Chapter 6 in Hebrews says, For those who were once enlightened
and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers
of the Holy Ghost and have tasted the good word of God and the
powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew
them again unto repentance, seeing they crucify to themselves the
Son of God afresh and put Him to an open shame. For the earth
which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth
forth herbs, meat for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth
blessing from God. But that which beareth thorns
and briars is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing, whose end
is to be burned. But, beloved, we are persuaded
better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though
we thus speak. For God is not unrighteous to
forget your work and labor of love which he hath showed toward
his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister.
And we desire that every one of you do show the same diligence
to the full assurance of hope to the end, that ye be not slothful,
but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the
promises. For when God made promise to
Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he swore by himself,
saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, multiplying I will
multiply thee. And so after that he had patiently
endured, he obtained the promise. For men verily swear by the greater,
and an oath for confirmation is to them in the end of all
strife. Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto
the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, 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 have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope
set before us, which hope we have as an anchor of the soul,
both sure and steadfast, and which entereth in to that within
the veil. Whether the forerunner is for
us entered, even Jesus made an high priest forever after the
order of Melchizedek." Now, one thing that is true concerning
the study of the Scriptures, and that is that we must see
the Scriptures as being a total book. that there is one theme
from the beginning to the end, that this is not just a hodgepodge
of the thoughts of men that have been put together here or there,
even though we might believe those thoughts were ordained
of God, yet these things are not just little segments of truth
that God would have us to know, but there is a theme of the Scriptures
from the very beginning that carries all the way to the end,
and it has one subject, which if men miss that subject and
miss seeing the continuity of the unfolding of that subject,
then they will necessarily miss what the Scriptures mean in any
one given place. And so the Scriptures are not
made up or the Scriptures are made up of words. We believe
every word is exactly ordained by God. There is not another
word that could have been used because these are the words that
were ordained to be used. That is often referred to as
the plenary inspiration of the Scripture. That means word by
word, every word means exactly what it means as God intended
it to. Now we often struggle to know
exactly what some of these words mean. But it is doubly hard to
understand what these words mean if we try to take one or two
of them out of a verse and just say, well, and wrestle with this. And a lot of times, in studying
the Scriptures, that's what people do. They get hung up on trying
to determine what the word means when they need to be looking
at the total picture. Well, what is this? How does
this fit in to that which God has taught us from the beginning?
Now we believe that the Scripture is an unfolding of the purpose
of God. That is, it is an unfolding of
how God has purposed, what He has purposed to do in the earth
by the creation of men and what the purpose of God in the creation
of the world is. We believe that the Scripture
sets forth that the purpose of God in the creation of the earth
is redemption. Now that makes no sense whatsoever
to the natural man because he looks at the Scripture as being
like God started off doing one thing and wound up having to
do something else. I mean, you know, that's how
men look at it. They think, well, here God created
this perfect world, and He was just hoping and happy that everything
was going to go great. But lo and behold, man threw
a monkey wrench into the plan. God said, well, I'll have to
make the best of a bad situation here, and I have to come forth
with some way to remedy this problem. That's not it at all. God created the world for the
purpose of demonstrating the glory of His grace in the redemption
of the people that He loved in Christ from before the foundation
of the world. Now, if we look at the ministration
of grace as Brother Al brought forth this morning in the book
of Genesis, Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. Well, usually when you see this
depicted, whether it be in what somebody is saying about it,
or whether it is in a movie or something, it is always that
Noah is this great guy in the midst of all these wicked men,
but Noah is the one, he is the good guy, and the Lord looks
down and He says, there he is, that is the man I am going to
use right there. And he says, I'm going to save
him out. There's no picture of that in
the Scripture. The reason that Noah was a preacher
of righteousness is because he found grace in the eyes of the
Lord. Just like Moses, who was wandering
around keeping sheep out in the desert, and the Lord set a bush
on fire and it didn't burn. And Moses said, what is that?
