An Anchor For The Soul – Hebrews 6:18-20

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I'm going to read through verses 13 -20 of Hebrews chapter 6.

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For when God made the promise to Abraham, since he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself, saying,

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I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply you. So having patiently waited, he obtained the promise.

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For men swear by one greater than themselves and with them, and the oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute.

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In the same way, God desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of his purpose, interposed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.

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This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast, and one which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.

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Let's pray. Oh, our great and unchanging and unchangeable God, we thank you that your purposes do not change, that your nature does not change, and because that is true, your word does not change, and it is forever settled in the heavens, and you have given it to us that we may know you, and because your word does not change and you do not change, we know that what you have revealed in Scripture must come to pass, will come to pass, for you have promised it, you have guaranteed it.

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And we pray that you would convince us of the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ, help us to see him in this passage, and all that he has done for us, may he be glorified amongst your people both now and forever, and may you send your

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Holy Spirit to be our teacher and our guide as we look at your word together today, we pray in Christ's name, amen.

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Well, I finished our study last week by trying to simplify the issue of the security of the believer by saying that there, in order for you to lose your salvation, one of two things would have to happen, first the purpose of God must change, or that which links us to his purpose must somehow fail, so first the purpose of God must change, and God's purpose is obviously unchangeable, and we say the purpose of God must change in order for you to lose your salvation, here's what we mean, it must be the purpose of God today to save you, and then the purpose of God tomorrow to damn you, that purpose, that redemptive purpose of his must change concerning you if he is going to be trying to save you today and then cast you into hell tomorrow if you sin or fall away in some fashion, so the purpose of God must change, but God's purpose does not change because God does not change, and there's no circumstance that can come up that would alter

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God's plan for us, there's no information that God might learn which might be new information that would cause him to change what he intends to do for us or to us, because God can learn nothing new, and because God's nature does not change, his purposes do not change, and therefore he can fulfill his promises which themselves do not change either, and there is no weakness in men, there is no fallibility, there's no sinfulness, there is no failing that we can engage in or that we can fall prey to which might alter

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God's purpose because it does not change, he purposed something before the foundation of the world, before time was a thing, before time began, he purposed and attended something, and so there is nothing that can happen in time which he knows perfectly which can alter or change that purpose, his purpose is unchangeable, the text says in verse 17, it is the unchangeableness of his purpose, well if his purpose is unchangeable then the second thing that must happen or that could happen in order for you to lose your salvation is that that which ties you or links you to that unchangeable purpose must fail, in other words it's possible, theoretically speaking, as a thought experiment, that God's purpose might not change, it might be unalterable and unchangeable, but that which secures his purpose for you, that might fail, in other words

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God made purpose to do something, but then failed to bring it to pass, failed to fulfill it, to accomplish it, and that would mean of course that God did not keep his promise and that he purposed or intended something either that he knew he could not secure or he knew he could not fulfill or he was unable to fulfill because that which links us or connects us to that unchangeable purpose somehow failed, well what is it that secures us or chains us, links us to God's unchangeable purpose, it's none other than the

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Lord Jesus Christ, that's why I said last week if you were to lose your salvation either God's purpose is concerning you have to change or the

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Lord Jesus Christ has to fail to fulfill those purposes on your behalf and if he cannot fail and God's purposes cannot change, then you are secure as a believer, so today we're looking at this second possibility, is it possible for the

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Lord Jesus Christ to fail to do that which the Father sent him to do and therefore fail to secure or enact or accomplish the unchangeable purposes of the

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Father on our behalf, that really is the subject of our text here in verses 18 through 20, we'll read verses 18 to 20 again because these are the verses that we're going to look at and we are mercifully going to finally get to the end of Hebrews chapter 6 today, we're going to get all the way to the end of this taking us all together, so beginning at verse 18, the author says it is by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us, this hope we have is an anchor of the soul both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

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So you'll notice that the author describes two unchangeable things in which it is impossible to God for God to lie and he wants us in the words of verse 18 to be encouraged to take hold to have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope that is set before us, now he encourages us to take hold of the hope set before us because of something he has described earlier in the passage and it has to do again with the promises

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God made to Abraham and without reviewing all of that and going through all of that again, I just want to remind you of where we have been and how we have come to the point where the author says in essence therefore you should have strong encouragement to take hold of that hope that is set before us.

