Unchangeable Things - [Hebrews 6]

Turn over to Romans, or Romans Hebrews, sorry, chapter, really we're going to start at chapter 511 this morning.

I'm bringing to you, just from what I have been studying the last few months, I teach a

Bible study on the western frontier Sunday evenings out in Hardwick.

And we have, for the last several months, been in the book of Hebrews, and so I want to go there today.

Chapter 6 is an interesting chapter. It ends with the great unchangeable things.

It begins with one of the most troubling passages in all of the scriptures, particularly to our

Arminian friends. So I want to look at some of those things today. So we're going to have to go over this very quickly.

It's going to be kind of a flyover, so you need to keep your seatbelt fastened. And I'll try not to get too far into the weeds in any of the many places that that would be possible in this chapter.

I preached through the book of Hebrews at BBC some years ago, probably a couple of years before most of you arrived on the scene.

For those of you that were on the scene when I preached through Hebrews at BBC, probably you were so young that you were thinking, how long is

Pastor Bob going to preach this morning? So anyway, you get another shot at at least chapter 6 today.

Let's have a word of prayer before we start. Heavenly Father, we come to you admitting that we are great sinners, but that the

Lord Jesus is the great Savior, the superior Savior, if you will. We are rascals, but saved by your mercy and your grace.

And so I pray this morning that the words that the teaching rascal utters may be edited at his lips, and that the words that the listening rascals hear may be edited at their ears by your

Holy Spirit, who has been given to us when we do not deserve his presence in any way whatsoever.

And so we ask to be illumined by the Spirit this morning. The Spirit who has inspired the

Word illumines the Word to us. At chapter 5, verse 11, the

Apostle Paul has been talking about the priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says this, 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.

I start there this morning, and let me say this before I proceed on any further.

If you have a question or a comment, stick your hand right up, because if I get on a roll,

I might not stop and say any questions and all of that sort of thing.

So if you have a question or a comment, this is a class, I'm not presumably preaching,

I'm teaching, so raise your hand and we'll go from there. You cannot understand the book of Hebrews if you don't understand the context in which it's written historically, the audience to whom it's written, and so on.

I think more than any book in the New Testament, with the exception perhaps of Revelation, Hebrews is most misunderstood because the context of it is not taken into account.

That's why when we get to the beginning of chapter 6 and the struggles that our

Arminian brethren have with the first part of that chapter, it is because they don't understand the context in which it was written.

So the question this morning from chapter 5, verses 11 through 14 is, so who are these people that are being written to?

Well, the title of the book gives us a small clue, okay?

They are Jews, okay? Now get this, we can say that and we get it between our ears, they are

Jews, oh yeah, they are Jews. But understand, I think all of us are

Gentiles in here, all right? Understand that if we are not Jewish, we don't really get it.

I mean, we get it here, but we don't get it here. And so some of the things that are said in the book of Hebrews, particularly to first century

Jews, are easily misunderstood when you shoot them through 2 ,000 years and then a

Gentile reads them and he goes, oh, well, I get it, you can lose your salvation over here at the beginning of chapter 6.

Not hardly. And part of the problem is the context of who is being addressed and the context of when they are being addressed and the context of the whole history that comes up to that period.

And so it is necessary for us if we're going to have understanding of this, particularly this chapter 6 this morning, that we understand the context in which it is written.

First of all, this book is written in the late 60s, probably 67, 68, 69, something like that.

And so that's about 30 years after the Lord has been crucified, risen again, and has gone back to heaven.

All right. Secondly, it is written to Jews of the Diaspora. Jews of the

Diaspora are the same as Jews of the Diaspora today. They are the Jews scattered all over the world.

Probably this is not written to Jews in Jerusalem. But one of the things that is true of Jews that are absent from Jerusalem but are in other places is that even though the synagogue has been substituted from the time of the exile, the synagogue has been substituted for the temple, all of the

Jews of the first century, and I think even in remembrance, Jews of the 21st century, revere the worship of the temple.

That's why if people go to Israel and they see them at the foundation of what was the temple at the so -called wailing wall, and there they are praying, it is because the temple and its worship are revered and revered to this day by Jewish people.

But certainly to the recipients of this letter, they were particularly revered because the temple was still standing.

