Let's go back to those verses
that Brother Mark read. As he said, the title of this
message is The Danger of Apostasy. And if you haven't, if you're
not familiar with that word, it's a familiar word to most
people, but if you haven't heard, we'll get into that in a little
bit. I've often said that the gospel
is a simple message. It's not a message that's only
for the spiritual elite or the intellectually strong. It's a
message that is easy to understand. It's impossible for sinners to
receive it apart from the Spirit of God. But the basic gospel
message, a lady once told me after I preached a message entitled,
What is the Gospel? back there, and she said, well,
I thought the gospel was the death, burial, and resurrection
of Christ. And I told her, I said, well,
those are historical facts that are included in the gospel. But
I said, if you go read that passage in 1 Corinthians 15, what it
says is that how that Christ died for our sins according to
the scriptures, and how that he was buried and arose again
the third day according to the scriptures. It's not just the
historical fact, that Jesus Christ died, was buried, and raised
again. He was, and that's part of the gospel. But what did he
accomplish? Who is he? What did he accomplish when he
died, was buried, and rose again? That's what the gospel is. It
fills in those details, but it's still a simple message. So the
gospel's simple, but the Bible is not a simple book. It takes
some effort. And of course, we know that the
first thing, if we're going to understand the scriptures, is
that these things have to be revealed by the Spirit of God.
He has to open our eyes, doesn't he? He has to give us eyes to
see and ears to hear. We won't understand it. The Lord
himself told the Pharisees who were supposed to be the doctors,
the doctors of divinity of their day, the experts on the Old Testament. He said, you search the scriptures.
In them you think you have eternal life. But he said, they are they
which testify of me. They testify of the glorious
person and the finished work of Christ, who Christ is, God,
manifest in the flesh and what he accomplished to save his people
from their sins. But you come to various verses
and it takes a little effort to look at these, especially
one that we're going to approach today. Many interpret this passage
as a warning to true believers That if we don't persevere in
faith and good works, we can lose our salvation and then perish
eternally. That's how a lot of people interpret
these verses. They believe that one can be
truly saved, but lose that salvation and totally apostatize. Now apostasy,
that means they fall away. from the truth. They fall away
from Christ. They're saved one day, but then
they can be lost the next day depending upon what they did
or didn't do. And they interpret these verses
like this. And you need to understand something about apostasy now.
In the Bible, apostasy has to do with a profession of truth,
not a lie. Not a false gospel, but a profession
of the true gospel, and then turning completely away from
it. Turning away from it, falling
away from that profession. There are whole denominations
who call themselves Christian who believe that one could become
a believer in Christ and have the possession of true salvation
and spiritual life, be born again. and then lose it because of some
heinous or habitual sin. Some say that this could happen
if one simply stops believing. You've got whole denominations
who call themselves Christian who believe that. They generally
embrace that kind of doctrine. There are other denominations
that believe salvation cannot be lost. You've heard the term
once saved, always saved. You've heard the objections to
that. And you know, Monk Meniel will come back with that and
say, well, if I believe that, I'll just live like I want to. Or I'll
just live, I'll just sin as much as I want to. Well, they don't
understand the scriptures. But those who use these verses
to try to prove that their false doctrine of salvation that can
be lost, you can be saved and then lost, they view it as one
preacher put it and described it like this. Here's what he
said. He said, getting to heaven is like riding a bicycle. If
you stop pumping, you'll fall off. Is that the case? Well, you better
start pumping hard then, hadn't you? Somebody said one time,
a Methodist is one who knows he has it, but he's afraid he'll
lose it. And then a Presbyterian is one
who doesn't know he has it, but he knows if he has it, he can't
lose it. It's kind of confusing, isn't it? It is to me. Well,
that kind of thing, listen, the kind of thinking That says that
you could be saved by the grace of God, by the grace of God now. And what that means, you don't
earn it or deserve it, isn't that right? If it's grace, it's
a free gift. And why did God give his people
that free gift? It wasn't because of any goodness
or any power or any decision they made. It's because of his
sovereign mercy and sovereign love which he gave them in Christ,
the Bible says, before the foundation of the world. And it's based
on what? Not my goodness, but his goodness.
Not my works, but his work. Not my righteousness, I don't
have any, but his righteousness. That's what the Bible teaches.
