1. God's Promise (verses 13-18)
2. Our Hope (verses 19-20)

The Bible is full of promises. Can you think of any? Perhaps even as I say that, your mind is filling with some of them.

Let me just give you a few of them, starting with the Old Testament, ...

"Do not fear, for I am with you;
Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you, surely I will help you,
Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand" (Is. 41:10).

"My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.
He will not allow your foot to slip; He who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep" (Ps. 12:2-3).

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight" (Prov. 3:5-6).

"Delight yourself in the LORD; and He will give you the desires of your heart. ... Those who wait for the LORD, they will inherit the land" (Ps. 37:4, 9).

"O Israel, hope in the LORD; for with the LORD there is lovingkindness, and with Him is abundant redemption." (Ps. 130:7).

"Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
and let him return to the LORD, and He will have compassion on him,
And to our God, for He will abundantly pardon" (Is. 55:7).

Psalm 23 is a Psalm of promises. Nearly every line is a promise.

Psalm 23
The LORD is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters.
He restores my soul;
He guides me in the paths of righteousness
For His name's sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You have anointed my head with oil;
My cup overflows.
Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

Jesus, Himself, gave many, many promises. He began the Sermon on the Mount with a host of promises, ...

Matthew 5:3-12
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Throughout His life, Jesus gave His disciples many, many promises. Jesus said, "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11:28). "I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believe in Me will never thirst" (John 6:35). "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand" (John 10:27-28). "In My Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also" (John 14:2-3). "Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Matt. 28:20).

The epistles are filled with the promises of God. "[God] will confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. 1:8). "He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus" (Phil. 1:6). "My God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 4:19). The Lord said to Paul, ... "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness" (2 Cor. 12:9).

And these are only a few of the promises given in Scripture. We could spend the rest of the morning just reading through the promises of God contained for us in the Scripture. And still then, we wouldn't have exhausted the promises that God has made to those who believe and trust in Him. One can easily argue that this is the way that the Bible works. God makes promises, and we believe them. We trust them. God fulfills His promises. As we trust in Him, God gets great glory as we show Himself worthy of our trust.

I know of one theologian (Walt Kaiser) who has sought to pull the Bible together using the theme of promise. Many call it, "Promise Theology." God made promises in the Old Testament, which were brought to light in the New Testament. There is much to this. Mark Dever, when he wrote his overview of the Old Testament, entitled it, "Promises Made." And the New Testament counterpart is entitled, "Promises Kept." Indeed, this is a helpful way to look at the Bible. God makes promises, and we are called to trust in His promises.

We trust God for our daily bread, wisdom in trials, comfort in fears, guidance in our lives, help in our need, and ultimately the salvation of our souls. This of course is the greatest promise of all promises: the promise of eternal life. God has given His Son to us as a sacrifice for our sins. He has promised, "Whoever believes in Him will not perish, but will have everlasting life." We merely need to trust God and eternal life will be ours, not by the works that we have done, but according to His mercy. Consider our text:

Hebrews 6:13-20
For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, "I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply you." And so, having patiently waited, he obtained the promise. For men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute. In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

These verses break down nicely into two sections. The first section has all to do with the promises of God. The second section has to do with our hope in those promises. Indeed, these two themes form the two points of my message this morning. So, let's focus upon ...

1. God's Promise (verses 13-18)

Look here at the number of words that speak of making promises. Verse 13 begins by mentioning how God made a promise to Abraham. The verse continues to describe how God made the promise. He "swore by Himself." This word talks about the process of making a promise. It's a formal declaration of the promise.

