If you will, turn in your Bibles
to Hebrews chapter 6. May God grant us the opportunity
to reflect upon His Word and to consider the very appropriate
and serious exhortation that is in front of us. Hebrews chapter
6. The title of our message today is, Let Us Go On to Maturity. The Hebrew writer is very much
concerned with wanting us to fix our gaze upon Melchizedek
and his priesthood, a subject worthy of our attention and the
blessing that comes with it. And it's a topic worthy of our
learning and the opportunity for the people of God, both in
the time in which the author has written as well as for our
time, to understand the beauty and the significance and relevance
of Jesus Christ, who is our Melchizedek, and his role as our priest, prophet,
and king, as we shall see when we make our way into that wonderful
reflection in chapter 7. The author has already told us
that he is eager to help the people of God in that first century
church called the Hebrew Christians, or the Jewish Christians, grasp,
as it were, and embrace to their edification and the security
of their soul all that the covenant has for them. But in order for
them to enter into it, they must comprehend the significance of
the priesthood. As we have said before, the priesthood
is the key into the covenant. The priesthood is the key into
the covenant. The priesthood is the cause by
which the covenant blessings are poured out to us, the priesthood
is the means by which God in His grace has shed upon redeemed
sinners as yourself and I, the blessings of redemption in the
context of covenant. It's not language that we are
familiar with in our 21st century, very non-structured context in
which we live, where we kind of abhor contracts and negotiations
and structured legal clauses and things of that nature, but
covenants and contracts were very familiar, very popular,
and very necessary in the days of the Old Testament saints,
even up to the time of our Savior. May I remind you also that the
gospel is a covenant. This is the New Testament in
my blood, which was shed for you. What that means is that
believers are privileged to draw nigh to God through a mediator
and to study and examine all of the promises and all of the
blessings and all of the privileges and all of the stipulations of
a covenant scheme that God has drawn up for us for His glory
and for our salvation. That means the people of God
are really called upon to be students of the Word of God.
You know how tragic it would be for you to have inherited
something of which it requires you actually to diligently study
and examine all of the clauses in that inheritance, which is
yours, but by virtue of negligence or carelessness, you do not regard
that covenant and thus you lose out on the inherent blessings
that are there. And really that's where we are with the Hebrew
writer's concern for the people of God, the Jewish Christians
who had the privilege of the stewardship and the promises
of the covenants all the way back to Father Abraham for 2,000
years up to Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. And then for Messiah
to come and have fulfilled the old covenant, affected the new
covenant, and brought them, that is the first century Christian
church and believers, from that Jewish Stock into the blessings
of the new covenant for them to find themselves at this stage
in their walk and we could say historically we are about 30
to 35 years out from the the visitation of the Lord Jesus
Christ having assumed a human nature and then went back to
glory. We are 30 to 35 years out. And to make this practical
as we begin to make application of the truth to our lives, it's
as if you had been a Christian and initially illuminated to
the beauties of the gospel, and having drank into your soul the
blessings of God manifesting His glory to you in the person
of Christ, you being born again or quickened or illuminated,
as we're going to have the opportunity to discuss, and brought into
this whole new venue of a dimension of reality that you were never
ever ever aware of, and that is the reality of God. the reality
of the kingdom of God, the blessings of the kingdom of God. You were
brought into it through the gospel and your soul was excited. Do
you remember those days when God in his mercy brought you
out of darkness into the marvelous light of his gospel truth and
how you were just, you were overwhelmed with all of the potential and
possibilities of being part of the kingdom of God? Excited about
God. Excited about the gospel. Excited
about the possibilities of everything that the gospel has for you.
And you ran. Remember that? You ran. You couldn't even sleep. You
were so happy in Jesus. It's called being in love. You
remember how that was a long time ago? Being in love where
you didn't need much sleep. Remember that? Just an hour or
so and back at it again. That's how it is. It's a it's
a love relationship in reality when you're born again God pours
into our hearts the love of God by the Holy Ghost which causes
us to be infatuated with Jesus Isn't that so and now our affections
are geared in another direction where we want to learn of God
We want to drink him in we want to know more about Jesus more
more more about this God who loved me and gave himself for
me those were the initial days of And the Hebrew writer certainly
was aware of it himself. If, in fact, the Hebrew writer
is the Apostle Paul, and good evidence would suggest that it's
the case, although it's not, you know, hard, fast. If it was,
Paul himself was a Jewish believer who, prior to him coming to see
the glory of God in Christ, was utterly committed to his Jewish
traditions and that Old Covenant scheme. But when God revealed
His glory to him, he made a 180 degree turn. and he began to
preach Christ everywhere. And one of the people groups
of which he was utterly committed to was his own Jewish brethren.
For Paul, the model was to the Jew first and then also to the
Gentile. He understood that the Jews had
a special privilege of being the stewardship and the conduit
by which Jesus came into the world. We understand that. But
he also understood to whom much is given, much is what? He understood
these principles. He understood the danger of you
and I being given so much by way of gospel promises to over
time allow our love and our zeal and our passion to wane. Y'all know what I'm talking about?
When the thrill is gone and we are sure the love is there, but
we can't quite find it. You know what I'm talking about?
We're sure the love is there, but we can't quite find it. This
is why I say in the context of marriage, you know, I'm talking
two things at once, right? When I talk to people in the context
of marriage, what I tell them is the security of your relationship
with your spouse's covenant is not your love feeling. The security
of your relationship with your spouse's covenant is not your
love feeling. Your love feeling is what authenticates the nature
of the covenant. It should be a marriage that's
based on love, but your love is not the securing factor of
the relationship. Truth be told your love comes
and goes not only with your spouse but with God too. I'm telling
the truth today. Am I telling the truth? And I'm
so thankful that God is a God of covenant and not a God of
mere fickle emotional love Now granted, God's love would be
consistent with his nature and thus because God is immutable
and unchangeable, his love would be constant, right? That's true,
that's logical. But on my part, my love goes
up and down and sometimes it disappears and I can't find it
for weeks. I am a loveless person for a long time, ask my wife
and children. But do you understand that because I'm a loveless person
doesn't stop my children from being my children? and me from
being their parent and my wife from being my wife. We still
got to go on with life as usual, even though we're struggling
to find the love. I'm laying a foundation. Is that OK? Because
what we do in this present generation where we are wrapped up in our
feelings, humanism, existentialism, and somehow thinking that the
virtue of intrinsic qualities like love is the very thing that's
going to sustain everything. I'm here to tell you love by
itself don't sustain anything. It's principle. And it's principle
that has as its subsistence something much greater than you and I personally,
and that is covenant. So the gospel is the basis upon
which God keeps you and keeps me. And the Hebrew writer is
worried about that with regards to the early Jewish church. He said over in verse 11, as
we are getting ready to enter into our first point and work
it through of chapter five, I have many things to say to you, but
they are hard to be uttered. Remember that? Seeing you are
dull of hearing. The term hard to be uttered really
means they are hard to be explained or interpreted not because we
cannot Carefully explain or expound or develop these things but because
you have become Dull of hearing this is where we left off last
week. So if there's a symbiotic or dynamic between the desire
on the part of the minister of the word to be able to share
the God the Word of God with you and he is studied, he is
prepared, he has labored, he has prayed, his heart is full,
he has so much that he wants to share with you and he's ready,
he's ready, but you're not, there will be no transaction. If the
heart's not ready for God, doesn't matter how ready the minister
is, he's gonna fall on deaf ears. Do you understand that this is
the legacy of national Israel from the days that God called
them out of Egypt? That he spoke to them again and
again and again? And by and large, the word of
God fell on deaf ears. Are you guys following me? This
is a dreadful pattern that followed Israel all the way through. So
in a real sense, the Hebrew writer is still in the same place with
the people of God in the first century, as Moses was, and as
Joshua was, and as Elijah was, as Jeremiah was, as Isaiah was,
as Ezekiel was. All the prophets came to the
people of God, you know, many, many times. Telling them the
Lord your God is calling you to love him with all your heart
soul mind and strength and he even uses the Natural terms cleave
unto the Lord your God and cleave unto him only you guys remember
that language. That's marital language For this
cause shall a man leave his father and his mother and cleave unto
his wife and the twain shall become what? One flesh. And this
is why we understand marriage as a type of Christ in the church.
And isn't it tragic today that our culture wants to so distort
and mar the concept of marriage as to extricate it, strip it
from its celestial significance as pointing to Christ in the
church. Well, the church is not going to let that happen. I'm
talking about true believers are not going to destroy the
covenant of marriage. By the grace of God, we shall
hold on, hold out and walk in the truth of that covenant so
that men and women might know that marriage is not designed
to point to you or call you to happiness. It's designed to point
to God and call you to holiness. That's what marriage is designed
to do. Point to God and call you to holiness. Thus, every
family that is married, your heterosexual marriage is designed
to point the human race to God and call them to holiness. Now,
holiness is a struggle, isn't it? And so the Hebrew writer
plainly says, I suggest that you go with me to your first
point in your outline. You are not easy to move. I'm telling you, come on, let's
go and just sit there. The reason why I use that terminology
is because the root word for being dull of hearing is the
idea of trying to push an ox or push an ass to get them to
move and they just won't move. They just won't move. How alarming
it must be for God to be talking to his people about things that
are pertinent to their edification and salvation and he can't get
them to move. You know how you are really in
trouble when truth is presented to you that's designed to actually
get you to move particularly out of situations that are dangerous
into situations that are much more favorable and you just won't
move. You just won't budge. As stubborn as a goat and stubborn
as an ass, you won't move. Well, that's the context here.
Isn't that dreadful? And you're the people of God.
Give you an example. Remember Jesus was preaching
to the Jewish people in Matthew chapter 11. That's in your outline
too. And in Matthew chapter 11 verses
15 through 19, Jesus says, how shall I liken this generation? I will liken this generation
unto a person who is singing to them. And in singing to them,
you would respond by dancing, but you wouldn't dance, you mourned.
You mourned. And I would liken you being in
a marketplace and calling unto you and lamenting, but you wouldn't
lament. In other words, what he's saying
is, if we called upon you to grieve, you laughed. If we called
upon you to mourn, you danced. If we called upon you to lament,
you acted other than what we were calling you to do. Now,
you understand, ladies and gentlemen, when a person is actually intentionally
acting the opposite way of what you are calling them to do, that
they are being antagonistic towards you, aren't they? They're being
antagonistic. And can you imagine the Master
coming from glory and telling the people of God, this is time
to rejoice, but they wouldn't rejoice? or telling them this
is a difficult time, this is a sad time, we need to fast,
we need to mourn, we need to grieve, but they ignored his
warnings. This is what it's like when a
person is uneasy to move. You're trying to get them to
understand that we must move and they aren't moving. What
the Hebrew writer is doing is giving us insight into the incredulous
nature the heart of the people of God at this time what he's
essentially saying is this that you have stopped being affected
by the gospel the gospel no longer moves your heart you know I mean
you if you have studied the Word of God and you you love the impact
of Scripture upon your soul when you read it and your heart is
right with God because your heart has to be right with God for
the Word of God to be a blessing and God opens that word up and
immediately you enter into the depths of of the blessings of
that text of scripture or that chapter of scripture and you
just go for an amazing journey with God in that text. You know
what I'm talking about? An amazing journey with God in
such a way like Peter said when he was on the Mount of Transfiguration,
he said it's good for us to stay right here and not leave. There
are times when the Word of God has that kind of impact on the
soul. You know what has occurred? You
have been moved You have been moved by the power of the word
of God. You have been moved. But there
are some days that when you open the text, the text is still closed. And God is not speaking, as it
were, to your heart because you are dull of hearing. Y'all know
what I'm talking about. And that's what's going on here
with the Hebrew writer. He's saying, you guys are hard to
move. I cannot get you to move. This
is a very difficult situation. And then he says in verse 12,
for when for the time you ought to be teachers, you have need
to that one teach you again, which be the first principles
of the oracles of God, and are become such as have need of milk,
and not of strong milk. I don't think that the apostle
or the writer to the Hebrews was simply admonishing them because
he was exacerbated. He was under inspiration of the
Holy Ghost. And thus, his assessment here
is this. You are still in a mold of understanding
and spiritual immaturity to where someone has to be teaching you
basic Bible doctrine when you should be, out of all the people
on the earth, able to instruct others and teach others and guide
others into biblical truth. So the application to you and
I would be simply this. If you've been a Christian for
more than five or ten years, Are you still in such a case
where you don't know the fundamentals of the faith in such a rooted
and grounded way that you can guide some brand new babe in
Christ to an understanding of the gospel? Are you such after
5 or 10 or 15 or in some cases 20 years unable to help a man
or a woman or a family or an individual into the kingdom of
God through the rudimental principles of the gospel? Are you unable
to help a man or a woman to understand biblically what it means to be
under the wrath of God, what it means to be under the curse
of sin, what it means to need a Savior, what it means to be
helpless, what it means to repent, what it means to come to God
by faith, what it means to submit to the righteousness of God through
Jesus Christ, what it means to be born again, what it means
to be rooted and grounded in the true and the living God,
the person of Jesus Christ. These are fundamentals of the
faith that one must be able to not only know for themselves
but communicate to others if we are to be teachers. And do
you know what the new covenant says? Every believer has that
privilege. Every believer has the privilege of attaining the
status of being able to teach men and women the gospel. They
shall no longer say one to another, come let us know the Lord, for
they shall know the Lord each one themselves. so that every
individual Christian should be able to, having affirmed the
fundamentals of the faith in their own soul over a period
of time and through experience, be ready to share the gospel
with other men and women. Be able to answer those really
difficult questions that you had in the beginning of your
faith. But you guys know the embarrassing
situation that pops up when you have been in the Lord, so-called,
for 755 years. And that unbelieving person on
your job comes to you and asks you a Bible question and you
don't even know where to begin. It's embarrassing, isn't it?
And this is where we are with the Hebrew people. The apostle
Paul, the writer to the Hebrews, is plainly saying you have need
to be taught all over again the fundamentals of the faith and
have such have need of such as milk and not strong meat. We
won't get into the development of those terms because that's
not my objective as I want to now deal with what I know the
Apostle Paul or the writer to the Hebrews, whoever it is, I'm
locked on Paul now, is warning you and I and those to whom he
was writing in the first century to grasp. After he says in verse
14, strong meat belongs to them that are of full age. You see
that phrase full age? That's our word for perfection
in the first verse of chapter 6. Let us go on to perfection.
It's the term teleos. It's a very common and general
word that is used throughout the New Testament and it means
everything from perfection in the quintessential and the impeccable
sense, flawlessness, sinlessness, righteousness to maturity in
the faith. And maturity is the word that
we want to embrace today. Because as you and I have been
learning, maturity has everything to do with process, doesn't it?
Maturity has to do with process. Perfection has to do with having
reached a certain status. But what's important for you
and me today is process. Just like in everyday living,
process is critical. How do I get from point A to
point B? Process. How do I get from being
a babe in Christ to be mature in Christ? Process. How do I
get from being one who has to be taught to one who is able
to teach? Process. I don't automatically
go from being taught to teaching without Process and process requires
that we reach a certain level of maturity in order to be able
to effectively and accurately teach Biblical doctrine and he's
speaking to not only merely being able to communicate doctrine
on a on a didactic level But also the experience that comes
with it. This is his warning as we get ready to look at chapter
6 the writers warning is we must not find ourselves always at
those fundamentals of the faith. Staying at the foundation of
the faith of those basic doctrinal truths and constantly revisiting
them as if that is the essence of our call would depict that
we have missed something vital in our relationship with God.
Now, I want to explain what it means to move away from them.
Chapter 6, verse 1. Chapter 6, verse 1 would speak
to us this way. Therefore, leaving the principles
of the doctrine of Christ. That's what most of our King
James Bibles would say, correct? And yet in your outline, point
number two, let's go on, let's go on to perfection anyway, is
actually a more literal interpretation for what the writer is saying
is we aren't leaving as it were the basics, that is neglecting
them or rejecting them as some foolish Christians would assert.
Basics, the fundamentals. The stoiche of life are always
the foundational things upon which we stand. We stand on a
foundation and we build on a foundation. We don't leave a foundation.
Am I making some sense? You don't leave it as to say
forsake it or abandon it, but you actually take that foundation
and use it for what it is designed for, to build a superstructure. to establish an infrastructure,
to culminate in the establishment, if you will, a theological and
a practical and a Christian house. That's what's going on here.
So we're talking about appropriately understanding the importance
of the foundation and then doing with that foundation what God
has called all of us to do, and that is to build on it. I think
I used this analogy on Friday And certainly I think I used
it in our evangelism class on Saturday. When you and I are
teaching our children the basics of reading and writing and arithmetic,
they learn the fundamentals of addition first, don't they? And
then they learn multiplication, right? But they can't effectively
learn multiplication until they learn addition. And they're not
going to really understand multiplication effectively until addition and
subtraction becomes a part of the equation. And then we're
talking about division, short division, long division. These
are all fundamentals that stack upon one another in order to
build a sound and comprehensive mathematical grid. Am I making
some sense? And then we will move from long
division into your preliminary to algebra, then algebra, then
advanced algebra, and from algebra to other things like calculus
and Celsius and things of that nature. You can't get to calculus
without starting with the fundamentals. But you don't leave the fundamentals,
you build on them. We're talking process now. So
the writer really is concerned about them failing to understand
what it means for them to enter into the kingdom of God. Let us go on to maturity anyway. What do you mean by anyway? Well,
he's already said, I'm worried that you won't get it, but I'm
gonna share it with you anyway. My hope is that as we move towards
a contemplation and reflection of the Melchizedekian priesthood
that your heart will be longing for an understanding of the blessing
of that priesthood over the Aaronic priesthood of which you are still
presently enamored. Because you will see the great
blessing of the Aaronic priesthood, I mean the Melchizedek priesthood
over the Aaronic priesthood if in fact you are ready for it.
Otherwise we are in trouble. And so when he says let us go
on from or let us Depart from our let us proceed from the word
leaving. There's an interesting Greek
term It too has a broad application, but you know this word more practically
as the word to forgive to forgive father Forgive them for they
know not what they do Remember that the gospel of Luke our master
is hanging between heaven and earth and he's mediating on the
behalf of his people and he's saying father they are killing
me because they are sinners and They don't know what they're
doing. Forgive them. He's not saying leave them alone. He's
not saying abandon them. He's not saying depart from them.
He's saying deal with their issue, settle their issue, establish
a right relationship with them because of their issue, and then
build a development of a relationship with them from the issue. The
issue is the forgiveness of sins. The forgiveness of sins comes
through the atoning work of Jesus. on the basis of that atonement,
now God can build a relationship with me, right? You know what
we call that? Forgiveness. Can I make it a
little bit more practical? Husbands and wives. You know
how we're supposed to be Christian husbands and wives? And you know
how wives get on our nerves sometimes? Vice versa. Y'all can argue about
the ratio of that if you want to. But do you know the secret
to continuing on in the marriage? Forgiveness. Do you know the
secret to persevering in marriage? Forgiveness. Do you know the
secret to building a marriage? Forgiveness. Do you know the
secret to building a strong marriage? Forgiveness. Do you know the
secret of building from the foundation of I love you? Forgiveness. That's what I'm talking about.
Let us settle the matter of the fundamentals of the faith by
which you have been brought into the kingdom of God. And from
that, let's build on that so that we can adorn the gospel
of God's grace with a life worthy of representation. After all,
the kingdom of God is what? Righteousness, peace. and join
the Holy Ghost. And so the apostle or the writer
is very clearly saying, let's move on to that state of maturity,
not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works
and of faith towards God. Then he says, verse 2, and of
the doctrine of baptisms and of laying on of hands and of
the resurrection of the dead and of eternal judgment. These
are four or five articles of faith, the first of which is
repentance. Do you see that? Let's not lay
again the foundation of repentance. And then he describes repentance
as dead works. And let's not lay again the foundation
of faith towards God, which are two sides of the same coin. By
the way, if you wanted to, as it were, lift this clause out
of the text and give an assignment to it in terms of an evangelical
principle, it is the door into a relationship with God. God
is calling sinners to repentance and faith. When the gospel is
preached to sinners, it's not first, God loves you. It's repent
and believe the gospel. That is the door into the kingdom
of God, whereupon we establish a right relationship with God.
