Let's turn in our Bibles to Hebrews 6. Last week, we began to look at a warning. We looked primarily at Hebrews 6, verses 4 and 5. And this morning, we're going to continue on to verse 6. So let's begin by reading the passage. And we're going to start in verse 4, and we'll read through verse 8. Hebrews 6, beginning with verse 4. For it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding Him up to contempt. For land that has drunk the rain, that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned. It's a sobering warning that we have here, and it's something that we need to take seriously. But to do that, we must begin with understanding what it's really saying. So that's what we're going to attempt to continue to do this morning. I'd like to begin by reviewing the things that we covered last week because they lay a foundation for what we're going to get into in verse six. The first thing that we covered last Sunday was the purpose of this warning. And we used the kind of warning signs that we see on the road as an illustration. The yellow diamond-shaped signs that alert you when something potentially dangerous lies ahead. And we considered, what is the purpose of these signs? And we decided that the purpose is not as some kind of test. to find out who's a good driver and who's a bad driver based on who manages to navigate the danger successfully. Nor is the purpose to fill you, the driver, with fear or doubt about what's coming, or about your prospects for making it through safely. The purpose of these warning signs is to give you the information that you need to get through safely. There's a windy road coming, so you need to pay attention and drive appropriately. The same is true with this warning in Hebrews. The purpose is not as a test so that we can find out who's truly saved and who's not. And the purpose of the warning is not to fill you with doubt and fear about your salvation. The purpose of the warning, the reason the writer included it here, is to give you the information that you need to get safely through the danger. It's like the road sign. You need to pay attention and proceed appropriately. The second thing that we covered last week, and this is where we spent most of our time, had to do with the descriptions of these individuals. These are the people described in verses four and five, and who then fell away in verse six. Now that doesn't mean that everyone who is described this way is necessarily going to fall away. but there's potential for it. And that is the danger that we're warned against here. So there are four descriptions in these verses. First, they have once been enlightened. Second, they've tasted the heavenly gift. Third, they have shared in the Holy Spirit. And finally, they have tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the age to come. And the thing that we noted about each of these is that they describe experience, not transformation. Now notice what it does not say. It does not say it is impossible in the case of those who were once born again, who received a new nature in Christ, who are being transformed into the likeness of Christ and then have fallen away. That would be a transformation. That is what happens in the life of every true believer. They're born again. They receive a new nature. At the moment, they're saved. And then they continue to be transformed into Christ-likeness throughout the rest of their lives. It doesn't describe these individuals this way because people who are transformed don't fall away. Not in the way that doesn't allow for repentance. So these are the two main points that we covered last week that we want to keep in mind as we move forward now into verse 6. First, the purpose of the warning is to give us the information that we need to get safely through the danger. And second, the people in question are described according to their experience, not according to a transformation. Now, that's not to say that experiences are a bad thing. In fact, they are a good and necessary thing to have in our lives. But if they don't come with transformation, don't accomplish anything. Transformation, not experience, is the mark of one who is truly saved. So in verses 4 and 5, the writer began his warning by describing a group of people according to their experience. They experienced enlightenment. That is, they understood the gospel. They sampled. They tasted and shared in many of the good things that God gives. And then, in the beginning of verse six, the writer continues his description, and he narrows down this group of people that he's referring to. He says that they experienced all these things, and then have fallen away. So it's really a comparison that he's making here. In verses four and five, these experiences are all good, positive things. In verse six, there's a problem though. Falling away is not good. So he's weighing these things against each other. On one side, you have these lofty experiences. On the other side, just three words. They've been enlightened, they've tasted the heavenly gift, they shared in the Holy Spirit, they tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then, and there's our pivot point, and then have fallen away. He wrote all these positive things about them and about their experience, and the only thing that weighs against it is that they've fallen away. And he does this, in the way that he does it, to show the magnitude of what it means to fall away, to show us how serious it is. flip over in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 13 for a moment. It's a familiar passage to many of you. Here, the Apostle Paul uses this same rhetorical technique to show how great love is. He also has a comparison On one side, you have all of these lofty things. These things that anyone would recognize as incredible works. But weighed against them, they have not love. And the lack of love outweighs everything else. Listen to it. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love. If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body up to be burned, but have not love. On one side, all of these amazing feats And on the other, three words, repeated three times, have not love. The love is more important than everything else combined. In fact, all of this activity and accomplishment is nothing without love. Just a noisy gong. or a clanging cymbal. And Paul shows us that and emphasizes that using this rhetorical technique. He loads up one side with all of these impressive things and then, have not love, cancels it all out. So the writer of Hebrews does the same kind of thing in Hebrews 6. All of these lofty things appear on one side, who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, and who have tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the age to come. And it all amounts to nothing for those who have fallen away. And so in this, we see another distinguishing mark of those who are truly saved. Last week, the transformation that we saw, the mark of the true believer that we saw was transformation. Here, we see that another mark is perseverance. True believers persevere. There's a doctrine that's called perseverance of the saints. We believe it. We teach it here at Trinity Bible Church. It's part of our statement of faith, which you can find on our website. Under perseverance, it says, we believe that all who are regenerated, called, and justified shall persevere in holiness and never finally fall away. Now, that verbiage isn't original with us. A lot of churches and other organizations use the same language, and I believe it shows up in a couple of the confessions. But it accurately expresses what we believe, and so we have adopted it. And notice, it does not say that you can go to heaven regardless of whether or not you persevere. It says that those who are saved, who are regenerated, that is, who are born again of the Spirit of God, who have been called by God, and who are justified based on the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ in His death, they, they will persevere in holiness, and they will never finally fall away. The doctrine that we hold to is that they will persevere. Now, baked into this teaching is that true believers who have been regenerated, called, and justified have eternal security. They will not lose their salvation. But the way, the way that God keeps them secure is by causing them to persevere. The perseverance is a necessary part of the doctrine. Now, you might read this or hear this and wonder, what's the word finally in there for? They shall never finally fall away. That suggests that there is a way to fall that isn't final. And yes, that's what we believe. Every time that we sin, it's a kind of falling. And there are many times when that's more than just a momentary lapse. But we believe that those who are truly saved will be restored to repentance. Well, that's our statement of faith. And we believe that it faithfully expresses the teaching of God's word. But I don't want to teach from a statement of faith. I want to teach from God's word. So back to our text. It's clear from what we read in Hebrews in chapter six, verse six, that there is at least a kind of falling away that there's no coming back from. It says that what's impossible is that when these have fallen away, in whatever way it means here, it's impossible to restore them again to repentance. And then it says why? Because in this case, they would be, in some sense, crucifying once again the Son of God. So clearly, there is a falling away that's final. There's no coming back from it. What's not clear in this passage, is whether that includes everything that could reasonably be called falling away, or is it just a certain kind of falling away? Is there a kind of falling away that does allow for repentance and restoration? So let's consider what other scripture has to say about that. Are there clear examples of people falling away, in any sense, and then being restored? The answer is yes, there are. And David may be the most obvious one. He lusted after another man's wife, a woman named Bathsheba. And then he committed adultery with her while her husband, Uriah, was away fighting as a soldier in David's army. When she became pregnant, and David would have been exposed, because there was no way that it could have been her absent husband's child, David made arrangements to have him killed in battle, so that he could take Bathsheba as his wife. By the time that God sent Nathan, the prophet, to confront David for coveting and for adultery and for lying and for murder, the baby had already been born. So it was at least nine months that he had been living with all of this