The content of the promise comes in verse 14. It comes strong, "I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply you." This is something that God will "surely" do. It is a promise that he has made. In verse 15, we read of how Abraham received the promise. In verse 16, the author talks about the promises in our lives. When we make a promise, we swear by one greater than ourselves. We make an oath. Such an oath ends any dispute. In verse 17, the same theme continues on. This verse mentions how God made His promise certain to us by interposing with an oath. Verse 18 speaks about how it is impossible for God to lie. That is, the promise that He has made is sure, because God's word is to be trusted. Thus, my first point: God's Promise (verses 13-18)

I believe that the best way to approach this text isn't so much by going through each verse and trying to explain it as we go (which is my normal approach). Instead, I believe that the best approach is to spend some time in Genesis, pointing out the promises that God made to Abraham. And then, we'll return here to Hebrews and the text will more or less fall into line.

So, turn in your Bibles back to Genesis, chapter 12. In the first three verses of chapter 12, we have one of the greatest portions of all Scripture. It's when God calls Abraham from Ur of the Chaldeans: from an idol-worshiping family to follow the LORD. The LORD said to Abram, ...

Genesis 12:1-3
"Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father's house, to the land which I will show you; and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing; and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed."

This is the great promise that God made to Abraham. "Go! There's a land that I'm going to give you. I'm going to make you a great nation, multiplying you greatly. I'm going to bless you abundantly. In fact, you are going to be a blessing to all the families of the earth!" Such a promise is at the foundation of our faith. These words foreshadow the gospel. From the seed of Abraham would come One who would bring blessing to the entire world! (Gal. 3:8). These words had their fruition in Jesus Christ.

Throughout the book of Genesis, we see this same promise coming up again and again and again! Look down in verse 7. When Abraham initially steps food into the land, the LORD said:

Genesis 12:7
"To your descendants I will give this land"

Now, because of a famine, Abraham had to leave Canaan and dwell in Egypt. But, upon returning to the land (and separating from Lot), the LORD spoke to him again, in Genesis 13:4, ...

Genesis 13:14-17
"Now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants forever. I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth, so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then your descendants can also be numbered. Arise, walk about the land through its length and breadth; for I will give it to you."

You see there a repetition, again, of God's promise to give Abraham the land. You see a repetition of God's promise to multiply Abraham's descendants. You say, "Why did God repeat His promises to Abraham?" I believe that God was making a point for Abraham, repeating His promise. It will happen!

In this way, God was being just like us. Don't we repeat promises to let others know that we are serious? When I announce to our family that we'll be ordering pizza tonight for dinner, I often get the questions from my children, "Really? Are you serious?" And I say, "Yes, we are going to have pizza for dinner!" And they say, "Can we have some pop with our pizza?" I say, "Yes." And they say, "Really? Can we really have some pop tonight?" I say, "Yes, you can have pop with your pizza." These are ways that we try to affirm that what we said was really going to happen, and that's what God did with Abraham. He repeated His promise.

He also repeats it in chapter 15 of Genesis.

Genesis 15:1-5
After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, "do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you; Your reward shall be very great." And Abram said, "O Lord GOD, what will You give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?" And Abram said, "Since You have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir." Then behold, the word of the LORD came to him, saying, "This man will not be your heir; but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir." And He took him outside and said, "Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them." And He said to him, "So shall your descendants be."

And here is where Abraham's faith shines.

Genesis 15:6
Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.

I'd love to expound this, but it will wait for another day. Today, we continue to look at the multiple promises that God made to Abraham. Still, Abraham wanted some help in believing these things.

Genesis 15:7-8
And He said to him, "I am the LORD who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it." He said, "O Lord GOD, how may I know that I will possess it?"

And then, God proceeds to make it clear to Him by performing a ritual which Abraham would have known well. It was a covenant-making ritual, demonstrating that God alone would fulfill the promise. God told Abraham to take a heifer, a goat, a ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon. He cut them up and laid them down in a row, with a walkway in between them. In the ancient near east, kings were known to make treaties like this. And then, they would walk between the sacrifices as a symbol of their intention to keep the promises.

In this case, God put Abraham to sleep (verse 12), and sent a flaming torch to pass through the sacrificed animals, as a symbol of His presence. It was God's way of affirming to Abraham that He indeed was going to keep His promises.

