Heb No.14 A Secure Faith 6v13-20

Well then, I turn you to Hebrews chapter 6, and we're going to be looking at these verses, particularly from the 9th through to the 20th, under the general heading of a secure faith, a secure faith. And I bring back to your memory the fact that the writer has been sharing some very somber truths with his readers. It's not always easy to distinguish between a true Christian and a pseudo-believer, one who claims to believe, seems to give evidence of belief, and yet really in the last analysis his faith proves to be lacking, it is not genuine.

And it was a most difficult study for me to bring to you from those fourth to the sixth verses of this chapter, for there are listed certain characteristics which taken at face value might seem to indicate that a person is truly born again. But as I gave you several examples both from the Old Testament and the New Testament, a man can be exposed to quite a lot of the influence of the Holy Spirit and yet not be a genuine believer. And the argument is clinched in that area by the parable you remember, or hardly a parable, the prediction that our Lord Jesus made on the day of judgment when he envisaged some standing before him and saying, Lord, Lord, have we not done this in your name? Have we not done the other in your name? And Jesus said, Depart from me, for I never knew you.

He didn't question their claims to have been involved in the area of their supernatural, of the supernatural, but he dismissed the notion that they were really born again. So the writer of the Hebrew epistle in the sixth chapter, and he's going to do the same almost identically, certainly in concept in the tenth chapter, reminds us that appearances are not always to be taken just at surface level. One has to dig deep to ensure that the one who claims to belong to the Lord Jesus really is a Christian.

And so we come with that in mind to the ninth verse, and we're relieved to do so because in this ninth verse the writer tells us that he does not really think that what he has been discussing applies to his readers. Let me just express this in the words of the NIV at this point, and the NIV is very helpful in this chapter indeed. Even though we speak like this, dear friends, even though we have made reference in effect to those who are not genuine believers, who are apostate and will not therefore be saved, we are confident of better things in your case, things that accompany salvation.

The writer is saying that he believes his readers really are Christian, but he has to bring to their attention the dreadful circumstance of anyone who is apostate, just in case there was any tendency towards apostasy amongst this early Hebrew community. So he goes on to give us reasons why he nonetheless believes that the faith of his readers is a genuine faith. And returning to the language of the AV, he says that there are things that accompany salvation, things that belong only to saved people that you demonstrate.

What are those things? What are the things that accompany salvation? What are absolutely necessary to salvation? And if they're present, they indicate a man is obviously saved. Well, perhaps not by drawing attention to these verses, but by the rest of Scripture in this context, we could say that a person who repents has indulged in things that accompany salvation. A person who knows godly sorrow for sin is one who is giving testimony of things that accompany salvation.

The man, the woman who is born again, regenerated by the Spirit of God, that individual is saved. Being born again is one of the things that accompany salvation. I could give you a list, but those three in particular are aspects of a genuine experience of God's grace, and if those are present, then the person must be converted.

And it's interesting to appreciate that none of those three ingredients that are vital for salvation is touched upon as having been the experience of those apostates who seemed to have been believers but were not. However, though the writer doesn't spend a great deal of time dealing with the topics that I've just mentioned as being aspects that accompany salvation, he does go on in a very practical fashion to show the outworking of a genuine salvation that God recognizes. Come to the God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love.

What's he referring to? Well, you see, genuine faith not only manifests itself with a godly sorrow, with repentance, by the recipient being born again, but it manifests itself, it demonstrates itself in a practical way. The faith of the New Testament is a living faith. It has observable consequences.

What are these observable consequences? Well, the writer praises God that he sees these in the experience of his readers. Those works and labors of love which you have showed towards his name. Again, I complete the verse by recourse to the NIV.

You have shown God this inasmuch as you have helped his people and continue to help them. This is another area then in which the genuineness of faith can be tested. How is it practically demonstrated? Well, in the case of these people, by doing acts of ministry, by helping other Christian brothers and sisters in the name of God.