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What is the author been describing in the passage which is strong encouragement, it's the promises of God to Abraham that God made a promise to Abraham and that promise is unchangeable because God's purpose is unchangeable, then

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God secured that promise by adding on top of that an oath which is itself also unchangeable so that by these two unchangeable things

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God's promise and God's oath he might demonstrate to us the unchangeableness of his purpose and if God's purpose is unchangeable because his promise and his hope reflect the fact his purpose is unchangeable and his purpose is unchangeable because it is a reflection of his own nature which in essence which never changes, then we can have strong encouragement to take hold of that.

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What is the lesson that we learn from Abraham, God always fulfills his promises, he always keeps his word, always unfailingly even if it takes him dozens or hundreds or even thousands of years to do it, he will always keep his word so you and I can look back to Abraham and say there's something

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I know that's true about my God, that he will always do exactly what he has promised to do unfailingly and that is an encouragement for us to take hold so we are encouraged to hold fast or to take hold of an unchanging

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Christ who has given us his unchanging promises as an expression of God's unchangeable purpose to save us.

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So verse 18 through 19 or 20 is our text today and we're going to look at three characteristics, three illustrations or analogies that are given in the passage of the

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Lord Jesus Christ all of which demonstrate his faithfulness and the security that we as believers have and I'll point these three out to you and then we'll take each one individually.

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First we see that Christ is our refuge and we get this in verse 18, we who have taken refuge have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us,

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Christ is the one to whom we have come as a refuge. Second Christ is our anchor, that's in verse 19, this hope we have as an anchor for the soul and third

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Christ is our forerunner in verse 20 where it says that he has entered as a forerunner for us, he is our refuge, our anchor and our forerunner.

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Now if you're observant, I shouldn't say that because then if you didn't notice this you're going to think oh I must not be that observant but if you were trying to observe let's say in the passage you might have noticed that Christ is not directly called a refuge or an anchor but it is my intention to link those verities, those truths that we have taken refuge and that we have an anchor with the

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Lord Jesus Christ himself. So though the passage does not directly say Christ is our refuge or Christ is our anchor just as Christ is our forerunner, the fact that we have taken refuge is indicative that that is what

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Jesus Christ is for his people, a refuge and the fact that we have this anchor is an evidence that that is exactly what

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Jesus Christ has provided for us, an anchor. So we have an anchor, we have a refuge, we have an anchor and we have a forerunner and all of these are illustrations or pictures of what the

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Lord Jesus Christ has done. So I want you to be aware that I am aware that the text doesn't directly say that but if we have taken refuge to whom have we come as a refuge?

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It is to Christ. So the fact that we have taken refuge is indicative of the fact that Jesus Christ is our refuge and that we have a hope, it is a hope that is provided for us in Christ that is the gospel, it is an eschatological hope, it is the certainty of our salvation, it is eternal life, that is the hope that we have and we have that because that is what

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Christ has done. So he is our refuge, he is our anchor and he is our forerunner. Now let's look at these three. First of all, verse 18, he is a refuge.

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It describes Christians and this I think is a beautiful way of describing Christians as those of us who have taken refuge, that we who have taken refuge, we who have taken refuge in Jesus Christ and I think that the concept of refuge would have been very familiar to the

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Old Testament Jews because they had in their law provision for cities of refuge and that's kind of what the illusion is here with Christ being called a refuge or the description that we have taken refuge.

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If you've read through the Old Testament, you're familiar with the cities of refuge. There were six of them provided to the nation of Israel that described in Numbers chapter 35, verse 6 and verses 9 through 32 and how cities of refuge were to be used.

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Now these aren't sanctuary cities like we're familiar with today, right? In a sanctuary city today and you've heard some people try and connect the idea of sanctuary cities in our nation to the

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Old Testament cities of refuge. No, that's absurd. Sanctuary cities are where you go to avoid the law.

