Warning from an Exasperated Pastor


Sermon by Billy Dempsey on September 20, 2020

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I’m glad to have a part in the opportunity to preach through the book of Hebrews this season. Grateful for this opportunity. Before we look at this portion of God’s Word and read it together, I’m sure this has been said by one of our other preachers in this series, but let me just say it again. If you’ve not noticed by now, the writer of this letter to the Hebrews is not trying to say everything. Have you sensed that? He’s not trying to say everything. He’s trying to lean into something, and that shapes his warnings, that shapes the notes of comfort that we find, that shapes his exaltation of Jesus as more superior or superior to everyone whose work has preceded Him. And what he’s leaning into is our responsibility to keep ourselves fastened to faith. You see that in the heart of the warnings that he has offered us – not to drift from the message we’ve heard; to take care lest there be in us an unbelieving heart leading us to fall away from the living God; calling us to exhort one another, that is, to encourage, remind, to push and pull one another towards the Lord every day as long as it is called today, that none of us may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. He’s pushing us to accept our responsibility, to grab our responsibility, to strive to enter the rest of God and not fall by unbelief.

He’s not saying everything that could be said. He gives us great comfort in Jesus as our sympathetic High Priest. I love Felker’s point so well made last Lord’s Day evening – that He feels our sadness, He shares our gladness, as a sympathetic High Priest. We come to Him and we find grace to help and find mercy in our time of need. But the writer of Hebrews is using that to encourage us still further to strive to enter the rest of God. He’s leaning into that. He’s not saying we’re not safe. He’s not saying God is not keeping. He’s not saying that God will not preserve us. He’s not trying to say those things so much. He’s trying to call us to accept our responsibility to lean into faith, lean into the rest of God, lean into a walk of faith and obedience before God and with a God and with the work of a faithful and sympathetic High Priest who calls us to believe in Him. Well, before we look at this portion of God’s Word, I just thought that was worth noting for us out there. Let’s pray and then let’s look at our passage.

Father, we need Your help. We need to hear Your voice here in this passage. This is an exceedingly difficult passage and it’s a difficult passage for us to hear. So Father, speak to us. Open our minds and our hearts. Plant seeds of truth here that germinate and bear fruit in our lives in days, weeks, months, years to come. We need to hear from You. Father, thank You that You know that and You desire to speak to us. That’s why You’ve spoken to us through Your Word in ways we can understand. So Father, be near us now. We make our prayer in Jesus’ name and for His sake, amen.

Hebrews chapter 5, beginning with verse 11 and on through chapter 6, verse 12:

“About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain” – he’s breaking off from his previous remarks about Jesus, a High Priest after the order of Melchizedek – “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 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, for those who have 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 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. 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.

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 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.”

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever.

Well three points here. Marvelous how passages fall out into three points. There’s a moment of pastoral exasperation, there is a stark pastoral warning, and there is a word of warm, pastoral comfort here in this passage. Let’s begin to walk through it.

A Moment of Pastoral Exasperation

A moment of pastoral exasperation. Let me tell you a story I heard in my first months of ministry. I’ve thought about it many times since then, especially upon entering a pulpit ministry in a local church. The preacher begins a new series and he has let everybody know, “We’re about to start a new series, a new series of sermons.” And so he preaches that first sermon. And the sermon tasters are very happy with what they’ve tasted. “Oh, that’s wonderful. This is going to be a great series! The preacher is going to do a very good job with this!” Week two of the new series; it’s the same sermon. It’s sermon one all over again. Week three of the same series is sermon one all over again. And so elder Smith and elder Jones are nominated by the clerk of the session to go and see the preacher and find out what’s going on. And they do. They show up at the church house, the preacher is glad to see them, and they say, “Preacher, we’ve had three weeks of the same sermon. That’s unusual and it seems not to be helpful. Can we move forward? Why is it we’ve heard the same thing three times in a row?” And the preacher said, “Well elder Smith and elder Jones, let me tell you, when you guys start doing the things I’m talking about in this sermon, we’ll move on to the next one, but not until you start doing the things I’m talking about in this sermon!”

Pastoral exasperation. It’s a real thing! And the writer of Hebrews here is showing us some pastoral exasperation. He’s got much to teach these people and he can’t because he says it’s hard to explain “since you have become dull of hearing,” sluggish, slow to learn. He says, “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you. You need milk and not solid food. Solid food is for the mature, those who have had their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.” The author of this letter is stymied in his attempt to teach them what they need to understand about the excellencies of Christ because they won’t get beyond the basic principles of faith. He’ll lay those out for us in just a moment. We’ll look at them.

