God's Warning To Us

Another member wrote about yesterdays study:

Notice the scripture doesn't say: ...."no sacrifice for sins is left, but only the judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God."
No, it says "no sacrifice for sins is left, but only the fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God."

Exactly!!! Thank you so very much for pointing that out! That's exactly what I was trying to get across to and totally missed that! Thank you!

it says "no sacrifice for sins is left, but only the fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God."

This is another way that we can tell that the author was speaking hypothetically and that he wasn't saying that we can lose our salvation.

God's Warning To Us

Let's go on today to another sticky warning in Hebrews. This section is titled: Warning Against Refusing God. I'm going to break it into three parts to make it easier to discuss and so you don't have to keep going back and forth to read it again to see what we're talking about.

Hebrews 12:14-29 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 this first section the author tells us that we are to make an effort to live in peace with everyone and that we are to be "holy". He goes on to say that without holiness we won't be able to be with the Lord. How are we to be "holy"?

Matthew 5:20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

1 Peter 1:15-16 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”

1 Peter 2:9-12 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

As we can see from the above verses, the only way in which we can be holy is to rely totally on the Lord, recognizing that we are clothed with the righteousness of Christ now that we are saved and that all our words and actions should show the world that we are so clothed. We know that the more we study His Word and the more time we spend in prayer, that the Lord uses this to bring us closer to Him and to make us more and more like Him every day. We cannot become more like Him without also becoming holy as He is holy.

Obviously, being human there will be times when we slip and sin. When that happens though all we need to do is run to Him asking his forgiveness as we repent and we will be cleansed from that sin. This is yet another difference between us and the world. The people of the world couldn't care less if they sin. They don't see sin as something bad, or rather they don't see the things they do as bad or as sin. Deep down they know better but they suppress the Truth by their wickedness. (Romans 1:19)

The warning in this first part is that we are to be holy or we are not going to wind up in heaven.

Again the first thing most people think is that this means salvation isn't free after all, but they're wrong. It is free. What God's Word is saying here and in other places is that when someone is saved, there will be a definite change in them. They really will be a new person. Those verses that say that we become a new creation when we are born again are not just nice poetry! They're the Truth! Those who have been truly saved, begin to change immediately because they have been given a new spirit. Some change tremendously and instantly, others change a lot a first and then the change becomes slower yet steady, for others if not most, the change is small yet noticeable and continues on steadily as they grow.

So although there are many different degrees, all of them have one thing in common. They do not look exactly like the world. They love the Lord and at least to some degree attempt to please Him and would never purposely go out and do something to shame Him.

The author here is attempting to spur us on to be more holy.

We are here on this earth for a purpose and we shouldn't be wasting the opportunities we have here. Unfortunately many of us seem to be like the kids in school who slept through all their classes and then wondered why they flunked out of that grade. Let's break that first part of the verse up the way we used to do in school and then take another look at it.

Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.

Make every effort to live in peace with all men

Make every effort to be holy;

without holiness no one will see the Lord.

So you see here, he is telling us that we should be making every effort to be holy every day of our lives. This life here is a golden opportunity for us and much that we do here cannot be done once we die and get to heaven. We will not have another chance to grow to maturity and earn those rewards He has for us.

Reading that almost sounds like what I'm after is the reward, but that's not at all true. What I am after is pleasing my Lord. I know from His Word that He wants me to make every effort to be holy right now. He doesn't want me to wait till I die. I really want to hear Him say, "well done my good and faithful servant" because then I'll know I made Him happy. Yes, I want the rewards too, the crowns and all because I cannot wait to lay them at His feet! Just like every child wants to please their earthly parents, I want to please my Heavenly Father, my Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I want to make them proud of me. There is only one way I can do that--by spending as much time as I possibly can in prayer and in His Word. That is the only way we can grow and become more like Him.

I'm afraid (lucky for you lol) that I allowed myself to get distracted as I had to answer another bible question, so i don't have time to do any more on this today. We'll have to pick it up tomorrow from where we left off here.

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