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A refuge, a city of refuge was not a place where you went to avoid the enforcement of the law. It was where you went to avoid the death penalty and you stayed there because you had not technically violated the law in the sense of murdering somebody but you were kind of under the shadow of a blood guiltness and so you went to the city of refuge.

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Okay, so a city of refuge, there were six of them, three on the east side, three on the west side of the Jordan River for the land in the nation of Israel and these cities of refuge were intended to be places where if you, if you as an

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Israelite killed somebody unintentionally, there was no malice, no forethought, no premeditation at all.

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You're out in the woods, you're swinging an axe or falling a tree or something, an axe head comes off and hits somebody and kills them and there was no malicious intent.

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It's just that you have actually done something that contributed to somebody's death however inadvertent it was or accidental it was, technically you had killed somebody and there is a blood guiltness upon you because you had shed somebody's blood and taken somebody's life even if it was an accidental but you would go to the city of refuge on one side of the

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Jordan River or the other and you go to the city of refuge so that the avenger of blood, whoever it was, it was a close relative who would come to seek your death penalty to take your life in the place of the person whose life you had inadvertently taken, you would have refuge in that city away from your guiltness for taking somebody else's life and as long, and you had to stay in that city of refuge until the high priest died.

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Once the high priest had died, you were free to leave the city of refuge. Now imagine that you're somewhere in the land of Israel and you do this and you end up inadvertently killing somebody, you go to the city of refuge and you're like, okay,

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I have to stay here. As long as you're inside that city, you're safe but you had to stay inside that city as long as the high priest was alive.

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You were in that condition, I would imagine, if you were in that city of refuge, I imagine that there is probably nobody, nobody's death you would pray more fervently for than the high priest every year.

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I'd be checking every week, did the high priest die yet? Has he got cancer? Is he looking ill? Is he at least looking old? I would want him to die so that I would be free from the blood guiltness and be able to leave the city of refuge and go back to my family or my business or the land that I have.

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So that's the idea of a refuge. As long as you were inside the city of refuge, you were safe and so it is with us in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. As long as we are in him, we are safe and secure. Now we can't be outside of him because we've been baptized into him, we've been placed in him by the

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Holy Spirit. As long as we are in him, which we are united in him, his body, his blood has atoned for us and we are in him by virtue of faith and repentance.

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As long as we're in him, we are safe and secure from all guilt. And the other illusion here, by the way, is that our priest, a

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Melchizedekian priest forever, he has actually died and released us so that now we are free.

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There is a picture of it, even in the Old Testament city of refuge. So that is what Christ is for us.

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I think that there's a beautiful description, we who have taken refuge, because it describes a Christian's proper motive for coming to Christ.

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You ask people, why is it that you are a Christian, and you'll get all kinds of different answers. I hope you wouldn't get these kinds of different answers here, but you'll hear people say things like, well,

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I'm a Christian because when I think of God, he gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling in my heart. Or I'm a Christian because I was promised that I could have my best life now.

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Or I really want to have that sort of that fulfillment. He makes me whole in some way. And I just feel more spiritual when

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I'm thinking about God and what Jesus has done. Those are all wrong and improper motives for coming to faith in Jesus Christ.

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I hope that if you were asked, why is it that you are a Christian, that you would answer this way. You would say, because I have taken refuge away from the wrath of God for my sin.

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And that refuge is to be found in Christ and Christ alone. I have come to him as a refuge from the wrath of God.

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And as long as I am in him, I am safe and secure. And I am in him by his doing, by his purpose, by his unchangeable promises,

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I'm in him. And so I have sought refuge in Jesus Christ. He is the refuge from the wrath of God.

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And it demonstrates not only what it means to be a Christian and the proper motive for becoming a Christian, but it also demonstrates and illustrates exactly what it is that Christ provides.

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Christ doesn't provide or promise. I shouldn't say he doesn't promise us freedom from life's trials.

