1. "Dull hearts make for dull minds. Distracted hearts make for distracted minds. Spiritual laziness is the problem the writer is addressing throughout this passage, and their spiritual laziness has wrecked their spiritual appetites. Their current doubts have lessened their ability to learn."

2. "Learn and you can learn more. Learn more and you can learn still more. But ignore or pull back from what you know and you're making learning even more difficult. There's this compounding effect that learning has."

3. "There can be a wrong satisfaction and complacency with not knowing or understanding things about the God you claim to love. If you say that your wife is the love of your life and yet you have very little interest in knowing her or knowing about her, you realize why you could wonder, well, what do you really mean by that?"

4. "To go back to the temple sacrifices is like loving the sign rather than the thing they point to. Those temple sacrifices are all pointing to Christ. What on earth does it mean for you to lose interest in Christ and really like the shiny, glittery things that point to Christ?"

5. "The most important doctrines are the elementary ones. So if you're here and you're new to Christianity, good news. You can understand the most important things your first time here. Everything after that can help and supplement, but the most important things you can understand."

6. "This kind of apostasy rarely happens suddenly. It usually begins with a slow curve of apathy, caring less, valuing less, more interest in other things."

7. "This passage is not about the elect apostatizing. It's about those professing faith being revealed as not truly possessing it."

8. "Walking near a cliffside, you can imagine little children as they get close to the edge grasp the parent's hands more tightly. And that's the way a warning works in scriptures. It's to make us aware of danger so that we'll draw closer to God."

9. "Assurance of salvation is a team sport. The reason you really need membership in a local church and regular involvement in it is because you by yourself are simply not qualified to give you a good assurance of salvation. For that, you need a local church."

10. "You'll never have this time in high school again. You'll never have this time in college. You don't know how long you'll have that job or live in that place. There's a limited time for you to be an example to the people that you're around now."

Observation Questions

1. According to Hebrews 5:11-12, what problem does the writer identify with his readers, and what does he say they should be able to do "by this time"?

2. In Hebrews 5:13-14, what contrast does the writer draw between those who live on milk and those who eat solid food, and what characterizes the mature?

3. What six "elementary doctrines" does the writer list in Hebrews 6:1-2 that form the foundation Christians should build upon?

4. In Hebrews 6:4-6, what spiritual experiences does the writer describe that these people have had before they "have fallen away"?

5. According to the illustration in Hebrews 6:7-8, what happens to land that produces a useful crop versus land that bears thorns and thistles?

6. In Hebrews 6:9-12, what evidence does the writer cite that gives him confidence about his readers, and what does he urge them to do until the end?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why does the writer describe the readers' inability to understand deeper teaching about Christ's priesthood as a problem of the heart rather than a problem of intellectual capacity (Hebrews 5:11)?

2. What does it mean to have "powers of discernment trained by constant practice" (Hebrews 5:14), and why is this training necessary for distinguishing good from evil?

3. How does the passage help us understand the relationship between those who "have fallen away" (Hebrews 6:6) and the doctrine that true believers are kept secure by Christ? What does the sermon suggest about who this warning is actually addressing?

4. Why does the writer use the agricultural illustration of two kinds of land receiving the same rain (Hebrews 6:7-8) to explain the difference between genuine and false believers, and what does this reveal about how spiritual fruit functions as evidence?

5. How does the writer's statement that "God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints" (Hebrews 6:10) connect love for God's people with assurance of salvation?

Application Questions

1. The sermon identifies spiritual laziness as a root cause of dullness in hearing God's Word. What specific practices or habits in your life might be contributing to spiritual apathy, and what concrete step could you take this week to cultivate greater attentiveness to Scripture?

2. The writer expects that Christians who have been believers for some time "ought to be teachers" (Hebrews 5:12). Who is one person in your life—a newer believer, a child, or someone exploring faith—with whom you could share something you have learned about Christ this month?

3. The sermon warns that apostasy often begins with "a slow curve of apathy, caring less, valuing less." What area of your faith or Christian practice have you noticed yourself becoming less interested in or more casual about, and how might you address this before it grows?

4. The passage emphasizes that loving service to other Christians is evidence of genuine faith (Hebrews 6:10). What is one practical way you could serve a fellow believer in your church this week that would demonstrate your love for Christ?

5. The sermon suggests that assurance of salvation is "a team sport" requiring honest relationships within a local church. Is there a struggle, doubt, or area of your spiritual life that you have kept hidden from other believers? What would it look like to open up to a trusted Christian friend or pastor about it?

Additional Bible Reading

1. 1 John 2:18-27 — This passage addresses those who "went out from us" because they were never truly part of the believing community, directly supporting the sermon's interpretation of apostasy.

2. John 10:22-30 — Jesus teaches that His sheep will never perish and no one can snatch them from His hand, providing the foundational assurance that true believers are eternally secure.

3. 2 Corinthians 13:1-10 — Paul urges believers to "examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith," reinforcing the sermon's call for honest self-examination within community.

4. Romans 8:28-39 — This passage declares that nothing can separate believers from God's love in Christ, offering the theological grounding for the real hope the sermon holds out to genuine Christians.

5. Hebrews 10:32-39 — The writer recalls the readers' past faithfulness under persecution and urges them not to shrink back, directly paralleling the encouragement and warning structure of chapter 6.

Sermon Main Topics

I. Elizabeth Backus's Faithful Witness Through Persecution (Opening Illustration)

II. The Context: Jewish Christians Facing Pressure to Abandon Christ (Hebrews 5:11–6:12)

III. Present Problems: Their Diet Needs to Be Fixed (Hebrews 5:11-14)

IV. Present Problems: The Danger of Flunking (Hebrews 6:1-3)

V. Possible Tragedies: Rejecting God's Son Leads to Judgment (Hebrews 6:4-6)

VI. Possible Tragedies: Ignoring God's Word Leads to Judgment (Hebrews 6:7-8)

VII. Real Hope: Your Service Shows Your Love for God (Hebrews 6:9-10)

VIII. Real Hope: Keep Going to Inherit the Promised Blessings (Hebrews 6:11-12)

IX. Isaac Backus's Four Observations on Trials and the Joy of Christ

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Detailed Sermon Outline

Mothers can be faithful through such difficult circumstances, can't they? Are you thankful for your mother this morning?

