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Amen. It's good to be with you tonight. If you would take your Bibles and open with me to Hebrews.! What's the first thing that comes to your mind and tell it to the person sitting next to you.
Discuss for a few minutes and we'll come back. Alright, let's come back together.
What are some things you said? What are things that are impossible? Malachi. Time travel. Okay, Thaddeus. Thaddeus said, me not being weird.
Yes. Teleportation. Okay, right here. Do what? Trying to be like Jesus.
Okay. The Vikings winning the Super Bowl. The Vikings winning the Super Bowl. Trace. Yes. Seeing God's face without dying. Seeing God's face without dying. Okay, we'll go two more right here.
Sam. Reading someone's mind. Reading someone's mind. Okay, last one. Sorry, Garrett. Rising from the dead without being the Son of God. Okay, rising from the dead without being the Son of God.
I like it. Okay, so is anything impossible? I've got some quotes here. I'm going to hear from some great theologians. First one being Lou Holtz, old football coach.
He said, nothing is impossible in this world if you just put your mind to it and maintain a positive attitude. Someone else said, nothing is impossible.
The word itself says, I'm possible. Doesn't really make sense, but she was an actress. And then last of all, my favorite New Age heretic, Deepak Chopra.
You must find the place inside yourself where nothing is impossible. Wow. Moving. Not quite true though.
Actually, the book of Hebrews says there are four things that are impossible. Two of them we'll see tonight. So tonight, our title is Two Impossibilities.
Two Impossibilities. And what we see first in verses 1 through 8 is we see an impossible restoration.
An impossible restoration. And we've already started this warning passage last week. If you remember with me, back to chapter 5, verses 11 through 14, the author's launched us kind of into this aside, really.
He wants to continue to talk about Jesus being a high priest like Melchizedek was. But they're not up to speed yet. He has to step back and say, you guys are drinking milk and not solid food, so I can't continue to talk about this in the depth I would like to.
And so he gives this warning passage. There are five in the book of Hebrews. This is number three, which makes it the middle one, and it is the most severe. There's a grave warning in this passage tonight.
And verses 1 through 8 of chapter 6 are really some of the most challenging verses to interpret in the New Testament. It's the most severe of the warning passages in Hebrews.
And remember, the author is writing to these Hebrew Christians who have placed their faith in Christ and are now being persecuted for that faith, being cut off from everything they've known, everything they've loved.
And so the author of Hebrews is trying to show them that Jesus is greater than everything. Jesus is over everything. And he's reminding them of this so they don't drift away from the hope they have in Christ.
So they don't walk away from Christ and enter into destruction. So they won't neglect this salvation. And really, at the end of chapter 5, he's calling them babies.
He's like, you guys aren't grown up. You should be grown at this point. You should be teaching and you need to be taught again. And now he launches into this warning of what could happen to them if they don't repent, if they don't go on to maturity.
And so verses 1 through 8, we have an impossible restoration. And so he says in verse 1 of chapter 6, 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 toward God and of instruction about washings or baptisms, if you have a footnote, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.
And this we will do if God permits. So he says, therefore, so based on what we've seen, you guys are still stuck on the elementary principles.
You're still stuck on these basic foundational truths. Let us leave from these. Let us leave discussing these things and grow up. Let us go on to maturity.
But if you look at how he describes these things, he describes these things as doctrine of Christ. And the first things he mentions are repentance and faith.
So the author is not saying, hey, forget about all that stuff. Like, leave this stuff behind. We don't need to talk about it. What he is saying is this is the foundation. This is what being a Christian is about.
And foundations are great. Foundations are necessary. You need a foundation for your house to stand. But a house is more than a foundation. They need to build on this foundation and grow up on it and not need to be retaught all of this stuff that's basic to the gospel.
And he calls it elementary doctrine in verse 1. If you look back to verse 12, he calls it basic principles of the oracles of God. And so these are foundational truths.
And there's three pairs of these truths that he talks about in verses 1 and 2. The first pair we see is repentance and faith. And then we see washings and laying on of hands.
And then we see resurrection and judgment. So in the first pairing, he says, Repentance means to turn away from sin.
