to our New Testament passage. It's Hebrews chapter 6. Very solemn passage that we have before us today about these things that we've already been looking at somewhat. Last week, we looked at the first three verses of chapter 6 as we had gotten to it. We saw that we have a wonderful foundation of faith that is presented there on which we are to build our Christian lives. We were admonished to go on to perfection, becoming all that God has called us to be upon that foundation. of the basic foundation, the elements of our faith, the basic elements of our faith. We saw that it is the same foundation, in fact, in essence, that the Jews had. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as counted to him for righteousness. And so all the Old Testament people, by faith, believed in the promises of God and the mercy of God. We saw the elements of it. Repentance from dead works. If you look at the passage there in chapter 6 and the first three verses there. Repentance from dead works coupled with faith in God who promises to save us from our sins. That was what they had in the Old Testament. You need to repent and trust in God for your salvation. With this are the ordinances that God has given to His people in the church that He has appointed to point us to that promised salvation. He's appointed them in the community of His people. So the various baptisms are all kinds of washings and purification rites in the Old Testament. And now we have one baptism that the church has been given, and that is baptism in the triune God, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now that Jesus has come, where we see that God promises to cleanse us from our sins, to pardon us, and to transform us, to give us a new heart, to cleanse our hearts. by His Holy Spirit and the laying on of hands that represents the gifting that God gives to those that He anoints to serve Him. Prophets, priests, and kings were anointed. Jesus is our prophet, priest, and king. He is called the Anointed One, the Christ. And hands were laid on the people in the New Testament representing the gifts that are given to them. When we ordain someone to office and we lay hands on them, that sort of thing. And this is all pointing to the fact that God is at work in His people by His Spirit in order to connect them with Him by His grace. And then the hope of the resurrection of the dead and the certainty that God will judge us and either reward or punish us forever. That's another aspect of the ancient faith that goes all the way back, Old Testament and New Testament. The basics of the faith on which we are to build our lives. We consider that now that Christ has come, this foundation has been, could I say, escalated. It has been enhanced. This foundation has shown to be more than we ever knew that it was because Jesus Christ has come. It has been beautifully and powerfully enhanced for us because God has sent His Son that He promised. All the elements that are in that foundation are brought to a fullness, and a completeness, and a certainty, and a beauty that was impossible for us to understand before God had manifested His Son as the One who is the the head of the covenant, and the one who brings redemption to us. Now we see not only that we need to repent, which God's people always knew, but we see that we need to repent in a major way because only the Son of God was able to atone for our sins. We see the depth of our need more than we ever did before in the holiness of God. And we also see our faith in God's provision is enhanced because we see that God gave His only begotten Son. And of course, they knew God was going to provide, that they couldn't provide in the Old Testament, and that they had all their rituals that pointed to that. But we've seen now what He's done. So the foundation is much greater. And so anyone in the New Testament time that doesn't confess Jesus Christ doesn't know God and His salvation because they haven't received the revelation that God has given now in His Son. Now, there was a transition time for the Jews. Some of the Jews, when Jesus came, already had true faith. in the Old Testament way. And it was the same faith. As soon as they learned of the Messiah, then they were delighted and they welcomed Him. You remember Simeon and Anna in the temple that were delighted because they were looking for that promised redemption. And we see that God has done the unthinkable and has given us his son to be the offering for our sin. This foundation is so much richer and so much fuller, the foundation upon which we are established. for our relationship with God than we ever could have envisioned. We see not only does He give us baptism, but that this baptism is accomplished by the Holy Spirit, who actually unites us to Jesus our Savior and His virtue and His saving grace so that we are pardoned through union with Him and so that we are changed through union with Him and given new life, and the gifts that He gives to us that we're able to serve one another by this Spirit. He's poured out His Spirit now. But as far as the resurrection, that has been enhanced in our understanding. Because now it's not just a promise that yeah, there's going to be a resurrection to come, but we see that our head has already been resurrected. He has gone ahead of us and He has shown us in a concrete way what this resurrection entails. And we now will follow after Him. All of these things. And the judgment. He is the one. The Lord Jesus Christ now, who has been revealed among us, is the one who is coming to judge the living and the dead. And we see that that judgment is very, very real. It is stronger. The reward and punishment is more than we had ever known before Jesus was revealed. So when he comes, you see, the only way we can know God is through Christ revealed. It was always that way, but he was known of old through shadows. Now he is known as the one who has come and who has done these