We'll be looking in the book
of Hebrews again, if you would like to turn there. Hebrews chapter
six. Hebrews chapter six. Having written to the Hebrews,
the writer has stated that they were babes. Their babes, they
had to have milk. They were unable to handle meat.
And the writer establishes what that milk is. And he calls it
the principle doctrines of Christ here in our text. In this hour,
I wanna look at those six principle doctrines of Christ. Let's read
Hebrews 6, one through three. Therefore leaving the principles
of the doctrine of Christ, Let us go on unto perfection, not
laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and
of faith toward God, of the doctrines of baptism and of laying on of
hands, and of resurrection of the dead and of eternal judgment. And this will we do if God permit."
Here we have six things, six principle doctrines of grace. This is our foundation that we
never deviate from. We never leave these six principle
doctrines. Everything pertaining to God,
everything pertaining to salvation, everything pertaining to eternal
life is found, comes from the Lord Jesus Christ. And it can
be seen in these six principles. Now the writer here does say
leaving the principles of the doctrine, but he's not saying
that we leave them as in not preaching them. He's saying that
we don't need to lay them again. We don't need to lay this foundation.
This is our foundation that we build off of. This is the milk.
This is the very foundation. Everything that comes, he's saying
everything that comes hereafter comes from these six in light
of these six things. This is our foundational doctrine.
Now I hope to look at all six of these this hour if the Lord
would be our help and to preach us the gospel while looking at
each one of these. First one he mentions is repentance
from dead works. Second one is faith toward God.
Third one is doctrines of baptism. Fourth one is laying on of hands,
fifth one is resurrection of the dead, and the sixth one is
eternal judgment. These are the first principles
of the doctrines of Christ. This is where we begin in Christ. We must always continue to believe,
to rejoice, to declare these truths, these things, but we
don't need to prove them again, do we? We don't need to prove
each time we get up that it takes God-given repentance and faith
to believe him. We know that to be true. We do
speak on these things, but we're not laying in foundation each
time that we stand up. That's what the writer of Hebrews
is declaring, is he's saying, your babes, you can't handle
more than just the milk, and here's the milk. It's these six
foundations. He said, we don't have to prove
them again each time. We know them to be true. We don't
prove these great foundational truths over and over again, but
rather we build upon them. We build upon them. These are
the things that we look to Christ more and more in. We see him
more and more. We build upon these things. We
grow in the knowledge of Christ. We grow in brotherly love. We grow in spiritual unity. We
grow in maturity. in conformity to our Savior,
looking to Him more and more. This is the foundation by which
we do that. May God give us grace to ever
build upon these first principles for Christ's sake, for Christ's
sake, never leave them, to never depart from them. First thing
he mentions is repentance from dead works. The error is also
called the lie in all false religion. The error is dead works. It's the word do, do and live. That's the error of all false
religion. That's as simple as it can get,
isn't it? You want to know the simplicity of the error of all
false religion, it's do. Men say do this and live, do
this. In preaching that, They deny
the Lord's precious words, and these are the most precious words
to you and I that are His people. It is finished. It is finished. That changes due to done, doesn't
it? That's our hope. That's our hope. We no longer
come with our dead works unto Him, bringing our dead works
for any part of our salvation, do we? No, that's doing. It's
called iniquity. And we come to Christ seeing
him as all that the father requires for our salvation. God given
repentance is a changed mind by new nature that he gives when
he says live unto his people. God must be the one that gives
this by his choice and by his grace. He must shut us up to
Christ and make Christ all unto us. We must be as Isaiah seeing
the Lord high and lifted up. We must see him as he is, a sovereign
creator and sustainer of all life, the only one that can save.
You know, there's forgiveness of sins with God. He's the only
one that can forgive sin. We can't forgive sin, can we? There's forgiveness with him
because of what Christ has done. The Lord gives repentance. It
is that we see ourself as the sinner and him as the savior.
