In Christ's name, amen. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter
six, or I guess you already are there. Hebrews chapter six. Having established what the milk
is, the rider here. is declared and well, he's also
declared the six principle. You remember the what we looked
at last Sunday, the six principles of the doctrines of Christ. He
says these words in verse three, and this will do if God permit. if God will permit. He desires
to not again teach these foundational truths. He desires not again
to lay new foundations. He desires to expound upon the
foundations farther, build upon them, build up from them. Here's
the six foundations. Now we're going to leave the
foundation where it is and we're going to build upon it. It's
necessary to say this because we never get away from those
foundational truths, do we? Gospel never changes, never changes. If it doesn't line up with the
gospel, then it's not truth. If it doesn't line up with those
foundations set forth by the Lord and by the writer here in
chapter six, by the Lord's spirit, then it's not the gospel. Now
here in our text, and I told the men in the back that some
of this came a little difficult in trying to understand what
the writer was saying, but here in our text, we find the fuel,
the fuel for all false religion, all false preaching that declares
Christ didn't actually save anyone. Christ didn't, that's the fuel
for it. He didn't accomplish salvation.
They preach that one can fall away whom Christ died for if
they do not keep themselves, if they don't live a certain
way or attend their lives in a certain manner. That's the
message that comes from this passage we're going to look at. The center of every form of false
religion. is the denial of the effectual
work of Christ. It's the denial that he, it's
the denial of his word, it is finished. It's the denial of
him being God and completing and accomplishing salvation,
the salvation of his people. A lot of men will say that God
leaves the choice up to man whether to be saved or not. So logically,
and ask yourself this, would that not mean in judgment? If
salvation's up to them, would not judgment be up to them also?
The Lord's not going to condemn them unless He lets them, think
about that. That would be the same thing,
wouldn't it? If Lord can't save me unless I let him, well, he
can't condemn me unless I let him either. And they would say,
well, no, that's not true. Well, yeah, that's what you're
saying. I know both are not true. No, it's not up to us, is it?
It's his choice, it's his right, and he is going to condemn those
that are not found in Christ. Those who believe that they are
responsible for their own salvation. They misinterpret, they misconstrue,
and they manipulate the word of God because they read it naturally
speaking. The things of the Lord must be
spiritually understood. Can you explain to me how God
can be three in one, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit?
Can you explain the manifestations? I can give you some information
that the Lord's declared in his word, but can you understand
that? No. No, we physically can't understand
spiritual things. They're spiritually discerned. We must have to, we have to have
his spirit. We have to have his spirit. Now,
the ones that do misconstrue, misinterpret, and manipulate
use this particular passage especially to prove in their minds, and
I put that in quotations to make sure I stopped and said they're
not really proving anything, but they think that they're proving
to themselves and to others the lie of self power unto salvation. The falseness of their will having
some part to do with salvation, the choice, the thought that
the choice is up to them. And then after salvation, the
preservation by working. unto salvation. They believe
they're preserving themselves. None of these things are true.
None of these things are true. It's the Lord. There's no later
lie being preached. No later lie being preached than
this self-righteous preaching. There's no greater apostasy.
There's no greater weapon our adversary has than this lie. And you know how it is given
forth unto men, it's wrapped up in a shiny box of self-righteousness
with a bow of pride on top of it, a big bow of pride. 2 Peter 2.19 says, while they promise
them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption,
to whom the midst of darkness is reserved forever. This passage
does not prove these false teaching. It disproves, it actually disproves
the entirety of it. It disproves it. Remember, nothing
in scripture contradicts itself. If it does, then it's not true,
is it? Nothing in scripture can contradict
itself. Our foundation is very simple. If you had not had tried
to break it down as much as I could, we could just say it is finished.
