Hebrews chapter 6. Our topic this hour and the title
of the message is Assurance of Hope. Assurance of Hope. Those words are found here in
our text. Unlike those that preach a puny,
powerless, helpless Jesus in this world, we have hope. We have true hope. We have good
hope. We have a blessed hope, is what
it's called. An anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast,
as we'll read in a minute. We have a lively hope. Not because
of what we have done, or not because of what we have not done,
but because of what he has done. Who he is, and what he has done,
and who he did it for, is why we have reason to hope. Can you
imagine the Lord, I wrote this down to, this is obviously sarcastic,
but can you imagine the Lord speaking everything into existence,
coming down to earth, dying, putting away sin, ascending back
up to heaven, sitting down on his throne, and then saying,
okay, the rest is up to you. I've done the best I could. That's
what men preach today. That's what men preach today.
But there's so much falseness in that, so much falseness, and
if the sin's gone, it's gone, right? Somehow they view the
cross as being just a place where there's a bucket and you have
to bring your sin, pour your sin into the bucket in order
for them to be gone. Aren't you glad for the glorious truth of
the gospel that it is finished? It's not up to you. It's not
up to me. He's not waiting on us to do
our part. There's no hope in that, is there? Waiting on you
to do your part? There's no hope in that. But
thanks be to God, he performed all that was required, every
bit of it. He honored every law. He fulfilled every promise. He kept the covenant perfectly.
He alone endured the wrath of God. He alone shed his blood,
putting away the sin of his people, and he alone is seated as the
successful redeemer of his people. That is why we have hope. That is why we have hope. Let's
read our text, Hebrews 6, we're gonna read verse 11 through 20.
And we desire that every one of you do show the same diligence
to the full assurance of hope unto the end. That you be not
slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience
inherit the promise. For when God made promise to
Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he swore, he swear
by himself. saying, surely blessing I will
bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. And so after he
had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men verily swear
by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is to them an end
of all strife. Wherein God, willing more abundantly
to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel,
confirmed it by an oath that by two immutable things, in which
it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation
who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope that set before
us. Which hope we have as an anchor
of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that
within the veil. Whether the forerunner is for
us entered, even Jesus made a high priest forever after the order
of Melchizedek. When men speak of hope, they
speak of something that they would like to happen. Maybe sports
teams playing, you say, I hope my team wins. Well, that's a
possibility. Maybe they have a good percent
chance of winning. Maybe they're the best team and
they're playing the worst team, so the probability would be high
for them to win. But that's all that men can do
is hope in that regard, in that manner. The hope that's mentioned
here is the hope by faith. It's not a hope that says, well,
we hope that the Lord put away sin. No, we believe that. We
know that that's true. We hope because of who he is
and what he said and what he's done. We don't hope as in, well,
maybe it'll come to pass or maybe it won't. We don't hope that
maybe our car will get us home today and maybe it won't. That's
not hope at all. Now we believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and we hope in him because of who he is, what he said and
what he has done. Men speak of hope as desired
outcomes. Always a possibility of something,
not going the way that they think it should or not giving them
the outcome they expected. When it comes to the Lord's gospel,
our hope, it's not a possibility. God's not the God of possibilities.
He's the God of purpose. That's why we have hope. God's the God, God's not the
God of chance. God's not the God of luck. We
don't say good luck or that was bad luck. No, it's all purpose,
isn't it? It's all of the Lord, all by
him, his glorious design. No, he's not the God of luck
or the God of chance or the God of Maybe he's the sovereign God,
the omnipotent God, the immutable God. This is why we have hope. All things consist according
to his design. All things according to his design.
This is why we have hope. Now my question to us this morning
is what is our assurance of this hope? Now I've told us what our
hope is, the finished work of Christ, who God is, what he's
spoken, what he's done, that it is finished. That's our hope.
But what is our assurance of that hope? And that's what I
want to notice that was being written here. He talks about
the assurance of hope. Look at verse 17. wherein God,
willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the
immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that
by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to
lie, we might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay
hold upon the hope set before us, which hope we have as an
anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth
into that within the veil. What assurance of hope do we
have? Not only did God in his counsel determine to save Abraham,
his counsel's immutable, his counsel's unchangeable, his counsel's
unalterable, but he swore to Abraham by an oath. And who did
he swear that oath by? Himself. Himself. He could swear by no greater,
he swore by himself. That's our assurance. We believe
who God is knowing that he cannot lie and he swore to redeem his
people. He swore to do all of the work
and give salvation freely to his people by grace. He swore
that. This is our assurance of hope.
There are those today, like the writer is speaking of previously,
who mix the old covenant the old covenant of works, they say,
well, yeah, God promised to do that, but we have to do our part.
