Our text today is going to be Hebrew 6 on page 1622 of the Bibles in the seats. And we're actually going to try and cover the whole chapter, but not necessarily equally. We're not going to put equal attention to everything in the chapter. And I always love when the providence of God really, it made sense to use this this week. And then we also started the chapter on the confession, in the confession on the perseverance of the saints. And this is directly relevant to that, as we'll be going through that the next several weeks. And this just worked out really well to cover this subject now. It kind of calls for somewhat of an apologetic reproach, or not reproach, approach. So we're going to kind of cover it with that nature, but let's read all of Hebrews chapter six. Therefore, leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God and of instruction about washings and laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits. And now pay attention to these next few verses. These are gonna get specific attention from us today. For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put him to open shame. For ground that drinks the rain, which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God. But if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed and ends up being burned. But beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking this way. For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward his name in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints. And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of the hope until the end, so that you will not be sluggish, the imitators of those who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises. For when God made the promise to Abraham, since he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself, saying, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply you. So having patiently awaited, he obtained a promise. For men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute. In the same way, God desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of his purpose, interposed with an oath so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast, and one which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. Let's pray. Lord God, we ask for your blessing on our gathering today. May your word do its work and not return void this Lord's Day. Give us clarity of mind to meditate on this passage rightly. Make us receptive to the truth found in these scriptures. Bless our gathering with your presence. May it be glorifying to you, faithful to the text, and helpful to your people. Send your spirit to work amongst us now. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. So we're taking just a brief respite from the book of Luke. We'll be back in it next week, and we're just gonna be in Hebrews this one week. But I will start with this confession. I am intimidated by the book of Hebrews. I am genuinely intimidated by it. I know it is a monumentally important book. I know that you know that, but whenever I approach it, whenever I'm in Hebrews, I feel out of my depth, like I'm in water that's too deep to stand in. And that does two things to sermon preparation. It makes it very difficult, of course, but it also makes it pretty exciting. I remember in seminary one year, I think it was only the second year, maybe even second semester of the first year, but we were in our preaching class and we were utilizing the book of 1 John. And 1 John is one of the simplest, even in the original Greek, it's very, very simple, straightforward Greek. But there is this one passage at the end of chapter five that is very cryptic about the sins unto death and the sins unto death. And I chose that passage specifically to preach on, even though we were in this very simple book. And I chose that not because I knew what to say about it, but because I had no clue what it meant. I genuinely didn't. I'd seen it abused. But I honestly could not even begin to exegete it. I didn't know what it meant. But I knew if I had to preach on it, then I would be forced to put in the work to figure it out. I would have to do it. And that was exciting. And in the end, it was very rewarding. That's one of the reasons I picked 1 John when soon after we got here, I think it was within the first year, we went through all the epistles of John. So you've heard that. But I would say Hebrew 6 felt a little like that when I first became a Calvinist. It is one of those texts that all reformed people have to grapple with in coming to a consistent position on reformed theology. If you come out of staunch five-point Arminianism like I did, then Hebrew 6 was surely a passage on which you have spent no little amount of time. Because no doubt, this is a primary text used by those that think that true believers, actual regenerate Christians, can change their nature back to being unregenerate by choice and thus lose their salvation. And this is because a cursory reading of Hebrews 6 may appear to yield that conclusion. And the main reason being that description of those who have fallen away. It talks about those who have fallen away. And Arminians say that means they can lose their salvation because they fell away. And the Reformed, and admittedly a few others that aren't necessarily in our camp would agree with us though, they say these are simply apostates. Those that once professed to trust in Christ but never truly have. These apostates are described here as having once been enlightened, having tasted of the heavenly gift, having been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, having tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come. That's how they're described. And that does, we admit, that applies to believers, but we're saying it applies to some apostates as well. The whole question revolves around whether or not that description was intended by the author of the Hebrews to apply to genuine Christians and only to