Alright, if you have your Bible, let's open up to the book of Hebrews. The book of Hebrews. Tonight we're going to do some teaching along the lines of what's called the warning passages. The warning passages in Hebrews. And we're going to stay exclusively in the book of Hebrews tonight. If you're reading your Bible and you come across these passages and you're honest, I guess we could call it honesty in Hebrews, but when you come across these passages and you take them at face value, it can be troubling for a Christian who doesn't know how to rightly divide the word of truth. And so these are called warning passages, and the scholars, they recognize these passages, and they say certain things about them. And of course, I really don't care what the scholars say, but I said that just to say this, that they are acknowledged that these are difficult passages. In other words, you know that you're saved, you know that you're going to heaven, you know that you have everlasting life. We call it in theology, we call it eternal security. And if you believe you have that and you come across these warning passages, they really seem to teach otherwise. And it can shake you up. And there are a lot of Christians who don't really know how to rightly divide the word of truth and when they come across these passages it really shakes and rattles their faith and so we're going to look at these now in the bible we have a few books that we call transition books now if you transition you're moving from one thing to another kind of like the word translate if you translate a language you're going from one language to another To transition is to transition from one thing to another. The books of Matthew, Acts, and Hebrews are what we call transition books. Matthew really takes us from the prophecies about Christ to the person of Christ. It's a big transition. It deals with the kingdom of heaven, but there also is a transition in Matthew to the kingdom of God. Matthew is one of those transition books. The book of Acts is certainly a transition book. It moves really from the Old Testament and the law and all of those things from the Old Testament era to the New Testament church age. And you see the early church. And so it's a big transition book. And then Hebrews is a transition book. You say, what does Hebrews transition from? Well, Hebrews transitions from the church age to what's coming right after the rapture of the church, which is the great tribulation period. So Hebrews is also a transition book. Now there are also transition epistles, and we'll get into those maybe later. That'll be a whole other lesson. That's what we call the general epistles. James, I did a lesson on Paul versus James a few weeks ago. First and second Peter, first, second, third John and Jude. Those are what we call transition epistles. They have doctrine that's both applicable in the church age and that transitions over into tribulation doctrine. And so you want to understand that. Now when we think about Hebrews, How do we view the book of Hebrews? It's kind of like when you, you ever seen one of those 3D movies? Don't look so innocent in here, you bunch of heathens. You heathern! A 3D movie, you put these glasses on, and then whatever's on the screen, or I guess they have it on television too, I don't know, but then it almost looks like it's coming off of the screen at you. And it's all because of the glasses that you're looking through. Christy's got a different pair of sunglasses than I have. Hers are more of a brownish tint. Mine are more of a black tint. Sometimes different cloud formations like rainbows and things, she can see things maybe a little more clearly and she'll say, here, swap. And she'll hand me her glasses and I'll put on woman's glasses. But I'm looking through those glasses and it changes what I see. And so if you come to the Bible with certain preconceived notions and you look at it through those glasses, that's how you're gonna see it. And we wanna make sure as Bible believers, that's how we look at the Bible. Not the lens of a scholar, but the lens of a student. Not the lens of a Bible doubter, but the lens of a Bible believer. And so that's our job, to believe the Bible as it's written. So I want to give you these three views from the book of Hebrews. One of them, of course, is the Bible-believing view. And I would also add to that Bible-believing dispensational view. That clarifies it a little bit. In other words, rightly dividing. But the first way that some people look at Hebrews is what's called the Reformed view, or what we call Calvinistic view. So here's somebody like a Presbyterian, or somebody that's Reformed Orthodox, or something like that, or there are some hard-shell Baptist groups like that. So you would have someone that would be Calvinistic in their beliefs, so when they look at the Bible, they say, you know what, we believe in the perseverance of the saints. That once a person's saved, they're always saved. You say, amen, so do I. Okay, that's about as far as we can agree because they believe everyone in the entire Bible, Old and New Testament, are