Let's turn in our Bibles to Hebrews
chapter 6. Hebrews chapter 6. Last week we began looking at
one of three passages that I intend to go through which speak of
the believer's assurance. Last week we looked at the full
assurance of understanding. This week our subject is full
assurance of hope. full assurance of hope. Now,
in Hebrews chapter 5, the writer was speaking of Christ and he
said up there in verse 10, He's called of God a high priest after
the order of Melchizedek, of whom we have many things to say
and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing. They
were dull on learning about Christ. And so then he digressed a little
from the subject of speaking about Christ and began to speak
about a warning. He began to speak about the danger
of those who have tasted the word of God but have not been
made a partaker of the word of God by God's grace. And so they
fall away. But then he comes back around
in chapter 6, down at verse 9, and he says, But, beloved, we
are persuaded better things of you, things that accompany salvation,
though we thus speak. He's encouraging them. He's saying,
But we believe you're true believers. For God is not unrighteous to
forget your work and labor of love. And here's what he's speaking
about. Which you've showed toward his
name in that you've ministered to the saints and do minister. They were very dull of hearing
when it came to hearing about Christ. But they were very diligent
when it came to ministering to their fellow believers. Now watch
what he says. And we desire that every one
of you do show the same diligence, the same diligence that you're
showing towards your fellow believers and that you're ministering to
them, we desire you show the same diligence to or toward the
full assurance of hope until the end. He's saying, Just like
you're showing this diligence toward your brethren, we desire
you show the same diligence toward the full assurance of hope. That
one to whom you're dull of hearing, that's who he's speaking about.
He's not saying here, by ministering to the saints, you'll arrive
at a full assurance of hope. He's saying, just like you have
diligence toward the saints, we desire you have that same
diligence toward the full assurance of hope. And then he goes into
telling us, who is this full assurance of hope? He says, verse
12, that you be not slothful, but followers of them who through
faith and patience inherit the promises. And we'll pick up right
there and we'll look at verses 13 through 20 and we'll see who
is this full assurance of hope. Who is it that we're to give
diligence to? Now, first of all, what is hope?
Hope is an earnest desire for an object. You have an object
in view, and it's an earnest desire for that object, and it's
accompanied with an expectation of receiving that object. It's
a desire for an object and an expectation of receiving that
object. Now, the believer's hope is Christ. He's our hope. We have a hope
that we will be with Christ in glory, conformed to his image
perfectly, where we will be with him for all eternity. That's
our hope. And our assurance of that hope is Christ, in whom
all God's promises to us are yes and amen. Christ is our hope,
and he's the full assurance of hope. The reason most people
don't have hope, we saw this last week, is they're looking
in the wrong place. Our hope is Christ. That's who
we have hope in. That's where we're going to have
assurance of this hope. First of all, he gives an example
of God giving a believer a sure hope. Look at verse 13. He says,
When God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no
greater, he swore by himself, saying, Surely blessing I will
bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. Now, Abraham is
given as an example because Abraham is the father of all believers.
Now, every believer has a part in the same promise that God
made to Abraham. In fact, every believer is the
promise God made to Abraham. And if you want to turn there,
in Genesis 22, 16, this is where he gave the promise to Abraham.
This is the promise he's speaking of. It had two aspects to it,
two parts to it. In Genesis 22, 16, well, in verse
15, it says there, the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham
out of heaven the second time. You know who the angel of the
Lord is. This is Christ. Any time you have Someone speaking
to a sinner on behalf of God is the mediator. It's Christ,
the angel of the Lord. And he speaks here to Abraham,
and this is what he said, verse 16. And he said, By myself have
I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing,
and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, that in blessing
I will bless thee and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the
stars of the heaven and as the sand which is upon the seashore.
Now you know who this seed is, these children that he's speaking
of here. Each of God's elect, each one
that Christ redeemed, each one regenerated of God the Holy Spirit
is Abraham's seed. Turn over to Romans 9 and I'll
show you that. Romans 9. He says there in Romans 9 and
verse 6, he said there how that he'd been speaking of how it
appeared that there were many in Israel that didn't believe
and what have you. And he says in Romans 9, 6, it's
not as though the Word of God has taken none effect. We know
better than that. God's Word never returns to him
void. It says, for they are not all
Israel, which are of Israel. Everybody that's in that political
nation of Israel are not necessarily the Israel of God. Neither, because
they are the seed of Abraham, are they children, all children.
