Hebrews 6 Let Us Go On To Maturity

The speaker discusses the importance of maturity in the Christian faith, urging believers to move beyond the basics and progress towards a deeper understanding. The book of Hebrews emphasizes the superiority of Jesus over Jewish traditions, urging believers to not regress back to Judaism. The writer stresses the need for growth and maturity, pointing out that it is a gradual process guided by the Holy Spirit. The message is to leave behind the basics and strive for spiritual maturity through surrender to God's will. Well, good morning. Good to see you. Hope you go to the early service. You got a good sermon if you did, and that's always the case by the way. Can't say that about a lot of preachers, but we can say that about ours. Good service. Well, we've come to chapter 6 in the book of Hebrews, and I'll just remind you that the entire book of Hebrews is designed to stop new Jewish believers from returning to Judaism. Remember that they grew up in Judaism. All of a sudden they've been ostracized now from what they've known all their lives. They're not welcome there anymore. Their new life in Christ is a brand new thing. The Jewish temple still stands, and it's magnificent. All the practices and the traditions of Judaism were captivating for the Jews. They practiced them all their lives, and all of a sudden that's gone. And some of them were contemplating returning to Judaism, or even worse, committing some Jewish thoughts into Christianity to compromise the Christian faith. So the book of Hebrews is there to answer some questions for these, and I mentioned to you that the key word in the book is better. Thirteen times in the book it's mentioned, and the bottom line is Jesus is better than everything that anybody can offer. He's better than Judaism. He's better than Moses. He's better than Joshua. He's better than the high priests that might be there. He's better than Judaism in every way. Rather than doing away with Judaism, however, he's the perfect fulfillment of it. If you have ever been to a Passover Seder meal, some of us have had someone come in and do a meal like that. I know back years ago when I was president of the convention, the Jewish Anti-Defamation League asked me to lead a group of pastors and rabbis to the Holy Land. They did all the planning. We, of course, provided all the funds, but they took care of us, planned everything that we did. As a result of that trip, the next Easter, that was back in Thanksgiving, we had Seder meal with the Jewish Anti-Defamation League leader in Dallas and his family. The interesting thing about it was everything the Jews observed pointed to Christ, and so Christ didn't do away with Judaism. He fulfilled it. He is the full expression of what God promised when all the Jewish traditions and rituals were put together, and so it all points to Jesus Christ. The amazing thing is that even the prophecy of the Old Testament is so clear that it's amazing to me that the Jews can't see it. It's hard for them to realize that Jesus Christ fulfills perfectly all the designs and desires and all of the traditions of Judaism. And so this book is being written to convince them to stay. Now, it's one thing to accept basics. It's another thing to go past the basics. Now, there are basics in everything. ABC, that's basic. Everybody ought to learn their ABCs, but if that's all you learn, you're going to be pretty ignorant. It's one thing to know certain basic truths, and you don't give up that. ABCs are still ABCs. They're very important. You don't give up on them or do away with them, but you go on beyond that. For instance, James Michener was a great author. You would not expect to see him write, see Dick run, see Jane run, see Dick and Jane run. You wouldn't expect him to do that. Why? Because he moved on from that. He learned the basics, but he learned a lot more, and he presented wonderful novels because he had gone on beyond the basics. And what the writer of Hebrews is doing is saying, you have the basics down, but now you need to go on to maturity. You need to move on. You need to make progress. It's a very difficult thing for a lack of progress. When you have growth, you expect maturity. And growth that does not reach maturity is a work in progress. And so he's saying, now you know the basics, but you need to move beyond this. So the first eight verses of this sixth chapter are designed to just point out for us the necessity of maturity. Let me just read a little bit of it. Therefore, based on what he's just said, he talked about the problem of immaturity at the end of the fifth chapter. Because of that, let us leave the elementary teaching about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works, faith in God, teaching about ritual washings, laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And we will do this if God permits. Now he's listed there six basic things that form the foundation for Christian belief, Christian doctrine. And he's giving us wise counsel. You can't stay where you are. By the way, I told you last week, but I want you to remember something. You never drift anywhere worth going. There are no free lunches. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. You never drift anywhere worth going. And what Paul said, if you do not give attention to your faith, it's going to wither. It's going to be compromised. It's going to be weakened. Christian life is something we need to focus on. You know, it's kind of like a marriage. Now, Carol Ann and I have been married 69 years. Now, I told her before I married her, I love you. But what if I never told her again? Well, I can tell you that ain't going to happen. Because I want the last three words she hears me say is I love you. Because that's the relationship we have. And when you have a relationship with God, don't leave it alone. You don't have to plant weeds. Weeds grow naturally. They'll detract. They'll compromise. They'll destroy. And so what the writer of Hebrews is trying to say is you all have the basics down, but that's not enough. That's enough to be saved. But being saved involves us continuing on in our relationship with God. Remember, I told you this probably in the last few weeks at my age. You forgive me if I make repetitions occasionally. But I always thought God called me to preach. I was 14 years old. I remember it vividly. It was more vivid than my conversion experience because I was older when this happened. I remember the night God called me to preach. It's as clear in my mind as if it were yesterday. I always say God's called me to preach. Then all of a sudden, Carol Ann and I are at 35,000 feet flying to Nashville, Tennessee to be president of the Sunday School Board. And it suddenly dawned on me I am not what I have always been. I never have been anything but a pastor. I never have been a youth minister. I never have been an education minister. All I'd ever done is be pastor. Now I am president of a $180 million corporation, largest distributing of Christian materials in the world. I have no clue what I'm supposed to do. I spoke to the retirees this last week. They called to wish me a happy birthday. And I told them, well, and by the way, the interim president, they're looking for another president. The interim president is chief financial officer, Joe Walker. Wonderful, wonderful employee. Knows more about LifeWay than anybody ought to know. He's been there 40 years. And he's the interim president. So as I thanked him for calling, I told him, well, glad Joe Walker is your interim president. And I said, tell him I still can't read a spreadsheet. And my reason is, why should I do that? That's what I pay people to do. Just show me the bottom line. Hire good people, take care of the rest of it, and tell me what the result is. I don't want to know how I got there. You know, there's some things that you just don't need to know. Some things you don't need to concentrate on. But now when it comes to the basics, we build our lives on the basic doctrines of Christian faith. And they're wonderful. The doctrine that they mention here, repentance from dead work. Any work that is human flesh is dead on arrival. It's a dead work. Because it's not a work that's given in faith. You don't need dead work. You need faith in God. This is the distinction that he's making here. And so you've got to go on from the basics of what you believe. And to learn and to experience far deeper things than you knew when you had ABC. So it's time to leave the basics. That's a clear message. It's time to leave. He's saying we need to stop. And by the way, he uses the plural verb here. He's talking to himself too. He's saying in this book of Hebrews, we're going to go beyond the basics. Because it's necessary to do that. Everything that's living ought to grow, ought to progress, ought to progress. And it's time to go on to maturity. And it's time to leave the basics behind. He was going to do that in this epistle. And the Hebrew believers needed to do the same thing. And so it's time to leave the basics. It's time to go on to maturity. Now this is not a personal effort. It's not like we ought to grit our teeth and clench our fists in order to grow in Christian maturity. Rather, the Greek word implies that there is a force working on us that will bring us to maturity. In other words, something else is going to develop maturity in us. It's a passive thing for us. We're going to receive maturity because there's something working in us that brings us to maturity. We know now that the Holy Spirit lives in us. John talked about it this morning. The Holy Spirit lives in us. And the Holy Spirit is going to take us wherever we need to go unless we mess it up. Unless we turn aside. Unless we disallow it. He's going to lead us to maturity. It's not how many scriptures we know. It's not how many prayers we say. It's not how many doctrines we know. It's not how good we are with the catechism. It's not how good we are morally, ethically, or any other way. It's a matter of surrender to the will of God and let the Holy Spirit lead us to where He wants us to be. And that's what maturity is for us. And we have one according to chapter 1 of this epistle in verse 3, who holds all the things by the word of His power. And He who holds all things by the word of His power is able to carry us on to Christian maturity. And the present tense of the language indicates its continuous action. Now let me just remind you again. The Greek does not have tenses like we do. We have present tense. What does that mean? Right now. We have past tense. What does that mean? What has been. Okay. We have future tense. What is to be. The Greek is not like that. In Greek, the present tense means something that is going on right now and will continue to go on. It's going to be a continual thing. It speaks of continuity. It speaks of progress. It's going to continue to be. If it's present tense, it means it's happening and it's going to keep happening. Past tense has a lot of complicated names to describe the past tense