Hebrews Talk 9 (5:11 – 6:12)

0:00 Well, we come this morning to the final part of this series on Hebrews. And if you have a copy of the New Testament with you, again, I encourage you to take that out. As long as you've all other features on your smartphone switched off and you're not texting your friends to tell them how boring this is or whatever it is you want to text them. But it's great to have a copy of the text in front of you. It will appear on the screen behind me. This is Hebrews chapter 5. And we're going to read from verse 11 through to chapter 6 and verse 12. And this is how it begins.

0:45 About this, we have much to say. So let's just pause there. This what? He's just told them that the Lord Jesus, even though he was the divine son of God, learned obedience through the things that he suffered. And that now this Jesus has become the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him as their God appointed high priest. Now, having a high priest was something they knew very well from their Jewish background, for in Judaism, they had a high priest. In fact, a long line of them stretching right back to the first Aaron who served with Moses. You can read about him back in the book of Exodus.

1:44 But this is the key point. Jesus is not a high priest in the same line as Aaron, not in the same order of priesthood. Rather, he is a high priest in the order of Melchizedek. Again, someone they should know about, but perhaps many of us don't know about. The writer has a lot of vital things that he wants to say about this, that he knows will be of enormous practical help to them in the challenges they are facing to their faith. But there's a problem. So we read on. It is hard to explain, Not simply because in itself it can be quite complicated.

2:42 But he says, since you have become dull of hearing. I'm reading from the ESV here. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, 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, those who have had 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, eternal judgment.

3:37 And this we will do if God permits, for it is impossible. In the case of those who have once been enlightened and who have tasted the heavenly gift, who 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, it is 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. For the land that has drunk the rain that often falls in 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 in its end is to be burned. Though 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 so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name and serving the saints as you still do. And we desire each one 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 attitude, the mindset, the condition of some of these Hebrews that he was writing to was clearly causing real concern.

5:21 They had claimed to be Christians for some time, time enough that by this stage they should have developed to the point of being able to teach others, that is to pass on the basics of the faith to others, but sadly not. Instead of growing into adult, mature Christians, they had, many of them, remained at the baby stage, at best spiritual infants who couldn't handle solids but had to be fed milk. They had become dull of hearing. That's what the text literally says. So the problem wasn't so much the way the NIV puts it that they no longer try to understand. It's actually the problem that comes before that. They weren't even listening. They'd become dull of hearing.

6:24 According to my wife, I suffer from that problem. Do anybody else know that? She can usually tell because when I then say, yes, of course, dear, then she'll say, you haven't listened to a single thing I've said. Now, I do think after almost 49 years of marriage, I'm getting better, at least at saying sorry. I'm not sure about the listening. This is a pretty universal experience, isn't it? If you've been a teacher, as I was for some years, or being a parent, trying to explain something to a pupil or trying to explain something to a child, just don't listen. That's quite difficult.

7:13 And this is the problem here. Because he wants to equip them for the challenges that they are facing and are going to face. And some of them are going to get even worse. And he knows that the teaching he's about to give is really helpful and will help them. But the problem was that they had become dull in hearing. and he expresses the real fear that they won't be able to cope with the teaching, not because they're incapable of understanding it, but because they're dull of hearing, not just lazy, but reluctant. They didn't like where the teaching was going, the implications of it. As a result, they hadn't allowed God's word to develop their spiritual understanding and discernment to the point where they could tell the difference between what was healthy, spiritually speaking, and what was unhealthy.

8:29 You see, that's what we seek to do with our kids, isn't it? The whole point, really, of the education of things like that is to get them to the point where they're able to make their own decisions They're able to discern. They're able to weigh things up and say, that's a lot of nonsense. That's good stuff. I'll hold on to that. That's the process of growing up. But because they'd been dull of hearing, they had not done that. And it is a condition that can infect all of us and not just husbands.