He wasn't out there thinking about leading the children of
Israel out of Egypt. He wasn't out there thinking
of all the good that he could do. He was out there tending
the sheep. But God who is rich in mercy
with the great love wherewith he loved his people and for his
purpose to be fulfilled, caused Moses to see a burning bush.
And Moses said, I think I'll go over there and see what that
is. And the Lord spoke to him. And so it is as we see the unfolding
of God's grace and mercy to His people from the beginning even
to the present time. Now, knowing that, we understand
that the book of Hebrews is no different in that respect than
any of the other books in the Scripture. There is not one book
in the Scripture that is not written for the purpose of magnifying
the name of Jesus Christ and setting forth the redemptive
work that He has performed in the behalf of His people. Every
book in there is about that. It's about Christ. It's about
the glory of Christ. What is the glory of redemption?
Now, the glory of redemption is not in the fact that some
folks are redeemed. Now, that is a glorious thing.
But the glory of redemption is the Redeemer. See, that's the
part that men don't see in the preaching of... when they preach
trying to get men to do something, that they say men need to add
to this which Christ has done in order to make it perfect.
They are glorifying what they call the redemption, but they
are not glorifying the Redeemer. And so however we set forth the
truth of God, it must always be set forth in such fashion
that it would glorify the Redeemer. And if you look at what's being
said by somebody, the fashion in which you can tell if that
which is being preached is under the glory of God is if it is
that which magnifies the Redeemer. If it's that which magnifies
the redeemed, then it can't be that which is magnifying the
Redeemer. Now, the redeemed are magnified,
but where is their place of magnification? In the redeemed. I mean, you
see, everything that the redeemed delight in is found in the Redeemer. And so that is the message that
we see in the Scripture from the beginning. And we've got
to see that the whole message of God is a cohesive message
And so I said all of that to say this, context and the fashion
in which the Scripture is set forth is paramount to our understanding
of it. Now this particular passage of
Scripture right here, if we don't understand that the Scripture
is written contextually, it's not just a collection of words,
but it is a collection of thoughts. All of these thoughts ultimately
center in the glory of the Redeemer. But all of these collections
of thoughts come together to produce one theme and one truth. So when the apostle says here,
therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, I've
heard some wild explanations of what he means by this. But
you can be sure of one thing, and that is that nowhere in the
Scriptures are we to move away from preaching the gospel of
Jesus Christ. That's not what this means. I've
heard some say, well, what this means is you don't need to be
preaching about what Christ did. Brethren, that's the only thing
we've got to preach. See, some people say, well, the
most important thing is trying to get God's people to do right
things and walk in a holy fashion and go out and do good things
for God and go out and preach the gospel and all of that. And
so we need to stir people up to do that, and that's the purpose.
So leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let's
go on to perfection. Now, that's a foolish way to
look at that. Because you cannot be perfected
in any other fashion than through that which is found in Christ. And so when he says here, leaving
the principles of the doctrine of Christ, he's not talking about
leaving the basic truths of the gospel. But he's writing contextually,
as we have said over and over again, to the Hebrews, who, having
been raised in Judaism, the foundational principles of those things that
we believe. Now, though we were not raised
in Judaism, yet it is a fact that the basis of that which
we glory in is set forth in Judaism, the glory of the Redeemer. Now,
their eyes are blinded and they cannot see it. We couldn't see
it either except that the Lord has shown it to us. But having
seen it, we can rejoice. And looking back, we see the
Redeemer in everything that is set forth. The building of the tabernacle,
ultimately in the building of the temple, in all of the sacrifices,
in all of the work of the priests and all of those things that
are set forth that form the basis of Judaism. the law of God, all
of those things point to Christ. We see Christ over and over set
forth in them. But these doctrines which the
Jews believed were to them foundational truths that could be taught from
one generation to the other. Now, we believe that the Lord
has sent forth teachers unto his people. And it's not that
we're without teaching or that we don't benefit from teaching,
but the basis of the faith which has been given to us is not communicated
through teaching. You can't teach another man to
believe. Now, you can set forth what the
foundation of faith is, But you can't teach him to believe. But
the Lord is the one who teaches His people. The Scripture says
that He said He would write His law upon their hearts, and they
would know more. Teach every man, know the Lord,
for they would all know Me from the least to the greatest. Why
is that? Because He would teach them.
