Let’s take our Bibles together and turn to the Book of Hebrews. We come today to a tough passage in this book and in our verse-by-verse study of Hebrews. Sometimes preachers have to preach tough messages. It’s what you might call an occupational hazard for preachers. 

I heard a story recently about the famous English reformer Hugh Latimer. He preached a message once to King Henry VIII that the king didn’t like. If you know anything about King Henry VIII, you know that he often thought of himself as above spiritual authority. And also he wasn’t afraid to remove people’s heads from their bodies when they went against him. So King Henry sent Latimer a message stating that he didn’t like his sermon, and he demanded that he come back next week and preach a different message. Well Latimer responded by coming once again before King Henry. And he preached the exact same message as the week before. But this time he gave it more energy!   

Sometimes preachers have to preach tough messages. Today’s message is Hebrews 10:26-39. And this is a tough message for me about the nature of false conversions. Thankfully I have a more receptive audience here today than King Henry VIII. 

What I want to present to you today are the two tell-tale signs of false conversion. I’ll give them to you now, and then we’ll unpack them: 1) The failure to repent of sin and 2) The failure to persevere in faith. 

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Go ahead and write that down as #1 in your notes. 

Two Tell-tale Signs of the Falsely Converted:

1) They fail to repent of sin (10:26-31)

The author of Hebrews says in verse 26,

26 For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 

Now remember the context of where this statement is found. When we last were studying the book of Hebrews it was a really encouraging passage. It was Hebrews 10:19-25. The author was inspiring confidence in us to approach God without fear (10:19-22). The author was telling us, “he who promised us is faithful,” so we need to hold fast “our confession of hope” (10:23). If there was anything negative or anything resembling a warning, it was an offhand statement about those who neglected meeting together with the church because they were afraid (10:25).

But if that passage was the author of Hebrews acting as good cop, now he’s the bad cop. In 10:26-39, he’s warning the congregation. And that’s not unusual for this author. Mixed into this book of encouragement and theological treasures are some “make the hair stand up on the back of your neck” warning passages. And this is one of them. 

So let’s look again at verse 26.

26 For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,

 27 but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. 

The issue here is sinning deliberately, continuously, and unrepentantly. Let me say that again. The issue here is sinning deliberately, continuously, and unrepentantly.  In the OT world this was referred to as sinning “with a high hand” (see Num 15:22-31; Deut 17:12). That kind of sin was evidence of reprobate defiance towards God. 

In the NT world, this is a reference to the absolute refusal to repent from a pattern of sinfulness in your life. You want the sin more than you want Christ. You want the sin more than you want the knowledge of the truth. And for unrepented sin and the unrepentant sinner, just like in the OT, there is no sacrifice.

And this theology is not unique to Hebrews. I know the author of Hebrews says it more unsettlingly than anywhere else in the Bible. But Paul says in the book of 1 Corinthians: “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (6:9-10). 

That “such were some of you” statement is really important. That past tense language is important. Your life used to be characterized by those things. Your life used to involve that sin with regularity and without confession. But now your life is in Christ Jesus. Does that mean that you never sin? No. Does that mean that you stop struggling with sin? No. But it does mean that you don’t deliberately and continuously and unrepentantly continue in that sin. 

Now back to Hebrews. Follow the logic of his argument here. The reason this kind of deliberate, unrepentant sinfulness is a problem is because “there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.” In other words, there’s no Day of Atonement ceremony coming up to cover you. There’s some debate on whether there was even any coverage for the sin of the high hand in the OT world. But even if there was, there’s none in the NT. There’s no purgatory in the afterlife to purge you of your unrepented sin. Christ Jesus has made a once for all sacrifice for your sin. And your repentance and your faith allow you access to that forgiveness. But if your repentance is a crock, then your faith is a sham. And a continual, unrepentant pursuit of pet sins proves you an unbeliever. 

This is the issue that I have with people who call themselves “gay Christians” or “LGBT Christians.” I read a number of sins in that 1 Corinthians passage including homosexuality. There’s thieving, there’s greed, there’s drunkenness, there’s adultery, there’s idolatry, etc. But nobody calls themselves a greedy Christian. Nobody calls themselves an adulterer Christian. “Hi, my name is Tony. I’m a serial adulterer, but I’m also a Christian. Hi, my name is Tony, I am unabashedly a thieving, lying, scoundrel of a person, who is also a Christian.”  