9:05 Because you see, as long as life goes on smoothly And there are no real challenges and problems at this deep level of our faith and so on. Being lax about this, being careless doesn't really make much difference. Why should we bother? I mean, these things are complicated. Why would you bother getting in deeper? Because everything's fine. Just leave that to the people who, you know, they're good at that kind of thing. And life's busy and lots of things going on and it's all great and so on.

9:40 until the difficult moments arrive, and they will arrive, and the challenges with them, challenges in our own hearts, our own souls, as doubts arrive, as we are assailed with all kinds of questions we can't answer, as other Christians take different viewpoints from us, as people maybe let us down, as a member of our family becomes ill, as we get opposition from work colleagues regarding, for example, the unique claims of Jesus or Christ's moral teaching and all sorts of stuff. And we discover then that we haven't put the hours in, we haven't put in the preparation. We haven't trained ourselves in the word of God to be able to discern and hold on to what's good and what isn't good. It's one thing when we're new to the faith and we need a lot of help, And very often we're very enthusiastic at that point. But it's another thing where we've had plenty of opportunity to learn and grow, but we haven't taken it. But the specific problem here is not just laziness, it's reluctance. Because they could see where this was going.

10:54 They could see where the gospel was taking them. The implications that in Christ, the priesthood that they had known and grown up with that had served them in Judaism, that was now obsolete. That the sacrifice that they were used to around the temple, that they were obsolete. That the temple itself, that they revered so much, the central of their nation's spiritual life, that itself was obsolete. And indeed, soon was going to be dismantled stone by stone. They didn't want to go where the teaching was taking them. They didn't want to listen to teaching about Jesus as a high priest because then they would have to make decisions about their life, decisions that could lead them into conflict with neighbors and friends and even in family, and they could end up becoming misfits and aliens within their own culture. And when faced with that kind of challenge, some people prefer not to listen as if it gives them an excuse.

12:05 And it doesn't. They wanted to stick with the basic foundation that they already had in Judaism. Now, what was that foundation? Well, it's itemized for us. You can look at it in chapter 6, verses 1 to 4, where he talks about these basic things. Repentance from dead works. faith towards God, instruction about washings or baptisms, you notice the plural, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. Now, some have read this list and seen it as the basics of Christianity, but I guess if I were to say to you, give me a list of the basics of Christianity, very few of these things would actually be in it.

12:50 You notice, for example, yes, repentance and faith in God. But there's nothing about trusting Jesus as Messiah, the Son of God, nothing about his death on the cross, nothing about his resurrection, nothing about the coming of the Spirit, nothing about Christian baptism. There only is one Christian baptism, not baptisms as talked about here. Nothing about the church, nothing about the return of Christ and so on. Because these aren't the basics of Christianity. These are the basics of their background in Judaism. As the writer expresses it literally, these are the first principles, not of Jesus Christ, but the first principles of Messiah. For the Hebrews that he's writing to, these first principles have provided a foundation, but there is no point in a foundation if there's no building to put on it.

13:43 And that was the problem. This was part of the preparation that led up to the coming of Jesus as Messiah. But with the coming of Jesus as Messiah, it was time for them to move on rather than sticking with that old foundation. Now, move on to what then is the question. And he uses a word which is confusing whichever way we translate it in English. move on to maturity, as some English translations put it, or move on to perfection, as others put it. And they're both right, but both could be misleading. What does he mean by this particular word?

14:29 Is he talking, for example, about becoming more spiritually mature, or is it something else? Well, to answer the question, I think what we need to do is look a little bit more broadly, because the word is used on a number of occasions in these next chapters. And I want to pick out just two examples to show you what is meant by the term. For example, this is chapter 7, verse 11, where he says, now if perfection, there's our word, had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood, that is the Jewish priesthood, what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek rather than one named after the order of Aaron. Now here he's talking about two priesthoods, two orders of priesthood. He's contrasting the order of Aaron with the order of Melchizedek. And he's saying that if what he calls perfection could have been achieved through that order of Aaron, then there's no need for another one. You can't improve in perfection.

