Good morning. We're going to get started. Five minutes late as usual, but it's all my fault. I couldn't drive faster than I drove. But we're in Hebrews, there's a handout. If you're listening to the recording, the handouts can be downloaded from the Sermon Audio website. But we have a handout, and we're in Hebrews 6. I'm optimistic we might get into chapter 7 a little bit. But I want to talk about lazy people. Not by name, though, as interesting as that might prove to be. So why'd you look straight at me? Anytime I have a sermon on laziness, I'll preach here sometime. When I start talking, I know that everybody has somebody in mind right away, but nobody's thinking of themselves, right? Just how it works when you talk about laziness. The Bible has a book of wisdom in it, several of them really, but we have one that we usually think of in terms of wisdom, and it's the book of Proverbs. And I thought we'd skip around a few of those verses because the author of Hebrews is gonna tell his readers Don't be lazy. And you're like, wait a second. I like being lazy. That's what we call it something else, right? We call it sleeping in or something. But why is, you know, he says something about laziness. Do you know the Bible says as much or more about work than it does about worship? I mean, there's a lot in the Bible about work and the idea of being lazy. I'm glad it hasn't got pictures in it of people. But let's look at some lazy verses. You know, Solomon speaks wisdom as if he's talking to his son, and he warns him against a number of things. The book of Proverbs is somewhat challenging to study because it's not always organized the way we would have done it. It doesn't put all the verses together that are about laziness or the immoral woman that you meet in the book of Proverbs or the use of the tongue or the misuse of the tongue, the idea or the concept of what it means to be wise. I mean, it doesn't put all the verses together. And when I do teach through it, I try to collect some of the verses. I want to look at Proverbs 6, 9. Proverbs 6, 9. This is just as good a place as any to start. He says this. We really should start in verse 6. Go to the ant, you slacker. That's a good word. I will say, Read this in the King James if you never have. You'll be benefited from one of the greatest words that we've eliminated from the English language, and it's the word sluggard. It's a good, solid word for a lazy person. But go to the end. Go to the ant. Why? Because you can learn something from the ant. That doesn't seem very, that doesn't build me up very much. Let me just say that. Because given the size of the ant, how big can his brain be, right? And yet the ant shows more common sense than a lot of people who act more like cats than ants, right? And he says, go to the ant, observe its ways and become wise. Without a leader, or an administrator, or a ruler, no one's in charge, it would seem, just from the observation of the matter. The ant prepares its provisions, its food in summer, gathers its food during the harvest, and then he asks the question to the sluggard, how long will you stay in bed, you slacker? When will you get up from your sleep? What does that say? And then he goes on in verse 10 and 11, a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the arms, right? And you fold them together and kind of go to sleep. And your poverty will come like a robber, your need like a bandit. What's he talking about? You know, they had to plant at a certain time and you can procrastinate so long and at some point you're never gonna get a harvest, then you're gonna be hungry. then you're gonna put yourself on the prayer list, right? Because you had a bad harvest and you're not gonna connect the dots and say, well, if I'd been like the ant and been at work, things would have been better. Let's look at some others. It's just full of insightful and convicting verses. Can someone read 1227? We go to Proverbs 12 and verse 27, we get another good one. They're just full of here. You know, it seems to me, and this is maybe going out on a limb, but there might actually be lazy Christians, or this book wouldn't talk about laziness, because he could care less about maybe the others. 1227, anybody? Whoever is slothful will not roast his game, but the diligent man will get precious wealth. Yeah, think about it. Whoever's slothful won't roast his game. How did he get the game to begin with? Maybe somebody gave it to him out of pity, right? But right, he got his 30-30 out and he shot the game. He might have even cleaned it up. But he's that guy that always starts a big job and never finishes the job. That's the picture. And then what happens to the game? They didn't have refrigeration. You don't cook it, how long does it last? Well, not long, right? Okay? So the sluggard is pictured as somebody who doesn't finish the job they've started. What about 19, chapter 19, verse 24? Somebody find that one and read it. 1924. It was before the market crashed. 