Perseverance - Part 1 — Richard Owen Roberts

Well now, my privilege these days together is to draw your attention to the book of Hebrews. And I invite you to turn there now, and Lord helping me, we'll stay within this epistle. Now obviously, to talk about expounding the book of Hebrews in a brief weekend like this would be quite ridiculous, it would take an entire session just to read the book.

I wouldn't mind doing that in fact, and may before we're through, but this is a perfectly marvelous book, and one that I have been wanting to share with this group, really from the first time I was privileged to come.

Now I trust that all of you have at least a basic acquaintance with the book of Hebrews, and are aware that there is a peculiar structure to the book. I don't mean to say that whoever wrote the book was conscious of what he was doing, but you can't really come to grips with the book of Hebrews and appreciate adequately its message if you don't come to a realization that there is a pattern here that needs to be observed.

Christ’s Supremacy Over the Old Covenant

There are really two streams of truth that the book of Hebrews details. The first I've already mentioned, this wonderful lifting up of Christ, and in a very systematic way, what the author of Hebrews does, is to elevate Christ over angels, over Moses, over the whole of the priesthood, and particularly does he allude in a lengthy section to Melchizedek, that extraordinary king-priest of the Old Testament, and then before he's through, he compares Christ with the whole of the old covenant, the sacrificial system, everything that had to do with the purpose of the law, and demonstrates in every instance that Christ is infinitely superior, infinitely superior to angels, infinitely superior to Moses, infinitely superior to Melchizedek, infinitely superior to the high priesthood of the old covenant, and his sacrifice infinitely superior to the sacrifices under the law.

But in the midst of all that glorious lifting up of Christ, and elevating him, and demonstrating his tremendous superiority, there is also a thread of warning that keeps bursting forth within the epistle, and these warnings really focus on this one critical issue.

All that Christ is infinitely superior to is but a shadow, or a type of Christ, and Christ, in his coming, in his sacrifice, to completion, all of the ceremonial law, all of the sacrificial system, all of the priesthood, so if a person came to Christ, and left the shadows, left the priestly system, left the sacrificial system, left the purpose of the law under the old covenant, and then having walked with Christ, or having at least tasted of Christ, experienced something of the spirit, something of the good things of the world to come, and then went back, they would be going back to nothing.

It would be leaving that which was a mere shadow, coming to that which is true reality, and then going back to that which expired, which has no longer any significance, or any meaning whatsoever. So the warning passages of Hebrews really deal with this critical word, perseverance, and of course Hebrews is so urgent for our day.

Urgent, first, because it is so largely neglected. It astonishes me how few people seem to have any comprehension of the significance of Hebrews at all. And secondly, I am astonished at how regularly the vast majority of professed Christians in our day merely neglect the message of Hebrews.

If I may put it in a few words, it does not matter how you begin. What matters is how you finish. Christianity is not a good start. It's a glorious ending. Now you see, in our circles, we focus on the start.

We make a big fuss and a big to-do about getting people to make an initial response to Christ, and then we gloat and crow and brag and rejoice in their start, even caring that they didn't go anywhere after they started.

You can look back and see multitudes right now where they were the day we called them a convert. They haven't progressed a single inch. But there's no way we can really lay hold of the book of Hebrews and continue in that pattern.

We're bound to change our way of thinking and acting when we understand Hebrews. And so really, my message to you these few days is twofold. It's to you personally. There may well be any number here who made a good beginning, but I repeat, it doesn't matter how you start.

It's how you finish that counts. And if you've stalled somewhere there in the beginning stages, understand that's not Christianity. That's false religion. He that perseveres to the end said someone more important than you and me, the same shall be saved.

The only one who really had the final word made that crystal clear. So I urge you to listen for yourself because perseverance is absolutely mandatory. It's not an option. But also while you're listening for yourself, listen for others because so many of you whom I've become acquainted with over these years since we've been privileged to come here, I have learned are involved in witnessing in a great variety of places.

Many of you are preachers and a high percentage gathered in this room are persons with at least a measure of passion for others. But what a tragedy if in trying to help someone, you actually harm them.

If you give them an abbreviated message, if you convey to them a truth that is but a half truth, if you give them the impression that a good start is what counts. So let us listen with great care. It's not that I hope to say a lot of new things you never heard before.