and the imperfect tense and all these things. But it means that something has happened in the past and it stands as having still happened. And the future tense is that which is to come. But English speaks of the time of action. Greek speaks of the kind of action. And so we're talking about the kind of action. And the action that we're looking at is the Holy Spirit is working in us. And if we will obey Him, follow Him, build that relationship, keep it fresh. Bertha Smith is a missionary that all the famous preachers you know used to fear. We were at a prayer meeting one day and she stopped one of the preachers praying and said, You're not praying right. Everybody was scared to death of Miss Bertha. But Miss Bertha always said keep short accounts with God. Keep short accounts with God. Don't let things get left behind. It ought to be a daily thing. And as we keep our short accounts with God, God is going to keep doing what He put Himself in us to do. And so we're not talking about personal effort. You can't work your way into maturity. You can't spend your way into eternity. You can't influence your way into eternity. You'll only get into maturity. You'll only get to maturity through the work of the Holy Spirit in you. And when He planted Himself in you, then our job is to surrender ourselves to His will. Think of what Jesus did. He went to the garden before He died and He prayed a prayer like this. Lord, if it be Thy will that this not happen, I'd appreciate it. I'm happy to do that if it be Your will. Now, why did He pray that way? Well, number one, He wasn't afraid of dying. He knew He had to die. In reality, that cradle in that stable near Bethlehem had a shadow of a cross fall across it. He knew He was born to die. And He wasn't afraid of dying. What He was concerned about, now remember, He's the man. We talked about that, I think, last week. He's the man. As the man, He didn't want to go away and not come back. He didn't want to disappear. He could face death, but He was really anticipating a resurrection. And so when He said, Not my will, but Thy will be done, He was not just talking about the act of dying itself. He was ready to die, but He wanted to come back. And resurrection was involved in the death of Christ. And so that's what the Holy Spirit in us brings us to life. When we're saved, that's not the end, it's the beginning. Now, we'll just stop there. We just need to know that it's time to go into maturity. I say stop there because if we don't, I'll get in a lot of trouble and I don't want to do that. Every year, I've always been intrigued with Albuquerque, New Mexico. My mother and all her family moved to Albuquerque in the 1930s. And my mother didn't move. She had all of her sisters. She had six sisters and two brothers. Five sisters and two brothers. They all moved to Albuquerque in the 1930s. I spent most of my summers in my teen years in Albuquerque. I loved Albuquerque. I always thought the greatest thing in the world would be if I could pastor a church in Albuquerque. I never did. And I realize now what a good thing that was. Because much of my family there were reprobates. And the worst thing I needed to do was be pastoring a church with a bunch of my kinfolks close by. And so I never got to do that. But one time we went to Albuquerque in October to see the balloon fest. Hot air balloons. I mean, we got up early in the morning and we went out there to watch. Boy, they were spread all over the place. And then the wind came up and the balloons stayed down. We never did get to see those hot air balloons. But by the same token, another thing that was happening was that they would hang glide and come off of the top of Sandia Peak. And the air beneath would pick the sails of those hang gliders and guide with them down into the bottom. Now, we didn't get to see that. But we were with the Hortons in Switzerland one year when we were right on the border with Austria. And the hang gliders were coming off of that mountain that was just the first mountain inside of Austria or Switzerland, whichever one it was. And you could see the hang gliders come off and come down. And then we watched them land down here. That's what the Holy Spirit does. The Holy Spirit in us guides us safely through all the perils of the wind shifts and everything involved in coming down in a hang glider and bring you safely to the end. The only way we're going to make it safely is through the power of the Holy Spirit. And we need to realize the Holy Spirit is in us to lead us on to maturity. And he carries us to maturity unless we mess up the process, unless we abandon the process. And these six elementary teachings are foundations. Now, foundations are very important. If you don't have a good foundation, you're not going to have a good structure. Same thing is true of institutions. If you don't have a good foundation in an institution, it's going to struggle in doing what it should be doing. But these six principles, repentance from dead works, faith in God, ritual washings, which, by the way, include baptisms, but also perhaps some other traditions involving water that the Jewish people practiced, laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. That's six things. And what the writer of Hebrews is saying is, you know these things, but it's time for you to move past that. Stop dwelling on those things. Those are accepted. We cherish them. We live by them. We're directed by them. But it's time to move on beyond that. And it's important as believers that we do that. The