1924. Yeah. Chapter 19, verse 24. Anyone have it? It's great, you know If you're around a little baby like I was last night at the restaurant, you know, they're they're accustomed to somebody spooning the food and or slicing the little avocado and putting it in their mouth, and then they cheer and they wait for the next one. This person, you know, is probably a hyperbole, but it's probably not far off. They're too lazy. to actually pull the food to their mouth. Like, in other words, what they need is in front of them. They're just not going to do the work it takes, even in the slightest, it would seem. That doesn't sound like a very good, I mean, would you hire this person? No one ever puts that on their resume. You find out later that you've got them. Later in the Proverbs, he's going to say, if you do find out you hired that person, let them go. So, we have another statement here. They always have an excuse. That's what I love. Look at chapter 20 verse 4. 24 says, 20 verse 4, so now we're in this year. The slacker does not plow during the planting season. harvest time he looks and there is nothing. And then he pretends to be surprised, right? I mean that's how it works, right? So that's Proverbs 20 verse 4. But go up to 26, chapter 26, and look at verses 13 and 14. I love this one. Because the If you deal with teenagers, I think they all, I would say they all, one of mine never did this, but most of them have this time when they're good at coming up with an excuse why the room could be cleaned sometime later, right? Look at 26, chapter 26, verse 13 and 14. The slacker, let's say it better, the sluggard, The lazy person says, there's a lion in the road and a lion in the public square, right? You want to send them out to do a chore. They come up with a completely absurd excuse. It's too cold, it's too hot. There's a lion in the road. You know, I can't go out there and work right now. There might be a lion in the field waiting to devour me. It's the absurdity of the excuse. There may be lions out there in ancient Israel, but they weren't out in the public square walking around. A door turns on its hinges. I've got one of these and I've even changed the stinking hinges and it just doesn't help. I don't know if it's the house, or the door, or the frame, but it just squeaks its way open, right? The door turns on its hinges, and a slacker, in the same way, just kind of turns on the bed, and just won't get out. Why? Might be a lion out there, right? I mean, all kinds of things. An airplane might fall on my head while I'm walking outside. You just don't know. So, they have all these excuses. They face the consequences of their action. Could someone read chapter 15, verse 19? 1519 lazy people face consequences The way of a slugger is like a hedge of thorns, but the path of the upright is a level highway. Yeah. You know, I grew up in a small town, and behind our house, there were just miles of woods that led to the lake. But there were some trails, but most of them weren't very well formed. And this friend of mine didn't mind the thorns. He would just turn backwards and kind of walk against the thorns and try to force his way through the thorns to cut a new trail. And we had not thought about getting a machete and just actually cutting a new trail. That's how the lazy person is. If you've ever tried that, you won't get very far walking through the thorns. They don't look that strong and they're not that thick, but they'll just hold you. It's just a painful way to go and you make no progress. And that's the consequences that what little actions they do don't make any difference. They never make a trail through it. The path or the road or the uprights is a highway. Why? They've done the hard work of clearing the way. Right? And it just is this picture of the consequences. So he ultimately, he's a big dreamer. 13.4. Look at this. This is a good one. 13.4 says, where there are no oxen, the feeding trough is empty, but an abundant harvest comes through the strength of an ox. it's the hard work that's involved. None of this should surprise us. The wisdom here doesn't seem all that complicated. But this person doesn't take it to heart. In chapter 21, we've got a couple more here that are worth looking at. 21, chapter 21, verses 25. You know the thing about a sluggard? They're always the smartest person in the room. 2125 they'll tell you so all right 2125 I'm talking about sluggards a sluggards craving Okay, or coveting the things he wants, she wants, will kill him because his hands refuse to work. He's filled with craving or, you know, kind of a coveting type idea, but craving. He's filled with craving all day long. This guy's got big dreams. There's a lot of things he wants. And you can spot these people because every time, if you talk to them about six months apart, every six months is a new big plan for how they're going to make it. But it's never the same one. Because those plans always hit an inevitable fork in the road. And the fork is between having to actually do some work, There used to be commercials in the old days that you can't run now. They're not politically correct, but they earned their money the old-fashioned way. You remember that? Like, they earned it, right? They got their money. And so at the fork in the road, you take the road