Two Journeys

We are all needy people, every one of us. Though we deny it sometimes in a show of bravado, in a show of strength, we deny our neediness. But at core we know that we are needy, and dependent. And we certainly know that we're needy physically, we cannot exist without food, clothing, and shelter, without the air that we breathe, the water that we drink, we are dependent on God for all of these things. But we also know that we have other needs as well. And you may feel some of those needs more acutely than others, at this present time. Some of you may feel lonely, and feel the need for a friendship, feel the need for a relationship at various levels. Some of you are sick, facing the breakdown of your bodies and it's very humbling, and very painful and you need healing. You're praying God for healing, you may have friends, brothers and sisters in Christ that are praying with you for healing, physical healing.

But in our text today, that you heard Mack read so powerfully and so beautifully. The greatest need that we have is laid out very plainly for us, we need a great high priest who can stand before God on our behalf. And we have such a high priest, amen? We have a high priest who has gone through the heavens, is exalted, and is standing at the right hand of God. And that's the focus of our text, again, today. And I'm thinking about the word again, that I just said a moment ago, why so much about the priestly ministry of Christ? And it's not done yet. Next week, I'm going to preach another sermon in which I dedicate myself entirely to Jesus' intercessory prayer ministry for you. And how Jesus is praying for you. I think that's worthy of a full sermon and you'll be glad I did it, and didn't add it on to this Mother's Day sermon, I guarantee, when you hear it next week.

But why so much on the priestly ministry of Jesus? I think a couple of reasons. One is that it's so incredibly important. It is vital that we recognize Christ's priestly ministry for us and to understand all of its features. So that we may be greatly encouraged in our battle against sin. We need to know how completely covered we are in Christ's priestly ministry. But we also need to recognize that as important as this theme is, amazingly, it is not fully developed anywhere else except in this book of Hebrews. And especially in this chapter, in Hebrews 7. And so the author goes after this with great zeal and careful instruction so that we can understand it and it's worth our while to study it, isn't it? And to look at all of its details. And so we're looking today at the superiority of the priesthood of Christ.

And we're trying to consider as we look at this, the context that this past passage is in, the author of that the book of Hebrew is writing. We don't know who the individual is, but we have a sense of the people to whom he was writing. And I believe he was writing to Jews who had made an outward profession of faith in Christ, and were attending public worship as Christians, but who were under tremendous pressure from the surrounding society, I think the Jewish society. Jewish unsaved family members and friends and neighbors and religious authorities and governmental authorities putting pressure on them to forsake their calling as Christians. In effect, to trample Jesus underfoot and go back... Backward really to the Old Covenant, to temple sacrifices and the Levitical priesthood, and forget Jesus, forever. And so the author is seeking to remedy that, proclaims very plainly the superiority of Christ, the supremacy of Christ.

Not just that their hearts will be filled with worship for Jesus, but so they would understand how completely fulfilled all of those Old Testament types and shadows and images are in Christ, and the time for them has passed. And so he's proclaiming the supremacy of Christ over all of the Old Covenant figures, over the Old Testament prophets, he's greater than all of them, he's greater than the angels that brought and in some way mediated the Old Covenant and gave it to Moses. He's greater than Moses, the human mediator of the Old Covenant. He is greater than Joshua who brought them into the Promised Land. He's greater than Aaron and the priesthood and we're looking at that in Hebrews 5-7. And so, in Hebrews 7, a full unfolding of the priestly ministry of Christ begins with a contemplation of this mysterious figure, of Melchizedek.

We've come to understand this man as a historical figure who lived in the time of Abraham, who met Abraham when he was returning for from the defeat of the kings and blessed him and Abraham gave him a 10th of all the plunder. And we are urged to consider how great Melchizedek was as a picture of the kind of priestly ministry that Jesus carries on for us. One that's not tied to genealogy. It's not tied to who his father or mother was. It has no beginning of days or end of life. It's a picture, Melchizedek is a picture of the priestly ministry of Christ. But having fully developed that theme, we now focus on Christ himself, and the supremacy, the superiority of his priestly ministry.

And we begin this morning by looking at how it is superior specifically in that it was established by an oath. Look at in verses 20-22, it says, "It was not without an oath." The establishment of Christ's priestly ministry was not without an oath. Others became priest without any oath, but he became a priest with an oath when God said to him, "The Lord has sworn, and will not change his mind. You are a priest forever."

Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant. So we come to the issue of the oath of God. And this was the third time in the Book of Hebrews, that we have this theme lifted up. Remember that earlier as we've had some meditation on Psalm 95, we saw very negatively, very terrifyingly, the oath of God as he swears on oath in his anger, these unbelievers will never enter his rest. So the warning really to the entire human race. If you are an unbeliever in Christ, you shall never enter God's rest. And he swears that on oath, it says in his anger. There's a sense of a very seriousness there, through the oath of God.

We saw it again in Hebrews 6, very positively then, as God there swears by himself to Abraham in Genesis when he said, "I swear by myself, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and multiply you…" And so we see there, and then the author unfolds the idea of the... Of the oath that God, because he wanted to make the unchanging nature of his promise very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath.

And he settles all disputing, and so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us, we may be greatly encouraged. And so the purpose of the oath is for us. So that we might understand the certainty of the thing about which he's speaking. And now we come to the establishment of Jesus as our high priest, again, with an oath. "The Lord has sworn, and will not change his mind," it says.

Now, the Levites were not established with any oath. It was really simply by the law of God established at the beginning at Mount Sinai, when God gave the Mosaic covenant, the old covenant, he established that the Levites would be chosen out from the other tribes to minister before him in the Holy Place. In the Tent of Meeting, they would minister, they'd do various ministries there. The animal sacrificial system was their purview. And specifically from the Levites, the house of Aaron was chosen out by the law of God, and established as the high priest.

And it was given to him by genealogy that his son would be high priest after him. This was all set up by law. Now, a law can change. As a matter of fact, that's the very point of the section of Hebrews you're in. The law is changing. It has changed with Jesus, but the oath is eternal. And so there's a sense of the superiority of the priesthood of Christ because it is established with an oath. Now where is this oath? Well, it's recorded for us in Psalm 110:4, and right in our text here.

It's quoted in verse 21. "The Lord has sworn, and will not change his mind. You are a priest forever." So there's the oath and it's enhanced, isn't it. It's intensified. It's not just the Lord has sworn but he adds this phrase, "The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind." So there's a sense of the certainty of this. This is an unchangeable thing, that God has established here. And notice, to whom the oath is given.

"You are a priest forever." This is spoken by God the Father to God the Son. This is something God the Father is saying to his own son. Again, mysteriously. Beautifully. We are overhearing to some degree an inter-trinitarian conversation. We saw this in Hebrews 1, we've seen it a number of times where God speaks to the son and he says to him very powerfully and very personally, "You are a priest forever."

Jesus Priestly Office Given by the Father

And I find it fascinating that this high office is given to Jesus by his father. And he, the father is the one speaking the oath. In common, everyday life it's the other way around. The one receiving the high office speaks the oath, right? Think about the president-elect on the steps of the Capitol building. He puts his hand on the Bible, he raises his hand to heaven and he swears an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. He is the one speaking the oath, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is administering the oath.

But here it's completely reversed. The one conferring the office is the one speaking the oath. And so he is swearing by himself, he's swearing very powerfully an unchangeable establishment of Christ as the high priest. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. And notice here in verse 21, that Melchizedek has just completely disappeared. He's dropped out. Melchizedek has done his job, dear friends. Okay, we have studied Melchizedek. We have learned about him. We can read more. If you want to go backward and read some more, it's right there. Melchizedek was a significant figure but dear friends, he fades now into the background.

All types and figures and shadowy predictions and prophecies, all kings and priests and prophets eventually will fade and fall on their faces before the one who fulfills them all, and that is Jesus. Melchizedek isn't going to be standing side-by-side. The two of them, priests forever in the same order, not at all. Jesus is the high priest, in that order, and he's the only one ultimately. Melchizedek merely a type or a shadow. And because of this oath the author tells us, Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant.

And so there's a link here between the oath that's given by God the Father and the new covenant that Jesus comes to bring in. Realized it had to be a New Covenant, because under the old covenant, he could not serve as priest. But here the author tells us it's a better covenant. Friends, it's a superior covenant. The New Covenant that it's just better in every way. We're going to talk this morning about some of the ways that it's better. It's a better covenant. And because of this oath, Jesus is said to be the guarantee of a better covenant.

What that means is someone who stands behind the covenant to ensure that its stipulations are met. Kind of like the co-signer on a loan. Taking responsibility for the payment, if the other should default. And Jesus is willing to stand behind this New Covenant at the price of his own blood, he's willing to shed his own blood to be sure that this covenant is fulfilled. And that covenant which is fully explained in the next chapter in Hebrews 8 has to do with the full forgiveness of sins, our adoption into the family of God. The fact that we'll be with God forever in heaven. Jesus is going to sign his blood to that, and so he has become the guarantee of a better covenant. And so we see the superiority of Jesus by oath.

Secondly, we see the superiority of Jesus' priesthood by its permanence. By its permanence. Look at verses 23-25. "Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office, but because Jesus lives forever he has a permanent priesthood." And therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. Such rich verses, that's going to be the focus of our study next week and I'll say a few more things about it, at the end of this sermon as well.

But we'll begin just by looking at the superiority of Jesus by permanence. First of all, there was nothing all that significant or unique about each individual son of Aaron, who served as high priest. Josephus tells us, there actually were 83 of them, one after the other. Usually one would succeed his father when his father died. It was usually the death of the high priest. Not always though, because when the Romans took over, they didn't want any one individual to get too powerful.

And so you could have a high priest, Annas and then he would control who would take it after, but he couldn't continue in the office, the Romans pressed him out of the office. But usually it was death that pushed the high priest out of the office. And then this way, we see the superiority of Jesus because death can never push Jesus out of his office, he has a permanent priesthood here. Now each one of those priests, one after the other, died. I think about the genealogy in Genesis Chapter 5, as we go from Adam down to Abraham. Now, one after the other, and the genealogy actually through Noah, and one after the other. This man lived, he had other sons and daughters there's so many years and then he died. And then he died, and then he died, and then he died. What a dreary refrain in Genesis 5. And so it is with these 83 high priests as well. They would serve for a while and then they would die. And their death, very plainly, the result of sin. The wages of sin is death.

And so all of them under the curse and the penalty of death, every one of them sinners. But Jesus, has triumphed once for all over death. Now praise God for it. How can we celebrate enough? Romans 6:9-10 says that since Jesus has been raised to life, "he cannot die again. Death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all. But the life he lives, he lives to God." Isn't that magnificent? Think about it. Death has no power over Jesus. Never again. The word there in Romans 6 implies mastery. Domination, tyrannical power. Death has that kind of hold over us. But it has no such hold over Jesus because Jesus has risen from the dead. He is the death conqueror. And he cannot die again, death has no mastery over him.

Actually the situation is quite reversed. Think about that image that John has in the Book of Revelation, Revelation 1. He sees the image of the resurrected Christ, his head and hair white like wool, his eyes like blazing fire, his feet like burnished bronze. He's in a white robe, he has a golden sash around his chest and he's moving and walking among the seven golden lamp stands. He's ministering to the church as our high priest.

And he says, "I am the living one. I was dead, and behold, I live forever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and Hades." Oh, how powerful an image of Christ is that, amen? Jesus is in the dominant position over death and at the right time, he will sweep away death as the final enemy. But until then, we know that death has no mastery over him, and it says there in Romans 6, "The death he died, he died to sin once for all but the life he lives, he lives to God." So the life he is living now in the body, he lives to God. But Hebrews 7 adds another beautiful thought. He also lives it for us.

He ever lives to intercede for us, he's alive for us at the right hand of God. And so the power of his resurrected life is available for us, he lives forever, and therefore he has a permanent priesthood. And as a result of that permanent priesthood, he is able to save us completely. How beautiful is it that we don't keep getting another, a string of new high priests in the New Covenant? You're never quite sure if the next high priest is going to be any good. Maybe the last one would be glorious and wonderful and powerful.

Maybe it would be like Phinehas. So burning with zeal. You remember Phinehas? And when the Israelites were at their worst, when they had fallen into the Baal of Peor. And they were assembled there under the seething rage of God. And at that moment, one particular Israelite comes swaggering in with a Midianite girl, and he takes her into his tent and just... Phinehas is just so filled with zeal, for the glory of God, that he follows them into the tent and kills them both with one spear thrust. And God spoke well of his zeal for God's glory and he swore him, that he would give him a priesthood of peace, and would never turn his peace away from Phinehas.

Well, it's good if you have a high priest like Phinehas, but suppose Phinehas' son isn't so godly. Or grandson. Eventually you might get lesser of a high priest. There's no guarantee, but friends, our high priest lives forever. The same high priest who handled Luther's case and Calvin's case and Augustin's and all is handling yours as well. And he will handle it until you are finally saved. He knows how to finish your salvation. He is our great high priest, and there will be no other. There can be no other, he has a permanent priesthood on your behalf. And as a result, he is able to give us a complete salvation, to all of those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. Jesus is our permanent high priest.

Thirdly, we see the superiority of Jesus by his holiness. Verses 26 and 27, "Such a high priest meets our need, one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people." Here we have the issue of Jesus' holiness and we need a holy high priest. We need one who is going to be holy and Jesus meets our need, literally in the Greek, he lines up perfectly with our condition, he meets our need. We need this kind of a high priest. And why is that? Because we are sinners and God is holy, and because God cannot receive the ministrations of a sinful and wicked high priest, and so we must have a high priest.

Now, the Levitical priests, they were not holy, not in and of themselves. They were sinful men, every one of them. Think about Aaron, for example, the first of them. How Aaron led Israel astray, when he made that golden calf. And Moses says in Deuteronomy 9 concerning Aaron, "The Lord was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him, but at that time I prayed for Aaron too." Wow. Aaron was guilty of sin, so was his son, Eleazar, though we have no record of it in Scripture. And so was Eleazar's son, Phineas that we have no record in scripture of his sin either. But we know this, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

And it was established in the Law of Moses that every human high priest, every one of them had to offer sacrifice first for himself and then for the sins of the people. So all of them were sinful, every last one of them. And notice that the command in the law is that they had to offer sacrifices first for themselves. That says very plainly, God will not, cannot accept the ministrations of a defiled priest. So he has to deal with his own sins first. But our high priest has no such sin. He doesn't need to deal with his sin first, he has no sin. And notice also that these high priests had to offer sacrifices day after day for their own sin. So they didn't sin just once. It wasn't like occasionally they came to the office, so to speak, and God sent a word saying, "You know, you're actually fine today, you don't need to offer sacrifice. You had a good 24 hours."

There are no such 24 hours. David said, "My sins are as numerous as the hairs on my head." No, they had to offer sacrifices every day, first for themselves and then for the sins of the people. But Jesus is, it says, holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Oh, what a cascade of glorious words one after the other. He is holy, that means, set apart. There's an infinite gap between Jesus and all creation, just because he's the creator and we are the created. There is, friends, an infinite gap between Jesus and the holiest Archangel, because Jesus is the creator and the Archangel is merely created. But the word holiness, frequently usually talks, not just merely separation unto the Lord, but also separation from sin, from defilement, from wickedness. And that is, I think, especially, it's meaning here. Jesus is holy and set apart from sinners. He is blameless. He is pure, and set apart from sinners. He committed no sin, it says in 1 Peter, nor was there any sin in his mouth. We've already learned in Hebrews 4 that Jesus is compassionate to us, because he knows what it's like to be tempted just as we are, because he was tempted in every way, yet was without sin.

And Jesus never sinned. He was able to stand before his enemies, in John Chapter 8, and say, "Can any of you prove me guilty of sin?" And they were silent. Jesus was holy, he committed no sins, he did not need to offer sacrifice for himself. And it says he is exalted above the heavens. Talked about this back in Hebrews 4, but the idea is a sense of the invisible realms, the spiritual realms, the heavenly realms that are above us are still created realms, God created the heavens and the earth. But Jesus is not a created being, and so he has passed through the heavens, it says in Hebrews 4, and sits at the right hand of Almighty God. He is high above the heavens in every respect. It's not to say that he isn't in the heavens, just like, it's not to say he wasn't in the earth when he came and took his place on the earth. But he's just exalted above the heavens here in a position of creator. And so, in this way, he is superior by his Holiness.

Now what's so beautiful about this is that during his time on Earth, the accusations against him were linked to his mission. They said, "he eats and drinks with sinners." So this one who is separated from sinners is only separated in his personhood, in his own purity and holiness, but he got right in there with us as sinners without being defiled by us. And so, he would eat meals with sinful men and women, and he would tell them parables, and he would speak with them and urge them to repent and believe. And he was faulted for them. This man, if he were a prophet, you would know what kind of woman it is that's touching him, that she is a sinner. Jesus had to deal with this over and over, but he mingled with the sinners, he ate and drank with sinners, he walked through the streets of the towns with sinners. And even more in his death, he received our sins on himself. Having committed no sin, he was our substitute, he was, Isaiah 53:12, numbered with the transgressors and he died for the transgressors under the guilt and condemnation of our sins. But he himself holy, blameless, pure, exalted set apart from sinners, and so he is a superior high priest.

Fourthly, we see that he is superior by sacrifice. Verse 27, "Unlike the other high priest, we've said, he does not either offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, then for the sins of the people, he sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself."

And so now we get to the issue of the sacrifice itself. What is it that our high priest offers? Well, you may say, why is there need for an offering? Why does there have to be a sacrifice? Friends, I've already said it once, the wages of sin is death. Wages of sin is death. By this I understand the death penalty. Adam didn't die the moment he ate from that tree, but he was under the death penalty from that moment on. Death entered the world through that one man. We are, all of us, all sinners under the death penalty, but the real death that we fear is not the first death, physical death, but that second death of eternity in hell. This is the second death, it says in Revelation 20, condemnation in hell.

And so, apart from any sacrifice offered for us, we would all be condemned to hell, we would deserve to die forever in hell. But God set up a gracious system. The animal sacrificial system merely pointed ahead to it. A sacrificial system by which we can learn that though all sin deserves the death penalty, the death penalty can be paid by a substitute. And so, this sacrifice and offering points to that truth of substitutionary atonement. A substitute can stand under our penalty for us and bear the wrath of God in our place. But now these priests, they offer day after day, it says sacrifices that had no power to take away sin.

If you go ahead to Hebrews 10:1-4, the author makes it very plain the ineffectiveness of animal sacrifice. Look at Verses 1-4, "The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming, not the realities themselves. For this reason, it can never by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshippers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins." That's what these inferior Levitical priests were offering. They were offering the blood of animals for sinners. It was merely symbolic, it was a type, a shadow, a picture, but it had no efficacy to remove sin. Jesus sacrificed once for all himself for our sins.

Now we get to this phrase "once for all," it's stated six times in the Book of Hebrews, we just read it in Hebrews 10. Once for all, once for all, once for all, one time for all sinners, Jesus sacrificed himself. And here is the efficacy, those animal sacrifices had to be repeated endlessly year after year, but Jesus, for all time, in one afternoon atoned for the sins of the world. And how powerful and how mighty is that, Jesus, the superiority of this offering? Jesus offered himself once for all.

Now here I must say, a tender word, concerning my own Catholic upbringing. Right after the Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church sought to contradict many of the findings of the Reformation. And I think they did so to their own grievous hurt. That would have been a good time for them to repent and have learned from the Reformers, that they were teaching wrongly about salvation itself, but instead, they hardened their hearts and established doctrines that are still on the books today. And one of the centerpiece doctrines has to do with the Mass. And at the Mass, according to the doctrine of transubstantiation, the priest actually changes the bread into the actual body of Christ, and then he offers it to God as what they call in the Council of Trent, a bloodless sacrifice. So these human priests are offering Jesus at every Mass. When I became a Christian and I started reading, I read through the book of Hebrews and I was like, "Oh wow, once for all, once for all, once for all." It never needs to be offered again. Not even Jesus offers himself again and again in heaven, it's done, it's finished.

Now he pleads the merit on the basis of what he's already achieved, but he doesn't offer himself again, it's finished. And so, the superiority of our priest over that of the Levites, they're offering animals and doing it endlessly. Jesus offered for all time, himself as our atoning sacrifice, superior by sacrifice.

And now in verse 28, superior by perfection, "The law points as high priest, men who are weak; but the oath which came after the law appointed the Son who has been made perfect forever." Here we have the essential difference between Jesus and all of these Levites. Jesus is the Son of God, and they're not. Jesus, is the perfect, holy, blameless, Son of God. Right from the very beginning of this epistle, we have that so plainly established. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. And after he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in Heaven. Jesus is superior in his perfection as the Son of God.

But this verse also talks about the weakness of these men. They were weak men. We already saw it back in Hebrews 5, 2, and 3. So that the priests were able to sympathize with other sinners because they're sinners too, and they're able to deal gently with sinners, because they themselves are weak men. What does that mean? That they're weak at the time of temptation? When the temptation comes, they crumble. When the temptation comes, they stumble and fall, not every time, some were godly men. But they still are weak compared to Jesus. Here we have the perfect strength of Jesus. In every temptation he stood firm and he resisted and said, "Away from me, Satan," and he was perfect and holy. And so therefore, we have the power of Jesus. The perfect power of Jesus, which is highlighted here. And it says that Jesus has been made perfect forever. Now, Jesus is perfect in and of himself. There's nothing wrong with him, there never has been, there never will be, but still, he had to be made perfect to be our priest and he was so by his incarnation, by taking on a human body.

He was born in the fullness of time, born of a woman, born under the law, and so, his life under the law made him perfect, they qualified him to be our priest. And then, the fact that he died on the cross in our place, he suffered for us, qualified him or made him perfect as our priest. He has extinguished the wrath of God and the fact that he is risen from the dead for our justification has qualified him or made him perfect to be our high priest, he is our perfect high priest. Nothing can be added or taken away from his priestly ministry. And notice it says, he has been made perfect forever. He is as perfect now as he was 2000 years ago, a 1000 years ago, 300 years ago. He will be perfect in another 500 years or a million years. He will be perfect forever. He is qualified to be your priest. Amply so. And so, we see the perfection, the superiority of Jesus by perfection.

And then finally we see the superiority of Jesus in its effectiveness. Isn't it good to know that it all works? I mean, isn't it good to know that if Jesus is your high priest, you're going to go to Heaven? Isn't that wonderful to know? Wake up friends, isn't that wonderful to know? If Jesus is your high priest, you're going to heaven. It actually works all of this. Thank you.

Verses 18-19, contrast this New Covenant that Jesus brings with the old one. And it does so in some terms that I would not dare to use if they weren't scriptural. Look at verses 18-19, "The former regulation is set aside." Why was it set aside? Why is the Old Covenant set aside? "Because it was weak and useless." Can you imagine if that weren't written and a preacher just got up and said, the Old Testament law was weak and useless? You think him a heretic, but because it was spoken by this scriptural writer under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, what then does he mean? Well, the law did what it was supposed to do, but it could not do this one thing, it could not make the people to whom it was given perfect for heaven, that it could not do. It was ineffectual in making sinners perfect, but Jesus is not. Jesus can make you perfect for heaven. He can make you perfect and holy, and we must have that, because this better hope is essential by which we draw near to God, it says. The Old Covenant isn't bringing you near to God, it's actually telling you thus far, you may come and no farther.

It was given at Mount Sinai, in the base of Mount Sinai is a fence and you are not allowed to cross that fence, you're not allowed to go across it. If you went up on Mount Sinai at that time you would have been stoned to death or shot with an arrow, not a hand to be laid on you, as though you were alive with electricity, and whoever touched you would die as well. Oh, how terrifying and fierce is the Old Covenant Law. It did not bring you near to God, it told you where you could not go and that's near to God. And God chose a tribe out of all the Israelites, the Levites and told them that they could come into the tent of meeting to minister there. But none of the other Israelites could. If you were not a Levite, you were not allowed to draw near on pain of death. And then there was this holy of holy symbolic of intimacy with God. And even the house of Aaron, even the son of Aaron couldn't go in there most of the time. Except one day, he was able to come in there, the day of atonement and bring the blood of the sacrifice and get out of there.

The message is, "You're not welcome to draw near to God. The Old Covenant is no great hope to draw near to God, it actually refuses you and tells you, you are not fit. And how terrifying is that? Isaiah 33:14 it says, "The sinners in Zion are terrified, trembling grips the godless. Who of us can dwell with the consuming fire, who of us can dwell with everlasting burnings?" Our God is a consuming fire. How then can we sinners who are so combustible draw near to God? How can we be made perfect to draw near to God only by the ministrations of this perfect high priest? It is an effective salvation, that Jesus has come to bring. So look at verses 24 and 25, we'll see them again next week. "But because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood, therefore he is able to save to the uttermost, he is to save completely those who draw near to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them." That's going to be the subject of next week, so let me just say this, your salvation has just begun.

If you're a Christian, you're justified, you are completely forgiven. You are seen to be as righteous as Jesus. You are pure in God's sight, but now you are being sanctified, even this morning as you listen to this sermon, you're being sanctified, God is teaching you, he's training you, he's preparing you for good works. He wants you to live like Jesus. He wants you in this world to be like him. He wants you to obey his laws, that's sanctification, it's going to go on the rest of your life. You may ask, "How can I finish this race, it's too hard. My enemies are too vigorous for me, the world, the flesh, and the devil are just too strong." If you've been walking with Jesus any length of time, you know what I'm talking about. You can't stand up for a day, it's just too hard, the race is too long, it's too difficult, but you must run it, you can't drop out. So what will you do? I'll tell you what you do, you look to Jesus, you look to Jesus, your great high priest. He is praying for you, more about that next week.

Probably I'll just borrow some from next week, is that alright? He's praying for you,  he's always alive for you, he's interceding for you to finish your race, and you will finish that race. You will finally be saved, you'll be glorified. Two stages, you'll die, your body will be separated from your soul, your soul will be perfected, and able to be in God's presence. You'll be absent from the body, you'll be present with the Lord, Amen. And then your body will be raised from the dead at the second coming, and you'll receive a body like his glorious and in that body, your glorified soul will be forever and you will celebrate the goodness of God and this perfected salvation. I'm just telling you, Jesus is able to do it. He's able to save you.

Application, come to Christ friends, come to Christ, come to Christ. Have you ever trusted in him as your Lord and Savior? Were you invited here by a guest, by a church member, are you a guest here? You've never been to church before, perhaps. Maybe you've been many times, but you've never given your life to Jesus. One thing I've learned in the ministry, people who look outwardly as though they're Christians aren't necessarily so. Maybe you've never made any kind of pretense of being a Christian, I plead with you, while there's time, flee to Christ. There is a great wrath coming, our God is a consuming fire, but Jesus is the refuge. He stood under that consuming fire for you. Just trust in him. And if you're a Christian, just know this, the law makes nothing perfect. And you having begun by faith, how are you going to be perfected? By the law? No. The same way you began, is the way you will finish, by faith in Jesus, every day of your life. The law is the course you're going to run, but it doesn't give you any power to do it. Jesus gives you the power through the Spirit, to run that race with endurance. The law makes nothing perfect, rely instead on Jesus' priestly ministry, look to him who's at the right hand of God for you.

Set your hope fully on Jesus, set your hope fully on him as he pleads for you, and meditate much on the need you have for him to pray for you. I think about that a lot. Jesus, you have to pray for me a lot, don't you? Yes, more than you think. Thank you God that you are praying for me, thank you Jesus, you're interceding for me, but I really need prayer. And when you go to the brothers and sisters and you're gathering prayer warriors, that's fine, do it, but understand, you're already thoroughly prayed for. More on that next week, but just praise God for that and worship Christ for his perfection. I want you to just picture in your mind's eye, John's vision of the resurrected Christ, with that priestly robe on, head and hair white like wool, his eyes like blazing fire, his feet like burnished bronze, walking through the golden lampstands and ministering to the people of God. Picture him walking through your life and ministering to you, your great high priest and worship him. Fall on your face before him, give him praise and glory and honor for being such a glorious high priest. And delight in the fact that death has no mastery over him and some day, it'll have no mastery over you as well, because he died for you and was risen for you. Let's close in prayer.

The older I get, the truer this statement is, I think, that change is very, very difficult to accept. It's hard to see life change isn't it. It's hard to have transformational change around us all the time. And I think, categorically, the hardest change of all, is religious change. Change in the area of traditions. I'm told by those who have been in the church far longer than I, that one of the big changes that happened in this room happened in the early '70s. I don't know if you know this, but the balconies used to extend left and right all the way to the wall. And they went out right to there and there and in some way, they blocked some of the light that could stream in the sanctuary and members of the congregation felt it would be wise to do a major renovation and remove them.

Well there were others that disagreed. Thought it would be better to keep it just as it was. And any of you who have been in churches any length of time know what kinds of discussions those can be and how hard it is for that kind of a change to happen. This building had been built in the late 1920s, 1927. And those wings had been up there since then, and "Everything was just fine the way it is, why change anything, etcetera?" I, for one, I wasn't there at the time, but I'm glad they did it. I'm grateful for the flood of light that comes in through these windows. I'm told that it was really a big change and it was a wise decision. But my point here is just how hard it was for people to accept that kind of change. Especially in the area of religious traditions, it's very, very hard to see things radically, significantly changed.

I tell you that no group of religious people in history have had as much change for them as the first century Jews did with the coming of Christ. How could we even compare the removal of some structural wings in a balcony, and all of the debate and discussion that went on with that, to being told that basically, your entire religion, everything you did in life, was going to change now because this one man Jesus had come. Even as a believer in Jesus Christ that would be hard to accept you can imagine. And that's precisely the message of the Book of Hebrews. I think it's similar to a message Jesus had given earlier when he was asked about why he didn't hold to the traditions of the elders. Why he didn't wash his hands the way that they did and follow the traditions. And why he didn't fast, and why he didn't follow the certain prescribed patterns the Pharisees and scribes have laid down.

Jesus gave an illustration of new wine being poured into wine-skins. He said, "No one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins." In the same way, "no one sews a patch of un-shrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does the new piece will pull away from the old making the tear worse." These images are of a radical change that Jesus had come to bring. The new wine as it expands, as it lets off gases, if what surrounds that new wine can't flex and move and yield, is the key word, it's going to rupture. If the people of God could not accept what God was doing through Jesus, they were going to rupture and be ruined. And the new wine friends is the New Covenant. Jesus has come to give us a New Covenant, and by that New Covenant in his blood, we are saved. And so, the message of Hebrews is, I think as I look at the whole book, "A superior priest brings a superior covenant, resulting in a superior life.

Now we've already seen the supremacy of Christ. The reason the author is talking like this, is that these Hebrew Christians, these are Jewish people who had made an outward profession of faith in Jesus Christ, they had testified to that by water baptism. They were under pressure from their neighbors and their friends and relatives to forsake Christ, and to return to the Old Covenant way of doing things, to turn back to the Old Covenant. They were under tremendous pressure to forsake Christ. Therefore, the author has been giving us the remedy, the remedy is, let's meditate on Jesus. Let's talk about how great, how majestic, how wonderful Jesus Christ is. And for six now into seven chapters we've been doing precisely that. And what a marvelous meditation it's been. We've seen the greatness of Jesus Christ compared to every Old Covenant figure of note.

How Jesus is greater than the prophets? "In the past, God spoke through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son." Jesus is greater than any of the prophets. Jesus, the Son of God through whom God made the universe, the Son of God by whom God sustains the universe. Jesus is greater than any angel, to whom the Old Covenant was entrusted so that they could give it to Moses. Jesus is greater than any angel. Jesus is the captain of our salvation, the one who crushed Satan who held the power of death, crushed him at the cross. Jesus is greater than Moses who is merely a servant in God's house. A faithful man yes, but merely a servant. Jesus the Son over God's house. The one in authority over it. We are God's house, the people of God. Jesus is superior in every way. Superior to Joshua. Because Joshua brought the people of God into the Promised Land, but that was just temporary. Their hearts had not been changed, they're still sinners.

It was conditionally given to them as long as they continued to obey the covenant, they could stay there. They would not obey. God knew it. Told it ahead of time. In the song of Moses, before they even entered, in the book of Deuteronomy he said, just want you to know I'm going to be kicking you out of the Promised Land. And this is exactly how it's going to happen. They would not be faithful, they would get fat and sleek, and confident and they would fall in with other gods, and God would bring in strange people of a foreign tongue and he would evict them. Jesus brings us into a promised land friends that will last forever and ever, an eternal promised land. Jesus is superior to Joshua.

And then in chapters 5-7, we've been seeing that Jesus is superior to Aaron. That Jesus's priesthood is superior to the Levitical priesthood. It's a greater priesthood. The idea was introduced in chapter five, this figure of Melchizedek. Re-introduced at the end of chapter 6, and then at the beginning of chapter seven we get into some of the mystical connections between this historical figure, Melchizedek chapter seven, this Melchizedek was king of Salem, priest of God Most High. He met Abraham returning from the defeat of the kings and blessed him and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything. This man whose name means King of Righteousness was also king of a city whose name is Peace. He's a symbol, a picture of Jesus, the Son of God, whose priesthood does not depend on a genealogical record. Which it would have if he had been a priest in the order of Aaron. Didn't depend on genealogy, didn't depend on where he was born, how he was born, who his father and mother were. Didn't depend on any of that. Depended only on the call of God, a unique priesthood set up. And the connections have been drawn for us in Hebrew 7:1-10.

Now, as we come to 11-19, we're coming, I think, to a major transitional node in the Book of Hebrews. Remember I told you, a superior priest does what? He brings in a superior covenant. And therefore, the key point of today's sermon is going to be in verse 12. If you're going to have a new priest, you have to have a change of the law. You can't have Jesus as your great high priest, he can't be your High Priest, under the Old Covenant. It's forbidden actually. So we've got to have a change in the law, and that's exactly what we have, dear friends and praise God for it. We are no longer under the Old Covenant, we are now in the new. And so this change of priesthood brings with it a change of the law. And so he's going to unfold that. But the people of God are going to need some proofs that this is true. Can't just do it. We've got to know that it's true. And so he's going to lay out some proofs, first and foremost, that God predicted it, he said that it would happen in Psalm 110:4. We're going to unfold that.

Secondly, in history, the Levitical priesthood... And just as logical implication of Psalm 110:4, the Levitical priesthood could not bring in perfection, it was an imperfect priesthood. Its imperfection highlighted by Psalm 110:4, and then proven year after year by just the way that the ministry went on. And so perfection couldn't come. Levitical priesthood was imperfect, and therefore we've got to have a new priesthood.

And then thirdly, and best of all, the final proof, the best proof, is Jesus has come. He's here. He has walked on the earth. He has become incarnate by the power of the Holy Spirit. He has done this ministry now, he's died on the cross. He's risen from the dead. He's ascended to heaven. We do, in fact, have such a high priest, in the order of Melchizedek, and that's the final proof of all. What need have we ever to go back to those Levitical priests? And so the implication is, not only do we have a new priest, but we have a whole new way of approaching God. We have a whole New Covenant. The Old Covenant is gone forever. And all of this based on the superiority of Jesus Christ and the eternal life that is his that sets him apart from any Levitical priest, any son of Aaron. So that's the whole sermon in a nut shell. You may wonder why I'm going to continue to talk because you just got it all? But we're going to go ahead and look at the details and try to understand them because I think those details are powerful.