You're walking in a direction. You're pursuing sin and wickedness and running away from God. And repentance is turning around and coming back to God. Changing your mind. Having a change of heart.
And he specifically says repentance from dead works. Outside of Christ, we were dead in our sin.
If you're outside of Christ tonight, you are dead in your sin spiritually. And to begin to be a Christian, one of the first things you do is repent of those dead works.
Those works that are unproductive, they're fruitless, and they will ultimately lead to death. Not just spiritually, but physically. The author is saying, this is foundational.
I shouldn't have to teach you again what repentance is. If you're a Christian, you know what repentance from dead works is like. That old life you used to live where you pursued sin and lived selfishly.
Turn from that. Turn from your dead works. Repentance ultimately is saying, I cannot establish my own righteousness.
I cannot earn God's favor. I cannot please God with how I'm living. I need something different. I need to turn to God from my sin.
So repentance from dead works and faith toward God. And what we see in the Bible is faith and repentance are two sides of the same coin. Faith and repentance aren't altogether separated.
They're different, but they're attached to the same coin. They're the heads and tails of what salvation looks like. You turn from your sin in faith to God.
And so what we have here in repentance and faith is really just a description of salvation. These are elementary. These are basic level Christianity. If you want to follow Christ, repent of your sins and place your faith in Jesus.
And the author is saying we need to be able to move on from these things. We need to, I need to be able to teach you deeper truth than just this elementary foundational things about salvation.
And then the second pairing is a little bit hard to understand. He mentions instruction about washings and the laying on of hands.
Instructions about washings or literally, the author says, instruction about baptisms. And so if what he says by repentance and faith is the entryway into Christianity, I think what we have here with the discussion of baptisms and laying on of hands is he's talking about baptism and the reception of the Holy Spirit.
And so if you read through the book of Acts, what the apostles were teaching is you need to repent and place your faith in Christ. And when you do that, one of the first things you do in obedience to Christ is you be baptized as a symbol of what's happened on the inside.
But why does he say baptisms or washings, plural? There's one baptism, Paul says. So why does he mention it in the plural? Well, again, these were Jewish Christians.
And if you read the Old Testament, there were multiple different baptisms they went through. There were multiple different washings that they went through. And so I think perhaps the author of Hebrews is saying, I shouldn't have to explain to you again the difference between Christian baptism and all the stuff you did in the Old Covenant, all the different washings that took place for purification.
And he also mentions the laying on of hands. It's a very broad description, really challenging to fully understand what he's referring to. In the Old Testament, you would lay hands on an animal you were sacrificing to identify with it.
The priest would lay his hands on you to pray for you and intercede for you. But again, he's calling this the doctrine of Christ. And what do we see happening in the book of Acts?
Apostles would lay their hands on those who were to receive the Holy Spirit. They would lay their hands on them as an identification that they had repented and had faith in Jesus.
We see people laying hands on them as an identification that they had repented and had faith in Jesus. We don't know exactly what he's referring to here, but he's saying this is elementary stuff.
I shouldn't have to bring this up every single time we have a discussion. And the third pairing, resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. Resurrection of the dead.
This is an essential element of the gospel. To be a Christian means that you believe Jesus rose from the dead. And not only that Jesus rose from the dead, but by faith in him, one day we also will rise from the dead with him.
And not just the Christians will rise, but everyone will rise again. Everyone will rise again. And this is where eternal judgment comes in.
Not everyone will go to heaven. Not everyone will receive God's mercy. And so this eternal judgment explains the need and the urgency of the gospel.
Everyone in this room will rise again one day. Some of us to eternal life. Some of us to eternal judgment. And because of that, we have to believe the gospel.
If you're a believer, you have to share the gospel with people because God's wrath is coming and his judgment will last for eternity. These are deep truths. These are things we shouldn't just leave behind.
But at the same time, these are foundational to what Christianity is. We need to believe these things. If we want to go on to maturity, though, we cannot need to be retaught about these things over and over and over again.
Some of you have taken Comp 1. Any Comp 1 college English people in here? Yeah, nice. So this would be like if you went into Comp 1, a college-level English class, and your professor was like, okay, let's sing the ABCs.
