It Is Impossible

Hello, everyone. I'm Simon from Whitebaks. I'm a fan of you, and I'm a spy on you. I kill you as Simon Black. I can't see you. Hello, everyone, on Zoom and on Facebook Live. I'm right here in the front of Sierra. I'm in the Genuine Center in the future. It's wonderful to see you in the master of biophysics. We can talk about a half-way, or some in chat, because we have a solid for that as a full engine. It's great to see you. I'm especially grateful for your feedback. We missed 40, already knowing. The project was beautiful. How's it going, everybody? Great setting. See you back all day.

Impossible. Impossible is a word that I often look down on today. In fact, if you say, well, that's impossible, that often is an indication that somebody could prove you wrong. Sometimes saying, well, impossible, that just takes a little longer. The Wright Brothers' group, that man's flight was impossible. The four-minute model was often thought to be impossible to grade and imagine these amazing technological changes that occurred in the last 30 years that would have been considered impossible a hundred years ago. Jesus said in Matthew 19, With God, all things are possible. And as I was comparing this message, I wanted that to be actually the model of the statewide.

The only thing in the United States that actually has a model pulled directly from the life of God all in the world. And in Matthew 1, the angel who becomes the Mary who announced that Jesus was born and heard said that would God not be involved in it? And God, even we have hope that both are doing the God that we think that we would not think would otherwise be possible in our lives.

But the Bible does say that something is impossible. Prepare to be free of sickness. And read how God uses the word in possibility. Hebrews 6 and verse 4. We're going to spend some time looking at the context of this. By the way, I have an introduction to what you read. What God reveals is impossible. Hebrews 6 and verse 4. For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the power of each tongue, if they fall away, to renew them against repentance, and to be crucified into themselves upon God and put them into an open hand.

And this verse has been debated for a very long time. And maybe not very well listed. Several explanations, or alternative understandings of what we just read. You see, I'd like to say within ancient Christianity is whether God would allow a believer, a believer who has tasted this good word and then subsequently rejected his calling to actually perish. Because we know that as Christians we have ups and downs.

And sometimes those ups can be amazing, and sometimes those downs can be very serious. Serious enough that some of us might walk out the door and not come back, or embrace certain attitudes and approaches that are contrary to what the Bible teaches. When someone leads a church and breaks those attitudes into its world and begins doing things that are contrary to God's word, and perhaps he or she is ill, or absent, or other of their circumstance, would that person perish?

Would that be the end? And it says here in Matthew 6, verse 4, being impossible. Would God be merciful? Would God be merciful? And yet even those who propose alternative interpretations of what the plan reading verse says in Revelation, there exists a possibility of condemnation in that kind of service. You know from 2 Peter that God says Peter revealed that power is not evil. So that God is not only to prematurely strike somebody down, but he believes that there is a possibility of redemption even if somebody is going through a very small time, that they have been part of the church after they have received God's Holy Spirit.

But we also know that Jesus talked about a person who puts his hand to the plow and not goes back. God sure to me understand that this passage is speaking of those who would be in the final resurrection, or a death of beauty by the path of the related fire. It is the resurrection for those who have committed, which Paul again part of the whole said.

Then, like the discussion of passage, and specifically what could cause a believer to be at risk of this terrible faith, we're going to look at the context in the time of the year old. Now, we can discuss the theological difficulty between evil and sovereign food, because that's the climax of the word. We're going to look at how being unable to abandon the honor of material health can indeed lead the faith to strangle it. We're going to discuss how these principles apply to us, and what specific things we can do to ensure that this is not happening.

And as we consider to give you the Holy Spirit that you are celebrating tomorrow on the day of coming across, I hope that each of us can take away from this sermon, be deep-examining a incredible responsibility, an incredible opportunity we need now to receive God's Holy Spirit.

And that we will indeed be led by that Spirit day by day, and not allow something like this to occur. Taking time to focus on the knowledge of doctrine and truth, but I think we're going to see in this passage that the deeper issue of faith described is one of the certain things.