And doesn't that incidentally tie up with what the Lord Jesus was saying in that prediction to which I made reference a few moments ago? You see, you can give a cup of water in the name of the Lord Jesus and he recognizes that act of goodness as being service offered him. You could visit those who are in prison. You can minister to those who are cold and hungry.

And in doing that very unspectacular piece of service, it can in itself, as God assesses your life, be an indication, a practical demonstration that your faith is genuine. There's been godly sorrow. There's been repentance.

You've been born again. But your faith has gone on from that and it's given a demonstration, in practical terms, to those who have needed your help. Well, says the apostle, I'm glad, or the writer of this epistle, we're glad that we see this.

We're glad that we see consistency in your Christian life. And it's our desire, verse 11, that you will continue to do exactly the same thing. We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end in order to make your hope sure.

Or back to the language of the AV, the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end. He that continues to the end, says the Lord Jesus, shall be saved. And the evidence that my faith is a genuine one is indicated in a consistent lifestyle.

And the consistency of my lifestyle leaves no room for laziness. Verse 12, that ye be not slothful. I've often congratulated the theology, if not the grammar, of that negro spiritual.

You ain't going to heaven on a rocking chair, because the Lord don't have no lazy bones there. And that's accurate doctrine. You see, the man who slumbers in his armchair, reading his banner of truth books or any other devotional literature, but makes no practical contribution for the welfare of the children of God and the advance of the gospel of God, needs to examine his spiritual health.

Because conversion is more than just an academic thing. It has a practical demonstration in the life of the one who claims to be regenerate. So, it's not the passive attitude that the writer of this epistle is applauding, but rather the active believer who takes for his example, not the sluggard in the Old Testament, but rather the heroes of faith who are mentioned in the first half of the Bible.

You remember the sluggard, don't you? The writer obviously has him in mind in this twelfth verse. He's going back to Proverbs, and there you've got this quaint, comical, yet tragic figure of the sluggardly man. You remember those famous words, go to the aunt thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise.

And when you do a character study of the sluggard in Proverbs, then you're presented with with the picture of absolute indolence. The idle man who wants everything done for him. He's so lazy is that man that what is taken in hunting, he doesn't even have the energy to roast.

He won't light a fire and benefit by the slaying of some animal and the food that that brings. He's a man who's crammed full of excuses. Sometimes he won't get up in the morning because he reckons that there's a lion in the road outside and he's scared of the lion.

Did you know that all these things are in the Bible? The Bible can be quite humorous in making some of its lessons clear. Well, it's not the sluggard of Proverbs that the Christian man is to follow. It's the heroes of the faith.

Men whose portraits we're going to see when we wander down the gallery of the eleventh chapter of this epistle. Men like Abraham. Active men whose faith was a living faith.

Men who inherited the promises of God. And that phrase, the promises of God, at the end of the twelfth verse is an important one for you to latch on to. Because what comes next from the thirteenth to the twentieth verse really swings on that particular phrase.

So let's stop for a moment and examine it. What are the promises of God? What is the promise of God? Well, let me turn you back to a reference that I'm not too sure that I put on the notes. It's Galatians chapter 3 and verse 29.

Galatians chapter 3 verse 29. In fact, we'll read from the twenty-sixth verse. And here is a description of those who have trusted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour.

Galatians 3, reading from the twenty-sixth verse. For you, all those people who've made such a commitment are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither bond nor free. There is neither male nor female.

For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. What's Paul saying there? That Christian people are direct descendants, at a spiritual level, of the promise that God made to Abraham.

What did God promise Abraham? Well, he promised him that he'd have his own country. Tremendous land that God would give him. He promised him a son.

Do you remember Sarah and Abraham were childless? And he also promised that he would make his descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, as the sands on the seashore. And he promised that through Abraham's seed, all nations in the world would be blessed. I'd love just to spend a Bible study on that last statement, but I haven't got time.

So you'll have to take this pricey answer as something that will help you right now. How did God's, how did Abraham's descendants bless the whole world? Well, in the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ made the gospel available not only to the Jew, but also to the non-Jew, the Gentile.