genuine Christians. Or does it likewise apply to nominal false professors who eventually apostatize? So this is an instance where we need to regulate our interpretation with our systematic theology. Basically, other doctrines we know to be true. We need to sort of use our orthodoxy and our confession as a set of guardrails to prevent us from misunderstanding the possible readings of Hebrews 6. Or to put it more simply, this is an instance where we interpret the less clear passage in light of the more clear passages. So it is very much right to call into service other passages from scripture that prevent us from misunderstanding this passage. And that way, the way we interpret this less clear passage will cohere with the doctrinal teaching from the rest of scripture. So it fundamentally is based on the doctrine of scripture that it does not contradict itself. It's all written by God, it all coheres together. And one thing that is abundantly clear in the New Testament is that once God saves us, Once his spirit changes our hearts, he grants us the gifts of faith and repentance. We stay that way. It is a gift. It's a work done by the Holy Spirit. It is irrevocable. We stay that way. We stay born again. Our faith is protected by the very spirit who produced it in us in the first place, which means that those that depart the church, those that apostatize, were never truly saved to begin with. They professed a faith that was not true. It was not a spirit-produced faith, and thus it failed. Non-spirit produced faith fails, is the idea. Or as their confession puts it, their faith was a temporary faith. They were temporary believers. So second, or sorry, the chapter 14 on saving faith. In paragraph three, it begins by speaking of those that have saving faith, and then it contrasts the nature of our saving faith with the faith of temporary believers. It says it this way. It's talking of saving faith here. This faith, although it be different in degrees and may be weak or strong, yet it is in the least degree of it, so the very weakest faith, it is in the least degree of it different in the kind or the nature of it, as is all other saving grace. So all the saving grace that we have is different in nature from the faith and the common grace of temporary believers. It's different in its nature. Our faith is different from that of temporary believers. And therefore, though it may be many times assailed and weakened, yet it gets the victory, growing up in many to the attainment of a full assurance through Christ, who is both the author and the finisher of our faith. And I love that phrase. It comes from Hebrews 12. I love that phrase, calling Jesus the author and the finisher of our faith. You didn't author your faith, you're not gonna finish your faith. Jesus is the author and the finisher. That's a phrase I grew up hearing my dad finish all of his prayers with growing up. He always prayed to the author and finisher in the name of the author and finisher of our faith, Jesus Christ. And it's a phrase. that reinforces our confessional position that faith is a gift of God, that we don't author it. And it's not taken away, it's finished. So he authors our faith and he finishes our faith. And that's just one of a plethora of clear texts that help us be guided in our interpretation of Hebrews 6. Another one would be the end of Romans 8, another one of the strongest texts on preservation. Now obviously, we don't have time here for a comprehensive defense of the doctrine of the preservation of the saints, and we're gonna be doing that over the next few weeks anyway. Andy's gonna be leading us through that. So if you come here for Sunday school, you'll hear it anyway, and I'm not gonna do it all from, we can't do it in one Sunday, but I must cite the clarity that we get from 1 John 2.19, which again, Andy quoted this morning. This verse, and we've preached on it before, so you've heard this before, but I'm gonna reiterate. This verse could not have been written unless John truly believes regenerate men do not fall away. He can't say what he said unless what we're saying is true. It is crystal clear in giving us what I think we could call a divine lens into the spiritual nature of apostates. We can see into the apostate's heart based on what John says here. And speaking of apostasy, I mean, we know what it is. It's when somebody professes the faith and then they fall away. And I was interacting with what was a church elder years ago, and he rejected the endurance of the saints, the preservation of the saints. And his reason was apostasy happens, and therefore saints don't persevere. And I just wanted to pull my hair out. It's like we agree on apostasy. Everyone agrees on apostasy. Some people profess the faith and then they fall away. That's self-evidently clear. The whole question is the nature, the spiritual nature of apostates. Were they born again in the first place? That's where the debate is, not whether or not apostasy happens. We all agree there. But what John says here in 1 John 2.19 gives us that divine lens into the nature of those apostates. And he said this, they went out from us, speaking of apostates, they went out from us, out from the church, but they were never really of us. For if they had been of us, they would have remained with us, but they went out so that it would be shown that they were not really of us. That verse stands as an explicit contradiction to the Arminian interpretation of Hebrews 6 that we're covering today. John says apostates were never really of us. That is, they were never born again. They were part of the church, they were church members, but they weren't Christ's sheep. They were never really of us. And the reason they depart the church, the reason they leave, they go back to the world, is because they were never truly of us. That is, they were never truly a believer. Then John assures us that they would remain in the church, had they been, if they were a true