Final Perseverance

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Hebrews 6:4-6

For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift…

If Christians can fall away, and cease to be Christians, they cannot be renewed again to repentance. "But," says one, "you say they cannot fall away." What in the use of putting this " if " in, like a bugbear to frighten children. If God has put it in, He has put it in for wise reasons. Let me show you why.

1. First, it is put in to keep thee from falling away. God preserves His children from falling away; but He keeps them by the use of means; and one of these is, the terrors of the law, showing them what would happen if they were to fall away. There is a deep precipice: what is the best way to keep any one from going down there? Why, to tell him that if he did he would inevitably be dashed to pieces. In some old castle there is a deep cellar, where there is a vast amount of fixed air and gas, which would kill anybody who went down. What does the guide say? "If you go down you will never come up alive." Who thinks of going down? The very fact of the guide telling us what the consequence would be keeps us from it. It leads the believer to greater dependence on God, to a holy caution, because he knows that if he were to fall away he could not be renewed. It is calculated to excite fear; and this holy fear keeps the Christian from falling.

2. It is to excite our gratitude. Suppose you say to your little boy, "Don't you know, Tommy, if I were not to give you your dinner and your supper you would die? There is nobody else to give Tommy dinner and supper." What then? The child does not think that you are not going to give him his dinner and supper; he knows you will, and he is grateful to you for them. The chemist tells us that if there were no oxygen mixed with the air animals would die. Do you suppose that there will be no oxygen, and, therefore, we shall die? No, he only teaches you the great wisdom of God, in having mixed the gases in their proper proportions. Says one of the old astronomers, "There is great wisdom in God, that He has put the sun exactly at a right distance — not so far away that we should be frozen to death, and not so near that we should be scorched." He says, "If the sun were a million miles nearer to us we should be scorched to death." Does the man suppose that the sun will be a million miles nearer, and, therefore, we shall be scorched to death? He says, "If the sun were a million miles farther off we should be frozen to death." Does he mean that the sun will be a million miles farther off, and, therefore, we shall be frozen to death? Not at all. Yet it is quite a rational way of speaking, to show us how grateful we should be to God. So says the apostle. Christian! if thou shouldst fall away, thou couldst never be renewed unto repentance. Thank thy Lord, then, that He keeps thee.

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