Hebrews 6. And this evening we'll
be looking at verse 13 down to verse 19. The apostle said, for
when God made promise to Abraham, because he could
swear by none greater, he swore by himself, saying, Surely, blessing,
I will bless thee. And multiplying, I will multiply
thee. And so, after he had patiently
endured, he obtained The promise. We'll hold there for just a few
minutes. But the title of the message this evening is, The
Two Immutable Things. Two Immutable Things. Now, last week, we saw the purpose
of the apostle is to encourage the saints to continue in the
faith throughout this book. He has encouraged these believers
to continue in the faith. and seeing that only apostates,
only those who mimic the experience of God's grace fall away, only
pretenders will abandon the Lord Jesus Christ and His gospel. Therefore, He encourages true
believers, true believers to continue in the faith. And I'll
tell you this, some may say that have gone away from the gospel.
They may say, well, I've just gone away from your gospel. I've
just rejected your gospel. I've not rejected Christ. I've
just rejected the gospel of God's grace. And I'll tell you, there
are men, apostates, who have gone away into religion. And so what they say is, I'm
just rejecting the sovereign grace of God. I'm not rejecting
Christ." Well, the Apostle Paul in Galatians, if you remember,
that's what the Galatians were doing. They had added that one
ceremony of circumcision to the salvation that is in Christ.
And you remember what Paul said in the very first chapter. He
said, I marvel that you are so soon removed, listen, from Him. to another gospel. You see the association then
and union of Christ and His gospel. You can't have one without the
other. Christ and His gospel are in
union. And the apostate will go away
if he says he goes away from the gospel. Listen, he is going
away from Christ. There is no mistaking that. on his Paul and in true believers. But this is the comfort we have
that true believers will never go away from the gospel. We will never leave Christ nor
his gospel. But rather, we grow. In this
gospel, we grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ, we grow
in faith and hope and love in Christ. We grow in the knowledge
of Christ through our study and through the hearing of the gospel. In fact, this very warning of
apostasy only causes us to root deeper in the faith. When you
hear of apostasy, the believers' roots run deeper into Christ. They don't run from Christ. They
root down into Christ. As I wrote in an article this
last week, when we grow in grace, we don't grow independent of
God. We grow more dependent on God. More dependent. We continually
count every merit and work of the flesh as done that we may
win Christ and be found in Him, not having our own righteousness
which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of
Christ." That's vitally important. Our righteousness is by the faith
of Christ. That's good news. That's good
news for sinners because we can provide no righteousness for
ourselves. Christ merited all the righteousness we need. By
the faith of Jesus Christ, the righteousness of God which is
imputed to us by faith. We do believe. We do trust in
Christ. And by that faith, His righteousness
is ours. It's ours. Therefore, by this,
we are made more zealous for good works. seeing that it's
not by our own merit before God, and yet we are accepted, these
works are accepted and pleasing in the sight of God, and we desire
to do them. Because of Christ, we desire
to do good works. We are made to see by the apostle
then in verses 9 and 10, he says, Beloved, we have persuaded better
things of you, things that accompany salvation. Though we thus speak,
for God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of
love which you have showed toward His name, in that you have ministered
to the saints and do minister. Paul was persuaded of their genuine
faith. By what? Faith and perseverance. Faith and patience in the labor
of the gospel. Notice they did minister and
they do minister. You see, believers don't go away. They don't go away. They stay right here. This is
where Christ says He'll be. And this is where His people
desire to be. James said, faith being alone
is dead. Yet living faith continually,
constantly ministers to the saints. And this we do by what motivation? By what motivation do we with
patience endure? With patience do we believe on
Christ? What's the motivation? Love. Not our love for Him, but rather
His love for us. For it is the love of Christ
that constraineth us. It's the love of Christ. Therefore,
Paul encourages true believers to those five responsibilities
mentioned in verses In verse 11 and verse 12, He said, I desire
every one of you to show the same diligence. There's our responsibility
to be diligent, earnest in the things of God. We are to labor
and to witness of Christ, to be faithful, to fulfill all the
needs of the saints. We must be diligent to grow,
to grow up in the faith. We must be diligent and earnest
to contend for the faith. to the full assurance. It's our
responsibility to obtain full assurance, not by our works,
but rather looking to Christ's perfect work. How should you
have full assurance? You should have full assurance
because the tomb is empty. You should have full assurance
because God said, this is My beloved Son in whom I am well
pleased. You should have full assurance
then of your acceptance with God. And if we don't, We know
this. It's because we're not looking
to Christ. It's because we've taken our eye off of Christ and
we've set it on something we're doing. If you don't have full
assurance, know this, that's our fault. It's our fault we
don't have full assurance. It is the sin of our unbelief.