things that have been set before our eyes. So in Hebrews 5, you see, we were admonished about being dull of hearing, which will keep us from growing and going on to perfection. We have this enhancement of this foundation then that chapter 6 talks about. And if we're dull of hearing, it means very little to us. We look at... and it doesn't really affect us. Here in chapter 6, we're urged, go on to perfection on this salvation. That's the overall admonition here. Grow on this foundation. Become what God has called you to be in your Lord Jesus Christ. As we saw, the author of Hebrews wants to set before the people things that will help them to grow. And he says, you're dull of hearing. You won't be able to receive it because it's not going to even register. You have to go back and learn the basics again. You're not even there. So he's admonishing them this way. He says, we will do this. We will go on. We're going to go forward and we will go on to perfection if God permits. That's what we saw last time at the end. Without God, we can't do this. We can't do anything. But prayer is needed. Faith. Dependence upon Him. You cannot grow in your own effort and your own strength. You need to look to the Lord. So in today's text then, we're confronted with the strongest possible warning about rejecting all of this. It's a warning that we keep seeing in Hebrews, because the Hebrews were under temptation to do that. And I don't think anyone could say that we're not under temptation in the same way today, because we see people who are part of the church that reject the blessing of God, and they go away, they depart from us. So it's a warning that is very appropriate for us to hear. It's a warning about rejecting the gospel, in this case, even after we have been called in the fullest, most complete way that anyone could ever be called. Okay, other than it being an effectual call, right up to the point where you ought to be converted and you're not. You have everything brought to you, everything set before you and reject the call of God. Our text is in verse four through eight. I'm going to read to you from the beginning of the chapter from verse one. So this is chapter six, beginning in verse one. Here is the precious word of God. Hebrews 6.1, Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits. We will go on to perfection. Verse four, for it is impossible for those who are once enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come if they fall away to renew them again to repentance. Since they crucify again for themselves the son of God and put him to an open shame for the earth, which drinks in the rain that often comes upon it and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated, receives blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and briars, it is rejected in near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned. Praise the Lord God for His precious Word. May we take this Word to heart, and may we respond appropriately to it. This is a text that has troubled many Christians. And in a way, it should trouble us, because it's talking about a horrible thing. It presents the dreadful prospect. Here we have a person who fully understands the Gospel. who knows, has been shown by God in his spirit, that the gospel is true, and yet rejects it. a person making themselves incapable of ever being restored, of ever coming back to repentance. This is not the case of those who profess and just anyone who professes and turns away. This is a heightened case of someone who really understood it all and then rejected it all. Many that turn away, that profess and then turn away. Many of those come to their senses. We see that in the Scripture, don't we? Like the prodigal son. He was brought up with all these things. He went out. He went into his riotous living and everything. And then he came to his senses and he came back. Some of them never even really understood the Gospel at all. And then they come to understand and believe. Others, like Peter and David, are true believers who fall for a time, in a time of persecution in the one case, or a time of temptation in the other, but then repent and are fully restored to God and continue in His grace. But this speaks of a different case. like Judas or like Esau, perhaps, of those who knew the truth, have had experience in the truth, of the benefits of the truth, who even lived in it, but they deliberately renounced the Lord, all the while believing. Now, this is all the while believing that He's the Messiah, that God sent to save His people. It is an enlightened, decided, determined renunciation of the faith that they know is true. And it renders them incapable of ever finding repentance. Let's dig into the text. Let's begin by looking at the wonderful privileges that they share with those who believe. You see, these ones that we're talking about, they actually share in the benefits of the church in many of the benefits with those who believe. OK, these these ones that are going, you can't distinguish them at the time because they're rejoicing in the benefits and they're actually understanding them and believing them. OK, let's let's look at let's look at this. There are five of them. First, like us who believe, they have been once enlightened, it says in verse four. This is more than merely hearing the truth about God. that He is the Creator of the world, that He is sovereign, that He is holy, and that we have sinned against Him, that He sent His Son to redeem us, that Jesus came and lived a sinless life among us and then gave Himself on the cross to die for our sins, for the remission of our sins, that He was accepted by God and was received and was raised up to heaven, He reigns, and from where He will return to judge everyone, both the living and the dead, and that reigning in heaven, that He poured out His Spirit upon His church, and that the people are being brought from death to eternal life