Hebrews chapter 6 is where we're
continuing our study. And let's go back up in verse
1, Hebrews chapter 6, and begin in verse 1, and read down through
verse 6. Therefore, leaving the principles
of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on into maturity, perfection,
not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works
and of faith towards God, the doctrine of baptisms and laying
on of hands and of the resurrection of the dead and of eternal judgment.
And this will we do if God permit. Now here will be our text tonight. For it is impossible for those
who were once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift
and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted the
good word of God and the powers of the world to come If they
shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance, seeing
they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him
to an open shame." We'll probably have two or three more studies
on these verses here, but some of these verses are somewhat
difficult. There's been the professing church
now for centuries have been discussing these things, You've got good
men on every side of the issue in these verses. And since that
is the case, it would probably do us good to approach these
verses with some humility and not get so presumptuous to believe
that we know everything that they teach. I come here this
evening to study these things. I've studied them for years.
I've preached on this several times. But I've approached it
anew. I went back over it and just
looked at it again and see if I could get any more light from
it. We've got, I guess we could call
them Calvinists and Armenians, for you who know what that means. They're on two different sides
of this issue, naturally. The Armenians look at this, and
they take great joy, for the most part, in saying, we told
you so. We told you so. The Calvinists look at it, and
I wonder sometimes if most of them look at it objectively.
They come to it, I think, with an intent to prove a system or
something. But I come to you tonight hoping
just to look at this objectively and make some comments on it. This passage in the 10th chapter
of the book of Hebrews has been the occasion of great affliction
of conscience for some of God's true children. They have looked
at this and they've looked at this Word. It's impossible if
we fall away to renew us again to repentance They've taken a
fall that they've fallen, they've fallen into sin, they've fallen
into unbelief and their hearts are broken, but they think they've
fallen away. And they misunderstand that every
fall is not a fall in a way. But they're greatly afflicted
about that. Dear John Bunyan went for a long time and thought
that he'd committed the sin against the Holy Ghost. And there's been
other true believers that thought that. And they've looked at the
same thing with this and thought, well, I've fallen, so there's
no hope for me. It's impossible that I could
ever raise again. But who among us hasn't fallen? If you've been on the road very
long, you're conscious of that. You may not have fell openly
into outward sin, but in your heart you've fallen. You've fallen
into unbelief. You've fallen into fear. You've
fallen into doubts, darkness. So there's probably not a one
of us, I know there's not a one of us, but have fallen. And this
is not only our experience. Man, you look on the old saints
in the Bible, and you see men who were just men, fallen. Look at Noah, laying in his drunkenness. And if anybody can condone that,
I don't know what to say about them. We were just talking about
Lot before we come in with the incest with his daughters. And
look at David, at the sin he fell into, and Solomon. And look
at Peter in the New Testament, denying the Lord Jesus. Look
at the Galatians. So, men have fallen. They have fallen. But there's
a vast difference in falling and falling away. And we shouldn't
be afflicted about that. The Scripture says this, and
I love what it says about the steps of a good man. And you
think, well, a good man will never fall. But listen to what
the Bible says about a good man. The steps of a good man are ordered
of the Lord, and he delighteth in His ways, though he fall. Though he fall into sin of some
kind, some nature, he shall not be utterly cast down. Why? The Lord will uphold him by His
right hand. The Lord will uphold him. How
many times has the Heavenly Father called out to His own children,
returning to Me, you backsliding children, and I will heal your
backsliding? Have you ever heard the Father's
voice say that to you? I have. You get cold and indifferent
or you've fallen and you think, boy, And then you hear that voice,
return, return, I have redeemed thee. And what do you say? Behold,
we come unto thee, for thou art the Lord our God. If every fall was fallen away,
then none of us would have any hope, because we've all fallen. If they shall fall away, he said,
it's impossible to renew them again unto repentance. If a man
falls away from the only source of salvation, How can he possibly
be saved? He can't, can he? It's impossible
to be saved. If salvation is in Christ alone,