Now, the clues to that in this book are and the temple worship is spoken of at great length in the book of Hebrews.

It would be familiar to the audience that received it because they were Jews. We Gentiles get a lot of it, but we don't get all of it, particularly at the emotional level at which they would have been addressed.

But the verbs that are used throughout that whole discussion of the temple worship, the sacrificial system, the superiority of Christ as priest, and so on, all of those verbs that are used in that are present tense verbs.

In other words, the temple is, the sacrifices are, it's not the temple was, the sacrifices were, it's not that at all.

They are present tense verbs. And so that suggests very strongly that the temple was still standing.

In fact, I don't think, I can't think of any commentator that suggests that it was not still standing.

And that gives us a clue to the conflicts that are being addressed in this chapter in particular, and in this book as a whole.

The other reason we think, I think that it was in the late 60s, and Lord willing, tonight we're going to finish chapter 13 in the great

Bible study on the frontier. And at the end of the book, it is said that Timothy has just been released from prison.

And that tells us something that's going on, tells us something about that is addressed in the book, particularly in chapter 10.

All right, it tells us that the great persecutions of the first century have already begun.

Now, the history of all of that relates to the Romans. Julius Caesar comes back to Rome sometime in the early

AD 40s. The conquering hero and he is declared by the

Romans, Roman Senate, he is declared by the Roman Senate to be emperor for life, emperor in perpetuity, emperor forever.

And it's the beginning of the Caesar worship that obtained widely in the first century.

One of the things that brought Christians into conflict with the Roman government was people were periodically required to say

Caesar is Lord. And the Christians said, Jesus is Lord. That begins back here with Julius Caesar.

Well, after the Senate declared him emperor in perpetuity, then they got cold feet.

And some of them thought we shouldn't have done that. This guy will become a tyrant if we do that, and we can't do that.

And so even if you sat through Julius Caesar in English, but if you know the history, you know that in BC 44, 44 years before Christ, Julius Caesar was assassinated by the

Roman Senate. They were not going to have a tyrant. They were a republic. Okay.

Then the Roman Senate failed to restore the republic.

And we enter the period of the insane emperors, Caesar Augustus, Domitian, Vespasius, Caligula, Nero, all that went on in the first century.

When the Lord was here on earth and through the first century, the

Roman republic has been obliterated. It is no more, even though they call it a republic.

Okay. The Roman republic has been done away with, and Rome is under the rule of insane emperors.

I don't want to belabor this. Could somebody give me a cup of water? I'd appreciate that. Okay. So I don't want to belabor this, but if you don't understand the history, the

Roman history, you won't understand all of the Bible. In fact, let me say this. If you don't understand world history, if you don't have some kind of grasp on it, you cannot have an adequate grasp of the scriptures.

I mean, it'll be adequate, probably adequate for salvation, but you won't understand a lot of what's been going on.

World history is the material upon which the rich tapestry of scripture is woven.

And if you don't understand what's going on in history, then you can't understand what's going on always in the scriptures.

Well, all of those things that I've talked about come together. The history, thank you.

I don't usually do that. I feel like Marco Rubio. All of those things come together to a community of Jews somewhere.

We don't know where exactly, probably not in Jerusalem. And we find the writer to the

Hebrews writing to them to encourage them to not get caught up in all that is going on historically, but to press on and embrace

Christ as Messiah. Okay. So who is the audience? Well, probably there were a few

Gentiles hanging around. There always were a few Gentiles hanging around the Jewish synagogues.

All right. But there also, from all that is written in the book, there also are committed, it's

John MacArthur's term for them, committed Hebrew believers, Jewish believers, who have decided that they place their lives in the hands of the carpenter from Nazareth, whom they have come to believe with certainty is the

Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament. But there's another bunch in that same group, and they're not so committed.

I call them the wavering. I have no idea what John calls them, but they are the wavering Jews. And you can understand why they waver if you know the history and if you know where we are in history.

The temple is still standing. The Passover is still carried out at the temple every year.

All of the holidays are carried out at the temple at their appropriate times.

The animal sacrifices are still being made. The temple worship, magnificent in its pageantry and in its worship, is still going on.