And I know many believers carry around that like a badge of honor. It's a false humility. We mope
and we say, oh, I just don't know, I just don't know, I just
don't know. If you don't know, it's your own fault because Christ
has done it. It's finished. And so we should not be unbelievers,
but rather believers that Christ has finished the work. And thirdly,
we should endure to the end, endure to the end, looking to
Christ our hope. I know this, many times we are
pressed to the end of our wits. We are. If you're not yet, you
will be. You will be. I will be. All circumstances may be dark,
our hearts may be cold, our faith dimly flickers and seems on the
verge of going out, and in desperation we cry, as David did, O Lord,
will You cast me off forever? Will You be no longer favorable
to me? Is that the cry of your heart? And it is often. It's sad, but
it's true. Our cries are like that. To which
the psalmist gives a remedy. He said, I will remember. When I can't see anything else,
I will remember the years of Thy right hand. The right hand
of the Most High. Who sits at the right hand? Christ. I will remember Christ when I
can't see anything else. I'll remember Christ. I'll remember
the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. I will remember the works of
old. It's at this point of sorrow
and despair that the true believer does not leave, but says, Lord,
I will go to Christ. You remember those disciples
were discouraged when all of the other disciples left. Imagine
that. They had a group. They had a
large number with them that day in John chapter 6. And by the end of the message,
the Lord preached, all but twelve left. Can you not imagine how
their hearts must have despaired? And the Lord asked them that
question, will you leave also? And they said, to whom shall
we go? I don't understand what you're
doing. I may not even fully understand what you said, but I got no place
else to go. That's true faith. When you root down, you've got
no place else to go. And believers will endure. They
will endure by looking to Christ. And be not slothful. That's a
responsibility that we should not be slothful in our work.
And fifthly, he gives this, follow them. Follow them. Be followers of them who through
faith and patience inherit the promise. And this is the springboard
then of our text. Be you followers of them. He
mentions then Abraham. You should be imitators of those
who have went before you, who inherit the promises. Now, if the apostle left us to our
responsibility, and just closed the book, that responsibility of those
five things would crush us. Would it not? It would either crush us or it
would move us to self-righteousness. But He doesn't leave us there.
God will not permit either one of those things to happen to
His people. Because of the weight and responsibility of our salvation
does not rest on us in any measure. Though these are our responsibilities
and we should be wise to obey them, yet we know this, our salvation
does not rest upon our responsibility. The responsibility of our salvation
rests completely on Christ, wholly on Christ. This is because our salvation
is not founded upon our works or our obedience in any part,
but solely on the immutable promise of God. Look at that, what he
said. He said, for when God made promise. Where is he pointing
him now? Yes, you should be imitators.
Yes, you should be followers and be faithful. But look, what's
going to encourage you and me is this. God made promise. God
made promise to Abraham. So the apostles' purpose then
in our text is this, it's twofold. Now I want you to see this because
it is a blessing to see what the Holy Spirit does throughout
these few verses here. In the remainder of this chapter,
it's twofold. First, it is to give us an example
as to imitate, to follow. Abraham here is an example for
us to follow. And second of all, he intends
to comfort and encourage us to perseverance because of the immutable
promise and oath of God. Two things. God, when God made promise to
Abraham, now why did He choose Abraham as an example? You see,
because Abraham touches both Jew and Gentile. You see, the
scripture points to Abraham and says he is the father of the
faithful. He is the father of the faithful.
He touches both Jew and Gentile in that he is the father of every
believer. I'll read it for you in Romans
4 and verse 11. It says, "...he received the
sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith,
which he had being uncircumcised, that he might be the father of
all them that believe." though they be not circumcised, that
righteousness might be imputed unto them also." You see, Abraham
was picked because the promise was given to him before circumcision. Therefore, he is not only the
father of the Jews, but he is the father of every one of us
who believe. He is an example of every one
of us. He's a pattern, if you will. Consider where he came from.