On November 4, 1752, a 54-year-old New England woman, a widow, and mother, wrote to her son about some of the things that had transpired in the last few weeks.

My dear son, I have heard something of the trial amongst you of late, and I was grieved till I had strength to give up the case to God. And leave my burden there. And now I would tell you something of our trials. Your brother Samuel lay in prison 20 days.

October 15th, the collectors came to our house and took me away to prison about nine o'clock in a dark, rainy night. Brothers Hill and Sabens were brought there the next night. We lay in prison thirteen days and were then set at liberty by what means I know not. Whilst I was there, a great many people came to see me, and some said one thing and some said another. O the innumerable snares and temptations that beset me, more than I ever thought of before.

But oh, the condescension of heaven. Though I was bound when I was cast into this furnace, yet I was loosed and found Jesus in the midst of the furnace with me. Oh, then I could give up my name, estate, family, life, and breath freely to God. Now the prison looked like a palace to me. I could bless God for all the laughs and scoffs made at me.

O, the love that flowed out to all mankind. Then I could forgive as I would desire to be forgiven and love my neighbor as myself. Deacon Griswold was put in prison on the 8th of October, and yesterday old brother Grover and they are in pursuit of others, all of which calls for humiliation. The church has appointed the 13th of November to be spent in prayer and fasting on that account. I do remember my love to you and your wife and the dear children of God with you, begging your prayers for us in such a day of trial.

We are all in tolerable health, expecting to see you. These from your loving mother, Elizabeth Backus. Elizabeth Backus was writing to her young son, Isaac, Bacchus. He was a Baptist minister. In colonial America, lands of Baptists were seized and sold in order to pay a tax to support the religious establishment of various churches, congregational in Massachusetts, Anglican over in Virginia.

People were jailed because they would tell the gospel to someone else without a license. In short, people suffered for following Christ. When such suffering comes, great pressure comes on Christians to eliminate the more awkward and outstanding bits of their faith. If you're a Christian, you may have felt something like this from certain family or friends. It may be your unvarying church attendance, even on Sunday evenings.

That rankles with some friends. It may be your refusal to lie at work, or your understanding of gender, or marriage, or abortion, your persistence in your faith in God. But if you're here as a Christian this morning, you have very likely experienced some kind of disapproval from others about your faith in Christ. And if that disapproval has grown and enlarged, you may very well have felt tempted to reconfigure your understanding of Christ, your understanding of marriage or sexuality, of the Bible, or of salvation through Christ alone in order to accommodate your friends.

What do you do when circumstances around you are hard? Opposition is real. You start to feel sluggish in your faith and you start to reconsider it all.

Something like this was the situation that a group of Jewish Christians in Jerusalem found themselves in. In the first century A.D. The letter to the Hebrews is the answer to that group. They were in need of help, and here there was a suggestion, and there was even more than that instruction clearly in what help they needed. The book of Hebrews that we've been studying this year makes it clear that we all have a choice to make.

Who will be our help provider? Go ahead and turn to the book of Hebrews now. You'll find it beginning on page 1001 in the Bible's provided. If you're not, you're still looking at a Bible, you'll be helped by opening it and leaving it open during this message. The larger numbers are the chapter numbers, the smaller numbers are the verse numbers.

As I refer to them, you can find your place easily that way. In this book, the writer compares Jesus to the more traditional spiritual help on offer at the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. On the one hand, the writer of this book has shown us that we have the servants who are the priests who died because of their own sin and whose endlessly repeated sacrifices of bulls and goats could only make people ceremonially and externally clean. On the other hand, we have the eternal and sinless Son of God who gave Himself once forever to make His people holy. And this is the choice the writer of Hebrews presents to us.

Jesus as the Son of God, eternal and perfect, or the passing and sinful priests of the temple. And now in this section on Melchizedek that he's begun in chapter 5, Jesus the High Priest who holds us fast to the very end. Christ's sacrifice is permanent and effective. So why would we leave him to rely on a sacrifice offered which has to be repeated endlessly and even then is not effective in making his people truly holy? Why would we make that switch?

Well, this is what the writer to the Hebrews has been arguing in this letter. Along the way he has repeatedly warned his readers. Let me just review those so we can get caught up to where we are today. He's warned his readers and he's warned us of some present dangers. First, the danger of ignorance.

If you look over in chapter 2, verse 1, he exhorts us to pay attention, must pay much closer attention. He's saying you'd listen to an angel, but you won't listen to the Son of God. Don't ignore the word that we have from Jesus. And don't just have a sentimental idea of him that you're attached to. No, study the New Testament.

Understand who Jesus really is, what He's like, what He did. Don't ignore Him, but listen to Him. That's the warning He gives there at the beginning of chapter 2. And then having heard, there's still the danger of unbelief. If you look over in chapter 3, verse 12, He exhorts them to believe.

He says, Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart. Leading you to fall away from the living God. So your hearing the truth about Jesus needs to be more than just ear hearing. It needs to be the kind of hearing that goes from your ear into your heart.

Look especially in chapter 3 verse 14, For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.

Well now in our passage today, having heard and believed, there is still the danger of stopping. And this is what he deals with in chapter 5 verse 11 to chapter 6 verse 12 where he tells these Christians then and us now to go on. And he does this in three movements really. First he calls them to address their present problems. That's in 5:11-6:3.

5:11 to 6:3, they're present problems. And then avoid the possible tragedies. He lays that out in chapter 6:4-8, chapter 6:4-8, the possible tragedies. And finally, he holds out to them real hope. There at the end of the passage in chapter 6:9-12, chapter 6:9-12, the real hope that there is.