We have no hope in ourself. It changes our mind. He changes
our mind about who He is and about what we are. And by His
grace, Christ has made all to His people. Turn with me to 1
Corinthians chapter one. 1 Corinthians 1, and I want to
read three verses, verse 29 through 31. This is what repentance does. 1 Corinthians 1, 29 says that
no flesh, well let's read 28, the base things Okay, let's read
27, I'm sorry. But God hath chosen the foolish
things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen
the weak things of the world to confound the things which
are mighty, and base things of the world, and the things which
are despised has God chosen, yea, the things which are not,
to bring to naught the things that are, that no flesh should
glory in his presence. But of him are you in Christ
Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and
sanctification and redemption, that according as it is written,
he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. That's what repentance
does. It causes us to see Christ as
our wisdom. It causes us to see we have none. We have no wisdom. We have no
righteousness in and of ourself. We have no sanctification in
and of ourself or justification in and of ourself. Causes us
to need him. Causes us to need him. He's the
one we glory in. What do you know once the Lord's
revealed? Nothing, save Christ and Him
crucified. Is that not true? What do you
brag about that you have done? What do I brag about that I have
done? Nothing, nothing. No, I brag on Him, what Christ
has done, what Christ has done. Lord gives repentance to His
people in order to believe Him, in order to see Him. Now go back
to our text, Hebrews chapter five. Now seeing Him, as he is,
is what repentance does. Faith causes us to believe on
him, to believe on him. The second thing he says here,
Hebrews 6, therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine
of Christ, let us go on into perfection, not laying again
the foundation of repentance from dead work. Second things
here of faith toward God. Romans chapter five tells us
this, that he was raised because of our justification. That's
the end of chapter four. Then in chapter five, he says,
therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God
through the Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by
faith unto this grace, wherein we stand and rejoice in hope
of the glory of God. This is the gift of God unto
eternal life, this faith. This is what he does for his
people. He said, by grace, are you saved through faith? This
is what he gives. This is this is the foundation
doctrine, isn't it? This is one of them. He must
give faith to believe him. Otherwise, we never would believe
him. He bestows it upon his elect according to his will, according
to his good pleasure. It's not our trying. It's not
our believing. It's not our choosing. It's his
work, it's his choice, it's his will, it's his power. It's him
saying live, believe, receive thy sight. That's what he does. How do I know if I have saving
faith? Ask yourself that. How do I know if I have saving
faith? Well, you can know by asking three questions. What
does your faith look to? Who does your faith look to?
Where does it come from? And who gets the glory for it?
Christ has to be the answer of all of that, isn't he? Where
does it come from? It comes from him. Who does it
look to? It always looks to Christ, never
looks itself. who gets all the glory for it. We don't get any
glory for the faith that he gives us to believe. We just find ourself
believing, don't we, because of his work of grace in the heart.
He gives repentance and he alone gives faith to believe God to
his people. Third thing mentioned here is
of the doctrines of baptism. Verse two, doctrines of baptism. So many confuse baptism as part
of salvation. We always called them water dogs.
They believed that they literally were washing their sins away
by baptism. We don't believe that. Getting
baptized no more washes your sin away than jumping in a pool. You're just getting wet. If that's
your purpose in baptism, nothing's happening. But God's people knows
The doctrines of baptism, the significance of it. Did you know
God was baptized? The Lord Jesus Christ himself
was baptized. He came up to John the Baptist
and he told him to baptize him. He said, no, I need you to baptize
me. He's like, I don't know. I'm
not baptizing you. He said, suffer it to be so. Suffer it to be so.
And the Lord was baptized. Baptism is a confession. It's
an outward expression of an inward work. It's confessing his life,
his death, his burial, and his resurrection as your only hope
for salvation. That's what baptism is. It's
an ordinance given of the Lord for the Lord's people only. The
same as the Lord's table. Lord's table is given, that's
what we're confessing when we take the Lord's table. We take
the bread and confess that His body is our only hope, that it
was broken for His people. That without the shedding of
His blood there is no remission of sin. And He put away our sin
by the sacrifice of Himself, by His own blood, purged our
sin. That's what we're confessing at the Lord's table. Now, baptism
always precedes the Lord's table, if you look in the scripture.
Whenever someone desires to take the Lord's table, the first thing
they should do is be baptized. This is what the disciples did. They were baptized first before
they ever received the Lord's table. This is just the way that
the ordinances have been given in that order. Now, why should
I want to be baptized is the question. Number one, the Lord ordained
it. And the Lord commands it to his
people. We just read and Rob didn't, he may have, he knew
that I was gonna be in Hebrews, but he didn't know I was gonna
be talking about baptism. What did Peter say? He told on that day of Pentecost,
that was the Pentecost message that he's telling all these people.