eternally secure and had what we call eternal security. because of their Calvinistic belief. Now they believe in perseverance of the saints. Now what that means to them is a little different than what it might mean to you. We may call it preservation of the saints. Some people mistakenly call it that in reference to Calvinism, but they believe in perseverance. What they believe is if you're truly saved, then you will endure to the end. You won't live a life that's what we would call a backslidden Christian life. So they believe in eternal security in every age. When they look at Hebrews, they see these warning passages only to refer to people that have a false profession. They really don't believe at all. They never really were saved. If you were truly saved, they use that kind of terminology. So that's how they approach and they really have to do a lot of talking. And they just talk, and talk, and talk, or they write, and write, and write, and write. And they have to really do, like the Bible says, resting the scripture. You ever see somebody in a wrestling match? And they grab them here, and grab them there, and grab them here, and grab them there. And they're all the way around. They keep going, and going, and going. And finally, after 35 minutes, they get a guy pinned. That's how it is with these people when they rest the scriptures. They got to keep talking and keep talking and keep talking and keep talking and they quote this scholar and this scholar and this scholar and this scholar until they eventually supposedly prove their point. That's the Calvinist position. The book of Hebrews, these warning passages refer to people that never really had salvation. Then you have, I'm simplifying everything. There's differences in the Reformed view, but that's the simplified version. Then you have the Arminian view. That will be people like your Assembly of God, Church of God, a lot of your non-denominational groups, Calvary Chapel, a lot of Calvary Chapel groups, although not all of them. That will be all of your Methodists, all your Nazarenes, all your Wesleyan Methodists. There are different groups of those as well. You have Wesley Armenians. Wesley Armenians believe once you lose it, you can't get it back. Typical Armenians believe you can lose your salvation, but then you can get re-saved. So if you quit going to church and you start falling into old habits again, then you lost your salvation. And these passages prove that to them. And that's the typical Wesleyan view. And the, like I said, the Methodist and even, what's the other Baptist view? Primitive, not primitive. Somebody said it. No. There's a Baptist group, primitive Baptist, free will Baptist, sorry. Free will Baptist believe you can lose your salvation. And so that falls in this line. In other words, these warning passages are for saints, for you to look at and get really nervous and say, I better keep it up or I'm gonna lose it. That's the second view. And here's the last view, which is our view. Bible believing dispensational view. Saints in the church age, you can't lose your salvation at all. These verses are not aimed at saints in the church age. They're aimed at saints of the tribulation who can lose their salvation. That's what we'll get into tonight. Okay, now let's look at the first thing of this. The first thing is the title of the book. It says the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews. Now most Bibles say that. If you have a 1611 King James, it will have that name, the Epistle of Paul the Apostle. Hyper-dispensationalists, a lot of them refuse to believe that Paul wrote the book of Hebrews. I believe Paul did write it. I believe Paul probably wrote it early on, maybe 37, 38 AD. I think it was written a lot earlier. Well, not before his conversion, but right after his conversion probably. when he went to Arabia and things like that. And so I believe it was really written by the Apostle Paul. God can inspire a man to write something even though he's the author, especially the last chapter. You look in chapter 13, some of the language sounds just like the Apostle Paul. I think that maybe his name's not given because he's trying to reach the Hebrews and nobody wants to listen to Paul so he doesn't put his name on there. And I think that's the key to this book is the title. Notice the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to who? The Hebrews. 