sin and possibly a year or more. That obviously is a kind of falling away. But David did repent. In 2 Samuel 12, verse 13, it says, David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And God accepted his repentance and forgave him. And Nathan said to David, the Lord also has put away your sin and you shall not die. But you say, that's Old Testament. Maybe this is a New Testament thing, now that we have the full revelation of Jesus and what he did on our behalf. Okay then, John Mark. John Mark accompanied Paul and Barnabas as they set off on Paul's first missionary journey. But it wasn't long, it wasn't far into the journey before John Mark abandoned them. And to Paul, this was so serious that later on he separated from Barnabas when Barnabas wanted to include John Mark again on their next journey. So this was at least some kind of falling away and one that the apostle saw as a serious breach. But eventually, there was restoration. In Paul's final letter, his second letter to Timothy, he writes in chapter four, verse 11, Luke alone is with me. Get Mark, that is John Mark, and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry. Clearly, Paul would not have found him useful if he had not been restored. Jesus even taught about this. The parable of the prodigal son has application here. The younger son clearly had tasted the goodness of what his father had to offer. He shared in the blessings of the household, and yet he deliberately walked away from it. He took his inheritance and left and squandered everything. And then, when he came to his senses, he repented and he returned home. And not only did his father, who represents God in the parable, not only did his father accept him back, he ran to meet him and embraced him and he threw a party to welcome him home. Finally, there's the immoral brother in Corinth. Paul addressed this situation in 1 Corinthians chapter 5. This man was living in an incestuous relationship with his father's wife. And Paul insisted that the church take action and put this man out of the church. Clearly, this man had fallen far Paul makes it clear that restoration is possible. And not just possible, it is the goal of their church discipline. You are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, Paul writes in verse 5, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. Salvation was still available. And indeed, if he truly repented, he would be restored. And apparently he did. He did repent. In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul asked them to welcome this man back into the fellowship. So there are plenty of examples in Scripture of people engaging in what we would have to consider serious falls from grace, who were once again restored to repentance. The question then is, how do we understand this fallen away in Hebrews chapter 6? What makes it different in a way that it's impossible to be restored to repentance when this happens? Now, there have been a lot of attempts to strictly define this throughout the years, to draw a clear line or understand exactly what it is that would be disqualifying. Tertullian was an early church father. He suggested that it was specifically the sin of adultery or fornication, that if a Christian committed adultery, there was no forgiveness for that. It may be that he was influenced by Hebrews 12, where in verse 16 it says that Esau was sexually immoral. And then in verse 17, he, Esau, found no chance to repent, even though he sought it with tears. But in this passage, the sexual immorality wasn't even the sin that Esau wanted to repent of. It was selling his birthright. That's what he wanted back. And there's nothing in Hebrews 6 to suggest any of this at all. Now, others have suggested that because these were Jewish Christians who had formerly worshipped as Jews who rejected Jesus as their Messiah, that the falling away must have been returning to a Christ-less version of Judaism. returning to the sacrifices, the ceremonial laws, the looking to earn your salvation by keeping the law. And after leaving this Christless version of Judaism and coming to the true fulfillment of the law, who is Christ Jesus, to then forsake Jesus. And that, some would suggest, would leave them beyond repentance. But again, the text doesn't say that. If that's what the writer meant, he would have written it. But he didn't. Now, it comes closer to the text to say that what's in view here is apostasy. Apostasy is abandonment or repudiation of belief or of faith. And based on the context here, it's pretty clear that some form of abandoning is in view. I'm not sure that that gets us any closer to understanding this, though, than just saying, fallen away. You fall away, you abandon, you repudiate, you apostatize. And there's a danger, I believe, when we start to define apostasy too narrowly. Some suggest that apostasy requires a declaration that you are rejecting Christ, that you no longer believe, and that you repudiate everything that you once confessed. They're essentially saying you can do anything. You can willfully sin. You can abuse God's grace. You can make a mockery of Christ's sacrifice by your blatant disregard for righteousness. But as long as you continue to claim faith, as long as you say you believe, then this, in Hebrews 6, doesn't apply to you. They say, that's dangerous because