That's silly, isn't it? God promised it, but we have
to do our part. No, God promised it, and then he did it, and now
he just tells us what he did. He's seated. That's who he is. That's our assurance of hope. The hope of the elect is the
entire fulfillment of the covenant of grace, never depends on our
acceptance, never depends on our compliance, never depends
on our conformity, the entirety, the entirety, the entirety of
the fulfillment of the covenant of grace completely hinged upon
the Lord Jesus Christ, and it is finished. It is finished. The Lord's not looking for you
and I to contribute anything, but he looked to Abraham and
said, okay, Abraham, if you would like to, I would kind of like
you to move from where you're at, the Ur of the Chaldees, to
a place that you know not, and if you'll do this and this and
this and this and this and this and this, I'll make you a great nation.
No. He said, get thee up. That's how God talks. I love
that about our God, don't you? Get thee up. Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. receive thy sight. Well, he had
an opportunity to reject the sight. No, he didn't. The Lord's
the one that said received it. He received his sight. Whoever
the Lord dealt with, he dealt with as God. dealt with as God. That's who he is. And what did
he do? He promised to redeem his people. This great nation that he's talking
about to Abraham, this is not a physical nation. Yes, Israel
became a great nation. What was it? Three million, I
think, came out of Egypt at the time during Exodus or something
like that. But that's pretty big, but that's not what he was
talking about. He's talking about The star,
he said that they'd be, the number would be the stars of the sky
and the sands of the sea. And in Revelation, it calls a
number that no man can number. So who is he talking about? He's
talking about his chosen people. The same faith that was given
to Abraham was given to Isaac, was given to Jacob, all the way
down to you and I. Not because of a bloodline, not
because of what we do or we don't do, but because of the promise
given, the promise given to Abraham. That promise is our assurance
of hope because not only did God promise it, not only did
God ordain it, purpose it before time ever began, He created time
for the purpose of the promise. He created the world for the
purpose of the promise to come to pass and it came to pass.
Jesus Christ was born, born of a woman, born under the law to
redeem them that were under the law. And now we have been reconciled
back to God. That's why we have assurance
of hope. It's already been finished. It's already been finished. The
promise, if Abraham had assurance of hope from the oath that the
Lord took, we already know that it's been accomplished. How much
assurance of hope should we have? It's already came to pass. Abraham
believed it was going to come to pass. He was saved looking
to the cross, looking to Christ, who had not came to earth yet,
had not, was not crucified yet, but You and I have the book. It's written of him. It's already
finished. It's already come to pass. How
much assurance of hope should we have? The blessing, brethren, the blessing
of this glorious hope. Is that in order for Abraham
to be blessed? In order for Abraham to be blessed,
it was entirely dependent upon the Lord to do the blessing. And if he would have examined
Abraham prior to telling him get thee up, he would have found
what we can see in scripture as an idolater. He was a coward. He lied after the Lord had called
him. He told two different kings that his wife was his sister
because he was afraid for his own life. Oh no, she's my sister.
He didn't want to die. He's afraid, wasn't he? And yet
the scripture says Abraham believed God. Isn't that amazing? What
a hope we have. Is that your hope that you believe
God? But is it what you have done
to accomplish that? No, it's got to be bestowed freely
by grace. When it says Abraham believed
God and it was accounted unto him for righteousness, that word
is reckoned. It was reckoned the Lord calculated. He gave
him faith to believe. Righteousness was calculated
based upon the faith of Christ bestowed. That was his righteousness
was Christ. That's what he's saying. That's
why we have an assurance of hope that it's not found in you and
I in any way, shape or form. There's no hope in examining
self and saying, well, I just need to do a little better. I
need to get to church more often. I need to stop doing this and
start doing this. Morality is not a bad thing.
But it is an evil thing if done as part of salvation. If morality
is done as part of salvation, it's evil. It's taking the substitutionary
work of Christ and saying, he didn't do enough, I have to do
my part. We don't live the way we live in order to be saved.
Lord's people come to service. Lord's people worship him. The
Lord's people believe and live the way we live because we've
been saved. He is our righteousness. He is
our righteousness. I wonder, David said, thou art
my hiding place and my shield. I hope in thy word. I hope in
thy word. You're my hiding place, Lord.