1 Corinthians 10.32, you're probably familiar with that. Paul says you don't need to offend the main groups. He says take heed that you, take heed to it. Let me just read it to you. 1 Corinthians 10.32. Give none offense, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God. The Hebrews would fall under the category of the Jews. So this book is not aimed entirely or primarily at the church of God. I think that's the first key. Look in Hebrews 1.1, God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets. Not my fathers, not my prophets. Those are Jewish fathers, the patriarchs. When you study the Old Testament history, you have the patriarchs and then, of course, after that you move into the period of the prophets. That's Jewish. Look in chapter 3, verse 9. Here's a quotation from the Old Testament. When your father's tempted me, that's Jews. Those are Jews. Look in chapter 8, another Jewish reference. Look in chapter 8, verse 8. Hebrews 8.8, for finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the day is come, saith the Lord, while I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Okay, so you want to make sure you get that. Now Paul the Apostle can certainly be the author and God can use him to write to two different groups. He doesn't contradict church truth just because Paul is the author. But I think the initial information we need to get from this title and just from looking at the first part of the book is the title and who it's addressed to primarily. Just like James, do you all remember back a few weeks ago we studied Paul versus James? It says in James chapter 1 verse 1, James to the church, this enduring persecution. No, it doesn't say that. It says James to the 12 tribes scattered abroad. So who's James written to? James is written to the 12 tribes of Israel. Now it can't be much clearer than that, so that's a big deal. Then look in Hebrews 1 verse number two. Notice the timing, where this thing is aimed. Look in verse two. Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds. Look at that last days reference. Flip over to the book of James. Look at these things, how they keep popping up. James chapter 5. Now if you can't turn quick enough to all of these, just jot them down. We have a lot of ground to cover, but I don't want to not turn to the verses and at least tie these things together for you. James chapter 5 is certainly a prophetic portion of Scripture. Notice James 5, look what he says in the last part of the verse. You have heaped treasure together for the last days. Verse 7, the coming of the Lord. Come over to 1 Peter 1. 1 Peter 1, verse 5, and of course this is the transition epistles, I mentioned that earlier. 1 Peter 1, 5, we are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. Look down in verse 13. Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end. You see that? All this flavor of last day prophecy. Look down in verse number 20. who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world but was manifest in these last times for you. Look over in 1 Peter 4, verse 7. 1 Peter 4, 7, but the end of all things is at hand. Be you therefore sober and watch unto prayer. So I think when you look at the Bible, you've got to look at it, believe in it, and say, okay, there's nothing arbitrary in the Bible. I understand we have a historical context, and the book of Hebrews is there early in history. I mean, we can't divorce ourselves from that fact. And we don't divorce ourselves from that, even when we study James, and we realize, okay, James to the 12 tribes. That's why there's transition material. Somebody can pick up 1 John chapter 5, and you can find church-age truth right in it, 1 John chapter 5, either half the son, half life. but there's also tribulation truth. So it's applicable in prophecy because there's nothing arbitrary in the Bible. It's kind of like the Old Testament prophets, the best way I can explain it. You read over there through Micah, Joel, and Amos, and Obadiah, everywhere except Jonah. Jonah's more specifically aimed at Nineveh. But you read through those prophets and you could take that stuff and you could overlay it because when he talks about the day of the Lord, he's not just talking about the incoming invasion by Nebuchadnezzar. There's an overlay where he's talking about the last days. But God's inspiring scripture, so for God to close that canon at the end of the prophets, the book of Malachi around 400 AD, He's got to give prophecy in such a way to go ahead and paint the whole picture. So He uses that type of language. And I think it's the same way with the New Testament and how it's written. So there's some application that's immediate for the history that's there, but then there's an overlay that has a prophetic outlook. Same thing with the book of Revelation. You have John writing to seven churches that are in existence in history. But boy, if you were here 20 years ago and we started the book of Revelation in Sunday school, we went through Revelation chapters two and three, the doctrinal material to those seven churches is certainly prophetic. That stuff goes out into the tribulation. And so you want to make sure you see some of this stuff as you go through these epistles. I'll give you one more, let's go to 1 John 2. So this ties in directly to Hebrews and you want to understand the timing. 