And to the Jewish heart, now we Gentiles don't get it, the Jewish heart, but to the

Jewish heart and to the Jewish mind, this is a huge draw. And so they are wavering between hanging around these

Christians. Believers were first called Christians in Antioch, these followers of the way they were first called.

Christian, by the way, is a term of derision. It means little Christs, and it comes from politics.

When Caesar would come to town, he would have on the stage behind him all of these people, and he would utter whatever it was he was uttering, and they would all go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, I don't know if you can think of any similarities, but anyway, that's what they did.

And they were called little Caesars, Caesareans, okay?

The Christians were first called Christians in Antioch. That was after they had taught. You remember, they were scattered to Antioch by the death of Stephen.

And after they had taught a year about the following followers of the way and about the Messiah in Antioch, they came to be called, oh, these guys are not little

Caesars. These guys are little Christs. It's always about Christ. It's always about Christ.

And so that was not a term of compliment. It was a term of derision. In any case, these wavering

Jews in the audience to the book of Hebrews, they were wavering between all that they knew of the temple worship, all that they knew of the

Old Testament that was pivotal. In fact, some Old Testament pivotal things are happening right now, aren't they?

Our Jewish friends have begun to prepare for Passover, which will occur in early

April, in the year, you know, 21 centuries from what we're talking about right now.

There are pivotal events of the Old Testament. And I think in, for us Gentiles, I think some of them get lost in the flannel graph.

Okay, we have the story of the Exodus. The story of the Exodus, the Exodus is pivotal in the

Old Testament. It exists to this day among observant Jews.

And so all of the things that we read about here, the pageantry of all that goes on to the temple, that was a heartbeat for Jewish people.

And they were wavering. They had this other little band over here who were not, you know, there wasn't a church on every corner.

There were these followers of the way, these Christians. And they kept proclaiming that the carpenter from Nazareth, he was the

Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament. And they saw that and they saw the power of that.

They saw the persecution that came with it too. But they saw all of that and they were almost persuaded to become

Christians. And they were all around, all that went on with the Christian community.

I subscribe to the Grace to You podcast. I don't often get to listen to them actually, but I subscribe to them.

But last week, I happened to have some time in the middle of the night to plug something in.

And so I was listening to John MacArthur expound John chapter 12. Let's go over there for a minute.

Because John chapter 12, I thought as I listened to him, and as I apprehended that,

I said, you know what, John chapter 12 is the reason for the book of Hebrews. Now let's read what happens in John chapter 12, so that we understand what's going on here.

I'm at verse 27,

Jesus speaking, now as my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Now understand this is during Passover week, the week that he will be crucified.

He has come in at the beginning of the week. He has been called the king, as he rides in on a donkey.

The next day he goes to the temple and overthrows all the money changers that are in the temple. And then he comes to this day when he says, now as my soul troubled, and what shall

I say? Father, save me from this hour. But for this purpose, I have come to this hour.

Father, glorify Your name. Then a voice came from heaven. I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.

The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said an angel has spoken to him.

Jesus answered, this voice has come for your sake, not mine. Now is the judgment of this world.

Now will the ruler of this world be cast out. Harry talked about that this morning in church.

And I, when I am lifted up from the earth. Lifted up is a euphemism for crucifixion.

When he said lifted up to these people, they knew what he was talking about. This guy thinks he's going to be crucified.

I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die.

So the crowd answered him, we have heard from the law that the Christ remains forever. How can you say that the

Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is the Son of Man? When the

Messiah comes, he's going to boot these Romans out, and he's going to live forever. How can you say you're going to be crucified?

How can you say that? Say these people. So Jesus said to them, and they asked, who is the

Son of Man? Now he'd been calling himself the Son of Man for three years. I mean, you talk about a dumb

Sunday school class. All right. How can you say the Son of Man must be lifted up?

Who is he? So Jesus said to them, the light is among you for a little while longer.

Light. Chapter 8, I am the light of the world. Chapter 1, the light has come into the world and the darkness has not comprehended it and so on.

He says, you walk in the light for a little while. The light is among you for a little while longer.

Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going.

While you have the light, believe in the light. Believe, key word, that you may become sons of light, that you may become sons of God.

But as many as received him, to them he gave authority to become children of God. So we read over there in chapter 1, is it not?