That's beside the point. I hope to say some things in keeping with the Word of God that the Spirit of God will use to alter our own lives and our service for the Lord Jesus Christ. To that end, let us bow together in prayer.

Lord, here is a rich and a beautiful epistle written to an ancient church where people were sorely tempted to return to that which they had left in turning toward Christ. There's no way that in the time allotted we could give full attention to this epistle, but by your grace and through the power of the Spirit, we could give the kind of attention that would make a phenomenal difference in our lives.

And so I pray that each man and woman here will take heed how they hear, and will take heed what they hear, so that indeed there will be put within us the capacity to be not only hearers of the Word, but doers also.

Some can't possibly do what is preached because they haven't heard it. They sat and listened, but somehow it missed them. Lord, may the Spirit of God so help us that not one will miss what you are saying to us in these messages from this precious book of Hebrews.

To this end, we consecrate these hours together and anticipate that ministry of the Spirit that will matter eternally to the glory of Jesus Christ. Now let me begin by suggesting that you either mark this out in your Bible or perhaps make notes.

I don't hesitate to show you. I don't think many of you can see what I've done, but a few of you can see the page of my Bible and see that I have put a big heavy black line around a certain portion. You don't have to see it to get the point.

What I've literally done in this Bible that I'm using today is to put this heavy box around the warning passages. I'm going to give you the passages in a moment, but before I do, may I make this suggestion to you.

Sometime before too long, mark out these warning passages and then read through Hebrews in two different ways. Read through Hebrews first just reading the passages that elevate and exalt and lift up the Lord Jesus Christ.

Then read through another time reading just the warning passages by themselves. Now let me give you my reason for that urging you. One of the most complex and difficult passages in all the Bible over which all kinds of people regularly stumble is Hebrews chapter six.

The passage that talks about the impossibility of renewing them again to repentance. Now if you insist on reading chapter six by itself, you are certain to go on stumbling. It is a passage that is extraordinarily difficult to deal with in isolation.

But it is a passage that snaps into focus in the most glorious way when you put all the warning passages together. Let me show you what I mean by first outlining these warning passages so you can make note of them.

The Six Warning Passages in Hebrews

The first warning is in chapter two, verses one to four. And that's the box that I lifted up in front of you that a few of you were able to faintly detect. So the first warning, chapter two, verses one to four.

Now let me be quite honest in saying to you, there is not an exact science in mapping things out as I'm doing for you. You don't need to follow my precise outline. In fact, you would profit more if you did this for yourself.

But I'm suggesting to you the warning passages as I have found them. You might want to extend them a little or shorten them a little. That is perfectly acceptable. The main thing you want to end up with is the ability to read all the Christ-glorifying passages in one reading and all the warning passages in another reading.

So the second then of these warnings occurs in chapter three. At verse seven. It is a longer one than the first and it continues through chapter four at verse thirteen. I'll repeat that so that you are able to be sure you've gotten it.

Chapter three at verse seven through chapter four at verse thirteen. The third warning passage is in chapter five. It begins at verse eleven and continues into chapter six, verse twelve. So the third, verse eleven of chapter five, on to verse twelve of chapter six.

Then, because the theme that the author is contrasting with Christ has to do with the whole of the priesthood and the sacrificial system and the old covenant, the doctrinal passage following the third warning is a very extended one and continues until chapter ten.

So the next warning, that is the fourth warning, begins at verse nineteen of chapter ten and continues through the end of the chapter, or in other words, to verse thirty-nine. So from verse nineteen of chapter ten to verse thirty-nine.

Then there are two more warnings, both of them in chapter twelve. The first, from verse one to verse seventeen. Warning number five, chapter twelve, verses one to seventeen. And the final warning, warning number six, chapter twelve, verses twenty-five to twenty-nine.

And again I repeat, lest any misunderstand, those are the way, that is the way I have mocked it out, but feel the liberty to mock it out more acceptably and more accurately than I have done. And just as a suggestion of some additional help, many of you know and love Andrew Murray, and his commentary on Hebrews faithfully mocks out these warning passages slightly differently than I have done, but in the most excellent way.

Some of you may have already his book in your library, others may want to secure it, for it is a most profitable volume. But now, let me do what I've suggested, or at least I'll do it in part, let me begin by reading warning passages, just so you see how these things flow together.