So, let's begin by understanding just how important, how significant this change was for the first century Jews.

The Levitical priesthood was incredibly important to the Jews. We can't even imagine how important it was for them. First of all, it had been established by God. It wasn't something they made up, it was something that God had given to them. You can read about it very plainly in Exodus 25-40. How God set up the tabernacle, set up all the furnishings of the tabernacle. He gave to Aaron and to his sons the priesthood. He decked him out in magnificent priestly robes. Symbolic and picturesque of Jesus's ministry, but still he's set apart. This was a ministry established by God and historical. For 15 centuries they'd been doing this. And it was woven into their lives, it was a significant part of their yearly rhythms, even of their weekly rhythms, this animal sacrificial system. Three times a year, all of the adult males had to go up to the place that God had chosen, to Jerusalem, and offer a sacrifice, an animal sacrifice there at the temple.

I think it's hard for us even to reckon, to even begin to understand how passionate the Jews were, especially as a subject people, dominated by the Gentiles. It was their religion that set them apart, it was the religion that was their hope, they were fanatically committed to it. So much so, that after Jesus had ascended to heaven and God began to send messengers to tell the Jews that the New Covenant had come. The time of the Old Covenant was over. They treated those messengers wretchedly, passionately wretchedly. Think about Stephen for example, in Acts 6, here's Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, he's there in the synagogue of the freedman he's debating with them. They can't resist the wisdom of the Spirit, by whom He spoke. But I think we can gather a sense of Stephen's message, by the formal accusation that his false witnesses lodged against him at the Sanhedrin. "This fellow never stopped speaking against this holy place and against the law. For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change all the customs Moses handed down to us."

I wonder, I don't know if Stephen had time to write the book of Hebrews, but he could have. I think he probably didn't have the time. But he got it, didn't he? He knew that the time of the Old Covenant was over. And what did they do to Stephen? They could not bear to hear him talk like that. And when he talked about the temple, He says,  "However, the Most High does not live in houses made by men. As the prophet says: 'Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me?' says the Lord. Or where will my resting place be? 50 Has not my hand made all these things?'"  He's quoting Scripture, but they couldn't handle it, and they covered their ears and screaming, they rushed on Stephen and stoned him to death. Or how about in Acts 21, when the Apostle Paul returned to Jerusalem and they found him in the temple area, and they went crazy when they saw him. And they dragged him out of the temple area, and they said the same things about Paul that they said about Stephen. They said, This is the fellow who goes around everywhere, out of the diaspora, everywhere he goes, he says that, "God has changed the customs of Moses." It's the same thing.

So when God sent messengers to tell the Jewish people that the Old Covenant was fulfilled and was now obsolete, they could not listen to it.

And so there must be some kind of proof. And so, the proof comes right here in the scripture. Look at verse 17, this is a quotation of Psalm 110, "For it is declared you are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek." It's a quote of Psalm 110:4. So the first proof, is the best proof. It's in the Bible. Dear friends, facts are stubborn things. That was once said in March of 1770, John Adams said it. It was an incredible circumstance. Because the city of Boston was a powder keg of dissent against what they believed unjust laws, and taxations and tariffs, of King George III. It was ready to explode and explode it did in March of 1770 in an event known as the Boston Massacre. When some Boston ruffians and hooligans surrounded some British Red Coats and threatened them and the Red Coats opened fire and killed five. And stunning everyone in the city, a well-known Patriot lawyer named John Adams, took the Red Coats case and defended them. And in his closing remarks he said, "Facts are stubborn things and we can't wish them away even if we have our own inclinations in an opposite direction."

What he's saying is, the Captain never ordered the men to open fire, the men felt threatened, and some muskets discharged and that's what happened. They're innocent of the crime they're being accused of. And he really did his future country a great service. We're not going to be based on injustice and passion, we're going to be based on facts and truth. Well friends, if facts are stubborn things, how much more stubborn is the Word of God? Amen. It never goes away. And when God just speaks a single word that's enough to create a universe, amen. He says, "Let there be light," and there's light, and when God says in Psalm 110:4, "The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek." He has established a banner, and that's enough. He has opened up a line of inquiry and by establishing the concept of a different kind of priesthood, he laid the foundation for them to understand the temporary nature of the Levitical priesthood. It was temporary. He opened up inside our hearts the knowledge that we must have a King Priest, in the order of Melchizedek and the Levitical priest could not be that. And so, the logical connection of that is that the Levitical priesthood is inadequate and some day will be obsolete.

That brings us to our second proof, look at verse 11. Perfection is impossible by the Levitical priesthood. If perfection could have been attained through the Levitical priesthood, for on the basis of it, the law was given, why was there need, still need, for another priest to come, one in the order of Melchizedek, not in the order of Aaron? So we come to the issue of perfection, perfection. Perfection is a huge concept in the Book of Hebrews, fundamentally, because God himself is perfect in every way. Perfectly holy.

David wrote a Psalm about this. In 2 Samuel 22, he says, "As for God, his way is perfect, all his ways are just." And Christ, in the Sermon on the Mount, commanded that we sinners, because of the perfection of God, we ourselves need to be perfect as well. "You must be perfect, because your heavenly Father is perfect." Jesus surprisingly, is said to have been made perfect through his sufferings and by his sufferings, equipped to serve as our great high priest. And so the issue of perfection is huge in the Book of Hebrews.

Now we are told that the Old Covenant sacrificial system could never make the worshippers perfect. If you were to look ahead you don't have to do that, but in Hebrews 9:9, it talks about gifts and sacrifices under the old coven that are offered, but that could not perfect the conscience of the worshipper. In other words, the blood of bulls and goats could not cleanse the conscience of a guilty man or woman. And again, it says the same thing in Hebrews 10:1. "The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming, not the realities themselves. For this reason, it can never by the same sacrifices, repeated endlessly, year after year, make perfect those who drew near to God." They have no power to make us perfect. And so if you look right in our text here, verses 18-19, it says, "The former regulation, [the Old Covenant sacrificial system] is set aside…" Do you see that? It's set aside, it's gone, it's done, it's set aside. Why? Because it's weak and useless. It had no power to make us perfect. And a better hope is introduced by which we draw near to God. You know what that tells me? No sinner was ever able to draw near to God under the Old Covenant. It was never that way. It was impossible. And why? Because verse 19, "The law made nothing perfect."

But Jesus does. Jesus has the power to make sinners like us perfect and fit us for Heaven. Isn't that glorious good news. I can't get my mind around that. Jesus can take someone like me and make me perfect. The Old Covenant sacrificial system could not do it, but Jesus has the power to do it. Look at Hebrews 10:14. Just go over one or two pages, but it's right there. What a glorious verse that is. Hebrews 10:14, it says, "By one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy." Isn't that magnificent! What an incredible verse that is.

Jesus, by one sacrifice, he makes us holy. He makes us perfect. Again in Hebrews 12, we are told that Jesus is the author and perfecter of our faith. He is in the process right now, brothers and sisters in Christ, of perfecting your faith, by hearing the Word of God, he is perfecting your faith. He gave it to you, and now, he's bringing it to perfection, that's sanctification. That's what's going on right now. And then in that same chapter, in Hebrews 12:23, we're introduced to a group of people who are called the spirits of righteous men made perfect. Who are these? Well, these are disembodied spirits, who are absent from the body, but present with the Lord, in the heavenly Mount Zion. Whose own spirits, whose own hearts have been made perfect, by Jesus. Oh, how magnificent is that. What a sweet reward that is for a brother or sister in Christ who dies, instantly done with the struggle of sin, forever. Oh, how sweet is that.

And so Jesus has the power to make us perfect. Therefore perfection is the goal of the priesthood and the Levitical priesthood could not achieve it. The Levitical priesthood had no power to achieve perfection. Look again at Hebrews 7:11. "If perfection could have been attained through the Levitical priesthood, then why was there still need for another priest to come? One in the order of Melchizedek?" Well the logic is simple, we use it ourselves. In the vernacular, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." And how much more if it's perfect, definitely don't fix it. If there was nothing wrong with the Levitical priesthood, then why did God speak this word? "God has sworn and will not change his mind. You're a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek." Why do you need such a priesthood if the Levitical priesthood could do it? But Jesus's priesthood has the power to bring about perfection. And what kind of perfection can it bring about? How about this? How about perfect righteousness? Jesus your High Priest, can give you as a gift, perfect righteousness.

We were unrighteous, we were unjust. Romans 3 says, "There is no one righteous, not even one." And the Levitical priesthood with its truck and trade and the blood of bulls and goats, had no power to change that. Perfect righteousness could not come in that way. But Jesus has the power to give us his righteousness as a gift. 2 Corinthians 5:21."God made Him, who had no sin, to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." And so, perfect righteousness.

Secondly, perfect peace can come through this priesthood of Jesus. He can set your heart, your conscience at rest in the presence of God. That's the kind of power this priest has. The Old Covenant couldn't do it. It couldn't cleanse your conscience. You couldn't shake the feeling of the holiness of God and the wretchedness of your own sin. We had an instinct, a sense that the blood of bulls and goats had no power to take away our guilt. But Jesus has offered, once for all time, his own blood for our sins. It is sufficient and amply so. Friends, it is infinitely sufficient for your sins, and for mine. And so therefore, you can set your heart at rest in his presence. Perfect peace is yours now, through faith in Jesus Christ. Because in Romans 5:1, it says, "Since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." How about perfect light? Sin is darkness, it's wickedness. The foolishness of our hearts were darkened and twisted through sin. The Levitical priesthood could not bring true light. Frankly, it's just called the shadow of the light that was coming. Shadows aren't light, shadows are hints at light. And so, the Levitical priesthood could not bring true light. Jesus Christ is the light of the world. He says in John 8:12, "Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." Perfect light comes in through Jesus.

How about perfect access to God, how valuable is that? Could the Levitical priest usher you into the Holy of Holies? No he could not. Frankly, in my opinion, the Old Covenant is all about barriers and restrictions, not about free access. It's all about thus far you may come and no farther. It's all about, in the Tabernacle era, tent walls, curtains, that stopped you from coming in. And laws and restrictions and death penalties concerning all that. It was about restrictions. So the Levitical priesthood could not give you perfect access to God. The holy place was separated from the most holy place by a curtain. Right. And only the high priest could go in there and only once a year, and with blood, which you have to imagine he offered with fear and trembling, and then got out of there as soon as possible.

Oh, that's not free access friends. But now what are we told? We have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. And we are commanded in Hebrews 4. "Let us draw near to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." We're told in Hebrews 10:19-22, because we have this "new and living way opened for us through the curtain," into the very presence of God, "let us draw near to God." There's your perfect access. We have through the Spirit, it says in the Book of Ephesians, access to God. Perfect access. Fifth, we have a perfect unveiling of our future in Heaven, our future heavenly state in this priestly ministry of Jesus. You don't have it with the Levitical priesthood. No, you're told in the Levitical priesthood, you're not welcome in heaven. You are restricted, you're outcast, you're on the outside, you're not welcome to come in. But now in Jesus, we have a picture in Jesus's priestly ministry, of the free welcome we're going to receive. And the fact is we're going to be right around the throne and God's servants will see His face. And they will serve him and they'll be in His presence, forever and ever. Jesus's priesthood achieves all of that. It's a perfect picture of our future. When there will be no more death or mourning, or crying, or pain.

How about perfect joy? Can you get perfect joy out of the Levitical priesthood? Do you really enjoy reading about it? Do you love Exodus 25 through 40? Are those some of your favorite chapters? And then you get a whole book of Leviticus to talk about bleeding sores and bald men and all kinds of animal sacrifices. Is that your favorite book of the Bible? If that is your favorite book of the Bible, I want to meet you after worship. You are a truly unique brother or sister in Christ, and I admire that, for all of Scripture is God-breathed. But friends, I tell you perfect joy, doesn't come in by the sacrifice of a bull or a goat or a sheep for me. You know where perfect joy comes from? Being told by God the Father that all of my sins are forgiven, because His Son shed His blood for me. That's where perfect joy comes from. And so we are told to rejoice in the Lord always. Perfect joy comes from meditating where Jesus is going to take you. When he's finished with you, where will you be? When you are fully saved, when you are in your resurrection body, look around you, what will it look like? What does Jesus's perfect priestly ministry do to the universe? That's where perfect joy comes from.

And then finally, how about this? Perfect boasting in the Lord, both now and forever. The Levitical priesthood could lead you to misunderstand that you had somehow affected a transaction with God. How much does adultery cost? Five sheep and two bulls. Fine, it's worth it. And so there's a transaction that comes. And from that comes, as Isaiah the prophet warned, "This trampling of my courts." And they did not understand, and for them it was a crushing burden, and the whole thing was a business transaction, there was no brokenness, there was no yearning in their hearts after true righteousness. But if they did feel righteous, they did so on their own account. They boasted in themselves and in their own achievements religiously.

"All these laws, I have kept since my youth," they would say. But, when God sends his Son into the world, as our sacrifice, as our substitutionary atonement, as he dies on the cross, as he achieves for you a perfect righteousness through his whole life of obedience and then He stands under the wrath of God for you and for your sins and he takes all of your sins on Himself, and He totally extinguishes the wrath of God for you. And it's gone. And there is no condemnation now for you. And when you are drawn through a very challenging and troublesome life of sanctification in which you're wrestling and struggling with sin, the author to Hebrews says, and you're struggling against sin, "You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood," but it's hard and he brings you through all of that. And then through glorification, at last you're there, I tell you, you will be boasting only in Jesus. You'll be giving him full glory for that salvation journey he took you on. Why not do it now? Why not boast in the Lord? As the Scripture says, "Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord."

Third proof of the change. "A priest like Melchizedek has come." Verses 15-16. "What we have said is even more clear. If another priest like Melchizedek appears, one who has become a priest not on the basis of a regulation as to his ancestry, but on the basis of the power of an indestructible life." Jesus has come. His credentials line up with those of Melchizedek. It's actually occurred now in space and time. Galatians 4. "In the fullness of time, God sent his Son, born of a virgin, born under the law, to redeem those who are under the law." It has happened now, and frankly if Jesus hadn't come, we'd still be under the Levitical priesthood. We, as Gentiles, would be excluded from its ministrations. Barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, would still be up. And frankly the Jews, if they ever even thought about Melchizedek, would probably continue to do about Melchizedek what they did in the 15 centuries that preceded Jesus's birth. Who is that? "What in the world does Psalm 110:4 mean? But now somebody has come, like Melchizedek and we're not wondering now, about the significance. Jesus has come. And so, the Levitical priesthood in the fullness of time, is now obsolete. Furthermore, God has attested to the obsolescence of this sacrificial system.

In space and time, in history, while Jesus is on the cross, he, by his own sovereign power, tears the curtain in the temple from top to bottom. He says, "It is finished." That's a violent act. He's saying, it's done. We don't need the curtain anymore. You have free access now into the Holy of Holies. Then he sends some messengers. This is what I already told you, Stephen, and Paul, and author to the Book of Hebrews and the other apostles, to proclaim to the Jews that the time for that is finished. And then, in the fullness of time, in the year 70, he sent the Roman soldiers. And the Roman soldiers testified to this spiritual fact.

You might wonder how in the world did the Roman soldiers know what to do. They're just doing what they do. Just like in killing Jesus, they weren't trying to fulfill prophecy. But the Roman soldiers came in the year 70, and they leveled the temple, and it has never been rebuilt. That is God's final word on the animal sacrificial system. Now, I told you when I preached on the Abomination of Desolation that I think it's going to get rebuilt, but not to please God. We can debate on that back and forth, but I tell you this, animal sacrifice is done forever. And therefore what does that mean? You cannot serve both Moses and Jesus, you can't do both. And so, he's warning these Jewish believers, to not try to go backward into an old covenant world that is now destroyed, as destroyed as the world of Noah was by the flood. It is gone forever, and we will never go there again.

So what are the staggering implications of this? Well, if you're going to have a new priesthood, you must have a change of law. Look at verse 12. "For where there is a change of the priesthood there must also be a change of the law." Why so? Well look at verses 13-14, "He of whom these things are said belonged to a different tribe, and no one from that tribe has ever served at the altar. For it is clear that our Lord descended from Judah. And in regard to that tribe, Moses said nothing about priests." The kingship was given, it says in the old covenant, by a covenant of salt to the sons of David. In 2 Samuel 7, God said to David that he would never lack a son until at last, he raises up his son, the son of David, to sit on the throne and He will reign forever and ever and his kingdom will never end. David was a descendant of Judah. The kingship was given by the covenant of God to the sons of David. But in the Old Covenant, the priesthood was given to the sons of Aaron, and there could be no connection between the two. It was illegal.

And as we've mentioned before, when Uzziah, an ordinarily great and godly King tried to combine the two, he was struck with leprosy and hustled out of the temple. He had no right to do it. It was made very plain. It was not for him to unite the priesthood and the kingship. He could not do it, he was struck with leprosy and stayed alone to the day of his death. But now here comes Jesus, and He is in every other respect, a perfect High Priest for us. He can do it, he can offer that once for all sacrifice, he can intercede at the right hand of God. There's only one problem, he's not a descendant of Aaron. Well, then God says, we'll change the law, it's the very thing he expected to do. This law was temporary, and he sets up a New Covenant, and at the center of that New Covenant is a new priesthood, Jesus in the order of Melchizedek.

And look at the superiority of Jesus's priesthood, verses 16-17. It speaks of Jesus as, "One who has become a priest, not on the basis of a regulation as to his ancestry, but on the basis of the power of an indestructible life, for it is declared 'you are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.'"

The Old Covenant regulation, it literally is here in Hebrews, a carnal regulation, it's a regulation of the flesh. It says in John 3, "Flesh gives birth to flesh." A son of Aaron gives birth to a son of Aaron. And that's a whole fleshly regulation. Jesus's priesthood isn't based on genealogy. It's not based on any of that at all. It was established, he was established as priest before the creation of the world. So it says in Revelation 13:8 that, "Jesus is the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world." Melchizedek was a picture of Jesus after the fact. Because Jesus's priesthood had been established before God said, "Let there be light." And so this eternal priesthood now, in Jesus's body, he is raised from the dead, he is still human, but as it says in Romans, He cannot die again. Death has no mastery over him. As the Son of God, he is immortal. As the Son of Man now, he is immortal. He will live forever. Death has no claim on Jesus, and therefore the power of an indestructible life is now put at your disposal.

First and foremost, and we'll talk about this at the end of Hebrews 7, "He ever lives to intercede for you." He's praying for you. Right now. And He will do so forever. He cannot die and so you'd have no need for a new priest. It's always going to be Jesus until the day you die. And he is at the right hand of God and He ever lives to intercede for you. And, that eternal life that is the basis of Jesus's priesthood, he's given to you as a gift. The future of your faith is eternity alive in the presence of God, blameless, unafraid, holy and pure in heaven with him.

So what applications can we take from this? Well, first, just can you not worship God with me, over this just praise God for giving us such a priesthood. Praise God that your priest is Jesus. And He shed His blood, once for all, for you, and that he is at the right hand of God and is interceding for you. Just worship him and give him thanks. And secondly, praise God that you are freed forever from the Old Covenant regulations. John Owen put it this way, "It was a great mercy for God to give the law, and it was a greater mercy for him to remove it." Well, that's powerful, isn't it? It was a great mercy for us to learn of the law. And we can still read about it, can't we? Can't we still read Exodus 25-40? Learn about the Levitical priesthood, learn about what happened, how the animals are sacrificed. It's a great mercy to us, to learn these things. But it's a greater mercy to know that they've been fulfilled, that that once for all sacrifice has been offered for us and we are totally forgiven and acceptable to God. And so praise God for the power that the law of Moses still has to instruct you and lead you to worship, but thank God you're not under it. Peter calls it in Acts 15, "A yoke that neither we nor our fathers was able to bear." It gave you a bunch of laws and regulations, but it didn't change our hearts from within, and then it judged us for our transgressions, and could not make us perfect.

And finally, if I can plead with you one more time, I don't know who all of you are. I don't know what brought you here. It could be that you're here in an un-regenerate state. I plead with you not to leave in such a state. It says in 2 Corinthians 5, that God has appointed people to be his ambassadors, as though God Himself were making his appeal through those ambassadors. We plead you with you be reconciled to God. I'm saying, don't leave this place in an un-reconciled state. Go to Jesus. Go to Gethsemane. Go to Calvary. Go to the ministry of Jesus, who shed His blood for you, and who prays for you, that he would be your atoning sacrifice. Trust in Him. And if you have already trusted in Him, take this message out to some lost people this week who need to hear it. It's not hard, you don't have to know all the theology. Just talk to them about a sacrifice. Talk to them about sin and about a guilty conscience. Talk to them about these things and point to the fact that Jesus has the answer, Jesus is the answer. Close with me in prayer.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on John 5:19-29. The main subject of the sermon is four resurrections in which we can rejoice to God's glory.

French enlightenment philosopher said this cynical thing about religion, he said, "I only have two questions of religion. Question number one, has anyone ever cheated death? Question number two, did he make a way for me to cheat it too?" Well, I actually don't know anyone that has cheated death, but I know someone that has defeated death. You see, the idea of cheating is that somehow someone has been swindled out of something that really belonged to him through trickery, through guile, through cleverness. Jesus didn't do that to death. He just defeated it. With sovereign power, he crushed death. And he did it for us. It says in Hebrews chapter two, " Since the children [of God] have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death –that is, the devil–and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”

That's what Jesus did. He crushed Satan who held the power of death, and he frees us who by faith believe this Easter message. And he did it all for us. His resurrection victory is ours. That's why we're so happy today. We get it. We know. Jesus won this victory for us. He made this clear statement in John 14, "Because I live, you also will live." And so God couldn't just defeat death in a simple way, but he had to completely crush it in a very famous way. And so in John chapter 5, there are actually four resurrections that are mentioned and this is going to be the focus of our study today, to understand these four resurrections and through it, that our own affections for Christ will be raised to the highest level, that those who up to this point have been dead in transgressions and sins might cross over and find new life in Jesus, by understanding how completely Jesus has destroyed death. The first resurrection was his own resurrection. The other three are in reference to us. And so we're going to study these.

And let's begin with resurrection number one, mentioned in John chapter 5. Christ rises from the dead personally. Now, this is the glorious joy of Easter, that death has been defeated. All over the world, death's tyranny is felt, and this has been a terrible year for the tyranny of death. I think about the thousands that died in Japan as a result of that massive earthquake offshore and the wave of water that crashed over the northern part of Japan and killed so many thousands. I think about that in a very grand scale and it's very well-known, not so equally well-known, but still somewhat famous as the story of a young man who is a 16-year-old basketball player and who was carried off the court in victory this past winter, this basketball season. He hit the winning shot. Moments later, he was on the ground and died an hour after that. The crowd, totally stunned, silent, watching this young man, Wes Leonard in Fennville, Michigan, collapse and then just waiting on what the outcome would be and the outcome was death and it's just stunning. You look at that, a young man in the prime of life, healthy, strong, an excellent basketball player. The school superintendent said,” Wes was strong and powerful and that makes this hard to handle. There's really no answer we can give when a tragedy like this happens.” Well, friends, there is no answer we can give, but God has given an answer. Amen?

And the answer is, Jesus Christ. ”I am the resurrection and the life.” Death is not the final word, but God's love is the final word. And see, these are well known cases of death. Not so well known are the husbands that have lost wives or wives that have lost husbands, parents that have buried children and children their parents, friends, the river of mourning and death, it seems in an unconquerable fall. There's a certain tyranny, a certain arrogance. This week, I was talking to Calvin about the Michael Card song about the Book of Ecclesiastes and just the vanity of life apart from God. And Michael Card also did a song on the Song of Songs and there's this statement in there, it says, "Love is as strong as death," and so I was trying to give him a sense of how death was strong, and so I grabbed hold of his arm and I started pulling on him. He's a nine-year-old boy. Pretty soon he'll be able to take me, but not yet. And so I was able to just use that physical analogy to say, "You know, when death calls on you, you cannot resist." Death is strong. But in the Song of Songs, it says, "Love is as strong as death." Well, I would say in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, love is stronger than death. That God's love has taken hold of us and will draw us right through the grave on into life forever more.

And so these are the thoughts that are in my mind. We celebrate the resurrection of Christ, that's why we've assembled here today, that Jesus Christ is alive and he couldn't be anything but alive. In verse 26, it says, "…the Father has life in himself, [and as the Father has life in himself] so he has granted the Son to have life in himself.” Life is of the essence of God. God is alive. God is immortal. He cannot die. At the beginning of John's gospel, it says of Jesus, "In him was life and that life was the light of men." Over and over in this beautiful Gospel, the Gospel of John, we have Jesus as the author and giver of life, eternal life. He says to the Samaritan woman, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life." It says in John 6, "I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."

John 8:12, Jesus said to the people, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." In John 10, he says, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly." And very famously, in John 14:6, Jesus says, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

And so here in this passage, he explains why he must live. The Father has life in himself, and so, in the same way, he has granted the Son to have life in himself. God is immortal. In 1 Timothy 6, it says, "God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.” Immortal means that God cannot die. God has life in himself and I think that also means very powerfully that God is self-existent. His life doesn't depend on any other entity, on any other being. He has life in himself. He is the I am. He lives and all life derives from him. And in the same way, in the same way as the Father lives, the Son lives, and he has granted to the Son to have life in himself. And so Christ's resurrection is alluded to here in verse 26. There is no way that the Father could allow Jesus to remain dead. Now, in order to have a resurrection, you first have to have a death. Jesus died on the cross as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. No one took Jesus's life from him. No one had the power to do that, but Jesus laid down his life of himself, of his own accord. He had the power to lay it down and then when the time came, he had the power to take it back up again.This command he received from his Father. And why did he die? Well, he died in our place. He died as a substitute. You heard what Tom Gears prayed. And for us as Christians, we should look and say, "I deserved that. All of Jesus's abuse, all of his foul treatment, the scourging, the crown of thorns, the mocking, the spitting, all of those things, and the crucifixion, the blood, the death.” We deserve that, under the wrath of God. Isaiah 53 says, "…he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Jesus died in our place.

But God could not allow Jesus to remain dead. It was impossible. Death is immeasurably, I would say, infinitely feeble compared to Jesus and the life that is in him. And so I love what Peter said on the day of Pentecost, in Acts 2:24. It says, "But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, [listen] because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.” Now, that's a stunning statement. Think about it. When we use the language of impossibility connected with death, it's impossible for us to raise someone up, that death is the unconquerable foe. We feel most acutely our weakness when we come to death. We have no power in the face of death. It is impossible for the physicians to do anything more. It is impossible, no matter how strong your love for that individual, for you to do anything. That person is dead. And so we think of impossibility in that sense. How reversed is it when it comes to Jesus? It's impossible for death to keep its hold on him. Why? Because the Father has life in himself and he is granted to the Son to be alive forevermore.

And so God raised him from the dead. This is the centerpiece of our faith. Now, I freely grant that it's not clearly proclaimed here in John 5, but let's just go over to John 20 and you'll see it plainly enough there. Christ has risen from the dead. He has been raised up out of the grave. In John 20:1-9 we have the physical evidence. You have the stone removed. You have the grave clothes there, wholly undisturbed in their original position. The greek gives us a sense as though Jesus had just risen up out of them, and you have the head covering folded up by itself off to the side and best of all, just Jesus isn't there. He is not here. He is risen. He's gone. And this entire scene is just screaming, "He's alive! He's alive!" Just screaming resurrection. Very powerful. That's good. But even better are those personal encounters with the resurrected Christ, like Jesus’ encounter with the weeping Mary, Mary Magdalene there with tears flowing down. She's looking for a dead Jesus so she can put him back safely in his own tomb and have everything fine and all that. And she's weeping. It wasn't weeping day. It was celebration day. "Why are you weeping?" The angel said. "Why are you weeping?" Jesus said. And Jesus spoke her name so tenderly, with so much love, "Mary," and she turned around and there he was, the resurrected Savior.

And then in the upper room, Jesus' disciples minus Thomas were there. And they were up there with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, and Jesus came and stood in their midst and said, "Peace be with you!" And they were absolutely overjoyed and stunned and amazed when they saw the Lord and he showed them His hands and His side. And again, he said, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, even so I am sending you." Thomas, as I said, wasn't there. Friends, don't miss church. I mean, you just need to be there. Especially on Easter Sunday, especially on the Easter Sunday. Why miss that one? What was Thomas doing that was better than that? I mean, don't you think years later, the apostles sitting and eating a meal, "Thomas, what were you doing that night that was so important?" But there's a sense in which his doubt had led Him away. Don't you sense that? That he didn't believe. And he said, "Look, unless I put my fingers in the nail marks in my hand in the side, I will not believe it. I need the physical evidence." Well, a week later Jesus gave it to him. Again, the disciples were there. This time Thomas was there. And though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." He goes over to Thomas and he said, "Put your hands, put your finger in the nail marks, your hand in the side. Stop doubting and believe." And Thomas said to him, "My Lord and My God!" And Jesus says, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

This is the evidence of the resurrection that we have from scripture, and that's all we're going to get. And for us, it's enough. Amen? The scriptural account is enough. We just need to hear his Word and believe, and we’ll cross over from death to life. More on that in a moment. But just if we hear him speaking the Word it's enough. And so Jesus Christ is the resurrection. In John 11, he said to Martha, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die." Friends, it's not just that Jesus himself was raised from the dead, nor merely that He is able to raise us, which I'll discuss more in a moment, nor is it merely that he understands resurrection or is it made a study of resurrection or can instruct us about resurrection. Friends, he is the resurrection and there is no other. He is the resurrection, and he is the life. And so there is someone who has not cheated death, but defeated death. The question is, has he made a way for us to do it too? Can we ride to Heaven on the coattails of his victory? I tell you we can. And so the other three resurrection that I wanna talk about are all in reference to us, and what Jesus does for us. Christ has indeed been risen. 1 Corinthians 15, “…the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep." First fruits means there's gonna be a vast harvest besides, and we are included if we believe in Jesus.

And so we see resurrection number two, Christ resuscitates, I'm going to say, the dead physically. This is the amazing work that God the Father gave Jesus to do. The context of John 5, it’s a miracle that he did on the Sabbath. The miracles were signs. They were wonders. They were amazing works the Father had given him to do. They displayed His power. They displayed his amazing love and his compassion. They just put his attributes on display, these works. And Jesus said he did all of these miracles at the command and by the power of God the Father. Look at verses 19 through 21, "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.”

So Jesus is talking there about his miracles, which he is doing by the power of the Father. He does nothing on his own. There is no independence at all in heaven. Everything's focused on and depended on the Father, and the Son does nothing on his own, but only what the Father sent him to do. Now, the miracle that Jesus did in John 5 was a healing, was a healing not a resurrection. But Jesus, in explaining this miracle to his enemies, he stated that he was going to do even greater works than these and the greatest work of all that Jesus would do would be to raise the dead and give them life. Now, he says, this is the sovereign work of the Son. He states clearly the power of resurrection is something that he dispenses according to the dictates of his own will, according to His own pleasure he raises the dead. Verse 21, "The Son gives life to whom He is pleased to give it." This is the declaration of a king. He doesn't owe anybody resurrection. It's not owed to anybody. Jesus is the King of life. He is the king of resurrection. And friends, he can raise anyone he chooses to from the dead. Friends, it was no effort for him to raise the paralyzed man who'd been paralyzed for 38 years. Let me ask you a question. Do you think it would have been harder for him to raise someone who had been paralyzed for 39 years? How about 40? It really gets tough at 40. It's a ridiculous statement. It doesn't make a difference. He could have been paralyzed for 38 days. It’s still paralysis. 38 years, 38 lifetimes. It doesn't make a difference. Jesus can heal that paralyzed man. Let me ask you another question. Are there some resurrections that are harder for Jesus to do than others? Friends, dead is dead, and if Jesus has the power to raise the dead, he can raise anyone he chooses to from the dead. 

Now, I say to you that the resurrections that Jesus did while he lived while he was in his earthly ministry were mere resuscitations. He frequently likens them to raising someone up from their sleep. Think about Jairus' little daughter, a little girl, and he told all the professional mourners that were there, who really couldn't have cared less about Jairus and his family, but they're just weeping for pay, and he sends them home, he says, “The girl is not dead, only sleeping.” And they laughed at him. But Jesus just said to her,” Little girl, get up.” But when she got up, she got up into the same life she'd been living before. She was just now healed of her disease. When he stopped that funeral procession in Nain, where the widow's son was dead and she was grieving, most lamentably. And Jesus went up and said so sweetly, the same thing, “Don't cry. Stop crying.” And then he raises up this dead man right on the spot, he raised him up into the same kind of life that he had been living, a mortal life, subject to disease and pain and suffering, the same kind of life, healed from that immediate illness, of course, but subject to death.

Lazarus. When he raises up Lazarus from the dead, it is clear that he has merely resuscitated him back into the same life he had been living before. Friends, you can't go to Palestine today and have a conversation with Lazarus. Lazarus, what was it like? The line would be really long if you could. People from all over the world would wanna talk to the 2000-year-old man. But he's gone. He's dead. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead very powerfully, a clear display of the Father's power, the very thing he's talking about here in John 5, a greater miracle, I don't think Jesus ever did, except his own resurrection. Lazarus was sick. Jesus delayed on purpose. Lazarus died by the time he got there. He'd been in the tomb for four days. Jesus commanded that the stone be removed from the entrance of Lazarus's tomb. He then prayed a simple prayer, "Father, I thank you that you heard me. I know that you always hear me, but I pray it for the benefit of the people standing here that they may believe that you sent me." That's it. And then he said to Lazarus, "Lazarus, come forth!" And the dead man came forth, his hands and feet wrapped with the strips of linen. But with that resuscitation came no promise that Lazarus would never die again. Rather, quite the opposite. Frankly, these miracles were merely a sign of the coming kingdom, when someday there'll be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for anyone in that delightful kingdom, for the old order of things has passed away and behold, everything has become new. Friends, we're living in the old order of things now. Jesus has all power to raise your loved one up out of the sick bed or even up from the grave. He doesn't lack power. He doesn't lack love. He just has a better plan than you do and that plan is to destroy death for everyone at the same time, at the grand and glorious resurrections at the end of the world. So these were merely signs of his power to do it, the resuscitation from the dead.

Resurrection number three, Jesus raises the dead spiritually. Jesus raises the dead spiritually. Now, in order to understand this, we have to understand what it means to be physically alive, but spiritually dead. You can be dead and not know it. I mean spiritually dead. It says in Ephesians 2, "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.” That's what it means to be physically alive, but spiritually dead.