Now these people didn't believe him. There was the Pharisees and the Sadducees all around him. And here's the final commentary.

When Jesus had said these things, he departed and hid himself from them. That was the last time he talked to them.

It was the final offer of the kingdom to the Jews. Now, if I have any covenantal theologian friends here, you may not understand that, but I am an unabashed dispensationalist, okay?

And I believe God is not done with the Jews. I believe that Christ came and offered himself as king to the

Jewish nation, and this was the end offer. We Gentiles are pulled in because the

Jews rejected Christ. Paul talks about that in Romans. Though he had done so many signs before them, he had demonstrated his absolute authority over nature, over disease, over demons.

He had done that over and over again before them. Still, they did not believe in him so that the word spoken by the prophet

Isaiah might be fulfilled. Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the

Lord been revealed? Therefore, they could not believe. For again,

Isaiah said, he has blinded their eyes, hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.

The book of Hebrews is written 30 years later to warn these wavering

Jews that are wavering between going back to the old temple worship and Messiah, to warn them that you can't waver forever, that finally

God's patience does run out, just as it did there in John chapter 12.

He hid himself from them, never talked to them again, never made the offer again, never offered salvation to them again, and of course, he was crucified at the end of that week.

All right? The same message is here. The same message is here. You that are wavering, you that are hanging around this fellowship, considering Messiah, go on, and here's how chapter 6 begins.

Therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ, and go on to maturity. Let's do a little context test here, okay?

Also, we'll see, those of you that are sleeping, wake up. Okay, here's the context test.

What is the elementary doctrine of Christ? Come on, somebody volunteer.

Yes? Baptism? No, I don't think baptism is the elementary doctrine of Christ.

What is the elementary doctrine of Christ? There you go. The Messiah would come.

You know, and I ask that question in a lot of places because, hey, listen, you got to believe in Jesus, or you can't have eternal life.

That's the elementary doctrine of Christ. That's the elementary doctrine of Christ for us, who are on this side of the cross.

But for these Jews, to whom this was written, the elementary doctrine of Christ is,

Messiah is coming. And now the writer to the Hebrews starts out on his theme of the book.

He doesn't start out here. He starts, you understand the theme. When he says to them, let's leave the elementary doctrines.

Let's go on to maturity. Here's the theme of the book.

Christ is superior. Now, we can get all this between our ears, but under our sternum, we're going to miss something because we're

Gentiles, not Jews. Christ is superior to angels. That's how the book starts. The angels who shouted for joy at the creation.

The angels through whom the law was given at Sinai, who were present at the giving of the law.

That makes a Jewish heart beat. Christ is superior to angels. Christ is superior to Moses.

Moses, the Exodus, Christ is superior to that.

Can you catch the tension there? Okay, this little band of little

Christs are saying that this Savior that they follow is superior to the angels which were present at creation, at the giving of the law, and at many of the other things that occurred in the

Old Testament. They knew all of those things well. He's superior to angels. He's superior to Moses.

He's superior to Joshua by whom they conquered the promised land. All of that's in here.

Abraham, our father Abraham. We get that here. We don't get it here. We get it here.

Our father Abraham. He's superior to Abraham, okay, because Abraham tithed to one

Melchizedek. That's another story. We're not going there today. He's superior to Aaron, the high priest, and to the

Aaronic priesthood. The guys that are in the temple sacrificing the animals.

Christ is superior to them. In fact, He has become a superior high priest because He lives by, and the words in Hebrews are,

He has become the superior high priest by the power of an indestructible life they were declaring

His resurrection also. That's the theme of the book.

There are also six warnings, and beginning of chapter six here is one of them.

Six warnings in the book. When I preached through this at BBC a year or two ago, what

I did was I took out all of the warnings because they are parentheses in there, and if you want to just get the flow of the argument, you leave those out.

So we did that. Left those out till the very end, then went back and picked up the warnings.

But you will see that as we look at the warning here, immediately we have a conflict in evangelical

Christianity in the 21st century. So, we leave the elementary doctrine of Christ, that Messiah is coming.

Who's that written to? Those that are convinced that Jesus is Messiah? No. It's written to those that are wavering, and all of these, all of the warnings in the book of Hebrews are written to the waverers.