through faith in Him. It's more than just hearing that. These people, they have been enlightened. They have come to see that these things are true. The blinders have been taken off, and they can plainly see that this is all true. So they've been enlightened. Second, like us, if we are believers, they have tasted the heavenly gift. This could refer to several things. It could refer to Jesus. God gave us his son. He's a gift from heaven in that sense. It could refer to the Holy Spirit, who is often referred to as the gift that God gave to his people in the New Covenant especially. The gift of the Holy Spirit, the gift of the Father. But this would be particularly redundant since the Spirit is next one on the list in particular. I'm inclined to think that it refers to our salvation in Jesus. In other words, our salvation is the gift of heaven, salvation in Jesus Christ. And to taste of this is to experience something of the blessings of salvation. Okay, now someone who is part of the church, even though an unbeliever, that yet has not really embraced Christ, they may have some comfort and relief in the sense of the concept of sins forgiven and the joy of being reconciled to God. They see that there's a joy within the people of God and their reconciliation, and they kind of partake in that joy. and the hope of eternal life. He's going somewhere. When their trials come, they have hope. There's the confidence of being under God's care and protection, that He's looking after us. The blessing of justification, being righteous in God's sight. Of adoption. Even though they're not actually adopted, there's a comfort that is within the people of God and that they themselves who are looking into these things begin to taste. Sanctification, being transformed from sin to new life in Christ. Those who are saved truly have those blessings. and they enjoy them. They taste of them because they actually possess them. But even before we believe, when we're being drawn to salvation, you see, if you were converted later in life, you probably know that there was a time when When there was an enjoyment of some of those things, as you were learning of them, there was a delight in them, even before you had actually closed with Christ, as it were, and been converted. We're able to taste them because of what we know about them, especially when the Spirit enables us to taste them. It's the way you can kind of taste a car that you want to buy before you own it. You take it on a test drive, and you see what it's like, and you don't own it yet, but you have a taste of it. You're checking it out to see what it's like. You say, this is all true. And these are the things that people have who believe this. And considering that, you're rejoicing, you're tasting it. If you go to a movie and you can see things happen that you taste and experience, even though you're not actually engaged and you're not actually possessing them. Or you go to a, we have these watermelon stands they used to have down in the south roadside stands and they would have watermelons out and you go to look at the watermelons, you wouldn't be sure of them, and the guy would say, oh, this is a great watermelon, and he would take a knife and stick it in. and make a little triangle thing and pull out this kind of pointy triangle thing and say, here, try it, you know. And you take a bite of it. Oh, yeah, that's a good watermelon. I'll take it. You know, and then you take it with you. You didn't possess it yet. But you tasted it and you said, yes, you know, this is a good thing. Now, this is even more the case when someone becomes a member of the church and maybe they make a profession of faith, which is the case of those here who are said to have turned away. The ones we're looking at that are now beyond repentance. They made a profession. And they were communing members. They had the promises and the comfort of those things, even though they had not yet truly received them. They had never believed. Like we saw, they have common operations with the Spirit. But yet, having never come to Christ, they cannot be saved. The situation here is that God so works in them that they have come to understand, and in that sense, to taste something of the gift of salvation and its benefits. Third, like us, who are true believers, they have become partakers of the Holy Spirit. All who are members of the church are in one sense partakers of the Holy Spirit. Even those who only attend are to some extent able to be sharing in the Holy Spirit when they come together with the people of God. When the Word is preached, what happens? The Holy Spirit works with power. In fact, that's how people will sometimes be converted. We have people sitting here today that were converted by coming and hearing the Word of God in church. And when this happens, you see they are partaking of the Holy Spirit as an unbeliever to bring them to conversion. The Spirit is working through the means of grace, through the preaching of the Word. So when the Word is read, When the praises are sung, when the sacraments are administered, all who are present experience in varying degrees something of the Holy Spirit. There's a participation in the body. There is some conviction of sin. There is some belief in the truth. And not only that, there is some experience of the Spirit's transforming power. Peter talks about those who escape the pollutions and the corruptions of this world through the knowledge of Jesus Christ and yet turn away from that completely later on. What is spoken up here? How did they come to escape the pollutions of the world? It was through the working of the Holy Spirit, common operations of the Spirit, bringing them up to and toward conversion. And yet they never are actually converted. They just taste something. the Holy Spirit. Besides all that, the Spirit's gifts of service are given to all who are in the church, even to those who only profess