Look, this is really important. We need to talk about this. There’s a lot of confusion on this topic. We need to address those who call themselves “gay Christians” or “LGBT Christians.” Some of you may be aware of the writing ministry of Rosaria Butterfield. Butterfield got saved and came out of a Lesbian lifestyle. She wrote a book about it called Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert. And she spoke about this issue in an interview. And in answer to the question, “Can someone self-identify as gay and be a Christian,” she said, 

“Someone can identify as someone who is struggling with same-sex attraction… and I have a big problem [with those who identify as a ‘gay Christian’] … because ‘gay’ is an adjective. And ‘Christian’ is a noun. And the job of an adjectival modifier is the change the noun it modifies. So you say you are a gay Christian, you know what you are doing? You’re putting on the wrong team jersey, and you are going out on the field, and you’re playing, and you are confusing everybody. You may be a Christian who struggles with same-sex attraction, you may be a Christian who struggles with any manner of sin, but as soon as you embrace an adjectival modifier and claim that as your identity, you are not identifying fully with Christ. And here is what you are saying… you are saying, ‘Holy Spirit, don’t touch me there. That’s off limits. That’s my identity.”

This is the issue of “sinning deliberately” that the author of Hebrews is talking about. And it’s not just the sin of homosexuality, although that’s the prominent issue in our day. If you love your sin more than Christ, any sin, you aren’t a Christian. You can have your sin, or you can have Christ, but you can’t have both. You can find your identity in your sin or your identity in Christ, but not in both. Salvation involves repentance and faith. And false converts prove themselves false converts when they stick to their sin and resist Christ.

And that’s basically what the author of Hebrews says in verse 27. For those who love their sin more than Christ, there’s no longer a sacrifice for their sins… 

27 but [instead] a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. 

If that sounds terrifying to you, then you are catching this author’s drift. The author of Hebrews wants to warn you. He’s not interested in you or me softening his message. And he is describing a binary world where you have friends of Christ and adversaries of Christ. There is grace, and there is judgment. There is eternal life and eternal death. And there’s no middle position. You’re either all in on Christ, or you are his adversary. 

Look at verse 28 with me. 

28 Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. 29 How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?

This is what we call a “how much more” argument, or in Hebrew, a qal wahomer argument. In the OT world, the Israelites who rejected the law of Moses were put to death on the evidence of two or three witnesses. You didn’t have the option of submitting to the law of Moses in the OT world (see Deut 17:2-7). There was no freedom of religion in that camp. It was a theocracy. God dwelt in the camp, and God gave the people the law. And if you rejected the law, then you rejected God and deserved death. That was the reality of the OT law that included the OT sacrifices. This is what you might call OT apostasy. 

Now here’s how the “how much more” argument works. If this was true in the OT world, and it was, how much more worse will the punishment be for those who commit NT apostasy and reject Christ? In their case, they don’t reject God and his law but reject God and his Son and his holy sacrifice for sin. You might ask, “How does someone reject God and his Son?” You do that by failing to fully repent of your sin. You do that by thinking that you can be loyal to Christ but also loyal to your sin. 

If you do that, says the author of Hebrews, then you’ve done three things. Let’s go through each of these one at a time in verse 29. The first thing that the unrepentant sinner who pretends to be a Christian has done is that they have trampled the Son of God underfoot. A tell-tale sign of the falsely converted is that they fail to repent of sin…

a) Thus trampling the Son of God underfoot

Here’s how this works. “I love you, Jesus. And I receive by faith your gift of salvation. But I don’t love you enough to repent of my anger towards my mom. I’m going to keep that anger.” “I love you, Jesus, but I don’t love you enough to repent of my greed.” “I love you, Jesus, but I don’t love you enough to repent of my sinful sex-life.” That mentality is the mentality of a false convert. If you do that, then you are trampling the Son of God underfoot. Hebrews 6:6 talked about this when the author said, “they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.”