most traveled, like Robert Frost, right? And it's the road of doing nothing because, geez, those medical doctors had to go to school to get to do that. They didn't just, you know, walk out and start cutting people open. So he's a big dreamer. and yet not going to do the work. He becomes a liability to those who hire him. Look at 1026. And I take it from this, and this is harder to do, but I try to have not a lot to do with lazy people. If I can help it, sometimes I can't help it because sometimes their name is boss. Fortunately I've dodged that bullet. I have found that large corporations have a spiritual gift of taking the laziest and least competent individuals and giving them flashy titles. Which is good for me because I do litigation, right? And I count on that because that's called bread and butter. But the chapter, let's see, make sure I have the right one. Yeah, 1026, like vinegar to the teeth. Most people don't like drinking vinegar, right? You know, when the Lord was hanging on a cross, He asked for a drink and they gave Him vinegar. It's vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes. You get smoke to the eyes, your eyes start watering up, you start rubbing your eyes. Like vinegar to the teeth or smoke to the eyes, so is the slacker of slugger to the one who sends him on an errand. You know, the one who employs them to do something, who's depending on them, is left in a bad way. Well, the last one is Proverbs 24. I'll skip to there. I'll skip a couple of them, but Proverbs 24. is kind of like the look at the ant kind of thing. He sort of paints a picture for us. And it's 24 verse 30. And the picture is a dilapidated house. Now houses become dilapidated for a number of reasons. One is people that live there may not have the money or the personal ability to get out there and do anything. And that happens. A lot of times the house is dilapidated because people are too lazy to do anything about it. I mean, it's true. You can watch in certain areas, like when a storm comes through Houston. Weeks later, they're still waiting for the government to come clean up their yard. I had a hurricane hit where I lived in Houston before we moved here, and the neighbor's tree fell across the road onto my beloved mailbox and crushed it. But he was out there, as soon as the eye of the storm came, chopping up that wood and getting that tree out the road, then I had to go out there. He didn't read Proverbs because he cut a branch that was up above him and he was standing under it and broke his collarbone. But he couldn't stand having that tree in my yard. The hurricane was not even over. But within about three days of that hurricane everybody's yard was cleaned up. And they did it themselves. It's shocking, right? Well, this is one of those houses that they're waiting for somebody else to come and clean it up. Proverbs 24 verse 30 says, I went by the field of a slacker. Now the field, it's a farmhouse with a field where they're supposed to plant seed. I went by the field of the slacker and the vineyard of one lacking sense. Now in the Proverbs, you have three broad categories of people, a wise person, A fool and a naive person, and he has lots to say about all of them. Now, a naive person lacks experience but may move to a position of wisdom after some amount of time. The fool has transitioned from naivety to postdoctoral research and being stupid, and now they are a qualified fool, right? They lack skill in living and they do stupid things. And you need to understand that he equates laziness with being a fool. They're not exactly equal, but lazy people are always fools. Not all fools are lazy, but all lazy people are fools. It's an interesting thing, because all the lazy people I've gotten to know are remarkably, they give the impression of being remarkably smart and analytical. I mean, they just know how to talk the talk. But all you got to do is just wait six months, talk to them again, compare the two snapshots, and you're like, ah. Yeah, they came to the fork in the road and took the road that did nothing. So he's by the field of a slacker. And thistles have come up everywhere. Weeds cover the ground. I mean, if your job, if your profession is being a farmer, this is not good. Weeds cover the ground and the stone wall was ruined. The defense was in disrepair. This didn't happen overnight. You know, you can procrastinate for a couple of days and pretty well cover up your sin. This has been going on for a long time. He says, I saw, I just observed the condition and I took it to heart. I learned from it, like learning from the ant. I looked and I received instruction from their negative example of choices and consequences. I looked and received instruction. And he repeats something we heard in a different chapter. A little sleep, a little slumber. You know, it starts off as a little bit, a little procrastination. I'm going to do it tomorrow. I always claim to get the honeydew list done within a few weeks of being asked, but it has known to exceed a calendar year. The most effective way to get me to do it faster is to put it in an inconvenient place, like my chair. It helps a