and yet are unbelievers. God is pleased to use those unbelievers who are part of the church even sometimes to preach the gospel. An unregenerate man who is actually a stranger to Jesus Christ, who does not himself trust Jesus Christ, can preach and have lots of people converted under his ministry. In that way, he is participating in the Spirit. He is preaching by the power of the Spirit of God, and yet he himself is a stranger to salvation. He can convict and he can restore, and you can do that as an individual as well. Sinners are often converted by unbelieving ministers or unbelieving friends. Sometimes there'll be someone who led you to the Lord, and then later they apostatized. And you say, that's the person that told me about Christ. How can it be? There is no reason to doubt that when Jesus bestowed his spirit on his disciples and gave them the ability to do miracles so that they went around, you know, when they went around two by two and they healed people and they cast out demons and they preached and all these things, they had the spirit working. They were partaking in the spirit that Judas had the same thing as all the others. Reason we can be quite sure of that is if he hadn't, there's no doubt that when the apostles came back together, they said, we were casting out demons and they were obeying us, but Judas couldn't do it. They would have immediately pointed that out. And there's no reason to think that doesn't happen because we see it in the scripture consistently. For example, Saul, King Saul, he received the spirit and became another man in order to be king. And yet he himself was a stranger to the grace of God. So what the unbeliever does not receive then is the new birth by the Spirit. He does not receive the indwelling of the Spirit, which is a permanent thing. But the unbeliever who is in the church can receive everything short of conversion. all the preliminary graces of the Spirit that he uses to bring people to salvation. The fourth and fifth privileges are privileges that are fruits of partaking of the Holy Spirit, I believe. The fourth privilege is to have tasted of the good word of God. Really, all these, the Spirit's kind of in the middle here, because all of them are things that are wrought by the Spirit, but this partaking, tasting of the good word of God, this is to see that the Bible is the word of God. To know, not this is an interesting book or this is a book of human reflections about God that can help people to get on better or stuff like, but to actually be persuaded that these are divine oracles here. These ones that we're talking about here had come to see that, to see and understand the remarkable prophecies that are fulfilled, stuff that you really can't deny legitimately. They had come to recognize that, but even more to see how the word works in the lives of God's people. They had seen it completely change people. and to experience something of its effect in their own life. Yes, unbelievers, when God's Spirit is at work, experience the conviction of sin, when they hear the law of God in the Word. And when they see in the Word how God has sent His Son and how He has blessed His people, they can see that that is so. They experience the drawing power in the appeals of the Word. They feel the call. They know the call to come, to believe, to repent, to serve, to draw near, to be renewed, to love. And they experience the word is that which they know to be true when it speaks of God in his glory and of Christ in his salvation. And fifthly, the spirit is there. They're they're tasting when the spirit is there, they're tasting of the powers of the age to come. These are these things overlap a lot, as you can see, but we might first think that the age to come refers to heaven. But more than likely, it refers to actually the time of the new covenant. OK, the time from when Christ came until his return. Why do I say that? Because the Jews to whom this letter is written, the Hebrews, they spoke of two periods of history when they were in the old covenant. They spoke of it this way, the time that now is and the age to come. And when they spoke of the age to come, they meant the time after the Messiah had appeared. And they understood it to be the days of the Messiah. Whatever the case, these persons had come to believe and see that God was powerfully at work. They had tasted of the power. They believed that Christ had been conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. They believed that he had wrought miracles among the people. They didn't look at the miracles and say, oh, I don't think that really ever happened. They believed that God had raised Him from the dead. They believed and experienced apostolic miracles that were common at the time. You would see someone healed, and they'd say, oh, that's just a show. That didn't really happen. They saw it. They believed it. They knew it. You see, all of these things. These were powers of the age to come. They had also seen His power transforming lives. Sort of what I was mentioning before, seeing the word do. The drunkard who is set free from the bottle and is filled now not with his wine, but with the joy of the Lord. Or the angry man who is now an amiable man. Or the blasphemer who now praises God and loves the Lord. the selfish, rebellious woman who is now gracious, the pugnacious person who is now a peacemaker. These are great privileges. They are blessings of the new covenant. Most people never experience what we have just outlined here. Those who have never been exposed to the gospel, know nothing of the things that we just spoke about. Many live and die without ever hearing the true gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. They grind away in the world without hope and without God in the world. There are many in the church who have little to no experience of these, even though they are in the church maybe all of their life. For some, it's