believer. They would have remained, because that's what true believers do. He realizes that true faith, spirit-granted faith, does not fail. And that is why he can so confidently say that if they had been of us, if they had been born again, if that was their spiritual nature, they would have remained. Because that's what spirit-granted faith does, it remains. Yet Armenians say that Hebrews 6 is truly describing a born-again church member. They are saved, but then they lose their salvation. Thus, apostates really were of us, is what they're saying. In their interpretation, they were indeed sheep, they had true saving faith. But if that were the case, then according to John, they wouldn't have gone out from us. Because the ones who go out from us do so because they're not really of us. I mean, how clear, it can't get any clearer. So it's not difficult to see that the testimony of the rest of Scripture absolutely eliminates the possibility that the Arminian interpretation of Hebrews 6 is correct. Their claim is outright precluded from being a possibility. However, The orthodox position that you cannot lose your salvation can still be held with a couple variations on the understanding of verses four through six there. I've already shown my hand. I've already told you I'm going to be arguing these verses are describing real apostates who left the church because they did not have genuine faith. That's the position I'm going to be advocating. But I will at least make mention of another position that concludes correctly that genuine Christians cannot lose their salvation, but it still understands verses four through six a little bit differently than what I'm going to be arguing. And this alternative interpretation is within the bounds of orthodoxy, but What it does is it sees the author speaking of true believers. They're saying, yes, he's talking about true believers in verses four through six, but he's speaking hypothetically. He's speaking in a hypothetical manner about what amounts to an impossibility. He's saying, hypothetically, they couldn't fall. I mean, if they fell away, they couldn't come back. And it's actually impossible. the true Christians might leave and then having what's been genuinely saved would fall away. So they're saying he speaks hypothetically there. And we agree with them that it's an impossibility. But we disagree that verses four through six are actually describing true believers. And that other position has a few things going for it. First off, it does seem to be the position of R.C. Sproul and Spurgeon both. And that should always give us pause because those guys don't get much wrong. But secondly, In verse 9, where the author switches to speaking to the faithful, he makes a comment. He says, we are convinced of better things of you. So he kind of switches his audience. He talks about these apostates, and then he switches his audience. We have better things in mind for you, things that accompany salvation, even though we're speaking this way. And they take that phrase, though we are speaking this way, they see that as an indicator from the author that what he had just been saying was kind of hypothetical. He meant it like hypothetically. And I'm not going to necessarily seek to deter you from taking that position. I've actually wavered in my certainty myself. I mean, it's a decent argument. But I am going to seek to promote the position that the author here is referencing real apostates, real apostates. And their description of having once been lightened, having tasted of the heavenly gift, et cetera, et cetera, it's not necessarily applicable to regenerate persons only. I'll start by noting what we've talked about before, the three essential components of saving faith. Notitia, Assensus, and Fiducia. That is the knowledge, the assent, and the trust aspects of faith. Knowledge, assent, and trust. So knowledge is simply the data, knowing the data. We know the story. We know the argument that the Christian faith makes, the faith, what it means. We get the story of it. We actually understand how it works. Unbelievers can have genuine knowledge of the gospel. They can know what the gospel is and what Christians believe. Now, granted, they don't often accurately convey it, and they don't accurately understand it very often, but they can. They can get it. They could say, Christians believe this, and they can describe it accurately on occasion. The ascent, that second aspect, ascent is agreeing, like not only do I get what you're saying, I agree that it's true. I agree that that story is true. It's a recognition of the reality of the work of Christ as truly being saving. It's the aspect that says, you're saying Christ died for my sins, and yes, he did pay for sins on the cross. And yes, he was born again, or not born again, but rose from the dead. So the knowledge and the assent aspect. I would go as far as to say this was the type of faith I had before I was saved. I knew it, and I assented to it. I never denied that it was true, but I did not submit to what I knew was true. But I knew it was true, and I didn't disagree that it was true. So I had both those aspects of faith, yet I was not saved. I would likewise say it's the same faith as the demons. They know God is one in shudder, says James. They know who God is. They know Jesus is the son of God. They know he was raised from the dead. And they know very well that all those who trust in him will be saved by God. They know that. But they are still missing that one key element of faith that actually makes it salvific. Trust, the fiducia, the trust. in Christ. Our actual reliance, this is what our trust is, it's our actual reliance on the righteousness of Jesus to earn eternal life and his atonement to earn us forgiveness. Jesus did that work and when you trust in him that completes your faith in terms of the elements of it. No one but born-again believers possess all three elements of faith, and all three elements of