The Danger Of Falling Away

“The Danger of Falling away”

Hebrews 6:4-12

Brent KerchevilleBrent Kercheville

Credit: This sermon is an adaptation of Brent Kercheville’s sermon (West Palm Beach Church of Christ. I edited it for my use and added what I needed for my Church.

Do you obey warning signs?

When you are traveling and

there appears a yellow sign with a curve on it and

a speed limit of 25 MPH, Do you slow down to 25 MPH?

Questions:

What does the color yellow on a traffic light mean to you?

How about a construction sign that says 45

where you used to drive 70?

We tend to pay more attention:

to warning signs when we see the police watching.

Don’t speed in Morristown, they police are watching

Don’t speed by the fire station, the police like to park there

This is the 3rd sermon in our series through the 5 warnings in Hebrews

The third of five warnings is found in Hebrews 6:4-8:

The danger is of becoming lazy and

also of not progressing in the faith.

The danger is being slack and immature. Hebrews 6:4-8

“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 and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. 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.”

This warning in the book of Hebrews speaks of:

the impossibility of those who fall away

from “being brought back to repentance.”

The Hebrews are not in danger of:

having their salvation stolen,

but are in danger of giving it away.

There is a need for renewed energy and passion in their faith:

There is still hope for the Hebrews

in that they have not YET gone too far,

there's still time to fortify their faith

But they need to heed this warnings

Just like the Hebrew Christians:

- we need to continue to mature and grow in our faith

- we need to see that if we are not growing and maturing

- that our faith is getting weaker and we can be in danger

To understand Hebrews 6, we have to go back to Hebrews 5.

The writer of Hebrews is pretty straight forward:

“About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.”

Hebrews 5:11 (ESV)

They should be more advanced and mature than they are:

They aren’t ready for deeper things because they

are lazy listeners and do not want to grow deeper.

They are like 30 year olds who are still in the first grade.

The author of Hebrews says:

By now they ought to be teachers,

they still need someone to

teach them the basic principles of Christ’s teaching.

While they have been taught, they have not learned.

The challenge is for them to move on past the basics:

Stop repeating the teachings you know and

go on to maturity, basically the message is that

It is time to GROW UP in the faith,

Now the writer is going:

to communicate to them

why going on to maturity and

leaving the spiritual milk is so critical

1. Impossible Repentance

“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, 5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 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.”

Hebrews 6:4-6

Hebrews 6:4 starts out with the word “impossible.”

It reads “For it is impossible….”

The word impossible is a very definite word

There is no wiggle room with IMPOSSIBLE

So what is impossible?

The author leaves us in suspense

for a moment and describes

who he is talking about next.

It is important to see that these people:

have not simply been taught about God.

A story is told about a college professor, an atheist:

who gave a lecture denying the existence of God.

He cited book after book, scholar after scholar and

other written articles to prove that there is no God.

The story continues that after the lecture: