The good and bad of electronics. I think of probably all the passages in the New Testament, and I didn't plan it this way, I didn't know I would be looking at this passage this weekend until Eric asked me earlier, said he was going to be out of town. I guess a little over a week ago. And I looked at what was next in Hebrews because that's what I've been doing over the past few weeks that I've had opportunity to preach here. And I looked and I was like, maybe I should just skip this. It's a difficult passage, but the more I looked at it, the more I thought, no, we need the encouragement that's found here, especially since I think when you look at the entire context of what the writer of the book of Hebrews puts here, it actually is, as we read in the reading earlier, an encouragement.

If you look at verse 18, God did this so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. That's really the goal of the writer here. The goal isn't to scare people into obedience. I think it is to put things into right perspective, but it isn't to scare them, it's to encourage them based on these two unchangeable things. So if you're later concerned or confused at any place in the sermon, come back to these two unchangeable things.

Well, what are they? I wanna enumerate them before we go back in the text to pick up the argument here. Well, the first thing is God's promise. Well, he made it to Abraham, but we know when God made this promise to Abraham about giving many descendants, he was talking about the promise that would come through Christ and the spiritual, not that there weren't physical descendants and are, but the spiritual promise was the important one. And so when we think about it, that God promised through Abraham that he would bring many to himself, many descendants of Abraham spiritually and physically to himself, that's the first promise. But then God said he wanted to make it clear, verse 17, so he confirmed it with an oath. And there's some explanation that's given later, but those are two unchangeable things.

If God is, and he is, if he exists, and he does, if he promises something, it's as sure as anything can be. And if that wasn't sure enough, God says, I swore, I took an oath that I would fulfill this promise. So the writer of Hebrews says, At the end of this discussion here, I don't want you to lose hope. I want you to be encouraged, not because of anything in you, but because of what is found in Christ.

But let's go back in the text, and I'm gonna, I guess, have two electronic items going at once, twice the possibility of, speaking of certainty versus uncertainty, twice the possibility for me to mess it up.

So you may remember the argument going back in the book of Hebrews. The writer of the book of Hebrews is addressing Jewish I guess, nationality or ethnicity people who had come to Christ who were in enduring persecution, who were having problems. And because they were having problems, they were tempted to turn back to their old ways.

Because if you think about it, and I was raised as Paula was in Roman Catholicism, Judaism of that day, they had a huge temple, they had impressive robes, they had all these ceremonies and everything else, whereas believers met as a small group, and oftentimes it wasn't even in a separate building, certainly not in the early church. but it was in somebody's living room, in a small dwelling place.

So you go from this majesty of this temple to these small groups, and then on top of it, you're persecuted, and you're persecuted by people from your own family, from your own lineage, from your own heritage, because you're part of this weird little sect, Christianity, that seems to have arisen in some strange way out of this grand religion.

Well, the people who thought that way, as they're being persecuted, started to think, well, maybe I should do both. Maybe I should go back to those things that were in the past. And the writer of Hebrews says that is not a reasonable conclusion, and he gives several examples.

So in chapter one, he talks about Christ as being greater than the angels of God, and into chapter two, And then in chapter three, he talks about how Jesus is greater than Moses, how Moses was in God's household, but Christ is the son over that same household. And then in chapter five, And I'm skipping past, and actually the end of chapter four, it comes up, Christ is greater than Aaron or the priesthood because he is that final and perfect great high priest.

So we have this situation of temptation under persecution to go back to what they were doing before. There was this decline in their understanding, which we're gonna talk about or go back to in our text here in a moment. And then there's the argument that the writer of Hebrews wants to deliver to them.

And so you may recall in chapter five, or you can just look there, But we see in verse, I'll start in verse seven. During his earthly life, speaking of Christ, he offered prayers and appeals with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, He learned obedience from what he suffered, and after he was perfected, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, and he was declared by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

That's the immediate context. So I already have a large passage, and I've spent here probably 10 minutes talking about the background. But I think we'll be able to go through this passage actually fairly quickly because with that background, then you understand verse 11.