15:39 But the reality is that Aaron's priesthood was weak, it was inadequate, it couldn't make anything perfect. But Jesus, their high priest after the order of Melchizedek, he could make things perfect. So what they needed to do was to move on to perfection in the sense of leaving behind Aaron and his priesthood and moving on to Jesus, their eternal high priest. So the contrast is not between two priesthoods within Christianity, one that's more mature than the other. It is between two separate priesthoods, one of which is inadequate and obsolete and the other which is perfect. moving on to maturity or perfection means abandoning the inadequate priesthood of Aaron and embracing Jesus as their eternal perfect high priest. A second example comes in chapter 10 where this time the writer is talking about the sacrifices under that old system, the animal sacrifice that were constantly made and constantly repeated year after year after year. And he says, they could never make perfect those who drew near to worship.

17:04 That's why they were constantly repeated. But they could never accomplish the job of making people right with God, of cleansing their consciences. But then he says, the one sacrifice of Jesus has made perfect forever those who are being holy. And again, we see the contrast is not between two systems of sacrifice within Christianity, the one more mature than the other. It's between two separate systems, one which is inadequate and obsolete and the other which is perfect. So to sum it up, moving on to maturity and perfection meant for them leaving that old inadequate temporary system of sacrifice that Aaron's priesthood, the temple, and all of that, and moving into the perfection that has come through Jesus, that makes us right with God, cleanses our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. So, since perfection in that sense has now come in Christ Jesus, why would they want to stay with what was imperfect and obsolete?

18:29 What would they be saying if they did that? What would be the implications of it? And we'll talk about that in a minute, but please notice there's a choice that has to be made here. It's not both. It's one or the other. Yes, it's a good thing to realize that we're sinful. We need to repent. Judaism taught that.

18:58 Christianity teaches that. And there, Judaism and Christianity agree. But to claim to have repented and to trust God, and then to reject the provision that God has made for their salvation, the sacrifice of Jesus, his priesthood, and cling on to the sacrifices in the priesthood of Judaism that couldn't deal with sin, that was to make a nonsense of any claim to believe in Jesus. It was one or the other. Either go forward to perfection in Christ or stay with the inadequate, the weak, the temporary, where there ultimately is no salvation. So what would they choose? Now, the writer eventually, as we saw, goes on to tell them that he believes there is enough evidence in their lives, at least for the majority of them, that they had in fact chosen to move on to perfection, which is why then he will go on and explain all about Jesus as high priest, and we'll see that in the next section of Hebrews. But before he gets there, he needs to address this problem of those who hadn't made the choice to go on to perfection in Christ.

20:30 And I admire his courage. His concern for these people is their salvation. And out of his love for them, he doesn't water down the gospel by trying to find a form of words that will be acceptable to everyone. For example, talking about, well, as long as we're all people of faith, whatever that means. And of course, we're all, nobody's perfect. We're all sinful. So yes, of course, we all need to repent. and by emphasizing shared moral values.

21:15 These are things that anybody with any kind of spiritual mind at all would agree with, but he doesn't do that. He is very clear. There's a choice to be made. Those who have chosen to stay with the foundation principles have actually made a choice to refuse to move on. These are people then who initially claimed to have repented and accepted Jesus as Messiah, but now have rejected Jesus' deity, rejected his sacrifice, rejected him as high priest. We're not talking about here people who've had a wee bit of a wobble and got a wee bit cold spiritually. This is clear-cut decision making. And our writer doesn't compromise.

22:11 And he doesn't even try to get them to change their minds. You'll notice that. Because as he explains it, people in that condition, it is simply impossible to renew them to repentance. And there's no point in trying the impossible. Why is it impossible? Now what follows makes for very serious reading and from personal experience, I know that this paragraph has caused huge alarms for many sincere believers. It's important we take it seriously, but it is particularly important that we observe exactly what is said here and what isn't said. For example, the writer doesn't say it is impossible for God to forgive these people.

23:10 The truth is that God will forgive anyone who truly repents and believes. The issue is not with God. It's with these people. They will not repent. In fact, it's impossible to get them to repent. Well, why not? Look exactly at what he says about them. These particular people had been enlightened to the truth.