But in Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, here's what
he means, that they which are the children of the flesh, these
are not the children of God. But the children of the promise
are counted for the seed. That's that promise we just heard
about over there. Not Ishmael. Why wasn't Ishmael? He was a son of Abraham because
Ishmael was the product of Abraham's works. He was born of the bond
woman. A picture of a sinner trying
to save himself by works. And God said Ishmael's got to
go. But who was the promised seed. Who was the promised child?
It was Isaac. He was promised of God. He was
born of God. He was of God's making. Isaac
was. And he said, and in Isaac shall
thy seed be called. Not Esau, but Jacob. Why? Romans 9-11 says that the
purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but
of him that calleth. It was said unto her, The elder
shall serve the younger. As it's written, Jacob hath a
love, but he shall have a hated. Verse 16 says, So then it's not
of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that
shows mercy. God said, Christ our God, speaking to Abraham,
said, I will multiply your seed. I'm going to bring forth the
children of promise. And so the chosen of God those
redeemed by God those regenerated by God. These are the children
of promise. Now that was the first part of the promise. Here's
the second part of the promise. In Genesis 22 17 he said and
thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies. Now Paul tells
us who that seed is. Paul said in Galatians 3.16,
he said, Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made.
He saith not unto seeds as of many, but as of one, and to thy
seed. He quotes the promise. He quotes
from Genesis 22.17. And to thy seed, which is Christ. Christ shall possess the gate
of his enemies. And because Christ possesses
the gate of his enemies, and is victorious over all his enemies,
therefore all the promised seed, all the elect of God, all the
true spiritual sons and daughters of Abraham shall possess the
gate of their enemies. Because Christ does. Now that
was the promise God made to Abraham. And it was concerning us who
believe here today. Now notice, when God entered
covenant with Abraham, God did two things. Look back at our
text, Hebrews 6. Number one, God gave a promise
to Abraham. When God made promise to Abraham. Hebrews 6.13. And then two, God
also made an oath to Abraham. Hebrews 6.13 says, When God made
promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he
swore by himself, saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and
multiplying I will multiply thee. God could swear by no greater.
Christ could swear by no greater than himself. He's God. There's none above him. So he
swore by himself. Now when he did that, God laid
himself under a double obligation. Number one, he gave Abraham his
promise. And because it was concerning
all the spiritual sons of Abraham, concerning you who believe, he
gave us a promise. And then two, he entered into
an oath. He laid himself under a double
obligation. He promised and he swore by himself. He swore by himself. Verse 15
says, And so, after Abraham had patiently endured, he obtained
the promise. I showed you Thursday night,
Abraham believed that God could quicken the dead. And that God
could call into existence things that didn't have an existence.
That's what Romans 4.17 tells us. And that's how he made Abraham
a father of many nations. He quickened Abraham from the
dead. He called into existence a new man in Abraham that didn't
exist. And that's how he made you a
child of promise. That's how he makes children
of promise. And so Abraham was fully persuaded that what God
promised, God was able to perform. Do you see where the assurance
for Abraham was? It was in God who promised. It
was in Christ who promised. That was the assurance of his
hope. Do you see that? That was the assurance of his
hope. Christ who promised and swore by himself. Now look here.
Secondly, God will have you who believe. He's going to have us
who believe to understand why he added his oath to his promise. Why did he do that? Why did he
add an oath to his promise? Look at Hebrews 6, 16. It gives an earthly example. For men verily swear by the greater,
and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife.
When we make an oath, we swear by the greater. You take, for
instance, you go into a court of law and you're going to testify
and you make an oath before God that you'll tell the truth. And
when you make an oath, when a man goes under oath before God, that's
confirmation that he's going to tell the truth. So that ends
all strife. That's the end of all doubting
because he's sworn by the greater. All right. So he says, by the
same token, that's why he added his oath to his promise. That's why he made this oath
and added his oath to the promise that he made to Abraham and to
you and me, who are his spiritual sons and daughters. Look here,
verse 17, wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto
the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it
by an oath. in the beginning way back there
just think about this now way back there in the beginning when
God made a promise to Abraham God went above what was necessary
and he did it for the heirs of promise that's what he said he
willing more abundantly to show to the heirs of promise God was
promising to give Abraham heirs Heirs of God and joint heirs
with Christ. Children, that's what he was
promising to give him. And for the children that he promised
to give Abraham, he went above just making a promise and confirmed
his promise with an oath. He did that for us who believe
him. Why? So that we have the full
assurance of hope. All right, look. What was God
willing to show us? Verse 17. wherein God willing
more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability
of his counsel. So he confirmed it by an oath
that by two immutable things in which it was impossible for
God to lie we might have a strong consolation who fled for refuge
to lay hold upon the hope set before us. God was showing us
His immutability, the immutability of His counsel. Immutability
means unchangeableness. God made His promise and then
God confirmed that promise with an oath. So that when we hear
the promise of God, we realize In both of these, in His promise
and in His oath, it's impossible for God to lie. Now, God's counsel
by itself, His decree by itself, that would have been enough because
it's impossible for God to lie. All He had to do was say, Abraham,
I'm going to do this. That's all He had to do. The
Scripture says God's not a man that He should lie. Neither the
son of man that he should repent, hath he said, and shall he not
do it? Hath he spoken, shall he not make it good? Nobody can
stop him from bringing to pass what he's purposed to do. So
that would have been enough. He declares the end from the
beginning, from ancient times, the things are not yet done,
saying, My counsel shall stand, I'll do all my pleasure. That
ought to be confirmation enough. That ought to be assurance enough
to us, brethren. God promised. God promised. God's given His Word. That's
enough. That ought to be assurance to
us. And it is. But that ought to
be enough. But God went above that. He went beyond that and
He confirmed it by an oath. When God swore by Himself, what
He was doing there is God made Christ His Son the surety. our surety, our guarantor, that
this was going to come to pass. He didn't put it in our hands.