lot. You don't have to say anything, because if you tell a husband to do the job, it's not going to help. Just put it in his chair. But it starts off with a little sleep, a little slumber. I'll do it tomorrow morning, but tomorrow morning something comes up. I can't do it this morning. I've got church this morning. Sound pretty holy. A little folding of the arms to rest and your poverty will come like a robber. Before you know it, you're in the same condition as if you had done all the hard work and then like a bandit had come through and you know like on the Bug's Life movie that came out a long time ago the grasshoppers had come in and taken all the ant's food and it's gone. You're kind of in the same place. You're in the ruin that you would have been in. So that's just a snapshot of laziness in the Scripture and it's all to build to just when we get to the statement in Hebrews and he warns about being lazy, he really incorporates to these Jewish Christians, they know, the scripture says a lot about this matter of being lazy. But I want you to see the context, because the context where he says, don't be lazy, is the context of the Christian life, of moving to maturity. So find Hebrews now, and we'll go through a little of this. Hebrews 6, we didn't quite finish last time. Uh, but I want to, I want to finish that. And if, if we can, we'll, we'll start in seven. Remember what happened in the early part of chapter six was that he dealt with this matter that it was possible by prolonged rebelliousness to just be stuck in a position of immaturity. Like there could be a point where maybe, you know, God's not going to help you turn this around. Okay. But he then says, uh, in, in chapter six, We get the right verse. He then says, we're confident of better things for you. So in verse nine, he says, even though we're speaking this way, we're speaking in fairly negative tones about the idea that people could get confirmed as being spiritually mature. He says, even though we're speaking this way, dearly loved friends, in your case, we're confident. things that are better. We don't think this is going to happen to you but it's a real danger. And he says not only things that are better but things that pertain to salvation. We've talked about this word early on in the book it was in the last verse of chapter 1. And he said something there in chapter one. He was talking about angels. Angels are just spirits. He says, are they, angels, not all ministering spirits, ministering to us, sent out by God to serve those, us, who are going to inherit salvation? We can use that idea of salvation in different senses, and different parts of the Bible do that. We can say somebody trusted Christ, they were saved that day. But we can also talk about somebody being delivered into the kingdom when Jesus returns and they were saved that day They were the word saved kind of we put something into that word that's not there But it means to be rescued or delivered Paul the Apostle shipwrecked in the book of Acts. He was saved, rescued from drowning. So, it's a very generic term. When people are wakened from sleep in the Gospels, that word saved, same word is used. They're rescued from their sleep. So, when he says here in chapter 6 verse 9, things that pertain to salvation, it's this salvation they stand to inherit. There's no question about their, what Paul would call, justification. They're Christians. But how you live now may affect what things are like for you in that kingdom, especially if you give an account of yourself. So, we'll see this word come up again all the way in like chapter 9, I think. He doesn't use it a lot. But listen to this. Why is he confident that they're going to be able to, you know, they've kind of slid back some, they've been persecuted, he's confident they can move forward. Here's why. Because God's not unjust. Because God's good, right? That's why he says, God's not unjust. He, God, will not forget your work and the love you demonstrated for his name by serving the saints. It's really absurd when you read these things to think that this is a group of people who were never really saved to begin with, never became Christians to begin with. He's counting on and talking about how they were doing so well. You can be doing well for a long time and something happens that gets you off track, And and and you need to get back on track. You need to go back to how it was before and that's what he's telling them You God's not going to forget you your hard work your love for the Saints and And by continuing to serve them all this all this stuff they did This is this is living out the Christian life in the very best way Faithfulness to God's Word is expressed in love for the Saints now today at this moment when he writes to them He says we desire each of you To do the same thing again is my paraphrase to to demonstrate the same diligence like you did before For the full assurance of your hope until the end so that you won't become lazy there it is Won't become lazy. That's an interesting thing In this context, what would it look like to be lazy? Think about what they did before This isn't about