23:38 Now, please notice that doesn't imply that they were genuinely converted, born again. It means what it says. They were enlightened. That's an essential part. But if it doesn't lead to repentance and faith in Jesus, it isn't enough. It is possible to be enlightened, but then to shut our eyes and turn away from the light we have been given and do it knowingly and deliberately. John tells us about the light that comes into the world that enlightens everyone, but it doesn't mean everyone is converted. They had been enlightened.

24:18 More than that, the evidence against them piles up. They had tasted the heavenly gift, shared in the Holy Spirit, tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come. And we look at that and we think, look, they must have been genuine Christians. And I understand why you would think that, but I don't think so. Look at the exact terms, very carefully chosen for this particular group of people. They are not the normal words we would use in describing conversion. He doesn't say they have been born again, that they genuinely believe in the Lord Jesus, that they have been saved. But what he tells us is that they had experienced the reality of the power of God, the word of God.

25:06 And think now of the context. The particular generation of Hebrews he was speaking to had been immensely privileged. perhaps not as much as those who lived for example in Capernaum who had the Lord Jesus live with them who had witnessed the miracles he did who had eaten the food when he fed the 5,000 who may even have been physically healed by him but these people had the witness of Christ's apostles they had experienced their teaching they knew of and perhaps had witnessed some of the remarkable miracles that the Lord enabled the apostles to do to authenticate the gospel that we read about in the early chapters of Acts. They had tested the powers of the age to come. They'd been given a glimpse into what the messianic rule of Christ will be like when sickness and death is banished. They had experienced the Holy Spirit, his enlightenment of their minds. They had felt the power of the word of God in their minds and their hearts.

26:15 They had come to realize that Jesus must be the Messiah. And they turned their backs on it deliberately. Like those we read of, for example, in the gospel of John chapter six to 10, who believed in Jesus, we're told. But then when they discover the implications of what Jesus actually taught, what salvation actually meant, what following him in this world would mean, they rejected him. And when Jesus spoke to them and said that they weren't genuine children of God, they were off their father, the devil, their response was not to repent. It was to lift up stones to kill him. It's impossible to renew people like this to repentance. repentance.

27:06 See, the Apostle Paul did a whole lot of desperate things before he became a Christian. And when he writes about it, he says this, I received mercy because I acted in ignorance. When his eyes were opened by the Holy Spirit, then he tells us, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. He could have been, but he wasn't. He repented and he trusted in Christ. But these people, well, they couldn't claim anymore to have acted in ignorance. Their eyes had been opened. They'd seen the truth.

27:47 Perhaps they'd even made some kind of profession to accept and believe it. But unlike Paul, then they deliberately rejected it. They repudiated Jesus as Messiah, as Son of God. they rejected his sacrifice and his priesthood I say it again this is not talking about Christians who've had a wobble or have made a mistake or sinned and they're out of the way and they're gone it's not talking about people like that this is talking about open eyed defiant rebellion and repudiation of Christ and his gospel and as he puts it later They're a trampling underfoot of the cross of Christ. They're crucifying Jesus again. It's not again, they say, because God isn't prepared to forgive people. This isn't about God.

28:48 It's about people like that. You can't get them to repent because it's only the Holy Spirit who can bring people to repentance. And having rejected the Holy Spirit, there's no other power in the universe can bring them to repent. And the writer uses a little illustration here of rain coming down, water coming down on the ground, and some ground, the rain comes down and produces wonderful crop. Same rain on a different ground, and it's just thorns and thistles. And the answer is not, well, let's bring more rain, is it? No, it's not. He can't do anything with that.

29:27 but verse 9 though we speak in this way yet in your case dear friends we feel sure of better things things that belong to salvation you notice it not things that produce salvation but belong to it and such a relief although he felt compelled to write as he did deep down he believes that at least for most of them, there's evidence in their lives of God's salvation. And then he adds this, and this may well be at least one of my favorite statements in the entire Bible. For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work or so as to forget your work. and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints as you still do. I just love this. This is transformative.