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He doesn't promise us freedom from temptation. He doesn't promise us good times. He doesn't promise us warm, fuzzy feelings.

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He doesn't promise to make us feel whole and fulfilled. He doesn't promise any of that.

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But he does promise that if we come to him as a refuge from the sin, our sin, that he will hide us and he will shelter us and he will keep us and we will be safe in him, that he will give to us eternal life and he will raise us up at the last day.

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That is exactly what Jesus Christ has promised. So it is a proper description of the motive of a Christian. Now you notice the passage says that we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to hold fast or to take hold of the hope that is set before us.

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We are commanded to take hold of this refuge who is the Lord Jesus Christ. And notice that the NASB, which is a little bit confusing, that translation, the

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NASB at this point, because the NASB renders that we would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope. In other words, you'll notice that it says we who have taken refuge would have encouragement to take hold.

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And it's confusing in this way because it almost suggests that taking refuge and taking hold are two separate acts.

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As if one can take refuge in Jesus Christ but not take hold of the hope that is set before them. As if these two things are separate and distinct.

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That's the way the NASB translation seems to suggest it. But that's not probably the best way of taking this or understanding it.

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The ESV translates it this way, that we might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope.

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See, when we have taken refuge in Jesus Christ, we have already laid hold of a hope. But then having laid hold of the hope, what are we to do?

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We are commanded to hold fast to that hope. And the word that is translated hold fast here or take hold by the

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NASB means to hold on to, to retain in the hand, to seize it and then to keep it. That's the idea behind that word.

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To seize or to lay hold of it and then to keep it. And so the translation better captures it. We who have taken refuge, we are to hold fast to the hope that we have already taken hold of.

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So we are commanded to hold fast to Christ. And you say, but Jim, wait a second. Haven't you been saying now for weeks, nigh unto months, that it is not we who secure ourselves, but Christ that secures us.

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And if Christ secures us and it is not our work that secures us, then why does the author encourage us to hold on?

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He encourages us to hold on because that is what we must do. These two things go together, the divine sovereignty of God and human responsibility.

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They always go together. And here we see it in this passage, beautifully pictured. Divine sovereignty,

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God hold fast, God holds fast to us. Our responsibility is to hold fast to him. So he holds us and he will not let us go.

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And his holding us and not letting go is evidenced and expressed by us holding on to him.

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Our holding on or our holding fast to Christ is the means by which he holds fast to us.

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Put that in your mind and catch that. Our holding fast to him is the means by which he holds fast to us.

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So he gives us the grace and by the empowering work of the Holy Spirit and the power of the gift of faith which he gives to those who are his, we obey the command, hold fast to Christ.

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And it is by him giving us the strength to hold fast to him that he ends up holding fast to us.

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He keeps us by keeping us by keeping him. We keep him because he keeps us keeping him.

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So we cannot lose hold of him because it is his grace and power that makes us to hold on to and to hold fast to him.

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That is the divine sovereignty and the human responsibility. We see this in all kinds of areas of salvation.

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We are commanded to believe the gospel. But spiritually dead people cannot believe because belief is something that is pleasing to God.

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It is a fulfillment of his command and spiritually dead people are unable to fulfill the commands of God or to do anything that is pleasing to him or even to generate the kind of faith and belief that God demands and requires in order for us to be saved.

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So though we are commanded to believe, we are unable to believe. This is why scripture says that faith is a gift, that it must be granted and given to his people.

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You are commanded to repent. Can you? Can spiritually dead people repent?

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Can a leopard change its spots? You can no more divorce sin in your own self than a leopard can change its spots.

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You are unable to do that. We're slaves to sin, bound to sin, in a kingdom of sin. Nothing but wretched villainy and hatred and pride and wrongdoing and evil is in our flesh.

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Nothing but it. We cannot abandon sin or give that up, but yet we are commanded to do so because the command to repent is also accompanied by the power to repent by the one who gives the command and then grants repentance.

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God must turn us from our sin and he must give us the faith to believe, otherwise we could not do either one of those things.

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So you are commanded to hold fast, but we can't. And ourselves, we can't. We don't have the power or the strength to do that.