people becoming Christians. This is about Christians serving other people. They're being active in their service. They're showing love for the saints. They're doing it in the name of Christ. And that has stopped or slowed down. And he calls it work. We don't work to get justification. But Christians are supposed to labor now. He said that earlier in Hebrews. To work now. We rest later. We'll rest in the Kingdom. We work now. They stopped working. And he says, you need to demonstrate that same diligence, diligent working. assurance, the confidence of your hope. Hope always has a future orientation. Everywhere you see it in the New Testament, just about. It's with regard to the coming kingdom usually, with God's promised future blessings. He's going to give us another example of that in a moment. He's going to talk about what, you know, when I was a kid you called him Father Abraham, right? He had many sons, right? He's going to talk about Father Abraham in a minute. But, you know, hope until the end. Instead of stopping, you need to work faithfully, you need to endure until the end. That's his statement. He says, so that you won't become lazy. Lazy would be that you just don't do the work. But which work? I'm a Christian, but I can worship better if I just go out fishing all the time. from the deer stand, from all kinds of places, as long as I'm not around other Christians and being asked to do some work, right? I don't wanna be asked to serve anybody, right? You see, I mean, that's what's happened. They're isolating and separating from the Christian community and not doing the work anymore, and that's the laziness. So he's asking us to be genuine in our spiritual renewal. Yeah, genuineness, authentic. And there's this aspect that I think is a surprise to some people. It's hard work. Because it's not just what you know up here, it's what you're doing. It's your hands and your feet and your mouth. It's what you're doing. And over the years, I've had a handful of young men that kind of came into wherever I was teaching or doing whatever and pastoring and stuff. And within a few months of being at the church, they wanted to be in the pulpit. My answer's always no. That's why I tell my kids before they ask questions, the answer's always no. They're very analytical. And they, and I knew, they're confusing being sort of analytical and kind of a sense of being book smart in a way that you could make an A in a college class. That's not the same as this. It's not the same. And so I knew they weren't ready, and I'm particular about that. It's easy to mistake a whole lot of things for this. This ain't about just being kind of intellectually smart in that way that lazy people are described as being able to do in the Old Testament. It's something more, and it's the work. It's the hard work. know the things He's teaching them aren't that hard to understand. But doing the works a whole different thing, especially when you've got persecution pushing you back. He says, don't become lazy. In other words, keep working. The big sin of Hebrews, if there is one, and in chapter 12 He's going to call it the sin, singular, that does in the King James it does so easily beset us, is quitting. I mean just think you don't have to be all that observant you It just flashes in front of us. I taught at A&M when I was young because I was a math student and you got to be like a teaching assistant, but I also got to teach some classes on my own. And I always watched the same thing every year. You have a bunch of kids that start off with something that pleases mom and dad, which is to say an engineering degree. And within a year and a half, they've moved into something else. And I won't name it because it'll upset somebody. Well, my son did that. Calculus 1 or 2 did it. Was it because they weren't capable? No. It's because they're lazy. And we don't want to say that, but that's the truth. That is the truth. You don't have to make an A plus in calculus to move on and get that degree. But you've got to pass it. And what I watched was, I mean, literally, it was just calculus one. I don't know how useful it is as an engineer. I've been an engineer. The people I know that are engineers tell me they use some math. But it sure weeds out a bunch of people real quick, OK? And I think the scripture does the same thing, because it turns out it's not about just being smart. It's about doing the hard work. Same thing happens to people who go into the ministry in a vocational sense. Real quick, they find out, well, this isn't what I thought. I've got to work hard, and often people are mean to me. Yeah, there it is, right? So he says something else here. So don't become lazy. But in contrast, listen to this. Now, I read a translation earlier that said followers. I don't know if anyone there says followers, but mine has a good translation. It says, be imitators of those who inherit the promises. Not everybody inherits the promises. That's the whole point he's been trying to say. If you stand before Christ and give an account, and your account is that you just squandered most of your time, you're gonna not get You know, you're not