ocean drilling and foundation building and exploration company that had the oil wells in the Gulf thought they built an ocean drilling rig foundation that could withstand anything that the hurricanes and the winds could throw at it. Towering 30 stories above the ocean, it was supposed to withstand winds of over 100 knots and even a tidal wave. And yet one night, the drilling foundation disappeared, along with 89 people living on it, working on it. The foundation was just not what they thought it was. Our foundation is not like that. It is a good, solid foundation. And a foundation is critical to any building, any movement. Weakness in the foundation threatens not only the outward appearance, but the very existence of the structure. Too much building and too little foundation anticipates a disaster. Jesus thought it was important enough that he ended up the Sermon on the Mount talking about the two foundations, one that lasts and one that didn't last. We need to make sure that we have laid these foundations in order to be sure that we can move on to maturity. And that's the process that he's talking about. Repentance from dead work simply refers to works that don't involve faith in Christ Jesus. Any work resulting from purely human effort is a dead work. Many of these new converts were looking back to the Mosaic system instead of the new life of the Spirit in Jesus Christ. And today, people do that today. Today, believers still practice dead works when they think they can earn God's favor by what they do. Anything we do that's trying to impress God and help God out is a dead work. And we need repentance from dead works. That's one of the basic prepositions that we have. The first two items in that list deal with outward religious acts that demonstrate the inward attitudes of the Christian. The doctrine of ritual washing certainly includes baptism and other rituals that the Jews might use water in. The laying on of hands occurred three times in the New Testament. The first is part of the experience of baptism, Acts 8, 17 and 19, verse 6 tell us about that. The second method in Acts 6, the method of setting people apart like the seven deacons were set apart by the laying on of hands. And the last setting aside, laying on of hands, was when Saul and Barnabas were set apart in Acts 13 for a missionary journey, a missionary assignment. And so the second balance, the second was part of an ordination, the last was part of assigning special missionary service. And the inward life of the Christian has to be demonstrated by the outward testimony to the world that is visible. The laying on of hands is a visible act of submission and consecration and it's very important. For instance, what would we think of a bride who wanted to get married, said she loved her husband, but didn't want to walk down the aisle, didn't want to have a wedding, it would just be too public and too difficult. I love and want to marry him, but I don't really want a public testimony of it. We really wonder about her devotion to her husband. I mean, when I fell in Carol Ann, I'll never forget our honeymoon. We went back to Jacksonville, where I grew up, and guess what? As they did when I was there 150 years ago, they were having a youth revival at the church and we went to church every night. I didn't particularly go to church because I wanted to hear the preacher. I went to church because I wanted to introduce my wife. Last time I'd seen those people I was a sophomore in high school. Now I'm back almost to graduate from college and have a wife. I'm proud of her. I want people to see her, know her. That's normal. You ought to do that. The same thing, though, can apply to, you'd have to question someone's devotion to Christ who said, I don't think I want to be baptized. I don't want to make a public confession of faith. I don't need the right-handed church fellowship. You'd wonder about how sincere they were. I want to tell you something. The Anabaptists, every time people moved from one place to another, they got baptized again. That's why they're called Anabaptists. I'd get baptized every week if it helped somebody get saved. Why would anyone be ashamed to be baptized? You'd have to wonder about their faith in Christ. I don't have anybody in mind, but over the years I've known folks that they just couldn't bring themselves to be baptized. We had a family when I was here that came regularly, participated in everything, did not want to be baptized. Never joined the church. They came. They were part of it. They didn't want to do the outward symbol of formal membership. You'd have to wonder because it's important that we do those things. What we have inside has to be demonstrated to the world. When Jesus prayed seven times in John 17, he prayed that his disciples would be one. The reason was so that the world might know that you sent me. It's our testimony as a family. It's our testimony as a church, as a people, that needs to be public so that people can come to know who Jesus is and come to love and trust him like we do. Now, verses 4 through 6, I'm about to read you the most controversial passage in the Bible. So we're getting ready for that. For it is impossible to renew to repentance those who were once enlightened, who tasted the heavenly gift, who shared in the Holy Spirit, who tasted God's good word and the power of the coming age, and who have fallen away. Now, let's stop there. Every one of those words describes conversion. I mean, there is no doubt about that. No liberal scholar denies