So let me read the passage now. And pay careful attention, some see this section really as the heart of the letter, as the whole reason the writer wrote this letter.

Beginning with chapter 5 verse 11.

About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing, for though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food. For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity.

Not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits. For it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God, and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding Him up to contempt. For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.

Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things, things that belong to salvation, for God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for His name in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness, to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. So this morning again we want to look at the present problems they faced in 511-63. Then at the terrible tragedy They contemplated in chapter 6, verses 4 to 8, and finally the real hope that's held out there in chapter 6, verses 9 to 12. And in the process, maybe some of your problems will be solved.

Maybe a great tragedy for you will be avoided. And maybe you'll leave this morning knowing what it means to have real hope in Christ and having it.

First, the writer examines some present problems there. He says in chapter 5, verses 11 to 14, you, diet needs to be fixed. He's run across a problem with this congregation that he turns to address directly here. Some of them were considering giving up following Christ and simply returning to the temple there in Jerusalem. And the worship there with the priests and the sacrifices.

So up in chapter 4:14 he'd begun to instruct them about Jesus as the greater high priest than Aaron, and he was going to say much more about Melchizedek. But then he seemed to remember the problem that some of them were having, and so here in 5:11 he breaks off that chain of thinking. He says, About this we have much to say, this being the way Jesus is a priest, a high priest, after the order not just of Aaron, but of Melchizedek. That's what he breaks off. And you can tell because if you look at chapter 7, verse 1, he picks it back up.

And then that's what he goes on and talks about in most of the rest of chapter 7. Actually, the whole bit about the priesthood there starts back in chapter 4, verse 14, and really goes on through chapter 10 with this big exception right here, this block from 5:11 to the end of chapter 6 as a kind of digression. From his talking more widely about Jesus as our high priest. So he admits here in verse 11 that it is hard to explain, that is, in comparison of Jesus with Melchizedek, there's a little looking into it's going to take to explain this, to considering his priesthood's eternality and effectiveness. And if they are being so thick, as to think that the priests down at the temple who are offering literal physical bulls and goats are providing something of equivalent or better value than what Jesus provides as a high priest, then they are in no way prepared to understand about how he is a priest at the order of Melchizedek.

They're not even understanding the most basic things about how Jesus functions as their priest. But he said, what really makes it hard to them is because you have become dull of hearing. So the problem is not with the teaching, but with their hearts.

Dull hearts make for dull minds.

Distracted hearts make for distracted minds. Spiritual laziness is the problem the writer is addressing throughout this passage, and their spiritual laziness has wrecked their spiritual appetites. Their current doubts have lessened their ability to learn. Friends, you know this, learn and you can learn more. Learn more and you can learn still more.

But ignore or pull back from what you know and you're making learning even more difficult. There's this compounding effect that learning has. Proverbs 13 says, if you want to be wise, hang out with the wise. That will make you wise. Well, it's the same way with folly and the foolish.

I wonder what part of God's word of His truth you've become uninterested in. Have you noticed the kind of fading fall foliage in your spiritual life where things that were once bright and vivid are now grown stale and fragile? Uninteresting to you.

Friends, be careful. Pray that God end your spiritual laziness. Their dullness here was a real problem. He says in verse 12, For though by this time you ought to be teachers, so he notices when he writes that that many of these people had been Christians for a while. They weren't new Christians.

They had been Christians long enough that he really could chide them here, telling them what ought to be the case. Very interesting when you see this, you realize it's not just elders like me who are supposed to be teachers. All of us as Christians are supposed to be teachers. Now, there is an appropriate time when you first come to Christ and you're just learning things, you might not feel you have that much to tell others, but even then you've got the gospel you can share with people. But friends, as we go on, all of us, elders and non-elders, men and women, people who work at a church, people who don't work at a church.

All of us, if we are in Christ, we are to learn and grow so that we should, we ought to be able to have things to share with others. Well, they had been Christians long enough to be able to understand and explain to others how Jesus' priesthood is better than the priesthood of the temple. But he says, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles. The very fact that these Christians were being attracted to this other kind of worship of Judaism showed a lack of comprehension of some of the most basic teachings of Christianity, the key points. Like the things we confessed earlier in that statement on Christology that we read on page 6 in your bulletin, or the points the author mentions here in chapter 6 in those first couple of verses.

Friends, to go back to the temple sacrifices is like loving the sign rather than the thing they point to. Those temple sacrifices are all pointing to Christ. What on earth does it mean for you to lose interest in Christ and really like the shiny, glittery things that point to Christ? Well, it shows that maybe you're not understanding what's going on with Christ. Maybe you're not understanding how you are really in need of a Savior and all these bulls and goats won't do it.

In fact, they are just there to teach you basic lessons so that you would understand the Messiah when He came. That's the challenge that the writer here was presenting to these early Christians. The problem with dullness was theirs. Here the criticism is really then of their diet, the way he puts it in verse 12. He says, you, need milk, not solid food.

Milk was for children and the sick. Solid food would be challenging passages applied in difficult issues like Jesus' priesthood applied to their temptation to return to Jewish worship. Friend, there can be a wrong satisfaction and complacency with not knowing or understanding things about the God you claim to love. If you say that your wife is the love of your life and yet you have very little interest in knowing her or knowing about her, you realize why you could wonder, well, what do you really mean by that? In the same way here, if these Christians have little interest in learning more about Christ, Well then no wonder they've not gone on.

He says here in verse 13, For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled. Their doubts were showing up their own lack of understanding and comprehension. They weren't understanding this word of righteousness. That's a unique phrase, but I think it's just another way to describe the gospel of Christ and the Scriptures. So what about you?

Are you unskilled in understanding the Scriptures?

Are you unskilled in understanding and applying the Bible to your own life? He described such unskilled Bible readers or hearers as a child that understands so little. Now, friend, that's perfectly appropriate to you. If you've been baptized in these last few months, if you've just come to Christ last year, if you're just beginning to understand all this, there's an appropriate time for you not to that much, just to be taking it all in initially. But in verse 14 he says, But solid food is for the mature.