Reading the Warnings: Drifting, Unbelief, and Perseverance

Chapter two, verse one. For this reason, we must pay closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense, how shall we escape, if we neglect so great a salvation, after it was at the first spoken through the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard?

God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders, and by various miracles, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to his own will. Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, today, if you will hear his voice, now I don't want to confuse anyone, but you should realize what I'm doing, I'm skipping over the doctrine, and going to the second warning passage, that's why I gave you the list beforehand, so you could follow me, I won't interrupt myself again, I just wanted to fill in maybe one or two who were wondering where I had jumped to in the reading, well I jumped to verse 7 of chapter 3, so let's go back now to 2, and we'll read on consecutively without interruption.

God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders, and by various miracles, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to his own will. Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, today, if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as when they provoked me, as in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tried me by testing me, and saw my works for forty years.

Therefore, I was angry with this generation, and said, they always go astray in their heart, and they did not know my ways, as I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. Take care, brethren, lest there should be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, in falling away from the living God.

But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called today, lest any of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, for we have become partakers of Christ, we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end, while it is said today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as when they provoked me.

For who provoked him when they had heard? Indeed, did not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?

And to whom did he swear that they should not enter his rest? But to those who were disobedient, and so we see that they were not able to enter, because of unbelief. Therefore, let us hear, lest, while a promise remains of entering his rest, any one of you should seem to have come short of it.

For indeed, we have had good news preached to us, just as they also. But the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard. For we who have believed, enter that rest, just as he said, as I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest.

Although his works were finished from the foundation of the world, for he has thus said somewhere concerning the seventh day, and God rested the seventh day from all his works, and again in this passage, they shall not enter my rest.

Since, therefore, it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had good news preached to them, failed to enter because of disobedience, he again fixes a certain day, today, saying through David, after so long a time, just as it has been said before, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.

For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken of another day after that. There remains, therefore, a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered his rest, has himself also rested from his works, as God did from his.

Let us, therefore, be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall through following the same example of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

And there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do. Concerning him, 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 have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.

But solid food is for the mature, who, because of practice, have their senses trained to discern good and evil. Therefore, leaving the elementary teaching about Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, of instruction about washing, and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.

And this we shall do, if God permits. For in the case of those who have once been enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God, and put him to an open shame.

The ground that drinks the rain, which often falls upon it, and brings forth vegetation useful to those, for whose sake it is also tilled, receive a blessing from God. But if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned.

But beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and things that accompany salvation. For though we are speaking in this way, for God is not unjust, so as to forget your work, and the love which you have shown toward his name, in having ministered, and in still ministering to the saints, and we desire that each one of you show the same diligence, so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises.

Since, therefore, brethren, we have confidence to enter the holy place, by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, his flesh, and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope, without wavering, for he who promised is faithful, and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more, as you see the day, drawing near.

For if we go on sinning willfully, after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire, which will consume the adversary.

Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses, dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severe punishment do you think he will deserve, who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has regarded the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, as unclean and has insulted the spirit of grace?

For we know him who said, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, and again the Lord will judge his people. It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hand of the living God. But remember the former days, when after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated.

For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your own property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and an abiding one. Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.

For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised. For yet in a very little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay, but my righteous one shall live by faith.

And if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him. But we're not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul. Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

For consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart. You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin, and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, my son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor fate when you are reproved by him.

For those whom the Lord loves he disciplines, and he scourges every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?

But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we have had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them.

Shall we not much rather be subject to the Father's spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time, as it seemed best to them. But he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.

All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful. Yet to those who have been trained by it, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness. Therefore strengthen the hands that are weak, and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.

Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no man will see the Lord. See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled.

That there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it with tears.

See to it that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if those did not escape, when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less shall we escape, who turn from him who warns from heaven. And his voice shook the earth then, but now he has promised saying, yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens.

And this expression, yet once more, denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, in order that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude by which we may offer to God an acceptable sacrifice with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.

Could you not sense the way those passages all blend together, and how indeed the difficult parts suddenly have light poured in upon them? When I was first ill, and showing no signs of recovery, I did the natural thing.

Job’s Revival and the Call to Higher Ground

I asked the question of the Lord, is there some sin in me that you're dealing with? I think we always need to begin there. I wouldn't want to imply that I felt myself perfect. I would only say I really could not sense any sin that the Lord was pointing out to me.