And the question we can ask ourselves is whether we are at risk of the faith of the Jesus. Let's start by looking at the context of this passage. Go back to verse 12. Let's start reading in Hebrews 5 and in verse 12. We're already here, so it should be right on the same page. Hebrews 5 verse 12 says, For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. The King James Version of the Bible uses the term meat for what the New King James calls solid food. This has been discussed at different times, but I think it's important to repeat and make clear what milk and solid food represent, or milk and meat, if you have a King James Version. If we look at the Scripture closely, we see a reference to learning the first principles. That's what is translated here in the New King James. And there's a note on my margin next to oracles that says, If you have a New King James, you might see that. And then a larger note that says, So this is describing the Scriptures, the sayings of God, certainly the Old Testament Scriptures, without a doubt. And perhaps, to some degree, the letters that had already begun circulating, or even one of the Gospels, depending on the timing of when it was written. The first principles can also be understood as the basics, the ABCs. In fact, the J.B. Phillips translates the context in verse 11 this way. And I'm going to read verses 11 and 12 in the J.B. Phillips. So if you want to skip back to verse 11, you can read along in your translation. The J.B. Phillips, beginning in chapter 5 verse 11, says, There is a great deal that we should like to say about this high priesthood, but it is not easy to explain to you since you seem so slow to grasp spiritual truth. At a time when you should be teaching others, you need teachers yourselves to repeat to you the ABCs of God, God's revelation to men. You have become people who need a milk diet and cannot face solid food. Needing to be retaught, presumably because we have forgotten, these first principles is analogized to a milk diet. And milk isn't bad, of course. Babies need milk when they start. You don't give babies something other than milk when they are first born. The issue here is not that milk is bad or how the first principles are bad, but rather that we can forget them. We can become sluggish, as it says in the New King James, part of hearing, sometimes translated, slothful, essentially lazy. That's what's being described in verse 11, lazy.

Have you ever talked to someone, maybe you talked on the phone or you're having a conversation, and you're speaking and you're getting a sense that the other person isn't really listening, a dar with hearing or a laziness in conversation. And then as the conversation progresses, they say something, and it's pretty obviously they weren't listening to you. And you're having to go, well, I actually told you that. Oh, sorry, I must have been distracted. Well, that's what God is describing. That's what's being described in Hebrews, that the words are being conveyed to you, the words on the page, the scroll, in a sermon, in a fellowship context, but we're not listening. We're not drinking it in. We're not considering what it means for ourselves. And so we're dull with hearing. We should, or maybe we hear it, but then we don't actually go put it into practice. So we're sloth for, or sluggish. We're not actually applying it. That's what's being described. Now let's go to verse 13. Verse 13. It says, For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. If all we do is focus on these first principles, we're like a baby, or we're unskilled. And how does somebody go from unskilled to skilled? Well, they have to practice. If you want to learn to be a plumber, you can't just read a book. You have to go and work with your hands and pipes, and you're going to probably cut yourself, or you're going to hurt yourself in some way, but that's part of the learning process. If you're going to learn to be an electrician, you have to learn to work with electricity. So if we're going to become skilled, we have to learn to work with the principles that we're being taught.

Verse 14 then says, But solid food, by contrast, belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. So meat, or solid food, is for people who are mature, and they have become mature because they have engaged their energies in seeking discernment. That's what it says in verse 14. It discusses discernment. Again, I'll quote the J.B. Phillips here. He says, Solid food is only for the adult, that is, for the man who has developed by experience his power to discriminate between what is good and what is bad for him. Now, sometimes when we think about spiritual milk, we may think this means basic doctrines. Basic doctrines, whereas solid food is advanced learning. Basic doctrines versus advanced learning. But really what we see in verse 14 is that milk is the ABCs, and solid food are the words and phrases that are built from that alphabet.

Solid food is understanding principles, and milk is understanding facts.

Solid food is understanding principles, and milk is understanding facts. We see Jesus preaching these things in his Sermon on the Mount. We'll come back to Hebrews 6, but let's go over to Matthew 5, verse 21, and see how Jesus world modeled this when he came and he preached. A lot of times we think about this in terms of the letter and the spirit or the greater intent.

But another way of thinking about this is solid food, principles, the principles that are being discussed. Jesus says in Matthew 5, verse 21, You have heard that it was said to those of old, You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment. But I say to you, verse 22, that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. The fact is that we should not murder. That's a fact. We should not murder. But the principle is that murder can be accomplished in many ways that don't require us actually killing somebody.

Murder can be accomplished when we're angry or when we angrily speak to someone.

And then in verse 23, we see that these feelings can even impact our ability to offer a gift to God. Therefore, if you bring, verse 23, your gift to the altar and there, remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go your own way. Go your way. First be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift. This is the principle. He's saying, not shall not murder, certainly. That's a first principle. That's one of the Ten Commandments. That's the saying of God. But the solid food is understanding how to apply and discern that Scripture. And many times, and I include myself in this, we want to be told what to think.