You're my shield. I hope in thy word. I have no
hope in myself. I have no hiding place. I have no defense against the
powers of darkness. You don't either. The Lord Jesus
Christ, they are subject to him. He's our hiding place. He's our
shield. We hope in his word what he's promised. What he's promised
to the Father, what he's promised to his people. And he cannot
lie. Jeremiah 17, 7 said, Blessed
is the man that trusteth in the Lord and whose hope the Lord
is. Why? Why is the man blessed that
hope in the Lord, that trusts in the Lord? because salvation
was accomplished by the Lord. And he promised that in time
he would call every single one of his elect. He would save them
by his grace. He would say unto them, live,
live. And it's entirely based upon
the one who promised it. You know, salvation was never,
salvation was never dependent upon the one who the promise
was given. Salvation's never dependent upon
the one who the promise was given to. Meaning if the Lord says,
I'm gonna save you, it's not dependent upon you. It's not
dependent upon me. Salvation is dependent upon the
one who did the promising. Think about that. If you have,
even physically, if you make a promise to somebody, I'm going
to do this for you, you don't follow through with that promise,
number one the definition is a liar, right? I think that is
the proper term. But it is completely dependent
upon me to follow through my promise to you. And that is the
same with God. Here is the good news God can't
lie. Call His name Jesus for He shall save His people from
their sin. That is not complicated. He did. He saved His people from
their sin. He promised and He did it. That's
why we have assurance of hope. It's his oath. It's his word.
By two immutable things, we have the counsel of God, which is
unchangeable, unbreakable, unchallengeable. The counsel of God. You remember
over in Acts chapter two, I think it's verse 23, Peter said, you
have taken and with wicked hands have crucified and slain The
King of Glory, that's what he tells them. But he tells them
this to begin with, by the determinate counsel of God, you've taken
and with wicked hands have crucified and slain him. The determinate
counsel of God, there's nothing that can change that counsel.
That is God's counsel. In Genesis, he said, let us make
man in our own image. That was his counsel, wasn't
it? It's his counsel. That's one immutable thing. The
second thing is his oath, his word, he promised. So not only
did he determine it, then he swore that he was gonna do it.
And he cannot lie. What is it he promised to do?
He promised not only to elect a people, but he promised to
redeem those people, sending forth his son, born of a woman,
born under the law, as we've said already, to redeem them
that were under the law. Every single person that Jesus
Christ died for, he redeemed on the cross. He put away their
sin. It's gone. far as the east is
from the west, never to be remembered again. The father was well pleased
and resurrected his son, therefore we, that's evidence of our justification
right there. He was raised for, because of,
because of our justification. Justified freely by his own blood.
And now he's seated. And now he's seated. Everything
God has ever promised, he's done. He's done. He cannot lie. Romans 15, 13 says, now the God
of hope fill you with all joy and peace and believing that
you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost.
What greater hope could you have but the promise of God? Think
about your children, how that, or grandchildren, whoever, someone
young that looks up to you, if you promised them something,
to what effort would you do to get on that? Especially if it
was well within your power. I promise you next time I see
you, I'm going to bring a sucker. Think something simple like that.
You can obtain the sucker and take it to him. No problem. It'd
be pretty simple, right? If you forgot, they may forgive
you or understand, well, you're only human. You know, that's
something we hear all the time. You're only human. You make mistakes.
Not with God. When he promises something, he
does it. And nothing can stop him or prevent
him. He doesn't forget. Well, I have
to take that back, don't I? What did he say? He said, in
your sins and your iniquities will I remember no more. Why?
Because they're gone. He doesn't forget. They had to
go away, but they're gone. They're gone, never to be brought
up again. It's impossible for him to lie. It's impossible for
him to break a promise. Greatest promise ever made to
you and I, his people, was that he was going to save us. He said,
thou art Jacob. He said, I have formed thee.
I have clothed thee. I have bought thee. I have redeemed
thee. Thou art mine. Thou art mine. What did he, how many times we
read in the scripture, the Lord says, I am thy shield. I am thy
exceeding great reward. Who's going to break those promises.
I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake you. I'll
go with you all the way, even to the end. Come unto me, all
you that labor heavy laden, I will give you rest. All those are
promises to his people. We have a hiding place. We have
a surety. We have a sanctuary and his name
is the Lord Jesus Christ. All of those old cities of refuge,
you remember, The promise was, the law was given, all you had
to do if you were, if you had accidentally slayed someone,
the avenger of blood would come after you. All you had to do
was to get into one of those cities of refuge. And every one
of those, we can look, maybe we'll look at that sometime.
