The Great Warning

Nakita Kolov, the Russian nightmare. No, the devil's nightmare here. From it's time to man up. Challenging men to step into their true manhood. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it. Share it. But most of all, thank you for listening to the Truth Podcast Network.

This is the Truth Network. Do you feel like you're on a religious treadmill? Do you feel like Christianity is just a system of rules and regulations?

I can do this, but I can't do that. Do you feel like your efforts to reach God, find God, and please God are futile? Do you feel like your faith is dead or alive? Today, Pastor Russ Andrews will walk us through Scripture to answer these questions. Join us on Finding Purpose, a local triangle ministry glorifying God by helping men find their purpose for living.

For more information and to connect with Russ Andrews and Finding Purpose, you can visit us online at findingpurpose.net or connect with us on Facebook. Now let's listen to Russ Andrews as he teaches us how to be a Christian without being religious. I'm really excited tonight to have Grant Castleberry here with us. He's the pastor of Capital Community Church. And listen, Grant is a really good preacher.

Grant, take it over, buddy. Russ called me last week and was like, hey, can you teach Hebrews for me? I was like, well, what chapter? And he said, Hebrews 6. I said Hebrews 6.

This is the hardest. Hebrews 6 is like the Matterhorn, right? I mean, this is the technical, difficult chapter. So let's turn to Hebrews 6.

It's really hard. So you're going to have to make sure that we follow every step because the argument that the writer develops goes verse by verse and it hinges on what he has said before. And if you don't grasp the whole context, then you're not going to understand what he's trying to say. And he's going to give a warning. And you see that warning in verses 4 through 8. And many commentators call it the most dire warning of the entire New Testament, the most stringent, sober warning. So to understand the warning in verses 4 through 8, we actually have to back up to verse 11 of chapter 5. And what the apostle is going to address, and this is just kind of the broad idea here at the beginning, is the problem of spiritual immaturity. The problem of spiritual immaturity. Verse 11, he says, about this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. He has much to say about what? The priesthood of Christ.

About how Christ is the fulfillment of the entire Old Testament sacrificial system, what we talked about last week with Melchizedek. But he says, you have a problem. You're not ready to listen because you have become dull, nathros. It's hard to explain.

Nathros. It's only used one other time in the New Testament, and it's in verse 12. It's that word sluggish in the ESV, so that you may not be sluggish. It means to be lazy. It means to be dull. He says you have become sluggish or lazy of hearing.

He's saying you have a moral inability in the heart to listen to what I'm saying because you're lazy. You've become dull of hearing. And that, my friends, is the problem in the American church today. The American church doesn't want to sit and hear and listen and think about and meditate on God's word. We have become dull of hearing.

We have become lazy. We take everything else, it seems to me, seriously, our finances, our families, but we tend to neglect what's most important, which is our own souls. What did Jesus say? He says, what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?

Your soul is the most important thing that you can nourish in your life. Let me teach you a principle that Jesus teaches about the spiritual life, about the kingdom of God. The rewards and the gifts of the kingdom are not for the lazy, but for those who take them by force, those who press into the kingdom. Jesus said this. It's a startling verse.

It takes us off guard. He says in Luke 16 16, the good news of the kingdom of God is preached and everyone forces his way into it. In another place in Matthew, he said the violent men take it by force. The kingdom of God is harnessed in your spiritual life by getting off your tail and pressing into the kingdom. So, friends, right here is this exclamatory exhortation to us to not stand on the sidelines of the kingdom of God and simply to have our dull ears tickled, but rather to press into the kingdom. For, he says, look at verse 12. He says, for by this time you ought to be teachers, but you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God.

He says, since the amount of time has elapsed since you became a Christian, you should be a didascaloy. It's where we get our English word didactic. You should be a teacher. You should be, you could translate it, an instructor, but instead I'm having to go back and instruct you in the basic things. You have to learn the basic fundamentals before you can go on. And he's saying, look, you haven't learned even the basic fundamentals when you should be an instructor. And so I'm having to come back and teach you the fundamentals again, except we're not talking about football.

We're talking about something much more serious. We're talking about, what does he say? The oracles of God. The oracles of God. What are the oracles of God?

Remember, who's he talking to? What's the audience in Hebrews? Jewish believers. Jewish believers who had come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says in Romans 3, 2, that the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.

So what's he talking about? He's talking about the Old Testament. He's talking about the Old Testament scriptures. So what are the basic principles of the oracles of God that they need to be re-instructed in? Two things. Two things that they need to go back and learn regarding the Old Testament, both regarding Christ. And these are the basic things, okay?

These are the two basic things. One, the predictive prophecies. The Old Testament points to Christ in direct predictive prophecies.

You can read all the way from Genesis 3.15 to Isaiah 9, Psalm 2, Isaiah 53. These are all predictive prophecies about the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And secondly, the Old Testament types.