But right now, let’s linger over this notion of, “By this time, you ought to be teachers.” He’s telling them they ought to have advanced by now beyond the milk of the basic principles to solid food. He tells them it’s time to leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity. Those elementary doctrines – repentance from dead works, faith towards God – that’s the Gospel. He’s talking about the Gospel. Not leave the Gospel but to build on the Gospel. Instructions about washings and baptism – the commentators are all over the map about what he’s really meaning. And perhaps it’s this – “What’s the role of baptism for the Jewish believer who’s already wearing the covenant sign of circumcision? Is there a timing to baptism? Who is to be baptized?” Lots of thinking and writing about those kinds of things. “How do we figure the laying on of hands? Is it just ordination to office?” In the ancient Church, there was a laying on of hands in receiving new members. And perhaps as we received non-communing members today, when they come to an age when they can articulate for themselves their own faith, maybe that was the time in the ancient Church that they were received by the laying on of hands. Lots of conjecture about that. The point is that they are talking about those things with great deal – the resurrection of the dead, eternal judgment – they’re talking about those things and returning to those concepts and those ideas and those discussions and that teaching again and again.

How does one advance in the faith? How does one mature? Certainly by growing in the knowledge of God’s Word and the truths buried there and growing in the knowledge of God Himself. Certainly by reading well and widely from the great teachers of the Church throughout the years, the great classics of the faith. Certainly by listening to great preaching. And we, in this day more than any other, have access to great preaching all day and all night. Having the Scripture carefully and effectively applied to our hearts. Certainly we don’t neglect the other means of grace – worship and prayer and the sacraments, fellowship.

But the writer of Hebrews would say there’s one more thing – getting the good harvest of Biblical truth out of our own heads and hearts and into the heads and hearts of somebody else. That’s the point that he’s making when he says, “By now you ought to be teachers.” What do teachers do? They impart truth to those who need to learn it, whether that’s in a teaching setting as we think of – a classroom, a Sunday school classroom, a Bible study – maybe sitting with another person over a cup of coffee or sitting in a turkey blind or talking together as you bake bread; teaching someone how to bake bread. There are people who need to know what we know. Do we want to know more? Then the writer of Hebrews would say, “Teach.” Is our spiritual life sluggish and ho-hum? Does it seem there’s not much abundance to the abundant life that Jesus was talking about? The writer of Hebrews would say, “Teach.”

What happens when we teach? We invest ourselves in the life of another person, we pray for that person, we check on that person; sometimes we lose sleep over that person. Why? Because we’re not teaching Algebra or English grammar, the finer points; we’re teaching them the words of life and we yearn for that life to be created and nourished and bolstered in them. The great failure, I think, of evangelicalism in the last one hundred years is that we have made our religion about ourselves. “It’s all about us!” Our churches are full of information consumers and information gatherers and collectors. We need information disseminators. We’re spiritually fat and unhealthy. Our religion isn’t exercised. We don’t expend our effort on sharing what we’ve learned. How much does our religion sweat? How much does our religion sweat over the principles of new life being formed in the life of somebody else?

The writer of Hebrews knows – it’s true for them; it’s true for us – if his people aren’t advancing in their faith, they’re receding, they’re moving backwards. They’re not just treading water; they’re drifting. That’s why he’s so concerned that once again there’s the need to lay a foundation. They’ll never build the building if all they do is lay the foundation. Do we want to stretch and strengthen our souls or just continue to fatten them? Do we want to build a great lighthouse for the truth of God right here on North State Street that would send a light out to every part of this city and every part of this county or do we just want to lay a foundation again? Do we want to be skilled in the application of the Word of righteousness? Do we want to have our powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil? Then let us find somebody to pour our soul into. Let’s find somebody who needs what we know. Let’s learn from the example of Priscilla and Aquila, tent makers like Paul – they listened to Apollos as he was speaking about Jesus in the synagogue at Ephesus. There was something that he lacked in his understanding. They took him home and explained to him the way of God more accurately. Their powers of discernment had been trained by a constant practice to distinguish good from evil. How? They taught. They taught in the marketplace. They taught in their tentmaking stall. They taught in their home as their home became a place for the church in Corinth, the church in Ephesus, the church in Rome to gather and to talk about the things of God. They took what they knew and they made it known. Do we want to grow? Do we want to advance? Then let’s teach. Somehow, in some way, somebody. There are people around us that need the good deposit that we have. Let’s make a deposit in the heart and life of somebody else.

A Stark Pastoral Warning

He moves from there to this very stark, pastoral warning. And I think there’s a connection here. Let’s look at verses 4 through 8. “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.” We see why he’s exasperated. There’s so much at stake for these people he loves so much and for the generations of the Church since his day.

He’s been warning us throughout this letter, hasn’t he, before this very stark section – just to pull one from chapter 4, he reminds us of the generation of the exodus who saw those great wonders of God and ate the manna that came from heaven and drank water from the rock, pass through on dry land as the sea stood upright, and then drown their enemies behind them. They did not enter the rest of God. They did not enter the rest that God had prepared for them because they hardened their hearts in unbelief. He’s facing us with that again and again. The stakes are high and he offers here his sternest and most pointed warning yet.