5,000 heard that day by the Lord's grace. That means they had to
baptize 5,000 people. That's a lot of baptizing. But
what did he tell them? They heard that he said, you
have taken and with wicked hands have crucified Jesus Christ. And it was by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God, he tells them that, but
this same Jesus, God hath made him both Lord and Christ. He's
God. And what they say, what do we
do? What shall we do? Who can be
saved? He said, repent and be baptized. Repent and be baptized
and you'll receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. What is the gift
of the Holy Ghost? He's the gift. He is the gift, Lord giving you
life, that's eternal life, that's the gift by grace. This is the
commandment of the Lord, repent and be baptized. It no more washes away our sin
than jumping in a pool, but we're confessing that his blood alone
must wash away our sin, that's what we're confessing. We're
confessing when he died, I died. When he was buried, I was buried
with him. And whenever he was resurrected,
my only hope is that I was resurrected with him to walk in newness of
life. We're confessing he is all of
our justification, all of our sanctification. We're confessing
he is all of our redemption. He is all salvation to us. That's
what we're confessing in the doctrines of baptism. This is
why we preach the doctrine of baptisms. calls it plural, doesn't
he? Baptisms. Why does he call it
plural? Well, we know that this is the ordinance that we do,
but is it not true that he said, there's one coming that's going
to baptize you with fire? It's an outward showing of what's
been done on the inside. It's that we need to be washed,
spiritually speaking, by the blood of Christ. That's the baptism,
isn't it? That's what the Lord does for his people. And that's
what we're confessing is Lord, I've got, I have to have Christ.
I have to have him. I'm confessing that this gospel
is my gospel. He's given me no other hope.
This message is the only good news there is. I've got to confess
him. Confess him before God and before
men. Repent and be baptized is the
command of the Lord to the Lord's people. Now, the fourth thing
we see here is the laying on of hands. And this is not a mystery
to us. It's given in scripture many
places. It's abundantly clear. The scripture is abundantly clear
on the subject. This was the result of being an apostle or
an apostle giving the gift to someone else. But an apostle,
I would remind you, there's no apostles living today. There's
no apostles living today, why? Because you had to see the Lord
with your natural eye to be an apostle. What did Paul say? Last
he was seen of me. Paul was the last apostle. I
don't know if he's the last one to be living at that time, but
you understand what I'm saying. This gift of laying on of hands
died with the apostles. It went away with the apostles.
We don't lay our hands upon one another as if to perform some
miraculous miracle in order to have an outward show. No, the
things you see on television where people doing that, that's
demonic. That's antichrist. Lord doesn't command us to put
our hands upon people and rebuke anything. No, this is, This laying
on of hands, and that's why he's calling them the principal doctrines.
He's saying, no, this laying on of hands was for a sign so
that you would know that these men were who they said they were.
They were able to heal with their hand or an axe. A little bit
later on, remember, Peter and John went to pray. And they met
a lame man at the gate, beautiful. And he said, look upon us. Peter and John said, look upon
us. And he thought he was going to receive something from them.
What did Peter say? Silver and gold have I none, but such as
I have give I thee in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,
rise up and walk. And he took his hand and he walked.
The Lord gave those gifts to these apostles because they needed
them to prove that they were who they said they were. All
the gifts that came with apostleship, the speaking of tongues and things,
men have perverted all of them in thinking that they still exist.
They don't exist now. No, the gospel is what we declare. This laying on of hands is not
an ordinance that we recognize. It died with the apostles. Died
with the apostles. Now we, scripture says, if any
of you sick, let him call for the elders of the church. having
them pray over you, anointing your head with oil. That's the
oil of gladness. That's the spirit. They're not
going to lay hands on you and make some circle. And no, that's
not what that's talking about. That's just call for your brethren
that, you know, believe the gospel and have them pray for you. That'll
be the anointing of your head. David said, my cup runneth over.
That's the oil he's speaking of. Laying on of hands was for the
purpose of ordaining. Actually, Peter laid hands upon
some and thereby they received the Holy Ghost. Acts chapter
eight tells us that. So what of it now? What about
this laying on hands now? Well, there's no such thing as
a living apostle now, are there? No such thing as a living apostle.