1 John chapter number 2, look in verse 18. If you don't take that view of scripture, you take a low view of scripture. So what do you mean? Well, John had to be lying in verse 18. If it's just applicable in 90 AD, little children is the last time? And you've heard that antichrist shall come? Even now are there many antichrists? Well, John, you missed it by a couple thousand years. I take a high view of scripture, there's a layer to that where it is the last time and that thing's gonna find application in the last time. Everybody understand? So we have the timing. Now let's look at some of this verse exposition. Go to Hebrews chapter two and let's unpack some of this. Hebrews chapter number two. Here's some warning passages. By the way, there's not a scholar that I know of. When I say recognized scholar, I'm talking about the academia, all the people that have more degrees than a thermometer. And I'm not, you know, knocking them. I mean, I am, but I'm not. I mean, these people are brilliant in their own right. Some of these people are very smart. They know a lot of languages and all those kind of things. But as far as believing the Bible, that's a joke. They don't believe the Bible. They believe their own opinions and the opinions of their colleagues and the opinions of their predecessors more than they do the actual Bible. And so you won't find this position that I'm presenting to you in your latest world of Bible scholar 101. Hebrews chapter 2 verse 1, Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense or reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard Him? So I'm giving you these verses, and these are not verses that I just found and said, you know, this could be troubling. These are verses that people that teach you can lose your salvation go to. These are their go-to verses. And like I said, I've got a book in my office where they present these viewpoints, and these scholars understand these are problem passages for people who believe in eternal security. Well, what about this verse? I don't know about you but I'm not worried about letting things slip that I have neglected my salvation. Look over in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 real quick. 2 Corinthians chapter 5 dealing with the judgment seat of Christ. Come down if you will to verse number 10. 2 Corinthians 5 verse number 10. There's a lot of Christians I know of, and even myself, I have let some things slip. We call it backsliding. We take an Old Testament term used in the book of Jeremiah several times, the book of Proverbs maybe once, and we apply that to Christians that start to let things slip. You ever had a car where the transmission started slipping? You don't want to be going up a hill when that happens, or up a mountain somewhere. But you know, Christians, sometimes they start going up, and then they start slipping back, and you fall back into those habits. You read Hebrews chapter 2, you better watch out. Look in 2 Corinthians 5, though. Look in verse 10. He says, You mean bad Christians are gonna be at the judgment seat of Christ? You ever think about that? There's gonna be some Christians standing at the judgment seat of Christ, they got saved and things went good for a couple weeks, then they let the rest of their life slip. There are guys sitting in prison, I'll be preaching to them next Sunday. And there's some guys that got saved before they did whatever crime that landed them in jail. Now if you were a, you know, reformed theologian, you would say, well, they never were saved to start with. Or if you were an Arminian, you would say, depending on the flavor of your Arminianism, you would say they lost it and maybe they got it back when they got in jail. Or they lost it and they can't get it back if they commit the unpardonable sin. That's a whole other treatise. All right, come over to Hebrews chapter 3. Let's keep moving here. I've got several to cover. Hebrews chapter number three, I just want to, on the practical note, I want to ease your mind when you struggle, if you struggle with some of these passages. You want to make sure you rightly divide. Any verse that seems like it's indicating that you can lose your salvation is not aimed at you. Because we know the Bible doesn't contradict, and there are a plethora of verses all throughout Paul's epistles, and some outside of Paul's epistles. John, for instance, that deal with the eternal security of the child of God in the church age. So when you come across these verses, you gotta make sure you understand where they fit in the puzzle. You can't put the wrong piece in the puzzle. Look in Hebrews chapter three, verse number 14, verse number six first, Hebrews 3.6. But Christ is a son over his own house, whose house are we if, if, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. You gotta hold fast your confidence. Unto the end, it says. Notice it says we're Christ's house if we do this. See the condition? We are made partakers if we hold out. Look in verse 14. For we are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence, stand fast unto the end. So someone says, hey, I'm gonna believe on Christ. This is my profession. This is my confidence. I'm putting my faith in him. Okay, you're a partaker of Christ. And somebody comes along and says, nope, gotta hold on. If you hold on to the end, you'll be a partaker of Christ. And they would have a verse to back it up. Hebrews 3.14. Don't sit there with your mouth dropped open. Come over to Romans 8. If you want to get grounded in Church Age doctrine, you need to park in the book of Romans. That is our