A few years ago I received an invitation to go speak to a woman at a local coffee shop. It wasn’t an invitation that I was excited about in any way, however, because of the nature of the conversation. For before I went to meet with the woman, I knew her circumstances and what she would be talking about. She had been married to the same man for over twenty years and had two godly children. In fact, I had been in their house on occasions and marveled at the way they discussed Scripture in my midst and seemed to be a model family. However, in the days prior to this conversation at the coffee shop she had made an announcement that hit like a bombshell. She announced that she had been involved in an adulterous relationship with a man that she had fallen in love with, wanted to divorce her husband, and wanted to marry her adulterous partner. The entire family was shocked, the husband sick to his stomach, the children crying, and everyone wondering what had happened to this woman (their wife, their mother) so that she could commit this great evil and be willing to abandon them to fulfill her lust.

From that day to this one (the day I was going to meet her) their lives had been filled with heartache. Everyone was dealing with emotional struggle to which I could not begin to relate. The children were wondering where they were going to live, how to respond to their mother, and what it meant to honor both parents while one was producing such great pain in the heart of the other. Even the mother herself had been through great heartache. She realized fully that she had planted a great wedge between her children and her, and the consequences of her actions had taken such a great toll on her emotionally and even physically that she felt like she had to talk to someone or she would not survive. I was that person to which she chose to talk.

As aforementioned, I had known the family and been in their home. Also, she knew I was a pastor and respected me. Thus, for some reason, she had called and wanted to talk with me at a coffee shop in the middle of the morning.

As I entered the coffee shop, she was not there. I sat down at a table surrounded by a number of people I didn’t know, thinking how odd it was that in the following minutes we would be carrying on a conversation of immense weight and importance in the midst of those discussing such matters as the weather, their pets, and what happened in last night’s primetime sporting event. I also filled these minutes with prayer and anxiety as my nervousness began to creep up in the face of the unknowns that lie in the conversation that was about to transpire.

Finally, she walked in and sat down. I asked her how she was doing, seeing that her hands were shaking as her situation had pressed upon her mightily in the days leading to this one. We spoke, she described her thoughts, I pointed out Scriptural exhortations against adultery and condemnation thereof, and she still tried to justify her decision. Ultimately, before our conversation ended I showed her Hebrews 6 and warned her that her decision and the state of her heart should be very frightening to her, for she could no longer see her sin. In fact, the last warning I gave her was that she might very well have made her heart so dull that repentance would now be impossible, and she would not stand among those who are believers on that day of final judgment.

That is a scary place to be, a scary warning to receive, and yet as I looked at this text this week and meditated on it, it hit me in quite a sober and weighty manner that the warning I gave to her I myself need to hear. In fact, I would say this morning that the warning that lady needed on that day is a warning that possibly you need to hear today as well. For it is quite possible (if not probable) today that many in this room find ourselves maybe not dealing with the same sin as the lady on that day but walking on the same road, in the same conditions, and needing to respond as desperately as she needed to respond.

In fact, this week, this text has been a sobering text in my life and has led me to ache concerning my sin, fear the presence of unbelief in my life, and cry out earnestly for God’s mercy. It has led me earnestly to call myself to get myself back on track and to make sure that the road on which I’m running has its destination at the place to which I want to end. In addition, my prayer this week has been, “God, please let the hearers on Sunday morning hear and feel the urgency and soberness of this text even as you have driven it to weigh heavily on me and call me to repentance.”

So, with that said, let us now turn to the text.

The text divides pretty clearly into three sections. In the first section (5:11-6:3), the author is describing the hearers’ present situation. He describes their immaturity and inability in regards to Christian things. Then in the second section (6:4-8), he gives them a warning that is very sobering. Finally, in the third section (6:9-12), he ends with an encouraging word of hope, expressing his desire for them.

Therefore, this morning I want us to walk through each of these sections, see what is their situation, warning, and hope, and then to end asking how this text should affect us.