Let me give you this. You see, when you come across
passages like this, you've got to take them in mind of the context
of the whole Bible. And the Bible teaches this. It
says, number one, what does the Bible teach about the salvation
that God freely and fully gives to his people? It teaches us
that once God has saved you by his grace, he will also keep
you by his grace. And you will continue under glory
by his grace. Grace saves me, grace keeps me,
and grace will bring me unto glory. And the moment it's conditioned
on me, it fails. But it's not conditioned on me.
Now that doesn't give me liberty to sin. It doesn't give me liberty to
act like the heathen. Because not only does God save
us by His grace, He keeps us by His grace, He will not let
His people go. He fills us with His Spirit which
drives us to Christ who is able to keep that which I've committed
unto Him against that day. That's what the Bible teaches. And so any notion that you can
be saved and then lost is really The outcropping of a false gospel
that places salvation at some stage, in some degree, on man,
on sinners, instead of on Christ alone. The Bible says that Jesus
Christ is the author and the what? The finisher of our faith. Christ said, my sheep hear my
voice, I know them, they follow me. He said, they'll never perish. He said that nobody can pluck,
nothing can pluck them out of my Father's hand. Secondly, what does the Bible
teach about those who profess to have salvation by God's grace
but who apostatize, who fall away from it, fall away from
the truth and forsake Christ totally? Turn to 1 John chapter
two before we get into Hebrews. Now here's what the Bible says
about a person who at one time professes to
believe the truth, but then who turns away from it. If you look
at 1 John 2 and look at verse 18, the Apostle John here speaking
of the last time, the last days, which is the new covenant days,
the days from Christ's ascension unto glory to his second coming.
And he says, verse 18, little children, it's the last time,
and as you've heard, that antichrist shall come. Even now there are
many antichrists, whereby we know that it's the last time,
in verse 19. They went out from us. They went out from true believers,
the fellowship of true believers. But they were not of us. They
weren't really true believers. They had a profession. but no
heart for the gospel. He says, for if they had been
of us, if they'd been true believers, they would no doubt have continued
with us. But they went out that they might
be made manifest that they were not all of us. And then jump
across the page there to verse nine of chapter three. When he
says, whosoever is born of God does not commit sin, what he's
talking about is the sin of apostasy there. That's the context. For his seed remaineth. His seed
is his offspring. This is the offspring of Christ.
This is the children of God. His children remain in him. They remain in Christ. As long
as we're in Christ, we're fine. Did you know that? What does
it mean to be in Christ? It means to be chosen of God
in him. It means to be redeemed by him, in his blood, washed
in his blood, clothed in his righteousness. It means to be
justified, forgiven of all my sins, not because of what I do
or don't do, not because of how I feel or don't feel, but because
of the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin. It's to be righteous
in God's sight through him. God will not lay sin to our charge.
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? If you
can't be charged with sin, you can't be lost forever. We have a righteousness that
answers the demands of God's law and justice. We've come to
Christ, we've been brought to him and we've repented of everything
else before that. Dead works. And then he's given us his spirit,
we're born again. Look at verse nine, whosoever
is born of God does not commit sin. If you're truly born of
God, you won't fall away. For his seed, his children remain
in him and he cannot sin, he cannot fall away. That's what
he's talking about now. He cannot fall because he's born
of God. The Holy Spirit has given us
life which can never be taken away. And the Holy Spirit indwells
us to continually convict us of sin and of righteousness and
of judgment, to continually drive us to Christ for all salvation. We're like Peter the Apostle,
when Christ turned to the disciples after the multitude had gone
away, and he said, will you go away also? And Peter said, to
whom shall we go? You have the words of, I've got
no place else to go. Who am I gonna turn to if I turn
away from him? That's the way a believer feels,
isn't that right? That's what we know. Christ is it for us. He's the only way. He's the way,
the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by Him. To turn away from Him is to be
lost forever. And if we concluded from our
text here, go back to Hebrews 6 now, if we conclude that our
text is speaking of persons who were truly saved but then who
fell away and became lost, then I want to tell you something.
There's a contradiction in the Bible. And that cannot be. You know there are rules of interpreting
the scriptures. One of the biggest ones is context.