I don't know, there were six of them. But each and every one
of them, it's a name, it represents the Lord. Every one of them represents
the Lord. Tim James wrote something on
that. I hope I can put in the bulletin next week. So be looking for
that but Every one of them points to Christ. He's he's our city
of refuge We have the Avenger of blood coming after us which
is the law and The most interesting part is we couldn't have got
to the city if we wanted to he has to place us in the city He
has to place us in the city. And then, you know, the most
glorious part of the law that was given, when the high priest
dies, the high priest that was the high priest at the time the
crime was committed, when he dies, then the law is accomplished,
that that individual, the one that had committed the crime,
is free. He's free, his slate's wiped
clean. His slate no longer is viewed as a murderer or as a
killer. The avenger of blood can't come
after him anymore because the high priest died. This was the
law that was given. Brethren, our high priest. Did
he not bow his head on the cross of Calvary and give up the ghost,
said, Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit. And we were
in that city of refuge when that happened. Now the law is no longer
an avenger of blood for the Lord's people. We've been set free.
Think about all the glorious promises that he's given to us
being found in Christ Jesus. What assurance of hope we have. He says this, verse 16, he talks
about how that men Men will swear an oath, and it will end strife. It will end strife when men swear.
They make promises one to another. I remember one time there was
a kind of a feud going on between one of my family members and
a neighbor, and the idea was is the fence was over on their
property too far. It was like hundreds of acres
here they were talking about, so they were, I don't even know
what the issue really was, but nonetheless. One of them was
saying, this fence needs to be moved. And he said, it's my property.
And he was called on the other guy's land. And he said, no,
you need to get off my property. And so it became a big deal.
Well, one of them, finally, it came down to this. One of them,
after it was all established, OK, this is where the fence line
goes. He said, I'll tell you what, I promise I won't come
on your property anymore if you don't come on my property anymore.
And he says, OK. And they shook on it. And they
hadn't talked since then, but they were in peace. It ended
the strife. Why? I guess they trusted each
other enough to know that they weren't going to stab one another.
They would gain nothing by going on the other person's land. And
that's what he's talking about here when he says a promise of
man will end strife. How much more the promise of
our God ending the strife of our sin before his holy law.
Think about that. How much more the promise of
our God ending the strife and the enmity that we are against
God by nature. He promised it and it ended the
strife. We don't have strife with him
anymore. That's what he's saying right here. Second Thessalonians 2 16 says
now our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God, even our father, which
hath loved us and gave hath given us everlasting consolation and
a good hope through grace. This assurance of hope is never
looking to self, but it's looking to Christ and his promise. It's
not trying to end the strife yourself by promising God something. It's looking to the promise that
the father made and that the son made and that the spirit
made, knowing that that ends the strife, what they've accomplished. Not examining ourself or our
behavior, it's looking to the actions of Christ and believing
on Him, looking to the life of Christ, looking to the death
of Christ alone, looking to the blood alone. If you're doing
that, you've been given grace, grace to do so, grace and faith. You have assurance of hope. Turn
with me to Lamentations. Lamentations chapter three. between Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Lamentations 3 says in verse
21 through 26, this I recall to my mind, therefore have I
hope. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because
if compassions fail not, they are new every morning. Great
is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith
my soul, therefore will I hope in him. The Lord is good unto
them that wait for him and the soul that seeketh him. It is
good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation
of the Lord. What is your hope? Our hope is
great as his faithfulness. This do I call to my remembrance.
This do I recall. To my mind, therefore I have
hope. It's of the Lord's mercies that we're not consumed. It's
of the Lord's grace that we're not cast out. Great is thy faithfulness. We
don't hope in our faithfulness, do we? Not even a little bit.
We hope in his, who promised that he was faithful. The Lord is my portion, therefore
I hope in him. You know, we have nothing else
to hope in, do we? No work that we've done. No life that we've
lived. No, we hope in Christ alone. He's our only hope. There's no
other righteousness but his, no other way but his, no other
truth but him. We hope and wait quietly for
the salvation of the Lord. Scripture says this about hope.
Romans chapter eight, for we are saved by hope. But hope that
is seen is not hope. For what a man seeth, why doth
he yet hope for? Those that look for evidence
as their assurance of hope, they never have assurance of hope.
That which is seen, he just said, if you see it, he said, why would
you hope for it? Why would you hope for it? No, faith believes
Christ and hopes in him. Not looking for evidence in and
of ourself, but it believes his word. Not looking for evidence,
but seeing what has been accomplished. You want evidence, it would be
the resurrection, would it not? That would be it. We have the
account given. That's the only evidence that
we're gonna have. That's the only sign gonna be given. We hope in him and have assurance
of hope because of his word, because of the object of that
hope. The object of our hope, brethren, is immutable, unchangeable,
The object of our hope is God. It's the Lord Jesus Christ, Lord
and Savior of his people. He's the object. We have hope
in him alone. And in that hope, even in death,
he'll bring us safely through. We have hope in that. He said
he conquered death. He conquered hell. He conquered
the grave for his people. We hope in him. We believe in
him. Someone asked me, are you afraid
to die, recently? Are you afraid to die? And I
carefully considered the question. I knew I knew that if I said
the wrong thing, it could cause more of a debate than a, anyways, I didn't want to get
into a debate. I had no interest. I thought about, I answered,
we have a good example of our Lord dealing with religious people.