Write this down as 1b. A tell-tale sign of the falsely converted is that they fail to repent of sin…

b) Thus profaning the blood of the new covenant

29 How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified,

When someone sins with a high hand… when someone sins deliberately, continuously, and unrepentantly, they are profaning the blood of the new covenant. They are saying, in effect, that Jesus’s blood, shed on the cross, is precious enough to pay for my sins, but it’s not precious enough to change my life. That is evidence of false conversion. You don’t understand your sinful state and the comprehensiveness of Christ’s finished work. Christ owns you now. Christ has purchased you with that blood. You don’t get to compartmentalize your life. You don’t get to say, “Jesus you can have this and this and this, but don’t touch this aspect of my life.”      

Listen, let’s be practical here. If Jesus is who he said he was… if Jesus is, according to Colossians 1, the creator of the Universe with all of its vastness and intricacy… and if this Creator God came to earth to die on the cross for your sins and rose from the dead, you don’t get to say to Jesus, “Come this far into my life, but no closer.” That is utterly irrational. And if you do that, you nullify the work of the cross, you profane the blood of Jesus and you prove yourself an unbeliever. 

Write this down as 1c. A tell-tale sign of the falsely converted is that they fail to repent of sin…

c) Thus outraging the Holy Spirit

29 How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?

This is akin to what Jesus called the “blasphemy of the Spirit” (see Mark 3:22-30). It’s the rejection of Christ and the resistance of the Holy Spirit. “What is the unforgiveable sin, Pastor Tony? What’s unforgiveable?” I’ll tell you. It’s unbelief and unrepentance. That’s unforgiveable in the Christian faith. And that’s not two things. That’s one thing. Unbelief and unrepentance are two sides of the same coin. 

In fact it’s the opposite of salvation. What is salvation? Salvation is repentance and faith. Jesus said, “repent and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). How clear is that? I think we like to downplay that emphasis on repentance in the American church. “O just believe! Repentance is optional.” Not according to Jesus, it’s not. 

No, salvation is a matter of repentance and faith. And if I could say it this way, “Un-salvation is a matter of un-repentance and un-belief.” That’s what the author of Hebrews is warning against. That’s the unforgiveable sin. 

And unrepentance and unbelief don’t just frustrate the Holy Spirit. Look at verse 29. This outrages the Holy Spirit. Boy, I don’t want to do that. This outrage is a response to unbelief. This outrage is a result of false converts who pretend to follow Christ, but they love their sin too much. That makes the Holy Spirit livid.         

And speaking of God being livid, look at verse 30.

30 For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” 

Not judge in the sense of chastening his own people, but in the sense of removing those who don’t belong to him. Jesus alluded to this in the parable of the wheat and the weeds (Matt 13:24-30). Those will be sorted at the end of days (i.e. “the Harvest”). 

31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Yes, it is. And I don’t want anyone here to fall into judgment because of unbelief. And also I don’t want to create a sense of eternal insecurity among true believers. So let me talk practically about this passage for a second. 

Listen, if you are struggling with sin. Let’s say same-sex attraction. Let’s say greed or adulterous thoughts. Let’s say anger, idolatry, drunkenness, envy, or any of that stuff that was listed earlier from 1 Corinthians 6. If you are struggling with sin in those categories, take heart, you are not alone. So have Christians throughout the centuries. Paul struggled with some of those things too. So did Peter. In fact, Paul rebuked Peter at one point for acting sinfully among Gentiles (see Gal 2:11-14). “To err is human,” said Shakespeare. That’s true for the believer, just like the unbeliever. It’s okay to struggle. 

But here’s the issue. There were “Christians” in the church in Hebrews that were not just sinning, they were sinning deliberately, continuously, and unrepentantly. They didn’t think of their sin as something to struggle against. They thought of it as something to embrace as part of their identity. And that kind of sinfulness, that kind of defiance towards God, is evidence of being unregenerate. It’s evidence that the Holy Spirit doesn’t reside within you. Because I don’t know about you, but when I sin, the Holy Spirit makes me really uncomfortable! The Holy Spirit forces the struggle. The Holy Spirit forces repentance and spiritual maturity. 