30:35 God is not unjust so as to forget your work. This is not saying that they're saved by their works. This is talking about evidence that salvation has genuinely come because salvation works its way out in the life. As James puts it, we can't show our faith without works. The only way to show that it's real is with works. And the evidence is important, not just for us, but also for God. If there is no evidence and there's never been any evidence in our works that we have genuinely trusted in Christ, that is serious. But in their case, there's plenty of evidence.

31:20 So though in recent times they may have faltered a bit under pressure, perhaps even slacked off, not just as enthusiastic, but in the early days, plenty of evidence that their faith was genuine and God is not unjust. So as to forget your works and the love you've shown for his name in serving other believers. That is so encouraging. Remember what Jesus said? Even a glass of water receives its reward because God doesn't forget. Now, sometimes we see that as a bit of a threat because we think of it in the negative. God doesn't forget. But our sin is covered entirely by the death of Christ.

32:19 God doesn't forget even the glass of water. I find that encouraging in so many different ways. Let me mention three of them as I close. Here's a person who served the Lord all their life. But then perhaps in middle age, perhaps in later age, they make a huge mistake, some great moral failure or whatever, that takes them out of the race entirely. You think about so-and-so and what they used to do, and now they're gone. They're not in public ministry. They're not.

33:03 The world forgets them, laughs at them. The press certainly talks about it. God is not unjust. as to forget. He will remember and reward every genuine piece of evidence. A second area. Here's someone who served the Lord all his or her life, but then some form of dementia slips in. Distorts the memory.

33:41 distorts the personality. They're not the person they used to be. And maybe as it happens in some cases, you know, all the swear words and bad language and foul jokes and all the rest of it that had been set away for years suddenly come back as the filters, as we say, have gone. How encouraging to know that God doesn't forget. God doesn't forget. It's amazingly encouraging. Everything we do. And there's some of us who think, a third example.

34:26 Do you know what would it be fine if I had been called upon to do some great work? There goes a missionary somewhere to do some great public-facing thing. But looking after elderly parents, looking after kids coping with a disability. Even a glass of water. Those simple acts of kindness. those prayers when that was all you could do. The words of encouragement. God will not forget.

35:14 That's not a reason for us to slacken, but it's a reason, an incentive, surely, to keep going. We desire each one of you to show the same earnestness, to have this full assurance of hope until the end so that you may not be sluggish. Don't be sluggish. Don't slacken off. But just keep going in the same direction and be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. People that he'll talk about in the famous chapter 11. He wants them to keep going in their simple way perhaps. A way that nobody else sees.

35:54 Because he wants them to experience the full assurance in life of their salvation. And one of the big ways of experiencing the reality of that is to serve. It's not to sit around and examine your spiritual navel, if I can put it that way, and get all depressed by all the sin and bad things you've done and the opportunities you've missed and all the rest of it. And so develop yourself into a little prison of your own incompetence and weakness and sin. It is rather to get on with it because God knows all about that stuff too. And the death of Christ deals with all of that. So please, get on with it. While you still have breath, while you still can.

36:40 Those little acts of kindness, the hospitality, the sharing a word, the comfort, the prayer, the sharing your faith with others, whatever it is. Because ahead of us is a magnificent inheritance. inheriting the promises of God. And if we say that that is where we're headed, is there evidence of that? Let's hope there is. Because heaven is not much of a reality if we're not prepared to invest in it, is it? This is a call in the end.

37:18 To invest so that the reality of our salvation, Achieved by Christ. Not dependent on our work. But that explodes out in the simple everyday patterns of our life. And one day we inherit the promises that God has made to us. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you again for both the strong challenge, but also the huge encouragement that comes to us from these words. As we finish this first part of our consideration of Hebrews, may this final exhortation to us to imitate, to choose our role models well, to look to those who kept going faithfully, serving one another with joy, whatever came their way. May those be our role models.

38:30 And may those of us who are older act as role models to younger generations so they can see what this life looks like. Help us, strengthen us, guide us by your spirit we pray for the glory of Jesus Christ. Amen. .