The teaching about Jesus as a Melchizedek-like priest is for those who already know and appreciate his superiority to the temple priests. He calls them here in 5:14, For those who have their powers of discernment trained. Imagine if you were visiting a friend's house. And let's say you've come in and you're sitting at the dinner table and there's the little nine-month-old infant and they take a little bottle and drink out of it and that's just great. Very appropriate.

But then you notice the four-year-old grabs the bottle and the four-year-old starts doing that. I mean, sometimes it does happen. We can all tell some embarrassing stories maybe. But then the 16 year old grabs it and they go to town like that's their dinner. And then mom and dad pass them out for all of us.

And this is the meal that we're to have. Well, you see the obvious inappropriateness in that. But that's exactly what the writer is saying is going on here. The kind of food that he's presenting, that they're finding too hard, they've been Christians long enough they should be fine with. But he traces that lack of ability to handle it to really this deeper problem of a lack of interest because they're doubting.

They are confused. They have a kind of immaturity which is not right. So the mature are those who have exercised better sense about understanding Jesus than those who are currently doubting Jesus. Errors about Jesus are crippling to our spiritual understanding, aren't they? We should work to train our powers of discernment to learn the truth.

You know, many people are interested in personal training these days. They'll spend hours at Vida or One Life or Sport and Health. I looked those up.

But my Christian friend, what about training your powers of discernment? What time do you invest in this personal training. The primary way you do this is by studying the Bible, here together in church like this, or at various meetings in smaller groups, seriously and prayerfully with your Bible open, pouring over it in private. Our author puts it here by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. We have to practice constantly.

Part of the fall and the results of the fall means things which are good sometimes appear to us evil, and things that are evil sometimes appear to us as good. And we get confused. And so we practice discernment by reading Scripture, by washing our minds in the pure water of the Word. Discernment is improved by regular use. So the more I practice what I preach, the more I'll be able to see what to preach.

Expertise comes by constant practice. And what a delightful thing to practice, to grow in godliness and to delight our heavenly Father. Friend, do you pray for increased discernment, your own spiritual maturing? I love Paul's prayer over in Philippians chapter 1, Philippians chapter 1 beginning in verse 9.

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge. And all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. Friends, I'm sure you know this. In areas where you're knowledgeable, it's easier for you to pick up more information.

You look at something and you understand what's going on. You know how that game is played. You know how that market works. You know how those decisions are made. And so when you read about it, you pick up information that the person who doesn't know enough, doesn't know as much as you do, doesn't pick up when they read the same account.

Because you're understanding all that. It's the same way with the Bible. The more you come to understand Jesus Christ, the more you come to understand how he serves us, the more you'll be able to understand. Your understanding will be able to compound in its growth. It's the same way in distinguishing between good and evil.

So we need to fix our diet so that we can have a fuller, more complete understanding of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and His work. The other thing the writer says here along these lines about their present problem is in the first three verses of chapter 6. And he changes the image. It's basically you're in danger of flunking as he switches the image from eating to learning. Look at there, chapter 6, verse 1, Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ.

Now he doesn't here mean to abandon them any more than you abandon addition when you learn multiplication. But it's a prereq, you know, it's what you do and you need to understand it in order to get the next. So if you want to understand what's really going on at the temple, then you study that and that helps you understand who Christ is and what he's done. And then you're ready to hear this more talk that the writer to the Hebrews has about Jesus's priesthood. He says here that they should go on to maturity.

As Christians, you should mature. Now again, being a child for a season is great. It's what we're made to be. If you're a new Christian, everything is new to you and that's okay. But for some of those hearing this letter, as he says here in chapter 5:12, by this time you ought to be teachers.

So some had passed out of the normal time for school and they were now strangely immature. Maturity is a normal completeness, just like we were thinking about a few weeks ago in those verses up before in chapter 5 and verse 9 where Jesus was said to complete the course set before him. Notice his assumption here. Which of us should mature? All of us should be working to maturing from wherever we are right now.

And then you notice these three pairs here at the end of verse 1 and in verse 2, these pairs of these elementary doctrines. The first pair is repentance and faith. Repentance, rejecting the dead works, works done without faith, works done without love to God, basically rejecting sins. That's what repentance is. Truly good works only come from faith.

So repentance and faith is faith towards God, it's trust in the promises of God to forgive us for our sins in Jesus. And friends, this is the great news. These doctrines being elementary doesn't mean they're unimportant. The most important doctrines are the elementary ones. So if you're here and you're new to Christianity, good news.

You can understand the most important things your first time here. Everything after that can help and supplement, but the most important things you can understand, God made you. God has made every person in His image. All life is valuable. All life reflects its Creator.

God in His amazing love has given us a creation to be in, to walk around and be like Him in the way we relate to Him and to others. In love and trust. But we have sinned against him and our first parents, Adam and Eve, and all of us have ratified those choices in our own lives. We have done what we want rather than what he wants. We have not loved him as we should.

We have not feared him as we should. We have not trusted only him as we should. Instead, we have been our judges deciding what we will do. And some of those decisions have been bad wrong. They reflect our own hearts and our selfishness, our self-centeredness are curved in on ourselves.

And that's not how we were made to be. God could in his justice simply judge all of us under his wrath, right and good forever. But in his amazing love, what God has done is send his only son to live a fully, truly human life, as we confessed earlier in our service together, and to live it perfectly, sort of show us how the piece is to be played. This is how it's to be done. This is what a truly human life looks like in perfect relation to his heavenly father, his creator.

And then this same one, Jesus died on the cross as a sacrifice, as a substitute in the place of all of us who would turn from our sins and trust in him. God's wrath was poured out on Christ as a substitute. He bore it for us. And his righteousness was such that he could bear it away for us. His righteousness could exhaust the wrath do us for our sins.