that those verses speak of a conversion experience. Every conservative scholar or individual would tell you this is a description of conversion. So he's talking about believers. Believers, not unbelievers. Now, there is an unpardonable sin that unbelievers can commit. They can become so hardened, resist God so severely, and stand so strong until in effort they tell God to leave them alone. And God says, okay. And they have reached a place where they will never come to repentance because they've committed the unpardonable sin, which is to me, against the Holy Spirit. And so there is an unpardonable sin. But there is a sin unto death. The sin unto death is for believers. Now, this passage is a difficult passage. And what I've just read is kind of difficult to understand. The word enlightened, for instance, describes someone whose life has been flooded with light in a moment of conversion. They have a conscious possession of a new principle of life. They have tasted the heavenly gift. You eat something and taste it. It becomes part of you. They have a real conscious enjoyment of a foretaste of another world. They've experienced the Holy Spirit and the eternal heavenly world. They've had a first taste of the feast is to come. And not only that, they have shared in the larger experience of the Holy Spirit in the Christian community. They've come out of the cold, dark world of disbelief into a warm, welcoming church. And that is an experience of total transformation. And nobody can deny it. So we're talking about believers. Now, then that brings us to, well, what does having fallen away mean? Now, some of you, Wayne Lee will know this. We had a professor at Southern Seminary named Dale Moody. And Dale Moody was an excellent professor. He used to grace the evangelism conference. He was such an evangel that I can remember sitting in the balcony at Travis Avenue Baptist Church when I was a seminary student and listening to Dale Moody preaching at the evangelism conference. But he had one peculiar thing that he believed. He believed that this passage taught that a Christian could apostatize. Not lose his salvation, but choose to give it up. That would be apostasy. Aside now just for a brief, I preached at Southern Seminary. The first place I preached after I was elected president, I preached in all the seminaries, was Southern. And when I came out of the chapel, Dale Moody met me. And he said, I'd like to debate you about Hebrews. And I told him, I said, Dale, I'm not a debater, I'm a pastor, and I'm not interested in anything like that. But you're supposed to subscribe to the abstract principles of Southern Seminary. That's not in the abstract principles. But that's what Dale believed. Now, these verses described a believer who has fallen away. Now, what does fallen away mean? It didn't say they had fallen out of grace. They had fallen away from grace. And the Greek phrase fallen away means to fall aside from the right path. In other words, they got off the right path, they fell aside. And remember, it follows the word impossible. It's impossible for someone who has fallen away to be renewed to a repentance. They can't be made to repent again. To be renewed is a matter of repentance. That complete change of mind to be renewed, you can't get them to do that again. They've had a rebellion against God, and that repentance can never be repeated. They can never be led to repent again. They've reached the point of final rebellion against God, and the passive voice indicates that no human agency can renew their repentance. Now, if such a fallen away happened, if that happened, it would imply two terrible results. It says that they would crucify again to themselves the Son of God. If that were possible, for someone to be saved and then denounce their salvation and give it up and apostatize, they would crucify for themselves the Son of God. And it's a present tense participle, which means that that individual who had experienced all of these things of conversion would be walking around continually crucifying Christ. Christ dwells within the believer. And if we could fall away, then the believer would actually become a walking crucifixion of the Christ who lived within them. And secondly, in doing that, they would constantly and openly expose Christ to the same public shame and humiliation of his first crucifixion. Those two things would have to happen if you could fall out of salvation. It didn't say he fell out of it. And the author moves on in verses 7 and 8 to illustrate this in nature. He says there are two pieces of ground side by side. One drinks in rain from heaven and bears useful herbs. The other drinks in the rain and produces thorns and thistles like Eden after the curse. Now, thorns and briars and thistles grew abundantly in ancient Palestine. There were about 250 varieties of them with 743 different species. The Hebrew believers would know exactly what the writer of Hebrews was talking about and what he meant by this analogy. Such a piece of land is rejected, bears a curse, and is burned. That's what the Hebrew says. It's worthless. The word worthless that we have here of the believer who has done this, the word worthless occurs only one other place in Scripture. That's 1 Corinthians 9.27 where Paul writes that what would happen to him if he didn't discipline his own body and bring it into submission, the word worthless is used there. It's also translated in that passage disapproved or disqualified, but it's the same Greek word that's basic meaning is