We have much to say about this. What? Christ as a high priest. But it is hard to explain to you because in our Well, one translation I'm looking at here says that you're too lazy to understand. I think I'm looking at a different translation here from here. But the word that's used here is one that's dull, dullness.

And I think about it this way. If you're under strain, whether it's psychological, whether it's physical, financial, whatever strain you're under, it dulls your senses and it prevents you from seeing things as they really are. On the way down, I detected I was starting to get a headache. And we have a great ability here is like, hand me something for my headache. Why did I want to take something for my headache? Because if it got bad enough, The headache would dull my ability to think.

And so the same thing is true here. The people that the writer of Hebrews is addressing, they were under some pretty severe persecution. You can look in the book of Acts to see some of that. There's hints elsewhere in the New Testament. It wasn't that they were, you know, they got a, splinter in their thumb and they're whining about that. They were under persecution. And because of that, it is impacting, and because of the temptation to look the other way, look back to what they thought was better, it was dulling them, it was causing them to be unable to learn.

And in fact, one of the things that he encourages them at the end of this section, and unfortunately the NIV translates it differently, verse 11 of chapter 6, we want each of you to show the same diligence in order to make your hope sure. Verse 12, we don't want you to become lazy, and actually it's the exact same word, dull, distracted, whatever, however you wanna translate that. So, or slow to learn.

So he wants to tell them about Christ, he wants to encourage them as Christ, as their high priest, but he says, you know, in fact, because of this situation and because of your reaction to it, you should be teachers right now, and instead, I'm having to go back and teach you some really basic elementary truths all over again. You're not ready, and I don't know that I would consider this an overly advanced teaching, but he said you're not ready for the meat of the word, the mature understanding of Christianity. I'm having to take you back and help you understand again why it is that we are following Jesus and we're not looking back to Moses.

And he says, solid food is good for the mature and those who have trained themselves. And it's a little bit out of a translation here to distinguish good from evil. And I think it's better to look at it just as a way of if I know you've been working out and I'm not in running condition, but certainly if you're a runner and you've been working out and then you sprain your ankle, it takes less time after that sprain to get up and get back with the program than if you're completely out of shape, right? I mean, it's easier having done that. And what he's saying is, is if you had been not distracted by this persecution that's going on, if you had been thinking about the things of God this whole time, if you hadn't been dulled by what was going on and distracted by the teachings that you seem to want to cling to, you would be prepared for this.

So chapter six, He says, then therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity. Now pretty much everything I'm saying here is probably contested by somebody somewhere in some commentator or another, or agreed to by another. So if you've heard differently, I would say search the scriptures yourself to see whether or not these things are so.

But a lot of times what people will say about this section and even the one that is just above it in the end of chapter 5 is they're like, I don't need to preach the gospel to somebody every week. We need to move on to more advanced things. And by that, what they mean is whatever their hobby horse is, whether it's eschatology or some system of theology like that. I don't think that's what he's talking about here.

In fact, it's somewhat apparent even in our translations here to see it what he's talking about is the foundation of Judaism not going from you know, just the gospel to something else. He doesn't say, let's leave teaching about Christ. He says, let's leave these elementary or these foundational teachings from, and this is not explicitly stated, but I think it's in the text, from the Old Testament.

Why do I say that? Well, he talks again, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death or from dead works. Later on in chapter nine of Hebrews, he points out that that is the Mosaic covenant. That is the law as given by Moses. Those are the dead works that they needed to repent of. and instead to turn to faith in God.

Instructions about baptisms, he's not talking about types of baptism, infant and adult baptism. Literally, the word could be translated washings here, and there were ceremonial washings in the Old Testament. We don't have time to go back and look at that, but if you were to go If you were to go look at the Old Testament, they had these immense lavers that they would use, and when they went to sacrifice an animal, there was these ceremonial washings that they would go through to do it.

The laying on of hands, and by that what he means is the identification of the sinner with the sacrifice that was given. And of course, resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment, there were some basic truths of that taught all the way back in Job, where Job understood that even if he died, he would see God with his own eyes. He understood resurrection and judgment.