Now we understand the marks of death. We Americans aren't regularly in contact with dead people. It's more hidden behind the scenes, in the professional places, hospice centers, hospitals. But I think we still have seen people die and we've seen people who are dead. What are the marks? Complete unresponsiveness to stimuli. There's nothing you can do to get them to respond. Rigor mortis sets in, a certain kind of stiffness. You can't move them. And eventually corruption, which Martha said, “By now there's going to be a bad odor.” A stink. Friends, these are the marks of spiritual death as well. Complete unresponsiveness to the Word of God. You can hear a message like this and it just doesn't do anything to you at all. There's just no response. You don't hear Jesus in this. It's not the word of God. It's just a ritual that we go through. There's nothing to this.

And so you're unresponsive to the Word of God, and to the commands of God, and the claims of God, and the thoughts of God. They just don't move you. It doesn't mean anything to you. And there's a certain stiffness, which the Bible calls a hardness of heart. You are hardening your hearts against him. You're not yielded to Him. You're fighting Him. And there's a spiritual stench that comes from your life through your disobedience, through following the lusts of the flesh. There's a stench to your life which is brought on by sin. And so all of us were naturally dead in our transgressions and sins, but Jesus has the power to raise you from the dead spiritually. Amen? That is our grand and glorious hope that he can take people who were dead in their transgressions and sins and move them over to life. Look at verse 24, Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life." Oh, dear Christians, if you are interested in evangelism, memorize that verse. John 5:24 will teach you a lot about evangelism.

It is by the simple hearing of the Word of God that people are crossed over from death to life. They were dead, and now they are alive. It's nothing you can do as an evangelist, nothing I can do as a preacher, a pastor. But at that very moment that you hear the voice of Jesus in the Gospel message, you cross over from death to life. And Jesus says in verse 25, that resurrection is happening right now. Look at verse 25, "I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live." It was going on right then. Even as Jesus was speaking people were hearing and crossing over from death to life. And Jesus said, "The time is coming too." It's gonna be in the future. He has a harvest time. There's a time of salvation, a day of salvation, and an avenue of grace, an era of grace that he's opened up. And all you have to do is hear the proclaimed Word of Jesus and hear it as it actually is, the Word of God, not the word of men and you will cross over from death to life. All over the world, missionaries are speaking this Word, pastors are speaking this Word, evangelists, relatives, sisters, brothers, friends, co-workers are speaking this Word and people are hearing and they're crossing over, crossing over, crossing over from death to life. And by the way, death has no power to cross over and bring them back. Amen? Once you cross over, you're alive forevermore. So I plead with you. The time is coming, and now is and those who hear the voice of the Son of God will live. Are you alive or are you dead spiritually? Have I just described you a few minutes ago? Is that you? Is that how you're living? I plead with you while there's time to cross over from death to life. Friend, when you cross over physically it will be too late. You'll be condemned, Jesus says in verse 24. But if you come to Christ now you will not be condemned.

Finally, resurrection number four, Christ raises the dead eternally. Look at verses 28-29, “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out – those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.” Here Jesus is speaking of what theologians called the general resurrection. Notice that he uses a different expression this time. Before he said, "A time is coming and now is." But here he merely says, "A time is coming." It's one time set in the future, when those who are in their graves, all of those who are in their graves, will hear the Son of God's voice and they will come out. Those who have done good will rise to live. Those who have done evil will rise to be condemned. It's called the general resurrection. The context of this statement is Christ's power to judge. Look at verses 22 and 23,” Moreover, [it says] the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father.” That's just staggering to me. We are supposed to give the same glory and the same honor to Jesus that we give to God the Father. How could he be any less than God himself to receive that kind of accolade? But Jesus has received the right to judge all human beings.

Look at verse 27, “…he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.” Oh, dear friends, Judgment Day is coming. There is a day that God has set when he will judge the world by the man that he has chosen, and that man is Jesus. When all of the nations will be gathered before Jesus and he will sit on his throne in Heavenly glory and he will judge the nations and he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He's going to separate here, those who have done good, who will rise to live, from those who have done evil and will rise to be condemned and every dead person will come forth. And Jesus says, “Don't be amazed at this as though God doesn't have the power to do it.” Oh, he has the power to do it. God gave us all bodies and he intends that we spend eternity in bodies, that we be physical beings, whether in Heaven or in hell. Do not be amazed as though God doesn't have the power to raise up someone whose body was incinerated in a jet plane crash. Oh, he has the power to do it. Or as though God doesn't have the power to get someone up out of the deep who was eaten by a shark. God has the power to do that. It doesn't make a difference if you had some hideous disease that devoured your flesh and as a result of that, you died. And it certainly doesn't matter if it goes the ordinary way for you, namely that you die and you're buried and then the microbes and worms do it.

God has the power to raise up the dead out of the grave. Jesus said, “Don't be amazed.” And notice that they're going to be raised up at the sound of the Son of Man's voice, Jesus's voice. Dead Muslim terrorists will rise up at Jesus's voice. Dead Buddhist monks will rise up when Jesus calls him out of the tomb to come to judgment. Dead German atheist professors will rise up at Jesus's voice. And they won't be able to say, “But I didn't believe in you in life.” I know, we'll discuss that in a moment, but they must rise up. There's nothing they can do to stop it. Jesus has that power. It was granted to him by the Father and they will stand before Jesus for judgment. And the basis of the judgment is works in this passage. Those who have done good will rise to live and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned. Many Christians stumble on this. They say, “But I thought we were justified by faith apart from works.” Well, you are, but we're not talking here about justification. We're talking about assessment. We're talking about identification. Everyone is judged or assessed or identified by their works.

The saved are saved by grace, justified by faith apart from works. But on judgment day, he just looks at your works and you can tell by the catalog of works what you were, and if you were truly justified by faith. You will live a certain kind of life, you will follow Jesus in a pattern of good works that he lays out in advance that you should walk in them and those good works will be ample evidence, according to the book of James, that you had genuine saving faith. And if on the other hand, your works do not show the evidence of faith, you will be condemned. That's what he says plainly. And the eternal state is plain as well. It's either life, eternal life, what we call heaven, or it is condemnation, what we call hell. And we who are raised up, we will be raised up in bodies that are glorious. This body of ours, this decaying corrupting body, this mortal body, if the Lord tarries and we are not that final generation, we will die. It's appointed to each one of us to die. And into the grave our body will go and the body that is sown it is sown in weakness. But dear friends, it's raised in power. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. Friends, it's sown a natural body. It will be raised a spiritual body and so we will have glorious, powerful, spiritual bodies, just like Jesus has now. And in that we will live forever and ever.

Those who do not trust in Christ now will be condemned eternally and the suffering is unspeakable and therefore I tell you based on verse 24, please hear the voice of Jesus speaking through this message. Forget whether you like how my voice sounds or not. Think about this, listen to John 5:24, "I tell you the truth, whoever hears my Word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned. He's crossed over from death to life." I plead with you to cross over now while there's time. Are you hearing the voice of the Son of God? Have you heard him speak to you today? All you need to do is just call on the name of the Lord and you'll be saved. Just even in the quietness of your heart. Just say, “Jesus save me. I wanna have eternal life. I wanna live forever. Please save me.” And you'll be crossed over from death to life before you can even formulate the words, you'll already have been justified. 

And if that's already happened to you, if it happened yesterday, if it happened 25 years ago, if it happened 50 years ago, can I urge you to praise God for his sovereign grace in your life? He raised you up from the dead. You didn’t raise yourself. God raised you up through the voice of Jesus. You heard the Gospel, then you believed. Give him all the glory and the thanks. And know that the ongoing sustenance of that eternal life has to do with hearing his voice in a continual way. You've heard him speak many times since then, haven't you? You're his sheep and you hear him speaking as you hear the Word proclaimed, as you read the Scripture, day by day, as you get on your knees and pray, you're hearing the voice of the Son of God, and that's the essence of the eternal life that you're living. So just worship Christ and praise Him. Stand in awe of him. Jesus, who now is the living one, who holds the keys of death and Hades, fall on your face as one dead before him and praise him and give him honor and worship Christ for his power to raise the dead spiritually, that you are yearning for now.

We all have loved ones. I have loved ones that I'm praying actively for that they would cross over from death to life. Oh, how frustrating it is sometimes to speak to them as though they are deaf. I talked to a guy yesterday on the plane coming back from Boston. And this guy, just an amazing guy, left a lucrative firm doing a certain kind of work and now he’s doing it for a not-for-profit organization that he started for the poor and needy. But when I started to talk to him about Jesus, he had no interest in that at all and shut it down as rudely and aggressively as anybody on any plane has ever done. Okay, I guess we're not talking about Jesus today. I was amazed by that. How could somebody give their full life to good works in that pattern and hate Jesus? But many people do that, I think. Does that man have any hope? Is there any possibility that they can cross over from death to life? Absolutely, but God has to do it too, and there's nothing more I can do for him and so I prayed for him. And you all know people that you hope will cross over from death to life. Maybe you're sitting near one right now, or maybe you can think of somebody in your workplace, or maybe a family member, or a relative, or somebody in your neighborhood. 

One of the good works that God has ordained for you to do is to share the message of this new life with them. Do those good works that God has laid out for you. Be rich in good works. It is by those works that your faith is proven to be genuine. If your gift is serving, then serve. If it's encouraging that encourage. If it's giving, then give generously. If it's hospitality, throw open your home widely and do it without grumbling. Use your gifts freely and live a life rich full of good works and after you've done that, you'll be raised up and identified as one of Christ's own and you'll be raised up in a glorious resurrection body, and you'll spend eternity celebrating his goodness to you and to a multitude greater than anyone can count from all over the world. Close with me in prayer.

Father, we have prayed and we have pleaded with you that the fire would fall from Heaven. Lord, we know from the prophets of Baal that it's not got to be a noisy, vigorous, open display of jumping and bleeding and drama, oh Lord, but rather that you have, by your powerful Word, called people out of darkness into your marvelous light. And Father, I pray now that you would continue to do that work even in their hearts. And Lord, for those of us who have been saved, oh Lord, give us a deep heart of gratitude to you for all that you've done for us. Thank you for these four resurrections, Jesus' physical resurrection, the resuscitation he did while he lived and walked on earth that give us evidence of his power, the spiritual resurrection that he does every day as people are brought from death to life spiritually, and then that great and final resurrection, he will do by his power. In Jesus' name, amen.

"O magnify the Lord with me. And let us exalt his name together." Isn't that a great statement in the Psalms, I love that. It's kind of mysterious in a way because I don't know how you make an infinite God, greater. He's already great, infinitely great. The only way I can make sense of it is that he's too small in my estimation and yours. We're all thinking too small thoughts of Jesus. That's what we're doing, and seems like our task is to stop doing that, at least for a short period of time, for 40 plus minutes, that we would start thinking great thoughts of Jesus and specifically that we would think great thoughts of Jesus as our high priest, that we would have a sense of the greatness of his office at the right hand of God that you can have somewhat of an internal vision of all of heaven on its face before Jesus, as he moves through and takes his place at the right hand of the throne of the majesty. By faith you can see all of heaven bowing down, covering their faces because of the greatness of Jesus, and he takes his place at the right hand of God and he begins praying for you. Interceding for you, that you will finish this race of salvation that he has begun in you, that you would have great thoughts of Jesus. That's our task.

And in order to do that, God has given us Hebrew 7, Psalm 1:10, and this person of Melchizedek. And the author to Hebrews is just unfolding the mysteries of this man Melchizedek and so we're going to meditate on Melchizedek, so that we can think great thoughts of Jesus. And as believers we're going to think great thoughts of Jesus, so that our hope will be strong, our faith energized and we'll do great things for him in this world and not fail or flag because of unbelief, but we'll be fed well from the word, that's the goal. So we're going to meditate on Melchizedek so that we can worship Christ.

Now this book of Hebrews, a magnificent work of grace, the scripture that portrays so beautifully, I hope you've seen it, but so beautifully the greatness of Jesus in every way. The reason for its writing, I think, as I just read between the lines, as I glean the situation from the text, that these were Jewish people who had made a profession of faith in Christ. But the authors write in them that they would hold on to their profession to the end, that they would continue to believe in Jesus to the end.

I perceive that there're probably some Jewish style pressures on them and that they're being tempted to turn away from Jesus specifically away from Jesus to go to Old Covenant Judaism, to go to old covenant religion. And so the author gives them Jesus, that's the remedy.

Great thoughts of Jesus, the greatness of Jesus, the one who created heaven and earth, with the Father, the one who speaks a greater and a clearer word to us than any of the prophets ever did. The one who is greater than all of the angels, even all of the archangels, even all of the 100 million angels put together and multiplied by 100 million, the greatness of Jesus, greater than any angel. Greater than Moses, who is merely a servant in God's house. A great man. Yes. But greater than Moses. He was just a servant in God's house. But Jesus, his son, reigning over God's house. Greater than Joshua, who brought them into the promised land, and gave them rest but just for a time. Because the sin problem hadn't been cured and they got evicted. The covenant evicted them from the land, and so it was no permanent rest. But Jesus gives us our permanent rest.

And we're yearning for that today, aren't we? We're yearning to come into the rest where we will lay down our labors forever. We've not reached it yet. Hebrews 4:9. We're not there yet, we're running a race with endurance. In one sense, by coming to faith in Christ, we've come to rest from our works, knowing that they won't save us anyway, but that's just a fore taste through the Spirit, we are going to someday lay it all down and we're going to come into our final rest. And so the author is writing to give us a sense of the greatness of Jesus and so he brings up in chapter five, this figure of Melchizedek. Jesus is a greater priest than the Levitical priest than the Aaronic priest, Aaron, a descendant of Levi. So it's one and the same, Levitical priest or Aaronic priest are the same thing, and Jesus is praised as better, it's greater.

So the mentality here is, why in the world would you want to go back to what's inferior? What's inferior, what's temporary, what's a shadow, a pattern is finished, it's obsolete. It's gone. And so the author is giving them the sense, and very difficult, I think we can hardly imagine how difficult it would be for a first century faith-filled Jewish man or woman who has believed that Jesus is the Messiah, and has come to believe the prophecies to know that their religious system that they grew up with, that their ancestors did, that they received from Almighty God, is now obsolete. You don't need it anymore. Never again, the blood of an animal being accepted by God, never again, it's obsolete to be told that. So the author gives us Melchizedek. And so he's focusing on Melchizedek, this figure mentioned historically in Genesis 14, after Abraham had defeated the kings and was returning in victory and Melchizedek shows up and he has an encounter. We talked about it last time, the history of it, and then the Psalm the single reference in Psalm 110, and Verse 4, "The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek."

So I think in my opinion Hebrews 7 is just a careful word-by-word exit Jesus of that statement. You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek's. We've already worked on the word Melchizedek in verse 1-3.

Today in verse 4-10 we're going to talk about him as a priest and compare him to the priest, the Levitical priest specifically, and the order, the order of priesthood in verses 11-12 is going to be in front of us, God willing, next time that we preach on Hebrews, not next week, but the next time, and then verse 13-14. I think the author addresses just the word "you." He gives two verses to the word "You..." "You are a priest forever." And then verses 15-25, he just unfolds the word forever, what it means that he's a priest forever so we get 11 verses on forever.

So last time we saw the mystery of Melchizedek, the history of Melchizedek verses 1-3, look at it with me if you would. "This Melchizedek was king of Salem, and priest of God Most High. He met Abraham returning from the defeat of the kings and blessed him and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything. First His name means 'king of righteousness;' then also 'King of Salem' means 'King of Peace.' Without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, like the son of God, he remains a priest forever." So we looked at that last time. If I'm not careful I'll just slip right back into preaching that sermon again, so we just need to keep moving. But we've seen the greatness and the majesty of Melchizedek in these verses.

Now the author in verse 4 wants us to consider Melchizedek's greatness. Look at verse 4. I'm going to go New American Standard here. "Now observe how great this man was…" Just think how great he was. But I think more technically, observe, the Greek word means See or Look. Let's look at Melchizedek. And since we can't literally physically do that, we can only do it by faith. So in the preaching of the word now, my desire is that the Holy Spirit would give you an internal vision of the greatness of Melchizedek.

Again and again, the author of the Hebrews calls on that internal vision, that faith vision, that we would see things in the spiritual realm. For example, in Hebrews 2:1, it says, "We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away." So there's a more careful looking at the Gospel. Let's look at it. And then in 3:1, the author says, "Fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession." So there we're supposed to look at Jesus as our apostle and our high priest, 3:1. So we're seeing Jesus. And then later in this book, in 12:2 it says, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him, endured the cross. Despising it's shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." So we're supposed to look at these things, these invisible things, we're supposed to do it by faith. And so, the call here is to focus all of our attention on this man Melchizedek, and specifically on his greatness. That we should consider the greatness of Melchizedek. Why should we do that? Is Melchizedek our personal Lord and Savior? No, not at all, but Jesus is. And Melchizedek teaches us some things about Jesus. So, in considering the greatness of Melchizedek, we're going to consider even more the greatness of Jesus.

And so that's the author's approach here. The author wants his readers' hope in Jesus to be very strong. I want your hope in Jesus to be very, very strong today. And so I'm preaching. I believe in preaching, I believe in preaching the word, my desire is to stay really close to the text, because the word feeds your faith, and your faith strengthens your whole life. I think all sin is a failure of faith. Conversely, all good service to God is a triumph of faith. And so if I can strengthen your faith, you'll live well to the glory of God, having already been justified by faith. So we're going to meditate on Melchizedek and we're not going to be lazy listeners, like he warned them not to be in Hebrews 5:11, said they were actually. But we're not going to be that. We're going to work hard here, we're going to try to dig in and try to understand this hierarchy that the author is giving us here.

So he gives us a hierarchy of greatness, Christ, Melchizedek, Abraham, Levi. And just simply put, if I can just go to the heart of the matter: The reason he's doing this, is he's going to tell you that Christ is a greater priest than the Levitical priest. That's what he's telling you. That's it in a nutshell. And so the application of that is why in the world would you go backward to the Levitical priesthood? Christ is a great priest and he's all you need as a priest, he's infinitely more than you could possibly ask or imagine, and so that's what he's going to do. And so, the greatness of Christ is displayed by hierarchy. And so at the center of the argument is going to be the basic position that Melchizedek's greater than Abraham. And he's going to unfold that and the point of all of this is give us a sense of the greatness of Jesus as our high priest.

Melchizedek represents Christ. It's a type of Christ, the pattern of Christ, and then Melchizedek, verse 7, is greater than Abraham. Look at verse 7, without a doubt, the lesser person is blessed by the greater, that's the author's point. Melchizedek is greater than Abraham.

And if you keep going, then you're going to say that Abraham is greater than Levi and that's how it works. How great was Abraham? Well, Abraham, father and faith, the father of the Jewish nation. I guess someone have to say some Jews would say the greatest in all of their history. He is called here a patriarch, that means a father ruler, he is the father of their nation, he was a great man to whom the promises of God had come, a great man because he believed those promises enacted courageously on them, he became therefore, a father of a multitude greater than anyone could count. Abraham had walked with God and he was called God's friend, he interceded with God over Sodom and Gomorrah, he was a great man.

And the Jews openly boasted in and (in some, I think, wrong way) trusted in their relationship with Abraham. They felt that because Abraham was their father that they were fine spiritually, that God could never condemn them because Abraham was their father. John the Baptist came having to just destroy that mentality. He said like fire, as he was preaching, he said, "And do not begin to say to yourselves. We have Abraham as our Father. I tell you that out of these stones. God is able to raise up children for Abraham. The axe is already at the root of the tree, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire." Don't trust in being a biological descendant of Abraham.

But they did, they boasted in this. Jesus had a very similar encounter in John Chapter 8. To the Jews who had believed him. Jesus said, "If you continue in my word, then you are truly my disciples and then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." Well, some of them got offended at this statement. "Set us free?" "We are Abraham's descendants" they said, "and have never been slaves of anyone." Stop there. Just a simple Sunday school lesson would have taught them that they had actually indeed been slaves of someone. But this is just the mentality, the arrogance, "We are Abraham's descendants and we've never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?" Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin, but if the Son sets you free, then you'll be free indeed." How sweet is that? But later in a few verses, they said, "Abraham is our father." Went back to it again, and Jesus said, "If you were Abraham's children, then you would do the things Abraham did."

So in fact Abraham was a great man. But Melchizedek was greater. And you might think, "well, if he was greater why don't we have more on him?" Well, I think that Genesis 14, Psalm 1:10 and Hebrews 5:6-7 is enough. Amen? And those verses tell us that Melchizedek was greater than Abraham. And why? Because he was priest of God most high, King of Salem, and mostly especially because Abraham, this great man, thought that Melchizedek was greater. And gave him a tenth of everything and Melchizedek blessed him. That's why. And you might think, well, that's not satisfying to me. Well, it's clearly satisfying to the author of Hebrews. And he was writing on the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. We will go with him. Amen?

Amen. So Melchizedek was greater than this great man, Abraham, and Abraham was greater than Levi, his great-grandson. The author to Hebrews continues to make his point, about the greatness of Melchizedek, he goes on to talk about the connection between Abraham and Levi. Levi was Abraham's descendant, his great-grandson. Abraham was clearly greater than Levi. Levi was in the body of his ancestor. It says here, we'll talk more about that in a moment. And Abraham acted on his behalf as a father represents his children. In the mind of the author to Hebrews there is no doubt whatsoever that Abraham was greater than Levi. Levi was just one of the 12 patriarchs. It was his descendant Aaron, who was the first high priest, under the Mosaic covenant. So it just keeps on going, the hierarchy of greatness just goes on down from there. And therefore, the argument here in this section of scripture is that Christ is greater than all of the Levitical priests. He's greater than all of the sons of Aaron. Christ is a greater priest than all of them. And therefore, why in the world would you want to turn back from Jesus to anything? And by the way, that's the connection to us gentiles, I'll make it at the end of this sermon, but we're not tempted to go back and offer an animal sacrifice.

What does this text say to us? I'm telling you, we are all under intense pressure to turn away from Jesus every moment of our lives, and to meditate on the greatness of Jesus is also negatively to meditate on the greatness of the crime of forsaking him. That's what the author is getting at. So how does he make his point? Well, the key issues here are the tithe and the blessing, this is what he's doing, is the key link in this whole argument.

So look at the tithe first, verses 4-6. "Just think how great he was: Even the patriarch Abraham gave him a tenth of the plunder. Now the law requires the descendants of Levi who become priests to collect a tenth from the people (that is, their brothers), even though their brothers are descended from Abraham. This man however, did not trace his descent from Levi, yet he collected a tenth from Abraham." So the evidence that the author gives us here of the greatness of Melchizedek is that he collected a tenth of the plunder that this great man Abraham had gotten from the defeat of the Kings. Literally, Abraham had given Melchizedek, a tenth of the top of the heap. The highest, the best, the cream floats to the top and from the top of the heap, he gave a tenth. The best he had to offer. That's what Abraham gave to Melchizedek.

Now many who believe that the tithe is a permanent regulation for the people of God, point to this passage. A key passage, they would say, because it pre-dates the Law of Moses and shows it somewhat of a universal standard. I'm going to talk more about tithing at the end of this sermon. But whatever you think about tithing, however, it's clear that the author to Hebrews is using this as an indication of the superiority of Melchizedek to Abraham, that's his point.

So, ponder the significance of this moment. Abraham, this great man is at the pinnacle of his earthly power, he's just won a mighty victory militarily, he's a hugely influential figure now in Palestine, what will become for the people of God, their inheritance. And at this key moment in history when Abraham's at the pinnacle of his success, this mysterious figure steps out of nowhere, Melchizedek. And Abraham gives him a tenth of all that he had plundered. Abraham clearly thinks that by giving this offering to this priest, he's giving to God Most High. And so, as honored and powerful and chosen and blessed as Abraham was, he considered Melchizedek to be greater and a conduit of giving right to God.

Now the Levitical priests were required by law to collect the tithe from their brother Israelites, it says in verse 5. This is clearly recorded for us, this law is recorded in multiple places. But Numbers 18, "To the Levites I have given every tithe in Israel for an inheritance." Tithe means a tenth. So a tithe of all of the produce of the land, all the good things that God was going to give them because they were rich now in the Promised Land, that went to the Levites for their service at the tent of meeting. So that was their inheritance. They didn't get any land, but they got the service at the tent of meeting and they got the tithes. But this man Melchizedek was under no such law. The law of Moses requiring the tithe would not be written for another half a millennium, another 500 years and more. And clearly he is not descended from Levi. And yet, for all of that, he collects the tithe. He's not doing under the law and he's not doing it by genealogy, he just collects the tithe. So, this exchange then represents the giving of gifts and offerings to God through a different kind of priest, a priest in the order of Melchizedek.

This order of Melchizedek was a greater order of priesthood than the Levitical priesthood, which has now become obsolete. And so, the tithe is evidence of the greatness of Melchizedek over Abraham. So also is the blessing. Not only did Abraham give Melchizedek a tithe, but Melchizedek gave Abraham a blessing. Now, this isn't just any blessing. Have you ever stopped to wonder why we say "Bless you" when people sneeze, but we don't say it when they cough? Why is that? I think there's some superstition from way back when in the dark woods of Northern Germany or something like that, where you're going to say "gesundheit" or something like that every time someone sneezes, and you need to speak a blessing. That's weak, friends. It's a weak blessing. I wish you well, I hope you don't die from whatever is ailing you. Or some elderly ladies will say, "Well, bless your heart." I don't say that, but I've been... My heart has been blessed a number of times by some people that definitely mean well, they want to bless my heart, and I'm grateful for that. But those are the weak pale kind of blessings that we're used to every day.

The blessings that are discussed here are of a different order. There are patriarchal blessings, and there are priestly blessings. And these patriarchal and priestly blessings are really together prophetic blessings. They have a power to them, a significance to them. The call of Abraham is saturated in blessing language, isn't it? "Leave your country, your people and your father’s household…" Genesis 12. God said to Abram, "Leave your country and your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation…I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse;, and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." That's not just any blessing, friends, that's how you get to Heaven. We are engrafted into this cultivated olive tree. The blessings given to Abraham, they come to us through Jesus, that's the blessing.

But then think about Isaac blessing Jacob, not knowing it was Jacob, but he did bless him. And he said, "May God give you of heavens dew and of earth's richness and abundance of grain and new wine. May nations serve you and people's bow down to you. Be Lord over your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you. May those who curse you be cursed, and those who bless you be blessed." That's a prophetic blessing. And though he thought he was giving it to Esau, he was giving it to Jacob. And when Esau sought the blessing, he couldn't change it. God had meant it for Jacob and he would be blessed. It was prophetic. And so also Jacob with his 12 sons. He gives them prophetic blessings, each one of them a different blessing appropriate to the tribe.

And when Joseph brought his two sons Manasseh and Ephraim to his bedside, he crossed his hands and put the left hand on the head of the firstborn, and the right hand on the head of the second born, and he put Ephraim ahead of Manasseh, and so it would be. It was a patriarchal blessing, those are powerful words. So also the blessing that God through the law of Moses instructed the priests to give to the people. In Numbers 6, "Tell Aaron and his sons, this is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them, 'The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.' So they will put my name on the Israelites and I will bless them." These are significant and weighty things, these blessings.

So the author to Hebrews makes much of the blessing that Melchizedek gave to Abram. He blessed Abram saying, "Blessed be Abram, by God Most High, creator of heaven and earth. And blessed be God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand." And the author who says this clearly proves that Melchizedek was greater than Abraham. Verse 7, "Without doubt the lesser person is blessed by the greater." This is, in fact, the whole point of the section of Hebrews 7, and an even greater point was made very plainly by Jesus in John Chapter 8. Not only is Melchizedek greater than Abraham, but Jesus is greater than Abraham. Jesus said to the Jews, "Your father Abraham, rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day. He saw it and was glad." They responded to him, "You are not yet 50 years old." But Jesus said to them, "Before Abraham was born, I am." That's the real point. Not so much Melchizedek, but the infinite greatness of Jesus. But the author's point here has been to show the superiority of Jesus' priestly ministry through Melchizedek, greater than that of the Levites. The Levites were required to collect the tithe, they did so, it says, as men condemned to die.

Richard Baxter said he used to preach as a dying man to dying men. I've never forgotten that. Never forgotten that. Death comes on us quickly, doesn't it? You don't expect it. Eulene was at Sarah Newton's funeral. The next day she took ill and God took her home quickly. Are you ready to die? Are you ready to die? Are you ready to face your maker? Are you ready to face your judge? Only one way to get ready, faith in Jesus, trust in him. He died on the cross, he shed his blood, that's what we were celebrating in the singing. That's what we're going to celebrate next week, Easter Sunday. I'm not waiting for next week, I'm going to celebrate it today. Alright? I'm going to celebrate the resurrection, I'm going to celebrate the crucifixion. That is the only provision for a sinner like me to stand blameless before God. It was Eulene's hope, and in the name of that hope she has her reward now. Are you ready to die?

The tenth is collected by dying men from other dying men. But in the other case, by him who is declared to be living, Jesus is our living great High Priest. All of those priests died, Jesus ever lives to intercede for us. Amen. Death no longer has mastery over him, he cannot die again. Death is finished with him, and Jesus will someday destroy death, and that's the future.

Final point the author makes here is mystical, deep, difficult to accept, but true. The presence of Levi and the principle of representation. Look at verses 9-10, "One might even say that Levi who collects the tenth, paid the tenth through Abraham, because when Melchizedek met Abraham, Levi was still in the body of his ancestor." Perhaps the most mystical and most significant statement here. Here the author's claiming that in some way Levi was there. Think about that hymn, "Were you there?" I'm not going to sing. Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Sometimes it causes me to tremble. Levi was there when Abraham paid the tithe. The key connection here is the issue of what we call federal headship, or representation. That the father of the tribe represents the whole tribe there. The key understanding. It's very foreign to us who live in this meritocracy known as America.

We actually kind of rebelled against that whole thing, the aristocracy of Great Britain, the idea that your whole social status was defined by your genealogy, by who your father was. No, no, no, we'll make our own way in the world, thank you very much. If we have skills and abilities, we will rise. That's America. So we have a hard time with the idea of federal headship, really we struggle with that. We struggle with the fact that Levi was there in the body of his ancestor and did something, he paid the tithe because Abraham paid. But I tell you, it is foundational to two of the most key moments, key moments in redemptive history, what happened with Adam at the Garden of Eden, and what happened with Jesus at the cross. Federal headship, representation in both cases.

Adam was there at the tree representing you and I, and we were in some mysterious way there with him. And when he ate from that fruit, we sinned. Friends, that's the teaching of Romans 5:12. "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men," listen, "because all sinned." That is so hard to accept. I didn't do anything. Yes, you did, you sinned in Adam. And if you can't accept that, how can you accept forgiveness at the cross of Christ? Because the Bible reveals that you were there spiritually if you are united with Christ by faith. You were there, friends, spiritually. If Christ is your substitute, if he is your savior, you are one with him, united with him.

So it says in Romans 5:19, "Just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous." I was made a sinner in Adam, I am made righteous in Jesus. And again, you could say the same thing the other way. I didn't do anything. I didn't obey the law like I should have. No, God sees you as righteous, and you are righteous, just like God saw you a sinner, and you were sinner in Adam. It's federal headship.

Or again, 1 Corinthians 15:21-22, "For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive." Paul sums this up very powerful in Galatians 2:20. He says there, " I have been crucified with Christ. I died with Jesus, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me." There is a spiritual union there. We were dead, friends. We were dead in our transgressions and sins in which we used to live, when we followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in the sons of disobedience. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh, following its lusts, its evil desires. Like the rest, we were, all of us, by nature, children of wrath. But God, because of his great glorious mercy in which he loved us, made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in our transgressions. It is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ, and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.

So were you there when they crucified my Lord? Yes, I was there. I was on that cross dying with Jesus. Was I there resurrection day? Yeah, spiritually I was there because I'm one with him by faith. And so, in some mysterious way, Levi was there paying the tenth through Abraham.

So, what applications can we take from this? Well, trust in Christ alone. Trust in him. It's all about faith in Jesus. That's what the whole Book of Hebrews is for. So that's what the whole Bible is for. Put your hope solely on Jesus and trust in him. You can't stand before such a holy God alone without a substitute, without a high priest pleading the merit of his blood on your behalf, you cannot survive. While there's time, put your trust in him. You don't need to go anywhere or do anything, you just need to stand there and see the salvation of your God, and let Jesus' righteousness be yours, let his death be yours by simple faith.

And for you, as believers in Christ, make the connection too today. I have already said none of you is feeling a strong pull back to Old Covenant Judaism. If you are, let me know, please come and tell me. I would think we would have dealt with that by seven chapters of Hebrews by now, but come and talk to me. We're not going backward that way, but I don't think that's a strong pull for 21st Century Americans. But there is something pulling on you to pull you away from Jesus, something's pulling on you to get you to stop reading your Bible, to stop praying, to stop fellowshipping with believers, to stop coming to church, to stop walking the Christian walk, something's pulling on you, you know what I'm talking about. And you must have a great High Priest at the right hand of God, praying for you. And it seems you must know about it, you must know that he's there, you must know it vigorously, you must really kind of get into knowing that you have a great High Priest at the right hand of God. Feed your souls on that, picture him there standing and pleading on your behalf.

Thirdly, Worship. Worship Christ. Worship him. By the Spirit of God, we worship Jesus. This point, the point about Melchizedek. Melchizedek will now fade into the background, Jesus will stand alone, bright, shining in your minds. We were here today to worship Jesus. Amen. We're here for him. And you should live your whole life pouring out worship on Jesus. This meditation Melchizedek has helped you see the greatness of Jesus. Worship him today. Set aside your cares, Jesus has it covered, he knows everything you're facing, he's brought it to you actually. Worship him.

Finally, briefly, about the tithe. Some people say that the tithe is an abiding standard and that Christians should give the tithe, and they would point right here to the New Testament. Listen, let me tell you something, I think Randy Alcorn summed this up for me when he said that tithe is the training wheels of Christian giving. That's humbling. Training wheels. Remember when you were little kids, or when you were a little kid, you're riding wobbly, wobbly, wobbly, and you got these little wheels left and right, and they keep you upright. You're a beginner bike rider, okay? He said that's the tithe for Christian giving. Whoa, how does he say that? Well, his argument is that everything in the old covenant is better and enhanced in the new. It always goes better, bigger, brighter, more beautiful, more awesome.

And for a Christian to say, "Okay, the old covenant people, they had to give a tenth. Thank God we're not under the law, we can give less than the tenth." "Wrong direction," Randy Alcorn is saying, "Wrong direction." The law is a law of love. Give what you want, but want a lot. Give and it will be given to you, pressed down, full measure. It'll pour over into your lap. Jesus is saying, "That's the way I gave to you. Learn of Me, and give like that." And so if the tithe helps you get going, then let it help you, training wheels have their purpose. But then take them off when you can. And like Randy Alcorn said, "If You gave a tenth of your income, would you die?"  I love that question. I think that's just huge. "I don't know if I... " Well, just try it and see if you expire, and if you do, you'll be with Jesus. You might, maybe you'll die, but probably you won't. And then go on from there. That's, I think, the best teaching on tithing. But the final word can't be tithing. The final word has to be the greatness of Jesus. Some day you will see your great High Priest, you'll see him with your eyes, and you will worship him. Feed your souls on that this week. Close with me in prayer.