We do this as well. When we are intending to make a large purchase, such as a house, we often put down some earnest money, which is a token of our intentions to purchase the property. What God was doing here was a bit like that. These sacrificed animals were God's earnest money. He would keep his promises.

And yet, still, Abraham wasn't fully convinced of God's promise. In chapter 16, we see Abraham doubting, as he took matters into his own hands and bore a child through Hagar, and not through Sarah, as God had promised. This, by the way, is why it's so encouraging that Abraham is the father of faith. His faith was far from perfect. To be sure, it was genuine, but it also displayed times of doubt.

Anyway, God continues in His pursuit of Abraham, affirming His promise once again. Turn over to chapter 17. Again, we see the same promises coming, ...

Genesis 17:1-8
Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, "I am God Almighty; walk before Me, and be blameless. I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly." Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying, "As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you will be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings will come forth from you. I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you. I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God." After this, God gives him the covenant of circumcision, which all of his descendants were to keep. In this way, it was a sign of the covenant, some physical reminder that they Jews could see as a reminder of God's promise.

We do this today. When we want to show how serious we are about keeping a promise, we pull out our pens and sign on the dotted line. We sign a contract; we sign our checks. And thus, we show that we are willing to keep our word. We are willing and ready to purchase.

Down in verse 21, God said, "But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this season next year" (Gen. 17:21). Finally, in chapter 21, the child of the promise comes. He waited for 25 years for this to come! But, the child did come!

And then, came the test, ...

Genesis 22:1-15
Now it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." He said, "Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you." So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son; and he split wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him.

On the third day Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place from a distance. Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you." 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 the two of them walked on together. Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, "My father!" And he said, "Here I am, my son." And he said, "Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" Abraham said, "God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." So the two of them walked on together.

Then they came to the place of which God had told him; and Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood, and bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." He said, "Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me." Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son. Abraham called the name of that place The LORD Will Provide, as it is said to this day, "In the mount of the LORD it will be provided." Then the angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time from heaven,

And it is right here that we come to the promise mentioned in Hebrews 6. In many ways, there is nothing new about the promise. It all comes with the same old, same old promises. God promises to bless Abraham. God promises to multiply his descendants. God promises to extend the blessing of Abraham to all the nations of the earth. God says (in verse 16), ...

Genesis 22:16-18
and said, "By Myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice."

In Genesis 12, God gave Abraham a promise. In Genesis 13, God repeated the promise to show how secure it was. In Genesis 15, God performed a ritual to demonstrate how secure the promise would be. In Genesis 17, God gave Abraham a sign that He would keep His word. And now, in Genesis, 22, God made an oath with Abraham.

We do this as well. When taking the witness stand in a court of law, we swear that we will say is true, by holding up our right hand in the air and saying, "I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God." The appeal to God is an appeal to a higher authority. "Yes, I will tell you the truth. I promise. To demonstrate my earnestness, I call God as my witness that what I am saying is the truth. If I lie, may God strike me dead!"

This is how we deal with matters in the courtroom. And, this is the very thing that God did. However, He has no one greater to swear by. So, He swore by Himself. Should He take the witness stand in a court of law. He would say it this way, "I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help Me Me."

This is the last time that God repeats the promise to Abraham. It seems, almost to come with a final authority. Only three chapters later, in Genesis 25, we read of his death.

Now, with all of that as a background, we are ready to understand our text quite easily this morning. It's going to simply unfold for us. So, turn back to Hebrews, chapter 6.

Hebrews 6:13-14
For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, "I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply you."

We saw this in Genesis 22, when God brought Himself and His character to witness that He would keep the promise, "By Myself I have sworn." (Gen. 22:16). "Abraham, I will bless you." "Abraham, I will multiply you" - the culmination of all of God's promises.