Now, if you think that there's nobody wavering between the temple and Christ, you can't understand those warnings.

And what happens with our Arminian friends, they come to this passage, and they come essentially as Gentiles, and they would have said, and they will often say, oh, the elementary doctrine of Christ is that you must receive

Christ to be Savior. No, the elementary doctrine is that He is coming, not laying again a foundation, that's the

Old Testament, of repentance from dead works, and faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, and laying on of hands.

Laying on of hands? What did you do when you brought a sacrifice to the temple? You put your hand on the sacrifice, on the head of the sacrifice, and by that you were signifying that this animal is to die in my place, for I am a great sinner.

Okay, and then the priest slit its throat, and the blood was spattered on the altar.

All of these things that are here at the beginning are Old Testament things that these Jews would have been familiar with, but the

Gentiles will not be. Instruction about washings, laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.

And this we will do if God permits. No one comes to Christ as Savior if God does not permit.

If the Holy Spirit does not convince of sin, righteousness, and judgment, if the Father does not draw, if the

Lord Jesus is not lifted up who said, I will draw all men to myself, a person cannot be saved.

So the writer says, let's leave that Old Testament stuff and go on to maturity. And this we will do if God permits.

Now here's the part that is the rub. 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...

Let me hold it right there. There's the rub for our Arminian brethren. They come to this.

They're read it as Gentiles. They don't understand that it was written to Jews who were halting between the

Temple, the Old Testament, and the New. They don't understand that, and so they say, well, don't you see?

Christians can apostatize. I think Pastor Mike talked about this two or three weeks ago, speaking about John chapter 10.

Okay, nobody's going to pluck them out of my hand. Our Arminian friends say, no, no one can pluck you out of the

Lord's hand, but if you have a mind, you can jump up and leave. Okay?

And so they will cite this as evidence that that may be true.

There are people, they will say, that have been enlightened. They've tasted the heavenly gift. They've shared in the

Holy Spirit. And what they're thinking is, they surely have had the indwelling

Holy Spirit in their lives. Therefore, they must have been saved, and now it's impossible to renew them again to repentance because they have walked away from Christ.

Okay, I have a friend in Painesville, Kentucky. He's a pretty good friend. He's an

Arminian pastor. And I said, what do you guys mean? You can lose your salvation. If I sin this week, am

I lost and have to get saved again next Sunday? Well, no, no, we don't really mean that. Okay, well, what do you really mean?

Well, what we mean is that you can apostatize, that as you chose to come to Christ, you can choose to walk away.

I said, well, here's what we would say. We would say what John says in 1

John. We would say, we know that they were not of us because they went out from us.

The proof is in the pudding. Okay, there are a lot of people that can talk a good game, a lot of people that can give a testimony of faith in Christ, but the proof is in the pudding.

Do they hang in there, in this case for these Hebrews, when the going gets tough? The assumption of all of this is that those waverers will head back to the temple.

Once they head back to the temple and to that worship, it's impossible for them again to be renewed to repentance.

If you don't understand that this is written to wavering Jews, you will misunderstand this warning in the

Scriptures. All right, and by the way, the words enlightened, they have shared in the

Holy Spirit, those are passive voice verbs, which means something has happened to you, and then they have tasted, both times the word tasted is used there, tasted simply as a, sorry, we don't have passive, active, and middle voice verbs in English, but they are middle voice.

Okay, that means something has happened to you, and then you have considered it, you have had some experience with it, so you're an actor, and the something else is an actor.

Well, they have been enlightened, they have heard the preaching of the Gospel. Okay, then they have tasted, they have considered it.

All right, and then they have shared in the Holy Spirit. Listen, when people come under conviction of the

Holy Spirit, that is a sharing in the Holy Spirit, but it does not mean that they have experienced or are experiencing what

Calvinists would call the effectual call. We don't have time this morning to get into that whole discussion.

I have heard about people shaking with conviction of their sin, but will not trust

Christ. That's what's going on here. You can't waver forever, that's what was going on in John chapter 12.

You can't waver forever. 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's worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned. That simply says this, the rain falls on everybody, and when the rain falls on good soil, a blessing is talking about the common grace of God.

All right, and when people respond to Christ, a crop is produced, and that is a blessing.