the text doesn't make fallen away that narrow. The truth is, it's not very specific at all. And I believe it's intentionally non-specific. The purpose of this warning is, as we said last week and earlier this morning, to give us the information that we need to safely travel this road. Then drawing specific lines may not be the best way to do that. In fact, it may even be detrimental. If we go back to the illustration that we used earlier of warning signs on a road, sometimes you'll notice they'll include a suggested speed, a speed that may be appropriate for handling the danger. There will be a curve coming up, and the sign will suggest 35 miles an hour, for instance. But there are other things that need to be considered. Road conditions, traffic, the capabilities of the vehicle that you're driving. And if you drive the speed they suggest, but don't consider anything else, And if you don't adjust your driving in any other way, you may still have a problem. Simply following the suggested speed in a mechanical or legalistic way may not avoid the danger. And then when you have an accident, you say, but I did what the sign said. I drove the limit they suggested. But in this case, it wasn't all that was needed. There wasn't a simple rule, drive 35, that was going to get you through. The same thing is true here. There's no simple rule that says, as long as you do this or don't do this, you'll be fine. I can't tell you where apostasy starts, but I will tell you this, and this is what you need to take away from this. Apostasy is the reaction of a heart, of a person who understood the gospel and experienced the goodness of God, maybe for a short time, maybe for a long time. but was never truly transformed. So in time, that untransformed, unregenerate heart asserts itself, and it begins to abandon this semblance of allegiance to Christ. Now, that could manifest in a lot of different ways. In one person, it might be outright, public repudiation of faith in Jesus. One where a person leaves no doubt that he wants nothing to do with Jesus anymore. another person might abandon Christ by their actions, even while still claiming the benefits of salvation by grace through faith in Christ, when in fact they want nothing to do with that salvation in this life in any meaningful way. Still another person may manage to maintain an outward appearance of godliness and say all of the right things, but they have no desire for the people of God, for the body of Christ. And in another person, their abandonment may just manifest in their attitudes. Apostasy may manifest in your speech, in your actions, in your thoughts, in your attitudes, in all of the above, in just one of those things. And it can be really difficult to distinguish between apostasy, the kind of falling away that's in view here in Hebrews, and the ongoing battle with the flesh that every believer faces. Some true believers may experience seasons of defeat. We see it both in Scripture and we see it in people we know. Maybe you've experienced in your own life. Someone can fall away, perhaps for years, and then be restored to repentance. And yet, during that period of time, that sin for a season is indistinguishable to us from apostasy. Let me say that again, because this is important. Sin for a season, when it's happening, is indistinguishable to us from apostasy. And that is the information that we need from this warning to avoid the danger that lies ahead. Because if you're even starting to fall away, in any sense, you need to strive for repentance, to call on the name of the Lord to rescue you, whatever your state may actually be. That's the point of the warning. You can't mess around with this. You must pay attention to the dangers, and then you must navigate appropriately. Which is to say, you must live your life in a way that is consistent with the gospel, submitting to the Holy Spirit's sanctifying work in your life. If you've been transformed, then let him continue to transform you into the likeness of Christ. That's how you can know that you will come through the dangers safely. Okay, there's one more thing that I want to cover in this verse before we transition into the Lord's Supper and into our remembrance of the Lord's death. And this deals with the Lord's death. It says that the reason it is impossible for them to have fallen away and then to restore them to repentance is because they are crucifying, once again, the Son of God. Now, the way that this is often explained is that there are only two states that a person can be in in this life. Either you're redeemed, transformed, and reconciled to God, or you're lost, still in your sin, part of this world, and an enemy of God. And if you're the latter, then in that enmity toward God, you are part of those who reject Christ, who would persecute Him, and who would crucify Him all over again. Now that's certainly true. And when you consider the final two phrases of the verse, to their own harm and holding him up to contempt, it fits there. When you abuse his grace, you are making a mockery of what he did. And you do so at your own peril. But there's something more going on here than just that. The writer of Hebrews, later on in this book, makes much of Jesus' sacrifice being a once-for-all sacrifice. Unlike the Old Testament sacrifices of bulls and of