In fact, that's such a big one. I used to say this, that there's
three rules to interpreting the scriptures. Number one's context,
number two's context, and number three is context. Now, there
are others. But I know this. The Bible teaches
that once God saves us by his grace in Christ, It can never
be taken away. The gifts and calling of God
are without repentance. He saves us, he keeps us, he'll
bring us to glory. That's right. And he'll cause
us to persevere. What is persevering? That's continuing
to believe in and follow Christ. And he causes us to do, we don't
do that in our own power. We don't do that in our own goodness.
But here's part of that perseverance. Here's number one. Look back
at Hebrews 6. The first three verses here is an encouragement
to grow in grace and in knowledge of Christ. Don't be stagnant. Now, we talked about that last
week. He talked about those who are dull of hearing, unskillful
in the word of righteousness. They haven't settled. They're
under the truth. They give mental agreement to
the truth. But they haven't settled these issues, these elementary
principles of the gospel that brings a sinner to faith in Christ
and repentance of dead works. And so you have to go back and
keep going over that again. He says in verse one, therefore
leaving the principles, the word of the beginning of the doctrine
of Christ. And remember I said he doesn't mean leave them behind
and forget them. When he says leaving them, he
means building upon them. I'm of the mind that if you're
a true preacher of the gospel, you ought to preach the gospel
every time you meet. I believe that. I had a preacher
tell me, he said, well, I'll preach it if it's in the text.
And I told him, I said, well, it's in there. And I really believe
that. I'm glad and thankful that the
Lord has given me a passion to preach the gospel. And I have
a passion that you hear it. And it's my prayer that we all
believe it. The doctrine of Christ. How important
is that? That's what Christ himself taught,
but it's the teaching concerning Christ. In the book of 2 John,
this statement is made in verse 9. It says, he that transgresseth
and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God. Can you get any plainer than
that? He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both
the Father and the Son. What's he talking about? Somebody
said, well, you say we're saved by doctrine. No, we're saved
by Christ, but you're not gonna see Christ and believe in Christ
apart from doctrine, right doctrine. Romans 6, 17, and 18, you were
the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that
form of doctrine which was delivered you being then made free from
sin, you became servants of righteousness, you became servants of Christ.
I'm telling you, I don't believe you can support any notion that
people can be saved and converted under the preaching of a life
from the Bible. I don't believe you can. And people have tried. You say, well, it may be an imperfect
gospel. What's an imperfect gospel? Define
that for me. I'll tell you what an imperfect
gospel is. It's a lie. There's only one gospel. And
as I said, it's a simple message. Sinners won't receive, the natural
man won't receive. I know when I first heard it,
I didn't receive it. I hated every minute of listening
to it. And then God came down and tamed the wild ass's coat
and put a bride on his mouth. Hit me in the head with a two
before and got my attention. And at that time it was against
my will. But at some point, he changed my will. He showed me
who I really was. I wasn't who I thought I was.
I was like Naaman. I thought, I thought, you know.
The old preacher preached a message. He entitled it, It Ain't Like
You Thought It Was. I thought I was a pretty good
person. I really did. I mean, I've been brought up
in church, trying to do the best I can. I mean, I sold my wild
oats like most teenagers and all that, but I thought I was
a pretty good person. Here I was in a seminary. The
Lord showed me who I was, who I am. A sinner who deserved nothing
but God's curse. And he, that's right, if God
were to judge me today, Lord, if thou, Lord, shouldest mark
iniquities, who would stand? If God were to judge me right
now, based upon my best efforts to serve him, it would be damnation
for me. I have no hope. My hope is built
on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness, and I dare
not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name.
On Christ the solid rock I stand. I have no righteousness, but
his righteousness charged to me. But God has given us his
spirit. And so he says, build upon these
principles of the doctrine of Christ. Who is Jesus Christ?
God manifest in the flesh. God, the just one, the savior,
the redeemer, the Lord, our righteousness, everything that the Bible says
of him. He says, let us go on to perfection.