And so God raised him from the dead. He ascended to heaven and he's seated at the right hand of his father. The sacrifice was acceptable. And he calls all of us now to repent for our sins and to trust in Christ. And we can be forgiven for our sins, given new life in Christ.

Friend, that's true for you today. That's what Christianity is all about. Every church meeting in the district, that's the core message right there. That's what you want to understand about Christianity. If you're not a Christian, you want to understand what that would mean for your life.

Talk to the friend you came with today. Talk to any of us at the doors on the way out afterwards a little bit. We'd love to talk to you more about that. But that's exactly the message here that these people had been told and that they understood, but they weren't going on to add anything to their understanding. You see these pairs of doctors, repentance and faith, terribly important.

But it's not all there is. Or in chapter 6 verse 2, instruction about washings and the laying on of hands. Okay, washings, that's baptisms. That would include Old Testament rites or John the Baptist baptisms, all fulfilled in Christ and reflected in Christian baptism. The laying on of hands was associated with intercessory prayer, particularly when commencing a new undertaking, being baptized, or becoming an elder or in particular need like children or the sick around Christ.

And then the final pair there in chapter 6 verse 2, the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. Now again, these doctrines are elementary. They're not unimportant. They're hugely important. But they're the kind of things that you have to know in order to become a Christian.

Every Christian knows these things. We can explore their implications for the rest of our lives. But these doctrines are largely laid out in the Bible very clearly. The resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, the eternal judgment of God in Matthew chapter 25. Well, these six are the kinds of doctrines which could be taught Christians by catechism before baptism.

But he's wanting to move on from that to deepen their understanding so that they will be deeper in their commitment to Christ. He's wanting them to see why holding on to Christ makes sense against all the pressures they're feeling. To go another way, and to do that he needs to explain more. Friends, I had the joy and privilege last week of speaking at a commencement, which among other things, for this kind of thing, I had to put on my doctoral gowns and my cap and everything and walk in an order and, you know, get up there and speak for a surprisingly few minutes. And you just when I'm finishing my introduction, I'm done.

Well, there that is. And it's that time of year when there are commencement services all over the place. And many of you you here will be participating in commencements from high school or college or some other degree program. And you may think, well, why do we call the end of our time of education commencement? Well, because, which means beginning, because the thought is something new is about to begin.

Once you've completed your time in high school, something new now begins. Once you've completed your time in college or university or some other education you were attempting, then when you've you've finished that, then you're ready to begin what you will do with that education. Well, just like you've put effort into your secular studies, let me encourage you to never neglect the study of God's Word and what he's done for us in Christ. This desire to edify and build up further is why we preach here, why we do, why we have these serious sermons. Why this desk up here has this large flat space for a Bible open and for notes so that we can talk to you about serious matters for a sustained period of time.

We hope the chairs are comfortable enough for you to be able to sit and to listen in an undistracted fashion. That's why we have these course seminars beforehand at 9:30 on Sunday mornings. Or that's why we have the Bible Study on Wednesday night, usually taught by Bobby. And you'll notice that on Wednesday nights and Sunday nights we'll often give out books for free. Why are we doing that?

Because we get a kickback from the publishers. No, because we want you to grow in your understanding. And so we've tried to find good authors and good books to be able to put in front of you so that if you'll take time to read, you will be built up in your own understanding. And we think that'll be healthier for you and healthier for the church as a whole. That's what we work toward.

And notice the very last bit of this first section, it's chapter 6, verse 3, it's this tiny little verse, and this we will do if God permits. What he's referring to there is, We're gonna get around to this teaching on Melchizedek. We're gonna get around to this if God permits. That is, if God permits me to keep living, keep writing, if he permits you to start to mature, to be able to learn, then we're gonna go ahead and pursue this. And I was interested in reflecting on that, and I bet you Spurgeon would preach just a great sermon just on that phrase, interesting assumption of the sovereignty of God over all things, over his teaching, over their learning.

That's why it's always a good strategy to pray. If God is sovereign and you're having a challenge in some area, you don't have to know everything to do. Pray. Trust His good will. Ask Him to help with whatever problems we're presently facing.

Well, let's go on now. The temperature in the passage increases still more when we turn to the possible tragedy he talks about in chapter 6, verses 4 to 8. These are famous verses. This is the core warning of the passage, really of the book, right here in verses 4 to 6. And it's this possibility of rejecting God's Son.

And we see that rejecting God's Son leads to judgment. Look at the phrases there in verses 4 to 6. For it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened, and he's describing conversion there, that language, who have tasted the heavenly gift, have shared in the Holy Spirit, again, this is a description of being regenerated, of coming to know God's Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the Word of God that tasted the goodness of the Word of God. This is traditional Bible language. This is used about tasting the goodness of God.

In the Psalms, we'll be hearing more about that from Steve Boyer tonight. This is about tasting the goodness of God's word. Psalm 119:103, this image of tasting, it's experiencing. If you look up at chapter 2, verse 9, Jesus tasted death, we read. That means it's not that he sampled just a little bit of it.

No, it means he experienced it. So this taste that the author to the Hebrew uses a couple of times here, that tasted the goodness of the Word of God. That's how he is describing these people. How kind of the Lord to begin to bless us by his Word preached and displayed in the life of the local church. How kind of the Lord to give us a picture of this in his supper that we celebrate together regularly.

And how fully he's provided for us in the feast of his Word in In all of these ways we were invited to come and to see and to taste that the Lord is good. That's what we desire. So conversion is something that God does, enlightened, we read here, and that we experience taste. So this is what he's describing. That last phrase in verse 5 is striking, in the powers of the age to come.

But friends, that's exactly what we experience in Christ. In becoming a Christian we experience the powers of the age to come. The Holy Spirit comes and renews our spirit. Colossians 1:13 says of Christ, He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Surely this is a similar idea which we Christians taste in eternal life begun now.