A-B-C. You'd be like, what in the... We don't... We need the alphabet, right? The alphabet's a good thing. That's a good foundation. But in Comp 1, you don't need to recite the ABCs every day.
You don't need to return to that. It's a foundational truth that we need to write things. We need to write papers, but it's not something we should need to be retaught every single day.
And so the author of Hebrews is saying, these are good things. We need all of this truth, but it's not something I should have to repeat myself on over and over again. In verse 3, he says, And this we will do if God permits.
What is it that we'll do? Well, he said in verse 1, Let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity. And so he's saying, we will go on to maturity if God permits.
As a Christian, how is it that you grow? How is it that you grow in maturity as a believer in Christ? Ultimately, your maturity is something that God does.
We have responsibilities. We need to read the Bible. We need to pray. We need to share the gospel with people. But ultimately, the growth comes from God.
And the author of Hebrews is saying, you need the Lord's help. If the Lord permits, we will go on to maturity. And so far in chapter 6, it's a little bit tricky, but mostly straightforward, but it's about to get really challenging.
It's about to go down in verses 4 through 8. So let me read verses 4 through 8 for us, and then we'll work through it. 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.
So who is verses 4 through 8 talking about? It's talking about these people who have seemed to experience salvation, who seem to have experienced the Holy Spirit, who seem to have loved God's Word, and then fallen away and being destroyed.
So who is being talked about here? Is this saying that true Christians can lose their salvation? No, we know that's not true. Paul says in Philippians 1, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
In Romans 8, he says, nothing will separate us from the love of God and Christ Jesus our Lord. So we know he's not, whatever he's saying here, we know he's not saying someone was a true believer, saved, and then lost their salvation.
So is this a hypothetical warning? Is he just saying, hey, be careful, this won't actually happen, but I'm just trying to scare you straight? I don't think so. I think what he's saying, this is a real warning given to these Christians.
He is trying to warn them into obedience. He's trying to show them the danger that awaits. So is this a real warning to believers?
I think it is. And it's not because true believers can fall away. It's not because we can lose our salvation, but it's because we must continue following Christ.
These Hebrews have to continue being faithful to the Lord. They cannot walk away from him because there is no salvation in anyone else, but only in Christ.
It's a real warning because there are real people who really appear to be saved, and they fall away.
They walk away. And sadly, I could tell you stories of people who have done this. From all outward appearances, they seemed to be saved, and they walk away from Christ.
And so how do we explain this? How do we who say that salvation is eternal, the believers are secure in Christ's hands, how do we explain something like that? If you want to write down 1 John 2.19, it talks about people like this.
It says, They went out from us because they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. And so what John is saying is there are people like this who seem to have been saved, and they walk away, and the explanation is that they were not truly converted.
They were not truly saved. But these people really looked like Christians for a time. These people really seemed like they were saved for a season.
These people were really following after Christ for a period of their life. But trials came, persecution came, and they walked away.
From the outside, everything looked good, but the pressure forced them out. And look at how he describes these people once again. They've once been enlightened.
They've tasted the heavenly gift, which I take as a reference to salvation. They've shared in the Holy Spirit. They can communicate some conviction they've felt from the Holy Spirit.
They've tasted the goodness of the Word of God. They've heard the preaching of the Word from the leaders of the church. They've seen and evaluated it as a good thing. Seen the powers of the age to come.
And they've fallen away. What a tragedy. And the author is saying, for someone like this, it is impossible to restore them again to repentance.
For those who have tasted these things, for those who have been so close to the kingdom and then walked away, it is impossible to restore them to repentance.
repentance. They came so close but now have no hope because they've walked away from Christ. It is like stepping off of a bridge.
There's no re-entry. There's no getting back onto the bridge because by the choice of stepping off the bridge, the damage that's done is irreparable. It cannot be fixed.
And these people, the author of Hebrews is saying, they've walked away and it's impossible to restore them to repentance. They've seen the evidence that they've heard the truth of Jesus and walked away.
They've gone back to where they came from. And in this case, it's Judaism. They've gone back into the Old Covenant. They've gone back to following Moses. And what hope of salvation is there in the law?