It is as sure as sure as sure can be. He repeated it. He confirmed it with a covenant ritual. He gave them a sign to remember it by. He swore by Himself! And now, in verse 15, we read, ...

Hebrews 6:15
And so, having patiently waited, he obtained the promise.

Now, as we went through the account in Genesis, we might easily come to think that these things all took place rather quickly. I mean, we covered them in a matter of 15 minutes or so. But, in the life of Abraham, such events took almost 40 years.

Abraham was 75 years old when God called him out of Ur of the Chaldeans (Gen. 12:4). He died at 175. He was 100 years old when Isaac was born (Gen. 21:5). 60 years later, Isaac and Rebekah bore Abraham twin grandsons: Jacob and Esau! Abraham saw all of this about 85 years after he left Ur of the Chaldeans, only to die some 15 years later. Abraham only saw the seed of the promise fulfilled (Heb 11:13-16, 39-40).

In one sense, Abraham never saw the fullness of the promise come to pass. Oh, he tasted a bit of it, as he saw his children and grand-children, the children of the promise. But, never in this life did he see it fully come to be. He never saw the multitudes that God had promised. But, Jesus said that Abraham did see the day of Christ. Jesus said to the Pharisees, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad" (John 8:56). In this way, Abraham saw all of God's promises come to pass.

In verse 16, the author explains the ways in which we make promises.

Hebrews 6:16
For men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute.

A sworn deputation is taken as truth. A written contract is law in front of a judge. Now, here's the amazing thing: God did the same for us.

Regarding Abraham, he didn't have to repeat His promise over and over and over again. He didn't have to prove that He would keep his word through a series of animal sacrifices. He didn't have to give any signs that He would be faithful to His word. He didn't have to swear. And yet, because of Abraham's weakness, because of God's desire to show us how trustworthy His promises are, God did these things.

This is the point of verses 17 and 18, ...

Hebrews 6:17-18
In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.

In other words, God wanted to show us how resolved He was on His aim to bless and multiply Abraham. So, He swore with an oath. It would have been sufficient for Him merely to have spoken the promise, because God can't lie. But, for our sake, He swore by an oath. Those are the two unchangeable things: His promise and His oath. The result is the application for us: "we would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us." God has taken great pains to give us encouragement to hope in Him!

This is my second point, ...
2. Our Hope (verses 19-20)

When God calls us to believe and trust and hope in Him, He doesn't give us something far-fetched to believe. He doesn't say, "Believe that the moon is made of cheese, and I'll give you eternal life." No, he gives us good reasons to believe. He gives us good reasons to hope. This was an issue for the original readers. They were in danger of losing hope. There is nothing worse than when someone loses hope! It's hope of the future that gives us the push to press on!

Now, at this point, I want to bring us back into the whole context of the book of Hebrews, because these verses flow from earlier in chapter 6. If you recall, two weeks ago, we looked at verses 4-12, in which the writer warns against the perils of falling away. For those who have come close to Christ and tasted the benefits of being in close proximity to the people of God and then have turned away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance (according to verse 6). Naturally, they would have had questions in their minds, "Will we fall away?"

The illustration is given in verses 7 and 8.

Hebrews 6:7-8
For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God; but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned.

In other words, when rain-soaked ground yields thorns and thistles, the curse is coming. And when people who have tasted of the goodness of God in the assembly bear no fruit, their cursing is near.

But, in verse 9, he asserts his own confidence in the state of those to whom he is writing. They are those that have fruit. Verse 9, ...

Hebrews 6:9-10
But, beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way. For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints.

These people possessed the things that accompanied salvation. They weren't fruitless. They loved God. They ministered to the saints. Their work was evident. But, Christianity is all about pressing on. It's not about resting in what good things that you have done. Rather, it's about "pressing on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:14).

And that's the heart of verses 11-12. These verses call us to press on. They call us to be diligent in our pursuit of faith. They call us to avoid being sluggish regarding our walk with the Lord.