And that would be, we understand that would be the foundation,
but you can start with saying, God is God salvations of the
Lord. And it is finished. That's there. That takes us out of the equation
completely. That's our foundation. That's what we believe. Nothing in scripture contradicts
that. It's the infallible Word of God, all for His glory, all
for His purpose, all by His grace. Now let's read our text before
we get much farther along here. Hebrews chapter six, I want to
read verse four through nine. 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. For the earth which drinketh
in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs
meet for them, by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from
God. But that which beareth thorns
and briars is rejected and is nigh unto cursing, whose end
is to be burned. But beloved, we are persuaded
better things of you and things that accompany salvation, though
we thus speak. I had this message originally
titled Better Things, but I changed it. I changed it to Falling Away. Falling Away. Verse six says,
if they shall fall away, they here, and this is a very important,
who is he speaking to? Who is he speaking about? The
they here are the elect, the chosen of God. If God saves you,
and you fall away, then you are God. That's impossible, isn't
it? That's why he uses the word impossible
here. If you fall away and God saves
you, then what we're saying is, if we believe that, then every
time we fall away, we have to be restored. That means that
the Lord Jesus Christ would have to die again. He wasn't sufficient. That's the crucifying of him
afresh that he mentions here. What the apostle is saying here
is if you can fall away, you were never one of the elect to
begin with. If you can fall away, you are never a believer. If
you keep the law for righteousness or acceptance with God or for
a rule of life unto God. You were never a child of God.
And he uses the allegory here of the earth, bringing forth
herbs and bringing forth thorns. And I don't want to spend much
time on that because that's the second hour message. But you'll
notice that it's the one that dresses the earth. The herb is
brought forth unto the one that dressed the earth when it received
rain. But the earth that was left to
itself brings forth thorns and briars. Why is that? Because
that's what we are by nature. That's the curse found in Genesis
chapter three. This is the allegory given. He's
saying the only reason you're bringing forth herb, the only
reason you're bringing forth fruit is because you've been
dressed of the Lord. The only reason that you're not
bringing forth thorns, you say, well, I still see sin. I still
see Lord doesn't see it. He's put it away. If you're in
Christ Jesus, he's put away that curse being made a curse for
us. No, it's. It's not us, not unto
us, O Lord, you're the one that produces what's required. Is
that not true? They're the one. You're the one
that gives that which is needed. So who is it that can fall away?
It's those that cling to the rites, the ceremonies, the traditions
of men. They keep the old covenant. Now
he's writing to the Hebrews here. And there is no doubt that there's
some of these Hebrews that are not believers. There's no doubt
that some that read this are still holding on to these ceremonies
and these rites. It's like, yes, it's by grace,
and yes, it's by the blood of Christ, but we also have to do
this ceremony. We also have to do this same
custom that's under the law of Moses. They refuse to believe
that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. They refuse
to believe that Christ was the meaning for all of those ceremonies.
You know, every single ceremony that took place was a representation
of our Lord. It was to point to the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's the end of that. He's the
manifestation of all the fulfillment of all of those ceremonies. Those
think about the sacrifice, the burnt offerings that were offered
up. He is the sacrifice, isn't he? The blood that was sprinkled
upon the mercy seat. He is the blood. He is the mercy
seat. The holiest of holies that we
could not enter into, he entered into so that we can come boldly
to the throne of grace now. Having obtained mercy and find
grace to help in the time of need. Now, someone might say, well,
we don't do those kind of things anymore. We don't have those
ceremonies. That's true. But the traditions
of men manifest themselves differently now than they used to. No, we
don't do the Jewish law anymore. But men still do the same thing
with lawmongering. You have to live this way. Have
you ever heard a man talk about living the Christian life? What they mean by that is living
a self-righteous lifestyle, being able to see that their life lines
up with some of the things that are in the Bible. They believe
they're saved because they see that they're living a certain
way. You know how a believer lives? Looking unto Christ, not
unto self. Looking unto Christ, not unto
ourself. We have no self-righteousness. That's how the believer lives.