because they go to an apostate church that actually confirms them in their unbelief. Jesus talked about some of the scribes and Pharisees that would go about the land and the earth to make one convert, and when they had made him, they made him someone that was twice as much a child of hell. That's the kind of thing that they do. They preach falsehood, they preach work salvation, they preach ritual salvation, whatever, and they do not preach the Lord Jesus Christ. For others who are in the church, it's because even though they're in a church where they hear the true word of God and the gospel all the time, they're so dull of hearing. They never pay attention. They never have really experienced the tasting even of these things that we're talking about. They don't know what it is to be comforted by the Gospel or by the forgiveness of sins or any of those things. They don't even see anything around them. It's all just a blur and it's nothing to them. And they may live and die in the church. They may do various kinds of little service and activity and things like that, but all the while, this is nothing to them. The elect people of God are the ones who enjoy these things and for whom they are truly given. God has graciously designed these things for the blessing of His children. These things, these comforts, all these five things that we just looked at, to comfort them and encourage them and to keep them in His way. They cause us to grow in the Lord. They enhance our growth. It's part of our growth as we engage in tasting of all of these blessings. We encourage one another in these blessings. We bring them to one another. We talk of them. We speak of how God is at work among us. But those who end up, the ones in our text here, who end up beyond repentance, were also given these for a time. They were given all of these, the ones that we're talking about here. Unbelievers in the church may have these things to varying degrees. Okay, some unbelievers will have some of these things, a little bit of these things, but the ones we're talking about in our text here, these are ones that were Enlightened. They were fully enlightened. They had all of these things that we're talking about. They were partakers of the Holy Spirit. They can be said to be so. They knew all of these things. These apostates had them in great abundance. In fact, they could even have some of these five blessings to a greater extent than a true believer in the church has them. not to a more solid lasting extent, but they can have a greater comfort from them and a greater understanding of them so that they could even explain to a weak believer the benefits and lift him up to see what it is before they had apostatized. See then that you are of those who receive and rejoice in these privileges through Jesus Christ. See that they bring forth in you more and more love and devotion to our Lord. The purpose of this passage is not for those who rebel in the way that this passage talks about. It's not written for them. It is not given merely to pass along information about such persons either, to satisfy our curiosity. The purpose of this passage is to stir us up and make us zealous, to not rest. with indifference in the midst of all of these privileges that are around us, but rather to delight in them and to make use of them to bring us nearer to God, to draw us to Christ and to faith in Him, and then to strengthen that faith, to go on and on and on. in making progress, growing up to maturity and perfection in him, as we have seen in this chapter to that maturity, reaching the goal that God has for us as his people. And this passage is given to help us minister to others and urge them on to do the same, teaching them and warning them of the dangers of having all these privileges and not going on or turning away from it all and renouncing it all. See the dreadful demise then, next in our text, of those who partake of these privileges and then turn away. Verse six tells us that if they fall away, these ones who had all five of these benefits, that it will be impossible to renew them to repentance. Those are sober words. It tells us that their apostasy will be irreversible. They will never come back. It's what it says. This sentence begins in verse four, it's a long sentence, with the words, it is impossible for those, then it describes the five privileges of those that are being drawn. It is impossible for those, then the five privileges, then verse six continues, if they fall away. It's impossible for those who have these five privileges, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance. That's what it says. Understand, this is not the fate of all who apostatize, okay? It is the fate of those who are truly enlightened and who knew the working of God's spirit within them, that Jesus was the true Messiah. And yet when it came down to it, rejected him. It is not that they don't think it's true. It's that they know it's true and they do not want him. They do not want the Lord in his salvation. This is in fact that which is called the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit that Jesus spoke about when men saw his miracles and knew that they were wrought by God and said it was the work of Satan. The danger for those men who are looking at his miracles and were saying that they were of the devil was not that they thought Jesus was doing miracles by the power of Satan. That they were confused and thought that Jesus was an imposter who was doing it by the power of Satan. That was not the danger that he advised them of. That was not a good thing. They'd be mixed up about that and be confused about that. But the danger that he was warning about when he said that it would be a danger from which you could never be forgiven, a sin from which you could never be forgiven, was that some of them would do this, would say that he was doing work by Satan, even though they knew perfectly well that