Latest / Reformed Thinking / Agonizing for the Prize: The Sovereign Use of Warning and Command in Divine Providence

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Agonizing for the Prize: The Sovereign Use of Warning and Command in Divine Providence · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  So imagine you are riding on a really comfortable high speed
• 0:05
  train. You know you have your ticket in
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  your hand, you find your assigned seat and you just kind
• 0:10
  of settle in for a long trip. And as the passenger, your
• 0:15
  relationship to the destination feels, well, it feels entirely
• 0:20
  passive, like they the conductor handles all the logistics.
• 0:23
  Yeah, the engineers maintain the engine and all that.
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  Spot on. You don't have to shovel the
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  coal, you don't have to study the maps, and you certainly
• 0:30
  don't have to lay down the tracks.
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  You were just safely insulated from the elements outside.
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  Yeah, just sit back, you know, watch the scenery go by through
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  the reinforced class and wait to arrive.
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  That is pretty much the assumption most people have.
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  Yeah, right. Usually when people think about
• 0:44
  divine Providence, that is the literal expectation they have in
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  their minds, just this state of passive comfort.
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  It feels automatic. You know you have your ticket to
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  heaven, so the rest of the trip requires, well, nothing of you.
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  But then you step into the actual text of the New
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  Testament, and suddenly that comfortable train carriage just
• 1:01
  completely vanishes. The reinforced glass shatters.
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  Oh yeah, it is a shock to the system.
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  It really is. We are looking at this landscape
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  of severe warnings, harsh commands, and these urgent calls
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  to action that feels frankly startling.
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  It throws that whole passive expectation completely out the
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  window. So welcome listener to Reform
• 1:23
  thinking. This is specific deep dive into
• 1:26
  the source material you provided.
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  And today we are investigating a really striking relationship.
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  We are looking at God's absolute, unthwartable
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  sovereignty right alongside the intense, demanding commands
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  found in Scripture. Yeah, because the carnal find
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  assumes that if God decrees the end from the beginning, human
• 1:42
  effort is, well, void. Like, why try if God has already
• 1:47
  decided the outcome? Yet Scripture commands believers
• 1:50
  to strive to enter through the narrow door, as we see in Luke
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  13.24. So how do these two realities
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  actually coexist? That tension that is the core of
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  our objective today we are going to look into the command and
• 2:01
  warning strategy of Divine Providence.
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  OK, unpack that of it. Well, the sources prove that God
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  does not just ordain the final destination for his elect, He
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  ordains the precise means by which they arrive there safely.
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  The means to the end. Yes, and those means include
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  terrifying warnings and relentless demands for personal
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  holiness. God keeps his people safe, not
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  by making them careless, but by, well, awakening them.
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  By waking them up. Yeah, he does not put them to
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  sleep on a passenger train. He drafts them into an active,
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  vigilant infantry. I think we need to start by
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  defining Providence properly, because our modern cultural
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  assumptions are frankly getting in the way of what the text
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  actually says. They absolutely are.
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  When people hear the word Providence today, they often
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  think of fate like some cold, impersonal mechanism running the
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  universe. Or they treat it like a vague
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  religious word for luck. Oh totally.
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  Like if you got a green light when you are running late, you
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  call it Providence. Yeah, but the sources describe
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  it very differently. They define it as the living,
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  wise and holy government of God over all creatures.
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  He preserves his Saints through promises, sure, but also through
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  chastisements and very solemn warnings.
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  So here is my question for you. OK, go ahead.
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  If a person believes that grace means they can just put their
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  spiritual life on autopilot, aren't they just confusing a
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  philosophical deduction with biblical truth?
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  That is a very perceptive way to phrase it.
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  I mean, human logic naturally tries to flatten out the tension
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  of scripture, right? We want it to be simple math.
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  We do. When people put their
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  sanctification on autopilot, they're engaging in a
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  philosophical deduction. They create the syllogism.
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  God is in complete control. Therefore, my actions have zero
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  bearing on reality. Logical on the surface.
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  It sounds very logical, but it is totally disconnected from
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  biblical truth. Historically, you see this in
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  specific theological movements. Consider the older Keswick
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  theology, which popularized the phrase Let go and let God.
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  I have heard that phrase 1000 times.
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  It sounds very pious, doesn't it?
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  Like you are trusting God completely.
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  It does sound pious, but it promotes a really dangerous
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  passivity. It suggests that any strenuous
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  effort on the believer's part is actually a lack of faith.
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  Which is wild when you read the Bible.
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  Right. But our texts highlight two
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  distinct errors that we must reject right at the threshold of
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  this conversation. The first error is legalism.
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  Which is the idea that we have to earn our keep, that we sort
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  of work our way into God's good graces.