Those are great things to know and learn from the Old Testament, But if you keep going back to those and you keep getting enticed by that to be derailed and to argue about that and you're not looking at Christ, you're missing the mark. And what he says here is you need to move past those things And he says, verse three, God permitting, we will do so. He didn't think that he could convince them of these things. He knew that it would take a work of God to do it.

Just like the children in the wilderness who God left in the wilderness, he continued to provide for them. Moses prayed for them. Numbers 14 talks about that, where Moses asked, you know, Lord, are you going to save them? He says, I'm going to save them, but they're not going to be permitted to go into the land. So God has to act. and give us light, and the writer of Hebrews here is saying to those people who are being tempted in this way, I want to move past, I want to help you get over this desire to go back to your old ways, but only if God permits will we be able to do so.

Then he goes on, like I said, probably one of the most difficult passages in scripture. It talks about if it is impossible for those who have been once enlightened, who've tasted the heavenly gift, who've shared in the Holy Spirit, who've tasted of the word of, the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away to be brought back to repentance because to their loss they're crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.

So a couple things on this section. First of all, we know from several things that he says in this text and from elsewhere in scripture, a true believer cannot lose their salvation. And as somebody said, If people believe this, they would have to say not once saved, always saved, but once lost, always lost, because it's impossible to renew somebody, if that's what the text is talking about.

So generally speaking, people who believe in the sovereign grace of God take one of two positions here. There's a third one, but it's actually ruled out even though our translation seems to allow for it.

So in verse six, and I might as well deal with that now. In verse six it says, if they fall away. That's a bad translation. It should be translated since they fall away. So he's not talking about hypothetical. That is one way that people take this.

Another way that people take this is he's talking about outward professing believers. And certainly, I think if it's not in this text, that's found elsewhere. There are people who make a profession of faith, and they turn away from that profession of faith, and they utterly and completely repudiate it. Well, what we would say is they never were saved in the first place. and that it's impossible to do anything for them, not because God can't save whomever he wants, there's only one way in, it's not like there's two options. So what they're saying is, in that case, they're crucifying God all over again.

But I think the other option here is the correct one, and I can hear in my mind Joe saying don't preach options, but I think it's important in a text like this to talk about the different ways people have handled this because I don't want you to go away what if he didn't think about this thing or that thing or the other thing. I've thought about it in this text.

The other option is they lost their... I'll say it this way, they lost their blessing in a situation. Think about it this way, you could have two people who are believers in Christ go through the same sort of trial or tribulation. And I'm not talking about one is stronger than the other or anything like that, I'm saying in the trial, one is able to see God's hand. One is not saying the whole time, I wish this wasn't happening to me. Why is God doing this to me? And I'm not saying you're, people are gonna do that. We all struggle with the flesh, and we're gonna get to that example here in a minute with Abraham. But just understand, you can have two people go with the same sort of background, two believers, Same sort of trial, and one is able to rejoice, not because of the trial, but because they know God is working in it for their good. And the other person struggles.

Does the person who struggles lose their salvation? No, but they've lost that blessing of being able to see God's work in that. As having struggled this past few years, couple years, with some physical ailments, I can tell you I've lost plenty of blessing in the last couple of years. I've failed to see God working in my physical ailments and have wished that things would have gone otherwise. But that is, I believe, what's talking about here.

And further on in his example here, he says, land that drinks in the rain, often falling on it, and that produces a crop useful for those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed, and in the end, it'll be burned.

Part of the problem here is land is only mentioned once, and the writer is only thinking of one parcel of land. And he's not thinking one is good and one's bad. What he's saying is you can have the same land and the same blessing fall upon it, and in some cases you have thistles, and in other cases you have you have a crop that's useful. And what happens in the case where you have thistles? What does a farmer, at least in those days, need to do? He didn't have a bottle of Roundup or whatever to spray on it. He would have to burn that. The land wasn't gone because he burned it. What happened was a season was wasted, rain was wasted on that particular part of the ground. And I think that that understanding that that's a loss of blessing or loss of reward fits with what Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter 3. And you can turn it back if you want. Chapter 3 in verse 11, it says, for no one can lay any foundation other than what has been laid down, and that foundation is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, and costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, each one's work will become obvious, for the day will disclose it because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test the quality of each one's work. If anyone's work that he's built survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will experience loss, but he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

So he's not talking about the loss of salvation, but he's talking about loss of reward or loss of blessing in a particular case. And I don't think it's an all or nothing thing because Well, let's look at this example here. Well, I gotta go ahead here a little bit before we get to the example, but the example of Abraham, if you think about his life, you'll see that that is not his situation.