As we go through this, Together, it's just important to look at
it, each of them, and expound upon it, and we grow and learn
together from it. This is a gift. You see somebody
laying hands on somebody else, that's not of the Lord, it's
just not. The gift died with them. We see why, too, because there
was a man named Simon. Simon came in Acts chapter eight,
and he tries to buy The power, Peter gave the man, Peter touched
the man, a man, and he received the spirit. And Simon said, I
want to be able to do that. And he brings money. And he says,
here, Peter, here's money. Give me that power. I want to
be able to do that. And what did Peter tell him? He's like,
your heart's in the wrong place. You need to repent. You need
to repent. Your heart's in the wrong place. And that's what
this power would do, wouldn't it? It would puff up man. And
it was by God's grace that these men were kept humble. It was
by God's grace that they were given faith to believe the Lord
and not look at themselves. No, it was in the name of Jesus
Christ, wasn't it? He told him his heart was in
the wrong place. We see foolish men and women still today in
ignorance doing the same thing. I don't even know if Benny Hinn
is still a guy that does this kind of stuff, but they'll hit
people on the head and they'll fall over and act like they're
having a seizure and whatnot. It's demonic. It's demonic. It's not glorifying God. It's
not edifying to the body and it's confusing is what it is. The Lord's not the author of
confusion. No, he's given us a spirit of
peace and of a sound mind, hasn't he? Not the spirit of fear, not
the spirit of confusion. This laying on of hands was a
gift to the apostles to prove they were who they were. They
proved they were of God. This was for the purpose of establishing
the Lord's church early on. We look to the Lord for his spirit,
don't we? We don't look at the outward,
we look to the Lord through faith. We look to his spirit to order
and provide for us. And by faith we believe that
which is unseen. Now the fifth principle, doctrine
of grace, Fifth principle doctrine of Christ is the resurrection
of the dead. What hope we have in the resurrection
of the dead. As we've already said, baptism
is a confession where Christ was resurrected. We were in him,
but we do know and believe of the resurrection day, the resurrection
day that's going to come to pass. It's going to be where the Lord
resurrects all of his people, brings them forth. He's going
to descend and we're going to ascend. We're going to meet him
in the clouds. He's going to return. This is
the resurrection. You remember Lazarus, whenever
he had passed, Martha said unto the Lord, Lord, if you'd been
here, our brother would not have died. And he said, she said,
he'll live again. And she said, well, I know he'll
live on the resurrection day. I love his words. I'm gonna read
it to you. He said, I am the resurrection. I am the resurrection and the
life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall
he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never
die. Believest thou this? Believest thou this? We hope
and cling to and believe He's our resurrection, isn't He? He
is our life. Therefore, He will come back
for His bride one day on that resurrection day. Turn with me
to 1 Thessalonians chapter four. It's described there. 1 Thessalonians four. Look at verse
14. 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 13 says
this, we'll read the remainder of the chapter. But I would not
have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep,
that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we
believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which
sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto
you by the word of the Lord that we which are alive and remain
under the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which
are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with
a shout. with the voice of the archangel, with the trump of
God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are
alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the
clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be
with the Lord. Wherefore, comfort one another
with these words." That's a blessed hope, isn't it? The hope of resurrection. I love the thought that all those
who are dead, he calls them asleep. Don't you love that? They're
still just sleeping. They're just asleep. And when the Lord
comes back, we can't prevent them. He says, you're not going
to prevent them from coming forth. They're going to come forth at
his word, at his shout, his glorious trumpet. Christ Jesus is who
we cling to as our resurrection and life. What hope we have in
death unto life. Some people are going to die
and it's going to be death unto death. We have hope, death unto life,
eternal life. That means the last breath that
we take, or may go by the trumpet. He may come back before then.
I'd be okay if it was today. Be just fine with me. When the
trumpet sounds, we'll be there by his grace. All the people
that he died for, all the people that he loves will be reunited
to their king, their God, their savior, just to kneel at his
feet, praise him for eternity. I was gonna say all eternity,
but we often throw in words that don't even, you can't spend eternity. That's the point. It's forever
and ever and ever. Somebody said we're gonna spend eternity. No,
you spend something, it runs out. You can't spend eternity.