worthless. So, we have to interpret this passage in light of other passages of what it means. So, what could this passage mean? Let's just look at it. Four options. First, it teaches that a saved person can be lost. The individual contemplated was truly saved, renounced his faith, and then became lost forever. That's what this verse says. Well, the following verses state clearly that that's not possible. John 5.24 says, Truly I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not come unto judgment, but has passed from death to life. John 6.37 says, Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never cast out. John 10.27-39 My sheep hear my voice. I know them. They follow me. I give them eternal life. They will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand. Hebrews 8.12, we'll see later, says, For I will forgive their wrongdoings, and I will never remember their sins. The Bible is very clear. You can't lose your salvation. You didn't do anything to get it. You can't do anything to lose it. You received it by faith. How much faith? We're not talking about quantity of faith. If you had the faith of mustard seed, Jesus said, you could make it. The faith itself is not important. It is who is the faith in. And it's faith in God. It's faith in Christ. And so we know that this could refer to a person who had been saved but got lost. But that's the first option. Secondly, this person was not truly saved. That could be one of the options. That's difficult to defend because the language, verses 4 through 6, implies a real spiritual experience. So that's really not a good option. Thirdly, this is a hypothetical situation. It's a case dealing with supposition and not fact. It would involve Christ being crucified again. So that's just a supposition and not a fact. Well, that can't happen either. Or it refers to the sin and the death. Now, you may say, what is the sin and the death? 1 John 5, 16 to 17 is the only passage that mentions the sin and the death. However, there are many references to sin resulting in death in the Judaistic system. And we're going to look at chapter 10 briefly here in a minute. We'll deal with that in a few weeks. Thanks to Dr. Ferry, I get to teach both 6 and 10. He's made sure I get that. But anyway, the 6th chapter is a warning that cannot be understood without looking at the 10th chapter. And I'm going to just read this passage to you. But we'll come back to it in a few weeks. Here's the passage. For if we deliberately go on sinning after receiving the knowledge of the truth. Pause. The Greek word for knowledge is gnosis. And we get our word for knowledge from it. It is a word which means knowledge itself. But this particular Greek word has an fe, a preposition attached to it. And we've got other instances here, for instance, where it talks about faith in God. There's an fe attached to that faith. Which means that, well, it means you have a full knowledge if you have an epi-knowledge. If you have a fully, an epi-faith, you have a faith that's founded upon a God that is certain, that's secured. So it is a word that means a full, absolute, complete, perfect knowledge. If you go on sinning after a full, complete knowledge, that again speaks of a believer. If you do that, there no longer remains a sacrifice of sins. But a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire about to consume the adversaries. Anyone who disregarded the law of Moses died without mercy. We'll be talking about death now in this passage. Talking about death in the Jewish system. Talking about death that these believers perhaps are going to be involved in. Anyone who disregarded the law of Moses died without mercy based upon testimony of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment do you think one will deserve who has trampled on the Son of God, who has regarded as profane the blood of the covenant by which He was sanctified. Again, an indication that these are believers. Who has insulted the Spirit of grace. For we know the one who said, vengeance belongs to me, I will repay. And again, the Lord will judge His people. It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. It's kind of a scary passage. By the way, the sermon that sparked the Great Awakening was Jonathan Edwards' sermon, Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God. And by the way, Jonathan Edwards was a very meek and mild and very quiet person. He never preached his sermon like I'm teaching to you today. He read in a monotone voice every word of his sermon. And yet when he preached, read the sermon, Sinners in the Hand of God, the historians will tell you that people who heard it literally grabbed ahold of the back of the pew in front of them for fear that they'd slide into hell itself. But this is talking about believers. This passage is about believers who have done whatever they have done and gotten away from grace. Now, I believe that chapter 6 and chapter 10 refer to the sin of the death. Now you say, well, God only mentioned it once. Well, He didn't stutter. How many times do you have to mention something if it's true? I'll talk about that when we get to chapter 10. But the sin of the death means that a Christian has become so reprobate and so deep in their rebellion against God that God will say, I'm going to kill you. Or you will live with the consequences of your sin the rest of your life. Pause again. I believe David committed the sin of the death. You say, why? Because after his sin with Bathsheba, the sword never left his house. His family was a