That's the Christian life, is looking to Christ. Paul said,
whether therefore you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do
it unto the glory of God. How am I going to do that unto
the glory of God? Looking unto Jesus. Looking unto the Lord
Jesus Christ. I have family that's told me,
well, a believer would never do something like that. Believer
would never do something, I'm not even gonna tell you what
it was, but a believer would never do something like that. Or they say, believer
would never say something like that. They would never say those
kind of words. I would remind us, now first,
I wanna preface what I'm about to say, and I wanna be as clear
as I can be. We never, never justify our sin, do we? Never. We never say, well, I
did that because I'm a sinner. No, that is not the heart that
the Lord gives the believer. No, no, no. We hate our sin,
don't we? We loathe our sin. Oh, wretched
man that I am. We never justify our sin and
say, well, I only did it because I'm a sinner. No, that's not
what we do. But I would remind us that David
was an adulterer, David was a murderer, and yet he was a man after God's
own heart. I had a woman one time stand
right after service, she had questions, and she wasn't interested
in anything I had to say, she wanted me to justify her by my
words. You know, the truth never justifies
a man. The truth will set you free because
you believe it by faith. But when we're told the truth
in our sin, it just condemns us, doesn't it? It gives us repentance. It causes us to flee to Christ.
That's what it does. And she said that her husband
had beat her and her son or when she was expecting or something.
She said, can he be, do you think he can be a born again Christian?
Do you think he can be a born again Christian after laying
hands on me like that? And I looked at her and I said,
well, was David a born again Christian? He sinned with Bathsheba
and he committed murder. And I mean, you're looking at
the outside. It's not our place to look and
say, okay, We're fruit inspectors all of a sudden, aren't we? Boy,
your apples are all shiny, I can tell. Your peaches are nice.
I can see your peaches. Boy, you have big watermelons
growing in the... in the patch, you know, whatever.
Lord didn't call us to do that, did he? No. But we are given
evidence to one another that we are believers. What is that
evidence? We love one another. We love one another. We don't,
we're not fruit inspectors. You'll know a tree by the fruit
that it bears. Certainly the scripture says, but no, we don't
justify ourself because of what we do. And we certainly don't
justify ourself by what we don't do. Christ is our justification. Those that fall away examine
themselves. They examine others. They determine
whether they are believers based upon the lives of others and
based upon their lives. Those are the ones that fall
away. This is the law of morality that men preach in most churches,
even in this community. There's no righteousness in it.
There's no salvation in it. Salvation's of the Lord. He is
our righteousness. Would a believer ever deny the
Lord? Peter did. Peter did. Not once, not twice, but three
times. What made the difference for
Peter? What was the difference between Judas and Peter? Christ
said, I have prayed for you, Peter. I've prayed for you. That's grace. That's what it
looks like. That's what, oh, Peter, do you
love me? Peter, do you love me? He said,
Lord, you know I can't agape you, but I paleo you. I can't
love you the way I want to love you. But I do love you. He said,
feed my sheep. Stop looking at your love. Stop
looking at what you're doing. Feed my sheep. Tell the good
news of grace and of truth and of love. The love that the father
has towards his people and towards the son and the love that the
son has towards the father and what that love accomplished on
the cross of Calvary. Why didn't David and Peter fall
away? Why didn't David and Peter fall away because of who was
keeping them? Who was keeping them? God was
keeping him. This is the pattern of grace. Now, the writers declaring that
the self-righteous are those that fall away, those that have
something to do with their salvation. Do you have anything to do with
your salvation? Then you're in danger. You're in danger of falling
away. if you have something to do with
your salvation. But the good news of the gospel is, is it's
God that saved us, God that called us, God that keeps us. And if
that's the case, and it is, it is for his people, then it's
not possible. That's why he said, it's impossible.
It's impossible for you to fall away if you're looking to Christ
alone. However, men will read this.
And they take and they declare the possibility of falling from
grace. Did you know there's a religion called Free Will Baptist? You
ever heard of that? Free Will Baptist. You know what
that is? That means my will saves me and my will keeps me. And I can lose my salvation if
I don't live the right way. If I sin, I can lose my salvation. Now that's blasphemy, you know
that. I mean, obviously it's a denial
that Christ accomplished anything. It's a denial of the power of
God in keeping his people. It's a denial that God is sovereign
in all things, but they preach that and they get that from this
particular passage. Nothing could be more dishonoring.
than to preach that means Christ failed, failed to redeem. Everything would hang in the
balance on our strength, on our determination, on our works,
our prayer. How fervent are we? Aren't you
glad that that's not the truth? That's not the truth. It doesn't depend upon you and
I. doesn't depend upon you and I.
Scripture says God saved us and God called us, not according
to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace given
to his people before the world began. That takes all that out
of it does it takes all that ideology if I'm already now think
about it. We're talking about an eternal
God and this is where men come in with their, their physical
mentality and they try to discern these words and it's not going
to work. It's not going to work and God will not, he cannot be
contradicted. He will not contradict himself.