In verse 6, it says, it's impossible 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.
A couple of things he means here. What does it mean to crucify again the Son of God? Well, I think he is primarily emphasizing the shame, the contempt they're showing towards Christ.
If they've claimed to follow Christ, if they've claimed to be connected to the church and then walked away, what they're saying is Jesus is not worth it.
Jesus is not worth following. And so I think the author of Hebrews is telling, saying of those who have walked away, they're really identifying themselves with the Jews who killed Christ.
They're saying that Christ should have been there because He wasn't who He claimed to be, which was the Son of God. And what they're saying is Christ's death was not sufficient.
Christ's death did not save. And so He's not worthy of worship. And again, after seeing all of this evidence and rejecting it, what hope could there be?
And you think about Judas. Judas followed Jesus for three years. and Judas betrayed Jesus. He was so close to the Son of God.
He heard Him teach. He had conversations with Jesus and then fell away. What hope is there for someone like that?
And in verses 7 and 8, I think the author gives an illustration of what he's talking about that is really, really helpful. So in verse 7, he says, 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.
So image 1, there's land that receives rain, it bears fruit, and God blesses it. The second image is in verse 8, but if it bears thorns and thistles, so it receives the same rain, but instead of producing fruit, it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.
This land likewise receives rain, but instead of producing fruit, it bears thorns and thistles and receives the curse. And its end is to be burned.
And the land here is a picture of two types of people. If these readers don't progress onto maturity, perhaps they haven't been saved.
and their end is to be cursed by God. And I think of Jesus' parable of the soils in Matthew 13.
You can save your spot in Hebrews and go back to Matthew 13 for me just briefly. Jesus told these parables which were word pictures and stories intended to teach a point.
And in Matthew chapter 13, a great crowd had gathered around him and he told them many things in parables.
Verse 3, saying, a sower went out to sow and as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground where they did not have much soil and immediately they sprang up since they had no depth of soil.
But when the sun rose, they were scorched and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.
He who has ears, let him hear. Jesus is telling this story and saying there's a sower that goes out to sow seed and this is a picture of someone who shares the gospel.
And this gospel falls on many different kinds of hearts. And I want to call your attention specifically to the seed that falls on rocky ground in verse five.
It immediately springs up because it has no depth of soil and then it withers away. And he explains it in verse 20 if you look at Matthew 13, 20. It says, As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy.
Yet he has no root in himself but endures for a while. And so what Jesus is saying is there are people who when they hear the gospel, they respond to it with joy.
It seems from the outside that they are doing well. It seems from the outside that they've accepted it until tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word and immediately he falls away.
You can go back to Hebrews chapter six. In that picture, Jesus is saying there are people who will outwardly respond to the gospel and seem to be genuine, seem to be converted, and when persecution comes, when trials come, they will fall away.
And I think the author of Hebrews, by giving us this land illustration, is making a connection to Jesus' parable there, saying, these are the ones Jesus was talking about. These are the people who responded to the word of God initially until persecution came and they fell away.
Did these people appear to be saved? Yes. Were they actually saved? No. Trials came, persecution came, and they fell away.
This is a dire warning. Let us pay careful attention to ourselves and to each other. And seniors in the room, we've seen this with many different senior classes.
There are some seniors we send out loving all of them, thinking some of them are saved. And they go off to college, they're exposed to trials or temptations, they're afflicted for their faith, and they walk away.
We must pay careful attention to ourselves, lest we drift away from from what we have heard. And let us pay careful attention to each other as well.
So we see an impossible restoration. Secondly, we see the unchanging God. The unchanging God.
God, even with this fierce warning he gives in the first eight verses, he's not just trying to plant doubt in his hearers.
He's not just trying to cause fear alone in those who are hearing this, and he now gives them a warm encouragement. And he says in verse nine, though we speak in this way, though we speak so fiercely about those who fall away, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things, things that belong to salvation.
And so what he's saying is, he's saying, I am confident that in your case, you have been saved. I am confident in the Lord that in your case, you are not those who will fall away.
You are not those who will shrink back. You have already started to endure persecution. Don't stop. Keep going on to maturity. Keep growing in the Lord.