Am I making some sense? Repentance and faith. Repentance
and faith and it would assume that the gospel is preached in
such clarity and power that you believe God You believe God that
you are under the wrath of God. You believe God that you are
a helpless hell-bound sinner You believe God that the only
way of escape is looking to Jesus Christ So repentance is the same
coin only on the other side of faith. You can't tell me you
have biblical faith. I And you have not experienced
the repentance of your heart and soul over against the things
you used to be engaged in in your former life. Faith without
repentance is a sham. It's a mockery to God. It's an
affront to God. I believe you, God, but you don't
believe what you are apart from God. You don't believe God. So
the front door into the relationship on a fundamental level is repentance
and faith towards God. And it goes on to say from dead
words, end of the doctrine of baptisms. Do you see that? And
the King James legitimately and rightfully put the plural there
for baptisms in the plural because we really are aware that what
the Hebrew writer is doing is speaking to a special class of
people who understood the whole sacerdotal system of the Levitical
and Aaronic priesthood around which God had them exercising
great lengths of service in the area of blood sacrifices and
washings. The word baptismoi is the Greek
term for washings. Hebrews chapter nine speaks of
it that they were given over to carnal ordinances such as
the washing of pots and cups and other articles and utensils
in the temple because washing is a symbol of cleanliness. It's
a symbol of purity. It's a symbol of regeneration
of which God is calling his people out of the dirty world of sin
into the clean world of a relationship with God. You remember the covenant
promise? And I will cleanse you from all
your filthiness. I will wash you with clean water
and make you clean. This is the covenant promise
of Ezekiel 36 25. So cleansing is a critical symbolic
doctrine that moves us out of the filth and contamination of
our secular life into a state of sanctification and a walk
with God where we have been washed. Baptism signifies that in Christian
theology, doesn't it? When we are baptized, we are
washed into the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord
Jesus Christ, and we come up a new creature symbolically.
Is that true? And so one could argue that as
he is speaking and exhorting the Hebrew Christians to move
away from the fundamentals, he's telling them, listen, you have
been tutored by the Old Testament system. That Old Testament system
pointed to Christ in every one of its ordinances. And those
ordinances are summed up in the New Testament ordinances of baptism
and the Lord's table and repentance and faith and other essential
doctrines that are worthy of our attention for just a few
more moments. One of the things that we are doing in our evangelism
class is discovering the woeful ineptitude that takes place in
the evangelical church around evangelism. How can you evangelize
a sinner without letting that sinner know he's under the wrath
of God? How can you evangelize a sinner
without letting him know how holy God is? How can you evangelize
a sinner without letting the sinner know that if they should
die today, they will perish in a burning hell? How can you evangelize
a sinner without letting them know that they must face the
judge on the last day and give an answer for their sins? How
can you evangelize a sinner to call them to turn from their
sin if you don't actually identify their sin as transgression against
the law of a holy God? How can you evangelize a sinner
unless you let that sinner know that God is holy and God is just
and God will punish sin and the only way of escape from the punishment
of that sin is the punishment of his son on Calvary's tree.
Am I making some sense? See, but the kind of evangelism
that I'm sharing with you now that must be, as it were, communicated
to the lost sinner is not politically correct today. This is not a
feel-good evangelism that I'm sharing with you. It doesn't
make the sinner feel good. because it's not designed to
make the sinner feel good. Do you know God is not going
around making sinners feel good? The job of God by the Holy Ghost
through the preaching of the gospel by faithful men and women
who know the gospel is to make sinners feel their sin. You can't be saved from something
you are not persuaded you need to be saved from. And when He,
the Holy Ghost, has come, He will convince the world of sin. How is He going to do that? Through
the Word of God. How's he going to do that? Through
an exposition and development of the law of God. How's he going
to do that? By convincing the lost sinner that he has broken
God's law. How's he going to do that? By
demonstrating the severity of the punishment that comes for
violating God's law. By bearing upon the conscience
and the soul of the sinner through the preaching of the word that
you have transgressed against a holy God and the wages of sin
is what? See, we don't like this, but
listen to me, ladies and gentlemen, until God slays the sinner, He
will not raise him from the dead. That's the work of the Spirit
of God. And you won't see a lost sinner running to God until that
sinner comes to a point of realizing they need the very God who has
a right to send them to hell. Am I making some sense? So we
have to really understand the flawed nature of evangelism today
and get the message right because the message is very clear. It's
about the glory of God, the character of God, the holiness of God,
the righteousness of God. Essential to a man's right relationship
with God is you seeing God for who he is and you seeing yourself
for who you are and submitting to the righteousness of God,
which is in Jesus Christ. The gospel is not something that
makes sense to the lost sinner until he comes to see his absolute
necessity of Jesus Christ. These are the fundamentals that
I'm talking about, you guys. The fundamentals are those basic
propositions of the gospel that men and women have to wrestle
with and come to understand. Yes, every one of us shall give
an account before God in the day of judgment. in their body
concerning the things that they have done, whether they be good
or bad. You have to face God. If this is not pressed upon the
conscience of the lost sinner, the lost sinner will have no
urgency to get right with God. Are you hearing me? These are
critical components. And so the man or the woman that
can ask themselves, have I actually entered into the front door the
gospel and have established myself upon the firm foundation of biblical
truth or have I gone through the back door or the Sideway
as Jesus said I am the door if anyone comes through any other
means he is a thief and a robber You tell many women you can be
saved by climbing through the window of love I'm going through
the back door of hope I'm coming underneath through some kind
of good works and Instead of through the front door of repentance
and faith in Jesus Christ, you are setting them up for hell.
Are you guys hearing what I'm saying? These are the fundamentals
of the faith of which we have to be clear that we have them
in order for us to grow up upon them into the more rich, wonderful
foliage of biblical truth that's before us. But it would be a
tragedy, a great tragedy, If you and I were teaching men and
women a false gospel and giving them hope in something that has
no basis in the reality of God, it would be tragic. I remember
years ago, I'm gonna be pastoral with you now. I remember years
ago, cause I just feel like God is leading me this way. When
my children got old enough to start reading the word of God
and me reading the word of God with them, how I struggled with
having to let them know They were hell bound sinners. Does
anyone know what I'm talking about? You had to actually teach them
the gospel the same way you learned it. And they were three and four
and five. And you had to say, now, do you
understand what the wages of sin is, my son or my daughter? Not quite. Help me, daddy. And
you had to begin to explain, well, sin is transgression against
God's law. And baby, we are all sinners.