The presence of Christ's rule even here, miraculous answers to prayer, gifts the Holy Spirit gives His church, even the truly and secretly non-regenerate members, people who present to others like they're regenerate, or maybe even themselves think they're regenerate when they're not. They can be said to experience the collateral benefit of being around God's people. But friends, these are descriptions of people who think of themselves as having been converted at some point and simply live for a time, perhaps many years, among Christians as one of us. But then the dramatic point is there in verse 6, look there in verse 6, and then have fallen away, since they are crucifying again once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding Him up to contempt. And don't misunderstand this, falling away is not merely sinning.

All Christians sin. Do you realize if this church were not for sinners, there would be no one preaching. There'd be no one hearing. There'd be nobody in the building. No, this faith in Christ, this is only for sinners, but it's only for a certain subset of sinners.

It's only for repenting sinners. There's no hope in Christ for sinners. Apart from repenting sinners. With repenting sinners, there's all the hope in the world. Well, the situation here that we see, this falling away is leaving the faith.

And friends, to reject the only Savior is as if you're crucifying Him again in the sense of causing Him to be publicly rejected as you stop associating with the church and you go back to the temple. You treat him with contempt, you're causing him to be rejected, and if you are rejecting him, what does that mean for you? If you are leaving the only Savior, it means you are left without salvation. Rejecting Christ's call to repent and believe leaves you still in your sins and under their just condemnation.

I wonder what this seems like in your life. There are hundreds of people sitting here right now. The stories of each one are so different.

What about for you? Have you thought about falling away? Have you thought about turning around and walking away from that commitment that you once made in the past and that maybe for some time felt vital in your life?

Here we see that addressed in the most serious terms.

Is that thought of falling away a sort of looming presence of doubt in God or of love of sin which calls you away from Christ? I'll tell you one thing I've seen just from experience, this kind of apostasy rarely happens suddenly. It usually begins with a slow curve of apathy, caring less, valuing less, more interest in other things. In order to put together the Bible's teaching on falling away, we have to go to a number of places. We could do a topical message just on this.

I think a key verse to help you understand this would be 1 John 2:19, where John says of some, that they went out from us because they were not of us.

In that sense, John would be writing of folks like Judas Iscariot, who traveled with the disciples for years. And yet we heard Jesus in those words Bobby read earlier from John's gospel said of one of you is a devil. He was referring to Judas who still had months, if not years, ahead of him walking along as one of the apparent disciples. But when circumstances brought it out, his true allegiance was seen. John was playing out the principle that Jesus taught in John 10 when Jesus said, I give them eternal life and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand. Friends, there are so many other verses like this that you need to hear and understand. Wednesday night, Lord willing, we're in Romans 8. Are we in 38-39 yet? 35-36.

35-36. Coming up on those great truths. But if you come along the next few Wednesday nights, you'll be hearing wonderful teaching on this. The question the writer is putting is to people who think they are Christians.

He's writing to a church, maybe in a sermon first, and the people who are sitting there are people who understand themselves to be Christians. So he speaks to them as he does. And one refrain in the New Testament is to examine yourself. Paul says that in 2 Corinthians 13:5, examine yourselves to see whether you're in the faith. Test yourselves.

So all these phrases here in our passage in Hebrews 6:4, 5, and 6 are what Christians understand about their own spiritual condition. So friends, this passage is not about the elect. Apostatizing. It's about those professing faith being revealed as not truly possessing it.

And as for the harrowing statement in verse 6, that it is impossible to restore them again to repentance, that's best understood as the conclusion that rejectors such as these are not repenters. Rejectors of the only Savior are not repenting of their sins and trusting in Christ. The two are mutually exclusive. You can do one or the other, but you can't do both. These are the very people who are ignoring Jesus' unique role, which is the only role through which salvation could come to them.

This terrible truth that those once thought to be among us can be lost breeds caution in us and a dependence upon God. Walking near a cliffside, you can imagine little children as they get close to the edge grasp the parent's hands more tightly. And that's the way a warning works in scriptures. It's to make us aware of danger so that we'll draw closer to God. These are a means of protecting us.

You know, we don't pick the driver who drives closest to the edge. You know, we want one who stays safely back. Those warnings are useful to us exactly so we won't realize the danger that's there by living it out. Friend, as I was praying about the many different directions this kind of message could go in your hearts, one of the things I thought of was how many of you will know someone who's fallen away. And how will you think about such a person?

Well, let me just say one thing real clearly. I don't think this means you shouldn't pray for them. Jesus said, With God, all things are possible. With God, all things are possible.

Such people can never be restored while they are rejecting the only Savior, But you can pray that God would do a miracle and would open their heart, like He opened the heart of Lydia in Philippi in Acts 16, that He would just open their hearts and bring them from spiritual death to life. To underscore and clarify what he was saying, the writer provided the illustration in verses 7 and 8, where we see that ignoring God's Word leads to judgment. Look at verse 7. For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and the rain here, I think, would be like the blessings of hearing God's Word, hearing the gospel. What he's illustrating with these two kinds of land here in verses 7 and 8 is that not all who hear the Word are blessed by it.

If you look back in Hebrews chapter 3 verse 14, 3 verse 14, he said that it's very clear that the others, all of verse 16 rather, who were those who heard and yet rebelled. About the children of Israel in the wilderness. They had all heard, and yet they rebelled. So the hearing alone doesn't bring the blessing. The hearing is essential for the blessing, but it's not sufficient by itself.

He's saying, Don't hear and then ignore. That's like those who've heard the word in that parable Jesus told, the parable with the four soils, where, you know, the word goes out, the same word, all four different soils Jesus talks about, hear the word, but there's only one that produces the good fruit and so receives a blessing from God. This is very much like that parable. This is the good result that we want to see.

But verse 8, if it bears thorns and thistles, again, very much like Jesus's parable, I wonder if that was in his mind, if it bears such things, it is worthless and near to being cursed. So this is the danger rejecters of Christ expose themselves to, and its end is to be burned. The unending burning of hell is the final fate of those who squander the goodness of God and reject the Savior. So notice this is not an illustration of good land becoming bad land. That is not what this illustrates.