faith must be present if anyone is to be saved. If trust is lacking from one's faith, then that faith is deficient. It will not save. And it will prove temporary. That faith will prove temporary. It's different in its nature from saving faith. Temporary faith, for however long it may last, However short or long it may be, while it is present in someone, it's going to look very similar to saving faith. It's gonna look similar to genuine faith. The key distinction is that true faith endures to the end. That's the difference in the nature, the difference in the outcomes of the faith. True faith endures to the end. Therefore, it is possible to describe an apostate as having once been enlightened. They can have the knowledge. The term enlightened does certainly describe, and it's fair to use it to describe, when someone comes to the knowledge of the gospel itself. But it is not so precise to tell us it is someone who has saving faith in addition to that knowledge. I was enlightened at a young age, but I wasn't saved at a young age. It's not a technical term. Being enlightened is not a technical term. In fact, I would argue there has to be some degree of enlightenment for apostasy to even be possible anyway. How can you apostatize from something you don't know? You have to have some degree of enlightenment. They have to know what they're rejecting. If they're rejecting something and walking away, that's what an apostate is. They have to know it. Well, you see in Numbers 24, Balaam is described twice as the man whose eye is opened and having his eyes uncovered. He was enlightened to the truth and the power of God. His oracles are even recorded for us. He spoke by the Spirit. Now, granted, he sort of used like a puppet to make a point there, but he clearly had knowledge and experience of God. supernatural knowledge and supernatural experience of God, and yet he stands specifically in Scripture, repeatedly in the prophetic literature as the example of a wicked man. Balaam is held up like, this guy's bad. Do not be like Balaam. The other phrasing, the tasting of the heavenly gift, it's likewise imprecise in terms of it only being applicable to true believers, it's not. Apostates, before abandoning the church, they freely take the Lord's Supper. They taste of that heavenly gift at the very least. Likewise, the unbelieving Jews in the wilderness tasted of the heavenly manna. Did they not? It fed the entire congregation. It was provided for the just and the unjust alike. The whole nation of Israel got the manna, bread from heaven. Tasting of the heavenly gift is figurative language describing the benefit received from belonging to a blessed community, whether that be the Old Testament community or the New Testament community of the church. One phrase, though, that I think is a little bit less obviously meant in a general sense is, having been made partakers of the Holy Spirit. That gives us pause a little bit more. But I do believe it is legitimate to see this as simply being associated in some way, partnering in some fashion. Maybe they partook of the Holy Spirit by coming under conviction of sin. Holy Spirit brings conviction of sin. Perhaps these early church apostates even had a demon cast out of them. Or they prayed with the entire church for someone's salvation. They partook of that. Or a multiplicity of other similar sins routinely answered by the Holy Spirit. They could have prayed along with the whole church on any number of prayers offered up and therefore partaken of the Holy Spirit. These apostates during their temporary time in the church would have regularly heard preaching and witnessed miracles. And even the apostolic sign gifts that were still present in the early church before the completion of special revelation, before the canon was closed, there were still apostolic sign gifts being practiced. And that being the case, it would of course be fair to say that they had indeed tasted of the good word of God and the powers of the age to come. There's nothing that is precise enough in those words like taste and enlightened to tell us if the person that has experienced them is genuinely saved or not. Because it's not technical language, it's merely descriptive of their experience. That's all the author of the Hebrews is trying to do. It's a descriptive of their experience. The phrases are inconclusive in and of themselves to answer that question of whether or not they're a true believer because they can be used to describe the experience of both true believers and false professors if they're in the church. You're gonna get those things in the church, especially the early church. It's very descriptive of what happens there. So we should not be surprised at all that these phrases sound like they're describing genuine believers. That's pretty much the point. They're trying to describe what looked like true believers. And that's why apostasy is so grievous. It doesn't take many years of being a believer, sadly, before you see apostasy. I guarantee, I mean, we've all seen it. We've all seen apostasy, both at the local level and at the popular level. And every time, we rightfully mourn about it, we never like to see it happen, and then sometimes we'll review what we know of that person's spiritual walk. Like we remember the apparent evidence, like why we're so shocked, man, we saw, I was so convinced of their sincerity. Like why did so-and-so stop believing? How can this be? You know, when you're thinking about their spiritual walk, he was a deacon in the church. Maybe he was an elder in the church, a church officer. He served at the food bank. He visited widows with us. He was so kind. He gave faithfully week after week. He sat under faithful preaching. Maybe he taught Sunday school. Maybe he taught Sunday school really well, and you benefited from their teaching. part of the covenant community. He saw the love and the repentance and the forgiveness and the fellowship that went on here, that