Grace for Your Day March 21

One of the saddest characters in the Bible is that of Judas Iscariot because his name has become synonymous with betrayal. He followed Jesus for three years, heard almost every sermon that He preached, and saw most of His miracles but yet he turned his back on Him. Judas deceived Jesus by selling Him for 30 pieces of silver which was the price of a slave at the time.

Incredibly, he was not the only person to act that way because numerous people repeated the same mistake in the Bible. For example, the people of Israel did it when they were wandering in the wilderness. Exodus 32:1-4 says:Then all the people tore off the gold rings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. He took this from their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it into a molten calf; and they said, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.”

This is a horrific passage because it comes right after the Lord had rescued Israel from their slavery. It occurs right on the heels of the ten plagues, the crossing of the Red Sea, and the destruction of the entire Egyptian army because it says that their response to all of this was to worship an idol. They gave the credit to a golden calf instead of the one true God which made the Lord so angry that He threatened to wipe them out as a result of their sin until Moses intervened on their behalf.

Other examples of this can be found in the lives of Saul, Solomon, Demas, Ananias and Sapphira, and Hymenaus and Alexander. However, the point is that betrayal is a very real thing in the Bible because it is possible for someone to claim to love Jesus and then change their mind. They can worship Him one minute and then worship something else the next demonstrating that they never knew Him at all. This is what the Book of Hebrews refers to when it says in 2:1-2:As we have seen in pervious weeks, the Book of Hebrews is all about the greatness of our salvation. It tells us over and over again that Jesus is better than anything this world has to offer so the Author warns us here not to drift away from that now. In other words, we need to be careful not to leave Jesus behind for something else like a golden calf because most people are not pulled away from the faith as much as they drift away from it. They are not violently yanked from Christ as much as they are lulled into sleep by the enemy so you need to be careful not to do that. You need to stay awake.

Theologians have actually created a term for this called “apostasy” which refers to the abandonment of the faith. It is used to describe someone who once followed Christ but does so no longer and, therefore, is lost which is a very common thing nowadays. You see apostasy everywhere because so many people grew up in church in British Columbia but it is a mistake that we all want to avoid which is why we are going to talk about it this Sunday morning at Grace Fellowship Church.

This week, we are going to talk about “5 Warning Passages in the Book of Hebrews” because Hebrews 2 gives us the first of five cautions that are written against the sin of apostasy. They are found in 2:1-4; 3:7-4:13; 5:11-6:20; 10:26-39; and 12:14-29 and they are important because they each tell us to be faithful to Jesus because He deserves it. After all He has done for us, the least we can do is be loyal to Him in response.

Please join us for this challenging and convicting study. It will begin at 9:30 and it will be livestreamed on our You Tube Channel for those who are not able to attend in person. – Jeremy Cagle