In one of the most beautiful Psalms in the Old Testament (Psalm 103) it is written, "As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field. The wind blows over it and it is gone and its place remembers it no more." That is the changeable-ness of human experience, isn't it? Have you ever gone back to some place that you are familiar with in your childhood or in your teen years and you realize that the physical things, many of them are still there, but it's just not your time for that place anymore. Time has moved on and you don't belong there, anymore. I remember returning to my high school, I only did it once to visit all my teachers and talk to them, and I never went back. It wasn't that they were unfriendly. It was more... I just sensed that the time had moved on and it was actually odd for me to be there. And the hymn "Be still my soul", It speaks about how, when change and tears are past we are welcomed into eternity with great joy.

Change. Change itself can be very depressing, very discouraging, and yet, this is the very thing we are yearning for... We want to be transformed, and want to be liberated from these bodies of death, don't we? We want to be transformed and be made like Christ. But the process itself can be very painful. I would say there's been no era in history that has seemed more radical changes to everyday life than those that have lived through the 20th century on into the 21st century, spent a time of extraordinary change. Just think about the years that have passed, since the end of World War II, the incredible changes, political changes the rise and fall of communism in that period of time. How for the longest time, it was a beast that seemed unbeatable and now seems to be completely discredited, not entirely gone but on the down spiral of its existence. We've seen technological changes it's even somewhat humorous now, Best Buy where you can buy some of the hottest newest electronic equipment is kind of spoofing their own and actually coming up with a program that if you buy something and it then becomes obsolete in the next six months, you can buy the new improved version. So there's an ad, a guy standing at the front step as they're delivering his 3D TV and there's an ad for 4D TV going by. And he is distressed, and his daughter running around saying you bought the wrong TV, you silly head. And things just transforming right in front of us at every moment. Technology, Twitter, and YouTube, and all of these things. We're just used to change, but it's very destabilizing. It can make us feel insecure. We forget that underneath are the everlasting arms, that we are resting on the eternal covenant of all mighty God and God's intention showed us have never changed.

But for all of the great changes that we have personally experienced that we continue to experience were almost used to it by now, I think there have been no greater spiritual change is no generation ever had to endure greater spiritual changes than the generation that lived around the time of Christ and beyond. The Jews who lived in Palestine and who were completely accustomed to the sacrificial system around the temple to the thrice annual pilgrimages that they were required under the law of Moses to make to go up and render to God animal sacrifices, blood sacrifices. To be told that the temple sacrifices and the Levitical priesthood was now obsolete. And that we have an entirely new way of approaching God is staggering and bewildering. And some Jews even Jewish Christians that had come to faith in Christ, I'm certain reeled at the implications of Jesus's death on the cross.

And I believe that that's the whole point of Hebrews 7, is to announce very clearly that there is a change of the priesthood, and if there is a change of the priesthood there must of necessity, be a change of the law, the time has come for change. So if you were to look at Hebrews 7:12, it says, "For when there is a change of the priesthood there must also be a change of the law." So the Aaronic priesthood, the Levitical priesthood had now become obsolete, so also the Mosaic Covenant that had established it, that is the staggering implication of the life, the death, the resurrection, the ascension, of Jesus Christ for centuries, the Levitical sacrificial system with the sons of Aaron as high priest administered by the command of God. Generations of Jews had then born had grown up had lived their lives and had died under the ministrations of the Levitical priesthood. The priest who were the sons of Aaron. Millions and millions of lambs and sheep and goats and bulls had been sacrificed. A river of blood had flowed.

In redemptive history, the tabernacle, that movable tent of Moses, of the days of Moses, and of the exodus a given way eventually, to a stable building the temple of Solomon. Because of the sins of the people God had allowed the Babylonians to destroy the temple, flatten it, raise it to the ground. But then in the providence of God under Cyrus the Great of Persia some small number of Jews, 42,000 have been allowed to return to Jerusalem and begin to rebuild their lives and under the leadership there, under Ezra the priest and Haggai the prophet. The temple had been rebuilt smaller, not so glorious, but the animal sacrificial system had been re-established and had resumed. And so they continue to minister from that time until the time of the Book of Hebrews, 1st century AD, the temple had been the focal point of the entire nation spiritual focal point of the nation of Israel. Three times a year, all Jewish men were commanded to go up and to offer sacrifices that that one place that God had chosen out of all the tribes, and they had offered their sacrifices, there but now all of it was obsolete. Book of Hebrew said what is obsolete and aging would soon disappear.

From the moment that Jesus Christ stated of those marvelous words, "It is finished", curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, the doors of Heaven had been thrown open wide to any who believe in Jesus, the time for animal sacrifice was over, there was a new high priest and his name was Jesus.

And this would be incredibly difficult for the Jews to accept more than we can possibly imagine. And so the remedy that the Lord has given us here in Scripture, through the author to the Book of Hebrews was to prove from Scripture that God had planned this all along, that this had been the plan of God all along. That the Levitical priesthood was just temporary. So the argument of Hebrews 7 is that God had established the priesthood of Jesus in the order of Melchizedek before he established the priesthood Aaron; and that this priesthood in the order of Melchizedek, had always been infinitely superior to the priesthood of the house of Aaron.

Jesus was the fulfillment of all priesthood, but specifically of this new order, established by his death and his resurrection, his ascension a priest in the order of Melchizedek, and that this had been foreshadowed in the days of Abraham, their father. Way back in Genesis 14, had been recorded, mysteriously had been picked up on by a single verse in Psalm 110. Psalm 110:4, King David had written, "The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind who are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek." Psalm 110:4. Hebrews 5 has already introduced this theme. Hebrews 5:6 says, "So Christ also did not take upon himself the glory of becoming a high priest. But God said to him, 'You are my son today, I have begotten you.' And he said in another place, 'You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.'" So that's in chapter five we've already brushed against this idea. And then in 5:10, Jesus was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.

Suddenly in mid-stride, the author of the Hebrews stops himself says we have much to say about this. This theme of Melchizedek, we have a lot to tell you about Melchizedek we want you to understand about Melchizedek. But it's hard to explain because you become literally lazy listeners to the Word of God. By this time, you should have made further or greater progress, than you have. And so, he stops and he addresses them with great concern with great intensity, with passion and He warns, them of the danger of apostasy in chapter 6, of not continuing to make progress, of keeping step with the Spirit, as God is unfolding redemptive history before their very eyes. And as things are changing, and as things are developing, that they need to keep up with what God is doing is revealed in the written word. So throughout Hebrews 6, he warns them, he encourages, he exhorts them and at the end of the chapter, he returns to Melchizedek, he says that we have through the ministrations of Jesus, the high priest, we have this hope in Jesus hope and the promises of God as an anchor for the soul that enters this hope, this chain that holds us to the promises of God and to hope it enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest in the order of Melchizedek.

So at the end of chapter six, He returns to this theme that he'd been wanting to develop but he needed to stop and deal with them personally. And so, we have returned now to Melchizedek. Melchizedek was a type of Christ, who will give them a deeper and richer understanding of Jesus Christ as our great high priest.

Now, what do we mean by the word type? What is a type? Well, a type is in biblical study we use the word type to refer to an Old Testament person or practice or ceremony that has a counterpart technically called an anti-type, I think more simply just a fulfillment because types are prophecies a fulfillment in the New Testament. So in that sense, types are predictive. They are predictive prophecies, but they're acted out in history, they're different from verbally predictive properties in which something's just laid out verbally, and we're told what's going to happen. These things are acted out in history, things are acted out, and then they're fulfilled. And there are many, many examples of types, I think Noah's ark in the midst of that flood was a type, a picture of the salvation that Jesus gives, us rescue from the wrath of God, one place only must be on that arc.

And so there is no other name under heaven given to men, by which we must be saved, than Jesus Christ. Jesus is the ark of our salvation. It's a picture acted out or Abraham's offering of his son Isaac, on Mount Moriah, which God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there…" It's a picture of what God would do with Jesus, a picture of Christ. Certainly, the Passover lamb in Exodus Chapter 12, that would be slaughtered and its blood painted over the door posts, etcetera, which delivered them from the angel of death before the right before the exodus a clear picture of the death of Jesus, the blood of Jesus rescuing us from our sins. The Exodus as a whole, the whole movement of the people of God out of bondage out of slavery in Egypt, and through great trials and on into the promised land, a type of the whole salvation of sinners. We are edeemed from slavery to sin, and brought into the promised land of heaven of our Sabbath rest. The bronze serpent is a type how the Jews and their sinfulness were being judged by God with poison of snakes and God commanded them to make a bronze serpent. All you had to do is look at the serpent if you looked you would be saved from death. And so in the same way, God sent his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life, the bronze serpent, a picture of saving faith.

So many types and pictures, and this Melchizedek, is a type of Christ. He's a picture of Christ ahead of time. Now, I just think this is marvelous. Isn't it? Isn't this awesome that God plays history, like a virtuoso violin plays a magnificent piece and it's even better than that, because God wrote the piece that's being played, he writes the music and then he acts it out, sovereignly and just put in scatters like diamonds. These types throughout history to show God's in charge of history and history has meaning. It's just a beautiful thing in Melchizedek is a type of Christ.

And God's purpose here in Hebrews, is to establish the infinite superiority of Christ to any other priest you could possibly imagine, certainly superior to the ironic the Levitical priest. And so the author desires to remove uncertainty, and doubt from the minds of these first century Jews who are so tempted and so, afflicted and such a strong pull on them to forsake Christ because they're being persecuted and they're being pressured, by their Jewish neighbors and relatives and authority figures, to give up on Jesus as though he's a cult leader, a deceiver of the people, and turn away from Jesus and go back to Old Covenant Judaism. And what the author's saying is, you can't do that, you can't go back.

Because Jesus is the fulfillment of all of that and the priesthood of Jesus is infinitely superior to the priesthood of Aaron and his descendants. His goal then is to free these Jewish Christians from any temptation to go backward, to forsake Christ and to go backward. And it's a message, a timeless message to us who are not Jews, living in the first century were under no pressure to go back to something we never knew. We're under no pressure we're not being tempted sorely to offer a cat or a dog for our sins, in the backyard or a sheep or a goat. We're not under that kind of pressure, but you under the same pressure to forsake Jesus, that they were. You're under the exact same pressure to turn your back on Jesus and go back to your life of sin. And so these words show us the certainty of our faith, and the greatness of our high priest, at the right hand of Almighty God. He was constantly praying for you. And so this message is for us who are Gentile believers as well.

So who is this Melchizedek? When I was growing up in the Catholic church, I was an altar boy and a week after week the priest would say different things in the mass that had been written out, and one of the sections was a prayer centered around the offering. And the priest would say, "look, with favor on these gifts and accept them as you once accepted the gifts of your servant Abel. And the gifts of Abraham our father in faith, and as you accepted once the bread and wine, offered by your servant Melchizedek." I heard about Melchizedek every week of my life. And at least five of you have asked me over the last week and a who is Melchizedek. Today is your day. And mine. Finally get an answer.

Now, I must admit, I didn't ever ask, "Who is Melchizedek?" It just wasn't the question wasn't raised and certainly no priest ever explained it, but today we get a clear explanation of who this individual was. Melchizedek was a man, a figure in history, flesh and blood man, not an apparition, not a ghost. I do not believe he was a pre-incarnate Christ. We talk about all that. He was a man who lived at a certain moment in history. His first mentioned in Genesis 14. So put your finger here on Hebrews 7 and go back to Genesis 14, if you like, or just listen but he's mentioned in Genesis 14, with Abraham's involvement in the defeat of King Chedorlaomer around the year 2000 BC, somewhere around 2000 BC. Talk more on this in a moment but I'm just easing into it now. He is next mentioned in Psalm 110, in verse 4, up out of nowhere in the middle of the salter he pops up again. Melchizedek just kind of does it, he just pops up and then he pops up again in Hebrews five and six and seven and then that's it.

But in Psalm 110 Verse 4, as we already quoted, "The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek." David wrote this approximately 1000 years after Abraham and approximately 450 years or so after Moses wrote the account of Abraham. So David wrote around a thousand or so BC Psalm 110. It's a mysterious statement prophecy of strange meaning almost certainly I have to believe that this was uniformly ignored by the Jews as some arcane mystery. So the author to Hebrews picks up this mysterious theme a thousand years later in the first century AD, I think no ordinary Jew living between the time of Abraham and the time of David would have given much of a thought at all to Melchizedek. Ephesians 3, talks about mysteries hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known through Jesus.

And I just don't think he was a major theme, and I think no ordinary Jew living between 1000 BC in the time of Hebrews would have even tried to figure out what Psalm 110 verse 4 was talking about. Jesus surprised them with Psalm 110 when he said, "How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him [the messiah] 'Lord'"? because it says there in Psalm 110, "The Lord said to my Lord: 'sit at my right hand till I put all your enemies under your feet." "If David calls him Lord, how can he be his son?" Gee, we never saw that before. Scurrying back to the salter, reading and there it is Psalm 110, had never noticed that before. Do you think they noticed Melchizedek too? I don't think they were ready for Melchizedek at that point they weren't ready for verse 1 of Psalm 110. This is a mystery locked into human history, a spiritual mystery that really happened in space and time, but God had a deeper meaning for that, a deeper significance.

So as you're there in Genesis 14, look at verses 18-20. "Then Melchizedek, King of Salem, brought out bread and wine, he was priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abram saying, "Blessed be Abram by God Most High, creator of heaven and earth, and blessed be God Most High who delivered your enemies into your hand, then Abram gave him a tenth of everything." That's it. That is the entire account, other than Psalm 110:4, in the Old Testament of this mysterious figure Melchizedek. There is not another mention. Next time he's mentioned after Psalm 110 is Hebrews 5.

So what is the context of Genesis 14? Abram not yet called Abraham had left Ur of the Chaldees by faith, traveled to Palestine to receive the promise from Almighty God, that that land would belong to him, and to his descendants forever. His wife Sarai, not yet called Sarah, and his nephew Lot, traveled with him in the course of time, Lot and Abram could not continue to sojourn together. They had too many heads of cattle, too many livestock too much livestock and so they had to separate Lot went down to live in the fertile grounds around Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abram continued in the promised land. At that time, a mighty king named Chedorlaomer ruled the region in which Sodom was and he demanded that the lesser kings who are subservient to him, vassal kings pay him yearly tribute. He was the great king they were the lesser kings. And this, they did for a long time, but at a certain point, a handful of them rebelled and would pay Chedorlaomer no longer. Well, that's very bad for great king business. Vassal kings need to keep the money coming in, and so, Chedorlaomer has to deal with this. So he gathers together the vassal kings that are still loyal to him, and they rally together and they fight a war, four kings against five. This is the closest thing they had to a World War at that point.

Very significant moment in that region of the world. So the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah were defeated by Chedorlaomer and he and his allies, captured Lot and all of his possessions, and hauled them off. Abram, Lot's uncle, heard of this and gathered his own army and rescued Lot helping to defeat Chedorlaomer. After the battle two kings came out to greet the victorious Abraham. The king of Sodom came with plunder from the battle, which Abram refused. But Melchizedek, the king of Salem, came out to bless him with spiritual blessings, which Abram received. This encounter is the focus of Hebrew 7. Now go back to Hebrew 7:1-3, And now let's try to understand the symbolism of Melchizedek. We've seen the history of Melchizedek and that's all we can say.

But what is the symbolic significance of Melchizedek ? What is the author to Hebrews telling us? Well, look again in verses 1-3. "This Melchizedek was king of Salem, and priest of God Most High, he met Abraham returning from the defeat of the kings and blessed him and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything first, His name means king of righteousness, then also King of Salem, means King of Peace. Without, father and mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days, or end of life, like the son of God, he remains a priest forever.

So we have this individual, and he is significantly a priest-king or a king-priest. Both king and priest. He is king of Salem, and he is priest of God Most High. Now, what the author to the book of Hebrews is going to do with this is say, that this combination was impossible under the Law of Moses. It was forbidden. And what he's going to do in Hebrews 12:7 is make the argument that in order for Jesus to be a priest, you have to have a change of the law, thus the Old Covenant is over. That's what he's doing. I'm telling you, very plainly what the point, the whole point here is the Mosaic covenant is done, the Levitical priesthood is finished, it's obsolete. We have a new priesthood now and we have one priest and that is Jesus, that's where he's going with all this. So the priests were all Levites, they were descended from Aaron, priests were sons of Aaron and kings were sons of David. Kingship was given to Judah, and there was a wall of separation between the two.

Priestly duties of animal sacrifice were relegated exclusively to Aaron and his sons forever under the Mosaic covenant. So as long as the Mosaic Covenant endured, the priesthood was theirs. When King Saul dared to offer sacrifice, the kingdom was taken from him. Centuries later, when King Uzziah dared to enter the temple and offer incense he was confronted by Godly High Priest Azariah and 80 other courageous priests who confronted this king, who is otherwise a godly king, but got arrogant, got prideful with his successes, his piety, and went too far. Thought he could offer incense as the king allowed to do that and he was confronted. It is not right for you to be here, Uzziah. Uzziah got angry and thought to throw the burning, smoldering incensor at the high priest, but before he could do it, God struck him with leprosy broke out on his forehead and they hustled him out of the temple and the scripture said he was "eager to go." And he lived the rest of his life as a leper excluded from all fellowship with humanity, as a severe punishment on an otherwise godly king. This is the Uzziah, that is famous in Isaiah 6, who died. And so there is a strong separation between the kingship and the priesthood.

But Melchizedek was a picture of this combination, a new order priesthood, in which our king would be our priest and Jesus is the perfect fulfillment of this new order, priest-king in Hebrews 8:1. "The point of what we are saying is this, we do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven." We have a priest-king. That's what we have. And so this man was king of Salem. Now, the word Salem refers to Jerusalem, that ancient city later became known as the city of David, the city, the earthly city is a picture of the future city of God called the New Jerusalem, which will come down as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband, prepared for God and man to live together forever. Jesus will be the first and final king of the New Jerusalem. Melchizedek was the first king mentioned of the old Jerusalem, we don't know that he was the founding king but he's the first one that's mentioned. Melchizedek then as king ruled over his people, his word was law his generosity was their blessing his courage and power was their protection from their enemies. He was king of Salem in verse two, we'll just jump ahead there, I'll go back after talking about this word peace. But, the author tells us that Salem means peace. And so Melchizedek was king over a city whose name is peace.

A bit ironic if you think about the history of Jerusalem, anything but the city of peace. And David conquered Jerusalem from the Jebusites in 1005 BC, from then on it was called, as I mentioned, the City of David, but then the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar conquered it from the Jews, the Persian king, Cyrus the Great conquered it from the Babylonians, Alexander the Great conquered it from the Persians, Roman commander Pompey conquered it from the Greeks and then they ruled over that region for centuries, the Eastern Roman Empire, called the Byzantine empire and they ruled until the Muslims rose up and under Caliph Omar took the city from the Byzantines, for Islam in AD 637. The European Crusaders thought that they needed to get the land back. You know what they needed to do? They needed to have a bible study, instead, man, let's just have a Bible study. It'll save you a lot of wear and tear and a lot of bad blood.

They should have studied John four and what Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." Jesus knew what kind of worship was coming and animal sacrifice wasn't going to be any part of it, but the Crusaders came and they conquered it for Christendom from the Muslims in the year 1099. The Muslims under Saladin got it back for Islam in 1187, the Crusaders got it back briefly after that but it didn't last, and then the Muslims got it.

Final version of that were the Ottoman Turks, the British took it from the Turks in 1917 in World War I and they ruled it until they gave it over to an assembly of Jews and Arabs who together were kind of going to get along around the administrations of the City of David. That hasn't worked too well. There have been all kinds of wars fought since 1948, as each side seeks to gain control over the city of peace.

So that is a brief history, bloody history of the city of peace, but it was originally called peace I think prophetically. Because the final version of Jerusalem, the New Jerusalem that descends out of heaven, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband will be the absolute picture of peace. It will be radiant with peace, gloriously so, its walls will be high and mighty more powerful than any foe could ever muster. There'd be no possibility of crumbling those walls, but it doesn't matter because the gates are standing open constantly, and the wealth of the nations streaming in and there's a constant freedom to enter the city of peace.

And Isaiah had a vision of the future of Jerusalem, Isaiah 2, "This is what Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the last days, the mountain of the Lord's temple will be established as chief among the mountains. They will be raised above the hills and all nations will stream to it. Many peoples will come and say, "Come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways, so that we may walk in His path." The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, He will judge between the nations and settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore."

And the beautiful prophecy in Zechariah chapter nine. Jesus Christ came to bring this peace, this everlasting peace and to establish a city of eternal peace called the New Jerusalem. And Zechariah 9:9-10 says, "Rejoice greatly oh daughter of Zion. Shout daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king comes to you righteous, having salvation gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the warhorses from Jerusalem and the battle bow will be broken, He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth." Oh, how awesome is that city of peace that is coming? And peace will reign between God and man, we who are at one point, enemies and adversaries Colossians 1 says that because of our evil behavior, he has now reconciled us to God through the blood of Jesus shed on the cross. How Jesus stood under the wrath of God and took our punishment in our place and shed His blood so that we could be reconciled to God, and God could be at peace with us. And therefore Romans 5:1, "since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."

This man, not just the king of Salem. He was also priest of God Most High. He was a priest as well, a priest of God Most High. Now, the title, God Most High is a universal title for God. It's not a tribal title, a focus on one nation, the Jews like Yahweh was their covenant name for God. But this was more of an indication that Almighty God rules over all nations. And isn't it marvelous that God was doing something in the time of Abraham that wasn't connected directly with Abraham? But then God brought them together, and so God is at work all over the world, and revealing Himself in marvelous ways, but you still have to have missionaries to go bring the ultimate son of Abraham, Jesus, the message of Jesus, to them so that they can believe in trust, for the forgiveness of their sins and God brings them what he's doing out in the Gentile world with Melchizedek together with Abraham, the father of the Jews, and they come together. And so he was priest of God Most High.

What was the nature of his priestly religion? We don't know, we just don't know much about this man, but he was a priest. And so in some way an intermediary between sinners and God. And he came, it says, and he blessed Abram saying, "Blessed be Abram, by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth, and blessed be God Most High who delivered your enemies into your hand." So there he is as a priest, kind of between Abram and God Most High, and from God Most High through Melchizedek, Abraham is getting blessed.

And on behalf of Abraham, up toward God Almighty God, God is blessed and so he's just got that priestly ministration. The author of Hebrews is going to comment on the blessing in Hebrew 7:6-7, we'll talk about that God willing next week, but it says that Melchizedek "collected a tenth from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. And without doubt, the lesser person is blessed by the greater." And so I think the blessing of Abraham is representative of the ministry of Jesus Christ through whom all blessings come to us. Oh, dear Christian brother and sister. You have no blessing in your life that didn't come to you through the cross. It all comes to you through the cross, and through the priestly ministry of Jesus, all of them, your blessings come through Jesus.

And so it says in Ephesians one three, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ." And so he blessed him and Abraham, it says, gave him a tenth of everything. We're going to talk more about the tithe next week, but the author of Hebrews is just following the Genesis account here in Genesis 14, in any case, Abraham's giving of the tithes to Melchizedek is representative of all of our worship and our praise offerings to God going to the Father through Jesus's priestly ministry. Can I say it this way right back up? We can't give anything to God that He'll accept except through Jesus. Every good work, all of your prayers, all of your acts of kindness, all of your money, everything that you give to God would be worthless and unacceptable except through Jesus's blood shed for you. And so Jesus is that perfect intermediary. And so he gives him a tenth of everything. more on that next week,

He is called King of righteousness. Literally, this is a straight translation from the Hebrew. Melchi means King. Melchi literally my king. And Tsedek... Tsedek is righteousness, the righteousness of God. And so we have the King of righteousness.

This is the deep yearning isn't it, of all governed people? To have a righteous king over us, to have a righteous government. King David, at the end of his life said in 2 Samuel 23, "The God of Israel spoke the Rock of Israel said to me, 'When one rules over men and righteousness, when He rules in the fear of God, he is like the Light of morning at sunrise on a cloudless morning, like the brightness after rain that brings the grass from the earth.'" that's what it's like to have a righteous king. Oh, how sweet is that and if it that's true of the sinner, David, infinitely so is it of our king of righteousness, Jesus. He will reign over us in righteousness, and justice forever more and You will be delighted to obey Him in Heaven, delighted to do it Now on earth, delighted to have a king of righteousness. This is the great tragedy, I think, of all human governments. Proverbs 29:2, says, "When the righteous thrive, the people rejoice when the wicked rule, the people groan." That groan has hurt all over the Earth.

Well, Melchizedek, then symbolizes a yearning for what we will actually have in Jesus a perfectly righteous king. But at a deeper level, let me tell you something, you don't need a priest, if you're not a sinner, The priest is an intermediary between sinners and God, Because we have sinned, we need a priest, we need grace, We need sacrifices we need forgiveness, and so the real hungering and thirsting for righteousness is not just that we would have a righteous king because frankly, apart from atonement we're in trouble with the righteous king. Because he would condemn us, but we would like to be righteous ourselves and the beauty of our king of righteousness is that Jesus has become for us righteousness from God. Isn't that wonderful, 1 Corinthians 1:30, said that Jesus is our righteousness. Jeremiah 23, says the branch, from David. Will come and sit on the throne and this will be His name, the Lord our righteousness. He will be our righteousness, He will reign in a righteous kingdom because He loves righteousness and hates wickedness, but He will reign over people who used to be wicked but are now righteous. That is the beauty of the cross of Jesus Christ and of the kingdom that He brings.

Now we get to the interesting stuff without father or mother, without genealogy, I don't know. So let's go on to the next part. Alright? I don't know, but I'm going to take a few guesses. Okay. I have two explanations for this, Okay? I'm at verse 3, "Without father or mother, without genealogy without beginning of days, or end of life, like the son of God, he remains a priest forever." Well, some of our brothers in Christ, Commentators and pastors and others have said this is clear in verse 3, that Melchizedek had to be Jesus, the pre-incarnate Christ. Well, that just fails on the word "like." Okay, I just don't think that Jesus is like Jesus, I just don't think that's much of a statement to say Jesus is like the Son of God just doesn't get us very far. Furthermore, although he would have been pre-incarnate at that point, he eventually did have a father and mother, not a human father but he definitely had a human mother, and he definitely had two genealogies. Matthew chapter 1 and Luke chapter 4. Melchizedek can't be an apparition or a ghost. Because we already learned in Hebrews 5:1 every high priest, is selected from among men, he has to be a human being. We believe theologically, that Adam and Eve are the father and mother of all human beings that God didn't create Melchizedek up out of the dust of the earth or out of some banana leaves or some other thing, God can do anything, but I think he wanted the entire human race to center from Adam and Eve. So, I've cleared out what it isn't.

What does it mean, without father or mother? Well, I think the first way I have come to understand this, I don't know if this is true, but the author to Hebrews has a remarkable and unique way of looking at the Bible. You remember how in chapter 4, he said, "The Word of God is living and active," it's a living thing, a living entity, a living world and when you read the Bible, you are stepping into that world, by faith. And if you step into the Genesis 14 world, Melchizedek just pops up without a genealogy, without a father or a mother, and he then just disappears and doesn't die. And so in the Bible, account these things are true. There's no genealogy of this man, there's no father or mother, there's no death, he just seems to go on living forever. It's the way he is going to treat Abel later on in chapter 11, when He says though dead, he still speaks. Again you can understand that two ways, namely he is still alive up in heaven absent from the body, present with the Lord. Okay, that's fine. But I think he's really meaning through the scripture, he speaks by his actions. Anyway, that's my first crack at it.

If that's not satisfying. This is my second and final attempt. I think really the best reason is that his priesthood, itself doesn't depend on a genealogy unlike Aaron and his sons. And I think that's the better answer of all the priesthood doesn't derive from his ancestry, it's not a genealogical priesthood unlike the Levitical priesthood. If you came back in the time of Ezra and you could not produce your genealogical records you could not serve as a priest. It was a genealogical priesthood and in the same way, without beginning of days, or end of life. It's the same way, the ironic priest had a very definite beginning to their priestly ministry at age 25 and they had to retire at age 50. I was really struck by the fact that there actually is retirement in the Bible, and it's even more pointed, it's for priests and even worse, it's 50. So I better get going. Whatever dreams or hopes or aspirations I have for my priestly ministry. I have two years. If you're going to hold to that. Thankfully, we're not, we're in the New Covenant, amen.

The Levitical priesthood is done. So please, if God wills extend me beyond age 50 if I live that long. But the point is, the priesthood itself, it's not genealogically-based and it doesn't end like there's duties. 50. And even more significantly, ended death, Jesus can never die again, death has no mastery over him, he's finished and so he will go on ministering in this order of Melchizedek until his days end, which will never happen. And so I think that's what it means. Hebrews 7:24-25, "Because Jesus lives forever, He has a permanent priesthood. And therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them." If you have another interpretation come and tell me, and I'll listen it'll probably be very interesting. So I want to hear what you would say about it.

Final statement he makes here is like the Son of God Melchizedek remains a priest forever. Amazingly Melchizedek who pre-dates Jesus of Nazareth by two millennia is said to be like the Son of God. In this way he's very much like John the Baptist, who said He who comes after me, has surpassed me because He was before me.

Jesus opens up the ministry in the order of Melchizedek before the foundation of the world. God the Father and God the Son had worked out, this ministry before God said, "Let there be light" in Revelation 13, Jesus is said to be the lamb, that was slain from the foundation of the Earth. This priesthood pre-dates Melchizedek and so Melchizedek is just like the Son of God, He's compared to Him, Jesus will later be compared to Melchizedek but Jesus pre-dates him just as he said in John Chapter 8, "before Abraham was I am." That's the eternity of Jesus. This is dear friends the true priestly ministry, the only one that has ever really stood before God on behalf of sinners. Jesus is the true the eternal, the first, and the final high priest.

So in summary Melchizedek was conformed to the pattern of Christ in some amazing ways set forth centuries before Aaron was established as high priest by the laws of Moses. Melchizedek was a pattern of Christ first as priest of God Most High. Second as a priest king. Third as the king of righteousness. Forth as the King of Peace. Fifth as the one who blessed Abraham. Sixth as the one who received gifts and offerings from God's people represented by Abraham. Seventh as a priest who did not owe his position to genealogy. And eighth as a priest who's ministry is not restricted to 50 years of age, but who continues as priests to the end of his days, which in Jesus' case, is forever.

That is, Melchizedek. And so what shall we do with this? Come to Christ, I come to Christ, the only priest who can save you. Melchizedek 's a picture, Jesus the reality and fulfillment. Jesus shed His blood once for all, we'll get to that later in Hebrews. What once for all, never again, does a sacrifice need to be offered. Perhaps you were invited here today, you don't have faith, you haven't trusted in Christ, until today, I pray that God would open your eyes, that he would give you a vision of Jesus, such as you've never had before, and I ask that you would come to Christ Jesus is in the person of this message pleading with you, to turn away from your sins, and to come to the cross and receive mercy and forgiveness through faith. Let Jesus be your priest, king, bow the knee to Jesus take his kingly yoke upon you, let Him be your king, of righteousness.

Secondly, brothers and sisters, marvel at the depth of scripture scriptures deeper than we can possibly imagine infinitely, and marvel over God's control of history. God controls the unfolding of history and all the types and patterns and thirdly, brothers and sisters immerse yourself in the ministry of Jesus as your great High Priest.

Know how completely your sins are atoned for. Just know that you're forgiven in Jesus. If you're struggling with sin, bring it to Jesus bring your weakness, "Cast all your burdens on Him because He cares for you. Don't carry them anymore they're crushing you. If you're discouraged, if you're depressed, if you're weary go to the cross, go to Jesus go to your great high priest, he is a priest forever for you go to him and he'll care for you. Close with me in prayer. Father this passage is really deep infinitely so it's meat the author is told it's not milk. Thank you for the attentiveness of my brothers and sisters in Christ. Take the words that I've said, and press them into our hearts, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen.

Wednesday, May 21, 2003, a date that probably isn't all that important to you, but on that day, a massive earthquake hit Algeria. That earthquake measured 6.8 on the Richter scale and killed over 1000 people. 150 miles away there was a yacht anchored in Porto Petro Bay in Majorca, Spain, and it was hit by the violent aftershocks of that earthquake. The yacht was buffeted fiercely by the waves as were 10 other yachts that were moored nearby. Now all 10 of those yachts were ripped from their mooring and crashed into one another and into the rocks of the harbor, totally destroying each one, but that one yacht's anchor held firm for two hours as it was being lashed by the waves. Moored by a new kind of anchor and cable system, the strongest anchor ever designed for a private yacht, and because of the special design and strength of that anchoring system, the yacht and everyone on board was saved from death.

Now, it is very common for us as Christians to use language like the storms of life to talk about things we're going through. We go through storms of life. That kind of thing and, frankly, Scripture supports that kind of language. Ephesians 4:14 uses this kind of language. Talks about immature people in that particular context, whose hearts are not rooted in sound doctrine, saying that they're tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching. James 1:6 uses similar language of those who doubt God's promises, "But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because those who doubt are like a wave of the sea blown and tossed by the wind." And such people should not think they'll receive anything from God, they're double-minded, unstable in all their ways.

Now, in our text this morning, in Hebrews 6:13-20, God is laboring to give each believer in Jesus Christ, a sense of the strength of our anchoring system in Jesus, that we have an anchor that holds within the veil. That's the burden of this text; and as we face incredible trials that assault our faith, our anchor is going to hold us close to Christ. Now, God has made us astonishing promises that if we believe in Jesus Christ, who was crucified for sin, that if we believe in Him, He will forgive us all of our sins, and that He will protect us in all of the storms of life. He'll guide us through our lives. He'll guide us even through death, and He will welcome us into Heaven. And then at the end of the world, He has promised that He will raise our rotted corpses up from the grave and He will give us gloriously perfect resurrection bodies and that we will live in a perfect new world called the new Heavens and the new Earth and we will live there forever and ever. What incredible promises are lavished on the believer in Jesus Christ!

But we have not received those promises, not all of them yet. The fulfillment is yet to come. And now our faith is being assaulted, buffeted by the waves of trials and temptations. We're assaulted by lust, by a guilty conscience, by the accusations of the evil one. We're assaulted by illness and pain, struggles of many kinds. God wants us to know that our souls are firmly anchored to Him through Jesus Christ and that He's not going to lose us. Through the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross, and by the strength of His ongoing priestly ministry for us behind the veil... We're going to learn more about that in the next chapter, but through the ministry of Jesus Christ, that which has finished and that which is ongoing, we are securely tied to God Almighty.

And even beyond that, you may be feeling like you're like your life is on that yacht, that one that didn't drift away and that you're buffeted, and smashed by all kinds of things right now, maybe like you've hit your head on a bulkhead, because of the convulsing waves, you see the blood is running down into your eyes perhaps, metaphorically speaking. Maybe you're going through the worst trial of your life, maybe it's just average, but you're wondering when those kinds of trials are come. So often we live a lot of our lives waiting for the other shoe to drop. You hear about things that are going on in brothers' and sisters' lives. You know that God doesn't love you any more than He loves them. And we can live in fear in that way, of trials that God will feel are necessary but hasn't come yet.