he personally received from us. He saw that. He experienced it. How could he have walked away? Or we might say, He was enlightened. He tasted of the heavenly gift. He was here, tasting it with us week after week. He partook of the Holy Spirit. He tasted of the good word of God and the powers of the age to come. The fellowship that unites us. The forgiveness we're able to offer each other. He partook of that. How did he walk away from that? The point of those descriptions is The apostates were fully immersed in the experience of the word and the miracles and the whole practice of the church. They were immersed in it. They knew the truth of the gospel. They had enjoyed the blessings of the church. They had participated in ecclesiastical activities. There's all kinds of collateral benefits that come along with being associated with God's people. especially in the past. And thus, some people profess. They know there's collateral benefits, and some people will profess faith. They'll join us for a time, and then they will depart the church when their fake faith inevitably fails. Because that's what faith does. It inevitably fails. Their nominal Christianity crumbles in the storms of life, the lies of the devil, and the temptations of the world. And how much are we seeing that today? The pressures of the world, those collateral benefits are decreasing more and more, and people are like, eh, I don't see the benefit of being part of the church anymore. It's pretty hard standing against the world. I think I'm going to go along with them. It's a whole lot easier to get along in this world if I'm not being accused of such and such. And that's what happens. Their nominal Christianity crumbles in the face of that. Everyone in the New Covenant professes faith. And everyone participates in New Covenant worship. But not everyone who professes the faith and participates in New Covenant worship is actually in the New Covenant. There's people that profess and worship with us that aren't actually in it. Think again of the unbelieving Jews in the wilderness who had been enlightened. Their firstborn sons were saved when they put the blood on their doorposts at the first Passover. They knew to do it and they did it. They saw the plagues brought on Egypt. They witnessed the utter humiliation of Egypt's gods. They witnessed the powerlessness of Pharaoh, himself considered a deity, but they witnessed his powerlessness to stop the plans of the one true God. He couldn't do anything to stop those plagues. Then they were fed by bread that supernaturally appeared, a literal heavenly gift that they tasted every single day for 40 years. The Jews knew without a shadow of a doubt that Yahweh was real and his promises were true. They were partakers of the Holy Spirit as he revealed the Ten Commandments to Moses. Moses comes down with these tablets of stone written by the finger of God, the Holy Spirit, And they partook of that because they received it. They heard the prophecies revealed by the Spirit to them. They saw Moses' face shine as he came out from meeting with God. They partook of the Holy Spirit in that way. They saw their own people filled with the spirit of craftsmanship when they're instructed to build the first wilderness temple. And God filled certain people with the spirit of craftsmanship to do certain jobs in that temple, and they saw that. Yet, they were not all Israel just because they were descended from Israel. They weren't all really of us. Some of them revealed themselves to have false faith and thus they died in the wilderness and they never entered the promised land, the typological new heavens and new earth. They never entered because their faith was fake. We can likewise think of those described by Christ in Matthew 7. He says, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name cast out demons and in your name perform many miracles? Were we not enlightened? Did we not taste of the heavenly gift? Did we not hear and taste of the good word of God and the powers of the age to come and partake in the Holy Spirit? Right? Doesn't that sound like that? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. Those descriptors can be applied to them, don't you think? They participated. They shared outwardly in the benefits of the covenant. But he says to them, I never knew you. Not, I knew you once and then you departed from me. That's not what he says. He says, I never knew you. There wasn't a time in which you were known by me, God. They weren't known by God and were saved, but then became never known. That's impossible. Once you're known, you can't be never known. Fake faith. doesn't save, and it shows itself to be fake, not necessarily by the quality of it, because it can look very real. It shows itself to be fake by its lack of endurance. So even though those phrases in verses four through six may at first glance appear to refer to true believers, it's really only referring to professing believers. And all professing believers are not necessarily saved. Some will go out from us because they're not really of us. But all of us are going to be enlightened and partake of the Holy Spirit and taste of the good word of God and the heavenly gifts. One other way we can be convinced of this understanding is by looking at the many qualities that are indisputably applied to true believers in the book of Hebrews. You'll see that none of these characteristics I'm about to list off are used of apostates in Hebrews 6. And I must say, I'm indebted here to Wayne Grudem, who wrote a chapter in a book called Still Sovereign, Contemporary Perspectives on Election for Knowledge and Grace. So he has a title or a chapter in that book called Perseverance of the Saints, a case study from the warning passages in Hebrews. It's really good. I can recommend it to you. I've got it electronically if you want a copy of it. But there's a list in there compiled of this is how Hebrews speaks of true believers. The author of