So he wants to, before he gets to the example, he says, even though we speak like this, dear friends, verse nine, we are confident of better things in your case, things, and this is a very important translation here, or phrase to get right, things that accompany salvation. He's not talking about, I doubt whether or not any of you are saved, he's saying, Even though I'm talking about this loss of blessing and the situation where you could just live through the rest of your life dull and insensitive to the things of God, like the children in the wilderness, because that's the context going back to Hebrews 3 and 4, from Numbers and from Psalm 95, He's saying, even though I'm talking about this sort of loss that can happen, this burning up of thorns and thistles, I'm confident better things in your case.

Why is that? He doesn't point to them, he points to God. Verse 10, God is not unjust. He will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help him. And again, he's not talking about this in a meritorious way. Why did they help people? Because God had given them life and motivation to do so. And he says, we want each of you to show this same diligence to the end. He wants them to persevere in order to make your hope sure. We do not want you to become, again, same word as we read earlier, dull, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.

And he's gonna give the example here. And to me, I'm so glad that he gave this example, even though he doesn't talk about, even though he doesn't talk about the failings of Abraham, If they certainly understand it, and we should understand the story that Abraham was not like a sinless man who never had any doubts, who never had any thorns or thistles or anything like that. And again, because of time, I'm going through this quickly because I think it's so important to do this as a unit, but we have the section here.

When God made a promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself, saying, I will surely bless you and give you many descendants. And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised. So what he's saying here is you want to look to the old covenant under Moses I want you to look prior to that and the promise that was made to Abraham. If you go back to the book of Genesis and you go to chapter, I believe it's chapter 12, you have Abram, not Abraham, Abram, exalted father, brought out of moon worship, most likely, and brought to the promised land. And if you remember the story, and I can't go back through all of it, I guess you have to trust me or go read it for yourself, but Abram goes years and years with this idea God says that he's gonna bless them, look at the stars, count them. It says Abram believed God and God accounted it to him for righteousness, and the years passed on, and they passed on. And he got to be 99, I believe, years of age, and he still hadn't had a child. And at that point, what does he say? He has a vision from God, and God said, I'm gonna change your name from exalted father, Abram, to Abraham, father of many nations. He doesn't even have one child. And you're gonna go tell somebody, And I expect that he told everybody, hey, God changed my name.

But what happened? Sarah gives him her handmaid and he thinks, well, let Ishmael live before me. All these things happen where Abraham tries to fulfill God's promise through the flesh. And yet God blesses him anyway. So when I say these things about this passage, don't think that I'm saying, God, if you mess up once, if I mess up once, and I've already done it probably even as I've been speaking, if I mess up once, I'm toast. No, when God made a promise to Abraham, it wasn't dependent on him. That's the story behind what's being said here in chapter six.

Since there was no one greater for him to swear by, God swore by himself, saying, I will surely bless you, direct quote from Genesis 22, 17, and give you many descendants. And then you have this interesting phrase, so after waiting patiently, after persevering, Abraham received what was promised. Did Abraham wait patiently with no questions? I mean, he acted out of lack of faith at times, but in the end, God kept bringing him back to himself. And what's said here is that Abraham received what was promised.

So the writer of Hebrews wants to go on and encourage us some more. He says, men, swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument. Whether it's in a courtroom or somewhere else taking an oath, is something that is said to put an end to an all argument. You signed this document. You swore this oath. You agreed to this in the presence of all of these people. We have incontroversial proof of that. And men accept that. It doesn't mean everything somebody signs is going to hold them binding. I don't want to get down that road. But his point is that men accept that as a system.