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We don't have the ability to do that. There's no spiritual virtue in any of you that gives you, without the grace of God, the ability to hold fast to Christ.

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You can't do that. You can't hold fast to him any more than you can believe or any more than you can fulfill the command to repent. Repent, believe, and hold fast.

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We are unable by ourselves to do any of that, but God fulfills the command through us by giving to his people the grace to fulfill that command and to do exactly what it is that he has called us to do.

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So this doctrine of the security of the believer, what we call eternal security, is sometimes variously described as the perseverance of the saints or the preservation of the saints.

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Perseverance or preservation. Both of those are appropriate depending on what side of the coin you are looking at this doctrine from.

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If you are describing God's work of preserving all his people and keeping them to the very end and raising them up on the last day, then we would describe this as the preservation of the saints because he preserves us.

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But if you are describing it from the side of human responsibility, you would say, this is the perseverance of the saints. That it is the saints who persevere through the trials and tribulations and temptations and we endure all the way to the end and are saved.

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It is the preservation of God that helps us to persevere. It is our perseverance which is the evidence of God's preservation.

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These two things work together. Human responsibility and divine sovereignty, they always do in every area of theology they go together.

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Human responsibility and divine sovereignty. The preservation of the saints by God, the perseverance of the saints by us.

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We persevere to the end because he keeps us. So that when we get to the end, do we have anything of which to boast?

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No. Is there going to be anybody here who steps through the gates of splendor and glory on the last day and says, look what

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I did. I persevered all the way to the end. Satan threw at me everything he could think of.

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I suffered pain and sickness and sorrow and loss and trials, tribulations, temptations.

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I endured all of it. And look, I made it. Nobody would say that.

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We would all say, he kept me. But we did persevere, didn't we? No one's saved by letting go.

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We have to hold fast. But at the same time, he is the one who holds fast to us. So the human activity of perseverance is empowered by a savior who preserves all who are his until the final day and raises them up, losing none.

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What is it that we are to hold fast to? The text says, the hope that is set before us. That hope is, I think, to be understood in the most general way possible as in the broad strokes of the hope.

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It is an all -encompassing hope. We have a hope who is Christ. We have a hope that is eternal life. We have a hope that is salvation.

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The gospel gives us our hope. And by hope, the Bible is not describing wishful thinking or wish casting. A hope in scripture is not something, you know, like,

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I hope I get to have hamburgers this afternoon for lunch. It's not something that you're wishing that might happen or you're hoping to have happen.

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A hope in scripture is a certainty upon which we have fixed our expectation. And it is a certainty secured for us by the promises of God.

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So as Christians, we have a hope. It is eternal life. It is the presence of God. It is the joys and delights and the glories of heaven.

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It is life everlasting. All of that secured in the gospel, which is our hope, by Christ, who is our hope. All of that is our hope.

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So he is our refuge in whom we have taken refuge. And when he commands us to persevere, we persevere.

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And he preserves us through that perseverance. So Christ is our refuge. Second, he is our anchor. This is beautiful imagery, an anchor for the soul.

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This is nautical imagery, and one that is familiar to us because an anchor is something with which we are all familiar.

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An anchor steadies the ship and keeps it from drifting, keeps it from being swept away. It moors it to solid ground and keeps it immovable and solidly grounding where it needs to be, where it should be, safe and secure.

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An anchor is that which keeps the ship from drifting in the sea or being tossed by the winds or being pulled out to sea by the currents.

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An anchor holds it fast. So again, what is our anchor? Our anchor is the hope. So we are being held fast by an anchor.

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So yes, we are commanded to hold fast, but we are being held fast by an anchor. And that anchor is our hope. That anchor is the

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Lord Jesus Christ. It is his hope, or it is him and his gospel, and the good news of our union with him, which is the hope of every believer.

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So with this imagery of an anchor, there are three ways that an anchor can fail. Let's give some thought to each of these.

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There are three ways that an anchor can fail. First, an anchor can fail because due to some weakness or inadequacy in the anchor itself, some defect in the anchor itself.

