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In the book of Ezekiel, the Sunday before last we began a Chapter, more like a theme, that I had a number of things left in the pipeline, which I want to take up again this morning. The Lord has put it on my heart to share with you a series of sermons and I have been looking for a title for it and I came up with the idea of “Orthodox Sermons” or also call them “doctrinal sermons”.

Why do I say the word 'orthodox' sermons, because orthodoxy means the legitimate doctrine of the church, the historical doctrine of the church, the biblical doctrine that conforms to the word. The opposite of orthodoxy is heresy. Heresy evidently means what is contrary to the word of God, what departs from sound doctrine. Orthodoxy, on the other hand, is that, it is right teaching, right teaching.

There are doctrinal truths of the word of God that it is important to return to, it is important to review them through the Christian life and it is important that those who enter the Gospel, enter that sound doctrine and know those fundamental truths of the word of God. So a lot of these sermons are going to be completely basic sermons but they touch on some important point of doctrine. We have already pointed out, for example, last Sunday this aspect that I have been talking about... the doctrine of hell, for example, is not very nice, is it? But we see that there is a place that is alluded to in the Scriptures in that sense and we cannot do more than allude to it, it is not that we obviously emphasize that or that we do it as the center of the teaching, but it is a part of the doctrine of God. And I'm going to talk about many things over the next few Sundays, I'm going to talk about grace, for example, that we are saved by grace and certainly not by work.

You have to balance one thing with the other. I want to talk for example also about the deity of Jesus Christ. The Catholic, evangelical church through the centuries has taught, for example, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that he is part of the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit and that these three are one, which is a logical contradiction, but it is a reality.

I also want to talk about the Bible as the word of God that is true in all its statements. I want to talk about the second coming of Jesus Christ as well. I want to talk about Jesus Christ as the only way. He says, 'I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me....”

So it is a real doctrine that Christ is the mediator, there is a only mediator between God and men: the man Jesus Christ. That contradicts many existing doctrines, there are even Christians who say that man can be saved according to his own faith, according to his own way, and unfortunately it is contrary to what the Bible says, that Jesus Christ is the only way, right?

And I want to talk about the doctrine of heaven as well. A few weeks ago I said that many Christians have allowed ourselves to be robbed of the doctrine of heaven, and we have also allowed ourselves to be robbed of the doctrine of hell. These things have to be kept in balance. Many times the sound doctrine of the church is a mixture of apparent contradictions. It is a balance between extremes and that is why Christians often feel compelled to abandon one of the extremes because we don't like tension, we don't like having to maintain a balance between things. We rather like the rest on one side or the other and sometimes cut part of what is a complex and balanced doctrine.

So, for me, my passion in the Christian life is to maintain a balance between grace and holiness, between heaven and hell, between a loving, gentle, compassionate, patient God and also a God who he is holy and that he is a consuming fire, says the Bible and that he is jealous of his holiness and that he expects us to live in the same way.

So always remember that if you catch me preaching a sermon on one of those topics, you're probably going to have another side to the sermon as well, and give me a chance to present both sides. Don't just think that the pastor woke up in a bad mood and is preaching about hell and that's it, right?

There are also many security doctrines. Another thing I want to talk about is the security of the believer, as that verse says '..... who will separate us from the love of Christ...? Obviously the answer is nothing. Neither angels, nor principalities, nor height, nor depth, nor the future, nor what is to come, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.

It's a safe word there for the believer, isn't it, not debating, 'Am I saved today, am I going to be saved tomorrow, when I die, am I going to be able to be saved?' We have to live in that anxiety because Christ has already done the work. But there is also another side that talks about how we are also responsible, it says '... take care of your salvation, how? With fear and trembling.

So you see that there is a kind of balance, on the one hand he tells me, this is sure, no one is going to separate you from me, but he says 'also take care of your salvation with fear and trembling'.

There are other such doctrines, for example, Calvinism and Arminianism have been dividing the church for several centuries. There is a group of Christians who say that, and many Christians, for example the official Baptist and Reformed doctrine, say that once saved, you are always saved, right? God chooses those who are going to be saved and chooses those who are going to be lost, and if he determined that you are going to be saved, you forget, that even if you are pulled by the bows, you will enter the Kingdom of Heaven , because you are going to be saved because God determined that it is so. And that once God determined that you are going to be saved, it is impossible for you to lose yourself, well, if God determined it, it is so.