He would lead them. He would open their eyes to see
themselves for what they are and see Christ for who He is.
And so he's saying to these Jews who were raised and steeped in
the doctrines and the basic truths of Judaism, he said, therefore,
leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ. Wait a minute. You mean the Jews back in Moses'
day were talking about the principles of the doctrine of Christ? Well,
of course they were. What other principles are taught
forth in the Scriptures? I mean, what are the principles?
What are the basic things? What was it that the Lord was
teaching the Jews? Was He just teaching them what
the countryside looked like when they wandered through the wilderness?
No, He was teaching them the necessity of a Redeemer. And
every time that the high priest went into the holy place, He
was teaching them the necessity of a Redeemer. But you see those things that
they prophesied, they prophesied in part, did they not? Every
time that the high priest went into the holy place, it was not
the true manifestation of Christ, it was a type and foreshadow
of it. It was looking forward. And so he says here, leaving
the principles of the doctrines of Christ, that is, leaving the
foundational stuff, that is found in the law and in Judaism, those
pictures and types and foreshadows of which the law is part and
parcel, he said, leaving that, let us go on to perfection. We
don't want to go back into Judaism. Now why does he say leaving them? Not because he said these things
are not important, but he said just don't go back to them. Leaving
them behind. I mean, we're moving forward,
are we not? I mean, have we come to Christ and now we're going
to say, well, Moses said to do this, so we better get busy and
start doing exactly what Moses said. Wouldn't that be leaving?
Wouldn't that be holding on to something from the past? I mean,
why would we want to go back to that? We want to leave that. See, we don't want to be found
hung up in the carnal sacrifices And he's saying to them, don't
be holding on to these foundational things. Now, let us go on to perfection, not
laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works. Now,
we touched on this last time we talked about this. Repentance
from dead works is exactly what they did every time that the
high priest went into the holy place. Because in these things
there is a remembrance made of sin every year. Because those sacrifices couldn't
take away sin. They didn't have the power and
the faith toward God. Now, so is he saying, well, you
don't need faith anymore. Let's forget about faith. Well,
of course not. But he's saying the faith that
we have is not as it was then as they taught one another and
they sat their little children down and they said, now, this
is what we did. And each time we do the Passover,
you see, this is what the Lord is and we've got to have faith
in the Lord. See, we do leave the faith of
God as it is taught in a religious fashion. Now this is one of the
things that is in my estimation, weakening to the people of God
in what I call denominational Christianity for lack of a better
term. Now, because you don't call yourself
by a particular denomination does not mean you're not denominational
or that you're not religiously oriented because you may be.
But what we need to do is come out from that. The name is not
the important thing. What's important is the notion
that we have that we can cause people, our children particularly,
to learn the gospel and they'll grow up to be Christians. Now
that's how the average person thinks. Well, we're going to
raise them as Christians. Well, you can't raise your children
as Christians. Now what you can do, and what
you better do, and what you should do, is raise them to know what
it is that you believe, because you see, that's the only thing
you'll ever teach them, is what you believe. And they'll see
what you believe every day. They'll know what you believe,
whether you teach them or not. Because what they see you do
is what they know you believe. And the teaching, it doesn't
do a whole lot of good to teach children principles of what they
should do if we don't walk in those principles, does it? But
we can't teach our children to be Christians. We can teach them
what the truth is. We can teach them what we believe
the truth is. We can teach them those things
that we hold dear. We can teach them what we believe
the Scripture says. and all of those things, but
we're leaving the faith of God in that respect, not in the faith
in which we understand it, but in the faith which He's contextually
speaking about here, of the doctrine of baptisms. Now there's New
Testament baptism, I believe that is a manifestation, a physical
sign of obedience to the Lord that we set forth that it is
a profession of faith. And I believe that it is a practice
that should be carried on even as we eat the bread and drink
the wine. He's not talking about that baptism. He's talking about when he says
leaving the doctrines of baptisms, he's talking about washings.