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  Spot on. Legalism is the false idea that
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  sinners earn final acceptance by obeying these warnings and
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  commands. And that contradicts the Gospel
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  completely. It does.
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  A believer's only righteousness before God is Christ's obedience
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  and blood received by faith alone.
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  You do not obey the warnings to purchase your salvation.
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  OK, so that is legalism. What is the other error?
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  The second error, which is far more rampant in modern
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  evangelicalism, is antinomianism.
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  OK, anti meaning again and no Moss meaning law, so against the
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  law. Correct.
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  Antinomianism is the false idea that grace makes holiness
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  optional. It treats the warnings in the
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  New Testament as if they just do not apply to believers, because
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  justification is already secured.
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  I see. To ground our discussion, we can
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  look at the theological framework provided by the
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  Westminster Confession of Faith. OK, what does it say?
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  In Chapter 11, paragraph one, it states clearly that justified
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  individuals are pardoned and accounted righteous for Christ's
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  sake alone. Righteousness is not infused
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  into them to make them inherently acceptable, it is
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  imputed to them. OK.
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  Let me make sure I'm following the distinction there, because
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  imputation versus infusion is a massive theological divide.
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  It is huge, yeah. If righteousness was infused
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  into us like, I don't know, like a medicine injected into our
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  veins, then our standing before God would go up and down based
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  on how well we are doing on any given Tuesday.
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  Right, you would be looking at your own spiritual temperature
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  all the time. Yeah.
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  Well, yeah, we would be partially justified based on our
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  behavior. And that is the Roman Catholic
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  view of justification. And honestly, it destroys
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  assurance. Imputation, on the other hand,
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  means Christ's perfect record is legally credited to the
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  believer. Like a bank transfer?
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  Yes, your standing is secure because of that solid,
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  unshakable grounding. We have to understand that grace
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  does not abolish commands. Instead, grace actually gives
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  the believer the strength for obedience.
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  So Christ justifies no one whom he refuses to sanctify.
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  That is it. The same savior who pardons his
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  people also purifies them. The warnings are part of that
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  purification process. Man.
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  So if we are talking about this intense dynamic of severe
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  commands and sustaining grace, I want to know how this played out
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  for the actual people who first heard these words.
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  Yeah, the historical context is fascinating.
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  Because we are reading these texts in comfortable chairs, you
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  know, holding leather bound Bibles.
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  The original audience was not. Definitely not.
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  If we look at the original audience of the Epistle to the
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  Hebrews, they were living in a literal pressure cooker.
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  Who are these people and what were they facing?
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  Well, the 1st century Christian Church existed under intense
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  political, social and religious pressure.
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  The Hebrew believers initially embraced the gospel with great
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  joy, but the reality of their situation quickly set in.
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  The honeymoon phase ended. Very quickly they faced the
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  fiery trial of persecution. They were marginalized by their
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  own society. If you read later, in Hebrews
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  chapter 10, the author explicitly mentions that they
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  endured the plundering of their property.
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  Stop there for a second, because plundering of property is one of
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  those phrases we just read, right?
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  Past we really do. We are talking about their
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  businesses being boycotted. We are talking about their homes
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  being seized or vandalized. Like if you belong to a trade
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  Guild in the ancient Roman world and you refused to offer a pinch
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  of incense to the local deity or the emperor.
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  You were kicked out of the Gill. Right.
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  You could not sell your goods. Your family went hungry.
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  The social ostracization was total.
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  You had the relentless weight of the Greco Roman world pushing
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  against them from one side, combined with the severe
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  religious hostility from unbelieving Judaism on the other
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  side. So they they had nowhere to go.
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  Nowhere, families were torn apart.
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  To follow Christ meant becoming an outcast from your synagogue,
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  which meant losing your entire social safety net.
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  It was a Crucible of suffering that tested the limits of human
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  endurance. In that specific Crucible, what
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  fascinates me is the actual danger the author of Hebrews is
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  worried about. Because if I am facing the loss
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  of my home and my business, I would assume the biggest threat
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  is a sudden, dramatic renunciation of faith, walking
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  into the town square and shouting I reject Jesus.
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  Right, a huge public apostasy. Yeah, but the texts show that
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  the primary threat was entirely different.
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  The threat was a slow, imperceptible drifting away.
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  It was. It was born out of spiritual
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  fatigue and sluggishness. They were not actively
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  rebelling. They were just getting tired of
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  the fight. That is the insidious nature of
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  spiritual danger, isn't it? It is the vibrant, courageous
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  faith of their early conversion was giving way to an exhausted
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  complacency. And to illustrate this danger,
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  the author of Hebrews utilizes a specific historical memory from
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  the Old Testament, the wilderness generation of the
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  Exodus. Oh, right, He draws heavily from
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  Psalm 95. This is a typological warning.