going to get an attaboy or a ribbon that says you participated, right? And he says, though, that there are people. who really do work hard, meaning in faith and faithfulness, obedience to God's Word, and they will receive the promises, okay? He says, imitate them. I read a post on social media just the other day, and I wanted to say something, and I decided it wouldn't matter, because, you know, it's Christians posting things that just sound nifty, but they're just false. And it's what it said the Bible never says to be like anybody else. It just says to be like Christ What's it say here? It's not just here by the way, like this is multiple places the New Testament now I'm not I mean clearly Christ is always the preeminent model But the fact is God puts people in our lives and I can list several of them. He's put in mine that that really have been faithful and And if continued in the faith with endurance, they're not perfect, they're not sinless, they don't claim to be, but they have grace and humility and a love for people that I couldn't help but see it, because a lot of it went my way. And God would say, be like them. Be like them, there's nothing wrong with that. I've upset people saying that before, because, oh, you can't be like other people, you gotta be like Jesus. But they're like Jesus. It's the way you get that real world example in your life. Everybody needs a George Bailey. You know what I'm talking about. Be imitators of those who inherit the promises through faith and perseverance. Two things. Faith. You believe what God says, perseverance, you continue doing it without stopping and becoming lazy. And without both of those, you will not inherit the promises, okay? You're not gonna be in front of Christ giving an account and he's gonna say, well, you believe everything I said, but you did nothing, you had a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands for 80 years, and we're still gonna give you this big trophy because Jesus isn't gonna do that. But faith and perseverance, that's what this whole book's about. This whole book is about just keeping the faithful perseverance. So look at the example he gives. Love this example. Now this is a miniature version of chapter 11. Chapter 11 is a whole chapter of examples of people who the author is saying imitate their faithfulness. All those people have failures. He's not talking about imitating their failures. Noah had failures. Moses had failures. Abraham had failures. But they also were people of faithfulness. And he says, imitate that. So he gives us an example here in verse 13. For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater to swear by, he swore by himself. Then he quotes from Genesis 22. I think it's Genesis 22, let me make sure. Make sure that is, yes, Genesis 22. I will indeed bless you and I will greatly multiply you. I'm not gonna go read all the Genesis verses, but he's using Abraham for a reason. Do you remember when in Genesis is Abraham first called and given some promises? I mean, as you begin in chapter one, you don't see him yet for a while. When does he pop up the first time? Twelve, right? Twelve's where we meet Abraham and God makes promises to him. It's the opening three verses. He's living, you know, somewhere else, I don't know, Austin or something, and he tells him, look, I'm gonna get you over to Washington County as quick as we can. And he just packs up his stuff and goes. And so these promises are made. But then he has some... He made a previous promise. Yep. That's right. One of the promises, right, is I'll bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. And the story sort of takes off from there. Genesis 14 is real important. He's going to come back to that in a minute in chapter 7. But then in Genesis 15, Abraham's in the land and, of course, he doesn't have a child yet. That's part of the problem for him that becomes a stumbling block. But God repeats some of the promises in Genesis 15, one to five. And then, you know, that famous verse, Genesis 15, six, Abraham believed God. And what happened? What's the result? Counted as righteousness. So before the law of Moses ever came along which wasn't designed to save people People were always saved in that that that sense of becoming a believer with their destiny secure they were always saved the same way Genesis 15 6 and and but after that when you read the rest of chapter 15 Abraham he's not quite the superstar of faith yet. He says well I How do I know you're gonna do all this stuff? And God says, and this is an accommodation to Abraham's faithlessness, not faithfulness, because this is bigger than Abraham. It's God's promise. And in the ancient world, you made covenants. Today we call them contracts. They're not exactly the same thing, but they're like contracts, covenants. Covenants can be one way. And in modern law, generally, covenants are not one way. Just be promising you something and you don't have to promise anything back, right? But in the Old Testament, you would see covenants that are one way. And these covenants would have a ceremony surrounding them. And the idea generally was, if I break my