Others say, Calvinism says the same, if God determined that you are going to be lost, he is in his providence, he decided so, because Paul says, for example, that he chose some vessels for honor and other vessels to dishonor. That is Calvinism and as I said there are many solid Christians who love the Lord, we are not talking about scoundrels over there, no, solid people who believe that doctrine, which is called Calvin's doctrine. He was the one who proposed it in a clearer way during the 16th century.

There are other Christians who say, no, man is free to choose and God is not.... if God is the one who chooses, well, then why does one have to do anything, right? One simply trusts, it's the lottery, I hope he hits me and that God has chosen me, right?

But, I personally believe so, that there is a part that we have to do and that it is not so easy to say, well, God already saved me, period and then I don't have to worry about anything. And there is balance. The problem many times with heresies is that they go to one side or the other of the balance, because the word of God is extremely complex. I tell you from now on.

And that is why we have to know the word of God. I have discussed it with the youth ministry ago... we had a good, pleasant conversation a few months ago about the importance of our young people, for example, being based on Scripture, that they know the Bible, because when a man or woman is grounded in the Bible and knows and can handle the pages of the Bible from one side to the other, knows the great themes of the Bible, the great characters, the great doctrines, the great movements, the great divisions of the Scripture, brother, now you can go to a deserted island with your Bible under your arm and you are a general there, let me tell you. No one will be able to separate you from God in that case because the word of God will always be a light on your path.

So it's important for us to be word savvy. I believe that once a person falls in love with the word of God and reads it every day, or as much as he can, without being religious, we don't have to say every day, but you become an assiduous student of the word of God, look now, he is almost ready to go to heaven with everything and shoes because the word of God is the source of all wisdom and it is our life manual and teaches us how to relate to God.

I love believers who love the word of the Lord, those Christians are going to be sealed in a precious way. And we are at a time in history in the progress of the church, where there is a lot of error doctrine out there, and that is why we Christians have to know the Bible, we have to know the word of God. And our responsibility as pastors and as preachers of a church is to instruct people in the word of the Lord.

I tell you, brothers, do not depend on me and the preachers. When the word reaches you through my mouth, it has already passed through the Bible, through books, through me, and what it gets there is nutrients that are almost gone in a sense. But when you go directly to the tree, and you eat directly from the word, ah, then it's different.

I can be wrong in what I preach many times, but if you have the word of God in front of you, you can say, hm... the pastor is right or I'm going to put this in there soaking Let's see what the Holy Spirit tells me later. And the church, at this time, needs Christians who understand the word of God. We see so many things on television from well-intentioned preachers but many times they are preaching things that are not totally healthy within the word and that is why Christians are needed today who know well what the word of the Lord says.

So know that I'm going to be talking about these doctrinal issues in the coming weeks, and I hope that we will benefit from this study together. I want to go then to Ezekiel, Chapter 33 where we went last Sunday. And you will remember that I told you there that God does not want anyone to be lost. Do you remember that this was the Sunday before? God does not want anyone to be lost, God is not around with a quota of how many.... no, he says that God wants more than everyone to proceed to salvation.

Do you know what the greatest joy of the Lord would be? On the day of judgment, absolutely all of his creatures would enter the Kingdom of Heaven and not a single one would be lost. That is the heart of God, but unfortunately it is not like that, but God insists, 'I do not want anyone to be lost'.

And that is a great doctrine, a teaching. We talk about hell but it's important to tell people, no, it's not that God wants people to get lost, he wants everyone to pass the test and get an A even.

Then in verse 11 of Ezekiel 33, it says: “..... Tell them, say I, says the Lord, that I do not want the death of the wicked but that the wicked become of his walk and live..."

I want you to observe here so that you know where I am going, you can read the passage intelligently with me, what I want to emphasize in this sermon is the following idea that .... another important thing is that the Christian life is not only a matter of intellectual faith, belief, and not even heart faith, but it is also a matter of behavior and works, that the two things are mixed . This is very important to understand this aspect of Christian doctrine: that the Gospel has a component of faith, simply entrusting ourselves to Christ and linking our destiny to Jesus and knowing that it is by his wounds that we have continued to be healed.

I can't heal myself, I can't save myself by anything I do, but God also expects my life to reflect my faith. Amen. That my behavior reflects what I preach and what I believe and that there is a balance, there is unity, there is rapport between these two dimensions of the Christian life: faith and works. And throughout history the church has been divided over where the precise balance is between these two elements.