if I manage some way to get out of Christ, then I can't be saved. It's impossible to renew me again
unto repentance. It's that salvation which is
of the Lord, and if that's not enough to save me, then I'll
be lost forever because there's no other salvation. It's impossible
to be saved. If these Jewish believers, the
Apostle here is writing to, were thinking about forsaking Christ,
if they had it in their minds that they would go back to the
temple worship and back to Moses and back to the ceremonial law
and forsake Christ, then Paul is writing to them and he's saying
to them, if you can do that, if you can do that, then you
have brought Christ to just as much open shame as those Jews
who crucified Him there on Calvary's tree. That's an awful thing to
think about, isn't it? It's impossible. It's impossible. True apostates, it's not that
they one time fall. Apostates go back to their sin
and they remain there. They remain there. They never
come back. They are true apostates. This is what Paul is telling
them, and he's told them more than once in the passage here
that we've already studied. Hold fast the confidence. Hold fast your confidence. Your
confidence in God. Your confidence in Christ. Your
confidence in the Word of God. Hold fast your confidence. For
how long? Until the end. Until the end. When we start keeping these passages
here in chapter 6 in their context, we can see what He's doing. He's
urging them on, and if He has to urge them on with some fear,
then He's going to do it. Hold the beginning of your confidence
steadfast until the end. Cast not away your confidence
which hath great recompense or reward. That's what He's already
told them in this book. The Bible teaches two things
concerning the eternal life of the believer. You'll find these
two things, and they're not opposed one to another. One is that he
has eternal life right now. It's given to him of the Lord
Jesus Christ as a gift. I give unto them eternal life,
and they shall never perish. They have life right now. He
that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting
life, and shall never come into condemnation, but is passed from
death unto life." That's the first thing about the life of
the believer. And the second thing about it
is this, those who truly believe must persevere until the end
of their life. And these don't oppose one another. They don't contradict one another.
their company, their brothers. The same Lord who said, They
shall never perish, also said, He that endeareth to the end
shall be saved. Christ said, All that my Father
giveth Me shall come to Me, and I shall lose nothing, but raise
it up again at the last day. Also said, He that will come
after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow
Me. Both of these are true. These
are just true. The promises of God secure us. They encourage us. They comfort
us, don't they? Don't you love those passages
that says, these things are right unto you that believe on the
name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal
life? This is the promise that He's
promised us, even eternal life. And we look at those promises
and those encourage us. They comfort us. Joe got a text
from our son. And I wish he understood this.
My children know Scripture and sometimes they'll send me a card
or something and they'll quote a Scripture or give a verse of
Scripture. They know so much about the Scriptures, but they
don't know the Lord. And my son sent us a text. And
he put on there Philippians 1.6. Joe said, so do you remember
what that says? I said, yeah, being confident
of this one thing. that He which hath begun a good
work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. That's
a promise and we love those, don't we? And here's another
aspect of our life. We know that we must not leave
Christ. We know that we must cleave to
Him and believe in Him and hope in Him until we die. The one
comforts us, and the other one keeps us from presumptions. It
keeps us from presuming. David said, Lord, keep back my
soul from presumptuous sins. And you know, there's a lot of
that going on today, isn't there? People live in any way they want
to live. And they say, well, I'm a believer.
Live an ungodly life. But the Scriptures not only teaches
that life is a gift of God, it teaches at the same time, those
who have it, they persevere until the end. And that's what the
Apostle Paul is telling us here. I remember when I was a young
believer, we had, especially among the Baptist churches, the
fundamental Baptist churches, they had this doctrine that they
called eternal security. And it was big, especially among
the fundamental Baptists, But they had corrupted the true security
of the saints. And I began to see that when
I was a young believer. You would talk to a man or a
woman that had been living in open sin for 20 years, and they
would say, well, I'm secure. And his pastor had taught him
that. His mom and dad had taught him
that. And he was a drunk. He was a blasphemer. But he made
a profession of Christ twenty or thirty years ago. And he has
the promise of eternal life. And you ought to believe it.