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For instance, you throw out an anchor and the anchor breaks off, or the anchor bends and gives way, or if the anchor is too small for a ship, the anchor that you would use to secure your fishing boat is not the same anchor that is used to secure a cruise liner.

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You can have an anchor that is too small, it can break, or it's too weak and it gets bent. So the anchor might fail.

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The second way that an anchor could fail is if it is fixed to an insecure place. So the anchor might be big enough to secure the ship, it might be strong enough and unbreakable and unbendable, but if it's secured on ground, which gives way, then the anchor is going to give way.

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So it needs to be secured on ground, which is sturdy and immovable and one that is able to hold the anchor.

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Or the third way that an anchor might fail is if it is improperly placed by somebody who doesn't place it in the right spot.

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So you might have a perfectly good anchor and perfectly good ground, but the one who drops or places the anchor places it in such a place where it is insecure because he doesn't affix the anchor properly or correctly.

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Those are the three ways that an anchor can fail. So what about our anchor, the Lord Jesus Christ? Is there some defect in the anchor itself?

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Remember, it's either the anchor, the ground, or the one who places the anchor. Those are the three ways that it can fail. Because remember, the question is, is the

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Lord Jesus Christ going to fail to anchor us to that unchanging hope? He has to fail in order for you to lose your salvation.

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So can that anchor fail? Well, no, because the passage says in verse 18, or sorry, verse 19, this hope we have as an anchor for the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast.

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The word sure means not liable to fall, immovable, steadfast. It cannot fail. It cannot be moved.

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It refers to something truthful, something definite, something certain. The word steadfast is a word that is often translated guaranteed or unalterable or firm.

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It refers to that which is trustworthy, certain, certified, and verified. It's both sure and steadfast.

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So the anchor cannot fail. The anchor, which is our hope, which is the Lord Jesus Christ, that cannot fail.

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Our hope is a certain expectation, and that which we have as a hope cannot fail because it is sure and it is steadfast, immovable, unalterable.

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The anchor is large enough, big enough, strong enough, certain enough, sure enough, and steadfast enough to anchor us to where it needs to be.

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So nothing is wrong with the anchor. It's not inadequate for the need. What if God were to, what would you say of a God who looked at your need and said, we need to save that individual because that is my unchangeable purpose concerning that individual?

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And then he were to provide for us an anchor, which is too weak to do the job. What would that say about God? Or if he were to provide for us an anchor that might break under pressure, what would that say about God in his unchangeable purposes?

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Or if that anchor might be too small for the job or too weak and inadequate for the job, what would that say about the

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God who provided it? Our anchor cannot fail. There's no inadequacy in the anchor that God has provided. So the second way that it could fail is if it's fixed upon improper ground.

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Well, look what verse 19 says. This hope we have is an anchor for the soul, both sure and steadfast, and one which enters within the veil.

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Where is our anchor fixed? Behind the veil. It enters within the veil itself.

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Now, in the seafaring industry, an anchor didn't go up, it went down, past the veil of the water and fixed on the ground.

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Our anchor goes up into the heavens itself. So there's a little difference there. Our anchor goes behind the veil.

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Every Jew understood exactly what that meant. It was a reference to the veil inside the tabernacle and then the temple, which separated the normal court from the

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Holy of Holies where the Ark sat. And that veil cut off access to everybody and everything for only on one day of the year, the

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Day of Atonement, and only one time on that day, the Day of Atonement, there was only one man who stepped behind the veil and he would take the blood of the sacrifice on the

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Day of Atonement and he would apply it to the mercy seat on the Ark of the Covenant where God dwelt between the, where God's glory was manifested between the wings of the cherubim.

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And he would go back and he would apply that blood of the Atonement, making Atonement for the nation of Israel, and then he would immediately leave the tabernacle and from behind the veil.

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And then it would be an entire year before that high priest would step back there again. So this is an allusion to the

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Holy of Holies, where that priest would enter into the presence of God. And every Jew understood that behind the veil in the

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Holy of Holies, this is how they would picture it, that was where God Himself dwelt.