We know the background here. Many Jewish believers had professed their faith in Jesus of Nazareth as the promised Messiah – thousands upon thousands upon thousands. That’s what the early Church was made of in the first century, for the most part; a few Gentiles but largely Jewish believers. And they were beginning to turn away from that profession and return to a messiah-less Judaism under trial and difficulty and the threat of persecution and their lives were indeed very bitter because of their identification with Jesus as Messiah. It cost them a great deal. They were in the church by virtue of their profession of faith. Under the preaching of the Word, they had been enlightened. As they saw the Gospel at work in the lives of people, they tasted the heavenly gift, they shared in the Holy Spirit, as the Spirit did wonders among them. They encountered that; they saw that they witnessed that. They tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the age to come, near enough to catch a glimpse of heaven.

Those two verbs – “tasted,” they tasted the heavenly gift; they tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the age to come – that’s close, personal experience. How close do you have to get to taste something? You have to get pretty close. You have to get pretty close. And they’re close. Their close personal experience with the things of God that our writer is describing to us. They’ve experienced life in the church, not as spectators but as participants. They’ve seen God answer the prayers rising out of the prayer meeting. They’ve experienced in some way the goodness of the Gospel. They’ve shared the presence, power and work of the Spirit. They’ve experienced the goodness of God’s Word as they sat under his preaching and teaching. They’ve caught glimpses of and hungered for heaven and living in the unfiltered glory of the Lamb. They had been around and were participants in all these dynamic Gospel realities without these realities taking root in them.

How is that possible? Ask Baalam who encountered the angel of the Lord and rose as a prophet to speak the very words of God’s blessing over the people of God and then found a way to undermine them because ultimately he loved riches and not the Lord who sent him. Ask Judas who saw up close and personally the ministry of Jesus, who participated in that ministry as He preached, as He performed the miracles of healing and demon deliverance and ultimately turned Him over to His captors. Ask Demas, a fellow worker with Paul who was close in to all the doings in Paul’s prison ministry during his years of imprisonment and at the end, loved this present world and took off for Thessalonica.

These folks are represented by the seed that fell among the rocky soil in Jesus’ parable of the sower. The seed that fell there – the one who hears the Word and immediately receives it with joy but when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the Word, immediately falls away. Our writer here is not talking about backsliding or moral lapses. He’s talking about the open, public rejection of the Gospel and of Christ leading to open contempt for Him. That’s why he says that this one can’t be restored to repentance because “they are crucifying once again the Son of God.” They are holding Him up to contempt. Notice that verb change. They “are crucifying,” they “are holding Him up.” This is an ongoing reality. It doesn’t happen just once. It’s the character of life for them. They repeatedly, regularly exposed the Son of God to public shame and by their rejection denounce Him as the criminal He was accused to be by the Pharisees and the religious leaders of His day who turned Him over to the Romans for condemnation and death. Having come near, near enough to taste, near enough to see the life to come up close, they now turn away and openly reject Jesus and His work; their land not producing life-sustaining crops – in the image that the writer uses here – “but a harvest of thorns and thistles, worthless land, near to being cursed” – I want to come back to that – “and it’s end is to be burned.”

Why is this such a stark warning here? Because our writer is cautioning his people, he’s cautioning his people. There’s so much at stake – eternal life or eternal death. He’s seeing a trend. He wants to speak to it in the starkest, most real terms, and it pulls us up close. Let’s admit we don’t know anybody’s heart. Let’s admit we don’t know our own hearts. We look for evidence that a profession of faith is genuine. We look for the evidence of the Spirit’s presence in a life, in one another’s life. We look for the evidence of the Spirit’s presence in our own life. We look for the fruit of the Spirit. That’s who God is making us to be. And we look for evidence of that among professing people in our own heart and life to recognize that “Jesus really is my Savior and my Lord. Look at what He’s done. Look at the progress I’ve made. Look at where I’ve come from and where I am now. I’m not where I want to be and I’m not where I ought to be, but I’m not where I was.” We look for those things – those evidences, those evidences of Gospel realities taking root in our own hearts and lives and in the lives and hearts of those with whom we live in the church and producing the fruit of righteousness.

Paul is telling the Corinthian church in 2 Corinthians chapter 13, “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith.” That’s what the writer of Hebrews is saying. “This is what can happen. Examine yourselves to make sure, to make clearly sure that you are in the faith.” We can fool ourselves, can’t we? Our hearts certainly are deceptive and so we look for the fruit of the Spirit’s presence, the fruit of the Gospel’s reality in our own hearts and lives. We recognize how deadly sin is. If we’re serious about this warning, we recognize how deadly sin is. We recognize how prone our hearts are to unbelief. We do what the writer of Hebrews is telling us – we continue to pay attention to the message we’ve heard, lest we drift. We continue to strive to believe the Lord and follow His ways. We strive to draw near to Him. We strive against the unbelief that comes so easily to us. We tell ourselves the truth about God in the Gospel of His Son rather than listen to the doubts and lies that rise so easily from our own hearts and are whispered – whispered, whispered, whispered – by the enemy of our souls.