And that's what they call eternal security. I was reading J.R. Rice. He was one of the big evangelists
back then. He's dead now. But I was reading
a letter that a man wrote to him. And a man said, I can't
stop using God's name in vain. And it was awful. It was awful
the way he was using God's name. In vain, he said, I've tried
to stop and I can't stop. Does that mean I'm not a child
of God? And Mr. Rice wrote back to him,
and I read the letter and wrote back to him and said, No, that
just means you're a weak believer. You mean when the Lord saves
us, He doesn't stop us from using God's name in vain? We can't
quit blaspheming God? Well, we can't, but we're still
secure. And that doctrine came in, that false view of the true
security of the saints, but it was at the expense of perseverance. And that's what the book of Hebrews
is correcting, if nothing else. That's what it's saying. Yes,
we're secure in Jesus Christ, and we'll look at that next week.
But there's this other aspect. Holding your confidence steadfast
until the end. I think of all the books of the
Bible, especially the New Testament books. The book of Hebrews teaches
perseverance of the saints more than any other of the epistles.
That's what we see here, the need of perseverance. It's either
persevering in the faith or falling away. That's where it comes down
to. Holding your confidence steadfast
to the end or letting go and dying forever. That seems to
be what this book faces us with. The book of Hebrews. teaches
the perseverance of the saints. They have begun by putting their
confidence in Jesus Christ the Lord and Savior. Now they must
hold that confidence to the end. They have been given a good hope
through grace. Now they must live in the exercise
of that hope the rest of their lives. They have looked to Christ
and been saved by Him. Look unto Me and be ye saved.
Now they must continue to look unto Him, the author and finisher
their faith. If they cast away their confidence
in Christ, Paul is telling them here, then you're in trouble.
Then you're in trouble. If they lose that hope that had
been given to him, if they cease to look to Christ alone, if they
fell away from that salvation which God had already bestowed
upon them and did not keep it and carry them through this world
and bring them to heaven, then they would be lost forever. There
is but one way of salvation. If we lose that, we're gone forever. We're gone forever. And I think
that's what the book here is teaching us. It's impossible
if they shall fall away to renew them again and to repent. It's
difficult to find a commentator that will be honest, to my opinion,
about these verses of Scripture. Like I said just a minute ago,
if you look at the Armenians, those we call the Armenians,
most of them seem to be rather happy that these verses are here
and they know what it teaches. That a true believer can fall
away. I have Adam Clark. I read Adam Clark a lot, not
because so much I like him, but Mr. Spurgeon said, if you want
to know what the Armenians believe, then read Adam Clark. And because
he's their chief spokesman for the Armenians. So that's why
I keep him. And I pretty much hear people talking about Adam
Clark. And I say, well, I know what you believe. I know what
you believe, if you listen to Adam Clark. And here's some of
the things that he says about this verse. He said, He said, I'm more than happy
to say. Now listen to this, I'm more
than happy to say. Now, who could say this about these verses?
You can go home and read, if you've got Adam Clark, you'll
find this on these verses. These verses teach the fallen
away of a child of God. The design of these solemn words
is evident, first to show the Hebrews that apostasy from the
highest degree of grace was possible. and that those who were highest
in the favor of God might sin against Him, lose it, and perish
everlastingly." Now think about this just a minute. Those who
are in the highest degree of grace may sin against God and
perish everlastingly. Those who are in the highest
favor of God may sin against Him and perish. You know what
he's saying? Even Paul might perish. Even John, even Mary,
and Lazarus, and Martha, whom Christ loved, may perish. Mary,
the mother of our Lord, may perish. Those that are in the highest
degree may sin against God and perish everlastingly. He says something else about
this. He said, there is a fearful possibility of falling away from
the grace of God, and if this Scripture in verses 4 and 6 did
not teach so, then there are so many others that do. And everywhere you go, it even
has any shadow of a doubt about whether a child of God can fall
away or not. He always takes that side. He
always takes that side. And I said that to say this,
when he comes here to this passage, he can't look at this passage
objectively because he's got these preconceived notions in
his head. That's what it teaches. But then
on the other side, you have your dear Calvinist brethren. They
can't approach this hardly with any objectivity either because
they have a system to defend. And if this seems to teach that
a true believer can fall away, then what they say is, well,
these folks really weren't even saved. You read Calvin and he
says these are almost Christian. John Bunyan, you read John Gill,
and you read Arthur Pink, and these are almost Christians.