God Wants His People to Be Filled With Hope

God wants us to be filled with hope every day, filled with a radiant bright, strong hope in Jesus Christ. God is greatly glorified by hope. When we are filled with hope, He's glorified by that, when His children are buoyant. I get a picture of buoyancy of hope. And what is hope? I was just talking to Matthew before I came up here. How would you define hope when we're talking about that? And I wanted to make a distinction between sources of hope and the thing itself, and then the effects of hope. What is hope itself? And we're going to talk about that today, but I believe it's an attitude or disposition of the human soul of the heart. God loves hope, He loves it. And you are here today, I think, to have an infusion strengthening your hope. You're here to be fed today by the word of God so that when you walk out of here, you're hopefully stronger than when you walked in. That's my desire, because that's God's desire in the text. And in order to achieve that, God is going to give you a series of encouragements to hope in the text. He wants you to know that the anchor of your soul will almost certainly hold firmly, it will not fail you until at last, you are in the safe haven of heaven itself.

So let's start with the central lesson. The central lesson I think of the whole book, but even locally as we've been looking recently at Hebrews, is this: Only by faith and patience do we inherit what is promised. Okay, the overall, the context here, the overall context of the Book of Hebrews, we've seen a number of times, I believe this letter was written to a local church, it was made up of Jewish believers in Christ, those Jewish believers in Christ were under tremendous pressure. The pressure was coming I think from their friends and neighbors, and relatives, and political and religious leaders that were pressing on them toward one end. And the pressure was for them to give up their claim to be Christians and just return to Old Covenant Judaism. Just give up on Jesus, turn their backs on Jesus and go back to the way things used to be.

And the author is writing a strong word of exhortation, that they would not do that. And he goes about his work by showing the great majesty of Jesus Christ, the superiority of Jesus Christ to everything as Creator of the universe, as the One superior to all of the prophets of the Old Testament, as the One who in fact fills up the message of all of the prophets, the One who is superior over every angel, infinitely greater than any angel, the One who's superior to Moses himself who was just a servant in God's house but Jesus is a Son over God's house. Superior to Aaron, superior to Joshua, superior to all of these heroes of the Old Covenant, each one of them having a specific role in redemptive history. Joshua leading the people of God into the Promised Land. Jesus is a better Joshua, leads us into a better, a more permanent Promised Land. Aaron a high priest chosen from among man to offer gifts and sacrifices, Jesus a greater high priest in the order of Melchizedek. We'll go there next chapter.

So we're seeing the greatness of Jesus Christ, and the greatness of the covenant that He brings. And how can you turn your back on Jesus and go back to a Christ-less Judaism, how can you do that? And the immediate context: Hebrews 6:11-12 says, "We want each of you to show the same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure. We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised." So that's the context. Only by faith and patience do you inherit the promise.

So the Christian life is presented as a marathon race, and we must keep running that race. We'll get to that image in Chapter 12, but we must lay aside every hindrance and run with endurance, this race that's marked out in front of us. We have to keep running this race, we can't quit in the middle of it. To run for a while and fall out of the race is unacceptable, it really proves you weren't genuinely running the true race of faith. And so the author is warning these people against spiritual laziness. "We do not want you to become lazy," he says. The word lazy, the same word we saw in the Greek translation of the book of Proverbs to refer to the sluggard, that individual can't even lift up his hand out of the dish, who's laying in the bed, going from side to side, is making excuses, "There's a lion out in the streets," or "I'll be trampled down if I try to do anything today," this kind of thing. The sluggard, one of my favorite or least favorite individuals in Proverbs. It never fails to bring a smile and conviction at the same time.

But we're not to be sluggards, we're not to be lazy in our Christian lives. They had become lazy listeners, they were listening to good apostolic teaching, the faithful exposition of the Word. But they were lazy listeners, they were just sipping at milk, they didn't want to go deeper, they didn't want to chew on the meat of the Word. Still less, do they want to obey those things that they had learned. They had become lazy. Hebrews 5:11, "About this we have much to say, but it's hard to explain because you've become in effect lazy listeners, dull of listening." This is devastating because faith comes by hearing, doesn't it? And we've got to keep hearing, keep listening to the Holy Spirit as He speaks out of the Word. We've got to keep listening to God talking to us, so that our faith will be strong and will not fail. And so it says in Hebrews 3, "So as the Holy Spirit says Today, if you hear His voice, don't harden your hearts," you got to keep listening, keep hearing the Holy spirit speak.

So the author speaks about imitating people. The heroes of the faith he's going to lay out in Hebrews 11. We got to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised. And especially in view here, one of the central figures of the Old Testament heroes of faith is Abraham. We're going to talk about Abraham today, but this individual, this father in faith, Abraham our father in faith, and he's going to be laid out before us as an example of somebody who received promises, and by faith in patience inherited those promises. So the author speaks in verse 11 of making your hope sure, that hope is a character trait of the heart. It's a joyful expectation of a blessing that hasn't come yet, but you think it's going to come. That's what hope is, both secular and spiritual. It's just an expectation that the future is bright, something good is coming.

I'll talk more about that in a minute. But that's the character trait, and hope is a precious commodity of the soul, and in order to make your hope sure means to get the thing you're hoping for. It takes diligence then, it takes zeal, it takes earnestness; and these precious traits of soul are very much in the author's view right here, been thinking about this, how much Satan labors to get Job to stop believing in God, but curse God. That's what it's all about, it's Job's heart and what Job is feeling and thinking and believing about God, that's what the whole thing's about. He's trying to get Job to stop trusting God and to curse Him to His face. And that's the same thing in Luke 22, "Simon, Simon, Satan has demanded to sift you like wheat; but I prayed for you Simon, that your faith may not fail."

The battle's for your faith, it's for your heart, that you'll keep trusting and keep hoping, that's what's going on in your life right now. That's what the temptations are all about, that's what any trials you're going, it's all about that, that your faith may be strong, that's what Jesus is praying for you.

That's what I think Hebrews 6:13-20 is all about too. And so God's goal here is our strong encouragement to hope. Look at verse 18. We're going to go through it carefully and systematically but let's get to the point. And the point is "God did this so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie," we'll talk all about that. "We... " We Christians, "We who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be... " And here's the point, "greatly encouraged." That's the NIV's translation. That's the point, the author wants you, God wants you greatly encouraged today. ESV gives us, "strong encouragement." KJV says, "strong consolation." That's the goal in verse 18. I think it's the goal of the whole letter.

In Hebrews 13:22, he tells us why he wrote the letter. "Brothers. I urge you to bear with this word of exhortation." Same Greek word. "For I've written you only a short letter... "  A 13-chapter letter? What letter writers they were back then. They didn't do the Twitter thing. It was a 13-chapter letter. "Much to say." He thinks, "Look, I'm just going to shorten it to this brief letter now, just keep it short." The letter of Hebrews. But it's the Greek word is paraklesis, paraklesis. It's a rich, beautiful full word. It's related to Jesus' word for the Counselor or Comforter. Paraclete. Sometimes it comes over by transliteration in English, paraclete, paraklesis, one called alongside to help. But that word "help" is too pale a word for me, He does more than just help. He is the Sovereign God, the third person of the Trinity in your life, the Paraclete, but sometimes the Paraclete rebukes, sometimes He consoles, sometimes He exhorts, sometimes He encourages. All of that is within the pale of this word paraklesis, He does whatever is necessary to keep you running your marathon race, whatever it takes to keep you running this long-distance race.

And in Verse 18, the author intensifies the word. He adds the adjective "strong," or translated mighty or powerful or effective consolation or exhortation. And in this passage, the author is saying that God gives us two unchangeable things in which is impossible, it is impossible for God to lie, and through that, you get this strong consolation or strong encouragement. What are those two unchangeable things? His promise and His oath. Those are the two things He gives us: The promise and the oath. They're unchangeable, unbreakable, and they're the basis of this confident hope that we have. Combine effect then of these things should give us a strong encouragement to persevere in the Christian life. Friends, this is effective medicine, but it only if you take it. You have to take the medicine to have the effects of these words, you take it by faith. God is giving you words here, He's giving you words, and the words have to be like food, have to be chewed up and swallowed and digested to give the benefit to the body. So you have to work over these things. So we're working over words. That's what preaching is, that's what teaching is, that's what Bible study is. We're going over the words, and we're working over this meat and trying to take it in, so we get stronger. This is the food that God has given us.

Meditating on God’s Promises Fosters Hope

And by meditating on these verses, we can have with the author, what God wants to give us, a strong encouragement to hope during the Christian race of faith. So what is this hope? A hope just itself is a disposition of the human heart. It's a positive force in the heart, an optimism, let's say, a confidence, an assurance, it always has to do with good things in the future. Hope always has to do with good things in the future. Romans 8 says, "Who hopes for what he already has?" You're not hoping for present things, stuff you already have. You can be thankful for present things, but you don't hope for them, you already have them. So you don't need to hope for what... So it has to do with what you don't have yet, and it has to do with good things. You use the word dread for things that are coming in the future that you don't want, or other such things. So this is good things coming in the future and your hope is based on your certainty of whether those good things will come or not.

I think in everyday life, hope functions somewhat like a... There's a picture of buoyancy in my heart right here, a sense of, you just can't get this individual down, Satan trying to shove you down and you just keep popping up to the surface. I remember swimming in a strange Salt Lake in the Pakistan, in the mountains of Pakistan, one of the most other-worldly experiences I've ever had in my life, and I just couldn't submerge. I remember going down and popping right back up again, I just couldn't get down in this water. It was really interesting, I was floating kind of really high up in this lake and looking at these mountains, it was amazing.

I remember a darker time in my life, when I was a sophomore in college, and I went out sailing on a very windy day and I had a life preserver on but it wasn't tied. It was just kind of hanging on my neck. Very windy day and the sailboat capsized, and I got thrown from the sailboat, and actually the centerboard for the sailboat got thrown even further, and I went swimming after the centerboard, almost killed myself. Literally almost killed myself. So I went out and got that centerboard and turned and the sailboat had been blown away from me. It was in the middle of Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire and I started swimming with one arm, but it was, I wasn't even keeping up with the boat. And here's this life preserver just kind of floating around my neck, just floating there, not doing me any good at all, and I lived, praise God, that's not the point of the sermon.  But anyway, I did survive. It was tough, I almost drowned. Somebody pulled me dead weight out of the lake into a motorboat. But I think this is where Christians are, where we don't tie the promises of God around us and have the buoy us up and lift us up, and so we threaten to sink because you're not clinging to the promises of God. So I think of hope in terms of a buoyancy. It's more than just mere optimism, but it is that of the future.

So, I think in everyday life, just secular, sacred, whatever human life, there are three types of hope. All of them have to do with future things, good things in the future that you don't have yet. There's short-term hope. There's long-term hope and there's eternal or... Yeah, eternal hope I guess we'll call it that. Short-term hope is: Things are looking really good for the rest of the day. Okay, you're going out to your favorite restaurant with some friends afterwards, you looking forward to that, it's going to be a good time, you're excited, whenever this pastor will finally get done with this, you're going to go out and have a good time and you'll be free at last to go and enjoy sometimes. Look, that's all fine. Well, most of that is fine, but you know what I mean.

The expectation that the next day or so is going to be good. Short-term hope. Long-term hope is that the rest of your life looks good to you. You like your life. You like what's going on in your life. You're anticipating that good things are going to happen in the future, that it's going to be a fruitful life, a good life. This is the kind of hope that's very common on a new couple's wedding day as they walk out of the church, they get in the car and they drive off to their honeymoon. They're filled with hope, long-term hope, they're going to have a wonderful life together, they're going to enjoy their married life together. It's going to be a fruitful time. That's the long-term hope, they're anticipating good things for the rest of their life.

Then there's eternal hope. It has to do with life after death, has to do with death itself and what will happen when you die, and if you have a hope that is eternal, that after you die, that there is a place called Heaven and that you'll be welcomed there and received there and it's going to be glorious and wonderful, and you just can't wait to be there. That's eternal hope. I think the gospel offers all three to Christians, based on far better things than non-Christian people have. I think all three are worthwhile. I think counselors should be and really are working to giving people hope. And the Bible says that people without Jesus are without hope and without God in the world. They may look forward to what's going on the rest of the day, but the future looks dim to them. They're depressed, they've seen bad things happen. Perhaps that marriage didn't work out, perhaps that business venture failed, they've seen enough of life and now they're just depressed and beaten down.

I think even about what I saw in Haiti recently, when we went there, and you look at these people living in these tent cities. And I think if I'm living there, what does my long-term hope look like? The political situation there's terrible. The economic future is bleak. The greatest hope that any of them have is to just get out of there and go live with some relatives in Miami, or New York, nobody wants to be there, they want to get out, etcetera. It's just so bleak. I think it's just beautiful, isn't it? How the Gospel can come and minister hope in all three areas, but especially eternal hope; and when you have eternal hope, then it's easier to have life hope. And when you have those two then today can fit into that overall plan of God.

I don't think any Christian should ever allow himself or herself to be hopeless. That is not the mark of a Christian. You should feed your hope, and this text shows you how to do it, it feeds on the promises of God. Hope is of the essence of faith as it says in Hebrews 11:1, "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen." And that hope in Hebrews 11, those people were looking forward, they were looking ahead to a city with foundations whose builder and maker is God. That's eternal hope, and because of that, they live their lives in that kind of expectancy.

Moses said No to the flesh pots of Egypt and said, "I'm going to live a certain kind of way because I'm looking forward to the city with foundations. I want to live a holy life because of it." And hope is necessary because God isn't going to give it to you in this life. You don't get the centerpiece of our faith now, you don't. You'll die, you'll die. If Jesus doesn't return in our generation, you will die not having had the central hope of your life fulfilled, but you'll die happy, you'll have fed your hope your whole life as saying, "I never expected to get it in this world. It was for this very thing that Jesus brought me to this point and I'm looking forward." You can die happy, and people around you who aren't Christians, who are without hope, without God in the world, will think you a marvel. How is it you can die so happily? It's because of the hope I have in Jesus.

That's what the author wants to give you. How does he do it, what does he do, what buoyant things does he put around our necks and around our bodies and around our heads to lift us up so we don't drown? I think he does six things. And I want to just go through them relatively quickly here, but there's six things here that just give us a strong encouragement to hope.

First, the promise of God, second the oath of God, third the character of God, fourth the example of Abraham, fifth the fulfillment in Jesus, and then, ultimate fulfillment in heaven. So first, the promise of God, and we start right away in verse 13, when God made His promise to Abraham, focuses right away on the promise. Verse 14 it tells us what that promise is, literally this: "Surely blessing I will bless you and multiplying I will multiply you." That's a literalistic translation. KJV has it. Others just say, "I will surely bless you," but it's literally "Surely blessing I will bless you and multiplying I will multiply you." The way I kind of read it that way is, blessing I will bless you: I've already blessed you, I'm going to ultimately bless you. And multiplying I will multiply: I've already begun to multiply, you I'm going to multiply you even more.

Now this promise was made in Genesis 22, on Mount Moriah, where Abraham had obeyed an incredibly difficult command God had given him to take his son, his only son, Isaac, whom he loved and offer him as a sacrifice. And Abraham by faith obeyed and went, he went up the mountain, he was just about to kill his son, and the angel of the Lord stopped him and said this incredible thing, "Now, I know that you fear God because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son." And then he said this, "I swear by myself, declares the Lord, That because you have done this, and you have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring, all nations on earth will be blessed because you have obeyed Me."

Now, the promise is a source of hope. How is that? Well, God made His promise to Abraham and it was a source of Abraham's hope. Now, a promise is a pledge of a good thing to be given in the future. Also, like hope, promises have to do with the future; and so one individual makes a promise to the other, "I will surely do this for you, this is a promise I will make for you." Perhaps the most significant promise you make to another person is the wedding vow itself. You're promising certain things in your wedding vows, a promise a man and woman make to each other concerning future blessings that they'll most certainly do for one another. They will love and cherish each other, they'll share their worldly goods together, they'll care for each other in good times and bad, forsaking all others, they will cling to that one person till death parts you. These are the promises that they make to each other.

Parents make many promises to their children, "I promise I'll take you to the State Fair next weekend if you get an A on that test." Something like that or "I'll take you out for ice cream." Or "When you graduate from high school, I'll give you a new car." Amazing how good our children's memories are of those promises. It's incredible, deep multi-faceted promises, and they remember them all, the codices and the fine print, they remember all of those promises. The commands, not so much I found. But the promises absolutely. God fills the pages of Scripture with more promises I think that we can possibly count. Some have tried to count them.

One Canadian school teacher, name of Mr. Storms, Everett Storms from Kitchener, Ontario, read through the Bible. On his 27th time of reading through the Bible in his life, he decided he was going to pursue the promises through the whole Bible. He came up with almost 8000 promises, same list that Herbert Lockyer gives us, about 8000 promises from God to us in the pages of Scripture. Promises that God gave related to the Jewish world, to the Gentile world, connected with creation, promises connected to the coming of Jesus Christ which our young people studied so beautifully in Disciple Now, what a great time of studying the promises of God. But God has fulfilled His promises in bringing Jesus, beautiful promises for the individual, Christian promises for local churches, the church as a whole. Promise is connected to prayer, promise is connected to marriage or parenting, so many rich promises of God scattered throughout the Bible, like so many gems.

2 Peter 1:4 calls them the very great and precious promises of God. Charles Spurgeon likened them to checks that God had signed and had given to you. He wrote a whole book in which he draws out a lot of these promises. "Faith's Checkbook," he calls it, "Faith's Checkbook." And so God's handed you all these checks. Have you ever gone through the junk drawer? Do you guys have a junk drawer like we do where you put a lot of stuff? And you find a check... Maybe that's never happened to you. Why am I telling you this story? At any rate, there's a check, it's never been submitted to the bank, there it is. Maybe past its time, but the fact is it's got a date on it, it's got an endorse... A certain amount, and you bring it to the bank and you give the check to the cashier; and after the procedures they follow, they want to see that it's endorsed, the date, and it has to clear, and then you get the money.

And so it is with the promises of God, Charles Spurgeon tells us. You have to endorse it with your own faith, you have to take it into yourself by endorsing it by faith. You have to bring it to the cashier, you have to bring it to God, the one with the money. Present it to Him in prayer, He has to check the date and He may tell you not yet but so you wait patiently as Abraham did, you have to wait on that, the time of the clearance of that check, or the date when God will give you that good thing. You wait patiently for what is promised. It's very much like a check.

The Ultimate Promise of God

Now there are 8000 promises, but I tell you there is one promise in the Bible, one central overarching promise in Jesus to us as sinners. It's called salvation in a big picture. The promise of salvation. I will save you from everything that sin has done to you, to your relationships, to the universe you live in. I will bring you into a world where sin will be no more, I will do that for you, I will save you. And He sent His Son Jesus who shed His blood to pay for the penalty of our sins that we would be forgiven and He was raised to life on the third day to give us a pattern. He is the first fruit of resurrection and so here is the promise. Capital P. Resurrected souls in resurrected bodies living in resurrected fellowship with other such people, in a resurrected universe, the new Heavens and new Earth. That's the promise.

All the other smaller promises fit into and serve that larger overarching promise, that's the ultimate promise that God gives you, and that promise is extended here, many descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. He says. He said, "I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you, I curse, and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." That's feeding that main central promise of salvation through Jesus Christ.

The ultimate promise to Abraham then he would be heir of the world, Romans 4:13, "It is not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith." Jesus is the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham; and through Jesus, we gentiles have become heirs to the promise of Abraham, we have become heirs through Abraham. We are by faith sons and daughters of Abraham, isn't that beautiful? Galatians 3 says, "You are all sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ, if you belong to Christ then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise." Oh how sweet is that. And the promise there is that big overarching promise of salvation. So this passage... Look at verse 17, this passage calls us heirs. Look at Verse 17, "Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, He confirmed it with an oath." So we are the heirs of the promise here. And so we have this promise as a ground for our, a ground for our hope.

God’s Oath

Secondly, we have the oath of God. Verse 13, "When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself." "I swear by myself," He said. The reason for the oath is given in verse 16, "Men swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument," or all churning or disputing, or talking back, that's literally what it is, puts an end to that. I think that's metaphorically for the spiritual aspect of our hearts, we talk back to the promise of God, don't we? We murmur against it, we argue against it. We think it might not happen. We think it's not going to come true, we struggle with it. And so, this oath was meant to put an end to all argument. An end to all disputing. Doubt murmurs, doubt talks back. Doubt argues with God. God meant to put an end to that. And so, He confirms this with an oath, "I swear by myself."

And the reason God swore by Himself, the author tells us, is there was no one around greater that He should swear by. There's no one... God has studied the universe and there is no one greater than Himself. He knows that by a long shot, by an infinite shot, He is infinitely greater. There is no one greater than God, there's no one even like God, or even close to God in infinite majesty and power, and so He swore by Himself. Why did He do it? Look at Verse 17 and 18, "Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of His purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, He confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that by two unchangeable things, the promise and the oath, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged." That's why He gives us a promise and an oath.

So the bottom line is, God is laboring for our assurance, our confidence, our faith, our hope. So, He does these two things, He makes a promise and He confirms it with an oath. Thirdly, we see the character of God. Now, the key to all of this, is the character of God. Liars make and break promises all the time, don't they? We have that experience. Liars swear oaths on stacks of Bibles. And as I've said before, recently, my confidence doesn't go up if you add another two Bibles on top of the stack, does it, yours? I think the taller it is, the lower my confidence is. Is that how many Bibles you need to convince the people who know you that you're telling the truth?

"Just let your Yes be Yes," said Jesus, "And let your No be No." But God helping us in our weakness here, swears by Himself. And so what kind of being is it, that's making us these promises? Well, look at the character of God, our hope is based on three particular attributes of God, God's truthfulness, His omnipotence, His power and His immutability, His unchanging nature. So truthfulness, power and His unchanging nature, these are the attributes of God that give us confidence when we come to the promises of God.

The Character of God

First, His truth: If God were a liar, we would have every good reason to doubt His keeping of His promise. But Verse 18 says it's impossible for God to lie.

The Omnipotence of God

Secondly, if God were not omnipotent, if He were not all-powerful, we would have good reason to doubt His promise. As a matter of fact, I've heard that kind of murmuring about God in the wake of the earthquake in Japan. Is it the case that God is not powerful enough to prevent these kinds of things? We could say concerning the promise. Well, He meant well, He really did, but He just couldn't bring it about. But this is the God of the universe who sustains all things by His powerful word, everything exists to serve Him and He exerts power on it at every moment to keep the universe going. There is nothing He cannot do. So God's omnipotence, He can most certainly keep this promise.

The Unchangeableness and Faithfulness of God

Thirdly, God's immutability. We could say, "Look, God certainly meant it at the time, He wasn't lying, He really had every good intention to keep His promise and He certainly has all power to keep it, but now He has changed His mind. But the author gives us twice in verse 17, he talks about the unchanging nature of His purpose. God will not change His mind. And verse 18, these are two unchangeable things. God Himself cannot change this purpose.

It says in Hebrews 13:8, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today and forever." That's immutability language. He never changes. James 1:17 speaks of the Father of the heavenly lights, who doesn't change like shifting shadows. Unlike us, humans who speak frivolous words and make spurious promises that, number one, we never intended to keep to begin with, because we're liars. Or number two, we meant to keep, but we couldn't. We lacked resources or circumstances overcame us, or we died or something happens, and we could not carry it through. Or number three, we meant to keep them and we had opportunities but we have now changed our mind, and things seem differently to us now than when we originally made the promise. None of that will happen with God. God keeps His promises, so therefore you can have a good hope based on the character of God.

Abraham’s Example of Faith and Patience

Fourth, look at Abraham's example of faith and patience. Verse 15. "And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised." You're not going to get it today, probably. You might if you die, but God tests our faith by not giving us the thing He has promised. He makes us wait and wait and wait. And so Abraham teaches us how to wait patiently. He waited 25 years for that boy, for Isaac to be born. 25 years he waited. Romans 4:19-21 tells us how he waited, it says, "Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and that Sarah's womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but he was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God because he was fully persuaded that God had power to do what He had promised."

That's how we wait, we wait on God knowing fully that God can do this, we don't waver or flicker, we just have confidence that God has power to do what He has promised for us. But this promise goes well beyond the birth of Isaac, doesn't it? He made this promise long after Isaac was born. "Blessing I will bless you, multiplying I will multiply you," I've only begun to bless you, Abraham, I've got far greater blessings than this to give you, Abraham. I want to multiply you far more than this one boy, Abraham. I want to give you lavish things. And so, these promises, this is ringing in his ears, even as he's dying, even as he lays his head one last time on his pillow, he's still filled with faith and with hope, because the promises were for the future anyway, he's looking ahead to a city with foundations whose builder and maker is God.

He's going to inherit the Promised Land, it's just going to be an eternal inheritance, not the one under Joshua but an eternal one. The new Heavens and the new Earth. And we all are heirs with him, amen? We're going to get it too. The meek will inherit the earth, it's going to be ours. So Abraham gives us an example of how to wait patiently for God.

The Life, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus: Fulfillment of the Promise

Fifth, the life, death and resurrection, ascension of Jesus. He is the fulfillment of the promise. Look at verse 19-20, "We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain where Jesus who went before us has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever in the order of Melchizedek." God here feeds our hope by pointing to Jesus, the author of our faith, the protector of our faith. He is the focus of our hope. Isn't He what you want, dear Christian brother or sister? Isn't Jesus what you want?

Oh, just give me Jesus, I want to see Jesus, I want to be with Him, I want to hear His voice, I want to feel His embrace, I want to walk with Him in the world He's made, whatever it looks like will be fine with me. It's perfect, it's wonderful, but it's Jesus I want, and I want to see that city radiating with His glory. Don't you want to see that? I want Jesus. And so we focus on Jesus, the one who shed His blood on the cross, the one who went behind the curtain, behind the veil, and ministers now as a High Priest. He is there on our behalf, He is the anchor that holds within the veil, and no hurricane is going to pull you away from Jesus. You'll not drift away, you'll not turn away, you will not fall away because Jesus has hold of you and will not let you go.

So the ultimate source of our hope is meditating on heaven. Think much about heaven, think much about the future, expect trouble here on Earth, expect pain and suffering, expect God to purify your faith and bring trials in your life, expect it all, He's perfecting you for heaven, and set your hope fully on that grace to be given you when He returns. Die in hope, please, I plead with you die in hope. Filled with hope. Be a witness to your children, be a witness to your grandchildren, be a witness to the medical professionals that are caring for you. Die in hope. In order to do that, feed your hope today, feed it today.

Maybe you came here today, you don't have any hope. You are what we've already described, without hope and without God in the world. You're not a Christian. Maybe even consciously you know, "I'm not a Christian." Or maybe you feel that I've been playing a game and I don't think I'm a Christian. The gospel is calling out to you, the gospel stands to give you a real living hope today in Jesus. He's the one who shed His blood for you, He's the one that was raised to life on the third day, He wants to give you hope. Trust in Him and all your sins will be forgiven. Justification by faith apart from works, just put your trust in Him. And then can I urge you, feed your hope, dear Christian friend, feed it with the word of God. Go back to the promises, work over the... All we've been doing since I got up here is just working verse by verse, phrase by phrase, that's all we're looking at. Feed on the promises.

Understand that God has sworn by Himself, He will certainly forgive all your sins, He will certainly protect you and filter your temptations while on Earth. He will certainly enable you to be fruitful while you live, He will certainly bring you through death, He will certainly welcome you into heaven, when you are absent from the body and present with the Lord, and He will certainly raise that body of yours in newness of life, made like Jesus' resurrection body, and He will certainly do it, not just for you, but for a multitude greater than anyone could count, from every tribe, and language, and people, and nation, they will certainly be there too. Millions of them. And we're going to be in a resurrected world, it's going to be purified by fire and made new and made beautiful and radiant, with the glory of God, and we will walk in resurrection bodies in fellowship with Jesus and with the saints. We're going to be there, friends.

your faith, God will certainly keep His promises, and know that your anchor is going to hold within the veil, it's going to hold. Romans Chapter 8, "I'm convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to" sever your line to your anchor. It cannot be severed, it cannot.

Why is He behind the veil? He is your High Priest, He's entered behind the veil. Because it's not time for you to see Him yet, you need faith. And so your anchor's holding behind the veil, and sometimes God will be invisible, incognito to you, you'll wonder where is God in all of this. The anchor's holding within the veil because Jesus is there ministering, invisible. Trust in Him. Though you do not see Him, you love Him. Though you do not see Him, know that He will never let you go. Close with me in prayer.

For me, one of the most powerful moments in redemptive history and in the Bible, one of the most powerful moments in the New Testament, was that moment when the Philippian jailer fell down trembling in front of Paul and Silas and asked this question, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" It's a powerful question and it's asked in a variety of different ways in the Scriptures. We see it again and again, the rich young ruler asking Jesus, "What good work must I do to inherit eternal life." Nicodemus, I'm sure, had it in his mind as he was coming to talk to Jesus, and Jesus went immediately to the statement, "Unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God."

Perhaps it was in the mind of the Samaritan woman at the well, although she maybe had lost hope that she could even be welcomed into eternal life, but it wasn't long before a couple of comments from Jesus and a couple of thoughts and the strength of desire flared up inside her and she started talking about her Samaritan theology, and they got into that discussion very quickly. In John 6, when they come back after Jesus fed the 5,000 and they're there again, and Jesus is standing in front of them and they want another meal, I think. But at a deeper level, they ask, "What must we do to work the works of God?" We yearn to be in a right relationship with God as Augustine put it, "The heart of man is restless until it finds its rest in you. Why? Because you have made us for yourself oh Lord, that's why."

And so, we're yearning and there is that deep question, and it comes on us by grace as we sing an Amazing Grace. "It was grace that taught my heart to fear and grace those fears relieved." Well, it's by grace that we ask the question of the Philippian jailer, "What must I do to be saved?" The answer has always been the same. Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. This is the work of God, to believe in the one he has sent. This is the answer of Scripture. But what happens after you feel you've done that? Trusted in Jesus, lived many years since that time, those years have been of a mixed nature. In some ways serving God, in some ways serving the flesh. Sometimes obedient, sometimes not.

And as we come to Hebrew 6, and we start to understand that the author to Hebrews believes that any average, any local assembly of Christians, is a mixture and that there could very well be some people that are receiving lavishly the blessings of the Holy Spirit and the ministry of the Word of God, but they're not Christians; not genuinely Christians.

This happens all over the world every Sunday. A mixed assembly gathers and we're aware that there are people who outwardly look like believers, they talk the talk. They seem to walk the walk, but they really aren't believers. And so when we look at the uneven, the mixed nature of our own lives then we start to ask a similar but different question. How can I know that I'm saved? How can I test the validity of what happened? Have I been justified by faith? Has the Holy Spirit entered my life or am I one of those impostors? Those Gospel hypocrites; How can I know? And so we come to Hebrew 6:9-12 and we come to this phrase, "Things that accompany salvation." We want to know what they are. What are those things, those marks, whereby we can know that we have been saved, that we see the work of grace in our lives?

And it's very poignant as we look. We've already seen in Hebrew 6, a category of people who have "once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the coming age," but who have subsequently fallen away. These people had had their minds illuminated by the ministry of the Word of God. They seemed to have a positive reaction to that. They had, in some way, a taste of the ministry of the Holy Spirit, through His spiritual gifts and miracles, supernatural evidences, in that apostolic era of the presence of God. But at some point they'd fallen away from Christ, even into aggressive blasphemy; blaspheming His name, trampling the Son of God underfoot. They had received the soaking rain of blessing through the ongoing ministry of the Word and through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. But they were not bringing forth good fruit, but only spiritually, thorns and thistles.

And so last time we discussed the absolute necessity that every true believer in Christ bring forth the harvest of good fruit, we talked about that. Truly regenerate people, bring forth good fruit, for the Glory of God. And so there are two different kinds of Christians, so to speak, those that are genuinely disciples of Jesus Christ through faith and those that are impostors. And so the topic is one of the gravest seriousness for every churchgoer. See if you are genuinely in Christ, examine your own heart, examine your life. 2 Corinthians 13:5 says "Examine yourselves to see whether you're in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you, unless of course, you fail the test." So, that's what's in front of us and has been in front of us now for a number of weeks.

But as we come to Hebrews 6:9-12, we come at last to, I think, a bit of a turn in the epistle in which this author to Hebrews is desiring, yearning to minister pastoral assurance to these dear people.

What a contrast from some of the dark words that we've already heard. We've been talking about this deep darkness, this pit of apostasy, from which it seems there's no escape. It's impossible to renew them again to repentance. We've used the direst terms, that they have fallen away, they're crucifying the Son of God all over again, subjecting him to public disgrace, talking about land that produces thorns and thistles, saying that land is worthless, in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned. These phrases should send a shiver down the spine of every true believer. We know well, very well, the seeds of our own spiritual destruction are within our own sin nature. We carry our own bitterest enemies with us at every moment, the internal drives and lust that we have that wage war against our soul. And we wonder, "Could it be that I might end up one of those apostates?" We know that we are quite capable of denying Jesus, as Peter did, given the circumstances.

At the last supper, Jesus when he was sitting there with all of His apostles, His 12 apostles, He said, He became very troubled in spirit and He said, "I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me." And every one of them, not just Judas, I don't know what was going on in his heart, but all of the other 11 were deeply troubled, and asked, "Is it I Lord?" Could it be me. Could I be the one? I can see why it might be me. So, true disciples have a sense of their own frailty, and words of warning like this are very sobering. How delightful then when this shepherd of souls, this pastor, the author of the Book of Hebrews, has the spiritual sensitivity now to turn and to encourage and build the true disciples up so that they will not be overwhelmed with sorrow and despair, but rather in every way encouraged. And you see this turn in this phrase, "But beloved" in one of the translations or, "Dear friends" and the word 'but' implies we're going in a different direction now. These sharp words of rebuke in Hebrews 5:11-14 when he says. "You're sluggish in your listening," and all that. That's done now. And he wants them to be built up. He's not seeking to be unkind to them. He's not trying to hurt them, but to help them.

And so, the hard words that we've seen from Hebrews 5:11 up until 6:8 have been out of love, and we see that this pastoral love seeks the highest good for the people of God and is willing to inflict pain from time to time through warnings and rebukes or corrections. But when the time comes, a godly pastor knows to turn and comfort and bring consolation as well. This is a lesson, not only to pastors, but to parents as well. There's just a wise blending of the serious warnings that come with being a parent to also the encouragement and the lavish displays of love. And so we see God doing that through the author to Hebrews. And so, What does he do to encourage these true believers? Well, he expresses his good will toward them and he declares his judgment concerning their spiritual state, and then he gives the ground on which that judgment is based; why it is he's convinced of better things in their case, things that accompany salvation. And I think the author's purpose here is to make the best use of the warnings.

