When God's Warnings Become Final

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Here's the thing that most of us don't realize. It's dangerous to come to church because at church, at a Bible-believing church, you're going to hear truth. You're going to hear God's word as it is preached. And God's word goes forth and you hear Sunday after Sunday after Sunday what you are supposed to do, how you can be born again, how the Lord wants to change your life. And if you come to church and you don't take the word and unite it with faith, all you do by coming to church is amass judgment against yourself.
Larry Nobles: Welcome to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve, where today he'll ask and answer a very sobering question: Is it possible to cross the point of no return with God? That point when God says, "Nope, that's it. I'm done with you. You're a lost cause, my patience is exhausted." Is that possible to reach that point? Well, Pastor Jeff says, yes, it is. But it's also possible to heed the warning signs even then. Learn how in today's lesson called "The Point of No Return" from Pastor Jeff's fourth message in his no-holds-barred series entitled "Fighting for the Faith". We'll be in this short series through the end of the month. If you miss any messages, you can catch up online at fromhisheart.org. Just click the "Listen Live" link. Open your Bible now to the book of Jude, and Pastor Jeff will be in part one of this revealing and maybe to some of you shocking lesson that emphatically discloses God's point of no return.
Dr. Jeff Schreve: Now, did you know that God has signs that he puts up in life? Signs that say, "Do not go past this point, for if you do, you will pass and cross over into a deadline." Dr. J. Addison Alexander wrote this poem many, many years ago. He entitled it "The Hidden Line". It says this: "There is a time, we know not when, a point, we know not where, that marks the destiny of men to glory or despair. There is a line by us unseen which crosses every path. It is the hidden boundary between God's mercy and God's wrath." I want to speak to you today about the point of no return. We're in a series on the book of Jude. Jude gives us warnings from God about this line that we don't know where it is, about this point of no return. And I want to share with you three warnings, sober warnings from the word of God. And they're warnings that you and I need to hear and to heed because God's word says, "Beware lest you pass the point of no return." Warning number one has to do with continued unbelief. And people cross the point of no return with continued unbelief. Jude, I'll begin reading in verse five. He says this: "Now I desire to remind you, even though you know all things once for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe." Jude says, "Hey, I want to remind you of some things that you already know about. You've learned about this once, but I want to remind you about that." You know the children of Israel, the people that God pulled out of Egypt and led out of Egypt. He delivered them, he saved them out of Egypt, but subsequently, the same God who saved them and delivered them out of Egypt ended up destroying them in the wilderness. You remember that? See, the people who lived in Egypt during the time of Moses, it was terrible in Egypt. And God told Moses, "Hey, I'm going to use you and you're going to lead my people out of Egypt." And that's exactly what happened. And if you know the story, the Jews knew the story well about the ten plagues that God put upon Egypt. And he broke the back of Pharaoh. And he finally, Pharaoh finally said to Moses and the people, "Get out of here. Go, go. We don't want you here anymore. You're destroying our land." And so they left Egypt with God's power. They left Egypt. And then you know they got to the Red Sea and then they couldn't cross. And Pharaoh was coming, had a change of heart, and said, "Hey, I just let all our slaves go. Let's go back and get them, or at least kill them." And so they're coming and then God parts the Red Sea. These people, the ones that God subsequently destroyed, they had seen God do so much in their midst. All the plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, which is the greatest Old Testament miracle. They were talking about it for years and years and years. The Passover, what does it celebrate? It celebrates how God brought them out of Egypt and it conjures back up the idea of God did a great miracle. He parted the Red Sea and destroyed Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea. They had seen all that. They had experienced the manna from heaven that God fed them with. They saw the water come out of the rock. And you got a bunch of people in the wilderness, a million-plus, a million and a half, maybe as many as two million people. They saw God do all that stuff. And yet they didn't believe. Isn't that amazing? It says subsequently destroyed those who did not believe. And many Israelites did not believe. When they got right to the tip, the southern tip of the promised land, this land that God had told them he was going to give them, they come there and they're camping