dysfunctional family. He just lived in a tragic hostility within his family all of his life. Yet, he's called a man after God's own heart after all that. What happened was his heart got right. The sin of the death will bring forgiveness. But you may be forgiven of a sin, but you will live with its consequences as long as you're alive. So the sin of the death is very complicated. It is not something that I would not advocate that we get too concerned about what I said about David. I may be wrong. But I do know that the sin of the death is a sin that once it's committed, God will have to kill you. Or the circumstances will be so extreme that you will live with them the rest of your life. So that's very serious. We have the doctrine of the unpardonable sin. That's the no-no for unbelievers. Sin of the death is a no-no for believers. You don't accidentally do it. If you've committed the sin of the death, you're going to know it because God will already have convicted you about it. So this is not for us to pick out people and say, well, this person or that person must have sinned the sin of the death. That's why I say I may be wrong about David. I don't know. But I know that it's a good example of someone living with the consequences of his sin for all of his life. So the author of Hebrews here is giving warnings dealing with the sin of the death committed by believers who are vile against God, that God has to bring some kind of judgment on them. Now that we come to verse 9, though. Now after he's really kind of jumped all over them, let's listen to verse 9. Even though we're speaking this way, dearly loved friends. In your case, we're confident of things that are better and that pertain to salvation. It's like the author of Hebrews smiles again. And it's like the sun breaking through after there's been a heavy rainstorm. He addresses them as dearly loved friends. And he assures them that he has come to the settled judgment that they really are true believers. The word confident means a past conflict that resulted in a present settled judgment. So the writer is basically saying, well, I had some concerns about you, but I don't have them anymore. I believe you're saved. But you do have a problem. You haven't grown and matured as you should. You're still breaking milk when you ought to be eating food. He's confident of their faith. And his reason, and this is, I wish we had time today, but we'll not take time to do it. Because I need to be through here. And I am going to quit. And even though, if I need to come back and pick it up when I come back again and teach chapter 10, I'll do that. But the ultimate test of the genuineness of Christian life, he uses as an illustration, he must have something specific in mind. Something happened at a certain point in time that showed a deep agape love that these people had for others. The ultimate test of genuineness in the Christian life is a test of love. 1 John 3.14 says, we know we've passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. We live in a world of tests. Sat tests admit students to university studies. Ozone tests demonstrate whether air can be breathed. Litmus test describes whether or not a solution is alkaline or acidic. Battery test describes whether or not your car is going to start. Yet the most significant test for us is the love test. The presence of agape love in the Christian community and toward other Christians is the test of the presence of real Christian faith. When King George V reigned over England during the World War II, he was deeply moved by the carnage and the devastating injuries that were received and done to the English soldiers. On a certain day, he was visiting an army hospital, and he went from bed to bed giving words of cheer to the astonished soldiers. They were overjoyed that no one less than the king would come to visit them. Finally, the king came to a doormark, no admittance. He asked what was behind that door. The nurse told him, your royal highness, you cannot go there. Why? That is where the worst cases are. You should not go there. The king insisted on going, and when he entered, he saw the maimed wrecks of humanity. He went from bed to bed to each of the injured soldiers, and he came to one blind, deaf, quadruple amputee who was still alive. The king was moved to tears, and he reached down and picked up the amputee, weeping for his helpless condition. Then the crying king said, my divine king, love me, and reach down to me. Surely I can reach down to another. That is the heart of the Christian faith. God, our divine king, Jesus, our divine king, loved us and reached down to us, and it compels us to reach down to one another in love. This is made even stronger by his desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end. That desire is a passion of hope for love and a passion of hope for maturity. This is made even stronger when he says, I want each one of you to have this. There are going to be no distinctions. You know, there are no nobodies in the church, and there are no somebodies that are better than anybody. The pastor is not above the youngest member. We all are part of a body, and we need each other. The Lone Ranger Christianity does not exist in the New Testament. There is no such thing as someone who says, well, I can do this all by myself. We can't. We need each other. Do you know, when a church grows, we often give the pastor credit. But he didn't do it. We did it, all of us together, little, large, young, old, male, female. We all did it together. And