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Jonathan Griffiths: Warning signs are designed to be effective. They're expected to work. Well, the same is true here in this warning in Hebrews. The purpose of the warning is to stop us going anywhere near abandoning Jesus. The warning is given to stop us even getting into the neighborhood of turning our back on the Savior.

Steve Hiller: Welcome to Encounter the Truth with Jonathan Griffiths. I'm Steve Hiller and today we continue a message called "A Word of Warning". Jonathan, you point out these warning signs and what they're designed for, but what is the warning that we actually see here in this book of Hebrews?

Jonathan Griffiths: Well, we're getting here into one of the more challenging chapters in the book of Hebrews, actually one of the more challenging passages probably in the whole of the New Testament if we're being honest. Very many believers have read through Hebrews and really tripped over this passage thinking, "I don't know what to make of this, and I don't know how to grapple with it," because some of the language that's used is very arresting and it can be rather unsettling.

There is this warning here of what it would look like to abandon Christ and what would be the consequences of doing that. It can be a fearful thing to read. But what I want to say, and what we'll consider as we get into the message, is that the warnings are here not because the writer thinks that true believers are going to fall away from Jesus and lose their salvation.

The warnings are here because the writer does not want that to happen. And the Lord uses these warnings here to wake us up, to pull us back maybe if we're in dangerous territory. And in His grace, I think the Lord does use these warnings to do that for the believer. So, they're here for our good even if they're a little bit uncomfortable to read and to hear.

Steve Hiller: So let's do just that. Let's hear what those warnings are and read that from the book of Hebrews. Chapters five and six is where we're going to find ourselves today. So grab a Bible and join us there as we continue "A Word of Warning". Here is Jonathan.

Jonathan Griffiths: Near our home, there's a high weir, a big concrete dam really on the Rideau River. It's actually an unusually high dam for the Rideau system, and if you don't like heights at all, a bit like me, it's actually a little uncomfortable to stand on the walkway above it and look down at the water rushing out below. If you're a boat in the reservoir above, you'll see bright red warning signs and red buoys telling you and urging you not to go anywhere near it.

I gather it's been the site of at least one terrible tragedy many years ago, and it's a very dangerous place because the current is strong and the undertow is powerful. Now, the warning signs are there not because the authorities assume or believe that anyone is necessarily going to get too close and get dragged under. No, the warning signs are there for the express purpose of stopping anyone from getting anywhere close to the danger.

That's the point of the warning. That's the purpose. If no one actually went down the weir after the warnings were put up, you wouldn't turn around and say to the authorities, "Look, this warning was false. The warning was disingenuous." No, you'd say, "Well, this warning has been effective. This was a good warning." The warning signs are designed to be effective. They're expected to work.

Well, the same is true here in this warning in Hebrews. The purpose of the warning that we heard a few moments ago is to stop us going anywhere near abandoning Jesus. The warning is given to stop us even getting into the neighborhood of turning our back on the Savior. Now, we might respond to that by saying, "Look, the Word of God makes it clear that God holds on to those who are His true people, His true children."

And I believe it does say that. We could look at plenty of passages that teach us that. God never lets go of His people. We're secure in Him. But if that's the case, if He's committed to holding on to us, if He's powerful enough to hold on to us, why does He warn us here in Hebrews chapter 6? Well, to try and puzzle this one out, we need to think for a moment about how it is that God keeps us.

I mean, if He does that wonderful work of holding on to His children as we know He does, as we believe He does, how actually does He do it? That's a good question. My wife was out for a walk in our neighborhood with some friends the other day, and they came upon a dog sitting right smack in the middle of the road whimpering, looking longingly at the house opposite it but not moving at all.

The dog was obviously distressed and they were concerned for it. They found the number on the dog's tag and tried to call it. Quite soon, a member of the owner's family came along, and so all was well. But it became clear that the property had an invisible electric dog perimeter that was activated. The dog maybe went out when the perimeter wasn't turned on, but now the perimeter was turned on and the dog was outside it and he couldn't get back in.

He was whimpering in the middle of the road because that was as close as he could get before he hit the barrier. You couldn't see the restraint, but it was holding him in place. It wasn't allowing him to go any further. As believers, we can't always see the mechanisms that God is using to hold on to us. But that doesn't mean that He isn't using any mechanisms.