Now that word perfection there is not talking about moral perfection. Because if that's what it's talking
about, that's impossible for us to reach. There are people
today who will tell you that they no longer sin. I was talking
to a gentleman up in Kentucky about that. And he said, since
the Lord saved him, he hadn't committed sin. And I said, well,
let me ask you a question, a hypothetical. I said, let's say we all showed
up at your church, and I had films of your thoughts, and we
flashed them up on a big screen. How long would you stay there? If he's honest, he'd say, I'll
go out and hang him my head, wondering if they'd ever let
me come back. We're sinners saved by grace. You don't get tired of me saying
that, do you? That's what we are, isn't it? The perfection here is completion. It's a complete reliance on Christ
and His truth. That's what it is. It has to
do with conversion. And here he tells us, he says,
let us go into perfection, not laying again the foundation of
repentance of dead works and faith toward God. Do you know
the Bible says in 2 Peter 3 that God's not willing that any should
perish, but that all should come to repentance? You know who he's
talking about there? He's talking about his chosen
people. He's not talking about all without exception. Read the
context. Context, context, context. But
that's what he said. For God's people, His chosen
people, which he chose before the foundation of the world and
gave to Christ, who are redeemed by the blood of Christ, it's
God's purpose and will that they all come to repentance. And somebody
says, well, what about faith? Well, how do you get to repentance?
Through faith in Christ. You can read a great example
of that in Philippians chapter three. Paul, the apostle, he
talked about how he was a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee of the
Pharisees, the tribe of Benjamin, as touching the law of Pharisee,
blameless, all of that. Boy, he was proud of it, wasn't
he? He thought that stuff recommended him unto God, but then he saw
the light of the glory of God in Christ on the Damascus Road. He was brought to faith in Christ,
which caused him to look at all that he highly esteemed before
as what? dung that I may win Christ and
be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of
the law, but that which is through the faithfulness of Christ, the
righteousness of God by faith, which we receive by God-given
faith. You know, that happened to me. I wasn't in Damascus.
I was in Louisville, Kentucky. I was going to a seminary. My
mother would send me tapes from a gospel preacher, and I'd put
them up on a shelf. I didn't want to listen to them. I was
walking across the campus one day. I looked up and on the library,
it said Boyce Memorial Library. And I said, well, who the heck
is Boyce? Well, a friend of mine said,
well, look in the back of the seminary catalog. And there was
a systematic articles briefly written by a man named J.P. Boyce
back in 1860-something. And I began to read those things.
And I thought when I read them, I said, you know, that's what
that preacher that mom's sending me tapes, that's what he believes.
I said, I've never heard these things about the sovereignty
of God, the depravity of man, the powerful, redemptive work
of Christ that got the job done. The invincible, powerful work
of the Holy Spirit and true perseverance of the saints. I never heard those things. So
I began to study them. And I quit seminary and went
back home and started going to that church. And I sat there
and listened to that man preach. And I really didn't like what
I was hearing. In fact, I hated it. But I kept going because
I wanted to get my mother out of that church. And I'd argue with her. I'll
never forget one time. Boy, she lowered me. I was going
home with her and I said, Mom, if what he said was true, everybody,
I'm lost. She said, well, you are. My mother
told me that. I knew she didn't hate me. But
she said, you are lost, Bill. You don't believe the gospel.
That was the most loving thing that she'd ever said to me. Do
you know that? I didn't see it at the time. And then one day
I heard this man preach a message from Isaiah 45. It was entitled,
Steve, A Just God and a Savior. I thought, man, I've never heard
anything like that. I need to find out more about this. And
sometime in that time span, the Lord brought me to a saving knowledge
of Christ, and then I looked back on everything that I experienced
up to then, and God brought me to repentance of dead works.
I've settled in my mind. It was all done. I see it as
the providence of God. Don't get me wrong. God brought
good out of the evil. He's sovereign. But I was alienated
in my mind by wicked works, religious works. And that's what this is
talking about. Here he's talking about the old
covenant and the ceremonies. These Jewish professors were
in danger of being drawn back to the Jewish law, the covenant
law, even the perversions of the law. Look at it. He says
in verse two, he says of the doctrine of baptisms, that's
the washings. The ceremonial washings in the
old coven. The priest, you remember, they
had to wash from head to toe to cleanse themselves, and those
ceremonial washings. But when God brings a sinner
to see that the only thing that can wash away your sins, nothing
but the blood of Jesus, you're gonna see all those ceremonial
washings as done. Don't just lay that on to the
Jews. What washed away your sins before you saw Christ? I heard
a preacher in Atlanta say this. He said, what is the condition
of forgiveness? He said, your tears of repentance. My tears of repentance. Listen,
should I cry over my sins more than I do? I really, I mean that. Is there godly sorrow over sin? There should be in every believer.