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  The generation that Moses LED out of Egypt.
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  Yes, think about the Israelites at Massa and Meribah.
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  They possessed all the outward covenant signs.
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  They experienced the physical deliverance from Egypt.
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  They. Saw the.
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  Plague. They saw the plagues.
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  They walk through the Red Sea on dry ground.
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  They literally ate the manna that fell from the sky every
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  morning. And they heard the audible voice
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  of God. Exactly.
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  Well, they did. Yet an entire generations
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  corpses fell in the desert because of unbelief.
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  They did not enter God's rest in the promised land.
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  The author of Hebrews is taking that history and using it as a
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  mirror for the New Covenant church.
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  He's telling them do not assume that because you have
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  experienced the outward signs of the church, you are immune to
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  the same disaster. I want to pause on this
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  historical contrast and push back against a lot of modern
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  assumptions here. OK, let's hear it.
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  Because when I look at seeker sensitive church growth models
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  today, the entire philosophy seems built around removing
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  friction. The goal is to make the church
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  experience as comfortable and palatable as possible.
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  Keep everyone happy. Right, so they censor the severe
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  warnings. They do not talk about hell,
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  they do not talk about wrath, and they certainly do not talk
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  about corpses falling in the wilderness.
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  No, that doesn't pull well. It really doesn't.
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  But when modern pragmatists try to remove all that friction and
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  hide the severe warnings, aren't they actually doing massive
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  harm? It is like removing the
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  guardrails from a bridge over a Cliff because the guardrails
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  look intimidating. That is a great analogy.
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  They think they are helping people along, but they are
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  actually taking away the very things keeping the flock from
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  falling into the abyss. That raises a critical question
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  about how we view pastoral care today.
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  Modern pragmatism defines pastoral care as making people
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  feel validated and affirmed. Right, just giving them a hug.
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  Yeah, but true pastoral care, according to Scripture, involves
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  issuing prophetic roars when the flock is wandering near a Cliff
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  edge. A prophetic roar.
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  I like that. The literary context of the New
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  Testament proves your point about the necessity of
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  guardrails. The New Testament is absolutely
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  stacked, saturated with the imperative mood.
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  There are over 400 imperatives in the Apostle Paul's letters
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  alone. 400 commands just from Paul.
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  Just from Paul, God has not blundered by filling His word
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  with commands. That completely shatters the
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  idea that grace means the end of effort.
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  It does look at the structure of Paul's epistles.
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  Like the book of Romans, chapters one through 11 lay down
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  a massive theological baseline of gospel indicatives.
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  Indicatives meaning statements of fact.
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  Yes, statements of fact about what God has done.
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  He has elected, He has justified, He has poured out His
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  Spirit. Then you hit the structural
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  hinge at Romans 12.1. I appeal to you therefore,
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  brothers. By the mercies of God, from that
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  point on, Paul unleashes a torrent of gospel imperatives.
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  He tells believers what they must do in light of what God has
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  done. So you get the indicatives of
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  grace first, and then the imperatives of obedience flow
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  directly out of them. Always in that order.
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  It is a deliberate strategy by the divine author.
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  The warnings and commands are not hypothetical musings.
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  They are not empty threads. No, to grasp how these
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  guardrails function, we really need to inspect the text itself.
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  I want to take a granular look at Hebrews chapter 3,
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  specifically verses 12 through 14.
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  Let's. Do it.
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  This section is an exegetical master class on the command and
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  warning strategy. I will read verse 12.
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  Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil,
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  unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living God.
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  Such a heavy verse. It is the English has take care,
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  but I know the Greek carries a lot more weight.
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  The word is blpete. Blpete, yes.
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  I do not read Greek, So what is the actual tone of that word in
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  the original language? Oh, the intensity of that word
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  blpete is just lost in our polite English translations.
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  It is a present active imperative calling for acute
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  continuous visual perception. So not just a casual glance.
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  Not at all, it literally means to keep your eyes wide open to
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  watch out constantly. We are talking about spiritual
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  hyper vigilance. Think of a soldier on a night
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  watch in hostile territory. He exercises Bupit.
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  The author is assuming that spiritual danger exists within
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  the visible congregation. No member can assume that
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  because they have public association with a local church,
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  their heart is automatically safe from this threat.
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  And the specific danger is named clearly.
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  It is not poor church attendance or failing to read your Bible
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  enough is an evil unbelieving heart, which leads to the verb
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  apostan I. That is where we get the English
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  word apostasy right? That is correct.
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  Apostasy is the culmination of the threat you are watching for
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  an internal rot of unbelief that produces a total spiritual
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  defection. An internal rot.