Many evangelical churches have gone to the extreme of works and if you ask them they will tell you, yes, salvation is by faith but listen to me the doctrine that teaches and the preaching and its government and everything, no it reflects that, but it's like it's all by works that people are going to be saved and it's all works, do this, do that, don't paint yourself, don't do this, don't do that, because everything is like that external, action is what determines salvation.

And others have gone to the other extreme of grace, but I'm already getting ahead of my sermon, but let me backtrack a little bit. Look at what it says here:

“... I do not want the death of the wicked but that he become the wicked of his way....”

Look at two things here, I I see in that 'I want him to come back', that means that he turned from, that he change direction. Now, I see two things there: number one, who is it that has to come back? Who are you telling to turn around? To the wicked, right? It's not like God is going to grab his shoulders and he's going to turn it over, is he? He says, no, I want him to come back. The responsibility belongs to the wicked. Now, God may be working, notice, God is working there calling the wicked, warning him, encouraging him. Many times putting circumstances around him to lead him in that direction, but God, I personally don't believe, that opens the person's brains out and touches him with a magic wand and turns him into a robot so that he becomes . Because then where is the freedom of man, where is human responsibility, where is inclusive human dignity.

God is never going to operate in that authoritarian way, so unilateral over the will of any human being. He respects... I think that sometimes he would like to, but he is prevented by the respect he has for us and by the free will that he has given to this creature called man, woman, who is a little less than the angels in their dignity.

So, the respect that God has for his adult creature prevents him from sovereignly and unilaterally forcing him to convert, otherwise the world would be a bed of roses, a paradise. But God can't do it like that, all these wars, all these things, people say how can God allow? Well, it's not God. God is there biting his knuckles wanting to correct human history, but man chooses something else collectively and goes in other directions.

But look here that God puts the emphasis, God does not want man to be lost. And remember something interesting here, God is speaking here to the Hebrew people, to the Jewish people, His people, and God has already been warning those people, for centuries that if they do not repent, if they continue to worship false gods and worship demons and committing all kinds of collective and moral injustices, God is going to throw them out of the land that he gave them years ago, when they left Egypt.

And God comes sending them prophets, and prophets and judges to help them out of their predicament and what have they done? They have killed the prophets, they have stoned them, when God has blessed them and has solved their problems, they do the same thing again. And already God is tired. He is already reaching the end of his patience, and he sends them the prophet Ezekiel, another one to see if they repent, and even so they do not repent. It took centuries for God to finally drop his judgment.

Now, I ask myself something similar here with humanity. God has been telling humanity certain things for centuries but man persists in staying away from God's truth. There is a parallel here, but also in a sense Israel is us, because we are now the people of God, although he also has his plans with Israel. But God tells us something similar, let's see about that, because I am also speaking to the church about what is behavior and what is life that God requires of us.

Then he says, “... I don't want him to be lost but to return....”

That is, first, he has to return of his will, and second To become means to change behavior. There is an act of the will first and then there is an external act of behavior. Those are the two things that are always involved in repentance in the Bible, a decision of the heart and the mind and the will and a decision, then, that is seen in acts, behavior. That's why that expression 'let it become', which has a physical implication, is so important for us to understand in this passage, isn't it?

“..... but let him turn wicked from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your wicked ways, why will you die, O house of Israel?...”

God pleading with the people. “.... and you, son of man, say to the children of your people...”

Look how interesting this is here, it says, “...... the justice of the The just will not deliver him on the day he rebels, and the impiety of the wicked will not be a hindrance to him on the day he turns from his impiety, and the just will not be able to live for his righteousness on the day he sins...." < p>What is God saying there? Let's take it part by part. It says, '... the justice of the just will not deliver him on the day he rebels...'. It is saying the following there, for example, if you are a child of God, you converted to the Lord, you received the truth of the Gospel, you said, yes, what the Bible says is true, Jesus Christ is God, etc. and I must accept him as my Lord and savior and you for 10 years live a correct Christian life and behave well, keep your faith. What's going on? That later you begin to do things that are not of God and you stray from the ways of the Lord and you do not follow the doctrine of the Gospel, and you do not act in a correct way. What's happening? Those previous ten years that you spent serving the Lord and doing everything right, they are not going to count. It's not like they're going to give you credit and say, well, since he was ten years old, I'm just going to give him 150 in purgatory. No, that doesn't work like that.

Unfortunately, how nice would it be if that were the case, right? They kind of deduct every year that..... Sir, I've been bad for three years, or for two weeks so you deduct it from the 20 before that. The Lord says, no, it is not so. The one who behaves well, has to continue until the end. The one who perseveres to the end, that is the one who will be saved, says the Bible, right?