in a place called Kadesh Barnea. And you remember Moses sent out spies, twelve spies. Ten faithless spies, they found out later. He didn't pick ten faithless guys, he didn't think. And two faithful spies, Joshua and Caleb. Twelve spies went out, spied out the land for forty days. They came back with their report. Joshua and Caleb were gung-ho. "Man, this land is awesome, just like God said. It's a land flowing of milk and honey." But the ten faithless spies said, "Hey, it's a good land, let me tell you something about the land: Giants in the land! There's no way we can go after the land. They're giants in the land and we're just like grasshoppers compared to the giants and we're going to get wiped out. And hey, let me tell you what we need to do. We need to elect a leader that will take us back to Egypt." And Joshua and Caleb are like, "No, we need to go into the land. God has given us the land." And the people rose up and said to stone them with stones. Joshua, Caleb, Aaron, Moses, kill them! And the glory of the Lord appeared. And God said this in Numbers chapter 14 and verse 11: "And the Lord said to Moses, 'How long will this people spurn me? How long will they not believe in me despite all the signs which I have performed in their midst?'" Continued unbelief. The Bible talks about this in Hebrews chapter three. And the Lord says this: "As I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest." God didn't let those people go into the promised land. That's why they wandered around the wilderness for forty years. It wasn't because God lost his compass, didn't know where to go. It's because God says, "Hey, for every day you spied out the land, you're going to spend a year wandering around in the wilderness until all of you twenty years old and upward are dead. And your kids, the ones you said would become plunder for the people of the land, they're the ones that are going to go in the land. As I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest." And then the scripture goes on to say this: "Take care, brethren, lest there should be in any one of you an evil unbelieving heart in falling away from the living God." Take care, brethren, because what happened to them can happen to you. Just because you're around things that are spiritual, just because you are in a church where the presence of the Lord is here, that doesn't just automatically qualify you and grandfather you in to the Lord's kingdom. You have to choose that. You have to believe to become a follower of Jesus Christ, to become a child of the king. And many Israelites did not believe and many church people today do not believe. It's just the sad truth. It's the brutal truth, they do not believe. Man, you can be around things of Christianity. You can see God do miracles. You can even experience a personal miracle, a miracle of healing or whatever it might be. But if you don't open your heart, repent of your sin and receive Christ as savior and Lord, you're lost. And you're going to one day perish just like those people perished. And Jesus the savior whom you didn't receive will become Jesus your judge. The Bible says in Hebrews chapter four, verse two: "For indeed we have had good news preached to us just as they also, but the word they heard did not profit them because it was not united by faith in those who heard." Here's the thing that most of us don't realize. It's dangerous to come to church because at church, at a Bible-believing church, you're going to hear truth. You're going to hear God's word as it is preached. And God's word goes forth and you hear Sunday after Sunday after Sunday what you are supposed to do, how you can be born again, how the Lord wants to change your life. And if you come to church and you don't take the word and unite it with faith, all you do by coming to church is amass judgment against yourself. Do you know at the judgment, do you know how God judges unbelievers? He doesn't judge unbelievers just based on how much sin they've committed. He judges unbelievers this way: How much light did you reject? It's not so much sin committed, it's light rejected. Jesus said in Luke chapter 12, he said: "That slave who knew his master's will and did not do it, he shall receive many lashes. But the one who did deeds worthy of a flogging, but he didn't know his master's will, he shall receive but a few. To whom much has been given shall much also be required." Listen, you may be in this church and you say, "Well, I've been coming to this church for years and years and years. You know, I'm a good person and I'm a church member and I've been baptized." Listen, being a good person, being a church member, being baptized, that's not going to cut it. Here's the deal: Have you put your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you put your faith where God put your sins, on the Lord Jesus Christ? And have you received him? Have you bowed the knee to Jesus? These folks, these ungodly apostates, what did they do? They denied our only master and Lord Jesus Christ. They never bowed the knee. It was continued unbelief. And God says you keep going in that direction. That's a big sign. Don't go past this point.
