Welcome to our program. I'm going
to be preaching today from Hebrews chapter 6 beginning with verse
10 and the title of the message is Strong Consolation, Strong
Assurance and Comfort, Strong Consolation. Now the Apostle
Paul had been speaking of the impossibility of losing salvation,
it cannot be lost, but he was making a point here, if it could
be lost, then it's impossible that a person could be saved
because Christ died one time, and his one death, his substitutionary
sacrifice, his satisfaction of law and justice by his one obedience
unto death is good enough, powerful enough to save his people completely,
eternally, and totally from their sins. But many of these believers
and professing believers to whom he was writing, some of these
were just mere professors. They truly were not saved and
they left the Gospel. Well, what does the Bible say
about them? Well, it says they never were saved to begin with.
Anyone who hears the Gospel and then professes to believe it
and for a time gives some evidence outwardly, but who leaves the
Gospel, they never knew Christ. They never were saved. That's
what the Scripture teaches. But he said in verse 9 here,
he says, But beloved, we are persuaded better things of you,
and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak. What are
these things that accompany salvation? Saving faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ, true repentance, repentance of dead works and idolatry, love
for Christ and His people, obedience and works of love. Now this is
what he begins to mention in verse 10 and I want you to look
at this verse very carefully. It's a very interesting verse
and it's a very informative verse. Now, first of all, the ground
and motivation for all acceptable obedience is the true assurance
and consolation of salvation in Christ. That's what dispels
all legal works-oriented motives for obedience. It's the comfort
of love. Paul said it this way. He said,
the love of Christ constraineth me. That love which nothing can
separate us from who are in Christ. Nothing shall separate us from
the love of God in Christ. This assurance of salvation.
And he says in verse 10, now look at this. He says, for God
is not unrighteous or unjust 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." Now, there's
three things here. First of all, he shows us the
nature of the work and the labor. He speaks of working. He speaks
of laboring. Believers are those who work
and labor. You see, once saved, always saved. or eternal security does not
give believers an excuse to sin. Anyone who claims to believe
in the eternal security of the believer, or the saved, or who
claims to believe that once we're saved we're always saved, but
who uses that truth, that blessed truth, as an excuse to sin does
not know Christ. Now that's the long and the short
of it. Anyone who would presume upon the grace of God, that's
like saying you love your earthly father and mother, and then going
about to hate them and discredit them in every way that you can.
That's impossible. Those who are saved by the grace
of God have grace in the heart. Now, they're sinners, and they
have their moments, they have their times. We're always sinners.
We don't even take a breath without sin, but we're saved by the grace
of God with a heart of faith towards Christ. love to Christ
and his people, and some desire to obey him. So he says you work
and you labor. But he first shows the nature
of the work, the nature of the labor. And then he shows the
motive and the goal of that labor. And then he shows the type of
labor, what he's talking about. First he talks about the nature
of that work and labor. It's a work and labor of love. In other words, it's the believer
working, the believer laboring to obey his Heavenly Father,
not in order to be saved, not in order to keep salvation, not
to earn his reward, but because God loves him and he loves God.
It's a love relationship. Now, that's the opposite of legal
works, self-righteous works. The works of people who are trying
to earn their way into God's favor. The works and labor of
people who are trying to gain and maintain their salvation
by their works. The works and labor of people
who are trying to earn their reward, you see. That's not the
work of a believer. You see, if you're saved by the
grace of God, the work and the labor is because you love God. Because God loves you, herein
is love. Not that we love God, but that
God loves us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our
sins. You might liken it to a mother
who has an infant child. And that mother takes care of
that infant child when that infant child needs change, when it needs
to be fed. Even at three and four o'clock
in the morning, that mother gets up and takes care of that child. When that child is sick, why
does she do that? Why does she do that? Is she
trying to earn her way into being that child's mother? No, she
is that child's mother. She does it because she loves
that child. And that's why God loves, that's
why God saves His people. He loves us. And that's why His
people are to work and labor to obey Him. Not to gain or maintain
salvation. Not because we're afraid if we
don't work hard enough and labor hard enough we're going to lose
it. but because we love God. That's the nature of it. And
then he shows us the motive and the goal of this work and labor
of love. He says, what you have showed
toward His name. In other words, it's for His
glory. It's to honor Him. It's not to make a name for ourselves.