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  Yes, and notice the specific phrasing the text uses.
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  It says this evil heart leads you to fall away from the living
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  God. The living God.
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  Right. It is not departing from a
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  theological tradition. It is not changing your
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  religious preferences from one denomination to another.
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  You are departing from the source of life itself.
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  That distinction is chilling. It is a departure from a person,
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  not a philosophy. That is why the warning is so
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  terrifying. Unbelief in the New Testament is
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  never treated as a harmless intellectual hesitation.
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  We treat it like that today though, like it's just someone
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  having doubts. We do, but biblically it is a
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  moral and spiritual rebellion against the Creator.
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  To depart from Christ is to turn your back on the speaking God
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  and walk into the silence of final judgment.
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  That is the reality established in verse 12.
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  But the author does not leave the congregation in a state of
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  paralyzing fear. He provides the daily remedy in
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  verse 13. Right, he says.
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  But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called
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  today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of
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  sin. So the remedy is communal.
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  You do not fight this battle in isolation.
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  You exhort one another and the urgency is locked onto the word
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  today. Yes, but I want to zero in on
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  the phrase the deceitfulness of sin, because sin does not
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  usually announce itself as a rebellion against the living
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  God, does it? It rarely does.
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  It doesn't knock on the front door wearing a name tag that
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  says apostasy. No, it operates entirely through
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  deception. It misnames reality, that is how
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  it deceives the mind before it destroys the soul.
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  Misnames reality. Give me an example of that.
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  We can look at very practical examples.
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  In the daily life of a believer. Covetousness masquerades as
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  financial prudence. Oh, that is a good one.
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  A person convinces themselves they are just being wise with
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  their investments while their heart grows cold to generosity
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  and completely obsessed with wealth.
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  Or gossip. Gossip masquerades as sharing
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  prayer requests. All the time in the church.
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  We tell ourselves we need the church to pray for someone's
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  failure, but really we just want to revel in their downfall.
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  Spot on. Lust calls itself love, or even
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  just harmless appreciation of beauty.
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  Bitterness and an unforgiving spirit call themselves a desire
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  for justice. Prayerlessness calls itself
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  busyness or efficiency. Doctrinal compromise calls
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  itself academic nuance or cultural balance.
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  When a human heart listens to those specific lies long enough,
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  the conscience becomes seared. It becomes hard.
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  And the terrifying thing about a hardened heart is that the
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  person usually feels less alarm about their condition, not more.
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  That is the tragic irony of it. They mistake their spiritual
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  numbness for genuine peace, Yes. They think they are fine because
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  nothing bothers them anymore. Numbness masquerading is peace.
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  That might be the most dangerous state a human being can exist
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  in. You think you're fine because
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  the pain receptors are literally dead.
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  Except, well, yes, absolutely. Which brings us to verse 14,
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  which acts as the doctrinal anchor of this whole passage,
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  for we have come to sharing Christ, if indeed we hold our
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  original confidence firm to the end.
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  The grammatical structure here is incredibly important for
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  understanding the timeline of salvation.
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  Walk me through it. It is the theological bedrock of
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  the argument. The grammar displays a past
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  perfect reality verified by a future ongoing condition.
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  OK. Lost me a bit there.
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  Let me break it down. It says we have come to share in
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  Christ. That is a settled past reality.
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  The sharing has already occurred.
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  Done deal, done deal. Then it says, if indeed we hold
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  our original confidence firm to the end, that is the future
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  condition that proves the past reality.
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  Let me try an analogy on you to see if I am grasping this
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  correctly, because people get completely tripped up by the
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  word if in that sentence. They do, yeah.
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  They think it means they can lose their salvation.
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  Right, so let me try a medical analogy.
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  Let's say you go to the hospital and the doctor checks your
• 18:01
  pulse, holding fast. Your confidence isn't the
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  medicine that cures you, it is the pulse that proves you have a
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  beating heart. Oh, that is good.
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  The beating heart is the sharing in Christ.
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  The pulse is a holding fast. The pulse doesn't create the
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  life, but if the life is there, the pulse will inevitably
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  follow. Does that align with the
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  author's logic? That analogy clarifies the
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  grammatical structure very well. The text is not giving a
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  legalistic ladder for the believer to climb, it is giving
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  an evidential test. An evidential test.
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  Yes, perseverance acts as the evidential proof of a past
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  effectual calling. Holding fast does not purchase
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  your participation in Christ. It proves your participation in
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  Christ. Real union with Christ endures
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  the trials of the wilderness. You do not hold fast to earn
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  salvation. You hold fast because you have
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  been made a partaker of the Savior, and He supplies the
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  life. So if holding fast requires this
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  acute hyper vigilance we talked about with the Pete, and we have
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  this evil unbelieving heart constantly trying to deceive us
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  with lies that sound like prudence or justice, what does
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  this actual fight look like on a daily Tuesday?