We want to be told what to think, and we want or we want somebody to tell us what we already believe, to validate our thinking. That may sound odd, but when we're told that our thinking is right, or we're told to think in a certain way, and we buy into that, then we become very confident. We become almost smug to some degree, because now we don't have to think anymore, because we have been told what we need to think, and the door is closed on that. And now we can just go forward without having to exercise this sermon. We don't have the pain of trying to sort through things anymore. We just know what we think, and that's done, and it's over.

Oh, no, I've never murdered, we would say. I've never murdered anybody. I would never have a problem with that commandment. I would never do anything so terrible. That sermon isn't for me. I don't need to bother listening to that.

But in actual fact, we may be committing murder in our hearts, because we are not applying discernment in our behavior, one to another. Let's look at another example in Mark 10. Mark 10, verse 17.

Mark 10, verse 17 has this famous story of this young man, a very rich man, a man who had responsibility. It's called a rich young ruler sometimes. And he comes to Jesus, and he says in verse 17, Now as he was going out on the road, one came running, knelt before him, and asked him, Good teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? And we can see the exchange between Jesus and this young man in verse 18 and 20. And now Jesus told him to keep the commandments, the ABCs. Keep the commandments. And we see the young man say that he had done all these things since his youth.

And Jesus was pleased to hear this. He was pleased. It says in verse 21, then Jesus, looking at him, loved him.

God loves when we keep his commandments. Milk is not bad. Milk is good. But he says, verse 21, One thing you lack, go your way, sell whatever you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come, take up the cross, and follow me.

And his reaction was that he couldn't do it. He couldn't do it. This larger principle was not something he could get himself to. See, the larger principle is how we understand the first commandment. The first commandment, thou shalt not have no other gods before me, that's a fact. That's the commandment. In this case, his riches, his power, what gave him a sense of self-worth and meaning, was too much to give up. And so he, in that sense, was not truly keeping the larger solid food principle of the first commandment. And Jesus saw that, and he saw that perhaps he was ready. But then he walked away. He walked away. Was money more important than God to him? Perhaps.

When I was studying theology, I was in a class on the epistles of Paul, and it was similar to what you saw in the Sormundet video today. And I remember the instructor saying something that shocked me.

He said, thank God for the gray areas. And I remember thinking, why would I do that? Why would I thank God for the gray areas? I want God to be clear with me. I want to know where the lines are, and I want to stay on this side of the line. I don't want to cross any lines with God. So I want to know exactly what God asks of me, and I want to do that.

And then the instructor said, it is in the gray areas that God learns where our hearts are. And then I realized, indeed, that I needed to know what the Bible says. And it's always struck me that that is such a higher-order principle. We want to just know if we do this, we're going to be okay. And sometimes God doesn't always make that clear. We have to discern. We have to take these principles, take these facts, take these laws, and we have to go to another level with them.

For example, someone might say, well, I'll pick on myself. So let's say I was not here today, and you call me up tomorrow, and you say, oh, I missed you in church yesterday. And I said, well, I'm sorry I missed church. My office party on Friday night went a little bit long, and I slept in, and I missed my flight back to California, so I couldn't make it to church in time.

Now, could you find anything in that phrase from the Bible, chapter and verse, that specifically pointed out the problem? Maybe you could go to the story of the ten virgins and five who slept in, or they slept through when the bride came. So you shouldn't have slept in. So maybe you could go to that one. But there's principles here at work. What does it mean that the Sabbath is a day that's set apart? What does that mean? What does it mean to set apart that day? These are higher-level principles, and these are discussions. And somebody has to look at themselves and say, am I really observing that fourth commandment by going to an office party, being out late, sleeping in, flying, and then coming to church at the end of the Sabbath? Have I really observed that Sabbath day in the way that God would want me to observe that Sabbath day? And yet there are biblical principles that we can go and we can look at, and we can ask ourselves those questions. Thank God for the gray areas, because that's where God sees where our heart is in terms of honoring Him and His instructions.

Let's go to the second point.