And everyone who's put their trust in Jesus, in the sense that they've exercised faith like Abraham exercised faith, they are really descendants of Abraham. So the true Jew, according to the New Testament, has got nothing to do with physical birth. The true Jew is the person who has exercised a similar faith to Abraham.

Now, if you've exercised the same faith as Abraham exercised, then you're going to benefit by the same promises that God gave Abraham. And we're told later on in this epistle, and you can find it also in Genesis, that God, that Abraham was looking not just for a physical realization of God's promise in terms of a country in this world, in terms of founding a city here. The Bible says that Abraham looked for a city whose maker and whose builder was God.

Abraham was just a pilgrim moving through this world. Eventually onwards he went, passing through death into God's eternity, and he enters into God's rest. Remember that expression, the rest of God, that you came across in earlier chapters of this epistle? Now it's that promised rest, eternity with God, that Christian people inherit, that Christian people are bound for.

So, we are informed by our writer here, that if we've trusted Jesus as Savior, then the same scintillating promises that captured the imagination of Abraham, they belong to us. How did Abraham enter into those promises? Through faith. How do you become a Christian? Through faith.

Abraham believed God. He believed that what God promised, he could deliver. And these Hebrew Christians who have heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, descendant of Abraham, are also to believe God and to hold fast to the promises of God.

Not to make shipwreck of their faith, not to go into apostasy, but to keep on believing, whatever the pressures may be, and to show practically, by the way that they live their lives, that their faith is indeed genuine. Well, let's just slow down a moment or so, and come to the 16th verse in this epistle, and I'll then go back to the 13th and 14th. In the 16th verse, you have got an illustration of how men try to ensure that what they say is believed by those who are listening.

You imagine a law court for a moment. Here you are, and you're giving evidence that you saw the pastor speeding down Chapel Road at 50 miles an hour, and you believe that the book should be thrown at him by the magistrates. I'm sure none of you would be so unchristian as to do something like that to me, and I trust I wouldn't be so unchristian as to go down the road at 50 mile an hour, at least not outside the tabernacle.

It could be quite embarrassing if the press got hold of it. However, here you are in court, and you have to give evidence. And what do they do? As you move into the witness box, they offer you the Bible, or the New Testament, and you swear on oath that what you say is true.

You see, the idea still obtains today, as it did perhaps more forcefully in earlier centuries, that when a man swears on oath, then he is to be believed. Because the oath invariably takes his word to God, and it says, as God, he says, as God is my judge, what I am saying is true. So if I really want to impress upon you that some statement I'm making is accurate, not only do I say it of myself, but I appeal to the Lord, an oath.

And of course, in court, if you made an oath, if you took the oath, and then you lied, you would have committed perjury, and you could have a fine, or even a prison sentence to suffer as a result. So, our writer is saying that when men want to make what they say very somber, when they want others most definitely to believe them, they swear not just by themselves, but by God. Again, I read the NIV much clearer in the 16th verse than the AV.

Men swear by something greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument. All right, you see, why is the writer bringing up this illustration? Well, you see, he's got at the back of his mind this great promise that God made to Abraham, that he would bless Abraham abundantly, that he would bless the whole world through Abraham. And he swore by an oath that what he said would indeed come true.

So, back to the 13th verse. When God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he swore by himself, saying, surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.

Can I put that just for a moment in the historical context? What happened prior to God making this oath? Well, the Lord had granted to Abraham a son, Isaac. And you recall how on one occasion God told Abraham to take that son up Mount Moriah and there sacrifice the boy. And we are informed in Genesis and also in Hebrews 11, that Abraham's confidence in God was so absolute that he was prepared himself to kill the boy and sacrifice the boy, knowing full well that God would never break his word.

And even if it meant Isaac being brought back from the dead, God would bless Abraham and make him a great nation. There never was in the whole history of humanity, I believe, a greater act of faith than when Father Abraham unsheathed his dagger and was ready to plunge it into the back of his son, Isaac. He did it not out of murderous intent, but in full faith that he was obeying the living God.