Look again at this idea of..... What I want to capture in our minds is the great responsibility that you and I have and that, in a sense, is what fills me of admiration, that God gives so much importance to me. You are responsible for your life. God created you free, and God expects you to make certain decisions and the way you behave in this life and that you embrace the faith of the Gospel will determine many things that happen in your life.

We cannot just look at God and say, well, my God, I give myself to you, do what you want with my life, etc. That is true up to a certain point, but God is always going to say to you, 'no, you have a very big responsibility because I respect you. You are my adult son and I want you to behave in a certain way and to dialogue with me.'

So, “....the justice of the just will not deliver him on the day he rebels... .” But look how interesting and how good it is to know this as well, “.... nor will the wickedness of the wicked be a hindrance to him on the day that he turns from his wickedness....”

That's good new. What does that mean? A woman can spend ten years behaving wickedly, corruptly, sinfully, and one day she meets the Lord, she repents, she surrenders her life to Christ, she changes her ways. You know what? Those ten years disappear from the computer immediately. God puts it, both faces or whatever, covers all that part of the sins on the computer and hits delete, boom, it's all gone. Nothing remains on record. Not even a computer expert can go look there on the hard drive to see if there is anything left. Completely erased from the record, as if there had been no sin. That woman becomes a pure virgin immediately that she enters into the ways of the Lord.

All your sins are blotted out and God says, “....I will not remember them...” How precious is that, isn't it? Someone said, if God cast your sins to the bottom of the sea, don't take a fishing rod and go there to look for them. Because many times we, you know, our past sins begin to haunt us and the devil begins to torture us and remind us of what we did, what this, what that, and we live a life of accusation.

The beautiful thing about the Gospel is that once we repent, God erases our sins, erases our record, and we start with a clean slate. How great is the mercy of the Lord. Amen.

So easy that God does things, the one who gets lost is because of his bad head, because God provided a plan, in a sense, so simple, but God is also so upright, isn't he?

So, the one who behaves badly, after knowing the Lord and living a systematically and persistently sinful life, lost all those years that he put on the record. Now, the one who behaved badly, no matter what he did, if there is deep repentance, he is free from sin. That is what allows us to think, 'look, there are people when you get to heaven, you will say, how did that scoundrel get in here? Well, at some point in his life he had an encounter with God, he repented and no one can say who is ultimately saved and who is going to be damned, let me tell you because God is merciful until the last moment.

That's why I believe God chose the thief on the cross to forgive him. Because he didn't have time to tithe, he didn't have time to say a glory to God, Hallelujah! He didn't have time to be baptized in the spirit and speak in tongues, he didn't have time to say 'forgive me, I'll pay you back', he couldn't do anything except repent and entrust himself to the arms of Jesus Christ.

A few seconds before dying, he says to Jesus, 'remember me when you are in your Kingdom.' And the Lord said to him, 'You know what? Don't worry, today you will be with me in paradise.' At one point there was heartfelt repentance.

Now, be careful, don't start scheming there, well, what I'm going to do, that I'm going to wait until the last second and then I'm going to regret it. Lord, rebuke the devil, as G. Ávila says, because some are going to be surprised too, they are going to want to fix things at the last moment but God already knows his bad intentions and he is going to kick him rather, and They are going to end up with the little devils burning up there.

You have to be careful, don't play games with God, we can't play games with God, because God is too old for us to be trying to play games with him. He knows them all. But that is the truth, it is that God is so merciful that it is so.

Then, "......the righteous will not be able to live by his righteousness on the day he sins, nor will the wicked be lost by his injustice on the day he repents...."

Look here at another interesting thing, verse 2 says, "... when I say to the righteous you will certainly live and he, trusting in his justice, does iniquity -look there, he does iniquity- .... all his justices do not they will be remembered, but he will die for his iniquity which he did...”

He is repeating the same idea in a more emphatic and detailed way. Now, ".... and when I say to the wicked you will surely die, if he turns - again, that's why I say it's hard for me to think that God manipulates man and turns him into a robot and it says, 'you are going to be saved and therefore you have to be saved, whether you want to or not and once you are inside the Gospel, you have to be saved whether you want to get out or not. Because the language that I see in Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, when God speaks to man, is always a language of respect for his free will, respect for his will, respect for his freedom to choose, respect for his freedom to leave. to hell or to heaven, if he wants. That is the predominant language, that is what I see, which is why I cannot get lost in a perfectionist and rationalist theological point because all the impetus of Scripture is towards respect for the freedom of man and God at that moment. He says, ok what do you want to do? And there's a light that goes on in the person, and he has to decide what he's going to do. It is a moment of supreme freedom in which man is thus hovering over the abyss, only his freedom.

