If you will, open your Bibles
to Hebrews chapter six. Hebrews chapter six. The subject of this portion of
scripture in today's message ought to be a subject that every
one of you, every one of us who claims to know and believe the
truth of the true gospel we ought to be interested in. The title
of the message is Things that Accompany Salvation. Things that
Accompany Salvation. We've been talking about in Hebrews
here about how by God the Holy Spirit it has been shown how
those who profess belief in the truth and who apostatize or who
fall away from that truth. They turn away from it. They
deny it. That's what he's saying. They
did profess to believe it, and to every appearance to other
believers, they appeared to believe it. They were part of the fellowship
of faith as we thought, but then they were Tempted and tested
and they failed they they denied it they turned away from it They
call Christ accursed over in Hebrews 10 he goes That far to
show him how they call Christ accursed because they reject
Christ In other words they rejected what they claim to believe And
that's a that's a that's upsetting in it In fact, it causes us sometimes
to wonder about our own salvation. Could I be one of those that
turn away and deny it? Now you understand now, this
is apostasy and you've got to understand that apostasy has
to do not with people sitting under a false gospel claiming
to believe a false gospel. They don't apostatize, they never
were with the truth. They never did claim to believe
the truth. These are people who are sitting under the preaching
of the true gospel and claim to believe it and then turn away. Now, the application here in
this passage historically was to professing Jewish believers
who were being tempted to turn back to their Jewish roots, to
their false legalistic religion, which denied Christ. where you
had Jews who came in, unbelieving Jews who claimed that you've
got to be circumcised to be saved, you've got to keep the law of
Moses to be saved, you've got to do this, you've got to do
that. As one old preacher said, it's a Christ plus religion. It's not Christ alone, it's Christ
plus this, just like today. And then again, we've got to
see how this applies to today too. It's like people who say,
well, you believe in Christ, you're saved by grace, but you've
got to do this, that, and the other. You've got to keep the
law. You've got to be baptized. You've got to give. You've got
to do this in order to really be saved or really be holy or
really be made righteous. And these professing believers
were being tempted to deny Christ and go all the way back into
Judaism to deny him, and some of them had. They apostatized,
and he describes them in Hebrews 6, four through six, those who
have fallen away. Now the Bible's plain on that
issue. There's no argument here really. I know people confuse
it and deny it and all that, but the Bible's plain. God's
word is plain that those who claim to believe the gospel and
then reject it, fall away from it, apostatized, they never truly
believed it. It's not that they were saved
and then lost. That's impossible. We're going
to talk about that. It's not that they were true
believers one day and then unbelievers the next. They never were true
believers. And it was only exposed by their falling away. John deals
with that. We read it last week in 1 John
2.19. Those that went out from us were
never of us had they been of us they would no doubt have continued
with us But it was made manifest that they were not all of us
Because they fell away And I know in the bulletin it
says it says we're gonna start at verse 9, but I want to go
back up to verse 7 and 8 Look here verse 7 listen what he says
in Hebrews 6 7 and He says, for the earth which drinketh in the
rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs, meat,
or useful for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing
from God. Now that describes true believers. That describes people there who
have heard and been brought by God to true faith in Christ and
repentance of dead works, who persevere in the faith by the
preserving grace of God. That's the ones Paul was talking
about down there. I told you, I know some people
will deny that Paul was the human writer of Hebrews. I believe
he was, but it doesn't matter. This is God's word. But these
are the ones he describes here in verse nine. Now look down
at verse nine. But beloved, we are persuaded better things of
you and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak. And I believe what the apostle
is saying there is, listen, I'm not giving you this information
to scare you or to bring you into some kind of legal bondage
or even to doubt your salvation. Because we're persuaded better
things of you, things that accompany salvation. Well, I want to know
what those things are. How about you? What does God's
word say? But here in verse seven, that's
the true people of God. What he's describing here is
this. If we are the true people of God, truly saved by the grace
of God, true faith, true repentance, not apostates, not false professors,
if we're the true people of God, as opposed to the apostate, then
it's solely due to God's free and sovereign grace in Christ.