On the other hand, the rain falls on everything, and people turn their backs on Christ, or spit in His face, or behave as if He doesn't exist, or are so into their own thing that they will not come to Christ, then it is bearing thorns and thistles, and it's worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.

If there should be any unbelievers in here tonight, this morning, you ought to think about that carefully. That is exactly what we saw in John chapter 12.

They did not believe. I think, I'm trying to remember how John put that. It was really good.

Oh, they would not believe until they could not believe. That can happen to you.

If you think, well, I'll wait 10 years, I'll do my own thing for 10 years, then I'll come to Christ. You have no guarantee

I might not run over you in my Suzuki Forenza getting out of here. I wouldn't do that on purpose, but you don't have any guarantee that that might not happen.

We speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things, things that belong to salvation.

Here's the things that belong to salvation. God is not so unjust as to overlook your work and the love you have shown for His name in serving the saints as you still do.

Good works, serving the saints, loving the saints. And if we had time to go over to chapter 10 this morning, we would see that some of even the waverers endured the persecution of the saints and went to visit them in prison.

And some were even imprisoned with them. And some of these people to whom He is writing even lost their property as a result.

God is not unjust to overlook that. And what He's saying here is those are the things that accompany salvation.

It's the spiritual equivalent of when the going gets tough, the tough get going. And the waverers, they go back.

They go back. Now, we get to the uncertain, the unchangeable things. This is the glorious end of this chapter, and I'm going to have to just really fly over it because those coming for second mass will be here any old time, okay?

When God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, surely

I will bless you and multiply you. And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise.

For people swear by something greater than themselves. And in all their disputes, an oath is final for confirmation.

Now, we don't have time to go to Genesis chapter 15 this morning, but it's a great chapter, one of the fine chapters of the

Old Testament, okay? In that chapter, it is now 25 years since Abraham has been promised a family, a nation that could not be numbered, land in perpetuity, and that those who bless him would be blessed, and those who curse him would be cursed.

And I cannot help but make one editorial comment here. And last week pointed it out in spades.

The United States of America is skating on thin ice because God will not be mocked.

Those who bless Abraham will be blessed. Those who curse him will be cursed. And it looks to me, and I may have missed something here, it looks to me like we're ready to throw them under the bus.

And I say we're skating on thin ice. In any case, chapter 15 of Genesis, it's been 25 years since Abraham received that promise.

Now, he's almost 100 years old, and Sarah is 90. No child yet.

And so chapter 15 starts out with a dialogue between God and Abraham, and Abraham says, oh

God, 25 years ago, you promised I still don't have a child, let alone a nation, don't even have a family.

So Eliezer, my chief steward, he's going to become the heir of my house.

God says, no, that's not going to happen. You come out here with me, and you look up at the stars and see if you can count them.

Well, obviously, no, I can't count them. Okay, that's how many descendants you are going to have.

At that point, at that point, Abraham has a choice. Abraham can believe

God's promise, keep that word promise tucked in the back of your head, he can believe

God's promise, or he can say, I'm going back to err of the Chaldees and get back in the idol business.

This has all been a fool's errand over here. But the testimony of Scripture, it's verse 6 of chapter 15 is,

Abraham believed God, and now watch it, it was credited to him as righteousness.

It doesn't say Abraham became righteous. No, it says Abraham believed

God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. If you are in Christ this morning, you have believed

God, and it is credited to you as righteousness. Okay, there's not one soul sitting in here that is righteous in his behavior, righteous enough to go to heaven.

You know, you can't go to heaven if all you've got is sin forgiven. You have to have a righteousness that meets the perfect standard of heaven.

And that righteousness is the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it is credited to you, and to me, who believe, and that is a glorious, unchangeable thing.

So what does Abraham do? After he has believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness, he then says what we often say,

Oh Lord, how can I know that this is going to be?

Wait a minute, Abraham, I thought you just believed God, and it was credited to you as righteousness. Are you telling me that you're having assurance of salvation problems?

The answer is yes, he was having assurance of salvation problems. So he says,

How shall I know? How can I know that this is going to happen? And now we have to make the long story really short.

Okay, God says this to him, Okay, you go get me animals of sacrifice. Okay, you cut them in half.