They've gone a long way in religion, but they're not Christian. And
they give the Scriptures for that. I'm not saying anything
negative about either side. They give the Scripture for that.
But you know, as you look at these five things that he's mentioning
here, if you could take one or two of these things, if you could
take, for instance, the first one where He said, those who
were enlightened. If you could take just that one
and say, okay, they were just enlightened and they fell away,
okay, I can see that. Or maybe they tasted the good
Word of God and they fall away, I could see that. But to take
each one of these in order as He gives them and say, these
were almost Christians, I just can't see that. Now this is my
understanding. You may disagree with me, and
that's fine. And we may help each other and sharpen one another's
understanding. But if you come here and just
look at these objectively, and just read it as a child would
read it, don't you get the idea that these were saved people?
They're saved people. Now, just like I said, I'll be
honest with you, if it went just to be enlightened, You remember
Brother Larry taught on this not too awfully long ago about
the seed that was sown on those four types of ground. And one
of those seeds was sown on the rock. Remember that? The rocky
ground. And it had no root in itself. But they believed for
a while. And they received the Word with
joy. And they fell away, the Scripture
says they fell away. Mark chapter 4 and Luke chapter
8 says they fell away when persecution came. But that tells us something
there, that they understood, they had light because they received
the Word and it was good news to them. It said they received
it with gladness. But they had no root in themselves.
They had Christ, not in their hearts. And when persecutions
came, they fell away. That's what Mark said. The very
word he used here, they fell away. So if it was just hearing
the Gospel and saying, man, I believe that and I've got joy about it.
If that's all, then okay, that may happen. Or if it was just
based strictly upon knowledge. Let me show you this verse. Look
over in 2 Peter. Hold our text and look over in
2 Peter chapter 2. If it was just based strictly
upon knowledge, Somebody came to the knowledge
that salvation was in Christ alone. And it had a tendency
to bring them out of this corrupt
world for a while. Then I'd say, okay, that may
happen. A person may hear the Gospel and it working him enough
to bring him out of the corruption of this world for a while. Listen
to how Peter says this. Look in 2 Peter 2. And look in
verse 20. 2 Peter 2 and look in verse 20. If after they have escaped the
corruptions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ, They must have did something for their
minds when they heard it. They came out of the world. They
said, man, I want out of this sin, out of all this corruption.
So they came out of that corruption for a while. But look at this.
They are again entangled therein and overcome. They fall into
temptations. The temptation overcomes them.
The world overwhelms them. And they are overcome to the
world. Now, are these believers? We have to compare Scripture
to Scripture, don't we? Who is he that overcometh the
world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?
True faith overcomes the world. Here's a faith that didn't overcome
the world. All they had was knowledge. And
then they get entangled in the world again and they're overcome.
The latter end is worse with them than the beginning. It had
been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness,
then after they had known it to turn again from the holy commandment
delivered unto them. But it is happening to them according
to the true proverb, the dog is turned to his own vomit again,
and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire." Now
the reason I read those to you is because most of the Calvinistic
brethren will go to those two places and they'll say, here,
see here, somebody was enlightened, And somebody had this knowledge
and they turned for a while. Well, that's true. But when we
come to our text, it's different. It is just different. And you
can't just take one or two of these, you take them all, and
you see a progression in these people. Now, turn back over and
let's look at it. Look here in Hebrews chapter 6, and let's
look at these five things quickly. First of all, the one He calls
enlightened. You see the progression here.
For it is impossible, in verse 4, for those who were once enlightened. The word means to shine on, to
brighten up, to illuminate. God who commanded the light to
shine out of darkness has shined into our hearts. What is it? What's one of the greatest problems
wrong with us by nature? Darkness, aren't we? Our hearts
are in darkness. What do we need? We need light. We need Shannon to see. We can't
see the lost estate or awful condition. We can't see the remedy
out of it. We need light. Somebody said,
we're just like the world, that old creation that was without
form, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and God said,
let there be light. That's what we need is light.