It's not due to our goodness, it's not due to our power, it's
not even due to our will, it's all of God. He said, these receive
a blessing from God. What kind of blessings do you
think he's talking about? Well, the Bible says in Ephesians
1.3, we who are saved are blessed with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. And that before the world
began. To be blessed of God is to be
graced. It means God has shown grace
to his people. But then in verse eight, look
here, he says, but that which bear thorns and briars is rejected
and is nigh unto cursing whose end is to be burned. Now there
he's describing the apostates. These are the ones he described
back up in verses four through six, who claimed to believe the
gospel, but then fell away from it, turned against it. Now you
understand, they turned their back on it. They called, they
denied Christ. I think I told you the example
of a man that I know who claimed to be a believer, a believer
in sovereign grace, a believer in the gospel. Now he's an avowed
atheist. And I believe the scripture is
saying here, look at verse six, he says, if they shall fall away,
like that man did, He says, it's impossible to renew them again
unto repentance. Seeing they crucify to themselves
the son of God afresh and put him to an open shame. How do
they crucify the son of God afresh? They call him an imposter. They
call him a malefactor. Remember that's the term the
scripture uses, that the unbeliever, this malefactor. You know what
a malefactor is? It's a criminal. He deserves what he's getting.
Remember the thief on the right, and he said this man doesn't
deserve what he's getting. Now, there is a sense in which
we can say Christ did deserve what he got based upon the sins
of his people imputed to him. But see, that's not what they're
talking about. They call Christ an imposter. They called him
a blasphemer. And that's what this man who
now says he's an atheist is saying, essentially. He may not use those
terms, but my friend, when you turn your back on the son of
God, listen, you're calling him an imposter, a blasphemer, an
idolater. That's the way it is. And what
he's saying here, like in verse seven, That earth which drinketh in
the rain, the rain. What is the rain? Well, that's
a metaphor for the word of God. The doctrine of grace that drops
down like dew, as Moses said. It's the watering of the seed
that God has planted in his people. The seed being the word of God.
And that being watered by the power of the Holy Spirit. to
bring a sinner to true faith and true repentance and perseverance,
all those things that do accompany salvation. In other words, it
produces fruit. Christ said, I'm the vine, you're
the branches. John 15. The branches bear fruit. I heard people say, well, we
produce fruit. No, we don't produce fruit. We
bear it. And we bear it from the power
of the vine, who is Christ. He's the root, we're the branches. And so, when that bears fruit,
see, the things that accompany salvation, it's called fruit
unto God. It's the fruit of grace. By grace
are you saved through faith. That's not of yourselves, it's
the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should
boast, for we are his workmanship. created in Christ Jesus Unto
not because of unto good works, which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them And so we bear fruit But now in verse
verse 8 those who bring up thorns and briars Rejected nigh unto
cursing they don't bear that fruit. Their fruit is still fruit
unto death and It's the fruit of legalism, the fruit of unbelief,
the fruit of ignorance, the fruit of deception, and it deserves
death. It may appear to be righteous
and many times does. That's why we can't judge by
outward appearance. Remember what Christ said of
the Pharisees. He says, you do indeed appear righteous unto
men. He said, you're like whited sepulchers,
outside washed white, but inside full of dead men's bones. You
see what he said? They're fruit now. So what is this all about? Well,
if we're the people of God, that means we're blessed. And to be
blessed in the Bible means this. These are blessings of grace
and mercy, aren't they? That means, listen to me, that
means that there's not one blessing from God that you can rightfully
claim that you earned it or deserved it. You know what I always tell you,
take your next breath. That's a gift from God. You realize
that? Somebody says, well, I attribute
my long life to smoking cigars and drinking weed. I had an old
woman say that one time. You fool. Or I attribute it to exercise.
I'm not saying we shouldn't exercise and we shouldn't eat right and
we should abstain from those things that harm our bodies.
We should. But the secret to a long life
or any part of life It is appointed unto men once to die and after
that to judgment. There is a time for everything.
It's God's business. God knows exactly when my soul
is gonna leave this vile body. Now I'm not gonna throw caution
in the wind and act stupid or anything like that. I'm not God. You know a person who says, well,
if God's sovereign, we don't need to do anything. We don't
have any responsibility. You know what they're actually
trying to do? They're actually trying to play God. You see, the Bible
says in Deuteronomy 29, 29, the secret things belong to God.