It's not so that we can have something to stand up on and
to crow loudly in our pride about what we've done for God. It's
not so that we can get up before a group in a church meeting and
testify of what all we've done or how good we've been. It's
toward His name. The Bible says in Matthew chapter
5 and verse 16, when the Lord was preaching on the Sermon on
the Mount, and He said, let your light shine before men, so shine
before men that they may see your good works and glorify your
Father in heaven." In other words, the works that a believer does
is not to glorify himself, but it's to glorify God. And that's
the motive of it. What is the motive for your work
and your labor? It should be the glory of God.
If you're trying to earn your way into God's favor, if you're
trying to gain or maintain your salvation, Then it's not towards
his name, it's towards your own. And what is the goal of it? His
glory. And then what is the type of
service that he mentions here? He talks about ministering to
the saints. Who are the saints? Any sinner
saved by the grace of God. That means sanctified one. One
who is set apart and cleansed by the blood of Christ. My fellow
believers, that's who I serve. Somebody says, well, aren't you
supposed to serve Christ? My friends, when I serve my brethren
in Christ, I'm serving Christ. He said that in Matthew chapter
25. He said, told those sheep on his right hand, he says, I
was hungry and you fed me. I was naked and you clothed me.
I was in jail and you visited me. I was sick and you visited
me. And they said, when did we ever do that to you? And he said,
inasmuch as you've done it to the least of these, my brethren,
you've done it unto me. So there's the work and labor
of love. It's not legal mercenary works of those who think you
can be saved one day and then lost another, trying to work
hard to keep what they have. You see, that's not what this
is. This is the work and labor of love. Now, he says in verse
11, he says, and we desire that every one of you, no exceptions,
every one of you do show the same diligence. That's that earnest
desire to work and labor for love, because of love, that you
do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto
the end. That full assurance. How can
I have full assurance of salvation? Listen to me. When I look to
myself, when I look at myself, I cannot have full assurance
because I know who I am. I know what I am. I know my weaknesses. I have a treasure, the gospel
of Christ. God's grace. But I have this
treasure in an earthen vessel. I'm a man who preaches the gospel,
but I'm a man with feet of clay. My friend, I'm a sinner saved
by the grace of God, just like you are. Somebody, you know,
they talk about reverend so-and-so. You know what reverend means?
That means high and lofty, holy. The Bible says holy and reverend
is God's name. My name's not reverend. My title's
not reverend. I'm just Pastor Bill Parker.
I'm a sinner saved by grace, and that's it. So when I look
to myself, I can't have full assurance. And listen, if I did
look to myself and did have full assurance, all that would be
is self-righteous presumption. You see, how can I have full
assurance of hope? And that hope is more than just
a wish. It's a certain expectation of final glory in heaven. How
can I have that unto the end? By looking to Christ. Do you
hear me? Look unto Him who's the author
and finisher of our faith. Look unto Him who is right now,
having purged our sins, seated at the right hand of the Father. Look unto Him who's coming again
to save us from our sins. Look unto Him who died and was
buried, and rose again the third day, and who ascended unto the
Father, to sit at the right hand of his majesty." Look unto Christ. He's our full assurance. He's
our consolation. And we're going to see that.
And he says in verse 12, he says, now that you be not slothful,
that means lazy, but followers of them who through faith and
patience inherit the promises. Now the inheriting of the promises,
has to do with the completion of salvation. The full experience
of it in final glory in heaven. And he says we experience that
or inherit those promises and notice it's an inheritance. You
don't earn an inheritance. Somebody else earns the inheritance
and they bequeath it by will and testament to you and when
they die you become a recipient of the inheritance. So it's an inheritance, but how
do we inherit the promises? He says, through faith and patience. Now what does that mean? Faith
means just what I said before, looking to Christ. Anytime the
Bible uses faith, it's either objective faith, the body of
truth that tells us about Christ, or subjective faith, the work
of the Holy Spirit in us that causes us to look to Christ.