Now here, the modern mind goes, What is going on here? Okay, this is a way to seal a deal.

In Old Testament times, you took animals of sacrifice. You cut them in half, you lay them out like this, like this, like this, like this.

Then the two people, you're probably pretty glad you didn't have to do this when you bought your house, right? Okay, and you lay them out like that.

And then the two parties to the contract walk down between those animals of sacrifice, which have been killed.

And it is to say, If I do not fulfill my part of this contract, may

I become as these animals. Okay, now those of you that are in business, have you ever cut a deal?

Yes, you have. And that goes way back to this kind of thing that we're talking about.

So Abraham lays these animals of sacrifice out. And then Genesis 15 says, he's over here in the corner sleeping.

But at night, a blazing fire pot, the old

English says, a blazing oven, and immediately all moderns think, GE? Westinghouse?

What is going on here? A pillar of fire, I'll say, I'll just make this short, a pillar of fire walks down between those.

All right. And God is swearing by himself that he is going to fulfill the promise to Abraham.

He makes the promise should have been good enough. All of us who sit in Sunday school will say, yes, the promise should have been good enough.

What's the matter with this Abraham? Because the promise is good enough for me after all, you know how spiritual

I am and so on. No, Abraham says, I need further assurance.

And so God says, I'm going to give it to you. And he makes a contract, but he doesn't make it with Abraham.

He doesn't say, Abraham, come down here and walk between these animals with me. Why? Because if Abraham had been involved in the contract of salvation, there would be no salvation because he would screw it up just like you and I would, given the chance.

But the whole burden of Hebrews is there is one who does not screw it up. And that is our great high priest, who is a high priest forever interceding for us, our advocate in heaven, who is there by the power of an indestructible life.

He is the eternal Lord Jesus Christ. That's why John writes in 1 John, I write this, that nobody sins, but if any man sin, we have an advocate with the

Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. Is that not glorious? Here's what's more glorious about it than just the fact that it exists.

What's more glorious about it is that it is unchangeable, guaranteed by one with the power of an indestructible life.

And so to these Hebrews, to the Christians among them that are under persecution, to the waverers among them that are looking back at the temple thinking, maybe we ought to go there.

Maybe these little Christs, they're not really, I don't know, and they're wavering.

Here's what the writer to the Hebrews says to them, God desired, so when

God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of promise, the unchangeable character of his purpose.

He has an unchangeable character. He has an unchangeable purpose. He guaranteed it with an oath.

When you're having assurance of salvation problems, and we all do, okay? If there's anybody that wants to raise their hand and say, not me,

I never had a... Get out of here. All right, that's not right.

You know that, and I know that. But if we're having assurance of salvation problems, understand this,

God desired to show more convincingly, more convincingly his unchangeable character and his unchangeable purpose to save you and I, okay?

And he did that with an oath. Verse 18, I love, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie.

God cannot lie about his promise. God cannot lie because of the oath he made with himself to do what he said he would do.

You understand that if God does not follow through on what he says about salvation, that he has to die?

That's what you say when you walk down through those animals. If I don't perform this contract, I die.

I'll tell you what, God's not going to die. And so this is an unchangeable thing by which he shows us more convincingly that he is our

Savior and that he will bring us home to heaven. And so it says this, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement by these two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, to hold fast to the hope set before us.

We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place.

And then he's going to go on to talk about Christ, a priest after the order of Melchizedek. Got it?

We have a sure anchor of the soul. What is the sure anchor of the soul? I'm saved, I'm saved, I'm saved. No, that's not a sure anchor.

That's psychobabble. Okay? The sure anchor of the soul is that God has promised and he has added to that his own oath.

And no matter what you and I do, contrary to what our Arminian brethren think, no matter what you and I do once we are in Christ, we're going home, folks.

And he's going to take us home. And none of us deserve to get there, but we're going anyway.

Thank you, Father, for the sure hope that is in the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for making two unchangeable things by which we are convinced that you will do what you said you will do.

That is your promise and your oath. We live under those, we rejoice in those, we exalt in those, for we recognize that we cannot live again apart from those, and so we lean on you, we pray to you, we worship you this morning for those things.

It's in Christ's name that we pray and we adore him and glorify him, even today.