And they were enlightened. God sent light into their minds
and enlightened them. They began to see the truth.
They that sat in darkness saw a great light. That's the first
thing that happens to you. You have no other experience
unless it follows this giving of light to your heart, to your
understanding. I've seen people come unto the
gospel, they were ignorant as they could be of their lost estate,
they were ignorant of the way of salvation, and the first thing
they begin to understand, oh, I'm lost. I am lost. And then they see this, Christ
is the Savior. Their minds are being enlightened.
And Paul prayed for the Ephesians. He said, I pray for you that
God would give unto you the spirit of illumination, that you may
know what is the hope of your calling. Enlighten your understanding. That's what this word here means.
Your understanding is enlightened. Now I said, you may take this
one by itself and say, well, these weren't really saved. But
as we progress, you can see a progression here. Paul used this word here,
enlightened, different times. In Ephesians 3.9, he said, "...to
make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery which
has been hid in God." See, that's what that word enlightened means.
It means to see. Now I see. I once was lost, but
now I see. Timothy chapter 2 and verse 10,
he said this, Christ has come and abolished death and brought
life and immortality to light through the Gospel. Light through
the Gospel. And that's our problem, isn't
it? We need light. These have been enlightened.
Paul tells them in chapter 10, called to remembrance in the
days before you were illuminated, you were enlightened, you were
in darkness. So that's the first thing. And then this just naturally
follows it. The second one naturally follows
it. If you have been enlightened to see your poor need of salvation,
then what's the second one? You have tasted of the heavenly
gift. And if the Lord has brought us
to our lost estate and need, we won't be satisfied until we've
tasted of this heavenly gift. And what is this heavenly gift?
Well, it's Christ, isn't it? It is salvation by the Lord Jesus
Christ, by His grace. The Lord Jesus was talking to
that Samaritan woman, and He said, If you knew the gift of
God and who it was that was speaking unto you, you would ask of Him,
and He would give you the living water. The Lord Jesus said, Moses
gave you not that bread from heaven, but My Father giveth
you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He which
comes down from heaven, and gives life unto the world. How much do you have to taste
Jesus Christ? How much do you have to eat of
Him to really taste of Him? To really be saved? You just
taste of Him. You just taste of Him. And the
moment you taste of Him, you have life. Oh, taste and see
that the Lord is good. If so be you have tasted And
dear brother John Gill said, they put it to their lips, but
that's all they did. No, they tasted. They tasted,
didn't they? They tasted that the Lord was
gracious. Look at the third one. Partakers
of the Holy Ghost. This word means to participate
in, to share with. It means a partner. Listen to
what Dr. Gill said about this verse. He
said, By the Holy Ghost is sometimes meant the gifts of the Holy Spirit,
ordinary gifts or extraordinary gifts, and so its meaning is
here. And men may be said to be partakers
of the Holy Ghost, to whom He gives wisdom and prudence in
things natural and civil, the knowledge of things divine or
ecclesiastical, in that external way, external way. The power
of working miracles, of prophesying, of speaking with tongues, and
of the interpretations of tongues for the extraordinary gifts of
the Holy Ghost seems chiefly meant here." Some of you have got a strange
look on your face, because that is strange. You know something? If dear brother Gil, whom I love
dearly, didn't have a point to prove, and he didn't have an
agenda and a system to defend, he would have never made that
statement. Partakers, Paul used it several times in this book.