He's not saying, "I think you may be apostates." He's not saying that. He's basically speaking indirectly about land and people who do these things and those who are like that. But then he addresses them again, "Now you, in your case, I have better things to say." So he's laid out the warning more indirectly, in the third person and now he's addressing them again directly. So not so much, "I think you may be apostates, but I actually do not think you are, but you need to know what apostasy looks like and what warning should be attached to it." So, the true Christians, I think, learn to take the warnings of Scripture seriously, in a healthy way. They don't damage you. They do you good and you drink it in, like the medicine it's meant to be and it gives you strength. It gives you the right fear of the Lord that is not only the beginning of wisdom but carries right straight through and enables you to walk wisely. And so as you see here, these warnings, then you neither make light of them, blow them off, nor are you crushed by them. But you take them in seriously.

And so, they stimulate us as true Christians to greater perseverance and zeal in personal holiness and lives of active service to the Lord. So the author says in verse 9, "Even though we speak like this, beloved, we are persuaded of better things in your case; things that accompany salvation." He uses the word, persuaded or convinced or I feel certain of it, etcetera. This is not an infallible statement, infallible certainty, something like that, but a strong confidence of their case based on good grounds. The grounds of this confidence is clear from the rest of the passage. And we hear this kind of thing a number of times in Scripture in Romans 15 and verse 14. Paul says, "I myself am convinced my brothers that you yourselves are full of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to counsel one another." So, he's persuaded about them in the church at Rome. And then Paul, in the same way is persuaded about Timothy, He says, "I've been reminded of your sincere faith which first lived in your grandmother Lois, and in your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded now lives in you also." The same kind of language.

And so what are the grounds for the author's pastoral confidence of good things concerning these Hebrew Christians? Well, the rest of the things in the passage. These Hebrew Christians it seems have been willing to put their faith on the line to help God's people. I'll speak more about that later but this gives him strong evidence that God was at work in their lives. They're not the rocky ground hearers who initially received the Word with joy and quickly, quickly grow up in some shallow sort of way, but when trouble or persecution comes because of the word and now they quickly fall away. They're not like that. They've already been tested and tried. They've already gone through some hard times and they've stood firm. So they should be encouraged. And I think for me, as a pastor, it shows the need that every pastor has to genuinely know his flock. Proverbs 27:23 says, "Be sure you know the condition of your flocks. Give careful attention to your herds." Without such knowledge this kind of language would be mere flattery. If I went to somebody I hardly knew at all and said, "I'm convinced of better things in your case." On what grounds would that confidence come?

I couldn't really say that, but if I watch someone's life over a period of time, get to know how they talk, how they live, what's on their heart, the way they live, the sacrifices that they make, and then they're going through some struggles and troubles, and I can say to them, "I'm convinced of better things than that in your case." How sweet is that and how encouraging? Without such knowledge then I think a pastor, or even a Christian friend, would be like a physician that tries to give a prescription without any knowledge of the case. Do you think that would ever happen? You could phone in and a doctor will phone in a prescription for you, just give your social security number and what pharmacy. "I need a steroid, a specific steroid." "What pharmacy would you like me to send that to you?" Do you think that would ever happen? "I think I need an antibiotic." "Really, that's fine. How much are you going to need?" "I have no idea. What would you recommend?" "I have no idea. Let's guess at such and such." It's impossible. A good physician's going to know the condition of the patient so he can give the right prescription, and in this case he wants to encourage them.

So what then are these things that accompany salvation that he sees in the lives of these Hebrew Christians? And what can we take from this sermon? Transferable concept to say, "All right, when the next time I'm doubting my own salvation, what should I look for to know whether I'm in Christ or not? It says in 2 Corinthians 13, I'm supposed to see if I'm in the faith. I'm supposed to examine myself. I can't be just looking at Jesus and His finished work at the cross. There has to be a connection to me in my life. Some things have to be happening with me. I have to believe." So what are the things that accompany salvation? Well, we know that they are not among the list recorded in Verse 4 and 5. It's not enough to be once enlightened, taste in the heavenly gift, sharing in the Holy Spirit, tasting the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the coming age, I consider it to be an inadequate list, not enough to have that. There have to be other things besides. So how can I know whether I'm regenerate? How can I know whether I am born again? Maybe it's not just a matter for you, but you may be called on to give that kind of counsel to someone else that's troubled.

And as I have read Scripture, as I look across Scripture, there are a number that just start to float to the surface. For example, a deep and abiding sorrow over sin. Sin grieves you, not merely the penalty of sins or the consequences of sin, but you are deeply grieved over sin itself. You see it to be evil, and you want it out, not just of your own life, but of the universe entirely. It's just an evil thing, and you grow to hate it. The flip side is, you love righteousness and you yearn for it. You hunger and thirst for it in your own life and you want to see it in your church. You want to see it in your pastor. You definitely want to see it in your spouse, the sooner the better. You want to see it everywhere you can, righteousness, you're hungry and thirsty for it, and you would love to live in a place called the home of righteousness. You'd love to live in a place where righteousness is clearly obviously there.

The Marks of Salvation

Along with these come, I think, humility and self-denial. You know yourself to be a sinner. You're humble about that. You're broken about it. You know the truth about yourself, therefore you accept rebukes and corrections more easily than you would have if Jesus weren't at work in your life. And you deny yourself and take up your cross, Jesus said, there's a sense in which you know that your self, your own fleshly desires and lusts after pleasure and comfort and praise, are leading in the wrong direction, and you're willing to have a life of suffering for Jesus. Also the peace of God comforts your conscience. God speaks words of peace to you through the Holy Spirit. Through faith in Christ you know that God's at peace with you and you're able to bring comfort and consolation to your own heart through the promises of God. The peace of God is at work in your heart. And you see a consistent pattern of spirit-led obedience to the commands of God. The commands of God are the matrix and structure of your life patterns. You're seeking by the spirit to obey what God has commanded you.

There are also evidences of perseverance in the means of grace. You're persevering generally in the Christian life. You continue to come to church year after year. You continue to come to the Lord supper. You continue day after day to take in the Word of God, read the Bible, pray, confess your sins, these means of grace, and you persevere in them, not just for a little while, but over your life. You have a genuine love for the brothers and sisters in Christ. You have an affection for them. And we're going to go and talk more about that based on Hebrews 6. But there's an affection that you have for the brothers and sisters in Christ. You want them to thrive. You are looking forward to spending eternity with them, especially once they are glorified, and anything that would hinder that fellowship is gone. But you know the real truth is that you're more the problem than they are. But you're just looking forward to being with the people of God. And there is inside your heart a joyful expectation that someday you will be conformed to Jesus Christ. You have a hope of this, a sense of certainty, that someday God's eternal electing purpose will come true in your life. You will be conformed to Jesus.

And you're confident about that and not by your own works. And along with all of these, you have a willingness to suffer earthly difficulties to follow Christ. The life of the Christian is not easy. And you've learned that already and you haven't given up. And finally, you're running with endurance the race marked out for you, specifically in battling sins. You're laying aside every hindrance, you're running this race. And though it may wear you out, you have within you a renewing sense of energy that just keeps coming day by day. You are immensely frustrating Satan. He thought he had you down, and behold, you live. And you just keep popping back up and fighting him again the next day.

So those are 10 marks. You could come up with others besides, but these are evidences, these are things that accompany salvation.

The Book of 1 John: An Entire Book Devoted to Assurance

I think the whole book of First John is given to kind of answer this question. It's a book of assurance. This is how we know etcetera. This is the way we can assure ourselves in His presence, this is how we can have confidence when He comes. That's what the book is for, so I will commend that whole book to you. But John boils it down to three basic things. There's a doctrinal test. You can know that you're Christian if you believe the right things about Jesus, that He is God in the flesh. He has come in the flesh. And there is the horizontal love test that as you love the brothers and sisters in Christ, you're showing love for God. Even sacrificial love gives evidence of love for God. And then there is that obedience test, the moral test. You're living a life of purity. You're walking in the light as He is in the light, and you love and obey God's commands.

Alright, so those are different things. Now, we all know, I could give you this list again or you could look at it, and you could say, sometimes... You look at each one of those and say, sometimes, sometimes I feel that way. That is the Roman 7 struggle we're all in. But these things are together sufficient to mark out the Christians, and the Holy Spirit uses them to testify in your hearts that you're a child of God.

What does the author give us here? Look at verses 10-12. "God is not unjust,.." he says. Talk more about that in a moment, but "God is not unjust. He will not forget your work, and the love you have shown Him as you have helped His people, and continue to help them. We want each of you to show the same diligence to the very end in order to make your hope sure. We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised."

Well, these verses, I think, give a clear sense of the evidence of the conversion of these Hebrew Christians. There is a display of their faith in verse 10. He talks about the love you have shown or displayed. They have put their faith in and love for God on display by their lifestyle, and there's been a clear pattern of evidence of their saving faith in Christ as a result.

The Faith, Hope, and Love Trio

We have also kind of woven in, in these verses 10-12, the glorious trio that we see in multiple other times of faith, hope and love. You see those again and again in the epistles, and we see it here. Faith, hope, and love. For example, 1 Corinthians 13:13, "And now these three remain: Faith, hope and love but the greatest of these is love."

Colossians 1:4 and 5, "We have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love you have for all the saints, the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven." Faith, hope and love. 1 Thessalonians 1:3, "We continue to remember before our God and Father, your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love and your endurance inspired by hope." Faith, hope, and love resulting in a certain kind of life. Well, we have them here as well. Look at verse 12. "We want you to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised." Back up, in verse 11. We have hope, "We want each of you to show the same diligence to the very end in order to make your hope sure." And then again, love in verse 10. "God is not unjust. He will not forget your work and the love you have shown him," et cetera.

So these three character traits, faith, hope, and love, result in a kind of life, a life of persevering, holiness and service to God and His people. Now, let's zero in on service to God's people because that really is the primary evidence the author gives here that they're born again. The author, specifically, singles out the love that they have shown to God by ministering horizontally to God's people. In verse 10, he mentions their love and labor on behalf of God's people. This is an incredibly huge issue to Jesus. He cares intensely what you do with His people while you're on earth. It matters a lot to him. We already saw that when we were preaching through Matthew in Matthew 25.

Remember the Judgement Day, in which Jesus assembles everyone and he separates them, one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And the thing that distinguishes, at least there in that passage, the sheep from the goats, is how you treated God's people, how you treated Jesus. He says to them, "'I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick and you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me.' Then the righteous will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick and in prison and go to help you? And then the King will answer, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you do for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you've done it to me.'"

Very positive there, and He takes it incredibly kindly to put it weakly, actually, very kindly if you treat His people well. Conversely, He does not take it well if you beat up His people on earth. And so Saul of Tarsus, there in Acts 9, breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples, is how it's written, he's ready to beat them up some more. He deserved to die, and so did we all. He deserved to die, but instead Jesus showed him immense grace, knocked him to the ground, brilliant lights, resurrection glory. "'Saul, Saul,' he says, 'Why are you persecuting me?' 'Who are you, Lord,' said Saul. 'I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting.'" I don't think he thought he was persecuting Jesus. I think he thought he was persecuting some Jewish, as far as he was concerned, Jewish heretics. But no, Jesus said, You're beating me up. You're persecuting me. And he doesn't take it kindly. Thankfully, he converted him. Amen?

And then what happened, the rest of Paul's life, the rest of his life is he lavished blessings on Jesus's people. And so this is the evidence that these Hebrew professors of faith in Christ are genuine Christians, how they have treated each other, what they have done for each other. Hebrews 10:32-34, go ahead and turn there. Just maybe one or two pages over. It's going to be months before we get there from this pulpit, but you can just flip there easily in your Bible. Just skip all those other things that we'll get to in due time at this stately pace. But in Hebrews 10:32-34, it says, "Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering, sometimes you were publicly exposed to insults and persecution. At other times," listen, "you stood side by side with those who were so treated. You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property because you knew that you had better and lasting possessions."

So what is the author talking about there? You can go back to Hebrews 6, but what he's talking about, a great contest of faith, tremendous earthly sufferings, the sufferings of various sorts, insults, persecutions, or standing side-by-side with people who are themselves going through hard times, giving them encouragement, standing with them so they're not alone, visiting them in prison if you actually didn't happen to be arrested at that point. Bringing them blankets, bringing them food, bringing them simply a word of encouragement. We're praying for you. You're not alone. We care about you. A lifeline of hope and encouragement.

So this is evidence. And so if I can just pause and say, friends, let's just do that for each other, shall we? Let's just love on each other more than we ever have before. It's a direct route to heaven. Jesus sees what you're doing. Every sermon I preach, I'm thinking I am loving Jesus by loving His people. Every word of encouragement, whether in counseling or just in the hall informally, anything, I'm thinking, Jesus, I want to help you by helping your people. I want to love you by loving your people. I want to minister to your members who are here on earth. That's what I want to do. And it greatly increases the harvest of righteousness when you think like that, because Jesus will not forget anything that you've done in ministering to his people.

The Most Certain Mark: Perseverance to the Very End

And so the mark of this is not just doing it, but persevering right to the end in that kind of life. That's what He's giving here. "God is not unjust," He says. "He will not forget your work, and the love you have shown Him as you have helped His people, and continue to help them. We want each of you to show the same diligence to the very end in order to make your hope sure. We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised." So this is of all things, I think, the most certain proof of salvation. Perseverance to the end in this kind of a life. He who stands firm to the end will be saved. You persevere right to the end. So, the author is urging them to keep on trusting, to keep on suffering, keep on believing, keep on standing firm in the time of testing. Look at verse 10, As you continue to help God's people, verse 11, "we want each of you," not just some of you, but "each of you to show this same diligence to the very end in order to make your hope sure."

Verse 12, "We do not want you to become lazy," he says. Verse 12, again, "but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised." So the words here speak of a hard-working way to get to heaven, friends, Not that your works are going to justify you. That's impossible. But the life, the Christian life, is not an easy comfortable life. It's a hard life. It requires diligence, and it fights against laziness. The slothful sluggard ways that we already talked about in Hebrews 5:11 where there were lazy listeners. Christian life is hard, and Satan is always trying to get active fruitful Christians to rest on their laurels. He's trying to hand you your laurels every day. "You've done enough, haven't you? I mean, you done enough? You've been really, really, really good recently. Why don't you take a break? Why don't you take a day off?"

I mean, just think, when you're being tempted really to take an extended break and all that, if it's more likely to be the Holy Spirit or Satan wanting you to take a break from those good works you've been doing to build the Kingdom? But he's just constantly trying to hand you your laurels and say, "Rest. You've done enough. Coast." But the Book of Hebrews doesn't do that. Instead, we're supposed to imitate heroes of the faith, Who by faith and patience inherit what has been promised. These heroes are listed for us beautifully in Hebrews 11. Talks about the lifestyle of suffering and persecution that they endured.

So do pages of church history. Friends, that's why I love church history. I love to find out those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised. I'm teaching now a class on John Calvin. He had horrendous physical problems, ailments beyond calculation. Physically in pain every day. At one point as he was working on one of the editions of the institutes, he thought that he was about to die and pushed hard to get it done before his death. Turned out that God extended his life by a number of years, but he thought he was going to die. His answer is work harder, work faster. I don't have much time. And that's the way he thought right to the end. As a matter of fact, his last sermon he was spitting up blood. They had to carry him down from the pulpit, Carried him to his death bed. Or David Brainerd, who had the same thing, tuberculosis, and serving God faithfully and dying very hard. Spitting up blood as well, coughing, and being faithful to Jesus right to the end. Right to the end.

Or George Whitefield probably the best right to the end story you'll ever hear. This is a man who poured himself out, day after day, preaching the Gospel, the Evangelist of the Great Awakening. Thousands upon thousands of people hearing and believing the message of truth. Comes to Newburyport, Massachusetts, near my hometown, and he preached, and it was all he could give just to stand there on the platform and preach. Took him a while just to get the strength to open his mouth, then he preached for almost two hours. They carried him in a cart to a house that was taking him in just to rest. As he's going up the stairs, there's a crowd gathering in streets, want to hear him preach again, one more time. And he did, holding a candle there as it burned lower and lower. He preached and then the candle burned down. He preached, and there's almost like a symbol right there of the end of his life. When the candle was gone, he closed, goes upstairs and dies. He was faithful right to the end. Lottie Moon who in effect starved herself because the people she was trying to reach we're starving and she was in solidarity with them in ministering to them. Adoniram Judson lost two wives, buried children for the church in Burma. Again, died very hard. He said this, "How few there are who suffer such torment, who die so hard." This is Adoniram Judson. A very, very hard death he had out at sea. And yet he kept his faith strong right to the end. Said he believed the pain and suffering were getting him ready and fitting him for heaven.

I've seen similar things in this church. A woman who cared for her husband was dying with Parkinson. She cared for him for 10 years. Sweet spirit, this lady cared for her husband right to the end and then she died as well. Another godly couple who you know well travelled that same road even recently. And with great faith and great tenderness, husband's finished his race. She finished her race of caring for him and now is finishing up her own race of faith in Jesus. We just see that right acted out in front of us. Another godly couple, man who is 80 years old, ministering as energetically as ever, putting me to shame on any given average week. Alright, we have examples of this right in front of us in this church of those who by faith and patience inherit what has been promised. And we have to go right to the very end. "Okay, well, when's that going to be?" you may say. "When is the end? I just need to pace myself, okay?" You ever had that thought? "I need to know. Is it going to be decades? Then I'm going to cut it back a bit. I'm going to pace myself here."

Well, we know this, in Psalm 139, "All the days ordained for us are written in God's book before one of them came to be," so that number is set. He just isn't telling you. It reminds me of my days my freshman year in high school, and I was running indoor track. And we had one of those masochistic track coaches. It's the guy who takes out his frustrations on his athletes. And so he had that stop watch and clipboard, and I was a distance runner. And we had to run. It was winter track, it was unbelievably cold up there in Massachusetts. We had to run around the big field of our high school where was the soccer field, the football field and the baseball field. It was about a half a mile around. And we knew we were going to run at least five of those under the clock, and then after that it got really interesting, dicey. He was deciding how many more you would run by how you were doing. And so you'd cross the finish line of that half mile thing. You think you've given everything you have, and you look with hope and fear to the coach and he says, "Get to the line." I'm like, "Ugh."

So you get to the line, but you can't pace yourself because if you do, you're going to run another one. So you got to run it hard. And so you cross and you think you've given everything and you look at him again. "So and so, you can go. So and so... You, back to the line." And he starts to weed them out. And I'm thinking, "Ugh." It was tough. It was tough, and that's the way it is when we don't know when the finish line is. And this text is telling us to run hard 'til God decides it's time to take you home. We want each of you to show the same diligence to the very end. Not to get lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience.

And what kind of encouragement do we have as we go? Well, He gives us amazingly, the justice of God. Look at it, verse 10. "God is not unjust. He will not forget the love you have shown Him as you help his people." This is incredible what amazing changes the cross of Jesus Christ worked for us. And more than anything in God Himself as He deals with us, ordinarily, dear friends, the justice of God would stand as our most foreboding enemy, both over our souls and our life works.

Our souls, unjust and therefore condemned. Our life works, none of them done by faith, worthless and therefore burned up and disappeared. But now that the cross of Christ is come, and now that the promise of God has been fulfilled in Jesus, the justice of God is your greatest ally of all. First for your personal salvation. "If you confess your sin," he says, "he is faithful and just to forgive you your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness." God's justice is his absolute commitment to do what is right according to His character and His standards, and He would be unjust to not forgive you as a Christian confessing your sins. And so also in this text, it says He would be unjust to forget all the labors you've done. That boggles my mind. It would be unjust for God to forget it. It would be unjust, the implication here is, for God not to reward us? Yes, because He has promised to do it.

And so, God is not unjust. He will not forget any act of kindness you've ever shown to His people. Even a cup of cold water, you will never lose your reward. If you stand with those who suffer and you suffer too, Jesus said, "Rejoice and be glad because great is your award in heaven." God is not unjust he's not going to renege on that. God's promise to reward sacrificial giving, when you give alms to the poor and needy, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so you're giving may be in secret and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you." He's not unjust. He's going to reward everything done by faith in Jesus, everything. When you go into your room and close the door and pray to your Father who's unseen, He's not unjust. He'll remember every word of your prayers, and He will reward you. So what application can we take from this?

Well, learn the things that accompany salvation, test yourself to see if you're in the faith. If you are not in the faith, if you just know you're here, and you know you're not a Christian, you actually may even not even make a claim to be a Christian. Can I warn you most tenderly, you don't know how much longer you have to live on earth either. And may I plead with you to repent and trust in Christ. God sent Jesus into the world to die in our place on the cross, and He poured out His wrath and judgment on Jesus and not on those who have faith in Him. He took their place. So just trust in Jesus. I'm pleading with you while there's time. And if you, as Christians, you hear this week after week, go say those kinds of things to some co-worker, please, this week. Take that message and go warn them and plead with them that they would come to Christ and faithfully serve God by serving his people. Just do as many cups of cold water as you can this week. Jesus will reward every one of them do them all by faith and don't get lazy in the Christian life. Don't rest on your laurels. Work harder than ever at growing in grace. In the knowledge of Christ.

I just wanted to keep on worshiping. It's just been incredibly sweet to me this morning. Just the visions of God, hearing the children singing all the hymns, these are some of my favorite songs. Eric, I don't know if you did it for me, personally, I hope not, because I think that it was a rich time of fellowship for all of us and what a sweet time of worship.

Now, our joy is to turn to the word of God. Our God does unsearchable wonders, Amen. Beyond all possible human comprehension. Now according to Job 5, one of those wonders is the miracle of rain. It says in Job 5: 9-10, that God "performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted. He bestows rain on the Earth, and sends water upon the countryside." Some time ago, I was reading a devotional written by John Piper about this passage, incredible meditation. Just want to quote some of what he said. He said this:

"Is rain a great and unsearchable wonder wrought by God? Picture yourself as a farmer in the Near East, far from any lake or stream. A few wells keep the family and animals supplied with water. But if the crops are to grow and the family is to be fed from month to month, water has to come on the fields from another source. From where?

Well, the sky. The sky? Water will come out of the clear blue sky? Well, not exactly. Water will have to be carried in the sky from the Mediterranean Sea, over several hundred miles and then be poured out from the sky onto the fields. Carried? How much does it weigh? Well, if one inch of rain falls on one square mile of farmland during the night, that would be 27,878,400 cubic feet of water, which is 206,300,160 gallons, which is 1,650,501,280 pounds of water.

That's heavy. So how does it get up in the sky and stay up there if it's so heavy? Well, it gets up there by evaporation. Really? That's a nice word. What's it mean? It means that the water sort of stops being water for a while so it can go up and not down. I see. Then how does it get down? Well, condensation happens. What's that? The water starts becoming water again by gathering around little dust particles between .00001 and .0001 centimeters wide. That's small.

What about the salt? Salt? Yes, the Mediterranean Sea is salt water. That would kill the crops. What about the salt? Well, the salt has to be taken out. Oh. So the sky picks up a billion pounds of water from the sea and takes out the salt and then carries it for three hundred miles and then dumps it on the farm?

Well it doesn't dump it. If it dumped a billion pounds of water on the farm, the wheat would be crushed. So the sky dribbles the billion pounds water down in little drops. And they have to be big enough to fall for one mile or so without evaporating, and small enough to keep from crushing the wheat stalks.

How do all these microscopic specks of water that weigh a billion pounds get heavy enough to fall (if that's the way to ask the question)? Well, it's called coalescence. What's that? It means the specks of water start bumping into each other and join up and get bigger. And when they are big enough, they fall. Just like that? Well, not exactly, because they would just bounce off each other instead of joining up, if there were no electric field present. What? Never mind. Take my word for it.

I think, instead, I will just take Job's word for it. I still don't see why drops ever get to the ground, because if they start falling as soon as they are heavier than air, they would be too small not to evaporate on the way down, but if they wait to come down, what holds them up till they are big enough not to evaporate? Yes, I am sure there is a name for that too. But I am satisfied now that, by any name, this is a great and unsearchable thing that God has done. I think I should be thankful - lots more thankful than I am."

Friends, God is the only one who can send rain. And it is to His glory, the Scripture says, to open His hands and satisfy the desire of every living thing. And one of the ways He does that is with rain.

Now, in Hebrews 6, the author speaks of the blessings of land receiving the consistent rain from heaven, and that produces a harvest for the farmer. Look at Verse 7, "Land that drinks in the rain, often falling on it, and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. But on the other hand, he also speaks of land that drinks in the same rain from God, but produces nothing but thorns and thistles." Verse 8, "But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed, in the end, it will be burned." I think in this passage, the Word of God is likened to rain. It's likened to rain. And these two outcomes are meant to give us a sense of two different responses to the Word, to the gospel of Jesus Christ and to the ongoing ministry of the Word of God. Some people hear the Word and believe it and by perseverance, produce a harvest for the glory of God. Other people hear the Word, do not believe it and do not persevere and do not produce a harvest to the glory of God. These two different outcomes are the focus of this sermon.

Now, what is the context of Hebrews 6, 7, and 8? Well, the author to Hebrews is writing I believe to a Jewish people, who had heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. And they had made some kind of outward profession of faith in Christ, perhaps through public, water baptism had testified to it, and they had joined a church, they've been active in a church, etcetera. But now I believe under immense pressure from their Jewish family members and friends and neighbors and political leaders and others, they are considering turning away from Jesus Christ, away from the New Covenant away from the Gospel and going back to Old Covenant Judaism. Now, the author has responded in these first five chapters by showing the superiority of Christ to the Old Covenant in every way, to Old Testament prophets, to the angels who brought the Old Covenant and gave it to Moses. To Moses himself who was the mediator of the Old Covenant, but called just a servant in God's house, while Jesus is the Son over God's house. Superior to Joshua, who brought them into the Promised Land, superior to Aaron, the first high priest. Jesus is infinitely superior to all of them.

And to turn back away from Jesus Christ, to all of that is impossible, will not be blessed by God. So the author is giving consistent warnings to these Jewish professors of faith in Christ, that they must persevere in the Gospel, they must keep on with Jesus, they must not drift away, they must not turn away. And here in Hebrews 6, they must not fall away from Jesus. They must not be like their ancestors, who when brought right to the brink of the Promised Land, through unbelief in the promise of God, turned back and in their hearts, went back to Egypt. They must not be like that. Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your heats. They must fight the hardening effects of sin in their hearts and they must keep on running this race with endurance, and they should horizontally be caring for their brothers and sisters in Christ, that they run the race with endurance, that we wouldn't let anyone drop out of this race.

And he gets to the pinnacle of that warning here in Chapter 6, when in Verses 4 through 6, he speaks the words you just heard. "It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who shared in the Holy Spirit, have tasted the goodness of the Word of God, the powers of the coming age, if they fall away to be brought back again to repentance, because of their own loss, they're crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting Him to public disgrace." It's a severe warning against apostasy. And he goes right from that into these two different outcomes in concerning the rain. "Land that drinks in the rain, often falling on it and produces a crop blessed, but land that produces thorns and thistles is cursed." So we have these two different outcomes. That's the context of these two verses that we're looking on today.

And as we go on in Chapter 6, from this point, the author gives us a sweet pastoral encouragement, "Even though we speak like this dear friends, we have confidence of better things, in your case, things that accompany salvation. God is not unjust. He'll not forget your work, and the love you have shown Him as you help His people, and as you continue to help them. But we want you to show the same diligence to the very end." We don't want you to become lazy, to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.

So that's the context of what we're looking. Now, let's look at these two different outcomes. We have fruitful land that's blessed by God in verse 7, and we have fruitless land that's cursed by God in Verse 8.

So look at Verse 7, "Land that drinks in the rain, often falling on it, that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed, receives the blessing of God." So first, we have the issue of the land. The author I believe is using a verbal image, perhaps a metaphor, or a parable or something, an extended parable in the agricultural realm. Clearly he is talking about people and their relationship with God, he's not talking about farming here, but he's talking about people. And it's not just any people, but the people of God, the people that God had called out to be His own treasured possession. Consistently in Scripture, the land as a parable referred to the Jews, the nation of Israel, clearest parallel here in the Old Testament is Isaiah Chapter 5. Isaiah's beautiful parable of the vineyard that he gives us there in which the Jews are likened to a vineyard, which the Lord planted and which He richly provided for, but in the end produced only bad grapes. And He was bitterly disappointed with the harvest.

The Jews then I think are directly in view here. They may be divided into two categories, fruitful and unfruitful. Fruitful are those who, by believing and obeying the gospel of Jesus Christ, have brought forth the fruits of repentance and faith and daily obedience to Him. So they were continually blessed by the ongoing a effusion of the Holy Spirit of God. They continually brought forth fruit, in keeping with repentance, day after day, bringing forth good works that glorified God, in the name of Jesus Christ. But then there are unfruitful Jews as well, of two sorts, again. Those that were completely hardened against Jesus and who immediately and vigorously rejected the Gospel outright. Obstinate unbelievers never trusted in Jesus. And those who are hypocritical apostates, who initially embraced the Gospel of Christ, made this outward profession, but who eventually rejected Jesus and fell away back into their old lives.

However, though I think the home base of this kind of language of the Jews in Israel and all that, frankly, in the end, it extends to every person on the face of the earth. Under the sound of the Gospel whether Jew or Gentile, it's all the same thing. Gentiles themselves will eventually fit into one of those two categories, as they hear the gospel. They will either believe the Gospel and by perseverance, through the power of the Holy Spirit bring forth a harvest of righteousness to the glory of God, or they will reject the gospel, straight out or hypocritically run with it for a while, appear like a Christian for a while but fall away. Those are the outcomes and that's what we're dealing with in these two verses here. What does he mean when he talks about the rain? Rain often falling. Well, the heavenly blessings of God enabled the land to produce its fruit. Now, I was amazed as I read over all the facts and figures there about rain. Look I'm an engineer. It's what I love. If you don't like all those numbers, that's fine, find a poetic way to talk about how beautiful the rain is. But I just think it's astounding what God does, simply with droplets of water that fall on the soil. How much more complex the Word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit!

How much more complicated! These are not drops of water that falling on your ears, these are complicated thoughts, they're precepts and commands and promises and warnings that are flowing in pulpits around the world even now. How beautiful is that! So what is this rain that's often falling? Well the rain is consistently presented as evidence of God's special powers over the earth. Something God does, something only God can do, evidence also of God's special love and care for the world and all its people, even the wicked as well as the righteous. Rain is that image. Job 36:27-31 says, "He [God] draws up the drops of water, which distill as rain down into the streams. The clouds poured down their moisture and abundant showers, fall on mankind. Who can understand how He spreads out the clouds? How He thunders from His pavilion? See how He scatters His lightning about Him, bathing the depths of the sea. This is the way He governs the nations and provides food in abundance." Job 36. Matthew 5:45, Jesus said, in the Sermon on the Mount, "He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the righteous, and sends rain on the just in the unjust." Deuteronomy 28:12, it says there, "The Lord will open the heavens, the store house of His bounty to send rain on your land and season, and to bless all the works of your hands." Zechariah 10:1, "Ask the Lord, for rain in the spring time, it is the Lord who makes the storm clouds, He gives showers of rain to men, and plants of the field to everyone."

Jeremiah makes it plain that only God can do this. That only God has the power to send rain, the idols cannot do this. Jeremiah 14:22, "Do any of the worthless idols of the nations bring rain? Do the sky themselves send down showers? No, it is You O Lord, our God, therefore, our hope is in You, for You are the one Who does all this." Apart from God's direct action, therefore, on the land, it will produce nothing. The rain must fall. Now, the Greek word for rain here refers to a gentle wedding shower, perfect for growing. It does not refer to a driving rainstorm which would flatten the harvest. Now the words often falling referred to a people consistently under the ongoing blessings of God, as God nourishes the people and sustains them for fruitfulness, the ongoing blessing. So land that drinks in the rain, often falling on it. It's an ongoing ministry here.

The Promised Land was singled out for mention on this one issue. It regularly drank in the rain from heaven. Deuteronomy 11:10-12, it says, "The land you are entering to take over is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you planted your seeds and irrigated it by foot, as in a vegetable garden. But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks in the rain from heaven. It is a land the Lord your God cares for, continually the eyes of the Lord your God are on it from the beginning of the year to the end."

Isn't that a picture of the Church? God richly blessing, just raining blessings on the people of God, pouring out the blessings continually on His people. God doesn't bless His people, with just one taste of heavenly rain, one light drizzle, and that's it. Rather God of pours out His love on His people. Even if they're not responding with the fruitfulness they should demonstrate for His many blessings. He still blesses them. God knows better than we do. How consistently the land must be watered in order to be fruitful. And He is lavishly gracious in providing for the land, what it needs to be fruitful. So also, God knows what his people need, by way of the Holy Spirit and the Word to be spiritually fruitful. And so I believe that that's exactly what the rain symbolizes here, it is the Holy Spirit and the Word, I'm not going to choose one over the other, because earlier in Hebrews 3, it's says, "as the Holy Spirit says," and then he quotes Psalm 95. So the two of them go together, the Holy Spirit's ministry of the Word, that's the rain, and so the Word is like rain. It says in Deuteronomy 32:2 "Let My teaching fall like rain and My words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants." Doctrine equals rain and Deuteronomy 32:2.

Teaching. Doctrine. The Word of God is like rain. Or again, more famously, perhaps, Isaiah 55:10-11 "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth, making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater. So is my Word which comes out of My mouth. It will not return to Me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." And so the rain is the Word. I think the gospel of Jesus Christ, specifically is like rain coming down, bringing life, Amen.

But I also want to say that the Holy Spirit is like rain, the showers of blessings come through the Spirit. Isaiah 44:3-4 says this, "For I'll pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground, I will pour out My Spirit on your offspring and My blessing on your descendants. They will spring up like grass in a matter like poplar trees by flowing streams." And so the rain often falling refers to the ongoing ministry of the Word of God by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Now in this context, the Hebrew church had been richly blessed by both the Holy Spirit and the ongoing ministry of the Apostolic Word. They had been saturated with both infusions, the infusions of the word infusions of the spirit. Hebrews 2:3&4, "This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard Him. [The apostles] God also testified to it by signs, wonders, and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to His will." So the word of the Gospel plus the open clear ministry, the apostolic ministry of the Spirit of God, they had received it.

And this land beautifully drank in the rain, drank in the rain often falling. It pictures a thirsty land, yearning for God to bless it, yearning for the heavenly rain. It represents eager, thirsty hearts that had absorbed the ministry of the Word of God in the Spirit. The spiritual rain had soaked into good soil, it penetrated their hearts and it moved them to bring forth the harvest of righteousness to God.

What is the Crop?

And what is the crop? Well, the Greek word is botanen from which we get botany, it's where it comes from, the idea of herbs or any green growing thing. It's a general term for the plants of the fields, seed-bearing plants and all that. Genesis 1:11-12, "Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation, seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various Kind's, and it was so. The land produced vegetation, plants bearing seed according to their kinds, and trees bearing fruit was seed in it according to their kinds and God saw that it was good."