All of us are sinners. What does that mean, daddy? We
are going to hell under the judgment of a just and holy God. In this
present generation, they would throw me in jail for mental and
emotional abuse. Am I telling the truth? They
would throw me in the jail for mental and emotional abuse. Let me share something with you
though. When God gives you grace to get over yourself and not
love your children with human love and so send them to hell
by not telling the truth, God will reward you with saving some
of your children and they will boldly say, Daddy, I am so thankful
you told me the truth. You told me that I was a hell-bound
sinner under the wrath of God and that my only way of escape
was through the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank you that you taught me
the gospel. No greater reward than that.
No greater reward than that. And then for those of you who
are aspiring to ministry, you know, after you can preach the
gospel to your three, four or five year old kids, you can boldly
preach it to everybody else. That's why God would have the
ministers to be married and raise children so that they can be
sensitive to the souls of men and women and understand how
God would, anthropomorphically speaking, feel to have to let
his creatures know, you and I are not right. And you're going to
perish apart from my grace. These are critical truths. These
are fundamental truths of which the Hebrew writer is telling
us we need to secure these things. And then we need to build upon
these things. And then saints, he gives a warning
of which I want to go into. Now this warning, I would like
in this warning, like us being at a certain level of the word
escapes me that we are at 2,000 feet above sea level, or maybe
1,000. And we actually want to go to
another height, another 1,000 feet, another 2,000 feet. We
want to be able to see out over the horizon into the vast promises
of God. But in order to go from 1,500
feet or sea level to 1,000 feet or 2,000 feet, we've got to climb
some distance, don't we? We've got to climb something
to get to 3,000 feet. But before we climb, we actually have to
descend. And this is what the text is
teaching. You and I have to descend into the dark, dark, dark descent
and crevices and caves of the possibility of failing to actually
obtain the blessings of the gospel, having presumed upon God. The
language is scary language, but it's worthy of consideration.
He wants to get on the other side to the next level. so he
can bless them with insights into the venues of the Melchizedekian
priesthood. If you can get to that side,
if you can get to that level. But you have to be ready, you have
to be fearless to face the reality as to whether or not you and
I are just professors of Christianity instead of possessors, if you
will, of the grace of God, the reality of Christ in our life.
We have to face that language from time to time, don't we?
We can't run from it. So here's what he says in chapter
6 verse 4. As he sets forth those cardinal
doctrines that underscore what we learn when we initially come
to Christ, he says over in verse three, and this we will do. That is what? Go on to maturity,
if God permits. I mean, we're not necessarily
gonna make it, but if God permits, we will. Do you understand that
if God permits is a filial fear and respect for the reality that
you and I can do nothing apart from Christ? I may want to grow,
but if God doesn't permit, I won't grow. I may want to go on to
maturity, but if God doesn't permit, I won't go on to maturity.
And in fact, what the teacher is doing here, I must say this
as we get ready, is the teacher is letting the students know,
which is a whole class of people, the Jewish people who are professing
Christians, he's letting them know, just because I'm going
on, doesn't mean you're going to be going on with me. because some of you may merely
be professors and I will have to show you the history of what
happens to professors rather than those who are authentic
believers when God has said over and over and over and over and
over again, let's go. Hasn't God said that? Over and
over again, let's go. See, remember I told you the
Hebrew people are a sojourning people. They are a vagabond people. They are a people on the go.
They have no continuing city here. They are a roaming people. And God has constantly called
His people to move from one place to another place in terms of
His experience with them. Is that not true? Now I'm not
talking geographical movement or excursions. I'm not talking
about moving from one state to another state. I'm talking about
a spiritual movement from one place of understanding and maturity
to another place of understanding and maturity in your walk with
God. Have you found, as a child of God, have you found yet that
there is so much to learn about God? So much more to learn. Or have you fallen prey to the,
I think this is an insane assumption, that you know it all. And you've
reached the horizons of biblical truth and the pinnacle of a relationship
with God, and now you're at the mountaintop and waiting for everybody
to catch up with you. Are you deluded? The reality is, is that we are
called to go from faith to faith. We are called to grow in grace
and in the knowledge of the Lord. And this growing is a perpetual,
unending growing. I'll argue for that point as
one of the last points which is an evidence of what it means
to be authentically born again. But the Hebrew writer says this
as we move into the dark, dangerous territory of having to face the
reality of what the scriptures call apostasy. It's one of those
terms that you don't hear in our evangelical church today
much either. Apostasy. As if we don't have
apostate churches or apostate Christians. Do you guys hear
what I'm saying? You don't hear this much apostasy. I remember sitting in a pastor's
conference about eight years ago and a professor of theology
from a certain seminary in California, I won't name it because it's
liberal, was there to encourage us to believe. There's a bunch
of my Reformed pastor brethren. We have what was called the Whitfield
Fraternal. This is a fraternity of pastors. We gather together
in Iron Sharpen Iron. And we had a professor from one
of the seminaries coming to us, long-haired hippie guy. So you
know I'm already tripping, right? So he's sitting there trying
to persuade us that God is saving Muslims and Hindus and all kinds
of other people apart from the gospel. I'm sitting there going, what?
Apart from the gospel. And he's arguing for God can
do anything. I said, what? God can't do anything. God can only do what God can
do according to his nature, according to his will, and according to
his covenant. God can't lie. God can't change. God can't fail. God can't deny himself. God won't
operate outside of his own predetermined methods of saving people. Am
I making some sense? The true and the living God can't
do a lot of things that are inconsistent with who he is and what he has
purposed. Like God will not save apart
from the gospel. Are you hearing me? He will not
save apart from the gospel. He will not save apart from the
preaching of the gospel. He will not save apart from the
message of redemption through Christ alone. He will not save.