It doesn't mean that He's not using some pretty ordinary means, actually, to hold on to His people. You see, God is a God of means. He is practical and He often uses a variety of quite familiar tools and resources to do His spiritual work. These things aren't mysterious. He's given us His church. He's given us one another. He's given us the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper, all of which help us to believe and keep on believing.

And supremely, I believe above all others, He has given us His Word. He's given us the Scriptures, which is at the very heart of His plan to hold on to His children. Now, within His Word, He uses all of His Word in its rich variety to keep us, but within His Word, He particularly uses some strong warnings to keep us from drifting. His words of warning are given to be signposts and guardrails and tethers for the soul.

And actually, that's more or less exactly what the writer tells us in verse 11. Here is the purpose of this section of the Word of God: "We desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope to the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises." There is a positive tethering purpose to the warning.

Through the writer, the Lord has taken us right to the cliff edge. He's forced us to look over and to see what's there, to see how bad it would be to fall. And He's done that with this positive purpose, verses 11 and 12, that we might never fall. Walking to the edge of that cliff and considering just how bad it would be, just how awful it would be to be separated from our Savior, to forego the joy of knowing Him, the hope of being with Him—actually just thinking about that for a moment is spiritually healthy for each one of us.

It's good for us because when we get near to the edge, our instinct is to go back to safety, to get well away from the danger. But friends, if you're someone who knows Jesus, you trust Him, your life gives evidence of salvation, if you've been serving the Lord and showing love to His saints as these folk have, be encouraged. God doesn't abandon, doesn't forget His people. He doesn't let us go.

He won't do that. But He warns us in His kindness that He might keep us. Well, we've heard the warning, we've heard something of this encouragement of the positive purpose of the warning, but I think we still could be a little bit shaken. And so now the writer adds to this encouragement words of deep assurance grounded in the very character and work of God.

The writer's told us already in verse 12 that he wants us to imitate those who through faith and patience ultimately do inherit the promises of God. And so now in verse 13, he picks up on the whole notion that God is a promise-keeping God and he writes this: "For when God made a promise to Abraham, since there was 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. For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation."

It's a very interesting thing that God swears oaths from time to time. I don't know if you've ever considered that or thought about it. The writer of Hebrews is certainly fascinated by the whole idea. I mean, in human disputes, people swear oaths to try and prove that on this particular occasion they are not actually lying. I mean, most of the time people can lie about all kinds of things with apparent impunity, and we assume that people may be lying quite a lot of the time.

But lying under oath in court—well, we take that very seriously as a society still. I gather that in Canadian law, I looked this up, committing perjury can land you in jail for up to 14 years. It's a serious offense. We assume that people lie, and we need oaths to sort out truth from lies. But God never lies. Verse 18: "It is impossible for God to lie." So why does He swear oaths from time to time?

Well, the reason for that must be more to do with us His hearers than with Him the speaker. The reason must be to give us comfort and to give us assurance. It must be to increase our trust and to increase our faith.

Steve Hiller: You're listening to Encounter the Truth with Jonathan Griffiths and a message called "A Word of Warning", originally part of a series called "So Great a Salvation", but it's been one of the most listened to messages the past year. So, we've taken this message and the other top nine and put them together in a series called "Listener Favorites", which is currently airing on the radio.

If you ever miss a broadcast, come and listen online. Our website is encounterthetruth.org. You can stream the program or download an MP3 for free. In addition to being able to listen online for free, you can also access the free study guide. We've put together this study guide to accompany the messages of this series. Each one is going to help you dig a little bit deeper into the content that you're listening to on the radio.

And some of the different topics that we're covering this month, well, what it looks like to become steadfast and wise, how to have confidence in trials, what enduring faith looks like, and we look at the gracious and merciful God, just to name a few. Again, if you're interested in getting a copy of the study guide, come to our website encounterthetruth.org. Back to the message. Here is Jonathan.

Jonathan Griffiths: And we can see that the writer does want to comfort us and give us assurance here. And so what he does is he highlights the ways in which God has sworn oaths on a couple of occasions to give deep assurance to His people. He starts there with Abraham. And actually verse 13, if you notice it, it could read, and I think it probably should read, "For when God had made a promise to Abraham, since He had no one greater by whom to swear, He swore by Himself."