Failing to move beyond spiritual milk can lead to a terrible outcome, which is what we read. Let's go back to Hebrews, and let's go now to chapter 6 and verse 1, as we're working our way through the context to Hebrews 6 and verse 4. I've just given some examples. We talked about anger. We talked about where our priorities are in terms of whether God is truly first in our lives. We talked about how we honor Him with our time. And even these are simple examples, honestly. There are higher-level examples of complexity as we interact one to another, as we learn to get along, as the ecclesia comes together. Hebrews 6, verse 1, Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God. So we're told then to go beyond the elementary principles and move to perfection or maturity. The Phillips says, adult understanding. And then the writer outlines six basic elements that we should have understood by now. Repentance. The first things we understand is we are called repentance, faith towards God to make changes in our lives. Baptism, followed by the laying on of hands, the receiving of God's Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands. And then the hope of salvation through the resurrection and an understanding of the consequences of falling away from this life through eternal judgment. These are the basics. So we go on to maturity. And sometimes, again, we might think going on to maturity means getting into more detailed studies of commentaries or getting 10 different translations of the Bible to really dig into its meaning. But it's not about learning Greek. It's not about learning Hebrew. And it's not about studying at a seminary. That is not what going on to perfection means. As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians, even with the gift of prophecy and understanding of all mysteries, it wouldn't matter without love. Love is a higher order principle. And when the book of Hebrews was written, the book of Revelation had not even been written. So if we think it's all about understanding the prophecies of God, the book of Revelation wasn't even written to the people who read this at the time. Going on to maturity is about discerning good and evil. That's what we just read earlier, because we live in a world of good and evil. That's what the knowledge of the tree of good and evil means. There is good in this world.

We have amazing medical technology today. We drive on these beautiful freeways. We have a system of laws and governance in this country. And they provide an attempt to provide for some sense of justice and civilization that we can live in. There is good in this world, but there is evil in this world. And can we discern the difference?

And then comes this beautiful verse 3, which I think fits so well as we think about the day of Pentecost. It says, And this we will do if God permits.

This we will do if God permits. With God's Spirit, this is possible. Without God's Spirit, this is not possible. It is not about our willpower. It's not about our strength. It's about God's Spirit working in us that allows us to be able to move on to perfection, to go from the basics. And then verses 4 to 6, which we read in the introduction, we'll read it again. For it is impossible. Now that we understand the context, hopefully we can digest what this means a little bit more deeply. For it is impossible for those who are once enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of the God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God and put him to an open shame. And then in verse 7 and 8, the writer shares an agricultural analogy to illustrate his point of what he's describing here. He says, verse 7, For the earth which drinks in the rain that often comes upon it, and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated, receives blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and briars, it is rejected, and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned. The idea behind this example is that a Christian, having received God's Holy Spirit, having repented of sin, begins to produce fruit, begins to produce a harvest. And a harvest is good for him, for her. It's good for the body of Christ. It is good for the community. It is a good thing. But then something happens, and that harvest stops, and that ground becomes useless. It's not producing anything. Now, actually, it thorns and weeds, and all sorts of things start growing out of it, instead useless things. Such that when the time comes to actually use it again, you're going to have to burn everything. And if you travel outside the United States into many agricultural countries, one of the first things you're going to notice when you get off the plane is the smell of fields being burned, because that's how fields are prepared. They have to be burned in these communities. And then in verse 9, as if to not be too discouraging, because this is pretty heavy stuff we're reading, we're told, but it's going to be okay. Look at verse 9. But beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you, yes, things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this manner. He says, I know I'm laying some very serious stuff on you right now, but I'm confident that this trap is not something you're going to fall into. And then in verse 10, it says, You see, it's as if he's speaking to people who had produced fruit, who had shown the fruit of repentance, who had served and given, and now they had fallen back. They had become dull of hearing. They had become slothful and sluggish. And the writer is saying, even if you're in that position, God is not unjust to forget what happened before. God knows what you did before. He knows you have an opportunity to come back from this.

So now the third point here that I want to go through is, how do we apply these principles? How do we apply this section of Scripture and make it something that we can avoid through our actions and through drawing closer to God?

I've got three points that I'd like to share that I hope are practical. I hope are something that you can take away. The first one is that we should ask God for understanding. We should ask God for understanding. A lot of times we ask God for knowledge. Let's ask God for understanding. I'd like to ask you to turn with me to Proverbs 4 and verse 7. And we're going to spend some time in the Proverbs because when we talk about discernment or understanding or acting wisely in a difficult relationship or communication or situation we're in, a lot of times the book of Proverbs is a great place to go. We find really good principles in the book of Proverbs. Proverbs 4 verse 7 Proverbs 3 verse 5 and 6 There you go. You can cross that out. Proverbs 3 verse 5 and 6. I had that incorrectly in my notes. Proverbs 3 verse 5 and 6 We in God's church have been called to see certain historical theological errors. The truth of the Sabbath, the truth of the Passover versus Easter Sunday, the truth of our reward and the family of God. We could go on with those truths. We might be tempted to think that we're pretty smart, we're pretty enlightened, that we might have a pretty good understanding of things. But the fact is, our calling is a gift from God. It's a gift from God. If we confuse this calling with some sort of false sense where we have a great understanding or that we're scholars of history or biblical studies, we're going to run ourselves right out of God's church. Because we're just going to keep going after more of that knowledge, more of that interesting stuff that's out there. The fact is, God called us. He opened our minds to see certain things. That's a gift. That's not our own special intelligence. That's a gift from God. Look over at Proverbs 18, verse 2. Proverbs 18, verse 2.

