Your Daily Bread – Warning to the Church: Falling Away From Christ

The heavenly gift, of course, is the gift of God’s Son, the unspeakable gift of Jesus Christ, given to us. You’ve had a taste of that. You understand the flavor of the reality of Jesus Christ. You’ve become a partaker of the Holy Spirit, in the sense that you’ve seen the working of the Spirit. You’ve seen the power of the Spirit of God, like the crowds that ate the food that Jesus created, like the crowds that watched the miracles that Jesus did by the power of the Spirit. Verse 5. You’ve tasted the good word of God.

You’ve tasted the powers of the age to come. The age to come is the kingdom, where Christ will rule on earth, and miracles will be commonplace, and he will express his power throughout the earth. And you’ve seen previews of that. They, the Hebrews, had actually seen them for themselves, because the apostles who preached the gospel did signs, wonders, and miracles in their presence. So he says, you’ve seen it all, you’ve heard it all, you’ve been enlightened by it all. You understand the gospel, you understand the power of Christ, you understand the power of the Spirit, you understand the power of the word of God, you understand the power of the age to come.

Point being, you have a full understanding. If, verse 6, you then fall away, when you’ve had a perfect, complete understanding, and you still reject, it’s impossible to remove, renew them again to repentance. You can’t be saved. If you reject, when you have a full understanding, it’s impossible to be saved, because there can’t be any more information. You’re in a very dangerous position when you understand, and you’re disobedient, and hard-hearted, and will not embrace Jesus Christ authentically. It’s impossible to bring you to repentance. You are an apostate. An apostate is not a person who rejects the truth because he doesn’t understand it.

An apostate is somebody who rejects it because he does. That’s an apostate. You have fallen away. There’s only two kinds of people in the church, long-term. I mean, people come and go, and here and there, but in the church, there are just two kinds of people. There are people who have believed and are authentic Christians, and there are people who had not believed, but understand, to one degree or another, and they’re the ones being referred to here. They are in grave danger, because if they fall away, they can’t be renewed again to repentance, because they fall away from having full understanding.

He illustrates this in verses These two kinds of people, he calls them soil, like Jesus does, ground. There is ground that drinks the rain. The rain is the gospel, so the gospel comes like rain and hits the ground, and it brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God. Those are true believers. The gospel comes, this is good soil, and up comes the vegetation that is useful. It is blessing from God. These people are blessed, because this is those who truly believe.

The same rain falls, verse 8, but it falls on bad soil full of weeds, and it yields thorns and thistles and worthless and close to being cursed, and ends up being burned. You just take the weeds and burn them. That’s hell. Same rain, two kinds of soil. The gospel comes, and it comes to the church, and it comes with clarity. Those who are believing people, those who have come to Christ and committed their life to Him, and are authentic Christians, the rain falls on them, and it just produces all kinds of fruitfulness and blessing from God.

There are those people who understand and who know the truth, but reject Jesus Christ, and all that comes out of their life is thorns and thistles, absolutely worthless things that end up being burned. To the true Christians, he speaks in verse 9. But, beloved, we’re convinced of better things concerning you, and things that accompany salvation. But there was this group who understood, but hadn’t embraced Christ. They were in a very dangerous, dangerous position. To show you further how dangerous it was, turn to chapter 10 of Hebrews, verse 26. Here comes another warning to the same kind of people, and some of you this morning fit into this category.

For whatever reason, you’re attracted to the church, you’re involved, to one degree or another, but you don’t belong to Jesus Christ. You have not committed your life to Him. Verse 26 says, if we go on sinning, if you go on living your life your way, willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, in other words, you don’t accept it, you don’t acknowledge Christ, you don’t embrace Christ as Lord and Saviour, committing your life to Him. You just go on in your pattern of wilful sinning. There no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.

There’s nowhere else for you to go. If you will not acknowledge Christ as your Saviour, there is no other Saviour. If you will not acknowledge His sacrifice on the cross for your sins, there is no other sacrifice. You will die in your sins. There is no one else but Christ. He is alone the Saviour. There’s no salvation under heaven, under any other name than His, it says in the book of Acts. Now, all that awaits you, if you reject Christ, no other sacrifice awaits you. There is no other salvation. But, verse 27, what awaits you is a certain terrifying expectation of judgment.

All that’s left for you is certain terrifying expectation of judgment. Thank you for joining us in this exploration of the warning to the church, falling away from Christ. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong, and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com. Goodbye, and may your faith always lead the way. [tr:trw].