The Danger Of Substituting Religion For Faith.

Hebrews 12:14-24

A woman I know has held a grudge against her parents for more than fifty years. She resents the fact that they would not allow her to date a boy she knew who came from an alcoholic family and was continually in trouble in school. She is bitter that her Dad required that as long as she lived in his home she follow his rules. He was did not allow her to do as she pleased, and expected her to go to church.

As soon as she was able, she married a guy much like the guy she wanted to date, against her parents advice. He turned out to be an alcoholic, and a gambler, finally losing their home and ruining the lady’s credit rating. When her father helped her get another home. Her husbands creditors seized it as well. Finally they divorced, and she remarried.

Her second husband had much the same attitude, although he had stopped drinking. The second marriage is about to fall apart as well. By rebelling against her parents and holding to that rebellion, she has condemned herself to a less satisfactory life than what her parents had hoped to help her attain. As a result, she is in frequent conflict with someone. I doubt she even realizes what she has missed in her efforts to get her own way. Even her ties to her brothers and sisters are less close than they could be because of her bitterness and preferred pleasures, and she has no children to be close to.

The lady can show pictures of places they have been, and things they have done, but cannot tell of a time when she has been truly happy. People who refuse to allow God to have his way miss out in the same way. While their life may have some real high points, the majority of it is spent just putting up with things they do not enjoy. There is real danger for them of missing out completely.

“Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled; Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.” (Hebrews 12:14-17)

By their lack of faith some never allow God to control their lives. Many try their entire lives to be good enough, and miss God’s gift of righteousness trying to keep a set of rules. Galatians 5:4 describes their state. “Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.” They have missed God’s gift in an effort to do it themselves, as Paul describes in Romans 9:31-32.

Others are like Esau, choosing the temporary pleasures of the world over the promises of God. Paul describes Demas in II Timothy 4:10. “For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica.” I John 2:15 warns, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

Like Esau, they may well come to a point of wishing that they had not rejected Christ, but as Hebrews 6:4-6 says, “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.”

It is especially important that we obey God and yield to him because we are not just coming to the earthly law, majestic and powerful as it was. The penalties it prescribed for disobedience or ignorance were still just physical death. It was still just the model.

“For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more: (For they could not endure that which was commanded, And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart: And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quakeJ” (Hebrews 12:18-21)

We come to the real thing. Just as the sacrifices demand a greater sacrifice, failure to meet the requirements demands a greater penalty, eternal condemnation and damnation. We accept or reject the very son of God and the power of God. It is far more serious than Esau’s rejection or than Cain’s.

“But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.” (Hebrews 12:22-24)

Once again, we have come to the point that we are only fitted to enter the heavenly places when Christ has cleansed us and given his Holy Spirit to produce peace and holiness in our lives. There is the danger that some will still not have accepted Christ, but striving for such a spiritual walk will make those who have not aware of their deficiency.