And look how else he used it. Look at the other places he used
partaker. You're partaker of the heavenly
calling, chapter 3 verse 1. You're partakers of Christ. When
it says you're partakers of the Holy Spirit, it means you're
partners with Him. You participate with Him in this
great scheme of salvation. How do we do that? Well, it's
simple. God has sent forth the Spirit
of His Son into your hearts, crying, Father, Father. He's
the Spirit of God's Son and He's crying and we're crying with
Him. We're partners with Him. We participate
with Him. Father, Father. No, it means
more than just receiving a gift from Him to preach like Judas
did. Or maybe to heal like Judas did. When He said, You're partakers
of the Holy Ghost, it meant He's coming to your hearts. And He's
sealed you. and you're crying with Him, Father,
Father. The next one, four, you've tasted
the good Word of God. The good Word of God. The good
Word of God. This generation is so caught
up with their gadgets. I've said this before and I'll
say it again. If they got caught in a storm, and they had to sit
in their living rooms with nothing but a Bible in their hands, they'd
go start raving crazy. This generation would. They cannot
endure just to sit down and read God's Word. But these could. They loved it. They saw the nature
of God's Word, and what nature was it? Good. It was good. Listen to Psalms 119, 103. How
sweet! are thy words to my taste, yea,
sweeter than honey to my mouth." Will you go away? Lord, to whom
shall we go? You've got the words. You've
got the words of eternal life. The good Word of God. And fifthly and lastly is this,
you've tasted the powers of the world to come. Now what in the
world does that mean? They've tasted. the powers of
the world to come. They felt something in their
soul and it was very powerful. There's a world to come. And
they felt they had hope in it. And it was very powerful. Paul
said here in this very chapter in the last few verses, you have
fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope which is set before
you. And don't you know this hope
worked mightily in them? It purified their hearts. Don't
you find that when you live in the hope of the Gospel, that
it has a tendency just to take everything of this world away
from you? And it purifies your hearts? Works powerfully in you? Listen to how Paul said it in
Romans 15. The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in
believing that you may abound in hope through the power of
the Holy Ghost. What does it mean to abound in
hope? It means you feel the power of
it in your soul. It means you can say with Paul
and have God to bear witness to it, I am ready to depart and
to be with Christ, which is far better. Hope. There is a world
to come, brothers and sisters. There is a world to come. I am
telling you, when God will give us His Holy Spirit to live and
that hope of that world to come, it is a powerful thing on our
souls. That is why there have been so many martyrs of Christ
who died singing in the fire, shouting in the tubs of boiling
oil, because they entertained this hope in a world that is
to come. A young believer may not taste
this power like an old believer does. But these Hebrew believers
had been on the way long enough that they had tasted the power
of the world to come. Now, it would be easy to explain
this passage away as being almost Christians. If I could do that,
I would. And then I could answer verse
6 so easily. All I'd have to say is, these
were almost Christians, but they fell away. But it's more difficult
when you realize according to your own understanding that they're
really saved. Then it's more difficult, isn't
it? If a true believer falls away, he can never be saved again. He can never be saved again. What does that mean? What does
that mean? If a true believer, a true child
of God, one who is saved and fell away,
what would that mean? And I think this is one of the
things he would have us to think about. That means God, who loved
him yesterday, does not love him today. Now think about that. How horrible
a sin would this be if a Christian committed it? The blood of Christ,
who cleansed him from all his sin, will cleanse him no longer. All of his sins now are going
to start falling up on his head again. Christ was an advocate
and pleaded His cause yesterday, but He will not plead His cause
anymore. He has fallen away. The Holy
Spirit that had sealed Him has left Him, and now the devil has
returned to Him. He is a child of the devil again.
That is how horrible a thought this is if a true believer can
fall away. If this passage of Scripture
teaches us nothing else, it shows us the dreadfulness of this sin,
if indeed it could be committed. And sometimes I think about that
and it helps me. It helps me. Such a passage could
be used to secure God's children from falling. And here's what
I think the true meaning of this is. This Scripture goes a long
ways to secure the true believer from falling away. How many times has He said this?
Take heed. How many times has He told us
that? Take heed, brethren, lest there be any of you in that evil
heart of unbelief in the part of believing God. Let us fear,
He tells us in verse 4. So He's aiming at this, isn't
He? If you moved to a place and you
had little children and just outside your back door there
was a gorge that went down about 200 feet, would you warn your
children about that gorge? Well, sure you would. You'd get
them with a hand and you'd lead them out there and say, now children,
look down there. Look 200 feet over this gorge.