The Old Testament types. The Old Testament is filled with types and shadows that point to realities that are all fulfilled in Christ. So every prophet, every priest, every king in the Old Testament points to the Lord Jesus Christ. The tabernacle and the temple, those goats that they would kill on the Day of Atonement and slaughter on behalf of the people's sins, what did that point to? The Lord Jesus. When the Lord Jesus died on the cross, remember that temple veil into the Holy of Holies was torn in two.

Why? Because the Holy of Holies why? Because Jesus had fulfilled its purpose. All of those institutions of the Old Testament point to the Lord Jesus Christ. Charles Spurgeon said this, he said, do you not know that from every town and village in tiny Hamelin in England there is a road leading to London? So whenever I get hold of a text, I say to myself, there is a road from here to Christ.

And I mean to keep on this track until I get to him. So they had failed to understand the Old Testament prophecies and the Old Testament types. And for a Jewish believer, this is basic.

This is basic. This is the fundamental thing that you must understand is the fulfillment of Christ of your Old Testament Bible. Remember Jesus on the road to Emmaus. He's walking with those disciples after the resurrection. What was he doing?

He was unfolding to them from the Old Testament, from the law, the prophets and the writings, how he was the fulfillment of them. This is so basic. He's saying, you don't even understand these basic things. He says, so you need milk, not solid food. And now he uses this illustration of a toddler, of a baby. He's saying, in your development as a Christian, you are a little babe.

I have right now an 18-month-old boy. And we are doing everything that we can to keep him from running into the fire at night. Right? Because he doesn't know. When he says fire, he says fire no no. Because every time we talk to him, we say, no, you can't get near that.

This morning, dumped over, two cereal bowls, milk everywhere in the kitchen. He's a babe. He doesn't know. And the apostle is saying, the same thing. He says, you're not ready to move past this discussion on Melchizedek and how Christ is the fulfillment of these types and shadows. Because you're failing to grasp the basic things of your Old Testament Bible. Remember Paul said in 1 Corinthians 3, 2, he says, I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now, you are not yet ready.

So there was a major failure on their part to grow. And then he says in verse 13, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. The word of righteousness is obviously the word of God. Right? This is clear.

This is straightforward. He says, if you live on milk, you are unskilled that you could translate that unacquainted with the word. In other words, he's saying, you don't know how to read and apply your Bible. Okay? He says, you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, but you haven't pressed on beyond that. You're unskilled in understanding the word of righteousness. But, verse 14, solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment, trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

Okay? That word mature, it's an important word. You could also translate that word perfected. It means someone who is in their prime, someone who has reached adulthood. He uses the same word in chapter 5, verse 9. If you look up at verse 9, it talks about the Lord Jesus, and he says, in being made perfect. You could say, in being made mature. When Jesus was an adult, right? Not when he was a child, when he was an adult, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who believe in him. Same word, and he's saying, you should be mature.

Okay? And now, this is such an important verse, because he defines spiritual maturity. What is spiritual maturity?

What does it mean to be mature? Well, this is the test of spiritual maturity. He says, your powers of discernment are trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. That's what it means to be spiritually mature. It means that your conscience is so trained by the word of God that you are able, when you are walking through the patterns of your life, to distinguish good from evil.

You know it. It means that your conscience is dominated by the word of God. Remember Martin Luther, when he stood before the emperor, and the emperor said, you must recant, and he said, I cannot recant because my conscience is compelled by the word of God. Remember Daniel, when he stood before the king, he said, I can't eat the king's meats. Why? Because my conscience is compelled that I cannot eat them.

Joseph in Potiphar's house, why does he run from Potiphar's wife? Because his conscience is compelled. So this is the test. Is your conscience dominated by the word of God?

Or are you easily governed by your sinful flesh and the ideologies of the world? That's the test. That's the difference between being a mature believer and an immature believer. So chapter six is about the need to press on to maturity.

That's the context. He says, therefore, okay, let us, I love how he throws himself in this. This is a nice teacher. He puts himself in their shoes. He says, therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity. Okay, now what he's going to do now is he's going to list the elementary doctrines, and he's going to list six of them. These are the elementary doctrines of Christianity, and he's going to list six of them, and there are three pairs of two. And four of them are straightforward.

The middle two are more challenging. But first he says the elementary doctrines are repentance from dead works and faith towards God. That's very straightforward. When you come to Christ in faith, you not only repent, which means to change your mind. You not only repent of your sins, but you also change your mind out of the works that you did before to try to appease God. You repent of those works, and you realize that you must come to God in faith. This verse right here is the Protestant Reformation in one verse. It's sola fide. It's faith alone, right?

Christianity is a religion of faith, not works. So you repent of your dead works, of which you did to try to please God, and then you come to God like a little child in faith, and you believe his promise that all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. And secondly, second pair, he says, and of instruction about washings.

This is really complicated. Everybody debates this word washings, baptismos. It means immersing. There were a lot of washings in the Old Testament, but specifically what I think he's referring to is John's baptism and the Lord Jesus's baptism. And then the laying on of hands.