The hearers’ present situation

This first section of the text shows the readers’ situation in a poor light. He has spoken about Christ being designated a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek, and now he wants to speak about that topic more. However, he realizes that they’re not able to handle the teaching. He writes: “About this [i.e. Christ’s Melchizekekian priesthood] we have much to say, and it is hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone again to teach you 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, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil” (5:11-14).

The hearers should have been ready to hear and understand what he had to say, but they weren’t. They didn’t know the basic principles of God’s word. They were unskilled in the word. And they had not trained themselves (by constant practice) to discern good from evil. They should have been teaching the word, but they needed to be taught themselves. Therefore, he exhorts them in verses 1-3 to act, writing, “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, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits.”

Now that’s confusing a bit isn’t it? He tells them first that they need someone to teach them again the basic principles of God’s word, but then he exhorts them to leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation (listed in verses 1-2). So, what’s he doing?

Well, I think that there is something here easy to miss. For, it seems that in some ways they were trying to have their cake and eat it too. That is, they wanted to be Christians, but they wanted not to differentiate themselves from their fellow Hebrews who rejected Christ and were against them. Consequently, they were holding to elements and practices of the Old Testament that did speak of Christ and pointed to him (i.e. the list in 6:1-2 – which laid a foundation for Christ to come and a foundation for them to understand who he was), but they did not understand the basics of following Christ – that it means professing him in faith and holding to that confession in perseverance (even amidst persecution). Therefore, he wants them not to go back to foundational issues that paved the way for Christ, leaving their Christian faith behind. He wants them to go on from that, but he then is trying to build on that and teach them basic things, such as obedience and perseverance.

And it seems the main thing they were missing is that we must immerse ourselves in Scripture so that our intellectual understanding and morality is affected. I say that because of the link between knowledge of God’s word and being able to discern between good and evil in verses 12-14. He says that the immature are unskilled in the word of righteousness and the mature have their powers of discernment trained, by constant practice, to distinguish between good and evil. Therefore, there is a parallel between being skilled in the word of righteousness and being trained to discern between good and evil.

Let me describe a picture of this so as to try to communicate what I think he’s saying. When we read the word of God and meditate on it, our hearts should be both earnest to learn and earnest to obey. Both of those elements must be there. Therefore, the mature are ready for the meat of the word (the harder things) because they’re eager to hear and understand as well as to allow it to challenge and affect the way they live. These hearers were not that way. They were sluggish in regards to the Scripture. Their hearts were not eager to understand and to obey, and their hearts were growing dull. Consequently, not only did they lack knowledge and understanding of Scripture, but, by not obeying and applying it, their hearts had become dull and their minds no longer understood what was good and what was evil and their hearts couldn’t help them discern either.

Therefore, the author of Hebrews exhorts them to press on to get to a point of greater understanding of the word – intellectually and morally – so as to get their minds and hearts sharpened again.

The high stakes and weighty nature of their present situation

Yet the author doesn’t simply exhort them, he warns them of what was at stake should they remain and continue down the path they were on. He provides a strong incentive for them acting in response to what he was saying. In telling them why they should press on and leave their current situation, he writes, “For it is impossible to restore again to repentance 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, if they then fall away, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt” (6:4-6).

His warning to them is that they might very well be moving into a ground where repentance is impossible. They’ve been in a position where they’ve heard a lot of truth, they’ve known the work of the Holy Spirit, they’ve tasted the goodness of the word of God, and they’ve been enlightened – much as many of us would claim. And yet they were walking down a road where if they ultimately rejected Christ, not believing in him, not continuing to hold to that belief, persevering in it, repentance would be impossible. It would be impossible because they would have rejected the only hope for eternal life, passing judgment on Christ to their own harm and holding him in contempt. They would have known what is right, grown hard to it in their hearts, and now be unable to repent.