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  That is the practical question, isn't it?
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  Because I will be honest with you, my resolve is notoriously
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  frail. Sometimes I barely have the
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  resolve to avoid hitting the snooze button on my alarm clock
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  team here. How am I supposed to fight like
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  a gladiator against my own brain?
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  This leads us into the concept of mortification.
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  We are not talking about passive drifting.
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  We are talking about active warfare.
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  Yeah, if we look at the language of the apostle Paul uses to
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  describe this daily reality, it is shockingly aggressive.
• 19:40
  Give me an example. In First Corinthians 9.27, Paul
• 19:43
  says he disciplines his body and keeps it under control.
• 19:46
  The Greek word he uses for discipline is hippie piazzo.
• 19:50
  Hippo Piazza. Yes, if we analyze the extra
• 19:53
  biblical usage of that specific word in the Greco Roman world,
• 19:58
  we find it is not a religious term, it is a pugilist's term.
• 20:02
  A pugilist like a boxer. Exactly.
• 20:05
  It belongs to the violent world of the boxing.
• 20:08
  Ring. I looked this up in the notes
• 20:09
  actually. It literally means to give
• 20:11
  someone a black eye or to strike under the eye.
• 20:14
  Yes, A. Literal black eye.
• 20:16
  Paul's talking about beating his own flesh until his face is
• 20:19
  bruised, discolored. Metaphorically, of course.
• 20:21
  Metaphorically, yes. But it is the most violent
• 20:24
  metaphor you could possibly pick for the Christians.
• 20:27
  War against the flesh. He says he does this last after
• 20:30
  preaching to others. He himself should be
• 20:32
  disqualified. We're talking about holy
• 20:35
  violence against indwelling sin. This specific text connects
• 20:38
  directly to the historical doctrine of the mortification of
• 20:41
  sin. The Puritan theologian John Owen
• 20:44
  provided a famous declaration derived from this biblical
• 20:47
  reality. Be killing sin or it will be
• 20:49
  killing you. You know it be killing sin, or
• 20:51
  it will be killing you. You must take the sword of the
• 20:53
  Spirit to the throat of your besetting sins.
• 20:56
  Whether it is a secret lust, the quiet arrogance of pride or the
• 21:00
  idolatry of greed. There is no negotiating with the
• 21:03
  flesh. You cannot sign a ceasefire with
• 21:05
  the devil. You cannot put your favorite sin
• 21:07
  on a leash and hope it acts like a pet.
• 21:09
  No, it is a predator waiting to consume you.
• 21:13
  I hear that and I agree with it, but I have to push back here on
• 21:16
  behalf of the listener. OK, push back.
• 21:17
  If we are commanded to be this violent against our own flesh,
• 21:22
  and we are talking about striking ourselves under the eye
• 21:25
  and killing sin with a sword, how does this not cross the line
• 21:30
  back into trying to save ourselves by our own merit?
• 21:33
  That is the natural fear. We started this deep dive by
• 21:36
  rejecting legalism, but this sounds like we are right back to
• 21:40
  earning our keep through sheer willpower and bloodshed.
• 21:43
  That is a crucial distinction to make.
• 21:44
  How do we fight vigorously without becoming legalists,
• 21:47
  right? The answer is found in a
• 21:49
  historical distinction called the Tertius usis latest.
• 21:52
  Which is Latin for the third use of the law.
• 21:54
  Yes, Reformed theology makes careful distinctions about how
• 21:58
  the moral law functions. The first use of the moral law
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  is a mirror. It exposes our sin, shatters our
• 22:05
  self righteousness, and drives us to Christ for salvation.
• 22:08
  Because the law cannot justify a person.
• 22:10
  Right. It's condemnation is permanently
• 22:13
  removed for the believer. Because Christ absorbed the
• 22:16
  condemnation on the cross. Correct.
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  But the third use of the law functions perfectly as a divine
• 22:22
  rule to guide the justified believer in grateful obedience.
• 22:25
  We see this outlined beautifully in the Westminster Confession,
• 22:28
  chapter 19, paragraph 6. The moral law remains the
• 22:32
  perfect reflection of God's holy character.
• 22:34
  So it is no longer a judge condemning you to death.
• 22:36
  No, it is a fatherly guide showing you how to live in the
• 22:39
  house you have already been welcomed into by grace.