And it would seem that even God himself was so impressed by Abraham's act of faith and obedience that he went on oath. And he said to Abraham, because you have not refused to deliver up to me Isaac, your only son, I promise, no, I go further. I give you an oath, Abraham.

I swear by myself that you will be blessed and your descendants will be blessed beyond all human calculation. Abraham not only had God's promise, he had his oath. God swore and there was no one else greater than him to make an oath by.

So he swore by himself, saying, blessing, surely I will bless thee. And in multiplying, I will multiply thee. Now with that in mind, come down to the 17th and 18th verses and the whole argument here will be crystal clear.

For here reference is made both to the promise and to the oath of God, both to the promise and to the oath. And in the A.V., you come across a word that's almost incomprehensible today, immutability. So let me read it to you in the N.I.V. This is verse 17 and verse 18.

Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. All right, what does that mean? Well, let's go back to these two immutable things, these two unchangeable things.

If I tell you something, there are two tests that you may apply as to whether you accept what I say is accurate. The first test is my character. You may do me the honor of saying that I'm not generally the sort of person who tells a lie.

So if you believe that of me when I tell you something, you may accept that what I say is accurate. You have confidence in my character. Another test, of course, would be my oath and whether or not I go to the extent of swearing on my own honor or on the honor of God that something is true.

Two tests. Now, let's apply those two tests to God. You have his promise and you have his oath.

Now, in one very real sense, God didn't need to swear an oath because he'd already promised Abraham this blessing. You can believe what God says because of his character. It's impossible for God to change in any way.

He remains absolutely the same. His truthfulness is unimpeachable. His truthfulness is absolute.

But for Abraham, and for all those who inherit the promises that God made to Abraham, not only does God at the lower level say that something marvelous is going to happen, gospel blessings are going to belong to Abraham and his descendants, he swears it by an oath. So you've got a double guarantee of the gospel of Christ as Abraham had a double guarantee as to the prediction that he would be the father of all men and women of faith. And through his offspring, the whole world would be blessed.

Now, do you see the way that our author is going? I never cease to be amazed by the logic of Scripture. This book just grips my soul. I spend so many hours in it and I'm never, never bored by Scripture.

I'm amazed at its reasoning. So let me here again show you the brilliant logic of this man who's moved by the Holy Spirit as he comes down to bring the whole of his reasoning to its conclusion. Now remember, we've got Hebrew people who are a little bit like that, vacillating regarding their faith.

Are they really sure? Are they absolutely sure? Or are they going to betray everything? Are they going to run into the camp of the apostate? Well, says the writer, you should never entertain the latter notion because you've got double security that the gospel of Jesus Christ is indeed true, and your future is glorious. Look, verse 18, you have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope that is set before us. Here you were in the seas of this world and you were floundering.

You got no hope of God, you got no hope for salvation, but you came to Jesus and you found him to be a refuge and you laid hope upon Jesus Christ and his salvation. And he says, maintaining the nautical reference, the reference to the sea in the 19th verse, which hope we have as an anchor of the soul. It's so stable, this hope.

It's so secure. The writer's moved out of the language of the law court and he's in the language of seamanship, and he's got his readers holding on to Jesus Christ and the gospel of Christ. It's an anchor of the soul.

It's sure and it's steadfast. The seas of life themselves are treacherous, and if you're on the ocean and you've got no anchorage, then spiritually you're doomed. If you're with the apostates, then ultimately shipwreck faces you and terrible disaster.

But having trusted Jesus as Lord, having known the double guarantee of God's promise and oath on the blessings of salvation, having laid hold of the anchor that there is in the gospel of Christ, then your condition is absolutely superb and your security is immovable. Well then, we've got the double promise of God. We're holding on to the Lord Jesus Christ.

What is it that Jesus has done, this anchor of our soul? Well, our writer's not concerned with consistency of metaphor, and so you get the idea, if you're pleased, of an anchor going upwards. Now, I don't know much about the sea, but generally when I've dropped an anchor, on the rare occasion anyone's been foolish enough of having me in a boat with them, it's always gone down. But this anchor goes up, because the anchor moves into a new metaphor as the writer speaks about what Jesus has done.