He was called out of the heathen nation, Ur of the Chaldees. Does
that not remind you that we were called out of darkness into His
marvelous light? We were called from death to
life. He was given the promise of God, wasn't He? Is that not what happened when
we heard the gospel? We were given the promise of
God just like Abraham was. The promise of God through the
gospel. Christ was preached unto us. Thirdly, he believed the
gospel. Is that not our experience? We
believe the gospel. We believe the gospel and it
was imputed to him for righteousness even so it was imputed to us
for righteousness. See the pattern of Abraham? It
follows every believer of all time. That's why he was chosen
by the apostle. And now the promise of God is
mentioned in our text. I want you to see this. This
promise, read it with me. This promise, when he could swear
by none greater, he swore by himself, saying, Surely, blessing,
I will bless thee, and multiplying, I will multiply thee. Now, I
want you to know this. That was not the first time Abraham
received the promise. That was not the first time. The first time he received the
promise was in Genesis 12. In Genesis 12, 1 through 3, he
received the promise that he would be the father of many nations. He said, I'll call you out of
the earth, the Chaldeans, and you'll be the father of many
nations. And next time he was given a
promise, you remember those Battle of the Five Kings. He had come
and God had sent him out there to deliver the lot and his house. And he was coming back from that
battle victorious. And God gave him the promise
again. And thirdly, in Genesis chapter
17, after his epic failure with Hagar, God reiterated His promise to
Abraham and to Sarah at that time. You see then, the promise
that he deals with here is the fourth time, the fourth time
God delivered this promise. After Isaac was born, God commanded
him to offer that sacrifice in Genesis 22, this promise given. And He commanded him to offer
Isaac as a sacrifice, which he did without question. The Scripture says he rose up
early. In the mind of Abraham, Isaac
was already dead. You see, he could do that because
he had a promise. The promise was, in Isaac shall
thy seed be called. In Isaac shall Christ come from
his seed. And he trusted God so much. He followed God with patience
and faith so as to kill his own son, knowing God would raise
him from the dead. He believed God would raise him
from the dead. Why? Because he had the promise. And so Abraham, when he had done
this, it was at this time that God delivered that promise to
him, in blessing I will bless thee. He said, the Lord hath
sworn, in blessing I will bless thee, in multiplying I will multiply
thy seed, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth
be blessed. Now we may see by looking at
all of these promises, I want you to see this. Every promise
that I mentioned, Genesis 12, Genesis 15, Genesis 17, and Genesis
22, all four of those promises, I want you to know they're the
same promise. Not any different. The root of the promise is Christ. Christ is the promise. He's the
one that He promised Him when He called Him out of Ur of the
Chaldees. He was the one promised Him after the battle of the kings. He was the one promised when
He committed that sin with Hagar. He was promised after He had
offered Isaac that Christ should come. So, all these promises
have this root. Christ is coming to save His
people. To redeem them out of every kindred
and tongue and people and nation. Yet as Abraham continues in faith
and obedience, I want you to see this. The promise grows clearer. The more he endured in faith
and patience, the clearer the promise became. Believer, the more we endure
in faith and patience, the clearer Christ becomes. Is that not a lesson? Is that
not a message for us? Is that not an encouragement
in the midst of darkness to know that at the end of this, Christ
will be clearer to me than He was when I started? The promise
will be made clearer to me. And this is what it is, is not
to grow in grace and knowledge of Christ so that the knowledge
of Christ grows? And as the knowledge of Christ
grows, so does our heart's love and affection grow toward Him. I tell you, if you have true
spiritual knowledge of Christ, you can't help but love Him more.
You just can't. They go together. And the only
way is through much tribulation, much difficulties. And so Abraham
is meant as an example for us, that we should follow his example.
And you know what? The result of His was that it
was clearer. And that's going to be the same
result for us. It's going to be clearer to us. I tell you now, I am more emphatic. I am more dependent upon Christ
today than I was when I first began to believe. And so it is
with you. That's what it is to grow. And
the trials, yes, they become more difficult. Abraham's trials
were more difficult. First, Abraham, just leave your
house. Leave your home. By the end, he was having to
offer his son. See how much more difficult?
Do you think he could have bore that trial at the beginning?
No. No, he had to grow. And so do we. So do we. Let us then follow faithful Abraham,
who against all hope, Against all that he saw all that he felt
he staggered not at the promises of God giving glory to God Believers
stagger not at the promises of God stagger not what you see
the promises of God are sure Let us be faithful loving confident
Not in the flesh But in Christ, in Christ, be confident, be sure. Therefore, believer, we follow
Abraham's pattern. Now, the second thing that is
taught here is the comfort and encouragement
to follow Abraham's pattern. What gave Abraham the strength
to raise the knife against his son? Was it not the promise of God? So what is it that will give
us the strength to endure? Mark it down. The promise of
God. Nothing else. Nothing else will
get you through it but the promise of God. Now a thought may occur. Well, I'm not as strong as Abraham. I'm weak and feeble. My feet
are nigh well slipping. How can I endure and continue
seeing I am so feeble and weak?" Well, notice the confidence and
assurance that we shall endure in faith and patience even as
Abraham, our brother, did because the promise given to Abraham
is the same promise given to you. It is the promise of God. The promise is blessing. Listen. Blessing. We know God's going
to bless. We know God's going to bless.