He will not save a man through another door and yet tell the
world Christ is the only door. You make my God a liar. You make
him a transgressor. You make the Holy Ghost a crook,
a scam, a hoodwink. If he's going to use any means
to bring people to God, am I making some sense? And then you make
my job and my missionary brother's job completely irrelevant. My
missionary brother would have to go all over the world, traverse
the whole world, deal with the pagan, deal with the heathen,
deal with the criminals, deal with the crooks to preach the
gospel to lost sinners. And the Holy Ghost is just saving
people any kind of way he wants. Are you guys hearing me? Are
you hearing me? The Hebrew writer is telling
us we need to be careful about the rank and pervasive apostasy
running all over the world. Now, let me just say this. Whenever
you start contemplating, well, how can God do that? How can he save people from every
nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue? Only through the narrow means
of gospel preaching. Once you start asking that question,
just back up, because the problem is with you, not God. He's given us His Word, and His
Word is the framework by which we think, act, and do. We don't
get to question the plausibility of God's method. God can do all
things within the framework of His purposes and His goals. I
can tell you stories if I wanted to waste time about how God saves
whole people groups by preserving them for the day that he raises
up or brings a missionary to them to preach the gospel to
them. The same God that raised up the
missionary knows how to uphold that people group until the missionary
gets there. Am I making some sense? Let me
go on. The apostle Paul plainly says,
or the writer, we're going to call him Paul today because that's
what I'm doing, okay? Here's what he says, 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
of the 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." The apostle
is speaking to the people of God about what may be considered
two very serious realities. One is a hypothetical reality. And that hypothetical reality
has to do with this. It is impossible for a man to
be authentically born again. This is the idea of being once
enlightened. Quickened by the revelatory work
of the Spirit of God in the conversion of the soul as 2nd Corinthians
chapter 4 six says God hath caused the light That's our word for
Tidzo That's our term for enlightened to foe Tidzo to cut the lights
on in the soul and give you a saving glimpse of the glory of God in
the person of Christ and and have you brought into a saving
relationship with him to only over time see you back away from
that truth to embrace a lie. His argument is if you were born
again by the once for all work of Jesus Christ accomplished
for your soul on Calvary Street and to back away from that or
to abandon that and embrace another gospel, it would be as it were
you are crucifying to yourself Jesus Christ all over again.
And the device or the language that the writer is using here
is especially catered towards the Jewish people because the
Jewish people were the people who actually crucified Christ.
And in their crucifying Christ, they were rejecting his claims
as Messiah, correct? Now we know that it was by the
predetermined counsel and foreknowledge of God that it was done. We know
that if we had been there, we had done it too, right? We know
that wicked hands took and crucified the Lord of glory. Nevertheless,
the guilt lay upon the conscience of the Jewish people who said,
we will have Caesar for our king. His blood be upon our hands.
And in their rejection of him, they had him killed. And for
the professing Christian who comes out of Judaism, being aligned
with, are related to, are associated with the people that actually
rejected Messiah. For them to turn away from the
only hope of glory and return again back towards religion.
Because this is really what the writer is concerned about as
we talked about last week. These Jewish people were the
folks who had the law, the covenants, and the promises. They had the
temple, they had the priesthood, they had the sacrifices, they
had the offerings. They had the law of God, they had all of the
ceremonies, right? And they, by virtue of the power
of the gospel, were moved away from those things to see them
for what they really are, only types and shadows and symbols
of the reality that's in Jesus. You guys believe that? The Old
Testament was a type and shadow and symbol pointing to the reality
that's in Christ. And when Christ came, God calls
every man everywhere to repent and believe on Christ as the
ultimate consummation of the works of the law. To reject God's
proposition that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believes is for men and women to only have
as their alternative works religion to get right with God. And what
he was saying to his Jewish brothers and sisters was, we see some
of you drifting back. We see some of you returning
again. We see some of you questioning whether or not the sufficiency
of the atoning work of Jesus Christ is enough for your soul.
We see you questioning faith over against words. We see you
questioning grace over against the law of God. We see you questioning
things and we see you drifting back. We are here to tell you
that it would be impossible, it would be impossible, it would
be just as impossible to renew you again to repentance as it
would be for Jesus to have to come back Assume another human
nature, live a perfectly righteous life, die a perfectly righteous
death as a sin atoning sacrifice for your soul. Christ died once. He put away sin by the sacrifice
of himself once. The soul is renewed by the once-for-all
sacrifice of Christ. If somehow you can extricate,
abandon, as it were, shirk off the benefits of the atonement
of Christ and, as it were, perish under the wrath or go back to
a sinful state, you cannot be renewed to repentance. That's
the warning in the text. Now, theologically, we call that
a hypothetical, don't we? Why is it hypothetical? Because
when one is truly born again, You cannot ever degenerate back
to a lost estate. The illuminating work of the
Spirit of God and the conversion of the soul is a permanent work,
isn't it? To be born again means you never,
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever have to be born again. Did you get that? But if it were
possible, and some of our religious churches teach this, don't they?
You can be saved and you can lose your salvation. They teach
that because they don't understand the permanency of the atoning
work of Jesus Christ in terms of the redemption of the soul
of the sinner. So they would teach a hypothetical that we
would say could not be true. Now there's another angle at
this, which I have developed in our outline, for which it
is a worthy, worthy consideration. So in our fourth point, I say
a rejection of the building process is a return to the foundation,
i.e., chapter 6, verses 4 and following, a rejection of the
building process. What do I mean? By standing upon
the gospel and its initiatory claims of repentance and faith,
recognizing that Jesus Christ is the basis for your salvation
in total, that the sacrifice of Christ corresponding to the
Old Testament sacrifices, is what puts away your sin. That
the judgment that you should face Christ endured for you so
that on the last day when you meet God, you will meet God in
a state of perfect righteousness and will never have to face the
judgment of God in terms of eternal damnation. Are you guys hearing
what I'm saying? Those are the fundamentals upon which we build
our life. But if you were not to build
upon that truth, it might very well be that you don't see the
eternal verity of those gospel principles as something with
which not only are you to establish yourself firmly, but that you
are to constantly inculcate and build from every other profound
theological truth. And so it is, there are people
who come to church, hear the gospel, and ostensibly appear
to be Christian, only to gradually drift away. Is that true? And then these people show up
again in your life in some bizarre providential way and talk about
they are into Zen Buddhism, or Hinduism, or some New Age mysticism. And you know what Christian folks
say? Well, they used to be saved. No, they weren't. They only had
a form of godliness. They appeared to know the truth. And the litany of arguments that
we would give are the examples in Scripture, which are designed
to warn you and to warn me. I mean, they're in your outline.
I think about people who have been brought nigh to the kingdom
of God through the gospel and allowed to learn basic fundamental
truths of the word of God. And in some cases, intellectually,
they may be sharper than those of you who are real believers,
being able to recite and spout off certain doctrinal truths.
And for them, there was a kind of illumination that took place
there. Are you hearing what I'm saying? I remember the Old Testament
Balaam. I don't know if you remember
Balaam. We won't go there. Do you know what the text says?
He was the man who had his eyes opened and he saw visions of
God. He was even moved by God to declare
gospel truth concerning Shiloh and the star that should come
and Messiah and made a clear distinguishing a case for the
elect of Israel over against all the other people of the world.
