the point of them ever being able to be saved. This is why this author and elsewhere in God’s Word, they encourage us to respond immediately to the Gospel:
Hebrews 3:7-8 So, as the Holy Spirit says:“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert,
Hebrews 3:12-19 See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. As has just been said:“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.”Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of
For the unsaved person, their hearts become hardened to the Gospel every time they hear it and do not act on it. For us, we become hardened to the effects of sin each time we sin and do not repent and confess it. We become hardened to it when we see others living in unrepentant sin and say nothing to them if the Lord has placed us in a position to do so.
The longer someone walks with Christ, the softer their heart is and the more they will view things like He does. I see this in my own life just as I’m sure you do in yours. For example, I watched many programs on TV before I was saved that now simply turn my stomach. First after I got saved, I began to simply feel “uncomfortable” about those programs. Then I began to recognize the sins represented in the programs and was embarrassed by them; and could no longer watch them. Occasionally I would see a commercial about one and by then my feeling had changed from embarrassment to a great sadness and finally from a great sadness to the sadness mixed with disgust and righteous anger. Another thing I noticed too was that as I grew, I began to realize more things were sinful then just the “obvious” sins shown. So while initially I may have stopped watching the program due to the promiscuity, or foul language or both, later I realized they were promoting many other ungodly behaviors in a more subtle way.
The point being that one of two things is going to happen to us. We are either going to become more like Christ every day as He softens our hearts, or we’re going to become more like the world every day as we allow the world to harden our hearts toward sin.
Considering that, it makes me very afraid for all the people in this world because often even in our churches, God’s ways have been profaned. They are no longer taught much less enforced and are treated pretty much as though they are irrelevant today. Sin is ignored and often God is treated like the great Genie who is only there to grant your wishes and keep you out of Hell. Perhaps some might even go so far as to say that it doesn’t matter anymore because we are no longer under the old covenant but under the new….somehow I think that sounds exactly like the type of thing the author was telling us to watch out for.
Hebrews 10:28-29 Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing (profaned) the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?