The revealed things belong to us. We're responsible for the
revealed things. Only God knows. But this is it. They're blessings
of grace. That's what he says there in
verse 6. Listen, if you believe the gospel, you're a walking,
talking miracle of God's grace and blessing. You didn't deserve
it. You didn't earn it. There's no
difference by nature between you and the most vile person
who ever walked the face of the earth, as far as salvation goes,
as far as being made righteous goes. You know, that's a big
statement, isn't it? I'm telling you. Here's the old
thief on the cross. He was saved by the grace of
God based on the righteousness of the one on the middle cross.
Just the same as the apostle Paul who suffered and worked
hard in the service of God. No different. Paul didn't deserve
it and didn't earn it, neither did that thief. That thief will
not occupy a smaller mansion than Paul. right. Because you know why?
Because salvation is by grace to anyone who's saved. That's
it. Now those who hear it, claim
to believe it, and then apostatize and fall away from it, they never
were blessed of God. In fact, that word of grace to
them, the word preached to them, Paul said it would be Savor of
death unto death remember in 2nd Corinthians chapter 2 he
talked about how we're always victorious in Christ when we
preach Christ Whether anybody you know we used to when I was
in when I was in a false seminary We used to meet on Monday morning,
and we would talk about how many Decisions were made how many
walked the aisle because that was the success of our ministry
Well, Paul says that's, God, the Holy Spirit says that's not
the success of our ministry. One old fellow one time, they
asked him how many decisions he had. He said, I had about
220. We thought, wow. He said, well, those who didn't
come, walked out, they decided not to. So that's how many decisions
you have. That's not the success of a ministry. The success of
a ministry is Christ honored and lifted up and preached. Stephen,
he preached and nobody believed and they killed him. Peter, he
preached and 3,000 were converted. Stephen was just as victorious
as Peter because Christ was honored. That's it. And so we're to preach
the gospel to anybody who'll listen. I know this. They told me that on our television
program, I don't know if this is true or not. I don't have
any reason to doubt him. But they say that over the South
Georgia viewing area, that this many televisions will have the
program on. Now whether they're watching
or not, I don't know. But they told me that on average, we'll
have 6,000 people with that television set on that program. Much of
that will fall on deaf ears, won't it? But you know? Maybe there's one sheep out there.
And you know what they say about that, what Christ said about
that? There's more joy in heaven over one lost sheep who's brought
their repentance than 99 who don't need it. And if there's
just one, it's all worth it, isn't it? That's the way it is. Well, look back here. He says
in verse nine, But beloved, we are persuaded better things of
you and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak. Things that accompany salvation.
Now I want to know what those things are. But first, in order
to know that, we have to understand what salvation is. Salvation. What in your mind comes to your
mind when you think of salvation? If we're gonna know exactly the
things that accompany it, we need to know what it is, don't
we? It stands to reason. Well, what are we saved from?
That's a good question, isn't it? There's false preachers,
they say, well, you're saved from poverty, you're saved from
illness and all. No, we're not saved from any
of that. If you're healthy today, don't
get too cocky. You live long enough, My old
pastor used to say, nobody's going to get out of this world
alive. I've had fellas tell me, you know, they don't sin anymore.
And I tell them, go look in a mirror. Tell me if you look like you
did 10, 15 years ago. That's the result of sin. This
body of death, isn't that what it's called? This body of death. One old preacher said, I preach
as a dying man to dying people. That's what we are. So what do we save from? Well,
we're saved from sin. Matthew 1.21, that prophecy the
angel gave to Joseph about the birth of Christ. His name shall
be called Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sin. And the word sin there is the
most common New Testament word for sin, which is the same word
in Romans 3.23, for all have sinned and come short of the
glory of God. It means we missed the mark. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners, those who missed the mark. Well, who is that?
