This statement occurs in the Word of God accompanied, as you notice, by a shadow on more than one occasion. "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, in turning away from the living God".
Take heed! It is a word of warning.
Now notice the connection.
If you look at the third chapter of the letter to the Hebrews you will see that the point in view was that full purpose of God which He had fixed for His people.
The illustration was taken from the life of Israel in the wilderness in view of the land.
God's purpose for Israel was their coming to the land, with all its fullness, all its riches and its wealth, and its blessing...
But through unbelief they fell short of the land and died in the wilderness.
You see the designation "the living God" is used in that connection, which surely means, if it means anything at all, that the very fact that He is the living God signifies that His purpose and desire for His own is all that He can give - fullness!
That is what is bound up with a living God.
These other gods are always taking away, always robbing, always impoverishing.
The gods of the heathen, the gods of the world are robber gods, they would rob you of everything.
This living God is supremely characterized by His giving, and ever giving.
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son...
He who delivered him up for us all, shall he not also with him freely give us all things.
The mark of the living God is beneficence, fullness of thought, and desire, and Purpose, and will for His own, to bring them in.
To fall away from the living God means to fall away from all that He has purposed, designed and desired for us, and hence the word of warning.
But let us note this.
The Word does not say, Take heed, brethren, lest you fall away from the blessing, lest you miss the good.
The words used are "turning away from the living God".
All our blessing is bound up with Himself. He is our blessing.
In other words, to know Him as the living God is life eternal.
This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou didst send.
To know Him as the living God is fullness of blessing.
So the warning is lest we, through unbelief, turn away from the living God.
It is the question as to God that arises in the heart, the question, the doubt as to God, that robs us.
Then the blessing is gone, because in doubting God we rear a fence between Him and ourselves.
Ah, but there is a still more solemn word in this connection. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God".
That is the second passage with a shadow upon it.
Now let us be solemn and quite frank.
You and I have not to deal with men in the final issue.
We have not to reckon with people, with teaching, as such, with places, with any thing...
If you or I refuse truth, refuse light, withhold obedience, hide something from the Lord; if you and I are in any way unfaithful, it is with the living God that we have to do.
It was a startling thing to Achan when his hidden, secret sin was tracked right down in that amazing way.
Look at the hundreds of thousands in Israel, and one man among the hundreds of thousands does something which God had to uncover.
That man sees an inquiry set up, and watches it being narrowed down from the multitude to the tribe, from the tribe to one of the families in the tribe, until his own personal tent is reached, and he, one man in hundreds of thousands, comes under the finger of God.
Achan perhaps thought that he could default in the midst of so big a crowd and it would not be noticed, that he could deceive the elders of Israel and not be discovered.
Achan had forgotten that it was the living God with whom he had to do.
Such a thing becomes an occasion for that solemn warning, that we should be reminded that "it is an awful thing to fall into the hands of the living God".
You and I, if we are honest, need never fall into the hands of the living God in that way...
But the point is that anything and everything that is secret in our lives, which represents sin, disobedience, refusal of light, anything that is not of God, brings us into the hands of the living God...
It is with Him that we have to do sooner or later.
Oh no, you have not even to reckon in the first or last place with those who are in authority over you in the Lord.
The most blessed relief comes to such to recognize this, and it is a relief to us all to know it, that the responsibility in the final issue is with God, and that every one has to reckon with God.
It is a terrible and yet a helpful thing, a thing which is a strength to us even when we give the Lord's message, to know that people have not to answer to us.
They may take an attitude over that message toward the one who gives it, and say, Oh, that is only so-and-so's interpretation, it is only what he says!
Well, you do not get away with it like that.
If that should happen to be the truth of God, it is not with the preacher that you have to reckon, it is with the living God.
That brings a terrible responsibility upon us all.
Let us remember that for all that the Lord gives us, it is to a living God that we have to answer.
Oh, the Lord is looking right into our hearts, and He knows.
It is impossible for us to deceive Him.
It cannot be done.
He knows our inward hearts.
He knows our home and what is going on there.
He knows us in our business life.
He knows us in our relationships with one another, just what we are and what is make believe.
Sooner or later we are going to come up against the Lord on every point of hypocrisy, deception, sin.
Now it entirely depends upon our attitude toward the Lord whether the fact that He with whom we have to do, is a living God, is one which brings us comfort, or whether it strikes terror into our hearts.
This word must be said.
The Lord knows who it is for.
You and I are dealing with the living God.
That is a blessed fact, but it is also an awful fact.
So let us always remember that there is nothing secret, nothing hidden, nothing that we can cover from Him.
We cannot take a false position.
There is a living God on the spot all the time, who sees right through it all...
And presently He will say: Now, let us have that mask off...
Let us have that attempt at self-deception put aside...
Let us face this thing out. I know all about it!
I have known about it all along; you have never been able to cover it from Me for a moment!
He is the living God.
That word "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" is a terrible word for those who fight God...
And I think it is especially meant for such as oppose themselves to God.
Think of what is going on in this world today.
I have been reading a book called "The War Against God".
The whole history of long centuries of war against God is given, and it shows how that is developing today to such a tremendous extent that whole nations are making it their one object to throw God out of the world, to get rid of God, to have nothing of God in their national life.
Well, that is one side of this thing, but we can say it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God; not an imaginary God, not a traditional God, not the God of the religious systems, however hoary their history, but the living God.
The fact is going to come back upon such. He holds the nations in His hand.
It might be that there is someone resisting God, fighting God, rebelling against God, who imagines - though perhaps it has never been put into words, into clear thinking - that he can get the better of God.
Oh no, "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God"; and that is where we are all to come sooner or later.
Can you rejoice that you are in the hands of the living God?
There is no need to be afraid of that.
It may be the most blessed thing that ever can be enjoyed, to be in the hands of the living God.
On the other hand, it may be the most terrible thing, a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
For the unbelieving and the unfaithful it is neither a welcome thing nor a blessed thing to know that the God with whom we have to do, and who has to do with us, is a living God.
~T. Austin Sparks
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