We ought to weep more than we do over our sins. I'm not just
talking about the big ones, as people say. I'm talking about
the fact that I'm constantly a sinner who's in need of God's
grace and mercy. Somebody said, well, go pray
to God when you're in need. Well, I'm always in need. How
about you? I'm a needy guy. But my tears won't wash away
nothing but the blood of Jesus. And when I thought my tears would
wash, that's dead works. You see what I'm saying? I got baptized when I was 12
years old. I don't really, I don't even
call it baptized now. I said I was dunked in water.
I went swimming one Sunday morning. I didn't know Christ. I didn't
know the gospel. I was ignorant of the righteousness
of God like those Jews in Romans 10. The laying on of hands, you
know how the priest would lay his hands on the sacrifice. That
was a signification of faith in Christ and it pictured imputation. Sin imputed to the animal. And righteousness imputed to
the one who laid his hands on them. That was a picture, that
there was no salvation, no forgiveness, no righteousness in the blood
of animals. The blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin. But where is there justification?
Where is there for in Christ? Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believe it. He said of the
resurrection of the dead and of eternal judgment. What does
it take to bring a sinner to have life? We're justified before God based
upon one ground. That's Christ's righteousness
imputed. But that righteousness that God charges to our account,
the account of his people, is also the source of resurrection
life in the new birth. Do you know what the new birth
is? It's a literal resurrection from the dead, isn't it? We're
born dead and trespassed, fallen in Adam, into sin and death,
born dead in trespasses and sins, and have no spiritual life at
all. And somebody said, we've talked
about graveyard, dead, well, when it comes to spiritual matters,
that's it. But then Christ sends forth the spirit. to give life
to the dead. I had a fella tell me one time,
he said, well, we're only supposed to preach to believers. I said,
really? He said, yeah. He said, would you go out and
try to water a lawn that had dead grass on it? I told him,
I said, well, I would if God told me to. I said, would you
go to a valley of dry bones and preach to the dry bones? Do you think that kind of bum-fuggled
Ezekiel? Can these bones live? Lord, thou
knowest. I'm going to preach to anybody
who will listen. How about you? I'm going to tell them about
the gospel, the true gospel, the true Christ, the true ground
of salvation. I'm going to tell them what sin
is and how we're all sin. I'm going to talk to anybody
who will listen. Only God knows if these bones can live. Eternal judgment. What's the
issue of the judgment? Well, you know, God's going to
weigh your good works against your bad works, and we'll see
how the scales balance out. I'll tell you how the scales
will balance out. It's kind of like old Belshazzar. I thought it was Daniel chapter
5, I think. I can't remember, but it's Daniel. Remember, God
sent a sign, a handwriting on the wall, and here's how it was
translated. Thou art found wanting. Thou art weighed in the balance
and found wanting. That's how it'll turn out. You
know what matters at the judgment? How do I stand in Christ? Washed in his blood, clothed
in his righteousness, that's my only hope. Everything else,
dead works. It works. And then look at verse
three. He says, and this will we do,
and I love this, if God permit, if God permit, in other words,
if God is willing in the day of his power to make us willing
to follow Him. You see, salvation is of the
Lord. Now it's true, God uses pitiful instruments like us to
get His message across. We have a treasure. You can't
put a value on it, can you? But this treasure we have is
in what? Earthen vessels. This treasure is the glory of
God in the face of Jesus Christ. Man, there's nothing more valuable
than that. That's eternal value. But he puts it in old broken
pots like me, like you. And you know what we do? We spend
our time. Talking about that treasure who's
Christ, crucified, risen from the dead, salvation, all spiritual
blessings in him. Everything else, dead works. Isn't that right? And the writer
of Hebrews, whom I believe was Paul, but it doesn't matter,
this is God's word. He's saying this is only gonna
happen if God permits. God's will. Thy will be done,
Lord. That's what we pray, isn't it? Thy will be done. All right.