This is an illustration of two pieces of land that look the same or similar and rain falls on both of them. They both hear the gospel. They both received God's word. But one over time you can see, oh, look at the fruit that comes in her life, in his life. Whereas the other one, there's not that, but there's finally a rejection of Christ.

It's like so many of the Jesus parables had as their point, time will tell. This is what we learn about the possible tragedies that could befall some sitting in the church hearing this letter read. Or hearing today even this sermon preached. Now in the case of these believers, though, the writer of Hebrews had real hope. And this is my third point, real hope.

You look there in the last few verses, chapter 6, verses 9 to 12. He says there in verses 9 and 10, you, service to God's people shows your love for God. Verse 9, Though we speak in this way, meaning in these words of such serious warning, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things, things that accompany salvation. So the writer He expresses his affection for those he addresses, beloved and sincere affection helps hard words, not to flatter, but so that somebody isn't thinking, oh, you're really just out to get them. You really don't like them.

No, you're reminding them of your sincere affection for that. I sometimes say to guys, I hug hard so I can hit hard. Not meaning physically. But verbally. I express sincerely the affection I do have so that the person will be less defensive when I offer constructive criticism.

Here the writer even expresses his confidence in them, at least some of them. I have to say that pastoring this congregation and watching God's work among you for so long is unbelievably spiritually encouraging. You know, from the things I first saw when I got here in the 90s, people responding to the Word, and then more people responding to the Word and more people, and not just a greater number, but people responding more and more. This has just been an absolutely delightful congregation to teach. You've been a model of the very kind of responsiveness that the writer here, I think, is calling for from the Word.

He talks to them specifically about their spiritual state, and he talks in this gentle way in order to win them over. So in verse 10, he gives them specific encouragement. He says, For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work, and he cites evidence of their being fruitful followers of Christ, and the love that you've shown for his name in serving the saints. So these Christians he's writing to have clearly ministered to other Christians, and the writer knows that and he calls it to their minds in case his own words were maybe stunning some of them. Maybe they were unnecessarily alarmed.

He's saying, no, no, listen, I'm not talking about all of you. For many of you, there's such good evidence. And friends, it is good to encourage people in their right objects of love and in their right loving actions. It's good to love God. It's good to love God's people.

How about your loving actions toward others? Are your loving actions toward others reflecting your love for God?

How is that the case? Why would that be significant for the kind of things we've been talking about? Perhaps the examples of love would include the kind of things he's going to mention in chapter 10 over in verse 32 when he says, Recall the former days when after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with suffering, so he knows them particularly. This is chapter 10, verses 32 to 34, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.

Have you noticed how even praying for others grows your love for them, and your desire to help them, it's like planting a little seed in your mind or heart. You begin to know a little bit more about Armand and his work. You begin to know a little bit more about what Rocky's trying to do at his church in Los Angeles, or a little bit more about Rick's work with Fiel or other publishers, or what Vinnie's trying to do in Brazil, and you'll learn more and more. About Josh's friends at work or some of the people that we prayed for that Rula's been sharing the gospel with. And as you hear those things, God begins to work in your heart a concern, you remember, you pray, and sometimes that motivates you then along with that to further action.

That's why we pray specifically as we do in the pastoral prayer. That's why we pray on Sunday nights for various people, specific ministries, things that are going on. Because along with other fruit from it, prayer is often the germ of love and the beginning of action among ourselves. Well, these believers, had not just been loving servants in the past, but that was currently their practice. And he could point to that.

He says at the end of verse 10, As you still do. There is such a wide field for us to work. He realized for a Christian, someone else's affliction is your invitation.

Someone else's need may be your opportunity.

In God's wise providence, we have an obligation to help all and a special obligation to help all Christians. Go to Galatians 6:10 for more on that. So our serving fellow sinners involves us in relating to others in kindness, not severity, in mercy, not in judgment. And so love for God shows itself in love for his people. So you understand what I'm saying.

Sometimes we think that the necessity of perseverance in faith equals salvation by works. We've just got to keep this going. But nothing could be further from the truth. Think of the children of Israel that he's mentioned back in chapter 3 or that we read about in the reading from Joshua by Serena earlier. Just as it was with the children of Israel in taking the Promised Land, the effects of their actions were all out of proportions to their own abilities.

Because the taking of the land was not really the effect of their actions alone or even their actions primarily. It was God's taking up and using their actions. Just like God took up and used David's stone to slay Goliath or Peter's sermon to convert Cornelius. So God took up and used the Israelites in order to fulfill his promises to them. And so God calls into being in us faith and patience and so we believe and so we persevere and without this belief and perseverance we will not inherit what has been promised.

But with this faith and perseverance we will, but not fundamentally because we persevered or because our perseverance deserves this, but because God will glorify himself in this way in calling us to trust him over time. He will be revealed as the one who makes promises and He is faithful to keep those promises. He wants to be known as that. And you and I and our lives are the way He displays that truth to the rising generation and to all of those around us. Also, it's important to understand that assurance of saving faith is not the same thing as saving faith.

Assurance of saving faith is not the same thing as saving faith. Let me just illustrate this with a very simple graph. All right? No, we don't have all of a sudden the ability to do graphs. This is all in your imagination.

Here we go. A line like this and a line like this. So we have four quadrants. There are always four quadrants. We have quadrants, right?

The saved, the lost, those who think they're saved, those who think they're lost. Some of these are very clear. Most lost people know they're lost in some sense. Most saved people know they're saved. But there are people who think they're lost that are really saved.

These are those of you who struggle with doubt perennially. And they are always questioning everything. You're the ones who are very likely to read this passage wrongly and feel condemned. When really you're saved. And I'm so sorry, but this is part of the Bible, I have to preach it.

We're here as pastors all the time, so we will help clean up anything we need to from reading these verses publicly. All right? We want to work with you to help you, if you're really a Christian, have continuing assurance of faith. But friends, the group that this passage is really aimed at is that fourth quadrant, the people who think they are saved, when they're not. That's a very hard group to get at.