But think about it this way. God wanted to make his unchanging or immutable nature of his purpose very clear. to the heirs, that would be all of us who believe, of what was promised, so he confirmed it with an oath. God's promise was enough. I think, and it's not unique to Joe, but I remember Joe liking to say, God said it, that settles it, instead of God says it, I believe it, that settles it. It's like the I believe it part doesn't fit into it. You should believe it, but that isn't what makes it believable or trustworthy. God said it. But what he's saying here is God not only said it to Abraham and by extension to all of his people, God said it with an oath so that there were two witnesses, God's promise and God's oath. And since it's impossible for God to lie, that when we flee, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered can be greatly encouraged and comforted. So again, think back to their situation and as it applies to you and to me, let's think to our situation here.

Are you going through trials? Are you concerned about things that seem to be spinning out of control? Your health failing. Family not treating you right. Work not treating you right. Fill in whatever you can. I'm probably going to forget. You don't like the weather. Whatever it is, I know that's a small thing. Know this. You can be encouraged, though, even though the things, the circumstances, the mutable things in your life, even your own fallen, human, fleshly nature that Abraham had, that causes you to doubt the promises of God. Even beyond all that, know that you can be encouraged by these two immutable, unchangeable things that God promised and that God swore that he would do so. We can lay hold of that hope and be encouraged.

Then he goes on to say this, we have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. And I actually, I don't know, I don't remember exactly how long ago Joe preached a message, but I listened to a message from Joe on this passage where he talks about this. And he talked about the way that they used to do this. You had these great ships and the only power pretty much that they had for this huge ship was their sails. And they had to put the ship, the big ship into this little bitty area in the port. They had to make it work in there. So what they would do is somebody would come out with a rope that was tied to an anchor that would be put where they needed to go, and they would give to this ship, the people on this ship, they would go out in their rowboat, bring it out to them, and they would pull it in. And they would be able to pull it in because the anchor held. If that anchor didn't hold, it wouldn't work. And that analogy here, I think, is a great analogy. We're able to be assured, we have an anchor for our soul, that we're gonna make it to heaven because it's Christ who went before us and entered on our behalf.

So Christ went behind and he uses this analogy from the old covenant worship. He enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain. The only one who could do that once a year under the old covenant was the high priest. And Christ in his once for all sacrifice went in and secured a salvation that was an anchor for us. And thus, and he's gonna bring him back and bring us back to the subject that he wants to get to, he has become a high priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.

So the writer of Hebrews has taken this detour to deal with an issue that he saw in the believers there. And I don't think they're that unique. Things in our lives can distract us, get us away from being blessed by what God is doing for us. If we are those who are truly holy and completely trusting in Christ alone, when these things happen, like I said, health, finances, whatever the case may be, when these disturbances happen, we have two immutable, two unchangeable things provided for us by God, his promise and his oath. And because of that, we have a hope that is an anchor for our soul.

We won't sing it because I didn't find it in the hymnal, and as I recall, the tune, not that I would follow it that well anyway, is slightly different than what I know, but there's the hymn. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ, the solid rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand.

But the phrase that I'm thinking of from that hymn is the third verse, at least in the version that I looked at. His oath, his covenant, his blood, support me in the whelming flood. When all around my soul gives way, he then is all my hope and stay.

Now if I had to quibble, and the writer had to do this a certain way, it isn't just then that he's my hope and stay, he's always, but I understand the sentiment here, the writer's just to say, when everything seems to give way around me, I have a sure and certain hope, I have a, anchor of faith because of what Christ has done in securing salvation for his people.

Let's pray and we'll sing a hymn and be dismissed. Father, we're so thankful indeed for what Christ has done, that he's gone before us, behind the veil, and secured salvation. Lord, I pray that you would take the words that have been said, burn up the things that don't apply, but Lord, I pray that you would help your children to hear today that Christ is their solid rock, that he is their anchor, that he is their hope. And Lord, I pray that you would encourage us throughout this week with those thoughts ringing through our heads as we go through the trials and tribulations that come our way. We ask that you would do this in Jesus' name and for his glory, amen.

All right, so I have to decide here. I think 718. We didn't sing 718, did we? I'm not getting any hand wave in the back. If you can stand.