He answers questions with questions. That's what I did, answer question
with question. I said this, would a leper fear tomorrow if
he knew he would awake whole? Would a leper fear tomorrow if
he knew that going to bed he would wake up the next morning
whole? Would a convicted inmate on death row fear to go to sleep
if he knew that he would wake up the next morning and his record
would be completely clear? Completely clear. Would the weariest
laborer fear going to sleep if he knew he would awake and all
his labor would be over? All sin, would a sinner be afraid
to go to sleep if he knew he would wake up? Never to sin again. Never to sin again. Were the
children of Israel, the ones that were believers, not all
the children of Israel were believers, by the way, ones that were believers,
were they afraid that the blood was not sufficient to protect
them when the angel came? We're gonna take communion soon.
That's what the Lord requires, is the blood. No, they believed
the blood, didn't they? They believed the word of God,
the promise. If you have the blood, here's
the promise. I will pass over you. If the blood's applied,
I will pass over you. We have all the assurance in
the world, brethren. All the assurance of hope the
child of God has. It's the only hope, think about
this, it's the only hope given among men, whereby we must be
saved. That's the Lord Jesus Christ,
that's who we hope in, we have the object of our hope. The Lord
promised and he cannot lie. In closing, go back with me to
Hebrews six. Verse 11 tells us, and we desire
that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full
assurance of hope unto the end. That you be not slothful, but
followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the
promises. How do you follow them through
faith and patience? Faith and patience. For when
God made promise to Abraham because he could swear by no greater,
he swore by himself. Saying, surely blessing I will
bless thee, multiplying I will multiply thee. So after he had
patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men barely swear
by the greater. An oath for confirmation is to
them an end of all strife. wherein God, more abundantly,
willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the
immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that
by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to
lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge, there's
that word, to lay hold upon the hope, you know what that lay
hold is? That's a child. That's the same thing as a child,
an infant. You ever had one of your children
afraid of the dark, a thunderstorm or something like that? They
come running up to you. They're begging to come to get in bed
with you or they're begging you to save them. They're afraid
of something. How does that child cling to you? That's what he's
saying here. We lay hold of eternal life.
We don't It's not that we have done something to obtain it in
and of ourself, it's that we are clinging unto Him with the
faith that He's given, with everything that we can, everything that
we are. It's all of our hope, this salvation. We lay hold of it upon the hope
set before us. Which hope we have is an anchor
of the soul, both sheer and steadfast. Boy, we need an anchor, don't
we? Not a physical anchor. We need to be kept by the power
of God physically, yes, but we need an anchor of the soul. What
does an anchor do, brethren? This is another assurance of
hope that we have. What does an anchor do? It doesn't
matter the tides. It doesn't matter the winds.
It doesn't matter the waves. The anchor holds the ship exactly
where the ship is. It doesn't let it move. How much
more our Heavenly Father holding His people exactly in the place,
the Lord Jesus Christ holding us right there, right there.
Anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, in which entereth
into that within the veil. Whether the forerunner is for
us entered, even Jesus made a high priest forever after the order
of Melchizedek. A forerunner is one that goes
before you and you follow after. There's a lot of tributes around
here. I think they're called tributes, memorials, whatever
you're gonna call them, to Daniel Boone. He was a forerunner. He went
through and blazed trails, and now we have the Appalachian Trail.
We have other things like that. That's a forerunner. So what
is he saying here that Christ is our forerunner? That means
in all things pertaining to God, follow Christ. Follow Christ. Look to Christ. He's the one
that accomplished the salvation. Follow him through faith. and
patience with full assurance of hope, that he which begun
a good work in you will perform it to the day of Jesus Christ.
Have full assurance of hope in his word, his oath, his promise,
his counsel. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let's pray. Father, cause us to cling unto
you. Cause us to lay hold, as mentioned here, Calls us to have assurance of
hope. Only found in you. Lord, we ask that you would bless
this table that we are about to partake in. Representing your
body and your blood. Lord calls us to confess. Your
body and your blood, your life. And your blood is our justification,
our righteousness. Thank you. forgiving your life
willingly, freely obeying the father, fulfilling all the promises,
keeping your word for lord. If it was up to us, we would
never have been able to keep our promises to you. Thank you
for this assurance of hope in christ's name. Amen. Last mac
and greg, if they'll come to disperse