Hebrews describes genuine Christians, and this is indisputable in terms of this applies to genuine Christians, as having their sins forgiven by God, having their conscience cleansed by God. God has written the law on their hearts. God is producing holiness in them. God has given them an unshakable kingdom. God is pleased with them. They have faith. They have hope. They have love. They worship and pray. They obey God. They persevere. They enter God's rest. They know God. They are God's house, his children, his people. They share in Christ and they will receive future salvation. That's how Hebrews speaks of true believers. And that's not how the people in verses four through six are described. None of those are used of them there. What we read in verses four through six is not talking about who these people were that fell away. It's talking about what they experienced before they fell away. And everything that we see that they experienced is present in the church. So anyone that comes to the church can experience the things described in verses four through six. It is possible to be tied up with a community filled with the spirit, even if an individual himself is not filled with the spirit. Think of Judas. He's as close to the Son of God as you can be. He's one of the 12. He didn't lose his salvation. He was the son of perdition. He didn't have it and then lose it. He was the son of perdition. But he seemed legit at the time, did he not? When Jesus says, one of you is gonna betray me, they weren't all like, I bet it's gonna be Judas. No, they're like, is it me, Lord? Is it me? And they're looking around. Everybody here seems to have genuine faith, yet one is an apostate. He was never really of them. This text, then, in Hebrews 6, is a warning for us to persevere in the faith. And there's several other similar warnings in the book of Hebrews. And these warnings are used by God as a means to preserve us. He uses the warnings as a means to preserve us. Just like any warning given is a means to protect, right? When we tell our kids not to cross the road, it's a warning to protect their life. Think of any danger label. Think of a high voltage electrical line. It serves as a mean to prevent them from being touched, to save their life. If you touch these lines, you're gonna be electrocuted, it's gonna hurt really bad, and then you're gonna die. So don't touch them. And that warning sign stands as a means to tell people, communicate to them, don't touch those or you will die. And therefore they don't touch them because they don't wanna die. It's a means. The only difference is that God's warnings to his sheep are a means of grace. and God's grace is effectual for his sheep. Those warnings work on us because we believe him and we listen to him. Now, immediately following this warning in verses four through six is this clarifying analogy in verses seven through eight. It says, for ground that drinks the rain, which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful for those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God. So land that brings forth fruit, receives a blessing from God. But if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed and ends up being burned. So there's two types of land described. You got two types of land and both of them receive rain. One produces vegetation, and thus it receives God's blessing, and the other produces thorns and thistles, and is close to being cursed by God and burned. So we see that in the church, both true and false believers, false believers, future apostates, they both are exposed to the things of God. They both receive the rain. If you think of the word of God as rain falling on all of us, you're all sitting here. Anyone that comes in this room is gonna receive it. The word of God is falling down on us like rain. But true believers have the fruit of the Spirit produced in them, and false believers produce weeds and eventually apostasy. The quality of the land is revealed by what it produces from the rain. The fruitless land was never formerly fruitful land and became fruitless land. It is a land that yields worthless weeds. That fruitless land, that's the nature of it. It produces worthless weeds, thorns and thistles. And fake faith will produce apostasy. It will reveal itself. Like John said, they will go out from us to show that they were never really of us. How can you identify fake faith? Because it goes out from us. It does not endure. The bad land will produce thorns and thistles to show that it was never really useful land. So the author's analogy is helpful in confirming our interpretation. What I think is the hardest question to answer in this text is not necessarily what we've been talking about, but it is What does it mean that no apostates, does it mean that no apostates can ever repent and be saved? Because it says there, it's impossible to renew them again to repentance. That is a very difficult question to answer. But the passage seems to indicate that at least some apostasy is so severe in renouncing Christ that there's no salvation left for those that commit it. Remember that the audience here is Jews. He's writing to Hebrews, right? It's the book of Hebrews. He's writing to Hebrews. And the apostates here are potentially returning to Judaism. Specifically, a Judaism that rejects Jesus as the Christ, even though they acknowledge that they're waiting for the Christ. And they say, Jesus wasn't Him. That's what they would be apostatizing to. Directly rejecting Christ. Jesus wasn't the Christ. So they would be reverting to a position that justified the murder of Christ. and for being a blasphemer, for saying he was the Son of God and the Christ, but he wasn't. That's what they would be reverting to. They would necessarily be saying that Jesus was a liar who co-opted and corrupted the faith rather than fulfilled it. That's what their apostasy would have amounted to. And our author describes that as crucifying once again