That's why to me existentialist philosophy, which is a modern philosophy originated in France with Jean Paul Sartre, talks about man being completely free, man moving in an abyss. Now, the problem with Jean Paul Sartre and all the other existentialist philosophers is that they have nowhere else to go, but man is simply in a free abyss, but he has no God to rescue him, he has no help from anyone. , but it is pure freedom. Man is pure freedom and that is why the doctrine of existentialism is so negative, it is very sublime, very interesting and has given rise to a lot, for example, Hemingway and others who converted it and Jean Paul Sartre himself in his drama and everything. , in great art and great literature because it is very dramatic and precious in a sense, but I like it because it rescues that idea of human freedom.

Man is completely free where he loses again is that he does not include God in the movie, but simply total freedom. But the Bible emphasizes that freedom, yours and mine, and that freedom is not lost even while we are in the ways of the Lord, that clock continues ticking, ticking, ticking, freedom, freedom, freedom. You are free continuously. God does not get into that sacred dimension of your nature.

“.....If he turns from his sin and does what is right and justice, - again, and does what is right and justice - ....”

You see here the emphasis on action. I sometimes ask myself, look, there are people, for example, in Latin America, it is a matter of concern for me. I'm not exactly sure of the solution to that dilemma, but look at how this applies for example. I have read, for example, and I have even met, let's say military people in Latin America, who did terrible damage in a dictatorship that was abused, even politicians who abused their governmental positions and robbed the people of money, millions of dollars, and They filled themselves with wealth and unfair money, they bought houses, cars, and made trips abroad. They came with suitcases full of clothes, all this, and one day they meet the Lord Jesus Christ and they repent, but there is no kind of righting of injustices, and we receive them in our churches and everything, but I don't know if I was that person. even when I have repented there is one thing, it is that I have not made restitution. I continue to enjoy that mansion that I stole from the town, and those cars that I stole from the town and all those things and many people convert but there is no...

Do you understand what I'm saying? saying? That the Christian life is complex, it is not believed and many preachers do not dare to put the bell on the cat. Who gets his teeth into that tough bull? I believe that the function of the church is to disturb the conscience of the people many times and say one thing to the one on the left and another to the one on the right, even if they don't like it. We always have to be at the center of the word of the Lord.

So, you have to be careful, because the Bible talks about restitution. When Plunder repented he said, 'Sir, today I repent and you know what? I am going to give half of my assets to the poor, and if I have harmed or harmed someone, I will return it four times as much, with interest.' Why? Because Plunder had been bloodthirsty and a bad administrator of his governmental position and he made restitution.

We have to be careful in life, brothers, because the Bible is very complex. It's not just, well, I repented, I've settled my things with the Lord, but many times there are ties and things from the past that are wealth that we have unfairly acquired. There are things, as much as possible, now I don't want you to live your life tortured either, if something happened in the past, you haven't had the chance to fix it, whatever, entrust yourself to the mercy of God, but whatever I don't want either to be so morally and ethically superficial. Because I think we take too many liberties with God and we preachers at this time in history sin by telling people peace, peace, peace, don't worry, God is merciful, God is loving. But God has a pretty serious side too. And so we give people a false sense of security and people live a superficial, easy Gospel and don't enjoy all the benefits of the Christian life because there are things that they have to fix in their life and they are making mistakes and allowing themselves liberties in his behavior and in his walk that what he does is that he gives place to the devil.

The Bible says 'give no place to the devil...' don't give him a chance, because the devil is a terrible accuser, he is a tremendous Pharisee who can get in through a little crack in your life , there it does. And Christians have to take into account the seriousness of the Gospel, which is faith but also action, the two things together.

Are you quite uncomfortable or do you want to turn the temperature up a little more? Look at what it says, again:

“..... if he turns from his sins, verse 14, and does according to law and justice, if the wicked restores the pledge – there it is the aspect that is like he inserts a screwdriver into one's ribs and begins to turn it around-... if the wicked restore the garment, return what he has stolen and walk in the statutes of life not doing iniquity, he will certainly live and will not die....”