book. That's our foundational book, Romans and Galatians. Romans chapter number eight and I would say if you want to if you could only get one chapter out of Romans What would you take? I would say take the eighth chapter But notice Romans chapter number eight come down toward the end Romans 837 Nay and all these things Well, if you back up verse number 35, Pretty inclusive. Whatever sin you commit, you can put in verse 38. nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Come over to Philippians chapter number 1. You can't force the Bible to teach eternal security in the entire Bible. If you do, Then you have to rest the scriptures. You have to just keep going round and round. You have to start saying, well, this means this, even though it says one thing. You keep reading these warning passages in Hebrews, and they're just that. They're warnings. They're red flags that say, hey, if you do this, you're in trouble. Like Jesus in Matthew 24, it says, he that shall endure until the end, the same shall be saved. That's a warning. All right, look in Philippians 1. Look in verse number 6. This whole thing about confidence and holding out, look in verse six. Being confident of this very thing that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it into the day of Jesus Christ. Our confidence is fixed, it's in Christ and we are a partaker of Christ, we're in Christ. All right, let's go to Hebrews chapter four. Keep cruising through here. Hebrews chapter number four, look at verse one. Let us therefore fear. Let us therefore fear, lest the promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. I'll keep reading and come all the way down to verse 11. Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. Do you really have to be afraid of not entering into his rest that you might come short, that you might not meet it? Do you really have to fear? Let us fear, he says. 2 Timothy 1.7, some of you probably know it, he says, for God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. So these things, they go against each other, they don't go together. It doesn't mean that they're wrong, they're just misplaced if you try to put them both in the church age, okay? Our rest is a present reality. Come over to 2 Corinthians chapter 12. It's a present reality and a prophetic reality. See, the Hebrews, they're looking for a rest, and it's the rest of Canaan, at literally getting into that promised land of rest, which they will at the second advent of Jesus Christ. But for the believer in the church age, we have a present rest that comes with Christ being inside of us. Look in 2 Corinthians 12, this is Paul going through his struggles. He prayed for this thorn to be removed, the Lord said he wouldn't take it away, my grace is sufficient. Verse number nine, my grace is sufficient for my strength is made perfect in weakness, most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. There's a present rest. And then in 2 Timothy or 2 Thessalonians chapter one real quick, here's a rest that's revealed that will take place. at the 2nd Thessalonians chapter 1. There's none of this questioning, there's none of this precondition, there's none of this let us fear we might make it. Come on Thessalonians, hold on, we might endure to the end, you just got to work hard so you don't fall back. There's none of that in Paul's epistles here. Look in 2 Thessalonians 1, notice this future looking for what God's gonna do. Verse 6, seeing it as a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you. And to you who are troubled, rest with us when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels. So we have that rest as a guaranteed promise in prophecy. All right, come over to Hebrews chapter 6, moving right along. So we don't have to worry about letting things slip. We don't have to worry about holding fast our confidence, and so we can be a partaker. I didn't give you Ephesians 5, but you know the verse. We are members of his body, the Bible says, of his flesh and of his bones, Ephesians chapter 5. And the great argument is found in Paul's epistles there, Ephesians 5, but also in John where he says, no man's able to pluck them out of my hand. People say, well, you can jump out of his hand. I don't think people understand that, but no man's able to pluck them out of my hand. You are in his hand, not in it like he's holding you, but in it as a part of it. You're in the body of Christ. If you could go to hell after being in the body of Christ, that means Christ can go to hell. You can't get out of Christ once you're in Christ. So you want to understand that in church age salvation. So that's definitely taught throughout all the New Testament church age epistles that Paul's written. But then when you get to Hebrews, it's a different story. Look in Hebrews chapter six. This is one of the most prominent ones. Hebrews chapter six, we'll pick it up in verse number four. For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come. If they shall fall away, to renew them again into repentance. Now there it is, that's one of the main proof texts that teach you could lose your