the Son of God because it would treat him with the utter contempt and rejection he experienced at the crucifixion. If you're a believer professing now, and you've been enlightened, and you've participated in this, and you go back and you reject it, you're saying, I don't love Jesus enough. His work didn't actually save, or I don't need to be saved. He was just some guy that made these claims, and it's worthless. I reject it. The greatest gift ever given, and you're saying it's garbage. And the author of Hebrews says, you're treating him with utter contempt and rejection. The same rejection and contempt he was treated with at his crucifixion. That's why apostates are subject to more severe judgment because they have received enormous external blessing in participating in the church. The severity of their apostasy is because they have full consciousness of the gospel and extensive experience in the church and in the supernatural. And yet they reject everything about which they had been enlightened. Now I don't think that all apostasy is necessarily equal. I don't think this text in those verses is describing every apostate. It's not saying every apostate apostatized from this level of enlightenment. So I don't think that every single person that departs the church does so permanently or has experienced everything described there in verses four through six. Verses four through six are describing someone that was very involved. Very much committed. But the point, though, does seem that there is an apostasy that is so severe because of their previous knowledge that we see described in verses four through six, that the person who then does it is so hardened as to never be renewed to repentance. Essentially, they are turned over to their sin by God as a curse. I think it's analogous here to the unpardonable sin. I don't think this is the unpardonable sin, but I think it's analogous to it. So in the unpardonable sin, the Pharisees knew Jesus was performing miracles. They knew he was doing these supernatural acts. And they knew he was doing it by the power of the Holy Spirit specifically, because there's no other way he could have been doing it. But they were so opposed to him that they still rejected him as the Christ in spite of what they knew to be true. The level of apostasy being described. They know it and they still reject it. And if you know something that well and still reject it, it's like, you're done. You can't know more. We can't tell you more. There's not like a piece that you missed about this. You get it and you're saying, no, you're done. That's the level of apostasy being described. These people have been enlightened. They know, they saw the real work of the Holy Spirit and they still apostatized. Such ones will not return to the church. Their hardening is seemingly permanent. Now, that does not change our approach to apostates in general, because we don't know which apostates are so hardened. Just like the doctrine of unconditional election, it doesn't change our approach to evangelism to everyone, because we don't know who's elect. And the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints doesn't stop us from warning believers because we don't know who's faking it. So we still offer the warnings as a means to everyone. We offer the gospel as a means to everyone. And we still evangelize apostates because we don't know which ones are so hardened. We still issue these warnings. And while we're on the subject of how we practice this, I will ask, has anyone seen an Arminian who applied this text consistently? they avoid evangelizing anyone that's apostate. Have you seen any one of them do that? Because they say that these are believers that have fallen away and that means they can't be saved ever. Have you ever seen an Arminian say, I'm not gonna evangelize that apostate, I'm not gonna call them back to the church because they were once a believer, they once professed faith? I haven't. But if they were consistent, They should treat every single formerly-professing Christian as completely irredeemable. Now, thankfully, they don't. But it, again, shows the inconsistency of the position. Now, obviously, this is a battleground text. And we are spending a completely imbalanced amount of time on the first half of this chapter. It takes most of our attention, right? And if this were a regular sermon series instead of this one-off week, then this whole chapter would likely, we'd break it into several weeks and each one of it would, each portion would get a lot more attention. So this look at Hebrews 6 today is insufficient in comparison to regularly preaching through the book of Hebrews and through this chapter even. But a lot of what gets said in the second half of this chapter is worthy of more attention, worthy of more attention than we're giving it today. And providentially for us, it's not at all ambiguous. It doesn't need the in-depth explanation we heard on the earlier verses that somewhat serve as the quintessential signature passage of Hebrews 6. If you talk about Hebrews 6 to anybody, we all think, oh, the verse is about falling away. What's that all about? That's kind of the quintessential Hebrews 6 passage. But it's a shame, really, because the warning passage in the first half of Hebrews 6 is followed by one of the strongest preservation passages, and it's simply glorious. The end of this chapter is glorious. You will see that its clarity is self-evident. And luckily for me, it basically stands without explanation. I don't need to give you a lot of explanation on this second half. I could basically just give it to you word for word and you're going to be like, oh yeah, I get it. Because what happens is once the author to the Hebrews has finished addressing apostates, he turned to those that he is convinced will remain faithful as true believers. He assures them that God remembers their good works and he implies that those good works should help them to realize full