Their hearts would be as a land that had received much and was producing nothing and was in a state of being good for nothing. That is the analogy of verses 7-8, I believe, as he writes, “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.”

There are therefore great stakes here. There is an eternal weight here spoken of in these verses. Should they continue down this road of the word working no response of obedience, sensitivity to good and evil, and perseverance of faith in their hearts, then their end would be the same as the land that produced only thorns and thistles, despite the rain, namely, “its end is to be burned.”

So, this is a strong warning and needed to be felt. It should have produced a fear of unbelief in them. It should have made them shutter at the dullness of their heart, even as they thought of sin not bringing conviction as it should. Yet he ends with hope.

The hope the reader has for his hearers

The author of Hebrews ends this section writing, “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 so unjust as to overlook your work and the love that you should for his sake in 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” (6:9-12).

I think this word of hope hearkens back to 6:3, in which the author wrote, “This we will do if God permits.” For what he was saying in that verse is that I want you guys to progress. I want you to grow. I want you to respond rightly to God’s word in faith and obedience. I want you to have the kind of heart that is sensitive and eager in regards to God’s word, wanting to understand and exercising their obedience to the word so as to be able to discern between good and evil. Then he says, in essence, “And this will indeed occur if God permits, if God grants you such grace and mercy.”

Then he went on to tell them the danger they face should they not have hearts like that. But finally, he ends saying, in regards to 6:3, “And I think God will permit this to occur. I think he will give you the kind of grace to respond rightly and obey his word. I think he will give you a sensitive heart in discerning good and evil. I think he will give you understanding both intellectually and morally in your mind and heart this morning.”

He tells them that he feels sure that they will run on the road that leads to final salvation. And he also tells them that that is even his desire in writing this section. His hope is not that they will say, “O, I doomed and will never live according to the word and will die as one who has not known Christ.” He is writing this because he wants them to show earnestness in getting their hearts and minds in a right place, throwing off their sluggishness and laziness, and imitating those who have fought the good fight of faith until the end, inheriting the promise. He has written this in hopes that God will use it to jar them back to eager minds and tender hearts that believe in and obey him.

What about us?

So where are you this morning? Are you in the same place as the original hearers of this letter? Maybe you know the dullness of hearing and inability to discern between good and evil because you’ve walked down a road of dabbling with sin so long that you no longer know the conviction you once knew concerning such sin. Maybe your heart has been hardened a bit at the deceitfulness of sin and there is no longer a tenderness toward the things of God. If that is the case, you could be walking down a road that ends in destruction. You could be showing yourself right now not to be persevering and consequently one who hears on that final day, “Depart from me. I never knew you.” That could be you.

Yet there is hope. Even this message is a sign of hope for you. And I, like the author of Hebrews writing the text, hope it is. For today, through this text, I pray that you are hearing a call to lay aside your sluggishness in regard to the Christian life and to show earnestness in the fight of faith, in persevering in faith and obedience, in “the full assurance of hope until the end.” I pray that today your heart is saying, “I’ve got to stop and plead for God’s mercy and throw off my laziness and dullness of heart.”

Today you have heard that there will be many reflecting the same kind of heart you might reflecting now (one of dullness of hearing and inability to discern between good and evil), who gave quite strong signs that they were believers at one point in their lives (though they never were), and end up in hell (having deceived themselves and those around them). Yet today it’s also as if in the midst of the race you’re hearing a call to throw off sluggishness and be earnest in the faith. Fight against sin and strive to believe (fearing the presence of unbelief). Begin again to read and meditate on God’s word, training yourself by constant practice of obedience thereto to have a sensitive and earnest heart that is not dull to what is holy and what is sin, and that you strive after obedience.

My prayer is that one day we might look back even to this warning today as we have beheld God’s word and see it as precious to us as that moment when we first heard the gospel in our journey of salvation, that journey which culminates in being conformed to the image of Christ.

We are running by his grace. Amen.

SEEING THE STAKES IN THE FIGHT OF FAITH