• 22:42
  When God commands us to kill sin, He is employing the third
• 22:45
  use of the law. That makes sense, and we must
• 22:47
  look at Romans 813 for the actual mechanics of how this
• 22:50
  works. It says if by the Spirit you put
• 22:53
  to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
• 22:56
  Notice the dynamic there if by the spirit you put to death.
• 22:59
  The agency of putting to death belongs entirely to the
• 23:02
  believer. You must put the sin to death.
• 23:05
  God will not do the mortifying for you.
• 23:07
  He won't, but the strength by which you do it belongs entirely
• 23:11
  to the Holy Spirit. God's Providence guarantees that
• 23:14
  His elect will utilize these severe commands and rely on the
• 23:18
  Spirit's strength to give their flesh a black eye.
• 23:20
  I am tracking with the theology of the third use of law, but I
• 23:24
  still have, you know, a lingering practical concern.
• 23:27
  Sure, if my perseverance relies on my ability to give my flesh a
• 23:31
  black eye and my ability to constantly see through the
• 23:35
  deceitfulness of sin, how can I ever have total assurance of my
• 23:38
  salvation? Because you fail sometimes I
• 23:40
  get. Tired.
• 23:41
  I get deceived. If it is all up to my pugilist
• 23:44
  skills in the spiritual boxing ring, I'm going to lose the
• 23:47
  fight. Eventually I will drop my guard.
• 23:49
  Yeah, this brings us to the absolute necessity of the
• 23:52
  Christological guarantee. Doesn't.
• 23:53
  It it absolutely does. This is the vital turn in our
• 23:56
  understanding of the passage. If we leave the text as a severe
• 23:59
  warning about human effort, we are just preaching moralism.
• 24:02
  We are not preaching the gospel. No, we are not.
• 24:06
  The entire command and warning strategy rests entirely on the
• 24:09
  supremacy of Jesus Christ. He is the superior mediator.
• 24:13
  The book of Hebrews commands us to consider Jesus the apostle
• 24:17
  and high priest of our confession.
• 24:19
  Christ is the true Joshua who actually brings us into the
• 24:22
  eternal rest, unlike Moses who could only lead the people
• 24:26
  through the wilderness. So our preservation does not
• 24:29
  rest on the strength of our grip on Christ.
• 24:32
  Our preservation rests on the strength of Christ's grip on us.
• 24:35
  That is a beautiful way to say it, and the sources point out
• 24:38
  that this reality is rooted in the doctrine of definite
• 24:41
  atonement. OK, let's unpack that.
• 24:43
  Explain how the sources connect those two concepts.
• 24:45
  Well, definite atonement means that Christ did not shed his
• 24:48
  blood simply to make men savable.
• 24:51
  He didn't just open a door and hope people walk through.
• 24:53
  Right. He did not die just to create a
• 24:55
  hypothetical possibility of salvation for anyone who might
• 24:58
  try hard enough or fight well enough.
• 25:01
  He died to accomplish a specific mission.
• 25:03
  John 6.39 makes it incredibly clear, doesn't.
• 25:07
  It what does it say? And this is the will of him who
• 25:10
  sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given
• 25:13
  me, but raise it up on the last day.
• 25:15
  Lose nothing. He died to actually purchase his
• 25:18
  people and secure their eternal destiny.
• 25:21
  He loses none of them. That is correct.
• 25:24
  The warning passages themselves are the very instruments Christ
• 25:27
  uses to apply His preserving grace to the individuals He
• 25:31
  purchased. That is mine.
• 25:32
  He warns us precisely because he loves us.
• 25:35
  He is sworn by his own blood to keep us safe.
• 25:38
  The severe warnings are the faithful voice of the Good
• 25:40
  Shepherd calling out to a wandering sheep.
• 25:43
  Let me bring in a narrative example from the text that I
• 25:45
  think illustrates this dynamic perfect.
• 25:47
  I love narrative examples. Look at the Apostle Peter.
• 25:51
  Jesus issues a very severe warning to Peter right before
• 25:53
  the crucifixion. He tells him that Satan has
• 25:56
  demanded to have him to sift him like wheat.
• 25:59
  Now Peter's own resolve failed miserably.
• 26:02
  He boasted that he would die for Jesus.
• 26:05
  But a few hours later, he denied Christ three times to a servant
• 26:09
  girl. His pugilist skills in the
• 26:11
  spiritual boxing ring dropped absolute 0.
• 26:14
  He dropped his guard and got knocked out.
• 26:16
  He really did. But look at the specific
• 26:18
  phrasing Jesus uses in Luke 22.32.
• 26:22
  Jesus says to Peter, But I have prayed for you that your faith
• 26:25
  may not fail, and when you have turned again, strengthen your
• 26:28
  brothers, he says when, not if. The absolute sovereignty in the
• 26:34
  words of Christ is striking when you have turned again.