You can very easily make the people who are saved, who think they're not, think they're that group, but they're not, they're saved. They're Christians who tend to doubt and struggle, but no, we're talking about the ones who are gonna have sort of more honestly my kind of personality, but praise God he saved me. You know, it's like, yeah, it'll be fine. You know, just kind of not worried about things. Those can be very hard people to get to.

But that's what this passage is made for, for you. So if you think you're a Christian, you want to examine yourself and these kinds of passages are here to help you do that. You want to have a true assurance of salvation. And that's where you begin to realize that assurance of salvation is a team sport. The reason you really need membership in a local church and regular involvement in it is because you by yourself Or you with your husband or wife, or you with your friends are simply not qualified to give you a good assurance of salvation.

For that, you need a local church. You need people different than you with whom all you have in common is Jesus. The more you can get to a church like that, the more you can get to a church where really the only thing you have in common, maybe other than language, is your love of Christ, the better you can regard their assurance of salvation for you. As you let them get to know you, let them help you sort through evidences in your own life, concerns you have honestly and openly, that's where we begin to see a faith and a confidence in God's work in us. That's why you can see a local church like an Assurance of Salvation cooperative.

So this group of them were evidencing real love for God and the writer here was writing to urge them on, even as he was warning those who were thinking of turning aside and stopping. To those who were loving God and His people and serving them, he wrote there in verses 11 and 12, the last couple of verses, he said, Keep going, so inherit the promised blessings of God. Verse 11, We desire each one of you to show the same earnestness. You know, there are some of you who are doing a great job of this. Follow that example.

This is what I pray for you, friend, that you will earnestly follow the good examples of those who are loving our neighbors, that you will demonstrate your love of your neighbor and demonstrate by it your love of your neighbor's Creator, that you will demonstrate your love of your brother or sister Christian's Redeemer, by the way, you love those for whom Christ died. This is how they and we can have this full assurance of hope until the end. Verse 11 encourages them on so that they will have an appropriate confidence, a firm belief that all of God's promises will be fulfilled. So similar to the faith which looks back to believe, believe in what God has said that He has done in Christ, so here the writer presses them on to have this hope that looks forward and believe what God has promised that He will do when Christ returns. And notice that this hope stretches out until the end.

It will not all be completed in hearing one sermon. You can endure this entire sermon and you're still not done. Go through this whole day, this whole month, and friend, it's not over till it's over. And the Lord will say, when it's over for you or for me, this is what can make the funeral of a Christian otherwise such a difficult thing, a truly happy thing, knowing that God has said, enough, well done, come home. Until the end.

This is a lifetime project. But this expectation of what good is to come in God's acceptance of us helps to steal us for others' rejection of us. Previous generations of Christians were well familiar with jails in this country for practicing our faith, whether that was because of our race or because of our denomination. God may be calling us to reacquaint ourselves with a broader prison ministry than we've had in some time. Here in this last verse of our passage, he urges them on, verse 12, so that you may not be sluggish or lazy.

That's what he already said up in chapter 5 verse 11, some of them are. And now he calls them all to be appropriately active in their faith, and that means that some of them needed to repent of being lazy and instead become imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Believers are to be like Abraham who believed God and literally followed him. And the writer will soon give many more examples of this from Scripture in chapter 11. I wonder if you've found examples of others helpful in your own following of Christ.

I love reading Christian biographies. I love hearing of people who choose to do what is good and right and a blessing to others, even if it causes them to personally suffer. I'm strengthened by reading their examples. How about you? Are you yourself being an example to others?

Friend, you'll never have this time in high school again. You'll never have this time in college. You don't know how long you'll have that job or live in that place. There's a limited time for you to be an example to the people that you're around now. Are you being such an example for them?

This is how we can have real hope, even amidst present problems and even possible tragedies. So there it is, friends, our present problems, our diet needs to be fixed, milk to solid food, we need to grow up from milk to strong meat, and our danger of flunking needs to be avoided. We need to move on from the elementary matters to more and fuller knowledge of Jesus Christ, and we need to teach others about it. We also want to be aware of the possible tragedies that surround us. We want to clearly understand and teach others that rejecting God's Son leads to judgment and that ignoring God's Word does too.

But we also want to give real hope. Your service to God's people shows your love for God, so keep going and inherit those promised eternal blessings.

Isaac Backus, whose mother Elizabeth's letter we began with this morning himself had his fill of suffering in his life as he worked for religious freedom in the New American Constitution. And then tried to get the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to stop throwing minority religious groups in jail. Backus had occasion to reflect on how we're called to handle the difficulties and challenges in this fallen world. He made four observations I've shared with you before because I don't think you've memorized them yet. I'll share them with you again.

Number one, that manifold trials attend God's people in this world.

Number two, that these are sent because we have need of them to kill pride, to cure us of worldly mindedness and love to the creature, to rouse us from our sloth and to quicken our regard to eternal things. Three, that these temptations and sorrows continue but for a short season.

And four, that in the midst of them, God gives His saints springs of great joy. Do you remember how His own mother, years before, had found that even in jail?

Though I was bound when I was cast into this furnace, yet I was loosed and found Jesus in the midst of the furnace with me. Oh, then I could give up my name, estate, family, life, and breath freely to God. Now the prison looked like a palace to me. I could bless God for all the laughs and scoffs made at me. Oh, the love flowed out to all mankind.

Then I could forgive as I would desire to be forgiven and love my neighbor as myself.

In the midst of trials, God gives his saints great springs of joy. Friend, have you found that to be true? Can you have joy when you have Christ that you say you love, but other circumstances that you do love are taken from you? And you finally have to choose between having Christ and having those other circumstances. Is Christ enough?

Let's pray.

Come now, Holy Spirit, renew our trust in Jesus.

Grow your fruit in our lives. Come, Lord Jesus, establish your kingdom. We pray and ask it in your name. Amen.