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The Holy of Holies was considered the presence of God Himself, which is why only one person could come on only one day of the year to do one thing, and that was to offer a sacrifice.

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And that veil existed to remind everybody and to demonstrate to everybody, you cannot just approach God flippantly, you cannot come into that presence.

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Unholy people cannot approach a holy and righteous God. Atonement has to be made in the very presence of God Himself.

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So what was behind the veil? It was the presence of God, where men could not come, where God's throne was pictured, the image, where His presence was.

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In the heavenlies, Christ has entered into the very presence of God, where He sits at the Father's right hand and makes intercession for us.

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He has entered behind the veil, in other words, He has gone up into heavens and He has stepped into the presence of God, having applied the blood of His sacrifice to our cause.

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Having atoned for sin, He has made provision in the very presence of God and stepped there, and that is where our anchor holds.

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Is there anyone who would suggest that there is some inadequacy in the ground in which that anchor is placed?

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It's the very presence of the unchanging and unchangeable great I Am, whose purposes never change, who knows all things, who is the author of life, whose throne sits on a foundation of righteousness and justice and truth.

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It is in the presence of that God that our anchor is affixed. Is there an inadequacy in the anchor?

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No. Is there inadequacy in the ground in which the anchor is fixed? There's no inadequacy there.

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But maybe third, there is some mistake or failure on behalf of the person who placed the anchor there.

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This is where we get to the third picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not only is He a refuge and an anchor, but He is also our forerunner.

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Look at verse 20. It is within the veil or beyond the veil where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us.

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Having become a high priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek, that word forerunner is only used here in Scripture.

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It's the only place in all the New Testament where that word forerunner is used, and it was used in Greek literature to describe an advance guard, somebody who would go ahead, sometimes to scout out territory, sometimes with a message to herald the arrival of somebody.

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If a king was coming into a city, for instance, they would send out a forerunner who would run into the city and announce the king is coming, and here he is.

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Or it was somebody who would send out, in a military sense, as an advance scout to scout out the territory or the enemy, to do reconnaissance, as it were.

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They would be called forerunners. So one who has gone ahead in order to carry out a message. And here, it is used of Jesus, who is our high priest.

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This signals the difference between the Aaronic priesthood, which we're going to look at in weeks to come, and the Melchizedekian priesthood, and we're going to jump into that in a lot of greater detail.

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But for now, I just want you to notice one thing. There's something very distinctly different between the Melchizedekian priesthood that Jesus occupies and the

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Aaronic priesthood of the Old Testament that is associated with the Old Covenant and the Mosaic Covenant. If there was one word in all of human language ever invented by anyone that you would never under any circumstances ever use to describe a high priest under the

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Aaronic covenant, the Aaronic priesthood, it would be this word forerunner. You know why?

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Because a forerunner says there's other people coming. High priest never did that.

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Under the Old Covenant, you would never call a high priest a forerunner. None of Aaron's descendants would you ever call a forerunner, because only one person went behind that curtain one time on one day of the year, and that was the high priest on the

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Day of Atonement to offer a sacrifice for blood. When the high priest showed up for work and stepped up to go behind the veil, it wasn't bring your daughter to work day.

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The high priest didn't say, look, honey, come back here. Here's the Ark of the Covenant I've been telling you about, and here's where I stand and apply the blood of the covenant to the mercy seat, and yeah, come bring your friends back here.

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It wasn't anything like that. You would never have an expectation of ever following the high priest into the

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Holy of Holies. One man, one time, on one day, and a year later, one man, one time, on one day, you would never call him a forerunner, but the fact that Jesus Christ has done this is a promise that others will follow him behind the veil into the promise of God, into the presence of God.

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He is our forerunner. Having gone ahead, he has paved the way, he has scouted it out, and he is there in the presence of God even now, guaranteeing that we also shall follow him, and so now we have access to come boldly before the throne of grace.