He didn't leave it in Abraham's hands. He put it into the hands
of his son. And he made his son the surety.
And this happened when Abraham offered up his only son. Remember
that? That's what had just happened
in Genesis 22. And it was Christ who said, Surely
blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee.
And this was immutable also. This oath was immutable. And
we see that on the cross. When you look to the cross, you
see that this oath was unchangeable. Because all the blessings that
God would bless his children with would be blessings that
he could only give us after God had settled his own law. And
God had satisfied his own justice and God himself had made it so
that he would get all the glory as being the justifier of all
this promised seed. And just as Abraham believed
that God would provide himself a lamb on the cross, we see God
provided himself the lamb. And the promise was in Christ.
And because it was in Christ, an unchangeable, immutable, Whenever
Christ went to that cross and was made sin for His people,
God did not spare His own Son. Listen to the Scripture. Romans
8, 32 says, He that spared not His own Son. Why? Why didn't He spare Him? Because
He promised and He added an oath to it. And it's impossible for
God to lie. So He spared not His own Son,
but delivered Him up for us all. How shall He not with Him also
freely give us all things? Because He promised He would.
He promised and He backed it up with an oath, saying, Surely
I will bless thee. I'll multiply thee and I will
bless thee. And so now, because Christ took
the sin of all those that He went to the cross for, all those
for whom He died, with Him, with Christ, God's given Him all the
spiritual blessings. First and foremost, they all
go to Christ. He's the firstborn among many
brethren. And all these blessings go, first
of all, to Christ. And with Christ, He gives the
same blessing to all those for whom Christ died. He delivered
Him up for us all and with Christ He gives us freely all these
blessings in Christ. He gives them to all His people
for whom He died. Free justification, free righteousness,
free sanctification, free preservation, free resurrection, free glorification. Everything that God has for His
people is given to us freely in Christ because God promised
it God backed it up with an oath, and God can't lie. And so he
spared not his son. Now, believer, you who are God's
promised seed, in Christ the promised seed, you have two immutable
things in which it's impossible for God to lie, so that we might
have a strong consolation. Who have fled for refuge, lay
hold upon the hope set before us. It does not get stronger
than this. Our assurance is no stronger,
it can be no stronger than God's promise and God's oath sealed
up and accomplished in the blood of His own Son. It cannot be
more sure than that. Now thirdly, who is this strong
consolation? Who is this hope we fled to and
laid hold of for refuge? It's Christ. It's Christ our
surety. It's Christ our Savior. He's
our hope and He's our expectation. He's our assurance of our hope. Look at verse 19. Which hope
we have... Now I want you to see this. Where's
our hope? Where is our hope? Our hope is
in two places at one time. Our hope is within us and our
hope is at God's right hand within the veil. Look here, verse 19,
which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast,
and which entereth into that within the veil, that is, into
God's presence in the holiest of holies, whether the forerunner
is for us entered. Even Jesus, made an high priest
forever after the order of Melchizedek. He comes back around to where
he digressed from back up there in Hebrews 5. He said, I've got
to tell you about Christ, the high priest, but you're dull
of hearing. You've got all this diligence to minister to the
saints. And we're proud for that. We're
glad for that. We're assured by that that you're
really true believers. But we desire that you show the
same diligence toward the full assurance of hope right up until
the end. And he says, now let me tell
you who that full assurance of hope is. It's God who promised. It's Christ who promised. It's
Christ who swore by himself saying, surely blessing I will bless
thee and multiplying I'll multiply thee. And that hope we have dwells
in us who are born of his spirit. And that hope we have is our
forerunner who's gone into that veil where our hope is seated
at God's right hand. Even Jesus, that high priest,
forever after the order of Melchizedek. Christ is our strong consolation,
brethren. Listen to the scripture. 2 Corinthians
1.5 says, As the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation
also aboundeth by Christ. And our hope of you is steadfast,
knowing that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so shall you
be also of the consolation. It's Christ, our assurance. 2
Corinthians 1.20 says, All the promises of God are in him Yes. And in him. Amen. And to the
glory of God. That's second Corinthians 120.