Calvin says something very interesting at this point. He calls this a “bridle.” “A bridle the Lord uses to keep us in fear and humility. Human nature is prone to security and foolish confidence. The Lord strengthens faith in us, while at the same time He seeks to subdue our flesh.” That’s the tension that we live with as we think through this passage, as we read it, and as we have a chance to look at it. It’s a tension that we live with as we consider what’s being said here.

Let me go back to something. Perhaps this stark warning describes somebody that you know and love. Maybe there’s a family member, a dear friend. It’s frightening. And you and I want to know if it’s over for the individual we love who appears to be described by this passage. Is there no hope for him? Is there no hope for his soul? The writer of Hebrews is impressing us with our responsibility to nourish faith in our hearts and our tendency to wander. In this worse case scenario, I want you to notice one word. In verse 8 he describes land that’s worthless as “near to being cursed.” Remember Mark chapter 10 – Jesus’ exchange with the rich young man. He comes. Jesus says, “Do the law.” “I’ve done the law since my childhood. You know the law. I’ve done the law since my childhood.” Mark’s record says, “Jesus looked at him and loved him and said, ‘Then go, sell your possessions. Give everything to the poor and come, follow Me.’ And at that, the man went away very sorrowful because he had great possessions.” It’s always been a troubling gospel narrative to me.

The man goes away sad and the disciples look at one another, dumbfounded, because Jesus said, “It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” And they’re saying, “How can that be? He has all this wealth because of God’s blessing. How can he not be blessed with salvation too?” Jesus says something very interesting, and I think it bears direct relation right here. “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.” I think it’s a lifeline for those of us with family there that the land is not cursed; it’s near to being cursed. We commend our loved ones to the Lord. All things are possible with Him. We remember that He is a God who delights to show mercy and there may be mercy yet for the one who has appeared to be apostate, as described in Hebrews chapter 6. We pray. We hope. We pray. And yes, we continue to talk the Gospel to the one who appears to be continuing to reject it. The power of God for salvation.

A Word of Warm Pastoral Comfort

One more thing. One more piece of this passage. If I don’t finish it, I’ll never get to preach again because I left my passage unpreached! So let’s give our attention for a couple of minutes to verses 9 to 12. It’s a warm, pastoral comfort. Look what he says. He says, “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 in serving the saints, as you still do.” Let me stop right there. You know what he’s doing here. He’s saying to these people, “I see fruit of Gospel realities taking root among you. Your work and the love you have shown for His name in serving the saints.” Their profession of faith has produced faithful work for the Lord and service to His saints, even in an environment of risk for those identifying themselves with Jesus of Nazareth. Note his language here – “The love you have shown for his name in serving the saints.” They’re serving the saints because they love the Lord. They love the saints because they love the Lord. That’s what the writer of Hebrews sees. He sees fruit. He sees Gospel realities bearing fruit, even costly fruit. So he seeks to encourage them. He wants them to know how real the dangers are, but he wants them to see at the same time – “This is what I see at work among you and I want you to be comforted.”

And then, he knows the Lord. Look at what he says. “For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and your love. God rewards faithful service. God is no man’s debtor.” But he warns them. He says, “I say this so that you may not be sluggish.” Look at verse 12, “But imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” He wants to comfort them but he doesn’t want them to stop striving. He wants them to keep striving. He wants them to keep reaching; keep striving against their own nature, striving for the blessings of the kingdom of God. He wants to push them. He loves them. He wants to push them as they need to be pushed for the glory of God. A word I used a while ago as what we do for one another – he wants to push and pull them towards the kingdom. That’s what we do for each other. We push and pull one another for Jesus’ sake towards the kingdom of God.

Let’s go to the Lord in prayer.

Father, thank You that You know us and You love us, You care for us, You speak plainly to us about things that are dangerous. And for those of us who struggle with the question, “Has my loved one lost his soul?” You give us something to hold on to; not a false comfort, but we recognize that all destiny rests in Your hands. And so Father, give us heart to pray for those who appear to be unreachable. Give us heart to continue to point to Jesus those that appear to be too far gone because Father, indeed You are the God who delights to show mercy. “Who is a God like Yahweh?” In the meantime, help us keep ourselves in the way as we depend upon You to keep us in the way as well. Help us, our Father, to live out the glories of the Gospel, having a root of those Gospel realities in our own hearts. For Jesus’ sake, hear us. We make our prayer in His name, amen.

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