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So the first tell-tale sign of someone who is falsely converted is a failure to repent. Write this down as #2 in your notes. Here’s a second tell-tale sign of the falsely converted. 

2) They fail to persevere in faith (10:32-39)

The Reformers were quite adamant about what they called “The Perseverance of the Saints.” The author of Hebrews addresses that issue here. He says in verse 32,

32 But recall 

By the way this is an imperative in Greek. The author of Hebrews gives them a command. Remember the former days. Don’t forget what transpired previously.

32 But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings,

 33 sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. 

Some of you might say, “But Tony, if we say what you said about ‘gay Christians’ or what Rosaria Butterfield said about ‘gay Christians’… if we tell people that they need to repent of homosexuality in order to be saved, we might be ostracized publicly. People aren’t going to like that. They may cancel us. They may attack us.” Well forgive me for being unsympathetic but “Cry me a river.” Of course that’s going to happen. This isn’t fantasy land where when you follow Jesus all of your wildest dreams come true, and everybody loves you. Nobody promised us that. 

And if we were to put our brothers and sisters from the first century into a time machine and brought them to America and told them how hard it is to be a Christian here, they might just tell you, “Cry me a river.” Some of those first century Christians were beaten for their faith in Christ. Some of them were ostracized for their faith in Christ. Some of them went to jail for their faith in Christ. Honestly you don’t have to bring Christians from the first century into the twenty-first century to get that perspective. Just read a periodical from The Voice of the Martyrs. Just read about Christians in other parts of the world and what they go through for their faith in Christ. 

Now here’s what the author of Hebrews is doing in this text. Let’s be clear. He’s telling a group of believers to hold on and stand fast through persecution, because Christ is better than that. Christ is worth it. And that was their mentality at a previous point in time. Look again at verse 32. 

32 But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, 33 sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. 

The author of Hebrews is writing this letter in approximately AD 65. Now if he’s writing to Christians in Rome, which I think is highly likely, then he’s speaking retrospectively about an outbreak against Christians that took place in approximately AD 49. 

Here’s what R. Kent Hughes says about that historical episode: 

“[The Jewish Christians in Rome] had marvelously stood unmoved some fifteen years earlier during the persecution under the Roman Emperor Claudius in A.D. 49. A famous quotation from the historian Suetonius indicates the character of the Claudian persecution: ‘There were riots in the Jewish quarter at the instigation of Chrestus. As a result, Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome’ (Life of the Deified Claudius, 25.4). Historians believe ‘Chrestus’ is a reference to Christ and that the riots and expulsion occurred when Jewish Christians were banished from the synagogue by the Jewish establishment. No one had been killed (12:4), but it was nevertheless a wrenching time of humiliation and abuse.” 

This is quite possibly what the author of Hebrews was referring to in Hebrews 10.

And as part of that outbreak of persecution, the author of Hebrews says in verse 34,

34 For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, 

Now, be careful here. Don’t move past this too quickly. This church had friends who went to prison for their faith in Christ. These Christians joyfully accepted the plundering of their property. They didn’t just accept the plundering of their property, they joyfully accepted the plundering of their property. Just for clarity’s sake, this wasn’t a democratic republic that they lived in. It was the Roman Empire. And when Caesar takes your property, Caesar takes your property, and you deal with it. 

“How could you deal with that, Pastor Tony? That’s impossible.” Here’s how you deal with it. You remember that you have a better and abiding possession in eternity. 

34 For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. 

If you have Christ, you have everything you need, even if you don’t have anything else. Even if the government takes everything you own. And conversely, if you don’t have Christ, you don’t have anything, even if you have everything else. Jim Elliot, the great missionary to the Auca Indians who was martyred in Ecuador, said once, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.” 

And speaking of time machines, I wonder what these first century Christians would think if we brought them into the twenty-first century to hear some of the prosperity preachers in our day. I wonder what these Jewish Christians from Hebrews would say if they heard preachers preach in our day, “If you come to Jesus you’ll be healthy, wealthy, and prosperous.” Those first-century Christians would probably say, “That is the stupidest, most unbiblical, most irrational thing, I’ve ever heard. Can I show you my scars? Can I show you the beatings that I received? They took my property. They put my friends in prison. All because I believed in Christ.”