He preached and declared sound doctrine. But he wasn't born
again. He wasn't renewed by the Holy
Ghost. He wasn't regenerate. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
Then we can go on with other cases too. One of the cases that
should shake us all in our boots, particularly when we are in places
of leadership, is an individual like Judas Iscariot. How do you
have the privileges of a Judas Iscariot for three and a half
years with the preacher, Expositor, scholar, master par excellence. Who was both a theologian and
a master and a perfect example of the glory of God in one. He
was the specimen of perfect Christianity. There was nothing that could
have distracted the disciples from him by virtue of his intrinsic
weaknesses or flaws or sinfulness as you and I are. You and I are
like clouds. in the sky. We jack people up
just because of who we are by nature. As gifted as we may be
in our ability to teach and preach and be good witnesses to you,
I trouble you sometimes. And you trouble me too. Be sure
of it. because of our humanness, right?
And yet God still uses me. He still uses you. So he saves
sinners through the mucky waters of broken sinners who have been
born again. So you gotta weed through the
clouds to get to Jesus through my teaching. Because I'm in the
way sometimes. You are too. But that wasn't
the case for the 12 apostles. They saw the glory of God in
the person of Christ unaffected. Judas Iscariot was made to be
a partaker of the Holy Ghost, to taste of the good word of
God, to experience the illuminating work of the gospel, even to be
involved in ministry. Just because you're a preacher
doesn't mean you saved. Are you hearing me? He actually
had his tag up on the door, the Apostle Judas. You know, they
all had offices, right? But they had to take his tag
down because he was a son of perdition, a child of the devil,
and he never was saved. See, this talks about how deep
you can be catechized into biblical truth. Ladies and gentlemen,
listen to me. What's your point, Pastor? You must ever make your
calling and election sure. You must never presume upon God. You must never ever presume that
you have a ride. The moment you stop having a
diet for the glory of God, for the truth of God, for the gospel
of God, for the word of God, for the depths that that word
is able to take you to, you are in danger of sliding backwards. Are you hearing me? I can take
you to other cases. The apostle Peter made it very
clear in second Peter chapter two, very clear. that the swine
who has been washed from the wallowing in his mire over time
returns back to his vomit because his nature wasn't changed. Though
he came to church, he got baptized, he learned the doctrines of grace,
he was telling everybody about Jesus, but he wasn't born anew. Am I making some sense? Now,
really what the exercise is here is around how do we distinguish
authentic Christianity vital saving faith in the life of a
man or a woman versus a mere profession of faith of which
anybody in an unsafe state can adopt. This is where we are,
aren't we? This is where we are and this
is where I want us to consider it as we wind down this message.
How do we distinguish between the kind of person who has a
form of godliness but denies the power, obviously denies the
power. We distinguish it by moving to our further point, and that
is in point number four, the writer actually deals with an
illustration that will kind of help you if you want to kind
of move away from the fearful language of apostasy given to
us in verse six. He used an analogy in verse seven
and eight this way. For the earth which drinks in
the rain, that comes oft upon it and brings forth herbs, meat
for them by whom it is dressed, receives blessing from God. But
that which beareth thorns and briars is what? And is nigh unto
what? Whose end is to be born. Now
what he does is he gives us an object lesson through the allegory,
or analogy rather, of agriculture. Here's what he says. The ground,
remember the Lord gave the parable of the sower and the seed? The
ground, has received the blessing of the Word of God. That's the
water coming down from heaven. My word is like water that comes
down from heaven, right? Like the word that comes down
upon the ground, the ground is experiencing something of the
grace of God, something of the power of God, something of the
gospel of God. It's experiencing it. Now the
ground is divided into two categories. Are you ready? The one who actually
receives the Word that goes down into the soil actually germinates
and produces fruit. And the other that actually experiences
the outpouring of the word but does not receive it to the point
that it actually germinates the seed and produces fruit. Now
here's the ominous warning. They both experience externally
the same means of grace. Are you hearing me? They both
came under the preaching of the gospel. They both were taught
the word of God. They both entered into the fellowship
of the saints. They both saw the work of the
Holy Ghost in the life of the people of God in the church.
They saw other folks actually get saved. They saw other folks
actually turn from their sins. They saw other folks repenting
and embracing biblical truth and committing to a walk with
Christ. They even saw other folks growing and maturing and coming
into a place of being useful for God. Let me say this as we
get ready to close out on our last point. Those of you who
are new in the faith, don't be distracted by your brothers and
sisters sitting on the left side of you or the right side of you
who've been in the church for 5,000 years. Don't be distracted. Don't be deceived by the fact
that they've been in the church a long time and you are struggling
with how come they don't appear to have the commitment and the
zeal and the passion and service that accompanies salvation. Don't
be distracted by them. Don't let their life, which falls
in the category of being dull and slothful and careless about
the things of God, cause you to stumble. You pursue God with
all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Encourage them if you
may if they don't like it leave them alone Go find somebody else
to encourage say come let's run this gospel race looking unto
Jesus Who is the author and finisher of our faith? God help me get
away from anybody that wants to slow me down From getting
to know you being more rooted and committed to you Don't let
me be distracted by the church folk that's been in the way a
long time Are you hearing me Because they'll cause you to
stumble. The folks who are moving from faith to presumption because
they understand the doctrine and they've been in the church
since we started the church and I, you know, I've been through
all that. My zeal, my zeal is there. You just don't see it.
Ain't no such thing as a zeal that's there and you don't see
it. Sorry. Zeal from God is supernatural and it's a flame that does not
go out. Did you hear me? It's supernatural. It is a flame that does not go
out for it proceeds from the nature of God. God is a consuming
fire. We're down in the dark cavernous
terrain of the black propositions that we are apostates. I understand
that. We have to look at it. You have
to look at it. You have to examine yourself,
ladies and gentlemen, whether or not you are in the faith or
not, except you be reprobate. You and I have to pass through
these portions of Scripture and say, am I a Judas Iscariot? Am
I a Balaam? Am I one of those people of whom
Peter is speaking of? See, really what we're talking
about, children of God, is the difference between a mere profession
of faith and the perseverance that true faith demonstrates. True faith demonstrates perseverance. Do you understand that? See,
if I wanted to use another analogy, my time is almost up. I would
say that you and I are in the epicenter of the writer's warning,
and he has dropped now a strong theological plumb line into the
water, and it's reverberating outwardly. And you're going to
hear this again in chapter 8. You're going to hear it again
in chapter 10. You're going to hear it again in chapter 12.