It says here, a fool has no delight in understanding, but in expressing his own heart. A good example of this comes into the counting of Pentecost. I thought I'd bring this up since we're going to be celebrating Pentecost tomorrow. And it seems every year around this time, people come up with all sorts of different ways of counting Pentecost. This year, interestingly, the Day of Pentecost that we celebrate in God's church will coincide with the Day of Pentecost that the Pharisaic tradition considers the Day of Pentecost. But there's lots of ways of counting it. You can count from the weekly Sabbath. You can count from the first day of Unleavened Bread. Some people think that we needed to count from the Sunday that was after the last day of Unleavened Bread, which was in Sabbath this year. There's all sorts of different ways of counting.

And by all means, study this topic. We need to be like the Bereans. Learn from the Pharisaic, the Sadduisaic, and the Essene teachings. There were three major teachings at the time of the first century on how Pentecost was counted. And knowledge is power. Knowledge is good. But don't forget, while you're studying, that at least in the modern era, we have 80 years of modern scholarship. Where dozens, if not hundreds, of people inspired by God's Holy Spirit have prayerfully considered what the Scriptures say.

And I've seen this over and over. One person thinks, God has uniquely inspired this for me to understand. And I don't want to consider—they wouldn't say it this way—but they would say, well, all those people for the last 25 years in the United Church of God who have studied this topic, they don't really understand it. And all the people prior to them who studied this topic, they don't really understand it either. I understand it. Look over in Proverbs 2, verse 2 to 5.

And that's why I think it's important to understand that we in the Church of God have a doctrinal review process. And so if somebody believes, well, we're not counting Pentecost in the right way, or we're not understanding this doctrine in the right way, there's a process to submit that to a doctrinal review committee. And having gone through that process, I find it actually amazing. I remember I had somebody come forward with a question on baptism. He outlined this question for me, and I thought, that's interesting. Yeah, I hadn't thought about it from that perspective. And so I reached out to somebody on the doctrinal committee, and they said, oh, yeah, that came up in—I can't remember the exact year—it came up in 2005. 2011, 2013. We reviewed each of those in each of those times. I'll send you the notes. Oh, yeah, good thing it's not relying on me. These things have been reviewed and reviewed and reviewed. And the Church has a responsibility to take a position on these things. And so the Church, based upon all the facts and circumstances, takes a position. Verse 2, verse 2 to 5. So that you incline your ear to wisdom and apply your heart to understanding. Yes, if you cry out for discernment, lift up your voice for understanding. If you seek her as silver and search for her as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom from his mouth, come knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright. He has a shield to those who walk uprightly. He guards the path of justice and preserves the way of his saints. And then you shall understand righteousness and justice, equity, and every good path. So when someone starts putting forth novel ideas or starts challenging established teachings, we should ask, what is the motivation? Where will this lead? Who will benefit? And what I've seen time and time again is that that person introducing some new ideas, either looking to attract people to themselves, or is following some person who's attracting people to themselves. Is there pride at work? Is there humility to follow the process of a doctrinal review? How is it being presented? And if it's presented, is it going to lead to hurt and division? These are higher order principles of discernment, as it says in verse 3, of understanding. When we understand these things, we begin to realize that the church has a process, and there is God's Spirit working within his church on these matters, and that we can submit to that process, and that we can be thankful for it. We ask for understanding. The next thing I would say is that we should ask for discernment, as we read here in Proverbs 2. Ask for discernment. Or as Hebrews 5 verse 14 says, to exercise our senses. Turn with me to Philippians 1 verse 9. Philippians 1 verse 9.

Now let's read this here about the principle of discernment. Philippians 1 verse 9. In this I pray that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ. You see, we should keep asking questions. We should keep getting advice. We should keep seeking input, asking for God's direction through prayer and study and fasting. It's important to realize here that we might have knowledge and all discernment. Discernment is so vital and key to being able to apply these principles of what is right and what is wrong. Go with me back to Proverbs 11 verse 14.