You see those rocks down there? If you fall over this gorge,
you'll die. You're dead. Does that mean you're
not going to watch your children? Why would you tell them that?
You use that means to keep them away from that gorge. Could that
be what this teaches? If you fall away, if you do fall
over that cliff, you can't survive it. If you fall away from Christ,
the only One that can save your soul, you can never be saved. You will never be saved because
there is no other Savior. The Lord keeps His children by
means, doesn't He? He keeps them by fear. I will
put my fear in their hearts. And what's the result of that?
They shall not depart from Me. If you and I were perfect beings,
if we didn't have this flesh to contend with and all the corruption
of that, the presumption that comes along with that, if we
didn't have hell opposing us and putting these twisted thoughts
in our minds, if we were perfect, we wouldn't need passages of
warnings. But we're not. And so God uses
means to keep His children, and this is one of the means that
He uses. We know there's people who profess
the Lord Jesus Christ and go back to their sins, to their
own shame and the reproach upon the Lord. Why do they do that? They don't fear. That's the chief reason. They
don't fear. We see it happen all the time. How many of you
have seen? I have seen multitudes go back to their sins. And you
go to them and talk to them and you cannot persuade them, don't
do this. Why? They don't fear. If you were standing with those
apostles that day in John chapter 6 and you saw all the multitudes
leaving the Lord Jesus Christ, knowing that the Bible says they
walk with Him no more, And the Lord Jesus turned and said to
you, Clarence, will you follow Him? Clarence, will you go with
Him? Clarence, will you leave Me?
What would you think, Clarence? You'd be scared to death, wouldn't
you? You'd better be scared. When
you have an opportunity to leave Christ, you'd better be scared. When desire and opportunity come
together, we'd better fear. Because one of the meanings He
used is to keep us. It's this fear. He puts it in
our hearts. I want to read you one passage
in closing over in Acts chapter 27, which I think probably helps
to understand this pretty much. Acts chapter 27. You can leave Look at Hebrews and look at Acts
chapter 27 and look in verse 31. Here's where Paul and this
huge crew got into this typhoon and they were getting ready to sink.
The ship was getting ready to sink. And the Lord told Paul
that He had given him the men that was in this ship. He said,
I've given you all these men. Paul, they're yours. They're
all going to be saved. He done told him that. But these men, in verse 30, look
what they did. And as the shipmen, the sailors,
in Acts chapter 27 verse 30, were about to flee out of this
ship because they thought it was ready to sink. when they
had let down the boats, the lifeboats, the skiff, unto the sea under
pretense, under cover, as though they would have cast anchors
out of the ship. They were up there pretending
that they were putting out anchors, but they were letting down the
lifeboat. They were going to jump in that lifeboat and get
out of there. That's what they were going to try to do. And look
what Paul tells them in verse 31. And Paul said to the centurion,
he was over all of them, and to the soldiers, Except these
abide in the ship, You cannot be saved. If you fellas get over
the edge and go up in the water, you ain't going to make it to
shore. Your only security is in this ship. God has given me
all you men. But you've got to stay in the
ship. You've got to stay in the ship. Now let me ask you this
question. Did Him telling them this even
imply that some of these men weren't going to make it? Why
did He tell them that? Because that was the means God
was going to use to get them to shore. And how many of them
made it to shore? Do we know? Well, look at the
last verse. Look in verse 44. Look at verse
44. And the rest, some on boards,
and some on broken pieces of the ship. And so it came to pass
that they escaped all, say, Isn't that wonderful? And here we are
in the midst of these warnings, and sometimes they afflict our
minds, and we have these questions about them, and sometimes debating
with others about it, and we don't always know how to get
into deep detail on this. But brothers and sisters, when
the end has come, The story has been finished and God's purpose
has been accomplished and all the saints are around the throne
worshiping the Lamb. You know what's going to be said?
They're all here. They are all here. What about
these warnings? Well, obviously He's using them.
But we know what the Lord Jesus said, and we'll look more at
this next week. All that the Father gives to me shall come
to me, and I'll never cast Him out, and I'll never lose a watch. Clarence, would you dismiss us?