Sermon Brief
Date Written: July 27, 2008
Date Preached: July 27, 2008
Where Preached: OPBC (AM)
Sermon Details:
Sermon Series: A Journey thru Hebrews
Sermon Title: It’s Time to Straighten Up! (and fly right!)
Sermon Text: Hebrews 6:4-8 (NIV)
4 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit,
5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age,
6 if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.
7 Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God.
8 But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.
Introduction:
Little Billy was caught in the act of some mischief and his mother asked him, "How do you expect to get into heaven?" He thought for a moment and then said, "Well, I’ll just run in and out and keep slamming the door until they say, ’For heaven’s sake, either come in or stay out.’ Then I’ll go in."
So often, as believers, that is how we think God is going to react to our mischievous living and selfish attitudes. But God does not react as human parents react God is much more patient, but also firm in His judgment of those who reject Him.
This morning I want us to continue our journey through the book of Hebrews and I want us to look at a passage in Heb 6, which has always been a very difficult passage for many believers.
This passage has caused a great deal of strife and division among many believers, but I want to show you today that we can look at this scripture and we can know what it means and how we can apply it to our lives.
This passage addresses an issue is that is at best confusing and at worst the source of great controversy within the body of Christ – and that even includes biblical scholars!
Now, as a pastor, I have found that most believers have a “problem” when they read the Bible. Instead of reading and believing Scripture for what it says – so many of us go into the Word with a preconception of what we will find and we have already shaped the meaning of Scripture so that it will fit into our ideas and agendas.
However, I don’t want us to fall into that trap this morning. I want us to clear our minds of any preconceived beliefs or personal convictions and I want us to allow God’s Word to speak to our hearts this morning – I say this because the Bible gives all believers a great and severe warning that we must…rightly divide the Word of Truth.
The first thing we must understand about reading Scripture is that we must know who the writer was addressing and in turn the will give us the context in which to fit the passage.
Another approach to reading and understanding Scripture is that Scripture itself is the best commentary and testing ground for Scripture. The Bible is not going to contradict itself, although on the surface it may seem that way… God’s Word is not going to promise and proclaim one thing… and then later proclaim something just the opposite.
1. The Actual Context:
The audience to whom the writer of Hebrews is writing is not crystal clear BUT we can know from reading this letter that he is addressing Christians… believers who have professed Christ as their Savior.
I do not believe that the writer is speaking to those believers who have just been saved, as they have not had the time or chance to mature in their faith… he is speaking to believers who SHOULD already be well on the road to maturity… let’s look back at v.12 of chapter 5 where he tells them… hey, you should already be teaching others…but you are lazy and slothful in your walk in Christ… so it’s time to GROW up!
But also in the name of the epistle we can also ascertain that many if not all of the believers this letter was addressed to were Jewish and were struggling with the temptation to believe the Judaizers in their teaching that Christianity MUST be mixed with the ritual of Judaism… or even worse to abandon Christ and ‘go back’ to their ancestral roots and return to Judaism…
We also know that the context of the immediate verses preceding these verses are to believers who seem to be struggling with moving forward in their Christian walk… who were not maturing as they should! And so this is merely a continuation of that teaching and admonition from the writer to the believers.
And basically what the writer was saying was that as believers it is their duty to mature in their faith… it is time to Grow up… is what he shared with them from Heb 5:11-6:3.
And if they turned back now that their faith and walk with Christ is in danger of being burned because they are making a public mockery of Christ by their lifestyle and that He will not stand idly by and see that done!So we can see the context, but let’s now look at the controversy!
2. The Apparent Controversy:
When we read this passage the controversy jumps right off the page at you, and there are many who have struggled over these few verses.
4 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit,5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age,6 if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance…
The controversy seems to be evident and clear when you read v.4-6a… What Scripture seems to be saying here is that a believer can turn his or her back on Christ and lose their salvation… and once they turn their back there is NO REDEMPTION!
As Baptists, we cringe as this interpretation and apparent contradiction of Scripture. We teach the doctrine of the ‘security of the believer’ and that teaching is not something that is contrived by the perverting of Scripture, but is based on sound Scriptural passages that deal with the issue of the ‘security of the believer’.
We get this doctrine from verses like John 10:27-29 [NIV]
27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.
Or like in this verse from Eph 4:30 [NIV]
30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
Or Eph 1:13-14 [NIV] where Paul writes:
13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.