Hebrews 6:11-12
And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

We see here in these two verses the themes of our text: God's promises and our hope in those promises.

The call of verse 11 is a call to be diligent in the things of God, so as to experience the full assurance of hope. The call of verse 12 is a call to imitate those who have trusted and waited for the promises of God and have come to inherit the promises for themselves. Verses 13-20 merely expand on these things.

Now, for those who originally received this letter, this counsel would have come as very much needed. They were in a difficult situation. They had come out of Judaism and embraced Jesus as the Messiah. And they did so at great cost to themselves.

In chapter 10, verses 32-34, we read of the great sufferings that the original readers experienced. They were humiliated publicly. Some were imprisoned. They had their property confiscated. All of these things happened because they had embraced Jesus as the Messiah. These things were a power-play to intimidate the Jews to come back to the Judaism of their roots. And, there was great pressure from their native Jews to return to their former manner of life in the temple with its sacrifices and rituals and festivals.

But, the call of the writer here is to stay true! Keep hoping in God. He has promised "great reward to those who persevere until the end" (Heb. 10:35-36). He has promised eternal life to those who trust in Jesus. "God, who promised these things is faithful" (Heb. 10:23).

The call of our text this morning is to imitate those who have gone before. They endured difficulty. They endured hostility. They patiently waited for many years. Eventually, they received the promises. And one of the great ones to imitate is Abraham, who comes up in verse 13. That's the link.

Abraham is one who had great patience, even in the midst of great difficulty. He is one who had a hope, even when all hope seemed lost. I love the way that Paul wrote about Abraham: "In hope against hope he believed" (Rom. 4:18). We are called to look to him and imitate his faith!

The writer is saying here: in the midst of all of your difficulty, in the midst of all of your discouragement, in the midst of all of your waiting, hope in God! Do you see the blessing that has come upon Abraham and His offspring? It wasn't easy! It took years! He only saw it in part! We see it in whole!

The core of our hope is Jesus Christ. Verse 19, ...

Hebrews 6:19-20
This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek!

We'll talk about Melchizedek next week, as that's what chapter 7 is all about. But, this week we're talking about the hope that we have in Jesus Christ. Here he is called "an anchor of the soul." This is the only time that the word "anchor" is used in the Scriptures as an illustration of spiritual truth, probably because the Jews were not sea-worthy people. The sea was bad news to the Jews. But, the illustration is easily understood. You use an anchor to secure the location of a boat. You attach it to your boat and throw it overboard. It sits at the heart of the sea, secure in the ground so that the shifting winds and waves don't move you. You are firmly rooted in the ground.

And the illustration is easy for us to understand. Jesus Christ is our anchor. He's not moving; we're not moving. He is our hope. The text says that our hope in Him is "sure and steadfast." In other words, He isn't going to move. He isn't going to shift. As it says in chapter 13, verse 8, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." He have, in Him, a firm hope!

But, notice how this anchor is described. Jesus Christ is the "anchor of the soul." In other words, our soul is like a boat, which needs securing. Attached to our soul is a rope that has an anchor on the other end. But, rather than being thrown deep into the sea, our anchor is in heaven, "within the veil." That is, where "Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us" (verse 20). And there is a rope that is attached from our soul into the very throne-room of God, where Jesus Christ is now seated.

As we continue to work our way through the book of Hebrews, we are going to see this whole theme develop! Jesus is in the throne room (10:12) at the right hand of God (10:12), in the heavenly holy place (9:24-25), always interceding for us (7:25).

When the fear comes, "Will I fall away?" Well, Jesus has the tether to your soul. He's firmly anchored in heaven. Nothing's going to see Him expelled from His throne room. He's merely waiting for His enemies to be made his footstool (10:13).

Do you have hope?

This sermon was delivered to Rock Valley Bible Church on March 14, 2010 by Steve Brandon.
For more information see www.rvbc.cc.

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