salvation. I think Schofield, if you look in his note, he tries to make the case that it's a professed believer. Schofield had a lot of Calvinism in him. A lot of your early, your classical dispensationalists, they came from Presbyterian reform groups. Some of them from congregational groups, but a lot of them had definite Calvinistic leanings. But you'll notice they make the case this is just professing believers. And Schofield taught another thing that was wrong too. He taught that apostasy was only in the professing church. I don't think that's New Testament at all. I think apostasy is in the church itself. So when you call somebody an apostate, some people think if they've been raised on that, if all you were raised on was C.I. Scofield, that's maybe what you would think. You think, well, an apostate, you would kind of think of them as an infidel. Apostasy is falling from a standing position. Anybody can fall from a standing position. There are people that used to be King James Bible believers that they pull out a new King James now. And their churches went from King James churches to New King James churches. And they went from conservative beliefs to modernistic contemporary beliefs. What happened? They fell from a standing position. That's apostasy. And apostasy in the last days, he said, men will depart from the faith. How do you depart from the faith if you're not in the faith? So what Schofield and Larkin and some of those guys did, as brilliant as they were, they had this whole thing where you had a church that was just a professing church and then a true church. And that's how they cover themselves when they come to passages like this. Well, this is just those who profess to be saved, but they're not really saved. So what we need to do coming up when Brother Pilkington is here is we need to have a good old retread service. We need to find out who's really saved. Because some of you just might be professors instead of possessors. Are you a professor or a possessor? Look, I understand having said that there's always balance. There are people that sit in church and never get saved. I understand that, but the exceptions prove the rule. People don't even understand it. They're just too ignorant to have read enough to know when they stand up in some church service and say, well, I believe if you still dipping and you still smoking, after you got saved, you didn't really get saved. When I got saved, I put the cigarettes down immediately. And I ain't miss church service even when I go out of town and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm truly saved. If what you've got can't get you back to church on Sunday night, what makes you think it's going to get you to heaven? That doesn't even make good preaching. But that's the camp meeting style preaching, and what it is, it is actually Calvinism refurbished. And it is, well, there are these people that are not really saved because they don't live up to such as that, and all of a sudden the piano player gets saved, and the church secretary gets saved, and the preacher's wife gets saved, and the deacon gets saved, and, well, because they just kept harping on certain sins that they, you know, maybe they only read their Bible, you know, 10 times instead of 1,500 times. I don't know. But the danger in that stuff is it's a faulty way of trying to justify not rightly dividing the scriptures. I am a Baptist, but I am not loyal to what all the Baptists teach. There's a lot of Baptist heresies out there. And I'm a Bible believer first. And if the Bible says one thing, the Baptists say something else, then the Baptists are wrong. And I can't honestly look at Hebrews and say, okay, this is not dealing with somebody that fell away. Not if I can see another viable option. The Scriptures have to remain. Our job is to keep the integrity of the Scriptures. The Bible is right no matter what theology says, no matter what the prophecy experts say or whatever. And so Hebrews chapter number 6, look at it. We know you can't fall away once you are a partaker of the Holy Ghost. Let me give you a couple of verses. Go to 2 Corinthians 1. 2 Corinthians chapter 1. If you might wanna jot down 1 Corinthians 12, 13, that deals with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Once you're saved, you're baptized by the Spirit of God, 1 Corinthians 12, 13. But notice 2 Corinthians 1, look in verse 22. Who hath also sealed us and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts. What's the earnest? That's the down payment. He promises he's gonna make good on the rest of the purchase. Your body hadn't been saved yet, but when he comes back in the rapture, you're gonna get a new body. And that's a promise. So if there's a condition there and you can lose your salvation, then the promise is no good. The earnest money, what's he going to do? Say, well, I don't think so. You didn't live up to your end of the bargain. You didn't endure to the end and keep the commandments and do all these other things. So I'm pulling it out. He doesn't do that. Look at Ephesians chapter one. Now here's where people get in a pickle