He's talking about the idea that the Jews had that you could be
cleansed by doing various things. Remember, the Pharisees said,
well, your disciples eat with unwashed hands. And this is indicative quite
often, you see, and this was true among these Jews, it was
hard for them to move away from that stuff. I mean, if you've
been raised, let's say, for instance, that you've been raised to keep
the Sabbath, at least as far as what you think it is, and
you come to believe the gospel of Christ, it would be hard to
move away from the notion that this is a thing that we must
do, would it not? I mean, if you've been taught
since you were that high that you must keep the Sabbath day
in this particular fashion, and you come and you see the gospel
of the glory of God revealed in Jesus Christ, you wouldn't
just automatically cast that away. But you would say, well,
there's got to be some benefit in this. And you keep doing it,
but we've got to move away from that. He said we're moving away
from the carnal considerations of these things. I believe that's
what he's getting at with these Jews because we understand contextually
that this book is written to those Jewish Christians who had
embraced the way of Christ. And he's teaching them you've
got to move away from those things in the past. Not that there's
necessarily anything wrong with them, but what's wrong with them
is whenever we're holding on to them and believing that those
things are the things that make us somehow acceptable in the
sight of the Lord. The laying on of hands, that
was especially in the ordination of the priesthood. in their mind. That was how the priesthood was
set forth and of resurrection of the dead and of eternal judgment. Now, the Jews had a notion of
the resurrection of the dead, did they not? Well, sure they
believed that men were raised from the dead. I mean, David,
he plainly said, you know, when his son died, he says, he can't
come to me, but I can go to him. The indication of the fact that
he believed there was indeed a life after death. Job said,
though the skin worms eat my flesh, yet in my flesh shall
I see God. So he understood that. So is
he saying, well, let's leave that the notion of the resurrection
of the dead? No, not leave the idea of the
resurrection. But dear brethren, our concept
of the resurrection, as we have seen it demonstrated in Jesus
Christ, is far more fully developed than the basic notion of the
fact that we would die and be raised again. Is it not? I mean, the carnal man, He believes
in the resurrection, or he hopes that he will, but he thinks he's
just going to be raised up in the same fashion which he was.
See, that's how the natural man, that's how the Jews thought.
The Pharisees couldn't answer this question because it had
evidently been put to them before by the Sadducees who denied the
resurrection. See, they laughed at the resurrection.
But remember when they brought the question to the Lord about
the man that the different brothers had this same wife? And then
whenever he died, they said, well, in the resurrection, who's
it going to be? Because they didn't understand
what the resurrection was. But the Pharisees had evidently,
no doubt, they had put this same question to them. They couldn't
answer it either. Because you see, their understanding
of what the resurrection was was a carnal resurrection. But
Paul plainly says that our resurrection is a spiritual resurrection.
Now, is it a resurrection of the body? Yes, it is. But that
body which is raised is a spiritual body, that is, it is not susceptible
to the mortality of the flesh. But it is that which is eternal,
made so by the gift of eternal life in Christ. And so what have
we seen in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ? A more
clear understanding of the resurrection of the dead than the Jews could
ever have. So he said, leave those things
behind. Leave those very principles.