I was alert to the passage that we just read in chapter 12 about whom the Lord loves, he disciplines. But then I was getting ready to speak down at Palatius, the men's prayer retreat, and I just felt very drawn to the book of Job, and felt I ought to give a series on the book.

And a thought occurred to me that if it had ever come to my mind before, I had forgotten it. This precious truth came to my mind. Job was a good man, a very good man, the best man that God was dealing with in those ancient days.

And yet the book of Job is the record of a glorious revival. Really, you can't find any detailed case of an individual's revival in all of scripture that equals the revival of Job. Now, normally when we think of revival, we think of a bad one.

You know, someone who is backslidden, someone who has wandered from the Lord, someone with severe problems in their life, or a church that's backslidden, being revived. But this beautiful truth dawned on me.

Well, there are times in which God's choicest servants are revived. Well, I wouldn't want to put myself in the category of God's choicest servants. But what a blessing it was when that just poured over my soul.

Revival's not only good for the bad, but it's blessed for the best. It is perfectly glorious for those who walk with God. And then these words really indelibly impressed upon my mind. I almost thought I heard the Lord saying to Job, Job, come on up higher.

Job, you've been walking on a plain above the rest, but come in higher ground, isn't there? I'm sure no one here feels that they have achieved the highest ground attainable. And so God allowed Satan to push Job through that series of critical and difficult experiences in order to be able to say emphatically and with absolute success, Job, come on up higher.

And the last chapter is a glorious record of a man who had been up above the rest, who is suddenly even higher. And so I said, well, Lord, I haven't been all that high, but I'm going to look at this sickness as an invitation to come up higher.

I know that some of you are suffering as well as myself. And isn't that a proper interpretation, having asked the question, is there some sin the Lord is dealing with? Obviously, as I said, we begin there, but why waste our lives wondering if there's some offense in our life?

Well, why not just deal with that and put it aside and say, having had no suggestions from the Holy Spirit about some specific sin I need to deal with, now I'm just going to treat it as an invitation to higher ground.

Perseverance as a Message for the Church

Now, friends, in coming to you here at the Cedars with the book of Hebrews, I sense very much the same basic principle. Many of you have been persevering. I mean, look around your table, will you? Sure, there's some young folk here, and we're grateful for the young, but I see a good many who are older than myself.

And some are relatively young Christians, but by the grace of God, some of you have been persevering in the faith for a long time. I've had the privilege. The church where I'll be preaching next Sunday night is the church that I attended as a boy.

The church where I made my first public announcements of commitment to Jesus Christ. After more than half a century of preaching, I get to go back and preach in that church where God touched me so deeply as a young boy.

I know something about perseverance. Many of you know something about perseverance, but I believe that all of us can learn even more about what it means to persevere. And not only, as I said, to learn it for ourselves, but by the grace of God, to learn it for the sake of others, so that we impart to them a message of truth that includes perseverance.

Not just the good beginning, but the glorious ending. Now let's go back in Hebrews, having read through the warning passages, and let's pick up the first warning. Let me read it to you again, and then let me take some few moments putting forth the setting of all of this.

Chapter 2, verse 1,. For this reason, we must pay closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For if the word spoken through is unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense, how shall we escape, if we neglect so great a salvation, after it was at the first spoken through the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard, God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders, and by various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to his own will.

Some of you, I'm confident, have some awareness of the setting of this book of Hebrews. In the latter part of the warnings that we have read together, there is some clear allusion to what the people in the church to whom the epistle is addressed were facing.

Did you notice in the language of the portion that we read, how these people were suffering for their faith, and how they were made, I'm referring now to the warning in chapter 10, they were made a public spectacle, verse 33, endured reproaches and tribulations, they showed sympathy to prisoners, and in consequence, verse 34, they had to joyfully accept the seizure of their own property.

Now that's not a great deal of detail, but it fits of course exactly with what we know about the book of Hebrews. We don't know who were the recipients of the book, we have no record of the name of the place where the epistle was first sent, but we know it was a Jewish congregation, and we know that they were people who, as I suggested early on, left the shadows, left the tithes, of the old covenant, and entered into the completion of the perfect in Jesus Christ.