he was not. Even though they knew perfectly well that it was done by the finger of God. Even though God's Spirit, God's Spirit had worked in them to enlighten them to see that it was done by the power of God. And that's why it's the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. They have been given the truth graciously. And after being convinced of this, they had continued to oppose Jesus and to say that He was doing His work by Satan. Jesus actually excluded such men from his prayer on the cross. Do you remember his famous prayer on the cross? He knew that some of the chief priests and some of the leaders of the people that had delivered him up to be crucified knew good and well who he was. They knew that he was the Messiah sent from heaven, and that's why they opposed him. Because they said, he's going to take away our place. You see, he's, and so they said, he's an imposter. And they called for him to be crucified, knowing who he was. He excluded such corrupt men when he prayed and said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Most of those who delivered Him up to be crucified did not know what they were doing. They maybe knew that they weren't really searching it out like they should, but they were not convinced that He was Messiah when they did that. Most of the Jews did not know. Many like Paul thought that they were serving God, actually. when they opposed him, they were confused about things. That's a problem. But it's not nearly the problem. It is to know the truth and say that it's not true. Jesus prayer for such men who knew not what they did. He his his prayer for them, like Paul, but he did not pray for those who knew exactly that they were crucifying the savior that God had sent and promised from old ancient times. Paul actually refers to this in Timothy when he speaks of his conversion. And he says, that he had mercy, he says, although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man, I obtained mercy. Forgiveness, salvation, right? I obtained mercy. And then he says, because. because I did it ignorantly and in unbelief. Why did he say because I did it ignorantly and unbelief? Does he mean that anybody that does it ignorantly and unbelief will have mercy? No, he means it's possible for anyone who does it ignorantly and unbelief to still have mercy. If he'd done it deliberately and on purpose, then he would have found no mercy. But he didn't. He thought he was serving God. The implication is if the Spirit had shown him that Jesus was the Messiah and he'd gone out to destroy his people, he would never have received mercy. He would have been beyond the scope of God's mercy. Now we may say that those who are given the privilege of having the truth of the gospel revealed to them by God's spirit with the five things in the five ways that we saw and then knowingly rejected and oppose it are beyond the pale of God's mercy. Now I ask you, is it indeed possible for anyone to be beyond the scope and pale of God's mercy? Indeed it is. Think about it. Is not Satan beyond the scope of God's mercy? Is there any hope for Satan to be restored? There is not. He has been sentenced by God's decree to perdition. Are not the devils also with him consigned to the lake of fire to be tormented forever and ever? Is it not the condition, and this is something to ponder, of all of those who have died in their sin outside of Christ that they are beyond the scope of God's mercy now? They are eternally condemned and will never have mercy. Should it then surprise us if there be some who in this life are in such a condition that their doom is already sealed because they have not only rejected the gospel, but have rejected it even though they knew all the while that it was true? God is a holy God. The thing that ought to surprise us is not that there are those who are beyond the hope of mercy, but that there are any that should receive mercy. Anyone at all should ever receive mercy. It may even be that it would be contrary to God's very nature to show mercy to such persons as those described in our text. Or that it would be for Him to show mercy to Satan. We can't say that for sure because we're not told. That may or may not be so. Is it actually contrary to His nature to show mercy to a person who had committed this sin in Hebrews 6? But what is so is that God has decreed that those who blaspheme the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. That is something that He has revealed. It is a decree. Whether it would be contrary to His nature to ever forgive such persons, We don't know for sure. Could be. But what we do know is that He has decreed that they will not have mercy, and that it will be impossible for anyone to renew them again to repentance. Some of these Hebrews came to believe that the gospel was true, and then deliberately reject Jesus to go back to their Judaism. The author of Hebrews has no interest in going over the rudiments of the faith with them again. There's no point in doing so because they already believed it all and they just don't want it. They are persons whom the Lord has consigned to perdition. But I say again, all this is being said not for the sake of those who have committed this sin, but for the sake of those who might consider. committing it. It is said to deter you who might be thinking of rejecting Christ, even though you know that it is true, that even though you know that He is the Savior of the world. What makes this sin so heinous that it should put a person beyond repentance? We're told in our text It's because they, verse six, crucify again for themselves the Son of God. It's the middle of verse six, I believe. Crucify again for themselves the Son of God and put him to an open shame. He was already crucified the first time by the Sanhedrin and Pontius Pilate. They examined him and declared him to be an imposter, the Jews did. Justice could only be served by crucifying him was their verdict. He