Or Romans 8:38-39 [NIV] where Paul wrote:
38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And I could go on and on as Scripture is filled with passages that clearly indicate that once we are part of God’s family, we cannot lose that status.
If that is so, why then would God allow someone to write something and it directly conflict with that promise…thus we have what seems to be a controversy… or a contradiction in Scripture!
It seems to say that those believers who have been enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and made partakers of the Holy Spirit… it seems to say that these people can fall away… and when they do forgiveness is impossible!
This is where a majority of denominations that teach you can fall from grace get their ammunition. And when we read these words it seems to validate their position…at least on the surface!
But let’s look a little bit deeper this morning and see just what the text is saying and let’s not contend to know just because of what someone has taught us in the past… we need to search the Scriptures and know on our own! Let’s look at the passage and draw our own conclusions!
Let’s read our passage one more time…Read v.4-8 one more time…
3. Applied Conclusion:
Now that we know the context of this passage and we have seen the apparent contradiction that could be taken from this passage, I want us to look at some conclusions we can arrive at through study of Scripture and how we can then apply that study to our lives!
First we can see that the overall context of this passage is not focused on one losing their salvation but on the importance and critical nature of the maturation of the believer. And we can see this in the verses immediately preceding this passage where the writer is exhorting these Hebrew believers to become more mature in their walk in Christ.
Basically what the writer of Hebrews is saying in those verse is that as believers we are called by God to go forward in our walk toward perfection… toward maturity…and that it is not an option but a command for the believer!
What we must understand as believers is that spiritual maturity is not trivial ‘busywork’…just so we can say we are busy, but it is a serious command of Christ… and it is for every Christian.
Let me put it this way… there is absolutely no place in Christianity where believers can simply decide that the can put things in cruise control and settle down to NOT obey God. Either the believer is moving forward in their walk with Christ or they are slipping backwards…there is no neutral ground!
The “do nothing” believer is chastised as a drain on the kingdom and that eventually God will remove them from their position…
Scripture reveals this in many passages, but none more vividly than the letter to the church at Laodecia in Rev 3:15-16 [NIV]
15 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16 So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.
Can you imagine God ‘spitting’ a church out of his mouth? Is that not a picture of being under the threat of being cursed, as our passage tells us this morning…
God demands obedience out of His believers and He has shared that He is not going to tolerate deliberate and willful disobedience and sinful choices.
And thus the warning here by the writer of Hebrews. Verses 4-6 are all just one long and very complicated Greek sentence. Verse 4 begins with “it is impossible” and v.6 begins with the word… “if” which is the Greek word ‘kai’…
The Greek word kai is used about 1000 times in the NT and it has several translations and they are all according to context. This particular passage is translated as ‘if’ but it could just as well be translated ‘while’…
And when we use while, this makes the passage clear up somewhat, as the writer is now NOT speaking about the losing of our salvation but the ‘falling away’ from our walk in Christ.
And ‘while’ that particular believer is ‘falling away’ in their walk… they cannot receive any grace or forgiveness… this is because their walk itself is unrepentant… and without repentance there is NO forgiveness of sin!
But Bro Bobby, Jesus died on the Cross to forgive all my sin… past, present and future! Doesn’t God offer forgiveness for sin after we are saved? My answer is that YES He does, and we can find that promise given to us in 1 John 1:9 [NIV] where it tells us “…If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness…”
But what I want us to all understand here is that the occasional sin is not what the writer is speaking about here…
What the writer IS addressing a full blown, turn away from God and living a lifestyle of sin! What he is addressing are those who are believers, who begin to live every day constantly thumbing their nose at God and going against His commands…he is addressing the believer who has decided he can live as HE chooses and that he does not have to live as God desires!
So knowing this we can look at v.4-8 as a continuation of that teaching, in that believers are called to grow and mature and that here the writer of Hebrews tells these believers that if they choose to put aside the call of God in their life and begin to live as they see fit… that there are going to be consequences.
And if we read v.4-6, on the surface it seems as if the consequences are the loss of our salvation, but I want to emphasize to you this morning that the writer is NOT speaking about losing your salvation.
But he IS speaking about how God is going to discipline those believers who choose to live their lives in disobedience to God’s calling and commands! This is a warning for those believers who choose to willfully ignore and turn away from Him.
So we can conclude that this is not a prediction from the writer of Hebrews but a serious and dire warning intended to motivate those believers he is writing to…
However, what really drives this home is v.7-8 and the parable type teaching the writer of Hebrews uses which I believe really makes things clear!
7 Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God.