Now, we also remember that we are talking in the Old Testament where still that great help that is Christ Jesus and grace was not in full operation and therefore the language is not nuanced as it is in the New Testament. But it does not mean that God repented and started a new moral system, as a consequence of the new Covenant, he continues to use the same concepts and moral principles always.

That's why I say, don't mess with God. I tell myself, don't play with God. We have to be careful.

“.... he will not be reminded of any of his sins that he has committed, he did according to law and justice, he will surely live....”

Again, no it is that he is going to be saved by only doing that. You can do everything you want to correct things but if you do not have Jesus your good works will not help you at all. It is Jesus Christ first, as the foundation, and then once there is Jesus Christ as the foundation then God expects you to do good works. I want, again, to qualify that much, much more.

Again, there is that concept... now we are going to read other passages for example, we are going to the New Testament now, we are going for example, to Hebrews, to the Epistle to the Hebrews so that you can see how these things relate to each other, how complex it is. So you have to learn to study the Bible, brother, I hope that one day the Lord will lead us all to have an understanding of Scripture, that we can jump the pages from one side to the other, concatenate one thing with the other , compare a concept, a text with the other, because we are like lawyers who know the penal code and we can take from here and there and put everything to have a healthy and balanced doctrine.

In Chapter 10, verse 26 of Hebrews. Hebrews is a very interesting epistle that I hope one day we can study as well. It is a somewhat serious epistle too, as is that of Santiago. In fact, Martin Luther did not like the Epistle to the Hebrews very much because it complicated the life of his doctrine of grace, I think. But anyway, look, Hebrews 10:26, it's speaking now to Christians here, saved by the blood of Jesus, saved by grace, etc. 10:26, Hebrews, says

“...for if we sin willfully - what does that word mean? It means, on purpose, it means on purpose, it means irresponsibly, it means with premeditation and treachery, right? You have thought about it well, you have calculated it well, you have occasion to repent but you go directly and do what is not correct.

There is a difference between when we sometimes get caught up in sin or when we make a mistake and repent and return to the ways of the Lord. But there is a call in the Scripture that, look, that person who sins deliberately, as it says here, intentionally, voluntarily, systematically, persistently, one day he is here, one day he is there. He goes out, he goes in, he does this, he does that, he is continually underestimating the holiness of God, there is something that says here that it does not have a good result. He says,

“...for if we sin willfully after having received the knowledge of the truth....”

That's why I can't be a staunch Calvinist because It contradicts so many texts of Scripture. After you know the truth, some say, already... you knew it because God made it known to you and therefore you are already part of this team. No, after you learned the truth, what does it say:

“..... there is no more sacrifice for sins left...”

In other words, the Those who move away from God after having tasted the truths of the Gospel no longer have many resources, they don't have many resources left because they have exhausted all the bullets they had. And then you have to be careful.

These are the passages that complicate my life when I talk about the grace of God and the only thing I want is for you to leave here with a shadow on your brain, that's all, a little dot that tells you, 'this is not as easy as I thought'. Tell your neighbor there, 'this is not as easy as I thought'. I'm playing....

The Gospel is serious.... the Gospel is serious. We see many passages like this where the Scripture, ".....if we sin willfully after having received the knowledge of the truth, there are no longer any more sacrifices for sins but a fearful expectation of judgment and a boiling fire that has to devour opponents..... -oh, oh, oh, I don't like that language. I wish they would take it out of the Bible, but it is there, what can we do? I have to preach it because it is there. Amen, sister, I wish I didn't have to, but that's the way it is.

Again, this is just not to spoil your party, not to spoil your lunch after service, but just so we can just sober up and understand how serious the Christian life is, right? because also remember that merciful God, but you can not play with God.

“... whoever violates the law, says verse 28, of Moses, speaking to Jews, setting an example of Jewish law, by the testimony of two or three witnesses dies inevitably... .”

That is in the imperfect Covenant of the law, “..... how much greater punishment do you think the one who tramples on the Son of God will deserve....”

In other words, if in the Old Testament, under an imperfect law, which was the Law of Moses, whoever violated the law said that he had to die for two witnesses, it says how much more if Jesus violates it, no longer Moses but violates the dignity of Jesus, violates the Son of God because when we sin in that persistent and harsh way, we are humiliating the Son of God, we are underestimating the importance of the Gospel, we are dirtying something as sublime as the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. So it's logical, right?

“.....how much greater punishment do you think the one who tramples on the Son of God and deems the blood of the Covenant unclean will deserve....”