But here's the force behind it. Blessing. I will bless you. Multiplying. I will multiply. This is the promise of God. Like Abraham, we are sinners
by birth, sinners by choice, born rebels and haters of God.
In Adam, all died. By nature, we could not ever
come to Christ. Wherefore, as by one man's sin
entered into the world, and death by sin, so death passed upon
all men for all have sinned. Jesus said, No man can come unto
Me, except the Father which hath sent Me
draw him. Except the Father will. Except
the Father say, I will, you should come to Me. Except that, no man
can come. Praise God for divine exceptions.
Except the Father which hath sent Me draw him. Here is the
only hope then for sinners. God's free and sovereign grace. God's free will. If anybody has
free will, it is God alone. God alone has free will. And God hath willed before the
world was, God hath purposed, God hath decreed, I will have
mercy on whom I will have mercy. Therefore, in the eternal counsels
of God, the Father loved, chose a people and promised to give
them all blessings, all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ. He has promised to bless His
elect people. So then we see Jesus the Son
was purposed of God to be the Savior of those elect. It says,
"...according as He had chosen us in Him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before
Him, in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children."
Listen. Bye. Jesus Christ. God purposed to
save us, God decreed to save us, and decreed that Christ should
be our Savior. He decreed it, He willed it so. And what was decreed by God from
eternity and promised to Abraham is now been fulfilled. You get that? It's been fulfilled. The seed that was promised has
come. And the seed that came fulfilled
all that God required of His elect people once and forever. He's done it all, the Lord Jesus
Christ. By His blood, He has redeemed
us. By His righteousness, He has given us all that God requires. Is not His righteousness and
blood then worthy of blessing? Worthy of it. Therefore, He was made a curse
for us. He endured the wrath of God until
it was satisfied forever. And now the blessings that God
promised, that God decreed, that Christ accomplished, He now gives
to His children in the new birth. You who have been born again,
do you not see you have all the blessings of God? Everything
God could possibly give you, He gives you. It's yours. It's
done. It's yours. You are heirs of
everything. Everything. All of His love,
all of His mercy, all of His grace, all of His kingdom, even
His glory He allows you to share. Everything is yours. By spiritual
birth, He gives us eyes to see and ears to hear of this eternal
promise of the Father. It gives us hearts to believe
the promise fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Therefore, you who believe, are we not blessed above all
men? Do you suppose that that's presumptuous
to say? It's not presumptuous. Why? Because I have a promise. I have
a promise. And it's not just anybody that
promised it. God promised it. God promised it. In blessing,
I will bless you. In multiplying, I will multiply
you. Therefore, we are so blessed We are blessed only according
to the promise of God, only according to the sovereign decree of God. For our salvation is not by accident
nor by chance. You're saved on purpose. Matter of fact, you are saved
by purpose. God purposed it. He decreed it. It was not by works of our own
or righteousness of our own, nor of the will of man, nor of
the will of flesh, but of God. But of God. We were born again
because God has ordained it. I like this verse in Galatians
4. It says, Because you are sons, you have believed, you have received
the spirit of adoption. Because you are sons, Receiving the spirit of adoption
didn't make you sons. You were already sons. Before
you knew you were a son, you were a son. You were a son adopted,
purchased by God, purchased by Christ. We were saved by the finished
work of Christ. Scripture says, the ordinance
that was against us, He nailed it to His tree and put it away
forever. And we believe and obey because
the Holy Spirit has quickened us. You who were dead hath he
quickened. So then we can be sure that we
will continue to the end because God purposed you to continue
to the end. Secondly, we shall endure to
the end in faith and obedience because God swore. Not only did God decree, not
only did God purpose, but listen, God swore, swore with an oath. Look at that. Because He could
swear by no greater, He swore by Himself. He swore on His own name. Do you know what that means? I don't believe I've begun to
scratch the weight of this. I'm just going to attempt. It means this, if God should
fail to save one for whom Christ died, If he failed to bless one
that he promised to bless with redemption and eternal life,
if Jesus should not bring all that the Father gave him, which
he promised to do, did he not? In John 6, he said, All that
the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to
me I will in no wise cast out. This is the will of him that
sent me, that of all he hath given me I should lose nothing,
but raise it up again at the last day. If he should fail, God would be a liar. His glory would fail to be praised. Christ being our surety, the
signer of the covenant, the one taking full glory for a success,
would bear full responsibility for its failure. That's what
it means. But you listen, God's promise and God's decree cannot fail. In Isaiah chapter 46, I'm going
to read some text to you here. Isaiah chapter 46 and verse 9. Remember the former things of
old, for I am God, and there is none else. I am God, and there
is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning. From
ancient times the things that are not done, saying, My counsel
shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure." Over in Proverbs chapter 19 and
verse 21, He said, "...there are many devices
in a man's heart. Nevertheless, the counsel of
the Lord, that shall stand." Do you get this? What's going
to stand? The counsel of God is going to
stand. Even that heathen king Nebuchadnezzar,
he said that the Lord does whatsoever He pleases among the inhabitants
of man. Let me try to read that for you
in Daniel chapter 4. Daniel 4, verse 35, it says,
"...all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing.