• 26:37
  He speaks of Peter's repentance as a guaranteed future reality
• 26:40
  even before Peter commits the sin.
• 26:42
  Wow. The anchor of Peter's soul in
• 26:45
  that dark hour of failure was not his own willpower.
• 26:48
  It was the heavenly intercession of the Son of God.
• 26:50
  That is so comforting. Christ's intercessory prayer at
• 26:53
  the right hand of the Father is the absolute guarantee that the
• 26:56
  elect will heed the warnings, repent of their sins, and hold
• 26:59
  fast. Romans 8.34 asks Who is to
• 27:02
  condemn seeing that Christ Jesus is at the right hand of God,
• 27:05
  interceding for us? I want to run another analogy
• 27:08
  past you to summarize this section.
• 27:10
  When I read about these terrifying warnings in Hebrews,
• 27:12
  I picture a sheepdog. A sheepdog, OK.
• 27:15
  The warnings are the sheepdog that the Great shepherd
• 27:18
  utilizes. The sheepdog looks terrifying.
• 27:21
  It barks loudly, it nips at your heels, and it scares you half to
• 27:25
  death. Sure, but the dog's entire
• 27:27
  function is not to eat the sheep.
• 27:29
  Its function is to drive the sheep back into the safety of
• 27:32
  the shepherd's arms. The warnings terrify us so that
• 27:36
  we run away from the Cliff edge and run to the only place of
• 27:39
  safety, which is Christ's finished work.
• 27:42
  That is a brilliant way to conceptualize the dynamic.
• 27:45
  The warnings do not imply that believers must preserve
• 27:48
  themselves apart from Christ's intercession.
• 27:51
  True believers may stumble. They may backslide horribly,
• 27:53
  just as Peter did. Their faith may momentarily wane
• 27:57
  under pressure. But they will never utterly and
• 27:59
  finally fall away from the living God, because the High
• 28:01
  Priest ever lives to make intercession for them.
• 28:04
  He's the beginning, the ground, the object, the strength and the
• 28:07
  goal of our perseverance. The sheepdog keeps them in the
• 28:10
  flock. So what does this all mean for
• 28:12
  the listener right now? How do we take this massive
• 28:14
  theological reality concerning Providence, the third use of the
• 28:19
  law, and Christ's intersection, and apply it to our daily habits
• 28:23
  in our local church life? We have to apply it.
• 28:25
  Because theology cannot just stay in the realm of academic
• 28:28
  theory, it requires practical boots on the ground application.
• 28:32
  Absolutely. First of all, looking at Hebrews
• 28:33
  3, the text absolutely shatters the modern myth of the solitary
• 28:38
  Christian. It does.
• 28:40
  The solitary, isolated Christian who listens to a sermon online
• 28:44
  but refuses to commit to a local body is a prime target for the
• 28:48
  enemy. They're out in the wilderness
• 28:49
  alone. Exactly.
• 28:51
  Well, yeah, God does not ordinarily preserve his people
• 28:54
  by separating them from the body.
• 28:56
  He places believers in Covenant Fellowship for their own
• 28:58
  protection. We must submit ourselves
• 29:00
  entirely to the ordinary means of grace, because these are the
• 29:03
  very channels of God's preserving Providence.
• 29:06
  Yes. When you say ordinary means of
• 29:08
  grace, what specific practices are we talking about?
• 29:10
  We are talking about the faithful exposition of the Word
• 29:13
  of God from a pulpit. We are talking about gathering
• 29:17
  for corporate worship on the Lord's Day.
• 29:19
  Just go into church. Participating in the Lord's
• 29:22
  Supper and submitting to biblical church discipline.
• 29:26
  You cannot persevere on your own strength.
• 29:29
  You need the brethren to warn you when you were blinded by the
• 29:32
  deceitfulness of sin. You need someone else to tell
• 29:35
  you that your financial prudence is actually covetousness.
• 29:38
  Spot on, you can't see it yourself.
• 29:40
  And we have to treat the word today from Hebrews 3 with
• 29:43
  extreme urgency. The text warns us that delayed
• 29:46
  obedience is simply disobedience in the future tense.
• 29:50
  Oh, that is a hard truth. Saying I will repent later or I
• 29:53
  will reconcile with my brother later is merely practicing
• 29:56
  hardness of heart the. Person who plans to repent
• 29:59
  tomorrow is not promised tomorrow.
• 30:01
  Nope. And even if tomorrow comes, they
• 30:03
  may find their heart significantly colder and more
• 30:06
  resistant than it is right now. The door of repentance stands
• 30:09
  open today while God is actively speaking.