Well, Romans 3.10 says this, there's none righteous, no, not
one. There's none that seeketh after God, there's none that
doeth good, no, not one. Now we know all kinds of people
will say, well, that's a good man or that's a good woman, but
we're comparing it with men. But what about compared with
God? What about compared with Christ? Can I call myself good
as I'm compared with the Lord Jesus Christ, who is God in human
flesh without sin? And isn't he the standard of
judgment? Acts 17 31, God has appointed a day in the which
he'll judge the world in righteousness. Well, how righteous do I have
to be? In righteousness by that man whom he has appointed, he
has ordained and that he's given assurance unto all men and that
he has raised him from the dead. I've got to be as righteous as
Christ. And a man told me one time, he
said, well, nobody can do that. And I said, that's right. That's
why salvation is for sinners. Why salvation is by grace, mercy. That's what we need. We need
mercy. We're saved from sin. Now, let
me say this. While on this earth here, those
who are saved are not saved from sinning. That's right. If you're saved from sin and
you're sitting here listening to me, you're still a sinner
saved by grace. And you know what? You'll never
rise above that in this life. Now once you go to be with the
Lord, it'll be a different situation. Then you'll be saved from sin
and you'll sin no more. But we're saved from sin. We're
saved from the penalty of sin. That's condemnation. There is
therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ. Why can they not be condemned?
Because God cannot and will not charge them with their sin, the
penalty. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. Who
can condemn us? It's Christ that died. Christ
was condemned in my place. It's the doctrine of substitution.
Christ as my surety. having my sins charged to his
account, imputed to him, came and was my substitute under the
law, that's why he died, that's why he suffered and bled and
died, as my substitute. because he was under the condemnation
of my sins charged to him. He didn't go there for his own
sins. He was not a sinner. He was not made a sinner. He
was the spotless lamb of God who offered himself without spot
to God, but he was truly guilty and cursed of God justly for
my sins. And he died. His death was the
payment of that penalty. No condemnation. And he arose
again the third day, because in that death he established
righteousness. For by grace are you saved. Just
as sin reigns unto death, even so must Christ, righteousness,
must righteousness bring life. And that's through Christ. So
we're saved from the penalty of sin. That's what salvation
is. No condemnation. No possibility of condemnation.
These who fell away and die in unbelief, they were
always condemned. That's right. They're called
children of wrath, fitted for destruction. You say, well, I
don't want to be of that number. I don't either. But if I'm not,
it's by God's grace. It's not because I was born in
America. It's not because I gave my life
for my country. It's not because I've tried to
be a moral person. It's by grace, grace, all of
grace. And then, salvation, we're also
saved from the darkness of sin or the deception of sin. Now,
turn over to 2 Corinthians chapter 4. 2 Corinthians chapter 4. You see, by nature, as we are
naturally born into this world, we're spiritually dead, spiritually
ignorant, and we don't know the truth.
We don't know the truth of God, who God is in His justice, in
His righteousness, in His truth, or even in His mercy and grace.
We don't know God. We think we do. And we have preachers
who'll tell us about God, but a lot of them are telling a lie
about God. Did you know that? If they speak not according to
this word. Who is God and what is He like? Well, he's a just
God. Yes, he's loving and he's merciful
and he's gracious, but not at the expense of his justice. Not
at the expense of his truth. God saves sinners, but he must
do it on a just ground. He must remain true to himself.
He cannot deny himself in order to save you. God cannot love
any sinner at the expense of his justice. That's why his love
is in Christ and nowhere else. It's useless and it's false to
talk about God's loving any sinner outside of Christ. That's why the Bible says, God
hates all workers of iniquity. That means his wrath abides on
those to whom sin is imputed. And then, By nature, we don't
know the truth about ourselves, how sinful we are. It is the
plight of the natural man who is spiritually dead and trespasses
the sin to think more highly of himself than what God thinks
of him. that we're pretty good people,
and if we're not, we might turn over a new leaf, we get religion,
we join a church, we give our tithes, we show up every service,
and we think that's salvation. That's a lie. We made a profession of faith
when we were 12. We got baptized. That's salvation.