There in verse 13, I think the writer's pointing to both a promise and then a later oath. This is very intriguing. God had made His promise to Abraham back in Genesis 12. You may remember it, we've spoken about it here before. This was a very famous promise. It's really the foundation of everything. It's the foundational salvation promise of God.

God tapped Abram on the shoulder and said to him, Genesis 12 and verse 1, "Now the Lord said to Abram, 'Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.'"

God's promise here, He's going to give Abraham a land, a people, and a great blessing. And through him, He's going to bring salvation blessings to the world. In a sense, that is the foundation of everything. That's the foundation of the great salvation plan and promise that comes to fruition in Jesus Christ. God had made that promise back in Genesis 12, but having made that promise in Genesis 12, He then goes on to say more or less the same thing again in Genesis 22, ten chapters later.

But He says it with one key difference, and this is the thing Hebrews is interested in. This time He doesn't say it as a promise, but rather says it as an oath. And it's from this second occasion, Genesis 22, that Hebrews quotes here in verse 14. "For when God had made a promise to Abraham, He'd done it already in Genesis 12, since He had no one greater by whom to swear, He swore by Himself, saying in Genesis 22, 'Surely I will bless you and multiply you.'"

I wasn't sure whether we should take the time to do this, but it's so wonderful I think we gotta do it. Genesis 22, it'd be great if we could just look back and see the story ourselves. It's so thrilling actually when we get into it. You may remember the outline of this, it's a famous story. Against all odds, God had fulfilled the promise of an offspring to Abraham and Sarah by giving them a son, Isaac, in their old age.

It looked as though they would be childless. It seemed as though Sarah was barren, but in their extreme old age, God sent Isaac to them, miracle of miracles. But then in Genesis 22, God does something strange. He calls upon Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice, to offer his only son, the one through whom the nation would be built, through whom the promise would be fulfilled, through whom salvation would come.

And perplexed, and no doubt grieving, Abraham nonetheless sets out with his son Isaac to obey the Lord's word. And we pick up the story there at verse 6: "And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together." And we picture the scene.

And of course we can't help but think of another Son who would carry the wood of His own execution on His back up a hill. "And Isaac said to his father Abraham, 'My father!' And he said, 'Here I am, my son.' He said, 'Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?' Abraham said, 'God will provide for Himself the lamb of the burnt offering, my son.' So they went both of them together."

And so they go to the place of sacrifice and Abraham is ready to kill Isaac, but the angel of the Lord, he calls out and he stops him. And a ram appears in the thicket and Abraham is able to offer the ram instead of his son, and he calls that place "The Lord Will Provide," in the old English, "Jehovah Jireh". Now in the midst of all this heart-rending drama, here is the message that comes to Abraham.

Notice with me in verse 15: "And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, 'By Myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.'"

It's the same promise again, the promise of before, the promise of Genesis 12, but now it's a bit different because it comes as an oath. "By Myself I have sworn," says the Lord. And now in a very special way, God's commitment comes with a tangible gift, with a ram to be a substitute, the offering. The word of the oath, it comes with the very means of sparing Isaac, the means of the promise being fulfilled.

For Abraham in a very special way, God added to His promise of Genesis 12 an oath of Genesis 22. And the oath demonstrated powerfully to Abraham that God is faithful, and God is good, and God is committed to carrying through on all that He has said that He would do. The word of the oath, it comes with the provision. As God speaks His oath, the ram appears, the boy is saved, and the future of the nation is secure.

Abraham might well have struggled with doubt after receiving the promise of Genesis 12. Doubt when his wife was barren, doubt when he was called upon to sacrifice his son. Yes, the promise on its own might not have been enough to sustain his faith in the midst of so many setbacks, but the oath—well, it gave him unbreakable assurance that God was going to see this thing through.

Now, Hebrews wants to remind me and wants to remind you that God has done the very same thing for us. We are heirs by faith of the Genesis 12 promise. It's foundational for us. But as He did for Abraham, God has given special, added confirmation, even an oath, for the sake of our assurance. Follow the logic with me now, back in Hebrews chapter 6 and verse 17: "So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise," to us here today, "the unchangeable character of His purpose, He guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things," the promise followed by the oath, "in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast the hope set before us."