• 30:12
  That is a vital point. Postponing repentance is a very
• 30:15
  dangerous game, but you mentioned the communal aspect of
• 30:19
  exhortation. Yes, I want to ask a very
• 30:21
  practical question about that mutual exhortation.
• 30:24
  We are commanded to exhort one another every day so that no one
• 30:28
  is hardened by sins deceitfulness.
• 30:30
  Right. But what does this actually look
• 30:33
  like in practice without a church becoming a culture of
• 30:36
  suspicion? I can easily imagine a church
• 30:39
  taking this command and turning into a group of theological
• 30:42
  police. Yeah, sniffing out everyone's
• 30:44
  flaws. Everyone is constantly
• 30:46
  interrogating each other, looking for faults and creating
• 30:49
  a toxic, judgmental environment. How do we obey this text
• 30:53
  rightly? That is a very real concern, and
• 30:55
  church history is littered with examples of communities that
• 30:58
  fell into that trap. But the biblical model of mutual
• 31:02
  exhortation is driven by love, not suspicion.
• 31:04
  Love, not suspicion. True love notices when a brother
• 31:08
  or sister is absent from the gathering.
• 31:10
  True love asks the hard, uncomfortable questions out of a
• 31:13
  genuine desire for the person's eternal welfare.
• 31:15
  Not to catch them in a lie, but to save them.
• 31:18
  Right. True fellowship opens Scripture
• 31:20
  together over a cup of coffee. It pursues the wandering sheep
• 31:24
  before their heart grows colder. A faithful church culture is not
• 31:28
  harsh or meddlesome. But it also refuses to sit in
• 31:30
  polite, socially acceptable silence while the soul drifts
• 31:34
  toward destruction. A faith that does not produce
• 31:37
  practical sacrificial love for the brethren is, as the book of
• 31:40
  James outlines, clearly a dead faith.
• 31:43
  It is about being Watchmen for one another, not wardens.
• 31:47
  Oh, I like that distinction A. Warden watches you to make sure
• 31:49
  you do not break the rules. A watchman watches the horizon
• 31:53
  to warn you of an incoming attack.
• 31:56
  We warn each other because we actually care about each other's
• 31:58
  survival in the wilderness. That is beautiful.
• 32:00
  So to summarize the core tension we have been investigating
• 32:03
  today, the reality of apostasy and the deceitfulness of sin
• 32:08
  dictate that believers must work out their salvation with fear
• 32:11
  and trembling. The danger is not hypothetical.
• 32:13
  The wilderness is treacherous, yet we do so with supreme
• 32:17
  boldness because it is God working in us both to will and
• 32:21
  to work for His good pleasure. God will not allow a single one
• 32:25
  of His chosen people to make final shipwreck of their faith.
• 32:28
  The command and warning strategy reveals the sheer unsearchable
• 32:32
  wisdom of divine Providence. The Lord who ordains the final
• 32:36
  salvation of His people also ordains the severe warnings that
• 32:39
  awaken them from their slumber. He wakes them up.
• 32:42
  He ordains the commands that direct their steps, and he
• 32:45
  ordains the local church that exhorts them to keep going.
• 32:48
  Divine sovereignty is not a soft pillow for spiritual laziness.
• 32:52
  No it isn't. It is the solid, immovable
• 32:54
  ground beneath our watchfulness, our daily obedience, and our
• 32:58
  eternal hope. And want to leave you, the
• 33:00
  listener, with a final thought to Mull over as you go about
• 33:03
  your week. Think back to a time when you
• 33:05
  felt offended or uncomfortable by a strict biblical warning.
• 33:09
  We have all had those moments. Maybe it was a firm sermon that
• 33:12
  stepped on your toes and convicted you, or maybe it was a
• 33:14
  faithful friend who had the courage to sit across from you
• 33:17
  and confront you about a sin you were actively hiding.
• 33:20
  Consider this reality. What is that specific moment of
• 33:24
  friction, that intense annoyance, that flush feeling of
• 33:27
  discomfort wasn't a personal attack at all?
• 33:30
  What if it was actually the precise instrument of God's
• 33:32
  Providence, sent by the Good Shepherd in real time to
• 33:36
  actively save your life? That changes how we view every
• 33:39
  uncomfortable truth in Scripture and every hard conversation with
• 33:42
  a brother in Christ. It changes everything.
• 33:45
  We encourage you to examine your own heart today.
• 33:48
  Heed the warnings while it is still called today.
• 33:50
  Do not play games with the deceitfulness of sin, but throw
• 33:53
  yourself utterly upon the grace of the interceding High Priest
• 33:56
  who holds you fast. Thanks for joining us on this
• 33:59
  deep dive into the Word. Until next time, keep your eyes
• 34:02
  on the text.