Larry Nobles: As Pastor Jeff Schreve has taught today on From His Heart, do not let outward goodness deceive you. Always ask this question and then answer it honestly: Are you truly trusting in Christ alone for the forgiveness of your sin? Pastor Jeff returns with more about genuine faith in just a moment. Today's lesson is called "The Point of No Return". It's from his eye-opening and timely series "Face-Off: Fighting for the Faith". It's a study of the book of Jude, warning us of the false teachers and their dishonest teachings who try to secretly infiltrate and poison the church in the last days. And oh, how much we see that happening today. We see so many churches with internal struggles, twisted theology, and apathy towards sin. And it's because Satan has maneuvered his way in and is distorting the saving message of Christ that derails the work of God. But you know Christians are called to stand up for the truth and fight for the faith. And in this empowering series we're now in called "Face-Off: Fighting for the Faith", Pastor Jeff takes a sobering and hard-hitting look at this problem and offers sound biblical solutions, but they require courage. The series "Face-Off: Fighting for the Faith" is available online at fromhisheart.org. Just click the "Face-Off" graphic on our home page. Additionally, for your gift of any amount to From His Heart this month, we want to send you Pastor Jeff's new series "Faith Under Fire", a study of the book of Jude. And it'll continue to dig out the powerful truths and warnings found in the word of God about how we can better fight for the faith. That series is our gift to you this month when you step up and join us with a gift today. Just go to fromhisheart.org or simply call 866-40-BIBLE. Request the series "Faith Under Fire". Now let's get back to today's message, "The Point of No Return".
Dr. Jeff Schreve: Paige Patterson said when he goes into a Baptist church, he typically preaches John chapter three, "You must be born again". They said, "Well, why do you preach that passage?" He said, "Because I think probably half the people in a typical Baptist church are lost." Half the people that come. Half of those on the rolls are lost. You know, in most Baptist churches, you have tons of names on the roll. People that are supposedly members of the church. We have over four thousand. Well, where are they? FBI can't find some of them. I mean, it's just like where are these people? They never come here. What's the deal there? Well, they got their name on the church roll but they've never gotten their name in the Lamb's Book of Life. There's never been a change inside their heart. Have you ever met somebody that is supposedly a Christian, they go to church and they're just mean? And they're gossips and they're negative and they're cranky and they always gripe, they always complain? Somehow they think that's being godly. Their spiritual gift is criticism. You know, what is up with that? Let me tell you what's up with that with so many of those people. God knows the heart. The Lord knows those who are his. I'm not talking about anybody individually today. But God knows and listen, with so many of those people, the reason that they're rotten in their personality is because they're rotten at the heart. They've never been born again. What is the thing that you tell when someone is close to the Lord? The sweet aroma of the knowledge of him goes forth in everywhere they go. You can tell when someone spends time with Jesus, when they believe in Jesus, when they walk with Jesus. Why? Because they smell like Jesus. They look like Jesus, they act like Jesus. Being around that person, there's joy, there's peace, there's love, there's power. Some people say, "Well, I'm just a strong Christian." There's no joy, there's no peace, there's no love, there's no power. You're lying to yourself and you're getting ready to pass a deadline, a sign that says if you continue on in this unbelief, you'll pass the point of no return. So that's the first warning: The point of no return, continued unbelief. Warning number two is the warning of gross immorality. And people cross the point of no return with gross immorality. Look what it says in verses six and seven: "And angels who did not keep their own domain but abandoned their proper abode, he has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day. Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire." Wow. That's this is really stern, this is really severe. And he talks in there, verse seven, about gross immorality. The angels were guilty of gross immorality, the people of Sodom guilty of gross immorality. The word gross immorality is one word in the Greek, *ekporneuo*. And it literally means utterly unchaste, given over to fornication. Thayer's Greek Dictionary translates it "They have gone a-whoring". Gone a-whoring. I mean, think about that. That's just how horrible is that? Gross immorality is to go a-whoring, to give yourself over to sexual immorality. And he says, "Hey, in verse six, there were certain angels that did that." Certain angels were guilty of gross immorality. Look at it again: "And angels who did not keep their own domain but abandoned their proper abode, he has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day." Now, a lot of people say, "What's he talking about here? I mean, he's reminding us of something, but I've never heard of that before. When