His word is truth. He saved us and he called us.
First Peter 1.5 says, after that call in God's people, those for
whom God loves, the elect, they are kept by the power of God
through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed the last
time. That's the ones that the Father
elected, that's the ones that the Son redeemed, and that's
the one the Spirit regenerated. This is our hope. They can't fall away because
they're not kept by their self. That's good news if you're a
sinner, if you've seen him as the Savior and you see your impotency,
that you can't, you're without strength. The Lord said when
you were without strength, in due time Christ died for the
ungodly, for the sinner. So what all is the writer talking
about here? Well, we have to examine the
context of the text. context of the text prior and
the context of the text after. A lot of people will take one
verse and they'll run with it. I saw a bumper sticker this week
that actually said, have you obeyed Acts 2.23, which is repent,
be baptized, and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. They're making that a work, and
that was part of that Pentecostal apostolic type movement or whatever
that's still around and alive and well. The context of that,
God gets to give repentance, first of all. Second of all,
you were baptized not for salvation, but because of salvation. And
thirdly, the gift of the Spirit, and we're gonna see the second
hour, the blessing from God is what I've titled that message.
That is the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the gift of the Spirit,
to see Him, eye lifted up, to be made alive, to be born again,
faith, to believe, that's the gift. So what all is the writer
talking about? Well, the context here, notice
the first word in the first verse, therefore. And I've said this
several times, Henry Mahan said, what is the therefore, therefore?
And I think I just, every chance I get, I want to say that because
what it does, it makes us stop and makes us ask that question.
What's the therefore, therefore? Why has it been placed there?
It's in the light of everything that's been spoken. I would remind
you that it has everything to do with being babes, unable to
receive meat, that they're babes, they can only have milk. Now
the contrast is that it's impossible for the elect to fall away. And
those that do fall away are those that do not believe. They refuse
to see Christ in all of the scripture, in the Old Testament. They refuse
to see him, they refuse to stand on the Christ of the Old Testament.
That's what he's referring to here in this particular passage. It means their salvation's not
centered upon Christ is what it means. There's something else
to be added to. Those are the ones that fall away. Although
they say it is, although they preach grace, they deny it in
word, they deny it in confession. Now the scripture describes these
apostate servants of darkness, and that's what they are, as
thus, they honor me with their lips, but their heart is far
from me. That's how it was described in
the Old Testament. They honor me with their lips,
the Lord speaking, but their heart's far from me. Why is that?
The Lord hasn't given them a new heart yet. They have the right
words, They use the words grace, they use the word salvation,
they use the word Jesus Christ, they use the word blood atonement,
but they can't preach true justification because it hinges upon them.
They can't preach true redemption because it hinges upon them.
Aren't you glad that Christ is our justification? Christ is
our redemption. Christ is our salvation. I'm
so thankful he chose to reveal that to a group of sinners such
as we. He could have left us to ourself
and we'd be dabbling in all kinds of nonsense still, wouldn't we?
Just like the maniac at Gadara, we're clothed, seated, and in
our right mind, in our right mind. The ones that fall away,
they are the whited sepulchers that the Lord spoke to. He said,
you're whited sepulchers. Outside you look good, but inside
you're full of dead men's bones. They are described as babes.
They are described as babes, but they can't be spiritual babes.
They can't be spiritually born again babes and then fall away. Otherwise, the Lord would have
failed. So what do I mean they're babes? Well, they're physical
babes, just as a infant. And ask yourself this, how much
does an infant have any understanding of being an adult when they're
first born? Have you ever heard an infant
say, yeah, I think I'll let you feed me. I think I'll let you
change my diaper. I think I'll let you put me in
that car seat. You ever heard an infant, a newborn
say that? No. Not at all. Well, that's how
these men are discerning the scriptures as an infant. But
it's the things of God. How much more infinitely going
from an infant to a man, but going from an infant to seeing
God? How much more is it impossible to understand the things of God?