In either way, faith has an object, and the object is Christ. You
see, I don't have faith looking to myself. Will I keep on keeping
on? My friend, let me tell you something
about salvation. If it could be lost by your sins,
it would be lost. If it could be lost by my sins,
it would be lost. My faith is not in myself. My
faith is in Christ. And he's how I inherit the promise
for all the promises of God. are in him, yea, and in him,
amen. And this patience is a submission
to the will of God. God's going to keep me. God's
going to bless me with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ. Now he goes back to Abraham in
verse 13 and uses Abraham as an illustration of one who believed
unto the end. He says, for when God made promise
to Abraham Because he could swear by no greater, he swore by himself,
saying, verse 14, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying
I will multiply thee. Now here he's talking about God
making a covenant with Abraham. There are three chapters in the
book of Genesis where God revealed his covenant with Abraham. Genesis
12, Genesis 15, and Genesis 17. And in those covenant revelations,
God promised Abraham many things. He promised Abraham that a great
nation would come out of him. He promised Abraham that the
Messiah would come through his nation. He promised Abraham an
earthly land, an earthly promised land that future generations
descending from Abraham would occupy, the children of Israel.
But the main promise that God made to Abraham was the promise
of eternal salvation through the promised Messiah, the Lord
Jesus Christ. And that's what the apostle was
dealing with here. God made a promise to Abraham. And God put an oath behind that
promise. Now what does that mean? I'm
going to show you that in just a moment. We have two things
here. You have God's promise and God's
oath and he gave those to Abraham now look at verse 15 of chapter
6 and hold on to that thought I'll show you that in a minute
he says and so after he had patiently endured he obtained the promise
now many people look at that and they'll say things like this
they'll say see there Abraham only got the promise after he
patiently endured well that's true but that doesn't mean he
could have lost it And that doesn't mean that salvation, his obtaining
the promise, was conditioned upon his patient endurance. You
know, there are people who read the Bible in a legal way, in
a self-righteous, works-oriented way. And it's sad, it's a shame,
but it's not going to help them. You see, when God establishes
the truth of salvation by grace, That truth is to be carried all
the way through, and you can't get off of it. For example, how
did God save Abraham? Did God come look down to earth
and look over the population of the earth at that time and
say, well, now I'm looking for somebody who's worthy, or I'm
looking for somebody who'll respond, or looking for somebody who'll
meet a condition, and then choose Abraham? No. Abraham is an example
of how God justifies the ungodly. And if it were based on Abraham
or anything in Abraham, it wouldn't be of grace, it'd be of debt.
But a lot of people, because they're so legal and self-righteous
and works-oriented in salvation, they'll go to the Bible and they'll
see certain passages of Scripture that begin with the word, if. If. And they always make those
ifs legal. Let me give you such a passage
in Colossians chapter 1. Here it talks about Christ, verse
19. It says, It pleased the Father
that in him, in Christ, should all fullness dwell. And having
made peace through the blood of his cross. Now, what is peace
based on? The blood of his cross. You see
there? Christ is the peacemaker. He's
the Prince of Peace. And God made peace between himself
and his people by the blood of the cross. And it says, by him
to reconcile all things unto himself, by him I say whether
they be things in earth or things in heaven, and look here verse
21, and you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your
mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled. Now who did
he reconcile to God? Who did Christ reconciled to
God, people who were alienated from him, that means far off,
and people who were enemies. He didn't reconcile friends,
you see, it was enemies, people who didn't deserve it. And it
says he did it, verse 22, in the body of his flesh through
death. Whose death? Christ. Through
the death of Christ. to present you holy and unblameable
and unreprovable in his sight." Now look at verse 23. It says,
"...if you continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and be
not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you have
heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under
heaven, whereof I, Paul, am made a minister." If you continue
in the faith. Well, somebody looks at that
and they say, well, see there? This salvation is only in effect
if you continue. Now let me tell you this. That
if there is not a conditional if. He's not saying that you
only have this salvation conditioned upon your continuing. The if
there is evidence of salvation. In other words, this is so only
if the evidence is there. And I've used this illustration
before on this. It's like a baby. When a baby
is born, the first thing that doctor looks for and tries to
get that baby to do is breathe. Breathe that air into its lungs. Breathe out. The life principle
has already been there for nine months. You see, that infant
has already been given life. Life is there. But what's the
first evidence of life? Breathing, the heartbeat, all
of these things. You see, the baby doesn't get
life when it breathes. It has life, and as an evidence,
it breathes. So you could say it this way,
well, that baby's alive if he breathes. Well, that's true,
but that's not conditioned upon his breathing. That's evidence
of life. And it's the same way here in salvation. Those who
are saved and reconciled to God, who have been brought to Him,
who have been presented before God in Christ, holy and unblameable
and undefiled, It's only true if they show the evidence of
continuing in the faith, grounded and settled. Now go back to Hebrews
chapter 6. This is what he's talking about.