That's a lie. No. And I'm not saying this to
offend people. We're deceived, we're in the
darkness of deception. And look here in 2 Corinthians
4 verse 3, listen to this. He says, but if our gospel be
hid, it's hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this
world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest
the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of
God, should shine unto them. That's the deception. Now let
me tell you how Satan works. Read your Bible. You know how
Satan deceives the minds of those who are lost? His main tool is false religion. False religious expressions. False religious experiences.
False Christianity is one of his main tools. And by that,
he keeps people ignorant of the truth of the gospel wherein the
righteousness of God is revealed. Romans 1, 16 and 17. But look
at verse 5. Paul writes, for we preach not
ourselves. In other words, we're not preaching
man. We're not preaching salvation conditioned on men. It's not
all about us. It's about Christ. We preach
Christ Jesus the Lord and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sakes.
That's all we are. We're servants. We're servants. Christ is Lord. Christ is Savior. Christ is righteousness. Christ is mercy. We're just servants. We're like John the Baptist.
We're not even fit to tie his shoes. I often think about that, you
know. Whenever we used to have revivals in false religion, we'd
always get somebody who had some reputation, and boy, they really
had some things to tell about this preacher. Think about what
John the Baptist could have said. Think of the public, think of
the ads that they could have put out. We're gonna have John
the Baptist preach. He's the last of the Old Testament prophets. Christ Christ Himself said there's
no one born of woman greater than John the Baptist. He's even
prophesied in the book of Malachi. He baptized the Lord Himself. You know, John didn't say any
of that stuff about himself. He first told him, he said, now
listen to me, behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the
sins of the world. Don't look to me, look to the
Lamb. He said, I'm not the Messiah.
I can't save you. I can't wash away your sins.
I cannot make you righteous. I can't do that. Don't look to
me. He said, I must decrease. Christ must increase. And he
said, I'm not fit to tie his shoes. What are you applauding
me for? And I love that passage in John
3 where it says, they heard John preach and they followed Jesus. That's why you're hearing me
preach, but I want you to follow Christ. Look to him. Well, look here at 2 Corinthians
4 and verse 6, for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness
has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Salvation. Salvation is to be chosen of
God in Christ before the foundation of the world. Salvation is to
be justified by God's grace in Christ based upon his righteousness
imputed. Salvation is to be redeemed by
the blood of Christ on the cross. Salvation is to be sanctified
by the Holy Spirit in the new birth wherein he gives us eyes
to see, ears to hear, a new heart, and by which God gives us the
gift of faith and brings us to Christ for all salvation. and brings us to repentance.
Salvation is to be preserved by God's power and grace. He
won't let us go. He won't let you go, not if He
saved you by His grace. He won't impute sin to you, and
if He can't impute sin to you, but He imputes righteousness
to you, He can't condemn you justly, and God's just. If he's given you his spirit,
if Christ intercedes for us in heaven, pleading the merits of
his righteousness, how could we be lost? How could we be condemned?
He gives us his spirit to indwell us and keep our eyes focused
on Christ and so salvation is to be preserved by God's power
and grace. Salvation is to persevere in the faith, continually looking
to Christ as the author and finisher of our faith. Salvation is to
be glorified by God and perfectly conform to Christ. Bible knows
of no other salvation. There's no incomplete, partial
salvation. There's no temporary salvation.
Jesus Christ is our salvation. So how can I know if God chose
me before the foundation of the world? How can I know that I'm
justified before God? How can I know that Christ redeemed
me? How can I know if God the Holy
Spirit has given me a new heart, sanctified me. How can I know
if God is preserving me under glory? Well, these are the things
that accompany salvation. This is what, I've thought about
this quite a bit. And I'm gonna give you these
things and then I'm coming back next week and I'm gonna preach
on them individually. What are the things that accompany
salvation? Number one, faith in Christ,
whom we know by God's revelation, his revealed word, his truth. Number two is repentance of dead
works and idolatry, which God is the gift of, all this is the
gift of God. Number three is service and worship to God and
service to his people motivated by grace, love, and gratitude. Number four is the struggle of
the warfare of the spirit against the flesh within. And number five is perseverance
in the faith because God preserves us and won't let us go. Those
are the things that accompany salvation. As I said, I want
to come back next week and we'll deal with those individually.
But that's the things that accompany salvation.