In other words , if he considers it as something minor, dirty – “..... the blood of the Covenant in which he was sanctified and insults the spirit of grace....”

In other words, the one who sin in that gross way is doing an affront to that grace of God, that mercy of God, that God who forgave you over and over and over again and will forgive you many times when you repent and you keep offending him, and he says , 'Look, you are already abusing that grace, that mercy, that love of your God. You are dirtying that so only punishment awaits you.

Brothers, this is the word of God. Amen. It is not Pastor Miranda who is upset with you, but on the contrary, because I love you I force myself to do these things. There will be softer sermons later, but right now this is what the word of the Lord says, isn't it?

Let's go to another passage like this quickly so we can see... for example, go to Hebrews Chapter 6, right there a little bit back, verses 1 through 3. The Epistle to the Hebrews was written to believers and has many interesting things, he says:

"Therefore, leaving the rudiments of the doctrine of Christ, let us go forward to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works of faith in God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of the laying on of hands, of the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment....”

What is he saying here? He's talking about....it's a call to Christians, us, to move towards maturity. There are many Christians who stay in the rudiments, which means the basic things, the arrow of the Christian life. And many Christians get stuck there because they haven't changed their behavior so it's like we always have to be preaching the same basic things, the basic doctrine: repentance, baptism, laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead, and they won't go. beyond.

Do you know what's going on? When you do not behave in the Gospel with the fortitude and integrity with which you ask for the word of the Lord, you remain dwarfed, always skidding, pressing the accelerator but the car does not start, always stuck in the same position. There are Christians who are like that, that is what happens when one lives a life that is not consistent with the word of the Lord, one becomes a superficial believer, never matures, is always stuck in the same position, in the same place and for that reason there are Christians who are always the same thing all the time. They are clumsy, their understanding has not awakened to the seriousness of the Gospel. There are so many churches that lull believers to the seriousness of the Christian life, because they don't alert them to these passages that are in Scripture.

So, he's saying, we have to move on to bigger things. Look at what it says in verse 4:

“...for it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit and likewise tasted of good word of God and the powers of the age to come....”

What are you talking about here? From a converted person who has known the Lord, who has been touched by the Holy Spirit and all that, and says “..... and yet they have fallen and are renewed again to repentance, crucifying to themselves again the Son of God and exposing him to reproach..."

In other words, look, you may have been a pastor, evangelical baptized in the Holy Spirit, spoke in tongues, danced, miraculous were done throughout your life and your hands but if you stray from the ways of the Lord and you persist in behaving in a way unworthy of God, it cannot be avoided that you will not go... everything you did, all this, is no longer useful for anything and that is so with the children of God.

See? If we persist in getting into the lion's den after the Lord took us out of there, if it bites you, that is your problem, it is not God's. Many Christians are sometimes in the ways of the Lord, I am going to finish here, we are in the ways of the Lord and we play with God and we go to where that tied up dog is and we begin to slap him on the mouth and to urge him on and in a of those the dog gets up and gives us a good bite and that's how it sometimes happens in our lives. We make decisions and things that offend the Lord, that we know are not as they should be and a problem comes in life, a bad situation comes, negative consequences come, an arrest comes, an accident comes, whatever comes, you know all the things that can come, and then we complain about God and we turn away and those things come to be snares and stumbling blocks and everything we did becomes nothing.

We have to be careful, brothers, about that. God wants us to behave in a certain way and live a life that is right before him. Now, how beautiful what he says in verse 9 is, I want to finish on a positive point, he says:

“....but as for you, oh beloved, we are persuaded of better things and that they belong to salvation even though we speak like this....”

In other words, and that is what I tell you, brothers, despite everything I am telling you, in spite of all these things, this serious aspect of the Gospel, you know what? I trust that with the Lord's help this will not apply to you. Amen. That's why I'm curing him in health, rather, I'm putting antibiotics there now, I'm inoculating them so they don't get infected later. No, because that is what a pastor has to do, he has to warn his people about the dangers. Because sometimes we go like meek little lambs and we do not know that we are walking among wolves and beasts and we do not warn Christians about the seriousness of the Christian life.

Once we enter the ways of the Lord that is true, God sends all his equipment and all his resources in our favor, but he does not force us to stay within that, and he tells us: 'look, I want you to be happy.'