We know, being Jews, that they left their own synagogues in some measure, and they may have attained a dual attendance, maybe they remained within the synagogue on Saturday, and were in the house of the Lord on Sunday, that may be the case with some.

Others apparently left the synagogue altogether when they realized that that was only a shadow. Why spend your time in the shadows? I mean, what if someone here were in the process now of a new home, and you had gone so far as to hire the architect, and he produced just marvelous plans within your price range.

Would you go to bed at night sleeping with the plans? Would you spend the rest of your life rejoicing in the architectural sketches? No, when you hire an architect, the sketch is just a step, but you don't remain in the step.

You don't abide there. You move from there to the completion of the dwelling. Well, to remain in the Old Testament, to be all caught up with the sacrificial system under the law, is like trying to dwell in the architect's drawings.

It doesn't make any sense. That's just the sort of a thing a thinking person wouldn't do. So here are these Jews. They have come to an awareness that Jesus is the Messiah. They have embraced Him in some measure.

They have put in their word of loyalty to Him. They've claimed Him as their own in some fashion. But now they're under tremendous persecution. Some of them, coming from these Jewish homes, as I've said, and having forsaken the synagogue, are under attack by their parents and their grandparents, by their aunts and their uncles.

What an asinine thing you've done! How could you be so foolish? Here is the true religion and you've abandoned the true religion to follow monkey business. You've gone chasing after this ridiculous Messiah, Jesus.

Don't you know that's just shim-sham? Don't you know that's just a passing phase? Don't you know He's dead and buried? Christianity will soon perish from the earth. How could you have been so foolish as to leave the religion of your fathers and to embrace this new thing?

Come on home! Come on back! We'll forgive you! You're young! You're impulsive! We'll just overlook what you've done. Just come on back to the bosom of your family. And at the same time, this was happening.

The mural was developing a tremendous hatred of Christians. And he had somehow gotten the notion that Christians had done him great damage. And so he used Christians as lanterns at his garden parties.

He doused them with flammable liquid. And then he hung them up on posts. And they were set on fire. And they provided the light for his garden parties. It cost something in those days to be a Christian.

And so here are these young Christians beckoned back into the bosom of Judaism by their families and made fearful by the persecution that Nero is so arduously executing against them. At the same time, others of them, when they went off to chapel for a service, when they met with the children of God in worship of Jesus Christ, they went home only to discover that their homes had been totally ransacked.

And it was not random ransacking. It was deliberate way of saying we hate Christians. And when you go off to church, you can anticipate that you're going to suffer the loss of everything that's valuable to you.

And others who were caring for prisoners and fulfilling the teaching of Jesus Christ were suffering immense harm for their love of Christ and love of others. So over and over, in a great variety of ways, they were being appealed to, don't go on with this false Christ.

Just give up on it. It's not going to last. There is no value to it. Come home. Come home. Don't ever risk everything for the sake of a cause like Christianity. And so the epistle is written to those people warning them, don't go back.

Don't go back. There's nothing to go back to. You already left nothing for everything. Don't even for a moment think of leaving everything for nothing. But the indications are that there were some who made a good beginning, but a tragic ending.

Perseverance of the Saints and Ongoing Faith

Now, straightway, that creates a problem for some shallow thinkers. Some speak about gaining salvation and losing it. Now, we got a lot of that crowd. Those persons that we call gently and kindly, Arminians, believe that you can be saved and lost.

And they use these warning passages, I should say they misuse these warning passages, to substantiate their view. And others just kind of shy away from the passages, fearful, lest maybe especially chapter 6 does teach that one can be saved and then lost.

I hope by my 8th visit at Cedars, I don't have to spell out these rudiments again. You know, sometimes we feel a little like the author of this epistle in the beginning of chapter 6 when he says, I'm not going to lay again the foundations.

If you haven't got a hold of the foundations by this time, what could be the purpose in my laying them out once more? But having said that, I also want to say that we use such ridiculous language that we misinterpret the truth.

I have knocked you for this before, but I managed to knock you in the past and get away with it. Not that I was ever really caring. But I want to say again, friends, don't use ridiculous language. Don't use language like once saved, always saved.

If a 4-year-old talked like that, I would correct him. I should hope I wouldn't have to correct you. We're being saved. And because Christ is saving us, obviously he doesn't start something and then abandon it.