and I'm not, you know, totally just hateful toward these people that have these kind of Calvinistic views, because here's what happens. Some of these preachers, they know eternal security is true. They come across those other passages, they don't see the viable option that I'm talking about here, which is tribulation. They hadn't studied that thing out or they hadn't been shown it, and they don't understand some of those things. Maybe they're not I don't know if they're not versed in the book of Revelation. The book of Revelation, Revelation 12, 17, Revelation 14, 12, Revelation 22, 14, those are definitive passages that teach in the tribulation a saint has got to not only have the faith of Jesus, but keep the commandments of God. If somebody in the tribulation takes the mark of the beast, they lose their salvation. They take it on their hand or their forehead. I don't care how many times they prayed the sinner's prayer, they're done. That's tribulation salvation, nothing like church age salvation. And so maybe they don't know that. So then they read these passages and they don't even think, okay, this could have application to that because they don't put two and two together. Even though they learn some things about the Old Testament, most of the people like Scofield, you read him, I keep referring to him because he's kind of like the classic. Psalm 51, he understands that the work of the Holy Spirit is different in the Old Testament. No one in the Old Testament was sealed with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit could leave people in the Old Testament. Now if you don't have the Holy Spirit when you die, you're not saved. So if the Holy Spirit leaves somebody, they die not saved. So you read of people in the Old Testament where the Holy Spirit is not only on them, but in them. And then you read places where the Holy Spirit leaves. That is not New Testament salvation. That's before the finished work of Christ. You've got to make those divisions. Look in Ephesians chapter one, look in verse 13. And whom also you trusted, after that you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and whom also after that you believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. Chapter 4, verse 30 is the same thing, you can jot it down, real similar. So you want to understand that believers in this age cannot fall away once they've been saved. By the way, Hebrews chapter 6, it says it is impossible for those who are once enlightened. if they fall away to renew them to repentance. That would be the Wesleyan-Armenian position, which a lot of your Church of God assembly, God, Jimmy Swigert, he said years ago, you know, is he still alive or he finally died? He finally died. Tell you one time I heard a message. I couldn't tell who it was. I was going on the road and I, man, this guy was preaching. He was in Argentina or some other country. It was like a Billy Graham type crusade and he was preaching and the guy was translating and he was preaching the gospel. Man, he was preaching hell hot. He was preaching that the Pope couldn't save you. I mean, it was a huge crowd. I was thinking, who is this? And it turned out, I think it was Jimmy Swagger, some old crusade he had. But he one time talked about the Baptists were their damnable doctrine of eternal security is what he called it. And then he got in trouble with all those women. Y'all remember that? I wonder if he got re-baptized. Did he get re-saved? Certainly he got saved again, so he must not have been a Wesleyan or maybe he changed his doctrine and started believing in eternal security. I don't think so. But anyway, a Wesley Arminian would say, see, Hebrews 6, you lose it, you can't get it back. If Hebrews 6, you take it just like it is, once you lose it, you're done. Because he says, you're like a briar, like a thorn, and that thing's gonna be burned. To me, the only place you can put that thing is the tribulation. Somebody takes the mark of the beast, and you're finished. And so, you wanna make sure you see that, and you get it a couple more places, and we gotta wrap it up. Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10. These are the main warning passages in Hebrews 26 and 27. This is a very common one. Hebrews 10, 26, 27. You'll notice a lot of we's. It's a Hebrew book and Paul's writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit as identifying as a Hebrew, and he was. verse 26, What about that? You sin willfully? Have you sinned willfully since you've been saved? Who hasn't? Well, you know, I just made a mistake. No, you didn't make a mistake, you sinned. You knew what you were doing when you did it, and you did it anyway. Now here's a caveat to this thing, and people try to get around this thing and they try to say, and they couple this with 1 John chapter 5 and they don't rightly divide there either. He says, whatsoever is born of God doth not commit sin. And they change that verse in the King James text to say, he doth not habitually sin. So if you continually sin and you get into a lifestyle, let's say you quit coming to church consistently on Sunday night. And