Don't stall out. Don't stagnate. Keep growing. Because the people who endure to the end are the ones who inherit the promises of God.
The ones who stay faithful to the end are the ones who receive blessing from the Lord. Just like the field that produces fruit, receive blessing from God. The one who stays faithful to the end is blessed by God.
Even though he's leveled a serious warning that we must take to heart, he's confident that these people are true believers and not the fakes that fall away.
And why is he confident? Why is he sure of better things in the case of this Hebrew congregation that remains? Verse 10, for God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints as you still do.
The reason he is confident is because he has seen their works. He has seen their transformed lives. He has seen primarily the love that they have shown.
The love that they have shown not only for each other but for the name of the Lord. It is possible to love someone and serve someone for selfish reasons.
It is possible even in our church to just serve someone for what you might get in return. To serve someone just to be seen by others. But the author of Hebrews says you have served because you've been motivated by the love of the name of God.
You love God. You love His character and His name is what is motivating your acts of service. His name, His glory is what is motivating you to serve each other.
And so He is confident in their case that they belong to God. And God is not unjust to overlook the things they've done. In verse 11, we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end.
He's saying, I want all of you to be like this. I want all of you to have this kind of relentless service, this kind of love that does not end for each other and for the name of God.
Verse 12, so that you may not be sluggish. Kind of a funny word, but it's actually the same word he used back in chapter 5 when he said, you've become dull of hearing.
I don't want you to become dull. I don't want you to become sluggish. I want you to endure to the end. So don't become sluggish, but the imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
The promises are for those who endure to the end. We've got a lot of cross-country runners in here. I am not, nor was one of them.
But in order to medal, you have to finish the race. That's qualification number one. If you want the prospect of getting a medal, you have to finish the race.
There are no medals handed out to quitters. There are no medals handed out to those who do not finish. And the author of Hebrews is saying, I want you to endure to the end. I want you to stay faithful to the end and imitate those who have inherited God's promises.
And he gives one example of a man who has inherited the promises of God. He points us to Abraham. In verse 13, for when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself saying, surely I will bless you and multiply you.
And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. There's a lot of language about swearing an oath or taking an oath, and in the ancient world this was basically their signature.
They would swear by God, they would swear by someone greater than themselves to fulfill whatever they were promising as kind of their seal or their signature on whatever the agreement was.
But when God swears an oath to Abraham, who can God swear by that's greater than him. God is the greatest being in existence.
The only one he can swear by is himself. And so he says, surely I will definitely bless you and multiply you. And he said this to Abraham, and that quote actually comes from Genesis 22.
And if you remember the story of Abraham, he waited many years for God's promise to come true. When Abraham was 75 years old, God promised that he would have a son.
And finally, when he was 100 years old, he had that son. He patiently endured. He patiently waited for God to keep his promise.
100 years old is very old to become a father for the first time. I can't imagine the looks he got at the baby shower. Like, oh, where's the dad? Oh, that's him.
That guy's like 100. Yeah, literally. Oh, man. Okay. So, he was old, but the point the author is giving here is he patiently waited for God to keep his promise.
And in Genesis 22, God has just asked Abraham to kill his son of promise. He has just said, you've waited for years for Isaac. He's the one I was going to bless the nations through.
I want you to sacrifice him. And Abraham was willing to obey. And God stops him and utters these words, surely I will bless you.
Abraham inherited this promise, though waiting for years, he waited patiently, trusting in the Lord. And he obtained the promise in verse 15.
In verse 16 it says, for people swear by something greater than themselves and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. So again, when we are testifying to something, we're often called on to swear by something that's greater than ourselves.
And so if you ever testify in court, you have to swear in the presence of God that you will tell the truth. If you ever get married, that's really an oath in the presence of God and the witnesses there that you'll be faithful to your spouse.
We call on something greater to show the seriousness of the situation. Does God need to do that? God does not need to do that because everything he says is true, but the reason he did this was for our sake.
And so in verse 17, when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise, the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath.
So that by two unchangeable things, that is his word and his oath, his promise and his oath, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.