And of eternal judgment, the same situation. Oh, brother,
you're going to stand before the judgment throne of God. Now, is that a true thing? Yes,
it is. But, dear brethren, we're not going to stand there and
individually have every one of our sins brought up and we're
going to give account to them before the Lord if we're where? In Christ. Because, you see,
if we're in Christ, He has canceled that sin bit. And insofar as
the judgment of God is concerned, we are fully justified. We're not going to give a count. We are going to stand in the
judgment. But we're going to stand in the
judgment in the only place that a man who is redeemed can stand,
and that is in the Lord Jesus Christ, in His righteousness,
because there is no other place to stand and live If a man is
going to stand and he is going to give the Lord a reason for
why he did everything, he is in trouble because that is not
the place of eternal judgment. And he said, this we will do
if God permits. That is, according to the purpose
of God, we are going to move past these things. For it is
impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted
of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost. and have tasted the good word
of God and the powers of the world to come, if they shall
fall away, to renew them again to repentance, saying they crucify
to themselves the Son of God afresh and put at Him to an open
shame." Now, he's standing for something of a hypothetical situation. Now, it's hypothetical in the
sense that it cannot occur in reality, but it can occur in
a limited sense in that if a man, and he is saying this to the
Jews, he said, if you come and you embrace the doctrine of Christ
revealed, you see Christ as the Savior revealed and you embrace
that, and yet you holding on to Judaism You ultimately turn
away from that freeness of salvation that you saw in Christ, that
which you've embraced. You have tasted that you were
once enlightened. You saw that Christ was the Savior. And you've tasted the heavenly
gift. That is, this has been a thing that you received and
said, this is glorious. The fullness of salvation in
Christ. If you come to a place along the line, you say, well,
wait a minute, that's not enough. You've tasted the heavenly gift,
but you say, wait, I need something else. That's not sufficient.
What does he say? He said, you've tasted the good
word of God and the powers of the world to come. If they shall
fall away, to renew them again to repentance, seeing they what? Crucify to themselves the Son
of God. In other words, they say He's
not of any use. We put Him to death, basically.
Brethren, if we believe that Christ paid the price for our
sin and we turn away from that hope to some other hope that
involves our ability to do something, what do we do? We crucify the
Son of God afresh. We say it wasn't enough. We take
no account to it. And we put him to an open shame
because we say he died for nothing. It's of no use. Brethren, there
is no hope for a man except in Christ. And if a man falls from
that, I say that to any man in this room, if you have embraced
Christ, And yet the time comes when you reject Him, what else
is there for you? I mean, if you've cast Christ
away, where are you going to stand then? See, it's not a matter of getting
your ticket punched. It's a matter of by the grace
of God being given grace to believe and to follow Christ and to be
in Christ. That is the gift of God. For
the earth which drinketh in the rain, and cometh oft upon it,
and bringeth forth herbs, meat for them by whom it is dressed,
receiveth blessing from God. But that which beareth thorns
and briars is rejected, and nigh unto cursing, whose end is to
be burned." He said if you are outside of Christ, I mean just
like if a tree grows up and you pick apples off of it one day
but it dies, What good is it then? I mean,
because you picked apples off of it one day, are you going
to go out there and pick apples off of a... I mean, are you going
to fertilize a dead tree? No. What's the end of it? To
burn it. It's got no more use. And so
if a man turns away from Christ, what's he got left? Nothing. If he turns back to the law,
what's he got there? He said, don't do that. But then
listen to what he says. And this is evidence that he's
writing here to those who are believers. He said, but beloved,
we are persuaded better things of you. We don't think that you're
of the hosts that are going to turn away, but we want to warn
you of it. See, the exhortations that are
given to the sons of God, we don't exhort one another be true
to the faith because we think one another is going to turn
away, but we exhort one another because we don't think we're
going to turn away, because that is the purpose and reason for
exhortation. That's the use of it. It's to
keep us. You see, when I read this passage
of Scripture here, it makes me want to cleave to Christ. Does
it not? Does not that exhortation that
if a man be found outside of Christ, he'll perish, does that
not cause that desire to be in Christ, the desire to draw closer,
to walk with Him, to embrace the things of God, and not to
be cast away? And whoever the writer is, he
said, we're persuaded of better things for you, and things that
accompany salvation. though we thus speak. For God
is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love which
ye have shewed toward His name." Now why is that? Because He's
the one that caused it to be brought to pass in them. And
He's not unrighteous to forget it. The Lord doesn't save a man
one day and cast him away the next, does He? Now, that's the
view that some people have of what salvation is, that you can
be saved one day and lost the next, and then go back and save
again. No, there's no in and out of
it. I mean, a man's in Christ or
he's not. And if God calls him by his grace,
he's going to perform the work in him until the day of Jesus
Christ. Faithful is he that hath called
you who will also do it. You see, He will perform that
which He has called you unto. He said, God is not unrighteous
to forget your work and labor of love which ye have showed
toward His name in that ye have ministered to the saints and
do minister. What did He say to His disciples?
Or did He say to those, He said, I'm trying to get the passage
to come into my mind. Anyway, he had told them, he
said, when you saw me naked, you clothed me. When you saw
me in prison, you visited me. And they said, well, Lord, when
did we do that? He said, when you've done it
unto one of the least of these, my brethren. Now the self-righteous,
They're on the other end of the spectrum. And the Lord said,
you didn't visit me. And they said, well, Lord, when
didn't we do it? He said, I'll tell you when you
didn't do it. I was one of the least of these, my brethren.
So you see, the righteous are constantly wondering whether
or not they are doing things that are pleasing in the eyes
of God, whereas the self-righteous, they know they are. You see,
the man that's convinced that he's serving God is likely not
serving God. The man that wonders if he does
anything to serve God is the one more likely to have the operation
of grace in him because he knows himself to be what he is. And
it's only as the Lord brings these things to pass that these
things will be seen But the Lord does cause His people to love
righteous deeds. He does cause His people to desire
to do good works unto the brethren. Didn't He say that in John? He
said, By this shall you know that you are my disciples, because
you have love one to the other. That's how the world knows that
you are my disciples. And we desire that every one
of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope
to the end, that you be not slothful, but followers of them who through
faith and patience inherit the promises." Now lest a man think
that the way of following Christ is an easy road, he said, that's
not the heritage of the people of God. He said, we exhort you
to continue on because following Christ is not easy. Now again, the man who is ignorant
of the truth, he thinks that, oh man, that's a piece of cake.
But the man who is awakened by the Spirit of God and taught
what it is to follow Christ, he realizes the difficulty of
it and the likelihood that he is going to fail in it. And he
is constantly motivated and moved by the Spirit of God after those
things. And so he said that you be not
slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience
inherit the promises. How did Abraham inherit the promises?
Now, did he inherit the promises because he did some things? No,
he inherited the promises because of grace. But what was the manifestation? Faith. And the fact that this
faith moved him to perform the deeds of righteousness which
God was pleased to manifest in him throughout his life. And so it is that it is through
faith and patience that the Lord is pleased to manifest who His
people are, that through faith and patience they inherit the
promises. Like I've thought of that hymn, Isaac Watts wrote, Am I a soldier
of the cross, a follower of the Lamb? Must I be carried to the
skies on flowery beds of ease, while others fought to win the
prize, and sailed through bloody seas? Sure I must fight if I
would reign. Increase my courage, Lord. I'll
bear the toil, endure the pain, supported by Thy Word. So you see, it is through faith
and patience that the people of God inherit the promises of
God. That's how they come to us is
through trials and troubles and doubtings and fears and shut
up in the whale's belly and crying out to the Lord, O Lord, save
me or I perish. You see, that's the place that
the Lord would bring His people to and through. Because it is
through much tribulation that we enter into the kingdom of
heaven, even as He said. He said, I'm persuaded of these
things for you, dear brethren. He says, I'm not persuaded that
you're of those that are going to go back to those principles. to the law and to all the things
that you as Jews have followed in times past, thinking that
they are somehow those things that will cause you to be acceptable
in the sight of God. But he said, leaving those things
and pressing on to perfection. And where is that perfection?
It's in Christ. See, that is the place of perfection.
If a man tells you, well, we're being perfected, well, he's a
little late. Because we have been perfected.
Now the work of perfection is being performed in us most assuredly,
but we have been perfected in Christ. He is our perfection
and we don't desire any other. And so if a man comes trying
to tell you you need to do this, that or the other in order to
be perfect, you can tell him you can't make something perfect
that's already been made perfect. And that's the place we are in
Jesus Christ. May the Lord help us.