Now, this crop in Hebrews 6:7 is said to be "useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated." So the hard-working farmer expects to eat of the harvest. He desires to feed his family with the fruits of his labor. He has no use for thorns and thistles, they're worthless to Him. He desires useful plants. And when the harvest comes, then the farmer smiles and he's deeply satisfied with his labors and he blesses the land in his heart and he says, "Surely, this is a delightful piece of land, what rich soil! Thank you, God, for letting me live here." He's looking for a harvest. And it comes. The word useful means suitable or profitable, or giving benefit to the farmer. And thus I think the meaning is these crops represent good works, that flow from the life of the Christian as a result of the Word of God, the harvest of righteousness, the fruit of lips that confess God's name, worship and praise, the harvest of actions that build the kingdom of Jesus Christ, evangelism, discipleship, prayer, spiritual gift ministry, generosity to the poor and needy. Just a harvest of fruitfulness because of the ministry of the Word in the Spirit.

Hebrews 6:10, "God is not unjust. He will not forget your work, and the love you have shown Him as you help his people and as you continue to help them." So I think that's what the harvest is. And what is the blessing of God? Land that does all that drinks in the rain, produces a... It receives the blessing of God, it says. It receives the blessing of God. Well, I think we can take that in two senses: Blessing now and blessing eternally. There's a blessing now, here in this world, and there's a blessing forever more in heaven. God, well pleased now with the return on His investment, pours out even more investment on you. More resources go into your fruitful life. He will open up your hearts more and more to show you more and more of the Word of God. You'll understand more and more of the doctrine of scripture. Dark things will become light and clear to you, and your life will become more and more conformed to Christ. And God will bless you more and more with responsibilities in the church and in the world. And He will draw from your life more and more fruitfulness and more and more harvests will come. You're receiving the blessing of God right now and then blessings eternally in Heaven.

The blessings of a rich welcome from God into heaven, a rich welcome. And the blessing of praise from God, rewards from God, "Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful with a few things, now I will to put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your Master." A rich blessing, that's the blessing that this kind of land that we're talking about in verse seven receives, forever from God. This dear friends, I think is the true Christian life, this and no other. This is it. Verse 7 is the true Christian life. The harvest is everything, a life of consistent blessings from God's Word and God's spirit, the noble and eager heart that takes in the gospel of Jesus Christ and brings forth a harvest 100, 60, or 30 times what was sown. Every true believer in Christ produces a harvest for God. This is the consistent teaching of scripture.

 Sadly however, by contrast, we have verse 8, and that is a barren land that's cursed by God. Verse 8, "But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end, it will be burned." The total focus on this is the harvest. What was the harvest? The author here doesn't even speak of the rain falling often on this land, though I think it is implied that it does. Rather the focus is on what the outcome is. The harvest is nothing useful. The thorns and thistles of course, harkens back to the curse on the ground as a result of human sin, back in Genesis 3:17-18 God curses the land because of Adam's sin. Cursed is the ground because of you, it will produce thorns and thistles for you. So the assessment of the land is that it's worthless. The land is like the harvest both the outcome, the harvest is worthless and the land is worthless. They're both worthless.

Now the word worthless in Greek there means literally not approved or rejected. God has studied the heart and the works both, and He's rejected both. He's known the soil of their hearts was evil towards him and then He's also studied the outcome, the actual outcome of their lives. Their works were hypocritical and self-serving at best. That's when they look good on the outside, but at best, they were hypocritical and self-serving. If they gave to the poor and needy, or if they ministered spiritual gifts to the body of Christ, it was not out of love for God or His glory, to the glory of Christ. It wasn't out of a genuine love for the brothers and sisters in Christ, but rather for self-serving reasons, either as Judas who was the faithful keeper of the money bag, but it was a worthless good work because he was secretly helping himself to what was in it.

And so, could also be that their private works are shameful. The things that no one else could see, no one but Jesus knew what Judas was doing with the money bag, they thought he was being faithful. And so either the hypocritical apparently good works or the secret shameful works behind the scenes, where no one sees what these people do in secret in their own rooms, or at night, the works prove the nature of the heart, both the works and the heart are worthless in God's sight. And then look at the danger of the land, the land says that this worthless land is close to cursing or in danger of being cursed. The curse is God's pronouncement upon them, and it carries, just like the blessing did in verse 7, both a present and a future sense. At present the curse is obvious at one level and it's bareness, utter fruitlessness. They're frustrated and fruitless in their lives, they bear nothing of value for God.

Jesus, on His way to the temple, Matthew 21, was hungry in the morning and he saw a fig tree covered with green leaves, and He went up and he found no fruit on it at all. And He said to it, "May you never bear fruit again," and immediately the tree withered. That's the curse now. That's the present curse. Also now, God may increasingly withhold the blessings of rain from heaven, increasingly withhold it. In Deuteronomy 1:17 it says, "Then the Lord's anger will burn against you, and He will shut the heaven so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce and you will soon perish from the good land the Lord is giving you." So He shuts off the heaven and there's no rain. Isaiah 5:6, "I will make it a waste land neither pruned nor cultivated and briars and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it."

In other words, one curse here and now, is that God withholds the blessings of the Word and the Spirit from that individual. He withholds them. Well, how does that work? Well, they are in a good church. Apparently, that's where it started. They're hearing the fruitfulness of the Word of God, but they don't like it. Their hearts become disaffected concerning it. They pull away from that kind of ministry and they find a church that will tickle their ears, and they don't hear the blessings of the word of God faithfully expounded anymore. They want something different on a Sunday, and so they go to a different kind of church in a different kind of ministry, and they don't receive the rich blessing of the Spirit and the Word anymore, or they stop going all together. And they justify it because of mean things that certain people did or some other thing that happened. I've heard those excuses, but they just don't go to church, they forsake the assembling of themselves together and they just don't go anymore. They are under a curse. They're not receiving the rich blessings of heavenly ministry anymore.

But then there is a curse in the future as well, and that's a dreadful one, dear friends. In the end, it will be burned He says. Jesus speaks these words, "Depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." That's Judgment Day and a curse from God, of hell, of eternity and burning separated from God. Again and again, the language of burning is a picture of hell. In Revelation 20 it's pictured as a lake of fire, Judgment Day.

And so the consistent biblical lesson is this, you don't have to just find it in one place you can find it in probably 20, clear teachings on this. Again and again, genuine faith, saving faith, produces a harvest to the glory of God. And if there is no fruit there is no faith, if there's no faith, there's no life, you're dead in your transgressions and sins. Without the fruit you're not a Christian. By our fruit, our harvest God identifies us. John the Baptist said, "Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our Father.' I tell you out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown in the fire." Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, "By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles?" Do you hear the same two things, thorns and thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree cannot bear bad fruit or bear's bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Thus by their fruit, you will recognize them.

This is a consistent teaching in the Bible. It's not just in one place. Jesus said in Matthew 12:33, "Make the tree good and its fruit will be good. Make a tree bad and it's fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit." Many parables have as their ultimate outcome a harvest for God, like the parable of the seed in the soils. The good soil produces the crop. The parable of the vineyard, the tenants are judged because they don't bring forth the harvest at harvest time, and so He says, "I tell you the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit," it's harvest.

There's the parable of barren fig tree. Jesus said a "man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard. He went to look for fruit on it, but he didn't find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, 'For three years now, I have been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and I haven't found any. Cut it down. Why should it waste, use up the soil?' 'Sir,' the man replied, 'Leave it alone for one more year. I'll dig around it. I'll fertilize it. And if it bears fruit next year then fine, but if not, then you can cut it down.'"

Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds, it's when the wheat and the weeds sprout up and they show their heads, that you can tell that one is the seeds of the devil, and the other, the seeds of righteousness. The harvest is everything. Jesus said, "I am the vine and you are the branches. If a man remains in Me and I in him, he'll bear much fruit. Apart from Me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers. Such branches are picked up and thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, then ask whatever you wish and it will be given you. This is to My Father's glory that you bring forth much fruit, showing yourselves to be My disciples." By the way, I can't think of a passage more relevant to the one that I'm preaching on today. John 15, it says, "He cuts off every branch in Me that bears no fruit." In other words, the hangers on, the ones that are in church, but there's no fruit, you see, what I'm saying, cuts them off, thrown in the ground, they wither that's the present cursing, and in the end they're collected and burned that's the final cursing. Same thing, same teaching that Jesus gives. Genuine life in Jesus produces fruit. Consistent teaching.

So what application can we take from this? First and foremost, come to Christ, come to Jesus. Believe in Him. God sent His son, who lived a sinless life, who did all these incredible miracles, but came primarily to die on the cross. Why? Because we are fruitless apart from Him. We are thorns and thistles apart from Jesus. We just bring forth fruit for death, the Scripture says. But the Gospel is here today, and all you have to do is believe in Jesus, if you simply trust in Jesus everything will change. He will take out your heart of stone, He will give you the heart of flesh. The Word of God will start enriching your life. You'll start to see fruitful harvest. You'll start to see good things happening in your life. You'll start to love righteousness and hate wickedness. Everything will change, you'll be a new creation. Oh, I plead with you come to Christ while there's time. Trust in Him. And by continually abiding in Jesus you will bring forth the harvest that the Lord wants from you. Every sermon you hear will soak into your thirsty heart, and it will produce fruit. Every seed of truth will be well-watered and fertilized and it will produce good fruit for the Glory of God, and you will have a sweet and rich sense of the blessing of God on your life. Come to Christ.

If you've already come to Christ, I urge you, first and foremost assess your harvest. Just look and see, is there a harvest of fruitfulness in your life? Is there a rich harvest of the Word of God in your life, do you see the fruit that God says He is looking for from you? Do you see the heart fruit, a hunger for the Word of God, an eager receptiveness as the Word is being proclaimed, as the Word is displayed in your life, an eagerness to hear good preaching and teaching, a hunger displayed in your daily quiet time? You just can't wait to read the Word, you're hungry for it.

A growing faith in God, a stronger and stronger sense of the invisible realities around you that God is alive, He's on His throne, that He is there to bless you, He is powerful and good. And a sense of active reliance on Jesus, venture on Him, venture holy, let no other trust intrude, a growing sense of confidence as you venture forth in Jesus, a deep love for God for Jesus, an affection for Him and attraction for Him. Do you want to see Jesus? Do you yearn to see Him in the face, to see Him on His throne, Do you yearn to sit at table with Him, are you hungering and thirsting for that? And do you have a deep love for the people of God as well? You yearn to be there with them too.

I just closed my eyes during our singing time, just confirmed again, I sing best corporately friends, I just do. When you guys come around me and sing, that's when I sound really good, especially the high notes you ladies. Thank you so much. I can't hit those, but we sing best corporately. Are you yearning to get there with that multitude greater than anyone could count, from every tribe, and language, people and nation, are you horizontally loving the people of God, yearning that they be successful too, fruitful? Do you have a mind set on God? Are you thinking about the things of God? Are your emotions wrapped up in the Kingdom of God? You're rejoicing at news of conversions. You're grieving over the sorrow and brokenness of this world, and especially over other people's sins or apostates, or things you see in their lives. Are your emotions. And then do you see the fruit of the Spirit in your life? Let's just say that, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control, do you see that heart fruit inside you? That's inside.

What about your lifestyle, what about your habits and patterns, what are you doing with your body? Assess yourself. Do you see a consistent pattern of obedience to the commands of God by the power of the Holy Spirit? You read things in scripture, do you do what it says? He wants you to be faithful in prayer, do you pray? He wants you to be generous with your tithes and offerings, are you giving money? He wants you to share the gospel. Are you opening your mouth and witnessing? He wants you to use your spiritual gifts. Do you have a spiritual gift ministry? He wants you to put sin to death by the power of the Spirit. Are you fighting pride and anger and lust, and laziness, and other grievous heart sins by the power of the Spirit? Are you putting them to death? He wants you to guard your mouth and not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth, but only what is helpful of building others up according to their needs.

Are you careful about your words? Are you grieved when you hurt somebody with your speech? Do you yearn to live your life openly for God by the power of the Holy Spirit? Are you seeing patterns of that? If so, rejoice, give glory to God, you have a good harvest in your life. The fruit is there. It's not perfect. I know that. None of the things I've listed do we do perfectly, but if there's fruit give glory to God. God has saved you from a fruitless, barren existence. He's working fruit in your life, praise God for it. And if you don't see that fruit like you'd like to, oh I yearn that you would repent while there's time. Come again to the cross, Say, "Maybe I've been deceived, but I want to see the fruit in my life. Please work it in me, Jesus, while there's still time." Close with me in prayer.

For me, personally, probably for many of you as well, the most comforting doctrine in Scripture is the eternal security of the believer. Commonly, the doctrine is given us as once saved, always saved. You can't lose your salvation. Just for me personally, just to know with a sense of servitude in my heart, a sense of assurance that when I die, I'm going to be with Jesus, and I'm not going to be condemned, that I've crossed over from death to life, that I'm going to see Jesus on his throne, that he will welcome me into eternal habitations, that I will sit with Christ at the table along with the redeemed from all over the world, that I'm going to be there, that there's actually a place with my name on it that no power can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Many Scriptures teach me this. John 6, Jesus says these words with his blessed lips, "For I've come down from Heaven not to do my own will, but to do the will of him who sent me, and this is the will of him who sent me that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day."

But later in that same chapter, Jesus said, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up at the last day." he says later in that same gospel in John 10, "My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. No one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one."

Or as the Apostle Paul says in Romans 8, "For those God foreknew, he predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called, and those he called, he also justified, and those he justified, he also glorified." These passages and many others teach me the eternal security, the believer that when we come to faith in Christ, we don't receive anything less than eternal life and we will never perish.

But, as we come to Hebrew 6, particularly verses 4-6, we come to one of the most controversial passages in the New Testament, one of the most commonly fought over battle ground text. Because it seems to say that there are genuine Christians that will end up in Hell. It seems to teach that people who are genuinely believers in Christ, can fall away, and not only that they can fall away, but you can never bring them back to repentance.

It's an ancient battle ground over which battles have been waged on this one question: "Can a truly regenerate, a truly converted person, subsequently later on lose their salvation, fall away from Jesus and end up in Hell?" During the time of the Roman persecutions, there was a group of people known as the Novatians. The Christians were being persecuted under one emperor after another but particularly under the wicked Emperor Decius. Some church attenders, some professors of faith in Christ, renounced their faith in order to save their lives. Others, on the other hand, refused to renounce their faith. Some of them were killed. Others suffered the loss of loved ones, or husband's wives, of children, of friends.

After the time of persecution ended, some of those who had repudiated Christ, who had renounced Christ, came back with tears, repentant, wanting to be reinstated to the church. Some churches, some church leaders refused to allow them to come back. A Roman priest in particular named Novatian set himself up as a rival Pope, a rival leader of the Church of Rome, and started a schism with the Roman Church on stricter principles of not allowing the lapsed to come back into the church. Now, those Novatians were eventually condemned as heretics by the official church in Rome. Sadly, the Roman church that condemned them also linked their movement to the Book of Hebrews, and to this passage in particular, and because of this passage, and generally the message of Hebrews, the Roman Church as a whole was slow to accept the Book of Hebrews as canonical Scripture.

Calvinists vs. Arminians

Many, many centuries later, those that strongly espoused the sovereignty of God and salvation, sometimes called Calvinists or reformed in their theology, debated or disputed with those that emphasized the more human focus and salvation, human free will. Arminians, they battled over this text as well. John Wesley, who was the 18th-century founder of Methodism in England, focused on human free will and human decisions all the way throughout salvation. He considered lawlessness the greatest plague in the Church of England, and specifically the view that because we are forgiven of all of our sins by the blood of Christ, we can lead careless, immoral lives and still be assured that we're going to Heaven. He hated that view.

And he blamed reformed theology or strong view of the sovereignty of God. He blamed that view for that way of thinking, that lifestyle. And he said, "Instead, we need to preach that people can be true, genuine Christians one day and still end up in Hell after they die." In his booklet, Predestination Calmly Considered, Wesley took his readers through a back and forth debate on this text, Hebrews 6:4-6, proving that the people described in this text must be genuine Christians who then fall away and are lost. Wesley wrote, "It remains that those who see the light of the glory of God and the face of Jesus Christ, and who have been made partakers of the Holy Ghost of the witness and the fruits of the Spirit, may nevertheless so fall from God as to perish everlastingly."

When one of Wesley's protege pastors was asked, "Do you believe in the perseverance of the saints?", he answered, "Certainly I do." The question was surprise and said, "I thought you did not." The Methodist preacher then explained, "Oh, sir, you have been misinformed. It is the perseverance of sinners that we doubt." Well, I don't find that very comforting because I am a sinner, and I need to know that God is going to persevere with me as a sinner until he saves me to the uttermost. I want to know this doctrine of security and I want to know if this text, Hebrews 6:4-6, takes my security away from me. That's what I want to know. I want to understand this passage of Scripture and I want you to do it as well. Does this passage teach that a genuine Christian can fall away from Christ?

If so, how can we have any assurance at all, on a Sunday afternoon or a Tuesday morning or at any point in your life, how can you know? You don't know the future. And if it doesn't teach that a Christian can lose their salvation, what does it teach? What is it here for?

There are three basic approaches to this text. The first approach, the man-centered or free will approach, this passage is clearly talking about true and genuine Christians who have been justified, and it's also clearly teaching that such people can lose their salvation, can renounce or repudiate Christ and end up condemned.

Secondly, is what's known as the so-called "straw man" approach. In other words, this is just a rhetorical technique by the author to Hebrews. He's talking clearly about true Christians, the languages of true Christians. It must be, according to this view. But it says, "If they fall away." And since no true Christian can fall away, then this is an empty set. It's talking about nobody really. But the passage does us some good, and that's why it's in there.

The third approach, which is the one I take, is that this passage is not speaking about true genuine Christians, that the five designators that are in here come short of designating these people as regenerate.

There are people that derive tremendous benefits from regular church attendance at good healthy churches. Those benefits come to them through the power of the Holy Spirit, but they are short of being regenerate, and that it's possible to be actively involved in a good healthy church like that and then later fall away from Christ, and I believe going as far as this passage goes, viciously repudiate Christ, become an enemy of the church, a vocal enemy in some public way trample the blood of Christ under foot or at least in some vicious, private way. And whenever there's an opportunity that they can communicate this, this is their heart's state.

And you can't restore those people back to their prior confession and that the passage does do true believers good in a mysterious and a powerful way these warnings, as they do throughout the book of Hebrews, keep us with the proper state of mind. And let me tell you right now what I think that is. I'll say it again perhaps at the end, but I want to say it to you right now: "How does God want the truly regenerate person to think and feel about these things now?" And this is what I think. I think if you have, as a Christian, a solid assurance of your final salvation based on the finished work of Christ on the cross and your faith, the internal testimony, the Holy Spirit that you are a child of God, and you with great joy can sing with full assurance that you're going to end up in Heaven, and day after day after day you fight sin and hate it and fight it with everything you have inside because it's evil and it will be no part of your future life in Heaven, then you're exactly where you need to be.

And there are verses that do kind of some of the one work, and some other verses do some of the other work, and all put together, they shape our hearts and get us to be exactly where we need to be, joyful assurance coupled with unending warfare while we live in the body of death. That's what you've got. That's the Christian life.

Alright, well let's look more specifically at this passage, and I'm just trying to stay as close as I can to the phrases in this text. Whenever I'm in doubt, I cling even closer to the Scripture than ever before. So we're going to go phrase by phrase. We're going to try to understand this and see what the Lord is saying to us through it.

Now the context of Hebrews 6:1-6, media context is Hebrews 5. Now, the author has been warning a church of Jewish people that made professions of faith in Christ, who under intense and growing persecution, they were, I think, being tempted to forsake Jesus in particular and go back to old, to comfortable Old Covenant Judaism. The author is showing them that to do so would involve an open rejection of Christ as Messiah, to refuse God's call to come over into the Promised Land of the new covenant of salvation in Jesus. And so the author has been consistently, through the first five chapters, proclaiming the greatness of Jesus. Just how majestic he is.

The radiant display of God's glory is Jesus, greater than any angel, greater than Moses, who was just a servant in God's house, but Jesus a Son over God's house, greater than Moses because he gives us a better sabbath rest and therefore he's better than Joshua because he leads us into an eternal sabbath rest in Heaven with God. He's greater than Aaron because his priesthood is a greater priesthood than the ironic priesthood. He is a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. And so the author's been portraying the greatness of Jesus, and then he gets to this word, Melchizedek.

And as soon as he mentions Melchizedek, "you are priest forever in the order of Melchizedek," he stops. He interrupts himself and he gives the Hebrew Christians a full chapter and a half of rebuke, exhortation, warning and encouragement. That's Hebrews 5:11-6:20. And we're right in the middle of that interruption. The author has interrupted himself. But don't think that that interruption is something off by the side. It's really the very reason why he wrote the whole letter. And so he interrupts himself and he brings it right home to bear, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, training and righteousness."

And so he is doing that right here. And then in Chapter 7, he resumes his train of thought and he goes on with this issue of Melchizedek. He's trying to show us that we have a high priest who can pray to God for us, who can save us from our sins, who can minister better than any of the other priests could do. Now, the rebuke we've already seen, last week, Hebrews 5:11-14. We have a lot to say about this Melchizedek figure, but it's hard to explain because you're sluggish and lazy in your hearing. By now, you should be further ahead.

"You need milk and not solid food." And he's urging them. He's rebuking them. Then he gives us this exhortation in Hebrews 6:1-3. And the basic exhortation here is, "Let us go on to perfection or maturity," depending how you translate it. But the aim, the goal, is perfection. What could be achieved really is maturity, but that's the exhortation. Let's go on to maturity in Christ. Then he gives them a very serious warning which is the controversial passage verses four through eight, in effect saying that it's impossible to bring those who fall away, after these experiences, those who fall away back to repentance.

Then he gives them some encouragements and exhortations from 9-20, Hebrews 6:9-20, how the author sees better things in them, things that accompany salvation. He remembers their labors for Christ. He points them to God's awesome power to finish their salvation and exhorts them one more time not to be lazy in their Christian life. So that's the context. So the general exhortation here is, "Let us go on to maturity." This is the main concern for this epistle, for these Christians to continue in Christ right to the end of their lives, not just to begin with Jesus, but to continue right to the end with Jesus, for them not to drift away, turn away or fall away, for them to run their race with endurance and then finally enter God's sabbath rest in the end, at the end of their lives.

And so in verse one, we have this clear exhortation. Look at it with me, Hebrews 6:1, "Therefore, let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity." Maturity is the goal, spiritual maturity in Christ. He's compared them to spiritual babies, but he wants them to be spiritual mature adults, mature in Christ. And in order to do this, they have to have a proper vision of the Christian life. And the final goal of our salvation is total conformity to Christ.

And so it doesn't matter too much to me whether you translate this word "perfection" or "maturity." It doesn't matter much. You are not going to be perfect in this world. That, the Bible is very clear about that. But the Bible is also clear that you are to aim for perfection in this world. At every moment, you're aiming for Christlikeness. I want to be just like Jesus. I don't want to be 90% like Jesus today, I want to be like him completely in every way. And since we go from this exhortation and one of the direst warnings in the entire Bible, it's pretty clear that to remain spiritually immature, to stay as a baby, is actually dangerous for you. It's dangerous.

There's a connection then between continued growth and spiritual safety or protection. Conversely, there is a connection between failure to grow and eventual apostasy. So the issue here with these Hebrew professors of faith in Christ has to do with their inability to hear, to understand and to apply Christian doctrines, specifically this doctrine about Melchizedek.

And he says, "Look, let's leave the elementary doctrines about Christ. Let's not lay again that foundation again," and so that the foundation of the Christian mind is doctrine, Christian ideas, concepts. Paul speaks of this foundation, the foundation of the building. In 1 Corinthians 3:10-11, "By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it, but each one should be careful how he builds, for no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ."

So what is that foundation? What are the elementary doctrines of Christ here? Well, I think Verse 1 and 2 kind of list them. "Therefore, let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works," is one translation, "or acts that lead to death, faith in God, instruction about washings," or I think baptism is actually a good translation, "the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment." These are what he calls elementary principles. These are the beginning doctrines of the Christian life.

So repentance from acts that lead to death. Acts that lead to death are violations of God's law. The only thing you ever need to repent from are sins, right? Sins are always transgressions of God's law. So as you begin to hear the gospel and evangelists, if he's faithfully telling you the truth, he'll say you must repent. You must turn away from your sins because your sins will condemn you. It's a foundational doctrine, repentance from dead works.

Secondly, a faith in God, especially faith in Jesus Christ. He talks about the elementary teachings about Christ. And so, faith in God through Jesus Christ, that you would trust in Jesus. So that's the full issue of repentance and faith, turning away from sin and turning to Jesus and seeing in Jesus in his death on the cross, his blood shed on the cross, your full forgiveness. Putting your trust in Jesus, that's an elementary principle of the Christian faith. It's the beginning doctrine. Turn away from sin and turn to Jesus.

And then baptisms, plural word, but washings. I think in my interpretation, I'm not so sure about this, but I think it's both water baptism and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And I believe that water baptism is a sign or a symbol of the true baptism of the Spirit, the cleansing and the washing of the spirit. And then the laying on of hands happened back then in the early church with a new convert, like you remember how Ananias was sent to Saul of Tarsus after Saul had seen the vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus, and he was blinded by that, and he was praying and waiting, and God sent Ananias as the kind of human instrument, the evangelist.

And placing his hands on Saul, he said, "Brother Saul, the Lord has sent me," who you saw on the road to Damascus, "has sent me that you might receive your sight and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." And so I think the placing and the laying on of hands was a visible demonstration of the gift of the Holy Spirit, the receiving of the Holy Spirit.

The resurrection of the dead and eternal judgement that someday we will be raised up, that the righteous and the unrighteous alike, everyone will be raised up and go to judgment, and that God will separate all people, everyone into the righteous and the wicked, the believers in Christ and the unbelievers. Oh, if I could just plead with you. If you're here now in the state of being an unbeliever in Christ, you don't know how much longer you have to be alive.

You don't know if you'll even make it to tonight. I urge you, while you're listening to me now, that you could, in your mind, picture Jesus on the cross, his blood shed, picture him dead under the wrath of God. His penalty was really for you. And trust in him. Put your faith in him that his righteousness might become yours and that your wickedness is given to him and he'll take it away and God will forgive you of all your sins, and trust in him that he not only died, but that God raised him up from the dead on the third day. I plead with you that you need perhaps this milk. You need these elementary teachings, then trust in Jesus. But if you've already believed all that, believed it years ago, time has come to move on. Let's go past these elementary doctrines, this milk of the cross.

Don't misunderstand. Don't say, "Well, I've got it now. I understand everything there is to know about the cross of Christ." You never will. It's an infinite work. But these doctrines are called elementary. These are the milk doctrines. There's more to learn. So let's leave these elementary teachings, and let's go on to maturity.

Key Statement: “God permitting, we will do so...”

And the next statement is vital. Let us go on to maturity, and God willing, we will do so. Wow. "God permitting," we will go on to maturity. Don't skip over that. Friends, don't skip over anything in the Book of Hebrews.  Everything's vital, but what is the author saying here? You might think that's an odd statement. Why wouldn't God permit us to go on to maturity? Well, I don't think this is a throw-away line. It's the key to everything.

All Christian graces come from the Father through the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit. There are no Christian graces or good things that happen to you that don't come from God. And if God permits for you to live, you'll live. And if he does not permit you to live, you will die. And if God permits you to continue in Jesus, you'll continue in Jesus. And if he does not permit you to continue, you will not. It all comes from God. Everything started with God and it will end with God. And so God permitting, you can make a single step in Christian progress.

Jesus put it very plainly when he said, "I am the vine and you're the branches. If you remain in me, if anyone remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing." That Jesus' version of, "God permitting, we will do so." Apart from Jesus, we can do nothing. Apart from the ongoing sustaining grace of Almighty God through Jesus Christ, we would all be lost in a single day's time. Your faith would disappear if God didn't sustain it moment by moment. And so only if God wills can the Hebrew Christians, number one, keep being Christians, and number two, make progress as Christians, to God alone then be the glory for our salvation. Are you still in Jesus after all these years? Then give him the glory. God has permitted you. He has willed you to still be in Jesus. And if you're still in Jesus tomorrow, give him the glory. But you know what? He's promised you will be.

He will keep his promise, but it all comes back to God. There's no independent Christian life here, but rather totally dependent.

Then the author turns of this terrifying warning of apostasy, the third and final step in its progression, as I pointed out in the NIV translation, which comes across as, "Don't drift away," Hebrews 2:1, "Don't turn away," Hebrews 3:12, and "Don't fall away," Hebrews 6:6, from the living God. So we have this terrifying warning of apostasy. Now, I can just stop and speak anecdotally to you. I can just speak to you from your experience. Have you ever known anyone that seemed to be doing great in their Christian life, was attending church regularly, coming to Bible studies, talking the talk, seemingly walking the walk, everything going great, and then some time later, they're not there anymore? Then you find them somewhere and you talk to them and their hearts have grown cold and distant from Jesus. Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever met anyone like that?

I have met dozens and dozens of people like that. It's really sad. It's really tragic, and you want to think, "What can I do for these individuals?" And you're praying for them and you're, "What can I do? Maybe I can win them back. I want to win them back." But then the whole time, there's kind of perhaps rising a niggling concern in your own life. "Well, what about me? How do I know that won't happen to me?" So we come to this text and we ask does this text teach that we can lose our salvation? So look at verses 4-6. It says there, "For it is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss, they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace."

Four key questions of interpretation.

Question number one: Who is the author talking about? What kind of person is this? Is this a regenerate person or not?

Question number two: What does it mean to fall away?

Question number three: What does it mean to renew again to repentance?

Question number four: Why is it impossible to renew such people again to repentance?

These are the four questions that any interpreter of this passage has to face if they want to be faithful. Now, let me tell you something. I think you can hear a lot of pastors preaching this passage, they'll skip these four questions, give you generally what they think and move on. I'm not trying to do that. I want to teach you to ask these kind of questions. These are the questions you have to ask if you want to understand what God means by this text.

Who is the Author speaking about—Christians or not?

Now first, what kind of people is the author talking about? Are these regenerate people or not? Are these Christians or not? Well, first of all, notice the shift of language. In many other passages around, before this and after this, he uses "us" and "you" language. Us and you. He talks about us, he talks about you. Us, you, us, you. He does that a lot. But in this passage, he changes to "those" and "them." Those kind of people. I don't think that's just an accident. Basically, he's taking a "if the shoe fits wear it" kind of approach here. He's laying out description saying if this is you, then this is the situation. He's going to later say, "I actually don't think this is you." But I think that's important. Also, notice things he does not say. He doesn't use certain phrases like this. He doesn't say that these people are chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.

He doesn't say that they're regenerate or born again by the power of the Holy Spirit. He doesn't use any language about justification here. He doesn't talk about justification through faith. He doesn't talk about being indwelt by the Holy Spirit so that the Holy Spirit then becomes a testimony that they are children of God. He doesn't mention adoption as children of God. These phrases and others like it, he doesn't mention. Actually, a statement after this passage makes it clear that the author does not believe these people to be saved, the people he's describing here. Look at verse nine. This is not in our passage this morning, but look at it. Hebrew 6:9, it says, "Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we're confident of better things in your case," look at the next phrase, "things that accompany salvation."

Well, that tells me everything I need to know about this list. This list does not necessarily accompany salvation. So, in other words, the author has a good confidence that these Hebrews were actually genuine Christians who are being tested, but he does feel they need to be warned nonetheless, and so he warns them about apostasy. Well, what does he say about these people? Well, they have once been enlightened. They have tasted heavenly gift. They have shared in the Holy Spirit. They have tasted the goodness of the word of God and they have tasted the powers of the coming age, these five things. Now, can these descriptors be speaking of someone who was never really a true Christian? Or, on the other hand, can a true Christian fall away and be lost forever? Those are your options. Well, I believe these descriptors are speaking of a category of people who are deeply immersed and involved in the powerful apostolic era church who are experiencing in an overwhelming way the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the daily and weekly life of that healthy church, but who were not regenerate, actually.

He says they "have once been enlightened." It's an interesting phrase. Enlightened, what does that mean? It comes from the Greek word photos, from which we get photography or photon. The Greek word usually means coming to a new understanding by good, solid Christian teaching. That frequently is used that way. For example, in Ephesians 1:18, "I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints," etcetera. So enlightenment comes from kind of what I would say an "aha moment" where you learn something and something new hits you, and it's like, "Ah. Now, I'd never understood that before."

Now, I believe that everyone who has truly converted is marvelously enlightened, amen? Haven't you had some light shine in your dark heart? Haven't you gotten some light that's true? But is it true that everyone who receives some light from the Gospel is genuinely converted? Now, that's a different question. Is it possible for an un-regenerate person to learn something and come to a new understanding of Christian theology or spiritual things without being regenerate? I think not only is it possible, it actually happens all the time. Recently, I was explaining the sacrificial system to a lapsed Catholic, went through the details of the sacrificial system, which I've done many times in this church. And this individual had heard these words in the mass year after year and have never understood, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world." This individual told me, "I have never understood that. Now, I do. Finally, I see the connection between the animal sacrificial system and the death of Jesus." Enlightened, not regenerate.

Actually, in the parable of the seed and the soils, there's a category, the rocky soil, that receives and springs up. Something comes up. They at once received the word with joy. Well, let's trace the joy back to its root. What's the root of joy? An idea, a thought, right? Here's a thought. There's a Heaven. It will last forever. It's going to be beautiful. You should want to be there, whatever. Sounds good to me. And there's joy at that and it comes from enlightenment. Conversely, it's also possible to have some kind of enlightenment on the negative aspects of the Christian faith.

For example, you can hear of the terrors of hell and you can tremble and be worried about it and concerned as the Governor Felix was when he heard Paul, discourse on righteousness and self-control and the judgment to come. And when Felix heard this, Acts 24:25, he was very afraid and he stopped Paul and said, "That's enough for now. I'll send for you again, and we'll talk later." Well, what was Felix thinking? Fear. Why? Because he was enlightened about the true nature of hell and Judgement Day that's coming, but not regenerate. Is it possible then to be enlightened? I think so.

Secondly, "tasted the heavenly gift." What does this mean? I think the heavenly gift here, let's just go right to it, is the Holy Spirit. I think it's the gift of the Holy Spirit. He's frequently spoken of as a gift, the gift of the Holy Spirit. "Repent and believe and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." He's spoken of as the Spirit from Heaven. You'll receive the gift from Heaven, so he's the heavenly gift, the Holy Spirit. Well, what then does it mean to taste of the heavenly gift? Well, let's try be a heavenly gift sampler. So we have a heavenly gift sample.

Have any of you ever been to Costco? Like, a good friend of mine, who I will not mention from the pulpit, who can actually eat a whole meal from samples at Costco.You may know who I'm talking about. I'm not going to say his name. I love him dearly. But he can go to Costco and he can do very, very well there. But he never buy... Well, I'm not going to go that far.  Probably, he buys some things from Costco. I asked him, "Do they have like a furniture set there where you can kind of sit and eat the samples? I mean, do they have a TV plugged in so you can... I mean, it could be your kind of living room for an afternoon, you know?" But you know what I mean. By samples, they're samplers. And you just taste and you're getting tastes, but you're not sitting down to the meal.