was publicly humbled, brought to shame before all the people as a transgressor. Though he was the son of God who came to redeem his people in an act of unfathomable grace, he was declared by the official representatives of the church to be cursed, and indeed he subjected himself to God's curse because. He was bearing our sins. We know that that's the reason that he was cursed. He became a curse for us. He who knew no sin became a curse for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. He bore God's wrath and curse for us. All of our iniquities were laid on him. But as far as those who delivered him up to be crucified were concerned, he was the one who deserved to be cursed. As far as they were concerned, he deserved it not because he was the head of a people who were to be cursed and he was bearing their sins, but because he himself was an imposter and a transgressor. It was a gracious act of him bearing guilt for another. And that's what many thought and what they said when they saw him on the cross. Look, God has rejected him. But now these Hebrews who had come into the church. Think about these Hebrews who had come into the church. They understood all of that. They understood that He had become a curse as the Lamb of God for the sake of delivering His people from their sins and that He was unjustly accused and delivered up to be crucified. And they have come into the church, they have enjoyed the blessings that go with that salvation, understanding them, being fully enlightened to believe it all to be true. And then what do they do? They renounce Him. They crucify Him again. And what they do is worse than what was done by the Sanhedrin, or at least many of them, who had not ever known fully all the things that these Hebrews had known that end up rejecting Him. They have come to Him, they have examined Him, and knowing that He was crucified to bear the sins of others, reject him all over again. By going back to their Judaism, they attest that he is an imposter, even though they knew that he was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. They reject him. Even so, on their part then, to themselves, they crucify him again, putting him to an open shame. This is the sin that puts them beyond the reach of mercy. Of course, this sin can be committed by those who are not Hebrews. Anyone to whom God, by His Spirit, graciously reveals the truth, who then, fully knowing the truth, turns against Christ, not in weakness, but in deliberate, decided, cold renunciation and rejection, a resolved rejection, That person puts himself beyond the pale of mercy because they crucify again to themselves the Lord of glory and put him to an open shame. In verse 7 and 8, we're given an illustration of how God rejects those who are blessed with privileges and yet bring forth no fruit. The picture is of a well-cared for field, like we saw in Isaiah actually, that is rejected because it never produces fruit. It says, verse 7, For the earth, which drinks in the rain that often comes upon it, and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated, receives blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and briars, It is rejected in near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned. The meaning is clear. If you cultivate the ground and plant good seed, and the ground brings forth nothing but thorns and briars, that ground is good for nothing but to be burned. This rejection of those who on the one hand are exposed to the means of grace, but who are never enlightened by them, who never have the five privileges. So there could be different kinds of people in view here that don't bring forth fruit, even though they have all the privileges and the means given to them. There can be those like these that we're talking about in our text who were enlightened and understood all of the things and tasted all the blessings, or they could be like the ones we talked about before, like a knot on a log. They're in the church and they don't get any of it. It's all just nothing to them. Same condition, isn't it? Like God's blessing is poured out on the ground, there's the means of grace, the Word is preached, there's prayers, there's all the things around them, and they don't bring forth any fruit. They're barren. So it can be either end of the spectrum and everything in between that you have people who have the gospel brought to them, at least in an outward way, and who never bring forth fruit. So the ones, of course, that we're talking about here are the ones who did not only have the gospel presented to them, but who understood it fully and tasted of its benefits. In either case, These persons can be turned over to hardness because they never embraced the truth that was given to them. These ones in Hebrews 6 are worse than the others because though they are likewise barren, Their privileges were much greater. They never actually came to Christ, even though they had all the extent of privileges. This is why their rejection is final, while the rejection of one like the prodigal son is not final. Let us take this parable to heart. This applies not only to the ones who fully blaspheme the Spirit, but also to those who go out and actively oppose Christ when they know better, but it also applies to those who do nothing. who sit under the means of grace, who have the working of God's Spirit around them in the church, who have the word preached and read, who have the sacraments and Christian encouragement and accountability and discipline and all the rest, but who continue to have no fruit, month after month, year after year. Yes, they don't actively oppose Christ, but neither do they produce fruit, despite all of their privileges. What is to become of them? They may remain in the church for the rest of their life, but when the day of judgment comes, they will be rejected. They had all these blessings and all these helps, but they never actually bothered