And in the closing lines of chapter 13 too, you're going to hear
it again because the gospel when it is faithfully proclaimed to
you must always come with warning those of us who are privileged
that your privileges also come with enormous responsibilities
to take your God seriously. Are you hearing me? It's very
important because the one thing that religious folk can be draped
with is presumption that they're all right with God because they
think they know See the Hebrew writer does not want them to
Miss the blessing of which if we make it through chapter 6
and y'all show up again in the next few weeks We'll get to enjoy
the blessing so he warns with the illustration and warning
that we have in verses 7 and 8 that the source II principle
is that It's the same sower that sows the seed. It's the same
seed that's sown, but it's different soil upon which that seed is
sown. And you and I have to be careful
about corporate association with the gospel versus personal experience
with the gospel. We have to be careful about us
being part of the society of faith and not actually being
spiritually vital in our union with God. Is that all right?
We have to be careful about having this sort of partial relationship
rather than total commitment. We have to be careful that you
and I are not playing the same historical legacy that national
Israel did for while God brought them out of Egypt, physically,
their hearts were still in Egypt spiritually. We have to be careful
about that. And you get these warnings all
through the New Testament. So let me say this, a true change,
a true change is a slow, but growing and permanent change. You better write that down. We
talked about that in the Friday study, the danger of folk telling
you to hurry up and grow up. Christianity is a ministry where
God deals with you in a temperate way of continual and gradual
development of biblical truth. And it's slow enough So you can
actually appreciate the way God works in your life. And so you
won't steal God's glory because you're brighter and smarter than
somebody else. Are you hearing me? So God's very patient with
us, very patient with us. And he develops us over, in many
cases, decades. You know how when you're a teenager
or pre-teenager and you just can't wait to be 21? Let me get
21 now. You got to wait. You just got to wait. If you're
16, it's going to take you five years to get 21. If you're eight,
it's going to take you much longer to become 21. You simply have
to, what's the word? And wait is another form of faith. And so what real Christians know
is that God works through patience to build into the saints character.
to build into them discipline, to build into them perseverance,
to build into them perspective, to build into them priorities
of calling and purpose and usefulness. Am I making some sense? And for
the believer who is maturing in the faith, he or she or they
are much more inclined to want to develop those characteristics
in their life so that they can be much more useful. They want
to, in effect, as Peter said in 2 Peter chapter 1, make their
calling in election sure. But when the scripture says,
add to your what? Faith. Virtue. And add to your
virtue knowledge and to your knowledge temperance. and to
your temperance self-control, and to your self-control charity,
and on and on and on. These accompanying fruits of
vital faith. He's calling you to go deep and
be patient with God to grow you up. But it's not done apart from
the consistent, ongoing, continual means of grace. Listen, if you
get away from God, you're not going to grow. You're going to
be retarded. That's what I meant earlier.
I'm almost there. That's what I meant earlier. Somebody come to you
two years in faith and they have drank deep of the Word of God.
And you've been on a vacation for 20 years. And they come ask
you a very basic gospel question and embarrass you because you
haven't walked diligently with the Lord your God and drank deeply
of the Word of God and grown in maturity consistent with the
years you have professed to be a believer. They're going to
embarrass you and rightly so. For when the time is that you
should be teachers, you have someone to teach you all over
the basic truths of the gospel. Now, having dealt with that,
let me rush to my last point and I'll leave it off here. Point
number five. According to chapter 6, verses 9 through 12, the elect
will go on and build a salvation testimony. Is that what you're
saying? According to our text, here's
what the writer is sure of. that the elect will go on and
build a salvation testimony. This is where I'm done. And I
thank God for this portion of scripture. And I thank the writer
because the writer is mature enough to know that while he
is warning the people of God, he is actually making a category,
distinguishing between those who will fall away and those
he know will take heed to his words. Watch what he says. He says over in verse 9, these
words, He says, but beloved, we are persuaded better things
of you. What better things than that
of receiving the rain upon the ground and it bringing forth
nothing but thorns and briars. You got that? We are persuaded
of better things than you. Now watch what he says. Things
that accompany what? Salvation. Ah, salvation has
company. You got that? Salvation has accompanying
Evidences Here's what he says We are persuaded of better things
than that of you those things that accompany salvation Even
though we're speaking the way that we are speaking We are warning
you but we are persuaded those among you who are truly saved
there are accompanying fruits of salvation that will affirm
your diligence and I want you to mark what he says here in
these words and I want you to mark this in verse 12 is going
to be sort of the capstone of our contemplation today under
the warning that you and I, if we are not careful to make sure
that we are authentic believers, apostasy is certain. Verse 10,
for God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of
what? Do you understand that the evidence
of what it means to be a true believer is to grow in grace
and in the knowledge of the Lord and to find yourself in the company
of the saints laboring out of love and working out of faith?
Do you see that? Do you see that? Do you see that there is no security
for the person who says he's born again but he is outside
of the community of the faith kind of operating as a maverick
doing whatever they want to do? That the accompanying fruit of
a true and authentic salvation is that you grow up and become
part of God's kingdom, purpose, His agenda, and the salvation
of sinners? That is being part of local bodies
by which the gospel is advanced to everybody that comes in earshot? that a mature believer will always
be part of a vital gospel church where the gospel is preached.
For what is most passionate for God is the salvation of sinners
through the means of the exaltation of his son Jesus Christ. Through
the means of grace that is the preaching and the teaching and
the worship and the fellowship of the saints of the living God.
When you get a grip how God has purpose to save sinners through
this means and You understand how privileged you are to wake
up every day to pray for the people of God To participate
with the people of God in the cause of the glory of God Concerning
his son Jesus Christ and the salvation of sinners and the
edification of the Saints you will be utterly amazed that God
saved you and out of that darkness and brought you into the kingdom
of God and allowed you to be part of the commonwealth of Israel. Amazed! Amazed! That God has opened your eyes
and given you an understanding and has brought you in and settled
you down and grew you up and nurtured you and given you a
security for eternity and then gifted you to bless your family
and bless others around you with the grace of God. You will be
amazed! And then your heart will fear
for those who don't get this principle. Listen to it. For God is not unrighteous to
forget your work and labor of love, which you have showed towards
what name? Uh-huh. See, every true believer
knows the motive for which we serve. Don't let anybody jack
you up and call you a legalist or self-righteous or that person
is working for his salvation. Perish the thought. God give
me the ability to serve you 28 hours a day. Give me the ability to speak
for your honor everywhere I go. Let me worship you every day. Let me preach the gospel seven
days a week. Let me talk to a law center everywhere
I go. Let me encourage a weak saint
everywhere I go. Let me help the brother that's
in a pit everywhere I go. Help me to serve you until I
breathe my last breath. Anything short of that, I have
to ask the question. Have you ever seen the glory
of God? Has the God-man Jesus Christ
revealed His glory to your heart? Can you think of a better way
to waste your life than in service to King Jesus? the great high
priest and prophet and king that brought you into Jerusalem, gave
you his righteousness, filled your heart with his peace, allowed
you to overflow with the joy of the Spirit of God, opened
your mouth to share the gospel with people. How can you find
a better thing to do than that? That's it.