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Why? Because Christ is our forerunner. He's already stepped into the presence of God, so it's used in terms of the high priest here in Hebrews 6, but it was also used in, it's also a nautical term, and used in the seafaring industry, and here's how it was used.

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In many of the harbors around the Mediterranean Sea, during low tide, ships would be unable to get into the harbor because there would be a sandbar or a deposit in front of it, and though there were deep waters beyond where the ship would eventually go, they had to wait until high tide would come, so if they got there during low tide, the ship would often send out a smaller, lighter ship to carry the anchor into the harbor and drop the anchor there, and it would secure the ship in the harbor until the tide could come up, and then the ship could come in, being brought in by the anchor, and that little boat that ferried the anchor into the harbor was called the forerunner.

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It went ahead into the sea, so you notice that he's using seafaring language here in terms of an anchor and in terms of the forerunner, and the fact that the forerunner would take the anchor behind the sandbar into the harbor itself would secure the ship so that while they're waiting for the high tide to come up, the ship would be secure enough that it wouldn't be tossed to and fro or dragged away by the current or swept away by the tide or swept away by any kind of a storm.

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It would be a guarantee, because it was anchored within the harbor itself, it would be guaranteed that the ship would later follow in.

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So who is it that places our anchor? Who's our forerunner? It's the Lord Jesus Christ.

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He's the one that has taken the anchor and put it into the harbor, guaranteeing that we are safe and secure until the tide comes up, that is you die, and you're able to go into the harbor and find safety and security.

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Friends, you are absolutely secure. How can that anchor fail? Because of some inadequacy in the anchor, no, it's sure and steadfast.

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Because of some inadequacy in the ground in which it is placed, no, it's behind the veil, the very presence of God himself, and who has put it there?

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The forerunner. He's not going to fail in placing the anchor there. Are you secure?

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Yeah. There is nothing in heaven or on earth that can move that anchor.

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There's no inadequacy in the anchor, there's no failure on behalf of the one who placed it there, and there's no inadequacy in the presence of God that would cause that anchor to give way.

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And our Lord Jesus Christ is here a picture of all three of these things. Our Lord Jesus Christ is himself the

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God in whose presence the anchor is placed. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the anchor that is placed in the presence of God, and our

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Lord Jesus Christ is the one who placed the anchor in the presence of God, securing us safely and securely forever.

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The anchor cannot fail, the ground cannot fail, and the forerunner cannot fail. So does

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Hebrews chapter 6 teach that you can lose your salvation? Not even close, not even remotely, patently, definitively, no.

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The stern language earlier in the chapter doesn't describe Christians, it describes apostates. And we know that they will fall away, but the point of chapter 6 is, as believers, we are secure.

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Why? Because of something we have done? No. Because Christ himself has entered into the Holy of Holies, into the presence of God, and he has placed that anchor there, an anchor sure and steadfast, and he is the one who has done it.

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There's only one, two ways that you can lose your salvation. Either the purpose of God regarding you has to change, which it cannot, or the anchor that holds you and attaches you to that purpose must fail.

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And since Christ is the anchor, he is the ground that holds us fast, and he is the one who has placed the anchor there, it cannot fail.

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He has promised, all that the Father gives me will come to me, all who come to me I will give eternal life, all to whom

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I give eternal life I will raise them up at the last day. That is the promise of the Savior. If you believe that you can lose your salvation, you have to believe either that God himself changes, his purposes change, or that Christ in something that he has done has failed.

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But his purposes cannot change, and he does not change, he cannot fail, he does not fail, we hold fast to him because he is the anchor that holds us fast.

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Let's pray. Father, we are safe and secure all because of what you have done to save an unworthy people, weak and failing, floundering in our sin.

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You rescued us, you keep us, and you will raise us up to eternal life on the last day.

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All of our hope, all of our expectation, and all of our confidence rests in Christ and Christ alone.

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We are grateful for that. Cast the affections and the intentions and the inclinations and the love of our heart on him who is so worthy of all the love that we can render, all the service we could give, and all the confidence that we could express.

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We thank you for him and for that salvation, sure and steadfast, immovable and unchangeable, all to the glory of Christ our