promise, I'm to be put to death. And so a covenant sort of settled everything. You knew, right, that now this promise was secure. But people would sometimes, Well, let me just say this. They make the covenant, but Abraham's just not going to be very good at keeping his side of the bargain if there were a bargain. And so there is no bargain in the sense that Abraham was specifically asked to do something. But he sleeps with the whole thing. Remember, God knocks him out. animal sacrifice, it's split in half, they walk through on the blood. This image of like a lamp or something, a light coming through that makes you think of the light of the world, right? This stuff is there for a reason. And Abraham sleeps through it. But God has not only promised it, He sealed it with an oath. And the author of Hebrews is going to pick up on that, that there's the promise and the oath. Well, Abraham has lots of failings of faith, but he's in a growth process, like we should all be. And as you glimpse him from chapter 15, when he has no child of promise yet, to Genesis 22 when his child of promise, Isaac, is probably a teenager and he's asked to sacrifice him. He's willing to do that. He's not shocked by the ask, by the way, because that was common at that time in the world to sacrifice children. What he's shocked by is that the angel stops him and God provides the sacrifice, the ram caught in the thicket. You know the story. Well, at that point, though, having seen that Abraham now, his faithfulness has fully matured, he even makes the comment, and the author of Hebrews in chapter 11 will pick it up, he believed, he didn't know how, but he believed if he sacrificed his son Isaac, God was going to raise him from the dead. By that time, he had that much faith because he knew that If Isaac doesn't raise from the dead, I can't have this long lineage that's bigger and more numerous than the stars in the sky and the grains of sands on the shore. So, God reaffirms the promise in Genesis 22, and that's the language He's quoting here in Hebrews 6, 14. I will indeed bless you, and I will multiply you. And so, after waiting patiently, Abraham waited patiently, he obtained the promise. Now he's going back in time, but Abraham has to wait before he gets to a point when he can no longer naturally produce a child. God would not let Abraham produce a child of promise when Abraham was still able, pre-Viagra, to produce a child. So there was none for him. Romans is very clear. The point where he considered his body, not his whole body, dead, Then the child came. He obtained the promise. For people swear by something greater than themselves. I swore this when I was a kid. I swore on a stack of real 1611 King James Bibles. All right? You could do that, or you could swear on your great-great-grandmother's grave or something like that. Who does God swear by? Right? I mean, who's he going to swear by? There's no one greater. He says, people swear by something greater than themselves. And for them, a confirming oath ends every dispute. In the ancient world, once it was confirmed in an oath, you were solemnly bound to it with dire consequences if you didn't. Because God wanted to show Abraham his unchangeable or immutable purpose even more clearly to the heirs of promise. He, God, guaranteed it with an oath. See, God shouldn't have to take an oath, because he can't swear by anybody greater. But as an accommodation, he did that. So that through two unchangeable things, I said it, and I made an oath to it. That's what God did, right? Through two unchangeable things, and which is impossible for God to lie, he won't break his word, and he won't break his oath. Well, if he won't break his oath, then these promises to Abraham, still have to come true to the extent any part of it hasn't yet. He says, it's impossible for God to lie. We who have fled for refuge might have a strong encouragement to seize the hope set before us. Well, that's a mouthful. In the old days, meaning under the law of Moses, well, and even before that, God created cities of refuge. The concern was people might want to get revenge once in a while. Well, modern folks have evolved and been enlightened and stuff, and we never want revenge. But in the old days, not only would they want revenge, they might chase you down on a camel and chop your head off. Yeah. And so if you could go to a city of refuge, you were safe. Now, he's speaking in the first century to a persecuted people who aren't being told to go hide. What is their city of refuge? can only be one thing. No place is going to keep you safe if you're going to publicly celebrate your faith. Their city of refuge is Christ himself. He's the hope set before us. All him and all his promises that he's made, his return, the kingdom, all of that. We have this hope Word of Christ, all the promises that God's given about what Christ will do. We have this hope, future orientation, as an anchor of the soul, not of the spirit, not of the spirit, of the soul, remember that word we've talked about before, but almost always in the New Testament it's translated life, and that's typically the meaning, not just being