to cast themselves on Jesus to be saved. It's what we saw when we read the confession, isn't it? They did not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. They never trusted in him for salvation. They saw their need of him. And they admitted it, but they never actually looked to Him for the forgiveness of their sins. They saw that He was the only Savior and admitted it, but they never trusted Him actually to save them. They saw and admitted that He is Lord, and they called Him Lord, but they never submitted to Him as Lord. That is the purpose of this text. It is to urge us not to be the barren field, whether it be those that are soaking in everything and in understanding everything and are enlightened about everything and yet are not actually coming to Christ, or whether it be those that are. Not take any of it in at all. It's the same situation with this barren field. See that you are like the ground described in verse 7. The earth that drinks in the rain that often comes upon it and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated. Father in heaven receives blessing from God. How does it? How do you do this? How do you make sure that you're not barren? How do you make sure you're not barren? casting yourselves on the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the Savior. earnestly casting yourself on the Lord Jesus Christ, looking to him for salvation. That's how you make sure that you're not barren. That's the only way that you can make sure that you're not barren. Jesus said, without me, you can do nothing. You can learn about all these things. You can be excited about all these things. You can talk about them, all the things of God's grace, all the things of his working, all the things of theology, and never actually turn to Jesus and receive the blessing of salvation. The only comfort then he has presented to you is the only one that can save you. The only comfort that is well founded is the comfort that comes from trusting in him. Enjoy the blessings, the five blessings that we saw here, dear children of God. Those of you who are trusting in him, those are your comforts who are trusting and resting in Jesus Christ, and they are sound comforts that will never be taken away from you. Please stand. Let's pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, how we thank you and how we praise you that you are our God and that you are our Redeemer. Father, we praise you that you have met with us this day, that by your Spirit you have spoken to us through the ministry of the Word. And we pray now, Lord, as we go on in this service, that you would speak to us also in the ministry of the sacrament. But Father, we thank you for the things that we have heard. These are solemn truths. And perhaps there are those that we know that have gone into this great sin that we have talked about today. It is a rare thing. We don't know of many that are like this, but father, there may be some and it is a it is a thing that is very solemn in it. It sets before us the horror of having all the benefits and knowing them and then rejecting them. We see Lord that the problem with our own unbelief is not that we don't believe in the sense of that we're not able to see that stuff that's obviously true is true. But the problem is that we're resistant to that belief. We're resistant to accepting it. There are people that saw you open the Red Sea, and bring bread down from heaven, and open the ground to swallow up rebellious men. And they knew that it happened. They knew that you did it. And they still did not believe in the sense that they did not trust You to be their Lord and Savior and to follow You. Lord, this speaks of the condition of man. It's not a problem of ignorance, though we are ignorant because of our unbelief. But the real problem is our wickedness and our resistance to You as our God. We pray, Lord, that you would have mercy upon us, because we all have this evil that is in us from our birth. There is still corruption that remains in all of us. And we pray, Father, that you would help us to grow and that we would move on to perfection to the maturity to which you have admonished us to go. We pray that we would not be stagnant, that we would rejoice in the blessings and the benefits that we have in the gospel, and that we would share these with others, Lord, and lead them in them and talk of them and speak of them as we as we go about our business, that we would all the while rest on our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone is our Savior. Lord, we don't have any righteousness in ourselves. The whole glory of this whole thing and all the comfort of it is that you're the one who does the saving. That's why these five things that we looked at are things that comfort us. It's an enlightenment that that we repent and you save us, that we look, we trust in you for salvation. That Your Spirit is the one that works in us, that You give us the graces and the gifts that we need. So Father, our trust is in You. We look to You, O Lord, and we pray that You would give us hope and confidence that we would be able to go forward in the things that You have given to us, and that we would not turn away in rebellion, hardening our hearts, that we would not be like a bump on the log that has all of these things around us, and that never even is enlightened by them or moved by them in any way whatsoever, or even just in a very insignificant way. O Lord, have mercy, we pray. May there be none among us who are barren and unfruitful. May all of us, Lord, know what it is to have the blessing of our God upon us, the blessing of the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, the blessing of your Holy Spirit who is given to your people. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Now the blessing of the Lord, our God. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his promise upon you and give you peace. Amen.