8 But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.
v. 7 speaks of the ground that drinks up the rain falling down on it… which represents the falling of the Holy Spirit onto the believers that the writer has already described back in v.5!
Now as any farmer would know and understand the goal of the rain falling on the ground is so that the ground will produce a good crop! A crop of useful and productive plants and thus the result is that the field is a blessing to the farmer and is blessed by the farmer.
However, if the ground that receives this wonderful rain and yet only produces thorns and thistles… these are plants that are useless to the farmer… these are plants that cannot produce, and therefore the field is useless to the farmer! And here is the key part of understanding this passage… this field is ‘in danger of being cursed’… and could be burned!
So what this passage is telling us is that we are that field in this parable! The field represents the church, those on whom the Holy Spirit [rain] has fallen, and they receive the blessing of the farmer [God] and for all intents and purposes that field should be producing good fruit! However, when we fall into a lifestyle of rejecting God and living by our own selfish motives, we have become a field that is producing only weeds and thorns… these are plants that do not ADD to the crop but they actually take away from the productivity of the other plants in the field…
And so these believers to whom God is blessing with His presence, and have tasted of His goodness… their actions are an affront to God because they are a public disgrace to Christ and what He did on the Cross! And because of their choices and lifestyle they are ‘in danger of being cursed and burned.’
But Bro Bobby, God has said He would never leave me NOR forsake me, how can this be? I am here to assure you that this is true, God is NOT going to leave you! But you can turn your back on God and we can look to some examples from Scripture that reflect what I am speaking about! When we look at the example of Esau in the OT, we can see a man who had the birthright… he had the blessing…but his selfish and self-centered attitude caused him to lose his birthright and because of this there was no redemption for him. We can even see that He went to his father and begged him and Isaac was saddened but he could do nothing!
Another biblical example are the believers we see in Acts 5. Do you remember this story? These believers were part of a group of people who decided to sell what they had and give the proceeds to the church….
Annanias and Saphira had a field and they went out and sold that field, and they conspired to hold back a portion of their price… but tried to lead Peter to believe that they were giving ALL of what they made.
Both of these people were believers, both of these people were part of the fellowship, but they both decided to turn their backs on God and lie to God… God’s discipline was swift and final as both were struck dead!
Here is a case where we can see that God’s warning… was carried out. These believers were not cast out of the fellowship spiritually, but God acted so that their devious lifestyle would not be an affront to His church.
And what we can learn from these consequences that these people ran into is that they DID turn away from acting on their beliefs in Christ, and they were in mortal danger because of it… Many of them were taken by God before they could continue their mockery of Christ’s death on the Cross…
In other words, God saw they were not going to repent and so He took steps to remove them from this world so they could NOT do more damage to His kingdom, and like the verse tells us they were on the verge of being lost, but not yet as the author of Hebrews did not believe it was hopeless… YET!
So we have seen how sometimes Scripture may seem to be conflicting in its message, but we have also seen that although it SEEMS to conflict, when studied properly we find that it does not conflict at all.
But the ‘moral of this passage’ from the writer of Hebrews is that as believers we are called to Grow up and begin to learn and teach… but also to Straighten up in our lives and live as if our spiritual lives depended on it… Friends it is time to straighten up and fly right for the Lord!
It’s time to straighten up and live as God has called us to live because if we don’t, we are making a mockery of Christ on the Cross and we bring shame and disgrace onto Jesus, and when we do that we are in danger of the curse and being burned…
God is not going to allow you to live like Hell and represent Him… He will take you out of this world to preserve the positive witness of His church!
Conclusion:
So, let me ask you… “Are you ready to step up today? Are you ready to straighten out and fly right like God has called you to do?” If you are God is calling you to make your decision a matter of public record…
I challenge you to come forward today and tell God that you will press forward and that you will work diligently for His kingdom…come forward today and confess your sin of apathy or sloth… come today and receive God’s mercy and forgiveness… come now before its too late!
We never know when our last day on this planet will be… and so as Jesus said, “Today is the day of salvation… today is the day to come to God and ask His forgiveness… and for you to straighten up and fly right according to God’s commands! Are you ready to do that this morning?
If you are here and you don’t know Jesus as your personal Savior, I call on you to surrender your heart to him today… when you are saved…when you truly repent and give your heart to the Lord of the Universe…
He is not a fickle God who will throw you out when you fail Him! 2 Peter 3:9 tells us, that God is patient, but it is His desire that all come to repentance! Are you ready to give your heart to Jesus this morning?