He's the anchor of the soul and he's entered within the veil. You say, what on earth does that mean? What do you remember the temple in yesteryear? Temple in Jerusalem, the holiest place of all, had a curtain veiling it from the rest of the sanctuary, and ordinary worshippers couldn't go beyond the veil. Only the high priest could go once a year, and in the holy of holies, that's where God met with the people.

It stood for the presence of God. But where really is the presence of God? Well, it's in heaven, absolutely there. But who can make heaven? Who can penetrate heaven? Who can enter into the abode of God? Only Jesus, the Lord Jesus Christ, the pioneer of the faith, the captain of our salvation, and you remember that's what he did.

When he died for us, eventually he was received back into heaven itself. And at the moment of his atoning death, what happened in the sanctuary of Jerusalem? The veil of the temple was rent from top to bottom, and access into God's presence was made possible for sinful creatures like you and me. So here's the mixed metaphor, if you please.

It's the best mixed metaphor that I've come across in a long time. The anchor is beyond the veil. Jesus has gone into the holiest place.

Jesus is in heaven itself, and there he's sealing our salvation. He's pleading for us. He's applying the benefits of Calvary to our account.

You like to mix your metaphors? Well, go to the last verse, because you've got another one. We've moved from an anchor to a veil, and now to a forerunner. You might have thought that they'd have used the analogy of a captain, because the writer referred to Jesus as the captain of our salvation chapters earlier, did he not? But no, he thinks of Jesus as a forerunner, one who goes on in front of other people.

He's the first person to enter heaven, and he tears the veil down, and he makes access possible to all those who've trusted him as their Lord and Saviour. And just to clinch the mixed metaphors, we then move on to the idea of Jesus as a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Why is there this glorious mixture of metaphor? Well, you see, the writer is straining with the language in his days.

I'm so often straining with the English language. You can't get across all these concepts. There's not one analogy that's sufficient, so he darts all over the place, just to make us realize how precious our salvation is.

Here is something that's stable, here is something that's secure, here is something that's absolutely priceless. You people have entered into the very promises that God made to Abraham. You can trace your ancestry back to Abraham.

You've exercised the same faith as Abraham, exercised in the living God. And the Lord has not only promised blessings, He's gone on oath of saying that those who've new dimension that is yet to be seen in terms of space and time, the new Jerusalem coming down on earth from heaven, the regeneration of this world, this future intoxicating program, it's there for the Christian, it's in front of him, it's guaranteed by Almighty God. And having had a foretaste of that, having had your faith confirmed by the infilling of the Spirit, are you going to go back? Go back to the Judaism? Go back to the legal ceremonies that could never atone for sin? Are you going to leave that alone and say that this faith no longer applies for you? Of course you're not.

So our writer says, beloved, verse 9, we're persuaded better things of you. You've seen the argument. Oh, there've been times when your faith's been in the balance.

You're under pressure. We appreciate this. Christian people will always be under pressure.

They will always come under strain. But in the last analysis, when you think that you might even give it up, look at what you're giving up. Think of the greatness and the grandeur of your faith.

Think of the double guarantee of the gospel of Christ. Remember the anchorage that there is in Jesus. Remember that veil that's been torn in two, that open entry into the holiest place of all.

And thank the God and Father of Jesus Christ, that He has so uniquely used His Son, and He's made Him to be not an ordinary priest, not just a high priest, but a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. What does He mean by the order of Melchizedek? Come along next week, I'll tell you. His oath, His covenant and blood support me in the whelming flood.

When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay. Father God, we just ask that what that verse suggests may indeed be ever our experience when the sea billows roll, when the winds blow at hurricane force, when we have lost our equilibrium and seem as though we would sink in the seas of doubt. We ask for that reaffirmation that we have a trust and an anchorage in the Lord Jesus, that assurance of your oath and your promise that the soul who in Jesus, who on Jesus has lent for repose, He will not, He cannot desert to its foes.

We bless you for the certainties of our salvation. Amen.