if God could reach down and touch us, then we need to reach down and across isles to touch each other. Christians are to live with great respect and kindness and redemptiveness toward one another. And he's talking to all of these Hebrew believers, every one of them. He says, I don't want any of you left out of this, every one of you. And then in verse 12 here, if we don't exercise the hope that is within us, we're going to become slothful. My translation says spiritually lazy. We'll just be slothful. When we exercise our hope, we're told to do it by being imitators of the faith and imitations of those who are already in the process of this maturity. And he says that we're going to receive an inheritance. We ought to live as people who are experiencing or getting ready to experience an inheritance. Now, humanly speaking, nothing can be more uncertain than an inheritance. When Howard Hughes died, who was one of the most wealthy men in the country at that time, wills popped up from all over the country of people who said they had the last will of this man. I mean, there were dozens of them. By the time the issue was over, there wasn't much of the inheritance left. You know, they're funny things. We have a God who offers us an inheritance that can never be challenged, changed, or redirected. We ought to be living in light of the coming inheritance that we're going to receive. And God has promised it to us, and we must continue to hope in that anticipation. One of the most phenomenal things that's happened happened in our lifetimes in the 1980s and 90s. It was called the Promise Keepers. Some of you may have attended Promise Keeper rallies. They were started by Coach Bill McCartney of the University of Oklahoma. The first meeting was there in Boulder, Colorado, and they sprang up all around the country. And for men who kept their promises, it was an affirmation for those who needed to start over. It was a possibility of a new life. And, you know, when we take out a note at the bank, we sign a promissory note that says we're going to pay it back. And God is the great promise keeper. He wrote in his promissory note to us and in the promise he made to Abraham 4,000 years ago. Just think of what he did and what Abraham did. 4,000 years ago, God promised a nomadic sheik named Abraham that he would make him a great nation, that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through him, Genesis 22, 14. Abraham is the grand old man of three world religions, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. The place of his burial at Hebron is owned by the Jews, kept by the Muslims, and visited by thousands of Christians. Abraham is the first man in the Bible whose faith is explicitly mentioned in Genesis. From 1922 to 1934, Ur of the Chaldees, which is Abraham's hometown, was excavated by the archaeologists. It was an incredible ancient city. I wish I had time to just describe some of the things they found. Multiple, many two-story buildings, beautiful edifices, magnificent city. Yet Abraham left it and walked out into the desert on nothing more than the call and promise of God. At 75 years of age, he walked out on faith. He walked out not knowing where he was going, how he would get there, and when he would know it when he did. All by faith, walked out on the promises of God. He had been given a promise by God, and God is a God who demonstrated, as we saw in Joshua, who demonstrated that he is a promise-keeping God. And God has given us a promise in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the hope of salvation. Hebrew uses two strong verses, words, figures of speech to demonstrate this, and I'll just mention it and we're through. Hope is a refuge. That's the first picture he gives here. It's a picture of mariners who are fleeing from a storm to a harbor. And in our world, in our century, we've seen the failure of many things. World War I was to make the world safe for democracy and be the war to end all wars. Less than 20 years later, World War II was plunged into the entire world, the bloodiest war ever. Then came Korea and Vietnam. We need a refuge. That refuge is the hope we have in Christ. And then here, verse 19, he says, hope is the anchor of the soul. An anchor, of course, keeps a ship from drifting. As this planet spins its way into the 21st millennium, there's ever been a greater need for an anchor. Something we can have hope in. And I'm encouraged. There's a sense of spiritual expectancy in the world today in spite of all that's happening. Thousands are seeking Christ. Millions are praying. Millennials are more conservative than their parents. And we have the answer. Hope is in Jesus Christ. Well, great chapter. Can't do justice in a few minutes, but we will talk about in chapter 10. We'll talk a little bit more about the sin unto death. But that's a good place to say amen. Thank you. God, thank you for the word that you give to us. Lord, it is hard. Milk is different from meat. And some basic truths are easier to comprehend than the maturity roots that we need to grow from and grow toward. And yet, Lord, we know that you have promised to us that you'll be with us all the way. You promised to us that the record of our life has already been recorded in heaven. You've already written it down. We may die of strange disease or accident, but we'll be never dying accidentally. For we're in your hand. Our hope is in you. And as John preached today, we know that to live is Christ and to die is gain. Thank you, Father, in Jesus' name, amen.