Remember what happened? Abraham had a promise, then he had an oath for confirmation. And Hebrews is saying we got that too. If we share with Abraham the promise of Genesis 12, if that's our foundation, well, what is the added oath that God has given to us today for the sake of confirmation, for the sake of assurance? He gave Abraham Genesis 22, but what's our oath? What's our assurance?

Well, we only need to look around in Hebrews just a tiny bit to see it. There is one oath that the writer keeps on coming back to again and again. We spent last Sunday on it if you were here with us. We'll be back to it again next time. Hebrews has drawn out the oath of Psalm 110 verse 4 for us again and again, the oath that God the Father speaks to the Son when He makes Him High Priest.

It was there in chapter 5 and verse 6. It shows up again in chapter 7, verse 17 and verse 21. And here it is: "The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind, 'You are a priest forever.'" The Lord swore an oath appointing Jesus to be our High Priest. He went beyond promise and He made that oath. And when He made it, He acted upon it. He made the provision.

In speaking those words of appointment, He was actually giving us His Son as High Priest. We remember Jesus came not only to officiate in the offering, not only to make the offering, but to be the sacrifice, to be the Lamb that the Lord Himself would provide. In making that appointment in the words of the oath, God called His Son to carry the wood up the hill of Calvary and to die as the sacrificial Lamb.

And the Lord Jesus who came, who was appointed by the oath of God to be our High Priest forever, He is now our hope, the substance of our hope. As He serves as High Priest in the heavenly sanctuary according to the oath of God, He is our confidence, He is our comfort, He is our assurance. Verse 19: "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," and now we remember the words of the oath, "having become a High Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek."

Now that right there, that is our comfort, that is our assurance. That is the reality that steadies our soul, that anchors our soul, that compels us to continue to believe. Friends, the purpose of this great book of Hebrews, the reason we're spending time together in it is simply this—it's not more complicated than this—it is that we might keep trusting, keep believing in Jesus. It is that we might not grow sluggish, might not drift, might not fall away.

We spoke at the beginning about being spiritually sluggish, and many of us will have to admit that we are. Many will know the experience and the reality of that in different seasons of life. And if we're sluggish, if we're slow to hear and slow to grow, we need to hear the warning of the Word of God this morning. Drifting is dangerous. Don't drift, don't go there.

But we need as well the encouragement that God doesn't abandon those who belong to Him. He warns us only that He might keep us. And we need the assurance that our God is a promise-keeping, oath-fulfilling God. He is the one who gave His Son for us and who established Him, not for a week, not for a month, not for a year, but forever, to be our representative, our soul anchor in heaven, even our High Priest above.

Steve Hiller: Jonathan Griffiths here in Encounter the Truth and a message called "A Word of Warning". If you missed any part of today's broadcast, or you want to go back and listen again, you can do that at encounterthetruth.org. Well, Encounter the Truth is listener supported. That's exactly what it sounds like. We're on this station because of your generosity. And as you give a gift of any amount, we want to say thank you by sending you a book called "The Final Lap". It's all about navigating the transitions of later life. Jonathan, who do you think is really going to benefit from reading this book?

Jonathan Griffiths: Well, this book is helping us to think biblically about a number of key transitions in later life. So it helps us think through how to move as believers from the world of work to the world of retirement, then from the time of independency to the time of dependency, and then ultimately from life to death as we approach the finishing line.

And for anyone who is in the midst of any of those transitions, in those later stages, those later decades of life, I think this book will be pure gold. There aren't many books, actually, in the Christian marketplace that help us think biblically about these seasons of life, but we need to be ready for them and we need to think about them, and we need help to navigate them well.

But there will be others who are supporting parents and grandparents who are perhaps caregivers, who need to have a biblical framework and some real encouragement as well for thinking through these things properly and from a biblical perspective. And John is a trusted teacher, a Christian ethicist, a medical doctor as well, and his wisdom is tremendously helpful. I know many have benefited from his teaching over the years, and I'm just thrilled that this book is available and that we are able to make it available to listeners here on Encounter the Truth.

Steve Hiller: The book is called "The Final Lap", written by John Wyatt. Our thank-you gift to you as you financially support Encounter the Truth with a gift of any amount this month. You can give online at encounterthetruth.org, or when you call 1-833-99-TRUTH. That's 1-833-998-7884 or encounterthetruth.org. For Jonathan Griffiths, I'm Steve Hiller. Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join us next time.