you, you know, that's just our little standard. Let's just say you quit reading 15 chapters of the Bible a day and you only read two. You are willfully sinning. But no, what they do is they try to bring this habitual thing up and then they can put people in this category. Well, that's a real bad backslider because we hadn't seen him church in three years and I saw him with a six pack of beer in the shopping cart at the gas station. So he really is, he has lost his salvation. What about Mrs. So-and-so that the only thing she sees in church is the new dresses that the ladies are wearing? She hasn't heard a sermon that the preachers preached in 15 years. Is that not falling away? People don't think. Alright, so notice willfully sinning. Here's the caveat I was going to mention. Paul the apostle actually admits to willful sinning in Romans chapter 7. He says, that which I do, I allow not, but what I hate, that do I. He's condemning himself for his own sins that he willfully does. And he says, I know that in me, that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. First Corinthians chapter, notice, what did I, oh, we're in Hebrews 10, okay. So notice, And by the way, so when you read about Paul admitting about these willful sins, Paul never says one word in his epistles, church age epistles, about being in danger of going to hell or of us, if we commit a sin, being in danger of going to hell. Now let me go ahead and say this, I am not justifying backsliding, I'm not justifying sin, drunkenness, fornication, or any of that stuff. Paul preaches to the Corinthians about their fornication. He preaches to the Ephesians about their drunkenness. Who's he talking to? Christians. Save people in the body of Christ. Those are pretty two big sins right there. So you say, well, I just thought someone was really saved. Okay. 1 Corinthians 7, the man had his stepmother was his girlfriend. That was the sin he was rebuking them for. All right. And finally, one more and we'll wrap it up. Hebrews chapter 12, verses 14 and 15. Kind of ties in with our passage Sunday morning, which I don't think I even mentioned this, but Hebrews 12, 14 and 15, follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. Looking diligently, lest any man fail with the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you and thereby many be defiled. Then he gives the type of Esau. Esau couldn't get back his birthright after he sought it with repentance, verse 17. You see that, 16 and 17? The guy's a fornicator. He's a wicked man. He can't get it back. He repents. He seeks it with tears. Now, being holy is not a prerequisite for saved people seeing the Lord. 1 Corinthians 13, verse 14, that verse declares that all saved people are going to see the Lord. In 1 Corinthians 13, this is a great charity passage, he says in verse 12, for now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. You're going to see him face to face. Not just because you're pure or you're trying to be pure. That's not a prerequisite. And Paul never taught that those in the church age could fail at the grace of God. The verse that your Church of God, Assembly of God, Methodists, Arminians, all those folks try to go to in Paul's epistles is Galatians chapter 5. And you who are justified by the law, he says, you're fallen from grace. And they say, well see, there's some people Paul's writing to and they fell from grace. Who's he talking to? He's talking to unsaved Jews who are trying to justify themselves by keeping the law. If somebody is trying to be justified before God in this age by keeping the law, they have fallen from grace. What does that mean? That means they're away from the grace of God because they're trying to justify themselves. That's a lost person. So this is nowhere connected to Hebrews chapter 12 at all. So a prerequisite for you is not that you have to be looking for the Lord to see him or to try to have peace with all men and holiness or you're not going to see God, you're going to see the Lord. I gave you the verse about the judgment seat of Christ, the things you've done, either good or bad, you're going to stand in front of it. In conclusion, here's my last final thoughts. That's my final answer. Here it comes. Paul never warned the body of Christ with warnings like these that you find in Hebrews. That's why they stand out. That's why people see them and they're like, whoa, what is this? Paul warned churches and pastors about false teachers, Acts chapter 20. Paul warned Christians about the judgment seat of Christ when he'll make manifest the hearts of men and we're going to be judged and be either found faithful or unfaithful as stewards. He did this to present every man perfect in Christ so they would be presentable to the Lord, not so they would be partakers of the Holy Ghost. If you're saved, you are a partaker of Christ. You are in the body of Christ. You're not only saved, you're safe. So there you have it. That's the warning passages there. Hopefully I didn't make it too confusing for you. All right, let's pray. Lord, thank you for the book. Help us, Lord, to rightly divide it.