“How could you endure that? How could you possibly persevere through that?” Here’s how. They knew they had a better possession, an abiding possession, waiting on ice, to be inherited. 

Look at verse 35.

35 Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. 36 For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.

In other words, “Don’t give up, church. Don’t walk away from your inheritance. Maintain your confidence. You’ve endured before. Endure again! Don’t let them intimidate you. Don’t let them persuade you to renounce Christ or reject Christ.” 

 37 For, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; 38 but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” 

This is an adapted quotation from the book of Habakkuk in the OT. Whenever the author of Hebrews really wants to drive home an argument, he goes OT on his audience. He quotes his Scriptures. And the essence of the quote is that perseverance is evidence of faith. Shrinking back is evidence of unbelief. Shrinking back is evidence of a false convert. Shrinking back or falling away or apostatizing or de-conversion or celebrating the fact that you’ve become an ex-vangelical… it’s all the same thing, as far as I’m concerned… it’s proving yourself an unbeliever. 1 John 2:19 says it this way, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.” 

“What do you think about ex-vangelicals, Tony? What do you think about those people who celebrate their de-conversion and write about it on social media?” Here’s what I think. “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.” Charles Spurgeon said once, “None are truly Christ’s but those who persevere in grace… Temporary Christians are not really Christians… Perseverance—final perseverance—is the test of election. He whom God has chosen holds on and holds out even to the end, while temporary professors make only a fair show in the flesh, but, by-and-by, their faith vanishes away.”

Finally, look at verse 39:

39 But we 

Who’s the “we” in that sentence? It’s the true converts. It’s the legit followers of Jesus, not the false converts. 

39 But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, 

No, we are not! We are the ones who persevere in faith. And Christ Jesus preserves those who truly belong to him. I don’t just believe in the “Perseverance of the Saints.” I believe in the “Preservation of the Saints.” Christ preserves those who are his all the way to the end. 

39 But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.

Look, let me get really personal with you for a second. I don’t really like talking about this subject. And I don’t really like preaching sermons like this. But we are Verse By Verse Fellowship. And I believe that God wants us to honor and preach his Word, even the “hard to swallow” passages of the Bible. 

And the reality is that I’ve seen people shrink back. I’ve seen people walk away from their faith. I’ve baptized people who I thought were genuinely converted, only to find out later that they had fooled me and others and maybe even themselves. I used to agonize over that. I used to stay up at night stressing out over who or who wasn’t genuinely converted. I still do that to a certain extent. But what I’m more inclined to do now is to do my best to preach the gospel and tell people about Jesus. I take people at their word when they come to me and say, “I’m a saved follower of Jesus. I’m ready to be baptized.” And I leave the results of that to the Lord. 

And also, I preach these warning passages. We need these. They remind us about the deceitfulness of sin, and they show us that not everyone who says they believe actually believes. And ultimately, I leave the results and the eternal destiny of others in God’s hands. 

Remember Jesus’s parable of the soils (see Matt 13:1-23)? Some soil is hard and doesn’t receive the gospel. Some soil is rocky and has no roots. Some soil is receptive initially, but it’s a false reception. The cares of the world (i.e. the thorns) choke out the fruitfulness. But then there’s the fruitful soil that produces fruit in keeping with repentance. 

I don’t have any control over the soil. That’s between God and the person. My job is to scatter seeds. My job, and your job, is to share the good news of Jesus Christ with boldness. And we leave the results to him.  

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And by the way, look at what the author of Hebrews says at the end of this passage. Look one last time at verse 39. 

39 But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.

To that you might say, “those who have faith and preserve their souls?” “Do you have any examples of that, Pastor Tony.” “Can you help me out with that?” Well, yes I can. There’s a whole chapter of people that the author of Hebrews lists in Hebrews 11. Commentators on this book call this the great “Hall of Faith” in the book of Hebrews. And we’ll dip our toe into that great chapter of the Bible, next week. 

But can I just tell you ahead of time? The men and women who are listed in Hebrews 11, they weren’t always paragons of virtue. They had feet of clay. But what they did have is a finishing faith. They were “those who have faith and preserve their souls.” And we’re going to learn a lot from them. So come on back! Next week!