And it says in verse 15, Abraham, after he had patiently endured,
he obtained the promise. And the promise there is referring
to Isaac, the child that was given to Abraham and Sarah. He
obtained it. We know Abraham failed from the
time that promise was made. Up until the time the promise
was fulfilled, Abraham had failed many times. It wasn't conditioned
on Abraham. It was conditioned on the power
of God. Well, Isaac was the child of
promise through whom the Messiah would come. So he says in verse
16, now here he goes back to God's promise and God's oath.
And he says in verse 16, for men verily swear by the greater,
and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. Now here he's talking about men
who are men of their word. And when they strike an agreement,
they swear an oath, but they always swear an oath by something
greater than themselves. And that to them is a confirmation
and an end of all argument. In other words, they swear an
oath by something greater than themselves. Well, what about
God's oath? Look at verse 17. He says, wherein
God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise
the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that,
verse 18, that by two immutable things, his promise and his oath,
in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong
consolation, strong consolation, comfort and assurance and peace,
who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before
us." Now think about these verses. Here he's talking about men who
have an agreement, and they confirm the agreement by an oath, swearing
by something greater than themselves. Well, how does God confirm His
promise? Well, God swears an oath. So,
but God, He cannot, like you and me, He cannot swear by anything
greater than Himself. Why? Because there's nothing
greater than God. Therefore, God swore an oath,
and He swore by Himself. And what this means is this.
In the gospel of salvation, by His free and sovereign grace,
through the blood and the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, God's
promise, you see, He made that promise. God swears an oath by
Himself because there's none greater than Himself. And what
that means is, number one, He has engaged everything that He
is to fulfill that promise. Everything that God is, He swore
by Himself. Everything that God is, in every
attribute of His character, His holiness, His justice, His immutability,
His knowledge, His wisdom, His power, His mercy, His grace,
His love, His compassion. Everything that God is, is engaged
in an oath behind this promise. And it cannot fail. It cannot
quit. It cannot stop. It cannot be
taken back. God could, listen, if you're
saved by grace, by the God of grace, through Christ, that could
never be taken away from you. Why? Because there's two immutable
things behind that. God's promise and God's oath. And why is that? So that we who
have fled to Christ, who look to Him, who rest in Him, who
know Him as our Savior and Lord, who see Him as the forgiveness
of all our sins, His blood, His righteousness as our only entitlement
to salvation, that we who have fled to Him might have strong
consolation, strong comfort, strong assurance. Now, who's
to have this? Who can say God is for me in
His promise and His oath? Those who have fled for refuge,
safety, to lay hold upon the hope set before us. What is that
hope? Verse 19, which hope we have
as an anchor of the soul, it keeps us put, set, both sure
and steadfast, cannot be moved, cannot be taken away, and which
entereth into that within the veil, who is that? Verse 20,
whether the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made
in high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. What
is the foundation of our strong consolation? Christ and Him crucified. He's our forerunner who entered
into the veil before us. He sat down at the right hand
of the majesty on high. He did the work. Somebody asked
me one time, how strong should our consolation be? How strong
should our assurance be? I'll tell you how strong. As
strong as our Savior. And you listen to me there. You
see, our assurance, our consolation and comfort and peace cannot
be strong because of who we are or what we do or what we will
do. If salvation is based upon me, conditioned upon me, I can't
have strong consolation because I know I'll fail. But my consolation,
my comfort, my peace, my assurance, is as strong as my Savior, and
he will not fail, nor be discouraged." That's what the Bible means there
in Hebrews chapter 12 when it talks about running the race,
working and laboring, but not looking to ourselves, but how
to strong comfort, peace, consolation in Christ. When the Lord Jesus
was born His mother and father brought him to the temple, and
there was a man there named Simeon. And the Holy Spirit had revealed
to Simeon that he would not die before he saw the Christ child.
And Joseph and Mary brought Jesus to the temple, and there was
Simeon. And they put Simeon, they put
the baby Jesus in Simeon's hands. And Simeon looked up and he said,
now I'm ready to die. He said, for mine eyes have seen
thy salvation. Well, a few verses before that,
it said this about Simeon. He was a just man. That's a sinner
saved by grace. And he was waiting for the consolation
of Israel. Waiting for Christ. Christ is
my consolation. He's my strong consolation. He's
my strong refuge. He's my peace. He's my comfort. He's my assurance. It's His blood
for my sins. It's His righteousness for my
justification. I have no other hope but Him.