Oftentimes in the early church, the laying on of hands was synonymous with receiving the Holy Spirit or being commissioned by him. And then third, the resurrection of the dead and the eternal judgment. This is the Christian's eschatology.

These are basic beliefs that the Lord Jesus will return, raise all the dead and resurrection bodies, and then there will be a final judgment. And then verse three, he says, and this we will do if God permits. In other words, our maturity is ultimately dependent on the sovereign will of God.

You know, I think we often think that in the Christian life, we can just turn a switch. That, okay, like, I'm not going to do this now. I'm not going to press into maturity now. I will do so at a later point. I intend to, right?

I'll get my act together, but not right now. He says, no, no, no, no, no. You can't just flip the switch. It's if God permits. If God permits, you'll press on towards maturity. So now he comes to this warning, OK? And this is really challenging to interpret. And he gives this warning to these immature believers. And this warning is the danger of apostasy. I'm going to call this the case of the unbelieving believer. All right, we're going to work through it quickly. To interpret these next few verses, verses four through eight, we need to be able to answer two questions.

And the first question is this. One, who is the apostle speaking of? Is he speaking about a believer or an unbeliever? And then two, what is that that they are falling away from? Is it salvation?

Is it loss of rewards, as some argue? Let me read you these verses, OK? And I just want you to hear them read and then we're going to dive in. He says, 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 in 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 be cursed and its end is to be burned. Now, throughout church history, there have been four major interpretations of this passage.

I'm just going to give you those briefly. The first is the Armenian interpretation. In the Armenian interpretation, this passage is talking about believers, Christians, and the falling away is talking about salvation, that the falling away is a loss of salvation. And of course, this is a massive problem when you compare this scripture then with other texts, because what does the rest of scripture teach? You cannot lose your salvation, right? Romans 838, for I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. If God saves you, he will keep you.

So we know that it can't be the Armenian interpretation. There's another interpretation. I heard this a lot in Texas growing up, that yes, this is a believer, but what the falling away is is a loss of eternal rewards.

Now, the problem I have with that interpretation is then why does he say that it is impossible to renew them again to repentance? Does that sound like a believer to you? Does it sound like a believer to me?

And then there's the illustration he uses. If it's talking about a believer, look at verse 8. He says, but if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless. Would God the Holy Spirit ever describe a believer as worthless and its end is to be burned? That doesn't sound like a believer to me. Third view, this was Charles Spurgeon's view, and I hate to disagree with Spurgeon on anything, but we must do so tonight. Spurgeon said that this is describing a believer, but it's a hypothetical warning. In other words, what this passage describes could never actually happen to a believer, but it's a warning that God puts here to make sure it doesn't happen. Is that confusing? Okay, that's confusing.

Let me give you an example, okay? In Acts 27, you remember Paul's on that ship in the Mediterranean, and they're about to get shipwrecked, and you remember an angel appeared to Paul, and what did the angel say? He said, I will deliver you and everybody on this boat. And then later on when they were getting closer to shore, what did the soldiers try to do?

They tried to leave the boat and get on some rafts, and remember what Paul said? He said, if you leave, the lives will be lost. Well, I thought God through an angel had already said every life would be preserved. Well, why the warning then? The warning is used to keep their lives preserved. So Spurgeon said, this is a hypothetical warning.

God has promised that He will save every believer, but it's a warning that's given so that you will not apostatize, that you will not leave the faith. Here's the issue I have with that view. Notice the language he uses in verse four. He says, for it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened. In the case of those, in other words, this is an actual instance. This is an actual circumstance that he's talking about. And if this is a hypothetical, then why this illustration at the end with the two fields, the one that's blessed and the one that's cursed, if the field actually doesn't even exist?

That doesn't make sense. And so we come to the fourth view, the apostasy of an unbelieving believer. Now, there's a general principle in the Bible. When you think about classes of people spiritually, the Bible describes people as either unregenerate or regenerate, right? As believers or unbelievers. The unbelieving believer.

Let me show you an example of this. John 2 23. Jesus is in Jerusalem. He's performed a number of miracles.

And John writes something very interesting. He said, many believed in His name when they saw the signs that He was doing, but Jesus on His part did not entrust Himself to them. That word entrust is the same exact word that's used for belief, pistuo. You could say, many believed in His name, but Jesus on His part did not believe in them.

What does it mean? It means that they didn't actually trust in Him. It was just an intellectual faith because of the signs.

It was head knowledge. It wasn't heart faith. Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, for this passage. It is difficult to hear and difficult to understand, but Lord, we do trust you. We do trust in your promises.

We do trust that you will keep us to the end. And I pray, Lord, for the man in this room tonight who hasn't trusted you and you are working in their heart right now. I pray, Lord, that that man would reach out in childlike faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.

They would not stay in the shallows but press in. And I pray, Lord, for us all that we would press on to maturity, that we would press into the kingdom of God, that we would take it by force. I ask all these things in Christ's name. Amen. This is the Truth Network. Darrell Bock One of our generous sponsors here at the Truth Network has come under fire.

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