We're gonna be with him in eternity forever, just praising him all
because of his glorious resurrection. Lord himself shall descend, we
will ascend, we'll meet him, we'll be changed. I love this,
we'll be changed. When this mortal shall put on
immortality and this corruptible shall put on incorruption, we're
going to be changed. Changed like unto him in the
moment, the twinkling of an eye. Can you imagine being conformed
to his image? Can't imagine it, can we? Being
perfect, seeing the glory revealed that's in us right now as His
people, the glory that He has given His people that He prayed
about in John 17. It's in us right now where He is. He's gonna
reveal it. Nothing can prevent it. It's
gonna come forth. We're gonna be found in Christ
Jesus as perfectly righteous in every way. We're gonna be
found as completely sanctified, completely glorified. Thank God
for his resurrection. Now, lastly, we have the last
principle doctrine of Christ. We have the eternal judgment. Revelation talks about the great
white throne judgment. This is a judgment where everybody
is judged. Young, old, it doesn't matter. This is where death and
hell are swallowed up, the scripture says. This is where the dragon,
he's gonna be judged too, Satan. He'll be cast into the lake forever. We already know, we know the
end. We know the end already. The Lord's already told us everything
that's going to happen. I wish we could spend our time with
that in the front of my mind. So wonders all the time about
all these little petty things, but we know the end of the book
already. We know what's going to happen. And yet I worry about
the most simplest thing. Why do I do that? Well, We're
just full of unbelief, aren't we? The Lord calls us to believe.
But we know the end. We know the end. Those that are
in Christ, they're going to be seated, robed in white. They're
going to be singing a song that the angels can't sing. Been redeemed
by the blood of the Lamb. Been redeemed. At this judgment,
Understand, there's only two kinds of people, either those
who are found in Christ that will not be judged because they
were judged in Christ on Calvary. I'm gonna say that again. If
you are in Christ, you were judged in Christ on Calvary. You won't
be judged again. The Lord won't judge twice. Justice
can't be exacted twice, but he will not acquit the guilty either.
And there are those who think they know who God is, But they
do not. They have a self-righteousness
about them and what they're going to do. And this is the word of
warning to everyone present, everyone that hears this. These
people don't be these people. They're going to be the ones
that come up to the Lord on that day and say, we've done all these
wonderful things in your name. We've cast out demons. We've
done this. We've done that. And it doesn't
fill in the blank. It could be the nicest, greatest
humanitarian act. It's not going to matter. There's
one thing needful at this judgment, and it is the blood of Christ
to be upon you. It is the blood of Christ to
be upon me. That is our only hope. There are those that will offer
themselves, their work, their lives, their devotion, only to
hear the saddest words, depart from me. I never knew you. See, God's a righteous judge.
He's a righteous judge. Sin must be punished. An eternity
in hell could not put away one of our sins. Not one. Not one. Justice will never be satisfied
in hell. What's our hope then? What's
our hope? When Christ by himself purged
our sin, he sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high.
He endured the eternal wrath and judgment of God in our place,
in the place of His people. He, our substitute surety, became
His people. He who knew no sin became sin
that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Now there is therefore
no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. Why? The
sin's gone. The sin is gone. So on that day of judgment, there'll
be no sin to punish. We hear the sweetest words. Enter
in thou good and faithful servant. Wait a minute. I'm good and faithful.
If you're in Christ, you are. He sees the blood. He sees the
life of Christ. He sees the death of Christ.
He sees the resurrection. He's satisfied with his people.
Enter in thou good and faithful servant. Thou has been faithful
over a few things. I'll make you ruler over many. What a comfort is this foundation,
these principal doctrines of our Lord and Savior. What grace. What grace did bring about this
glorious salvation for his people, what grace. There's a song that
says, oh, to grace, how great a debtor daily I'm constrained
to be. Is that not true? The debt we
never could pay, never would have paid. It's impossible for
us. The Lord paid it, paid it in
full, gave us his grace, gave us his mercy, gave us his love,
gave us his blood, all at the sacrifice of himself. Thank God
for these principle doctrines of Christ, these six principle
doctrines. Let's pray. Father, thank you
for your word, your doctrine. Lord, your truth, your glorious
salvation for your elected sinners calls us to ever believe more
and more in Christ's name. Amen. In closing, let's turn
to number 182.