I believe that the call to holiness and good behavior, the most important part is because it suits us, not because God demands it, is that the Christian life , staying within the boundaries of the Gospel is for your own good, it is so that you can know more about the goodness of God, so that you walk on a clear path, so that you can enjoy all the benefits of the Gospel, so that your understanding can be keep clean and you can understand the word because sin dulls the understanding and so that you can be a good example to others and God can use you in the precious ways he wants to use you.

That is why it is the call to a healthy behavior before God. In other words, again, "....but as for you, oh beloved, we are persuaded of better things and pertaining to salvation though we speak that way...." – though we speak that way, so seriously but I know we trust that it is different.

And he says, “...because God is not unjust to forget your work and the labor of love that you have shown towards his name, having served the saints and still serving them....” < /p>

In other words, I hope brothers, he says, that this does not apply to you because I know that God is going to see all the good things that you have done. And that is my wish for you, brothers, I know that here among you, there are people who love the Lord. You could be having a hangover right there in bed because last night you got drunk, you were embarrassing and all that, but no, you are here in the House of God. They're here. Praise God for that. And you are people who love the Lord, make an effort, do good things, have been cleansed of so many things, do good, serve in so many ways, have corrected your life and I trust that God sees that good intention in your hearts and that he's going to do everything in his power to make sure you make it to the finish line. Glory to the Lord. And that they enter even smelling of smoke into the Kingdom of God.

I believe that God is merciful and I believe that you leave here because God loves you and that he loves me because we are doing everything possible and that is the only thing I ask of you, do everything possible and what is of God, he will take care of it, you do your part and God will do his, don't worry.

And in reality what touches us is so little, compared to everything that God does, and has done and will do that we can really be confident.

“God is not unjust to forget your work and the labor of love that you have shown towards his name having served the saints and still serving them, but we wish that each one of you shows the same care until the end for full certainty of hope..”

That is what I say, but I wish, brothers, even within that benevolence of God that you show that same solicitude, that is, that same care, that same insistence, that same seriousness, that same concern to the end. Glory to the Lord.

This path that you have begun, take it to the end. Amen. Let no devil, no thing in this world separate you, no appetite, no affection, no temptation, no person, no money, no profession, no pleasure, no habit, no thing can separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.

That's what... "show the same concern to the end for full certainty of hope...."

In other words, if you know that you are doing everything possible to serve the Lord, you have that full certainty that your God is with you. You don't have to worry. If you are doing your part, even if you fall, even if you make mistakes, even if you water it from time to time, as the Mexicans or Colombians say, I don't know, one of those, it doesn't matter. God is going to be there with you and you are going to have that full certainty of hope. You will be able to sleep peacefully, you will be able to walk in the ways of the Lord, you will know that God is fine, you fell, but stand up, keep going. God is on your side, because he knows that you love him from the heart and that you are doing your best. You can rest easy in the Lord that he is going to do his part.

“... so that you do not become lazy but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises....”

Glory to God. Give the Lord a big round of applause. Amen. May we not become lazy, that is all this sermon says. There is a part that touches us and we have to do that part and the Lord will take care of everything else.

Let's stand up for a little while. Take a second. I have forgotten something very important, I got so excited about my sermon that I forgot something absolutely key, it is the sacrament. But take a moment there, it's okay to stand like this and make an act of conscience there in your heart and ask the Lord now to help you be solicitous, to take the Gospel seriously, to take God seriously, our life. Oh, we have a God so good, so merciful, so patient, so understanding that really these passages are just a reminder, a correction in the benevolent direction of the Gospel and if you've been taking liberties there with God, we all need to do that. act of conscience periodically. We are going to repent and we are going to ask the Lord to help us to be people of integrity, honest people with God.

That is what the world is looking for to see a community of serious people, people who are not perfect, but who do show that they are serious about what they preach and what they believe. And we are going to ask the Lord to help us to be people of integrity, serious people, to walk cleanly before the Lord and before men and that we can take the Gospel seriously, be attentive. Because there is a behavioral component that is important in the Christian life, we cannot just rest on faith, faith, faith but there is the other side of the issue as well. Later I am going to clarify a little more, but now let us ask the Holy Spirit to help us, remember that God has sent his Holy Spirit to strengthen and help you in this work in those good works that are expected. You don't have to do it alone, we don't have to do it alone.

Thank you, Lord. We receive your call, Father, now to a righteous, caring, upright life, where intellectual things are in line with things of behavior and life. Help us to be an exemplary community, O God, it begins with each one of us, Father. Thank you because you have made everything so perfect.

We adore you. we bless you We thank you, Lord. Amen and amen.