Those prime. That means that what God said
to Abraham in Genesis 22, he was saying in Christ, the angel
of the Lord spake and said, the Lord said. The angel of the Lord
spake, Christ spake, and he said, this is what God is saying. And
all the promises of God to his people are yes and amen in Christ. There's no maybes about it. It's
not that Christ did all he can do. Now he's waiting on some
poor deluded sinner to do something. No brethren, our assurance is
Christ did it all. And Christ is doing it all. Christ
is, he's begun a good work in you and he's going to continue
that work until the day he returns. This is the assurance of the
believer. And Christ is our hope. Look
here. He's the anchor of our soul, sure and steadfast, and
He's our hope that's entered within the veil. Listen to Psalm
42, 11. Psalm 42, 11. Why art thou cast down, O my
soul? Do you get cast down? I'm preaching
this message because I know you get cast down. I get cast down. And I hear folks say, I don't
have assurance. Where are you looking for assurance?
You're not going to find assurance in yourself. You're not going
to find assurance in how you minister to the saints. You're
not going to find assurance in looking back over the ages to
some place where you walked an aisle or some place where you
gave your heart to Jesus or something like that. That's not where you're
going to find assurance. You're going to find assurance
at the right hand of God, Christ the Lord. Why art thou cast down,
O my soul? Why art thou disquieted within
me? Hope thou in God. That's what the writer is saying
here to them. You want the full assurance of
hope. Hope thou in God. He's the one that promised. He's
the one that backed it up with an oath. He's the one who came
and fulfilled the promise. He's the one who went to the
cross. He's the one who laid down his life for his people.
He's the one that's risen and entered into the presence of
God. He's the one that's entered in the heart of his people by
whom we have hope in our heart. And he's the one, brethren, who
is this expectation. He's the assurance. that our
hope will be realized, that we will come into His presence.
I shall yet praise Him who is the health of my countenance
and my God. Hope thou in God. Listen to Psalm
62, 5. My soul wait thou only upon God, for my expectation
is from Him. My assurance is from Him. He's my hope and He's my assurance. He's my hope He's the desire
for which I hope and He's the expectation of my hope. He's
the assurance that my hope will be a reality. I'll be with Him
one day in glory. So we to whom God's made His
everlasting covenant, we have hope that we'll be with Christ
in glory and perfect righteousness and Christ is the assurance that
we shall have our hope. And even better than all this,
or adding to all this. Christ, our hope, as our forerunner,
has already entered within the veil into God's presence as our
high priest. As our high priest. That means,
as John said, when you sin, don't sin. Don't sin. Avoid sin. Put off the old man, put on the
new man. Try your best not to sin. But
when you sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ
the righteous, and he is the mercy seat. He's the place where
God will meet with us and forgive us our sins and cleanse us of
our sins and receive us in his righteousness. And because he's
there interceding for his people, he's going to have what he prays
for. He's going to have what he petitions the Father for.
He's got nail prints in his hands that says, this is the purchase
price I paid for my people. They're mine. I bought them.
They belong to me. And I want them. And he'll have
them. He'll have them. So, listen to this. Happy is
he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in
the Lord his God. That's Jeremiah, that's Psalm
146, 5. Listen to Jeremiah 17, 7. Blessed
is the man that trusteth in the Lord and whose hope the Lord
is. You see what I'm saying? The
hope of a believer is not a wish. It's not a wish. It's not just
some, well I Maybe at the end my good will outweigh my bad,
or it'll all work out and I'll be with the Lord. No. The Lord
is our hope. He is our hope. If I say I don't
have assurance of hope, I'm saying I don't have Christ. Because
He's my assurance of hope. You see what I'm saying? Look
to Him alone. That's what He was telling them
there. He's telling them He's the one to look to. He's the
one to look to. And He's the one who will bring
you to Himself. Go to Him for sure, full assurance
of understanding. We saw that last time. And go
to Him for full assurance of hope. Alright. Amen.