lambs, Jesus' sacrifice didn't repeat over and over. He died once, and it was sufficient to pay the penalty for all sin. There is no need for another sacrifice. But this truth about it being a once-for-all sacrifice has implications that go beyond his only needing to die once. Look at what it says in Hebrews 9, beginning in verse 25. It says, For Christ has entered into the holy places, not into the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. It says he entered into heaven. So this is something that occurs in heaven after the cross. And it continues, nor was it to offer himself repeatedly as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. And here we see the once for all nature of his sacrifice. It says that he does not offer the sacrifice while he's in heaven repeatedly, like they offered sacrifices in the Old Testament. The Old Testament model is that you sin and then you offer a sacrifice. which at least symbolically covers your sin. And then you sin again, and you offer a new sacrifice, and the cycle continues endlessly. That's not the case with Jesus' sacrifice. Once his sacrifice is applied on your behalf, it covers your sins once for all. It's not just that Jesus never needs to die again, but the sacrifice never needs to be applied again in this redeeming way that brings justification and regeneration and adoption and reconciliation. It's a once for all sacrifice both in that he only had to die once and that it only needs to be applied to you once. In fact, it says that if he were going to present the sacrifice repeatedly, that then he would also need to suffer repeatedly. Essentially, To come to Christ and then to abandon Him, that is to apostatize, and then to return to Him, to be redeemed and re-justified and re-adopted and re-regenerated all over again would require Him to die all over again. And that's not gonna happen. He continues. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. This is what the writer is referring to back in Hebrews 6 when he says that they are crucifying once again the Son of God. At least, that's what they're attempting to do. Now, there's much, much more that we could say about this, and we will say it when we come to chapters nine and 10, perhaps in a few months, if the Lord wills. Now, I want to turn our focus fully toward the once-for-all death that our Lord Jesus Christ did die. Earlier in the sermon, We looked at a couple of comparisons in which much was piled up on one side and set against a single thing on the other. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul set all this lofty activity and accomplishment against love to show that love outweighed all of it. In Hebrews 6, grand Christian experience is set against falling away, to show that perseverance is much more important than any experience and outweighs it. I want to make another comparison, where much is piled up on one side and set against a single sacrifice. Consider the amount of sin that you have committed in your life. Every time that you have transgressed the law of God, every evil thought, every selfish act, every thoughtless word, all of it an affront to a holy God. Galatians 5 contains one list of sins. It ranges from sexual immorality and impurity to jealousy, fits of anger, rivalry. We're all guilty of something on this list, of many things on the list, many, many times over throughout the course of our lives. Now, multiply that by 100 billion. That is a conservative estimate for how many people have lived since God created the world 6,000 years ago. And it may be twice that many. 100 billion people, every one of them guilty before God of rebelling against him and doing things that he hates. Every single one of these individual sins deserves the outpouring of God's wrath. If you create a division with your brother, that is worthy of God's wrath. If you envy or lost your temper, that is worthy of God's wrath. Multiply that by everything you've ever done wrong, and then by a hundred billion people, and that is the cumulative wrath that was stored up for mankind. And against all of that is set the death of the Lord Jesus. When he died, the wrath of the father was poured out on him. And the price that he paid when he endured that wrath was sufficient to pay the penalty for all the sins of the world. It was no ordinary death. He suffered beyond anything that we could ever comprehend. If you die in your sin, apart from Christ, then you will know the wrath of God for the sin of one person. Jesus experienced that wrath 100 billion fold, and that is no exaggeration. His once for all death was greater than all sin. And he asked us to remember, to remember his death. And he gave us a way to do so. He gave us this bread and he gave us this cup. The bread represents his body, and he laid it down for us when he died for us. The cup represents his blood. He shed it for us, because forgiveness of sin requires the shedding of blood. He did this once for all, and he asked us to remember. He asks this of believers, to those who have been transformed, those He redeemed and justified and regenerated and reconciled by His death. If that's you, then He asks you to do this, and we invite you to participate with us in this this morning. But do it in a worthy manner, remembering what He did what He endured, what He overcame, what He accomplished.