God never lies. The reason he doubles down on this promise is so that for those who are waiting for its inheritance, they will have hope.
And we need to step back and say, why is he talking about Abraham? He's propping him up as an example of someone who endured patiently and inherited God's promise, but why is he talking so much about this promise?
Why is he talking about us as heirs of this promise? If you remember back in chapter 2 verses 16 and 17, he calls us the heirs of Abraham, the descendants of Abraham, the offspring of Abraham.
And what was God's ultimate promise to Abraham? Not just that Abraham would have a lot of kids, that's true, but ultimately the Messiah would come through Abraham's line. Ultimately, Abraham would give birth to someone who would be a king forever.
Someone would come from Abraham's line that would rule forever and ever with perfect righteousness. And we are heirs of that promise.
We have received that promise by faith in Christ. We are descendants of Abraham. And it gives us hope.
In verse 19, it says we have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
Our trials and troubles, any persecution we face can throw us around a little bit. How do we make sure that we don't drift away? We have this anchor for our souls.
We have this thing that holds us strongly, does not let us drift away. We have an anchor. And you think about a ship, the anchor is what keeps it in place.
If a ship wants to stay where it's at, it drops its anchor and it will not be moved. Or if you think about a dog that's chained to a pole, stuck in the ground. Or if you've ever been to the zoo and people have those little toddler leashes, you know what I'm talking about?
It's like a leash for your dog but it's on your kid. And it's not around the neck, you know, it's got a little shoulder harness and stuff. Before we had kids, if I ever saw that, I was like, that is inhumane. What is your toddler, a dog?
Like, what is this? Now I've got two toddlers, I'm like, how much does one of those things cost? Like, where can I get one? So anyway, that is really, the parent is functioning as the anchor.
It's keeping the child from getting too far away from them. And the author of Hebrews is saying, our hope is our anchor. Our hope in Christ holds us onto him, keeps us close, doesn't let us drift.
And this hope enters into the inner place behind the curtain. Behind the curtain in the Old Testament was off limits.
It's where the Ark of the Covenant was, it's where God's presence was. No one could go in there except the high priest and him just once a year. And he's saying, we have this hope that has gone behind the curtain.
Who is behind the curtain? Jesus. Jesus has gone there and offered a sacrifice to his father. And unlike the high priest, Jesus does not have to come out of the presence of God.
Jesus stays there forever. Jesus is our high priest forever. He does not have to leave. He is seated at the right hand of the father. And so we have this immovable hope because we have an irremovable high priest who sits next to our unchanging God who has made unchanging promises to us.
Jesus, our anchor, has gone behind the curtain and offered himself, his own blood, to his father. And this sacrifice and his work as our priest anchors us forever to the presence of God.
We cannot lose our salvation. not because we are righteous or strong, but because Christ holds us perfectly as an anchor that is steady and strong.
Nothing can remove this hope from us. Our hope that is faith for what God will do in the future. He will keep his promises. We cannot lose this hope because our hope is not a wish.
It's not wishful thinking. It's based on the promise and oath of God. It's based on the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is guaranteed by the spirit that Jesus has sent to us.
The author does not tell us to look inside of ourselves for our hope. The author does not tell us to trust our hearts for our hope. The author does not tell us to find the place inside of ourselves where nothing is impossible.
The author tells us to look to Jesus. The author tells us to believe in Jesus who is forever a high priest like Melchizedek was. And if you've noticed, chapter 6 ends back where we were in chapter 5 verse 10.
The author wanted to keep going but had to give this warning passage in between and now it's come full circle and he is ready to launch us into this comparison between Jesus and Melchizedek.
And we'll pick up there next week in chapter 7. Let me pray for us. Our Father, we praise you for our great high priest Jesus who has entered into the heavens, gone before us.
He's the pioneer, he's the founder of our faith. Father, I pray we examine ourselves in light of this warning that we've received from Hebrews chapter 6.
I pray that we would not be those who shrink back. I pray that we would not be those who fall away but those who endure to the end and obtain and inherit your promises. Keep us faithful Father.
Give us strength through your Spirit to honor your Son. It's in his name we pray. Amen. Thank you.