Jesus on the cross was offered wine to drink mixed with gall, and he tasted it but he didn't drink. There's a difference between tasting and drinking, friends. And so in this sense, they were partakers of the Holy Spirit. This does not mean they are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Because in John 14, we're promised the Holy spirit will be with us forever, that when he comes and takes possession of you and you become a son or daughter of the Living God and the Spirit testifies to you, that you're a child of God, that will be forever. He doesn't adopt you one day and un-adopt you the next. But these were merely partakers with the Holy Spirit.

What does that mean, "Partakers of the Holy Spirit"? I think you hang around. Listen, you hang around in a good healthy church, you're going to receive some benefits from the Holy Spirit. You're going to receive the benefit of good teaching.

You're going to receive the benefits of encouragement, benefits of good examples, benefits of financial contributions and generosity. You might receive financial help in a time of need as a gift of the Holy Spirit to you, even though you're unregenerate. These people, I think, have actually gone beyond that. To skip ahead, it says, "They tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age." They might have even been physically, miraculously healed by the power of the Holy Spirit and still unregenerate. Not everyone who gets physically healed is saved. John 5, Jesus warned one of the men he healed, "Stop sinning or something worse will happen to you."

So these people were partakers, the fruit, the gifts of the Spirit flowing horizontally, but they were not genuinely converted. They tasted the goodness of the word of God. I think, again, this refers to the preaching, the teaching of the word, and there's some value and benefit that comes to everybody from a good exposition of Scripture. You're tasting of it, but you're not drawing it in. And the powers of the coming age, it talked in Hebrews 2:4 about the powers of signs and wonders, of miracles, of healings, gifts of tongues and prophecy, and all the stuff that was flowing in the apostolic era of church. And they had tasted or partook of it, but I believe they were not regenerate. So these people have been experiencing the healthiest, most powerful spiritual experience all under the various ministries of the Holy Spirit.

They were there week after week at church. They heard the word of God unfolded. Christians were using their spiritual gifts in their lives to heal them or bless them or encourage them or help them in some way. Their minds had been enlightened by the Gospel and they had sampled these good things, but tragically they had never believed and they'd never been converted.

What does it mean to “fall away”?

Second question: What does it mean then to fall away? Well, first of all, let's be clear what this does not mean. Listen carefully to this because Satan can use this to discourage you. This does not refer to various temptations that may cause ordinary Christians to stumble along the way.

It does not refer to that. It doesn't even refer to grievous sins that may lay hold of someone and even in some mysterious way take them captive for a period of time in which they're habitually drawn into that lifestyle. It doesn't refer to that. It's not stumbling therefore into this or that sin. Neither is it falling prey to some surprising temptation that seizes you and drags you away or falling even into false doctrines or false understandings of aspects of the Christian life. And it certainly doesn't refer to somebody who's walking with the Lord, living a very disciplined, upright life, having daily quiet times, venturing out into evangelism, serving others, memorizing Scripture, but then through a variety of temptations, through weariness, through circumstances, tragedies in their family, starts to get cold or drift back somewhat and struggle attending church. This is not what this is talking about. There are other verses about that condition. This isn't talking about that.

Well then, what does it mean? It means a total renunciation as an act of the will, of all the doctrines and commitments of the Christian faith, a full rejection of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, as the Savior of the world, a denial of the saving power of the blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross. It consists in a vowed, deliberate repudiation of Jesus Christ, falling into another religion like Old Covenant Judaism or Islam or Buddhism or paganism or even atheism.

John Owen called it this, "A voluntary, resolved relinquishment of and apostasy from the Gospel, the faith, the rule and obedience thereof which cannot happen without the person casting the highest reproach and disgrace imaginable upon the person of Jesus Christ himself."

Look at verse six, "To their loss, they're crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace." In effect, they're standing with the crucifiers of Jesus and giving full ascent to what they did, glad that Jesus was crucified because he deserves it. He's a blasphemer and a deceiver of the people, publicly disgracing Jesus, cursing his name. Same themes come again in Hebrews 10, "If we deliberately keep on sinning," verse 26 and following, "after we've received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgement and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God." So the word "deliberately keep on sinning," describes this apostasy. Deliberately means willingly with the full agreement of the heart, and from the heart sinning by trampling the blood of Jesus under foot as if it were an unholy thing.

Hebrews 10:29, "How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him and has insulted the spirit of grace."

What does it mean to “renew again to repentance”?

Thirdly, what does it mean to renew again to repentance? Well, the author speaks of what many of us, any of us, would want to do to such a person, make some effort to win them back, renew them again to repentance. We yearn to bring them back to their former way of life, their former outward profession. "Just come back, and it'll be like it used to be. Come back and be part of us. Come to church again and come and partake of the Lord's supper again, and come and sit under the preaching again, and just be part of us again." Early church thought this meant baptism, a rebaptism for this, but there's no connection, open connection, here to baptism.

Some people think it teaches a real inward genuine repentance toward Jesus. But the problem with that interpretation is they never had that to begin with or else they wouldn't have fallen away. So you can't renew them back to something they never had. So instead, it's that they would come back and do the things they used to do, make that outward profession, continue to live the Christian life. And the author says it is impossible. It is impossible. You cannot renew them again to repentance. It cannot happen. They fall away. They are like trampling the Son of God under foot. They're despising him, blaspheming him and is impossible to renew them again to repentance.

Why is it “impossible” to renew such people to repentance?

Question four: Why? Why? Why is it impossible to do it? Well, I think you should go back to the beginning of Verse 4 to understand this, and if you have the NIV with you, you're greatly at a disadvantage here. And why? Because they left off a keyword. The first word in Verse 4 should be the word, "for."

If you have an NIV, do what I did right here and write the word "for" right there at the beginning of verse 4. It's easy. "For" for four right in there. Stick the word "for" in there. Why? Well, because the "for" makes you go back a verse to Verse 3, and what does verse three say? "And God permitting we will do so." That's why it's impossible. You know why? God isn't going to do it. God grants repentance. It's not impossible because God can't do it. God can do anything. Remember the story of the rich young ruler who comes and then goes away sad, and Jesus makes the statement, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven." Disciples are astonished and say, "Who then can be saved?" You remember Jesus' answer? "With man, this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." So there's no lack in God. God can take out any heart of stone and put in the heart of flesh. He can do it any time he wants.

The reason it's impossible to renew these apostates to repentance is that God has willed not to. He's made no promises to them to renew them. There's nothing in his character that obligates him to reclaim the apostate. He's not forced or compelled in any way, and he's saying here that he will not bless any such efforts. So John Owen said this, "The apostle instructs us no further in the nature of future events but as our own duty is concerned in them. It is not for us either to look for or hope for or pray for or endeavor towards the renewal of such persons unto repentance. God gives law unto us in these things but not unto himself, interestingly. It may be possible with God for all we know. Only he will not have us to expect any such thing from him nor has he appointed any means for us to attempt it. What he shall do we ought thankfully to accept, but our own duty towards such persons is absolutely at an end." I really think this is the best interpretation of Jesus' statement, "Do not give dogs what is sacred. Do not throw pearls before pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet and then turn and tear you to pieces."

If that verse has any application, I think its application is here now. These are vigorous enemies of the cross now. They are apostates and they're trampling Jesus publicly. "Leave them alone. There's nothing more he can do for them." Application for us. And I just want to put it in question form: Does this passage teach that a true believer can lose his or her salvation? At least this much you can answer, "Pastor doesn't think so." Alright, you can go with that. Whatever you think is up to you. But I think I've laid out evidence for why I just don't think that that's... And if you believe that, then you have to go back to the passages I quoted from John and tell me what they mean because I don't know what they could mean if they don't mean what they seem to mean. I think it's plain that the five descriptions of the apostates in this passage come short of speaking of a genuine Christian.

Secondly, how should a Christian hear this dreadful warning? How should you hear this warning? I think the best phrase is from Philippians, "With fear and trembling." "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." And so I told you a combination of joyful expectancy based on the work of Christ and a fear and trembling, working out your salvation, putting sin to death and saying, "Oh, God, strengthen me. Help me in my battle against sin. This is a hard battle. I need your help. Please be with me. Pour out your grace on me and I know that I'll continue in Jesus. Thank you that you have promised that you'll do that." Look at verses 11 and 12. There is a kind of life that leads to Heaven. Hebrews 6:11-12 describes it. We'll get to it in due time, but I just want to read it now. "We want each of you to show the same diligence to the very end in order to make your hope sure. We do not want you to become lazy but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised."

A diligent life ends up in Heaven. Not a lazy life. A life filled with faith and patience in the battle of Christianity. So this warning against apostasy is meant to jar us out of complacency, that just because we go to a good church, we're surrounded by God's people, we receive the benefits of their spiritual gifts, we enjoy happy feelings of spiritual enlightenment, that we are because of those things regenerate. Rather, we must look deeper. Is our faith working deep conviction of an hatred towards sin? Is there a pattern of growing holiness in our lives, our private lives? Are we working out our salvation with fear and trembling? Are we trusting in Jesus day after day, confident that he will sustain us to the very end, but not allowing that confidence to be a license for sin? Truly a lapsed regenerate child of God hears this warning soberly and brings it back to Jesus and says, "Jesus deliver me from sin. Help me to run this Christian race with endurance." And it stands over many Evangelical and Baptist churches that have easy believe-ism, a walk the aisle, raise your hand, instant baptism, pray the sinners prayer, receive full assurance of salvation, be taught immediately once saved, always saved, and then lead sinful self-indulgent lives in which there's no pattern of holiness, eventually leave off attending church since you already have your fire insurance, it stands over such churches and says, "You are shoddy workmen." Paul laid a foundation and the builders that came after needed to build with gold and silver and costly stones and you're building with straw and wood and stubble. That is not the genuine Gospel. And a true Christian should look after this passage and just look after your genuine heart love for Jesus.

Spend this afternoon telling Jesus you love him. If he convicts you of sin, repent. Ask for forgiveness. Let him cleanse you and restore you. Rest in your assurance that you're going to be in Heaven when you die, and then keep getting to work fighting sin. And finally, if you're lost, you've heard the gospel today. Don't walk out of here without a saving interest in Jesus. Trust in Jesus for the salvation of your souls. Close with me in prayer.

I want to take you back over 50 years in time to a historic moment in the history of sports, May 6th, 1954, English middle-distance runner Roger Bannister became the first to run the mile in under four minutes. The location was Iffley Road Track at Oxford University, and over 3000 spectators gathered on a blustery overcast day to watch this event. The wind at that point, just really just a short time before the race was gusting to over 25 miles an hour and Bannister felt the conditions were in the mile, and many people saw this to be a physical impossibility. absolutely unfavorable for him to make the attempt. He was going to save his energy and try another day. But just before the race was to begin the winds dropped to almost zero and the decision was made to go for it. Now, Roger Bannister at that time was a full-time medical student, but he had also been an Olympic athlete in 1952, he'd come in fourth in the Helsinki summer games in the 1500 meter event. He'd been bitterly disappointed at his outcome and he'd wrestled with the idea of giving up running altogether. However, he was soon motivated by a new goal, and that was to be the first man to go under four minutes

One commentator wrote about it, "The number had a certain mathematical elegance, 'four laps, four quarter miles, 4.00 minutes, that it seemed God himself had established it as a human limit.' For decades, the best middle distance runners had tried and failed. They had come to within two seconds, but that was as close as they were able to get. Attempt after attempt had proved futile and each effort was like a stone added to a wall that looked increasingly impossible to breach. Now, running the mile was an art form in itself. The distance, unlike the 100-yard sprint or the marathon, required a perfect balance of speed and stamina. The person to break that barrier would have to be fast, diligently trained and supremely aware of his body at every moment so that he would cross the finish line at just the point of complete exhaustion."

Now, Bannister made a scientific study of training techniques and race strategies and began turning in times that were coming closer and closer to the seemingly impenetrable barrier, four minutes in the mile. Other rivals in other parts of the world we're getting closer and closer too, so somebody it seems like was going to do it. And on May 6th, 1954, Bannister made his attempt. He went to the starting line, but as he went to the starting line he was not alone in his effort. He had two people helping him, and these two other runners were good friends of his and excellent runners in their own accord. And their sole purpose was to serve as pace setters for him that day. Now, a pace setter is a runner who has no interest in winning the race, but is seeking to help someone set a new world record. The two pace setters for Bannister that day were Chris Brasher and Chris Chataway. Brasher was planning and had been sent out to run the first two laps at exactly a specific pace. The first lap at a certain pace, the second lap a little bit faster and then he was to drop out and Chataway was to continue and carry on through the third lap, and then he was to drop out.

Everything had been pre-ordained and set and measured out to give Bannister the best chance of breaking the four-minute mile. And so after three quarters then Bannister was on his own, and he took off on the fourth lap, and he finished the race. The crowd was listening breathlessly to find the official time and it was 3 minutes and 59.4 seconds, and the crowd just went crazy. They never heard 59.4, they just heard 3 minutes and everyone went crazy. They saw history made by this one man, and since that time something like 600 different runners have broken the four-minute mile. So apparently it wasn't a physical limit after all. But he was the first to do it, and since that time also following his example, pace setters, or as they're sometimes called, 'rabbits', have been used in these kinds of attempts at world records. They're called rabbits, I think, because of the dog track. They have these mechanical rabbits that go around the track and the dogs chase them. Heaven forbid they should ever catch them, the dog will never run again, because they realized it wasn't worth it after all. But a good pace setter or rabbit can be paid as many as thousands of dollars for their effort in setting a world record.

Now, the Book of Hebrews, I believe, is setting a pace for us in these verses today. In Hebrews 5:11-14, this text stands over us as we run our Christian race and tells us to run faster. Hebrews 12 says, "Let us run with endurance the race marked out before us." And we've been seeing all along that this book of Hebrews is urging us to continue running that race right to the end; we need to keep running right to the finish line. But here we have a pace setter kind of calling over his shoulder to us saying, "Pick up the pace, you're a little behind, you're a little bit behind." And so it's not enough to just run and to keep running and to cross the finish line. But there's a specific pace that the Lord has laid out for us to run, and we need to keep to it. In effects, the text stares at us all in the face with this question, Are you growing in Christ at the proper pace? By now ought you to be further along than you are?

And so we're looking at the issue of constant progress in the Christian life. And the context here, as we see right in the middle as Keith began to read in verse 11, it says, "We have much to say about this... " And on it goes, and you're like, "Well, that's an odd place to begin a scripture". Well, that's the value of expository preaching. You just need to come week by week. We were right in the middle of a flow of thought here, right in the middle of the Book of Hebrews, and we've seen week by week the purpose of this book, the author to the Hebrews was writing to, I believe, Jewish professors of faith in Christ, who had made an initial commitment of faith in Christ, testified to it, I believe, by water baptism, but under pressure in their circumstances they were wavering in their commitment.

They weren't attending church anymore. They were seeming to go back in their hearts to Old Covenant Judaism and the author is writing here and urging them that they would continue to walk with Christ, to run this race with Jesus Christ, and not turn back to their old ways. And he's been giving us the superiority or the supremacy of Christ in every way. And in chapter 5, he introduces the idea of Jesus as great High Priest and the superiority of Jesus' High priestly ministry.

And he brings up this concept about Jesus being a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. He says it in verse six. He says it in another place, "You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek." And then again in verse 10, right before the verse 11, that the reading began with today, and Jesus was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek. Then the author interrupts himself and he says, "Look, I have more things to tell you about this. I have much more to say about Melchizedek, and he will say it by the way, in chapter 7." He's going to go back to this theme and develop it. But he interrupts himself, and says, "We have much to say about this, but it's hard to explain, because you're slow to learn."

And so in the middle of his train of thought he is going to interrupt himself. In chapter seven, he will return. He'll give us a sense of the glories of Jesus as a priest in the order of Melchizedek. What that means is Jesus is both the priest and the king, and the two of them harmonize together in the person of Jesus, the office of priest and king, separated on the old covenant, but harmonized as Jesus is the priest in the order of Melchizedek. He's going to get even mystical almost in Chapter 7, in which this Melchizedek, figure, it just pops up in the middle of nowhere, it seems, without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days, or end of life, he says, mysterious words, and he'll go back and he'll develop all of these things. And it's very important, he really wants the Jewish readers here, the Hebrews, to understand the greatness of the ministry of Jesus as our great high priest, the greatness of His intercession for us at the right hand of God, the greatness of his finished work on the cross and the greatness of the new covenant that makes it all possible. Because in the old covenant, he could never have been both the priest and the king.

He wants to explain all of these things, but he stops himself for a very important reason, and frankly, right from 5:11 to the end of chapter 6, is all his interruption. And he gives these people a rather stern rebuke. You almost sense some frustration in the author here. Every good teacher knows his students. You can tell when he's lost the class, when their attention is wandering, when they're not getting what you're trying to tell them; he can sense that. Interestingly enough though, he blames them for the problem. He blames them for their inability to grasp the deeper things of the Word of God. He says it's their fault that they're not further along and able at this point to accept the things he's about to say. And so he gives them a strong rebuke. In Verse 11. He says, "About this we have much to say, but it's hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing." One translation gives us.

The reason the author cannot immediately say everything he wants to say is twofold, first of all, the subject matter itself is deep. It's spiritually powerful. It's not easy to grasp. He says, it's hard to explain, he's going to say in a moment, it's the meat of the word. Secondly, he cannot explain it to them because the Hebrew Christians have become dull of hearing; literally lazy listeners. One who is not easily stirred or moved, heavy, slothful, dull, that's what the word means, as opposed to someone who is quick, sharp, quick on the uptake, able to understand, diligent in his business. Those are the contras. He said, "You've become lazy listeners." The same word is used in the Greek translation of the book of Proverbs to refer to the sluggard. The focus here is on the ear, they are sluggards concerning their ears, concerning their listening to the Word of God.

Now, in the flow of the book of Hebrews, I said, this is a big interruption, but it's a vital interruption. He gives them here solemn warnings, and the warning section extends from 5:11 up through 6:8 and some of those words are among the most difficult for any Christians to ever accept and understand. Hebrews 6, some people say, one of the most controversial and difficult passages in the Bible. It seems to be saying that you can lose your salvation, we know that's not possible from other passages yet then, what do these words mean? But these are very strong words of rebuke to them.

He says, it’s impossible to renew a certain category of people, to repentance. People who crucify the Son of God afresh, and subject him to public disgrace.Those are strong words. He likens that category of people that he's talking about there to a field producing thorns and thistles that's worthless and is in danger of being cursed that in the end will be burned. These are strong words of warning and rebuke. But then after that he gives them some gracious encouragement. In 6:9-10, he says, "Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we're confident of better things in your case, things that accompany salvation. God is not unjust. He will not forget your labor, the love you have shown His people as you have helped His people and continue to help them."

And He speaks about how they have, their hope is an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. He gives them tremendous words of loving encouragement, and then also once more words of exhortation, he said, "I want you to show this same diligence to the very end in order to make your hope sure." So he's giving them just very, very strong words here in chapter 5 and then on into Chapter 6. And then he's going to return to Melchizedek as I've said in Hebrews 7. So, the central issue that's just burning on the author's heart here is their need to make steady, consistent progress in the Christian life. He's worried, he's concerned about their failure to grow and to make progress because it's dangerous in the Christian life. And the implications of these verses that we're studying today is that there is an acceptable pace in sanctification. There's an acceptable pace in Christian growth. There's an acceptable pace to be taking in the Word of God, understanding it and living it out.

The author is very critical of these people, of the fact that they still can't handle the meat of the word. He uses this expression, "By this time you ought to be teachers." That's where I got this sermon title, 'By now you ought to be'. It implies that there's an acceptable pace for spiritual growth. It is not acceptable for spiritual babes to stay spiritual babes for long. It's not acceptable. Nor is it acceptable to grow very slowly and deliberately towards spiritual maturity. There is a race to be run and there's a specific pace for that race. And what is the proof of constant progress? Well, there's this need to go from milk to meat. Look at verse 12 again, "In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's Word all over again. You need milk and not solid food." He says.

Now, the author is saying that there has been sufficient time since their conversion to complete the training. There's been enough time. It's not a failure of time, and there is a certain kind of course of study that we've enrolled in here. Jesus gives us a sense of that in Luke 6:40. Jesus said, "A student is not above his teacher but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher." So there's this course of training that's laid out, and when you have reached that point of fully trained, then you are equipped to teach others. It's not perfection. It's not knowing every single spiritual fact there could ever know, but there's a sense of spiritual maturity, a sense of being fully trained and ready to teach others. Now, teachers are essential in the Christian church, and it's expected that a healthy church, if the church is healthy, it's going to be in an ongoing beautiful sort of way, in an ongoing way, producing qualified teachers of the Word. It a measure of the health of the church. And so, when the author says, "By this time you ought to be... " He's speaking of a suitable pace of growth and development so that they are able to instruct the next generation of Christian disciples.

But instead, that he says, they still need the ABCs of the faith. The author mentions the elementary truths and says they need to be taught them over again or all over again. There's a sense of the elementary truths here. The Greek word refers to the first items of instruction, the ABCs of the faith. I think it's possible that the author then goes ahead and lists them in the next chapter, beginning in verse 1-3. He says, "Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death and of faith in God; instructions about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgement." It seems to be that the author's listing these as the basic rudimentary aspects of the faith. Well, why is it then so shocking that they're still sipping on milk instead of chewing meat?

Well, they've been converted long enough to be of help to others, and instead of being useful, they were useless. They needed to receive rather than to give. They needed to be grounded again in the ABCs, rather than giving them out, and then further teachings to others. They're really like newborn babies instead of fully grown adults. This left them vulnerable to unrighteousness, to going astray in their lives. Now, the division between milk and meat teaches us something about the word of God, doesn't it? The word of God is literally a miracle, friends. It's an astonishing book. It's very much like the ocean where your little children can play in it and splash in it and make sand castles by the sea. But it also goes down six miles deep. And so it is with the Word of God, there are simple basic concepts, milk, and then there are deeper, more difficult concepts, meat. And the author makes the distinction between milk and meat.

Milk vs. Solid Food: Not All Scripture is Equally Clear or Easy

Now, the milk, then refers to those aspects of the Word of God that are simple to digest. They're easy and straightforward principles. You get them right away in the Christian life. God is great. God is good. Let us thank Him for our food, Amen. Let's eat. Well, those are the basics. God made all things. God loved us and sent His son into the world for us. Jesus was the Son of God; died on the cross for our sins. If we repent and believe in Him, our sins will be forgiven. God will accept us and we can live with Him forever in Heaven, and such things as that.

This is the milk of the word. These are the kind of things that you speak to little children. The simple kind of truths that they can understand, and that you make it very, very plain and simple for them. But not all scripture is equally accessible. Some scriptures are just very deep and very difficult. The Apostle Peter gives us a sense of that, when he talks about Paul's letters. In Peter 3-16, he says, Paul's letters contain some things that are hard to understand. Thank you Peter. Peter is such an encouraging figure for us all isn't he? He's such an encouraging figure, we're not rooting for him to fail, but when he fails and gets restored and still God uses him, how encouraging is that? And when Peter says... I'm reading Romans and boy it's tough to get it all... But frankly for his part, Peter says some things that are hard to understand too. That's the whole thing about Jesus preaching to the spirits in prison, who disobeyed long ago in the days of Noah and the when the ark was being built. What is that, Peter?

So not everything's milk. Not everything's meat. There are different aspects. What then is meat? Well, difficult things that are hard to accept initially. There's some initial push back in our minds and hearts, don't like those ideas right away, but they're right in the word. They take some digesting, they take some chewing over and only if we do will we receive any value or benefit from them. The doctrine of eternal predestination, how God before the foundation of the world, knew all that would be his and those that would not. The doctrine of predestination, difficult for us to accept even though it's right in the Word and plain to see.

The doctrine of God's providence, how the lot is cast into the lap, but it's every decision is from the Lord. How God works out everything in this world after the counsel of His will. The doctrine of providence, very difficult, that's meat. It's hard to extend those implications even to the great sufferings of our lives and those things that are so difficult for us to accept but seeing God's hand in it. How Joseph said, "You meant it for evil," to his brothers, "But God meant it for good." He didn't just turn it for good, he meant it for good, he orchestrated this whole thing. It's meat. It's difficult for some people. Or how God can use the devil and demons and wicked men to achieve his purposes, without in any way being defiled by them. Or the doctrine of future things, eschatology, the end times, the abomination of desolation that I preached two sermons on. My goodness, what was in my mind... But it's not easy to understand these things. The rebuilding of the temple, these kinds of things, the man of sin.

The exact circumstances of the second coming of Christ. How about the whole Book of Revelation as meat does that sound good to you? The whole book? It's not easy to understand these things, it's difficult. Then there are those categories of things that are relatively easy to understand but hard to put into practice. Caring for the poor and needy, being a constant witness for Christ. We know these things but they're meat to us, it's difficult, there's some push back in our lives. And then there are those areas where we are called in direct contradiction to the prevailing norms of our culture, where we're called to swim against the tide.

On controversial issues that are plain in scripture. But the people around us, the lost people around us are just totally wrong on. There's so many examples of that, whether homosexuality or divorce, or the role of women or other things like that, very difficult for us to accept. But the Bible teaches, and we have to accept them. For example, our society and our culture, tells us if you find something that you like do it as much as you can, and as much as you want. Grab all the gusto so to speak. Eat, drink and be merry. But the Bible preaches self-control in all things, that you're not going to be mastered by anything, and that if anything is causing you to sin in your life, cut it off and throw it away like your right hand, if it causes you to sin. That's meat. It's not easy to understand and accept.

So we have this division, it seems between not just milk and meat but infancy, and maturity. Between infancy, and maturity. The author makes a clear distinction then between spiritual infants and spiritually mature people. Verse 13 "Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness." Verse 14, "but solid food is for the mature, who by constant use of training themselves to distinguish good from evil." Now Peter tells us there is a time for milk. That time is to be celebrated, and praise God for it. 1 Peter 2, he says, "like newborn babies crave pure spiritual milk so that by it you may grow up in your salvation." Yeah, but right within the verse doesn't he say, Okay, don't stay there long friends. Sip on that milk until you're strong enough to keep growing up in your salvation. The implication Peter's given is, I don't want to come back years from now and you're still just drinking milk.

But if you're a new born baby then crave it. But the goal is still maturity, there is a proof of progress then and that is your ability to digest the deeper things of the Word of God and to delight in them, and celebrate them. Not go yell at the pastor, when he preaches them. Amen. But rather to say it's there, it's deep. I want to grow. I embrace it. It's a mark of maturity.

And not only that, but spiritually mature people not only embrace the deeper things of the Word, but they harmonize them into a system of theology that they understand and that is biblically, and true. Biblical true, and leads them directly to godliness, and holiness, and fruitfulness. It's not just head knowledge but they're weaving it together in a lifestyle of Godliness, based on what they know. That's maturity, friends. Now the solid food here is teaching about righteousness. Look at verse 13, "Everyone who lives on milk, is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child." The author, then speaks of being unskilled in the word of righteousness, unskilled means inexperienced. The Greek word relates to a trial or testing by experience. These babes in Christ, have heard the word, but have not tried its truthfulness by experience and become skillful in applying the Word. And he specifically calls it the word of righteousness, it has to do with sanctification, growing in holiness, learning by experience and by the Word what is pleasing to God, and what is not.

Being able to distinguish between good and evil. Alright friends. We've seen the pace of constant progress. By now you ought to be, we've seen the proof of constant progress and that is milk to meat.

What of the need of constant progress? Well, there's a need individually and there's a need corporately. Each of us needs to grow a pace. Or we're in danger. Individuals must make progress. You're either going to become as he says here, lazy listeners or you're going to become spiritually mature, you're not going to stay where you are. Christian life is dynamic, it's constantly shifting, it's constantly changing and if you're not growing a pace in Christ, you're regressing, you can't stay a healthy baby.

You can stay baby-like but you won't be healthy, you can't stay a healthy baby, you have to grow into maturity. And only as you continue to make progress in maturity, will you be healthy. 2 Peter 1 says this. "For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness, and to goodness, knowledge, and to knowledge self-control, and to self-control, perseverance, and to perseverance brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities he says, in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ."

Only as these virtues are in increasing measure in the Christian life, are you going to be fruitful and productive. So individually, we need to take in the word just like food, milk and meat are food and we need to keep feeding on the Word. You remember in the Book of Proverbs, you have the sluggard. He's one of our favorite characters, as we study, not really, but we love the verses anyway. The sluggard lays on his bed and he's like, a door, on his hinges going back and forth, back and forth. That's a picture of someone sleeping in, right? Till noon or 1 o'clock. They're just going from side to side. But my favorite one is the sluggard puts his hand in the dish and won't lift it to his mouth, to eat. He needs his momma to come feed him.

I mean, what is going on? We're meant to laugh at this guy, but how sad it is when that's true, spiritually, of people concerning the Word of God, they're in the church for decades and they seem to need their spiritual mama to lift their hand to their mouth and feed themselves, that's just unhealthy for the individual. It's unhealthy for the church too, because the church corporately needs teachers, not everyone is called on to be a formal teacher of the church. James 3 says, Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more severely. But every mature Christian is called on in some way to impart doctrine to some other category of people. It's just true. Parents are to impart doctrine to their children. Deuteronomy 6 says, "These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Sharpen them into your children, talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up." And so parents, you need to become theologians so that you can train your children in the word.

And as they grow, you're not wanting them to stay milk, either. At age 5, you're going to teach them some things, at age 8, you're going to teach them some more things, at age 13 they should know more. By the time they're youth, they should be almost fully mature doctrinally. We should have a youth group of theologians. That's maturity. Other than that they are being hindered in their Christian development, and so we have to challenge them. So parents, it's your job and fathers, especially, I'm going to lay the charge for you to be the priests and the theologians of your household. Study, study the Word of God, so that you can be the theologian of your household and lead your family well. Older women are encouraged to disciple and train younger women in Titus 2.

Mature disciples are commanded to pass on to lesser mature disciples the things that they've heard. Second Timothy 2:2, the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to reliable men who will be qualified to teach others also. There's multi-generational vision of church growth there. And careful handling of the word of truth, is essential to this. 2 Timothy 2:15, "do your best to present yourself to God as one approved a workman who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." I don't think that's just for the pastors. I think that's for all of us, that we should be studying the Scripture and its techniques so that we can rightly divide it and become mature and grow up.

The churches future depends on this process. The previous generation is dying off. Every new generation comes into the world and into the faith knowing nothing of these things and so therefore, the church must pass them on, young men must be prepared and trained to be elders in the next generation. It says in 1 Timothy 3:1, "Here is a trustworthy saying: if someone sets his heart on being an overseer, he desires a noble task." So the young men should have an ambition to be a leader in the church. Well, then they need to grow up doctrinally and they need to live out the doctrines that they know.

So therefore, I say to you The Healthy Church is a doctrinal factory producing spiritually mature men and women, theologian warriors, theologian warriors for Christ, who both love the milk and the meat of the word and live it out in their daily lives. And so, that is the goal of constant progress. Look at verse 14, "solid food is for the mature." Some translations give us, perfect. That's not spiritual perfection, but just maturity. Who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. So maturity, is the ability to discern from Good and Evil, to discern what is best. Philippians 1. And that we're able to see through Satan's smoke and mirrors and know what Satan is doing and be discerning. Second Corinthians Paul says In order that Satan might not outwit us for we're not unaware of his schemes. The mature can see what Satan is trying to do in a situation and see through it. The teaching about righteousness, is sanctification, the Christian journey.

The more you grow in the Christian life, the more you'll see that infinite journey, stretching out in front of you of Christ-likeness. You'll know what it looks like, you'll know what its features are and you're going to be running that race until the day you die, and you have a sense of that. And how will you grow a constant use of the word of God?

Look at verse 14 "solid food or meat is for the mature who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil."

ESV says this, "solid food is for the mature for those who have their powers of discernment, trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil."

KJV, "but strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

New American Standard, "But solid food is for the mature who because of practice, have their senses trained."

What is this constant use? This practice? Friends, it's just taking in the Word of God day after day after day, saturating your minds in it, memorizing it, meditating on it, chewing it over. When something difficult in the text comes ask questions of the text, ask questions of your elders, read commentary, study. Don't say, "Well this is for the professional. This is for the expert." No it's for you.

Everything in scripture is for you. So, if you struggle with some of those meat things that I've listed, go and study the scriptures on them. Saturate your minds in them, able to rightly divide the word of truth. Candidly and accurately, whether the law of Moses or the Old Testament history books, or old testament poetry, what to do with the book of Ecclesiastes or Song of Songs. How do you handle the passages in the prophets, the prophetic passages? What do you do with the New Testament with the four different Gospels, the different approaches to the life of Jesus. How do you read the Book of Acts? What do we do with things that were done then that we don't see happening now, how do we understand those things? The Epistles of Peter, and Paul, and James, John. These Epistles. The apocalyptic Book of Revelation, how do we take in this word of God and by constant use, learn its truths.

And as we're doing that, putting on the full armor of God, getting ready for battle, spiritual warfare. Ready to take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming hours of the evil one, and you can take the sword of the Spirit and you're ready to go do battle. Friends, that's what maturity is all about. And I yearn it for you. And for me.

Just by way of application, let me begin by saying, and I've already prayed for you, but I'm going to say to you, one more time, if you're here and you've never trusted in Christ, as your Lord and Savior, you can't grow if you're not alive. The Bible says that if you're not in Christ, you're dead even while you live, and I'm pleading with you to come to Christ, while there's time, you don't know how much longer you'll be alive but the cross of Christ is for you, as though God Himself were making His appeal through me, I'm pleading with you come to Christ, repent of your sins and the blood of Jesus will cleanse you from every sin, and you'll be adopted, and you'll become a child of God and then you can drink the milk of the word, and grow up in your salvation. And if you are already a Christian, been Christian a while, I want to ask you the question, "Are you on pace or are you behind schedule?"

How long has it been since you came to faith in Christ? Is your knowledge of the word of God where it should be. Or are you behind schedule? And if you sense by now I ought to be, and the answer is further. Then what I urge you to do is repent, it's not an accident, it's not, it's a choice that you've made to be lazy as a listener of the Word of God, go back to the cross and let the blood of Jesus cleanse you and say I don't want to be lazy a year from now. I want 2011 to be the greatest year of growth I've ever had in my Christian life. Jonathan Edward says in one of the resolutions I want to so, study the Word of God, that my progress is plain to everyone. I want everyone to just notice. I actually would like someone to call me a theologian, sometime in the next year. Wouldn't that be cool. Boy you've really become quite the theologian haven't you? Why not? Not that you would be proud or boastful. Because you ought to know how much further you have to go, but just that you're making progress.

Resolve to grow in obvious ways. And teachers just teach. Next week, we're changing our BFL, Bible for Life. Everything's changing. The doctrine, isn't going to change. And so the teachers are going to stand up in front of you and teach, pray for them to be faithful to do their teaching. Parents be faithful to teach your children, and let's all of us be faithful to grow to full maturity in Christ. Close with me in prayer.