He doeth according to His will in the armies of heaven, and
among the inhabitants of the earth none can stay His hand,
or say unto Him, What doest Thou? So then, if God has decreed,
and His counsels will not fail, if His will is done without question
in all time and eternity, Why then must God swear? Look at your text. He gives you
a reason why He did it. For men swear by a greater as
an oath of confirmation is to them an end of strife. Wherein
God willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise
the immutability of his counsel Confirmed it by an oath God took
into account your weakness Your frailty to believe in his
counsel and decrees so much so that God signed his name to it
and So it should be an end of strife. It should be an end of
all contention. And you listen, God was not risking
anything to put His name to it. You got it? He wasn't risking
a thing. Why? Because His will doesn't
fail. God cannot lie. Therefore, by
two immutable things, two unchangeable things, His counsel and His oath
are immutable. They're unchangeable. Behold,
He says, I am God. I change not. Therefore, you
sons of Jacob are not consumed. God swore. Now then I'll ask
you this, are you in Christ? Are you in Christ? Do you believe
on the Son of God? Do you love Him and serve Him? Then behold the immutability
of your salvation How do you know you're going
to endure? Because God didn't found it on you. He found it
on the two pillars of His oath and His counsel. You, believer,
shall endure. Why? God willed it and He swore
and signed His name to it. He swore to it. by these two immutable pillars
of oath and counsel, for God promised cannot lie. God is immutable,
unchangeable, and so are all of His counsels and decrees."
So then, what does this produce? That we might have a strong consolation. That word consolation means comfort,
solace, and listen, exhortation. You want a strong exhortation?
Here it is. You are saved by the immutable,
unchangeable God. His love for you is immutable.
The blood that Christ shed is immutable. The righteousness
Christ provides is immutable. The Spirit of God that quickens
you is immutable. It's unchangeable. God decreed
it. I will endure because God purposed
it. I have confidence because God
swore to it. This believer should give us
boldness For Christ is said to be the anchor of our soul." You
know, anchors made of steel go down into the depths of the sea.
They fasten to rocks of earth. Their chains are tied. The chains
that tie them may rust, they may break. The rocks they cling
to may be moved. But our anchor doesn't go down,
it goes up. You got that? It goes up. Our
anchor goes up into heaven itself. Our anchor is lodged in Christ,
who has entered into the veil for us. The chain that ties us
to Him is made by His own blood and righteousness, fashioned
under the fire of God's decrees and oath, and is tied to our
nature, which is in union with Him forever. We should conclude this, that
by God's promise and decree and his oath, by Christ's victory on the tree
and his resurrection and ascension into heaven, this we may conclude, we shall safely reach our destination. Our souls are both sure and steadfast. Our salvation is sure as the
oath of God. As sure as the veil was rent,
the way is made open. So by this, may God give us grace
to grow. in the grace and knowledge of
Christ. Grow in confidence and boldness. Grow more dependent on Christ. And the more you grow, you'll
be more dependent on that oath and that promise. The more you
grow. And that's His purpose. His purpose
is twofold. That we should follow Abraham
through patience. He obtained the promise. And
as we grow, the promise becomes clearer. And what is the promise
that gives us such motivation? It is the immutable counsel and
oath of God that gives us such zeal to persevere, to press toward
the mark of the high calling of God. To stagger not the promise
of God. I'll read this to you and I'll
close. This was a hymn that I found online. It was very good. The
immutability of God. I hear the words of love. I gaze
upon the blood. I see the mighty sacrifice and
I have peace with God. Tis everlasting peace, sure as
Jehovah's name, tis stable as His steadfast throne, forevermore
the same. The clouds may grow and come.
The storms may sweep my sky. This blood-sealed friendship
changes not. The cross is ever nigh. I change. He changes not. The Christ can
never die. His love, not mine, the resting
place. His truth, not mine, the tie.
My love is oft times low, my joy still ebbs and flows, but
peace with Him remains the same, no change Jehovah knows." No change. God never changes. Therefore
you sons of Jacob are not consumed. May God bless you. Let's stand
and be dismissed in prayer.