did that happen?" Well, I believe that he's referring to Genesis chapter six. And in Genesis chapter six, we read that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful and they went into them and they chose wives for themselves whomever they pleased and they had children with them. The sons of God. Job uses that reference, the sons of God, not to refer to people, to refer to angels. And if you remember, God when he created everything, created a host of heavenly beings, creatures, angels. They're greater in might and power than a human being. And he created myriads and myriads of angels. We don't know how many there are. There are a ton. And they went up against God. A dumb plan to go up against almighty God. God's not a created being, God created all of them. And so God kicked them all out. And Lucifer, the star of the morning, became Satan, the father of the night. And all his angelic hosts that rebelled with him, they became filthy, rotten, hairy demons. And the scripture talks about something that they did in Genesis chapter six. Somehow, I believe, somehow these demons, probably through human possession, took wives and began to have children with women. And they began to create a race of demon-demonized, demon-possessed kids. And the Lord saw all that and the Lord said, "Hey, you have crossed a line." So angels, certain fallen angels were guilty of that. Secondly, the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were guilty of it. Of going after strange flesh, of committing gross immorality. Now we know from reading in the book of Genesis, the Bible makes it clear: When Lot chose to pitch his tent towards Sodom, that the men of Sodom were wicked exceedingly and sinners against the Lord. And when the Lord sent two angels in the form of men to Sodom to check it out, the men of Sodom surrounded Lot's house and they tried to break the door down so that they could have homosexual relations with the angels who looked and appeared to them to be men. The sin of Sodom is without question associated with homosexuality. The act of homosexuality, we have the name sodomy from the city of Sodom. And listen, you know, in today's world we have a world of political correctness. Jude is not politically correct at all. Not at all. And Jude tells you this is the truth, this is the way it is. And in our world today, if you say anything that's considered negative about homosexuality, you are a homophobe, you are a bigot, you are a hate-monger, you're a Neanderthal, we need to shut you up. Romans chapter one, I'll begin reading in verse 25. It says this: "For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever, amen. For this reason, because they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and quit worshiping God, God gave them over to degrading passions. For their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error." Really clear right there, isn't it? God says it's a degrading passion. God says it's unnatural. You go on to First Corinthians chapter six and the Apostle Paul says this: "Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, those who have sex before marriage, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, those who have sex when with somebody else that they're not married to, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God." What does God say about homosexuality? Is it a sin? Can it be any more clear? Hey, God has made it clear. Listen, homosexuality is not the unpardonable sin. Adultery is not the unpardonable sin. Fornication is not the unpardonable sin. But if you blow past God's warning sign and you give yourself over, you go a-whoring after strange flesh, you are in dangerous territory.
Larry Nobles: You see, it's not the acts of sin themselves that prove a person has passed the point of no return. But they are a warning sign that shouldn't be ignored. Don't miss the second half of this message, "The Point of No Return", tomorrow on From His Heart. Now, if you can't be with us then, you can listen again online after it's aired and you can sign up to get the daily podcast too. Or request the entire message in the format of your choice at fromhisheart.org. We hope you'll visit the website to sign up for Pastor Jeff's weekly real hope email encouragement letter. And there you can become a friend to the ministry on our social media channels and also get a free download of any broadcast in MP3 format. It's free. Just go to fromhisheart.org and there's a lot more there too. So, hope you'll do that. That's all for now. Thank you for joining us. I'm Larry Nobles, hoping you'll be back on Tuesday and join Pastor Jeff to discover more alarming truth about God's point of no return. Here's a portion of the truth we'll hear.
Dr. Jeff Schreve: "Thou art the potter, I am the clay. Lord, help me to be soft clay." Not hard clay, not stubborn clay, not clay that you're having to constantly push on really hard. I just want to be If you've ever done pottery, you know that when the clay is right and when it's soft and when there's sufficient moisture on the clay that the potter can just barely move and the clay just goes in that direction. I want to be like that. Boy, the apostates, they weren't like that at all. Hey, are you teachable? Are you humble? Do you hear God's voice and obey the Lord? That's tomorrow when we'll again open up God's word and share real truth, real love, and real hope from his heart.