We have been reading together the book of Hebrews and we come today to chapter five beginning at verse 11 and we will continue till verse 12 of Hebrews chapter six. Now the overarching purpose of Hebrews is that these people who are under pressure, these Jewish believers, under pressure would not renounce Christ in order to avoid the persecution. And his concern in this passage is very wisely pastoral. He says to that end you need to be growing. A Christian needs to be growing, and we're to go from infancy, as it were, to maturity. And he uses the language of milk to meat, a statement often made by Christians. It comes from this passage. And he says, by this time you ought to be teachers. You need to be teaching others. They've been Christians for a long time, but they're like little babies drinking milk. They don't have the meat. And he lists some of what he calls the elementary doctrine of Christ. Not that the doctrine of Christ is elementary, but that these are elementary portions of the doctrine of Christ. It's an interesting list. Repentance from dead works and faith towards God. That's justification through faith alone. Instructions about washings. Almost certainly that's baptism. The laying on of hands. That's interesting. It's doctrine of ordination. The resurrection of the dead and the eternal judgment. He says those are the Christian basics you need to be growing and you and I need to be growing. You've been a Christian a while. In fact, if you're a new believer, you particularly need your roots to go into the soil. And yes, that means the understanding of biblical doctrine. To be in a church where the Bible is taught seriously and to be reading Christian literature to understand God, understand salvation, and then beginning to apply these things in your life. And he says that is essential for you to withstand the temptations to fall away. Now in verses four to six, he makes comments that are among the most controversial in the New Testament. They shouldn't be, but they are. And that is because those Christians who do not believe in the doctrine of assurance, I'm speaking of what are called Arminians, These are our Christian friends, as it were, who would deny predestination. They would deny the sovereignty of God in grace. And they teach in particular that you, having been truly saved and born again, you can lose your salvation. You may be familiar with that teaching. Well, this is the passage they're going to go straight to. Because as John Wesley, one of its leading teachers says, if this passage does not describe a born again believer who has been enlightened, who's tasted of the powers of the age to come, what does the writer of Hebrews have to say? This is a genuinely saved person and yet we're told here they fall away and this becomes kind of the crux of that position. But what do we do with that? Well, one thing we view it in the context of the whole Bible, because scripture interprets scripture. And the problem with that view is you have overwhelmingly clear statements from people like Jesus to the contrary. In John 10, 27 to 28, he says, I know my sheep, my sheep know me. They follow me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish. No one will snatch them from my hands. Now that statement from Jesus and all his clarity would seem to have a limiting effect on how we can interpret something like this. It should. You think of Philippians 1.6. I am persuaded that God will be faithful to bring to the end that which he began. Salvation is begun by God. He will bring it to the end. 1 Peter 1.5. We are kept by God's power through faith for an eternal salvation. And so the Bible teaches that a genuinely born-again believer, a person who is trusted in Christ, cannot be lost. And therefore, that's not the meaning of this text. By the way, if you just go to the end of the passage, verse 11, the goal of this teaching is that they would have the full assurance of hope to the end. The purpose of this passage is to teach proper grounds for biblical assurance, so it cannot be denying the possibility of assurance. So what is it teaching in this very provocative language? Let me just read verse four. It is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gifts and 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. That's the statement. Well, the thing we need to do is we need to remember what's going on in the book of Hebrews because he is preaching a connected series of sermonettes from Old Testament passages. And he is still in his sermonette on Psalm 95, which is about why did the Exodus generation die in the desert? They departed, they partook of God's salvation, but they didn't actually make it to the promised land, but they perished. And this language here could all be said, in fact, it is being said, of the Exodus people of the Old Testament. They partook of the powers of the age to come. Think about when the Red Sea parted. Even unbelievers, and there were scads of them, they still were there. They were there for the great acts of Moses. They tasted of the heavenly gift and of the word of God. They were enlightened. They had the cloud of the Shekinah glory was in their midst. And so the writer of Hebrews is describing an outward, personal, but secondary experience of God's saving grace. By the way, if you grow up in a church like ours, you'll have that experience. You'll be there when the power of God is attending His word. You'll be in prayer meetings and miracles will happen. That's actually kind of normal. That's not that extraordinary. And you'll partake of the powers of the age to come. You will eat of the goodness of God's word. And what he says is, be very careful. if you are a nominal Christian. That's what he's talking about here. The outward Christian who is not born again, who has not taken Jesus Christ through personal faith by the grace of God. So he says, let me tell you what's gonna happen if that's you. You grew up in a good church, you live in Greenville, you gotta be a member of church somewhere, or you won't have any social standing. That's increasingly untrue, but that's been our culture. And so you're this outward Christian, but you've never surrendered to the Lord Jesus. You've never been willing to confess that you are a sinner and that he died for you and you receive saving grace from him. You're just kind of going with it. He says, when the pressure gets turned up, you will fall away. And not only will you fall away, that when you, after all you've been through, when you fall away, he says it will be impossible to restore you. There'll be a judicial hardening of your heart because you are crucifying once again the son of God. You're holding him to contempt. Now that's sobering words. That's what an apostate is. A professing Christian who shows that they were never truly saved because under pressure they fall away. 1 John 2 19 teaches the same thing. Now you see, you may be wondering, oh my word, that may be me. That's not a bad question. But here's the good news. It's not that hard to distinguish between a true believer and a false believer. In the Exodus Israel, you've got Joshua and you've got Dathan. It's pretty clear which one's saved and which one is not. And what he goes on here is he takes the same approach that Jesus does when he said, by their fruits you will know them. And he says, verse 7, for the 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. The way to have assurance is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and then grow. and begin to see the Holy Spirit bearing fruit through your life, and by the fruit, they will be known." It's not that hard to tell a Joshua from a Dathan or a Korah, the famous rebels of the Exodus. And true believers are known to the church, and they are able to be known by themselves. Well, let's give ear then to God's holy and Aaron and life-giving word, beginning at verse 11 of Hebrews 5. about this we have much to say and it is hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers and you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God, you need milk, not solid food. For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. Therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith towards God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and the eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits. For it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and 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. Although we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things, things that belong to salvation. For God is not unjust to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each of you to show the same earnestness, to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. The grass withers, the flowers fall, and the word of our God abides forever. Amen.