assurance of their enduring salvation. And in keeping with his new theme of assurance, That new theme of assurance is intentionally meant to contrast with the warning that he gave in the first half. But he cites then the promise to Abraham, that Abraham received from God, that promise specifically. And his point being that when God did that, he literally swore by his own name. God swore to God or in the name of God because there's no one higher by which he could swear. And he swore to himself or in the name of himself that he would bless Abraham. And the author of the Hebrews wants us to know, you, you who I'm convinced will endure, you who I'm talking about true believers, you likewise possess a promise from God of future salvation. And it is so sure that God offered that hope to us in an oath. God made an oath, and he did that in an effort to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of his purpose. Interposed with an oath that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast, and one which enters within the veil where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. Now other chapters in Hebrew speak more about the order of Melchizedek. We're not going to cover that at all, but the rest of that passage is clear. I basically read it to you word for word, and I don't think you need much help in knowing this is an encouragement, this is an anchor to the soul, it is sure and steadfast, God does not lie when he promises to save, his purpose is unchangeable. It's self-explanatory. It is unmistakably encouraging for all those who practice the Christian faith. Our good works ought to stand as evidence of the type of land that we are. If I can borrow from that previous analogy, the type of land that we are, because look at the fruit produced in us when the rain falls on us. That shows us the type of land that we are, that we're not fruitless land. We don't produce thorns and thistles, we produce vegetation, useful vegetation. Not because we've made ourselves good enough, we didn't self-fertilize ourselves and turn our land into a useful land ourselves. It is because the Spirit of God has wrought in us a change to our very natures. So that when we receive the reign of God's Word, the fruits of the Spirit spring forth naturally from us. There are better things in store for us. Things that accompany salvation. God's blessing that is guaranteed to those who remain faithful. This surety is rooted in His very nature. It's not sure because of you. It's sure because of who God is, his unchangeableness, his immutability, his impassibility, his inability to lie. When he says he's gonna save you, and he says that I'm gonna keep you, he does not lie, he can't be wrong. How often do we worship God for his inability? It's kind of a weird thought. But we do. We worship him for his inability to change, his inability to lie. He's not able to lie. He's not able to stop being holy. He's not able to not be God. God can't just one day say, that's it, I'm done, I'm not God anymore. It's impossible. And thus, his promises are not able to fail because he can't make a promise and not fulfill it. So our hope in the realization of his promise is an anchor to our soul. We will not make shipwreck of our faith, because his promise that we won't will not fail. We are an invincible people. Our bodies they may kill, but they are unable to destroy the soul. And Jesus says, have no fear for those who can kill your body. They can't destroy your soul. We're going to live forever. We have nothing to fear, no reason to doubt. God does not fail. He does not lie. We have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. It is sure and steadfast. The warnings we read about at the beginning are for the nominal Christians without a heart that is fully committed to the Son of God, and thus, they put him to open shame through their inevitable departure from the faith. We as believers, on the other hand, are set in contrast to them. We are directed to hope and surety and joy and rest because the savior we are trusting in does not fail to save. The redeemer in whom we take refuge does not fail to redeem. The deliverer in whom we hope does not fail to deliver. The shepherd who we follow does not fail to protect. The high priest who we worship does not fail to offer a sacrifice pleasing to the Lord. Our salvation is better because our God is better. And that is the assurance the author of the Hebrews wants us to have. Amen and amen. Let's pray. Our great and holy God, you have presented to us today a glimpse of your coming wrath a potential curse and the burning of land, but as well as that, you have presented to us your unshakable mercy. We pray that your word would do its work. May the fearful warning that we heard in Hebrews 6 cut to the core any nominal faith Christian who is participating in the church, but who is not truly trusting in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We pray, Lord, that you would terrify their soul by those warnings, rob them of sleep, distress their conscience, and break their foolish pride. Not because we desire their suffering, not because we want their life to be rough, but because we desire their repentance. Save any potential apostates amongst us. But for those of us who are truly saved by you, Lord, assure us of our hope. strengthen our faith, make us sure and steadfast. May the confidence that we see from the author of Hebrews of our salvation be just as present in us. We pray that as the rain of your good word falls upon us, that we will bring forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake we have been tilled. May that fruit of the Spirit grant us all the more joy and rest that you are working in us to both will and to work for your good pleasure. Thank you, Lord, for an invincible life. Thank you for this assurance that you offer for us. Thank you for an anchor for our souls. We pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our faith. Amen.