alive, but your experience of life. Like if you say somebody lived a good life, they lived it well, in a Christian way, right? They were faithful, like Abraham. It's that sense. Christ and the promises become the anchor. If you grew up doing any fishing, you know what the anchor's for, right? Because you'd just be, you know, especially me, I couldn't catch a fish if it jumped in the boat, but I did like to fish. And you just start watching the pole, and if you're fishing with a bobber, you're watching the bobber, and you just wait for it. If you're not anchored, you're gonna look up and figure out you ain't where you was when you started fishing two hours ago. Right? You just drifted away. That's how it is as Christians. We stop for a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands. We wake up and we're in Lilliput or something. And here we are and he says, it's the anchor of your life, Christians. It's an anchor of your life, firm and secure. What's the anchor of your life? It becomes a matter of good doctrine about what Christ said and what he's promised about the world to come. That's what's anchoring our life and without it, Okay, not just knowing it, but living it, we're liable to be drifted, drift away. It enters, what enters? It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain. What's he talking about there? The inner sanctuary, yes, Carl? The temple that was around probably when this book was written, the one that was originally built a long time ago, but Herod had improved it. It was quite an architectural marvel. The thing was nobody was allowed to go inside it except a few guys that were priests. And then it had a back room behind a big curtain. that had embroidered on it, we think, you know, stars and planets and things. It's the cosmos. But behind it was the Holy of Holies. And only one guy could go there once a year. And if he, I mean, it was risky. It was a risky job. But you read in the gospel account that at the moment Jesus dies at 3 p.m. on that afternoon, that thing rips from top to bottom to show God's ripping it, that access has changed now. Now, what he's going to tell us later in the book, though, is this isn't really, that's just a picture of a reality that's happened in a heavenly temple, where Jesus, He's the prophet, the king, and the priest, and the sacrifice all rolled into one, and He will go into the Holy of Holies in that heavenly temple and put the sacrifice there. But just understand, He says, it Let me find my place again. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain. Jesus has entered there on our behalf as a forerunner because he's become a high priest forever. There's a lot here and he's gonna talk about it more and we'll see it, you know, a couple of weeks when we turn back to this, but he, Jesus, has become a high priest Of what order? Like he's not a Levitical high priest. He's not like Aaron, Moses' brother. He's gonna explain all that. And he's not doing the work in the same temple and he's gonna explain all that. But Jesus has been the forerunner. If he's the forerunner, who's coming behind him? Us. Paul would write elsewhere that we're all ministers under this new covenant. Peter would write in 1 Peter that we are peculiar people. That's not in a bad way. Some people are just strange, odd birds, and love covers a multitude of sins. But he means peculiar in that we stand out by our faithfulness and our adherence to God. But then he says you're a royal priesthood. Okay? Well, which priesthood? The one Jesus is, and we're following behind him, as it were, into the presence of God. It says he's a high priest forever. No one's ever gonna take his job, and he's gonna retire, or he's gonna die, and they're gonna take over. That was earthly stuff with the Levites. Forever, according to the order of Melchizedek. So, you know, the warning is, what you think you might gain temporally by being lazy. He just calls it that. I mean, in the face of persecution, being lazy about your faith just pales in the comparison of the promises that are yours, that should anchor your life, okay, in that sense, of pursuing the high priest forever. Who has access right into the throne room of God as we'll see and he's the forerunner you're right behind him, right? That's that's the picture. So, you know in a couple of weeks because we're not no Sunday school next week We'll we'll jump into chapter 7 and talk about this milk. Has it get guy any comments or questions thoughts before we close? It's easy book, right? It's it's He's gonna take us all the way down to the bottom of the rabbit hole. And what are we gonna find there? The new Jerusalem, right? We'll get there. 12-3? Oh, yeah, you're right. Genesis 12-3, I bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. And we're gonna see that play out. And I think I cited it on the handout, but that blessing, is fulfilled specifically in the seed, and Paul was saying Galatians 3, it's not seed as in the plural, but seed as in the singular Jesus Christ. So that's how you write it. That's the promise, and that's part of what, that's the hope that needs to anchor us, even today, that promise.