We can't understand the things of God as grownups, can we? As
adults. A baby is completely oblivious
to things of a grown man. And these false teachers are
oblivious to the things of God. This is why we have the summary
that the entirety of salvation for the Lord's people hinges
upon these words. Look at verse three. And this
we will do, this will we do if God permits. That's it. That's what it hinges upon. See
those who are permitted will be saved and they will grow. They will grow and be born again.
They'll be born again. They'll grow in the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ. They will see him high and lifted
up. But if he does not permit, we
will remain in darkness. We'll remain stagnant and in
apostasy. Greatest example I can give us
of one that had tasted, had saw, had been somewhat enlightened
physically, all of it was physical, was Judas. Look at what all Judas
did, all that he performed by the Lord's power. He cast out
demons, he healed, he walked with God, he kissed him on the
cheek, and yet he fell away. Why? Because, well, Judas He's
the son of perdition for one, he was born to betray Christ,
that was the purpose. But he loved money more than
eternity, more than Christ. Why? Because he was left to himself. He was left to himself, therefore
he fell away. Now, none that the Lord has elected,
none that the Lord has redeemed, none that the Lord has called,
none that is written in the Lamb's Book of Life will ever be lost,
or God is a liar. Why do I say that? Because he
says, of all that thou hast given me, I have lost none. That's written in the past tense.
I have lost none. All that the Father giveth me,
I've lost none. He can't lose a single sheep because they're
kept by the power of His hand. Question for us in closing would
be this, do you fear falling away? When you examine yourself,
yes, when I examine myself, Don't examine yourself. Look to Christ.
That's the problem. Don't see if you're good enough. We're not good enough in and
of ourselves. Lord didn't save you. Lord didn't save me. Lord didn't save a single sinner
because they were good enough to be saved. He saved the most
wretched, vile ones as trophies of his grace. The undeserving. the ones who were dead in trespasses
and sin, that's the only ones he'll save. This is an acceptable
saying. This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners, of whom I am chief. Do not examine yourself
to see whether you will or won't fall away. If you do, you will. But if you are looking to Christ,
you won't. And the Lord, he's the one that
makes us to differ. It's interesting to me that only
the only the believer worries about falling away. Did you know
that only the believer worries about being left to themselves?
Only the believer worries. Am I the Lord's? Am I the Lord's? Only the elect fear falling away. Those that do indeed fall away
are they which examine themselves to find hope. Can you examine
yourself and find hope in yourself? No, I can't. What about a little
bit? What about maybe that one thing
you did? Maybe that one thing I did, I'm holding on to, really
hoping. I prayed that one prayer that
time. I spoke those words that one time, I really feel like
I got saved then. No. No, that's in danger of falling
away, isn't it? It's not true. It's not true. Are you in danger of falling
away only if you're clinging to something other than the precious
blood of Christ as all your righteousness before God? Only if you're clinging
to something other than Christ himself is your justification
before God. Only if you're clinging to something,
anything, anything else, a choice, a decision, your name in a book,
the life that you've lived, the places you haven't gone, the
places you have gone. Only if you're clinging to that
other than what the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished is all your
acceptance before God. Are you in danger of falling
away only if you're looking to yourself? But beloved of God,
fear not, fear not. He keeps his people doing the
same thing their entire life till the end. And you know what
that is? Looking unto Christ as all of
your wisdom, your righteousness, your sanctification and your
redemption before his throne. Not part of the way, all the
way. Only God's people are kept by
his power. All others he gives to themselves.
He leaves to themselves and ultimately they will fall away. Look to
Christ, believe on him. If you are his, if you are looking
unto him, that's a gift of grace. If you're his, you're gonna be
looking unto him. The good news is you can never
fall away. Do you know why? He cannot deny himself. He cannot
deny himself. Let's pray. Father, cause us
to see the work is finished and that we rest, give us rest in
your truth. Never let us look to ourself,
for Father, if you do leave us to ourself, we will. Cause us
to look to your son, in Christ's name, amen.