A lot of times what I see is that those who are putting forth some novel idea or those who are struggling in relationships in some way, they're separated. They're not getting input. And Proverbs 11 verse 14 says, Where there is no counsel, the people fail. But in the multitude of counselors, there is safety.

And what I've seen, as I've said, is that as we are progressing, we are becoming more and more integrated into the body of Christ. And when we are regressing, we are less and less integrated and more and more isolated.

And this is a pattern that I've seen. It's a greater and greater separation. I don't trust this. I'm not sure. This doesn't sound right. And instead of going and asking and talking and sharing what we're feeling with somebody, we talk ourselves into not doing that. Oh, that person won't understand. Oh, I'm just going to get the runaround. Oh, they're not really going to listen to me. Oh, they're going to give me pat answers. We create all these things in our minds to talk ourselves out of actually going and talking to, if it's a doctrinal issue, to a pastor or elder, if it's a relational issue, to somebody that we might have an issue with, or getting advice on that. And this brings up something that I've discussed before, which is the ladder of inference. You don't find the ladder of inference necessarily that phrase in the Bible, but a lot of times it's what we do. We infer things.

I've given this example before. You might be in a conversation with somebody. And that person seems to be a little abrupt with you. Maybe they're not really being very friendly, and they seem to want to end the conversation soon. So you walk away from that conversation, and you make an inference. You say, well, I bet that person was bothered by something I said.

You don't really know why that person was behaving, but you make an inference. I think that person was bothered by something I said. And then based upon that inference, you make another inference. I bet she was bothered because I wouldn't help on the project she mentioned. And then based upon that inference, you make another inference. She probably doesn't want to be my friend anymore. And because of that inference, you make another inference. Well, if she's going to be that way, I don't want to be her friend either. And so you have built this ladder, these rungs on the ladder, where that conversation has now caused you to say, I'm not going to be that person's friend anymore. Whereas if you had gone to that person and said, I know, since last week we were talking, it seemed like you kind of wanted to end the conversation a little bit sooner. I don't know. I just sensed this didn't seem quite right. And the person said, oh, I'm so sorry. I had such a terrible headache that day. I just could not concentrate at all. I'm so sorry. I just needed to leave early from church. So the answer was they just had a headache and you were ready to defend them because of your ladder of inference. And it's just a simple conversation. And this is what happens when we don't get counsel, when we don't actually go and talk about these things.

The final thing that I want to mention to you here is to ask whether we are spiritually grounded. Whether we are spiritually grounded. That is, what is my state of mind right now? What's my state of mind right now in this moment? And sometimes our state of mind is not ready for solid food because our judgment is clouded by the things going on in our lives.

Look over at Jude 1, verse 20. The book of Jude, verse 20, only one chapter there. And there's something really interesting that Jude describes in here that we can skip over, I think, too quickly. Because our state of mind can influence our judgment, our discernment, our ability to interact with others. And if we are not grounded in our state of mind, we're not spiritually grounded in where we are. We can make some very poor decisions, and we can hurt relationships and hurt ourselves. Jude 1, verse 20, says, But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And on some have compassion, making a distinction, but others save from fear pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.

If we're grieving, if we're going through a divorce, if we're suffering health issues, if we're enduring a major life event, we are undergoing a great deal of stress at that moment in our lives. And that's when it's time to focus on principles and be very careful about making big decisions about relationships, doctrines, job moves, etc. There's an expression, probably heard, nothing good happens after 2 a.m. Sometimes it's 3 a.m. in our lives, and nothing good is going to happen at that moment. So it's better just to close up shop and go to bed. Just not that right time to make that decision.

I've seen enduring trials.

I've seen people who are going through serious trials make pretty serious decisions, life decisions, and then later they regret those.

Wisdom in those moments says to focus on building yourselves up in your faith, praying and keeping ourselves in the love of God and looking for mercy. Verse 21, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. Sometimes we need that mercy. Sometimes we need that love. That's not a time for us to take the responsibility to start correcting others or challenging certain things, because we ourselves are not spiritually grounded. We need to recognize where we are at our time, at different times in our lives.

I personally experienced this when someone said something or did something that I found to be offensive. But I said to myself, I am not in a good space right now to wisely respond or discern what was said. Maybe I shouldn't have been offended, and I'm just so not grounded right now that I'm allowing myself to be offended. If I was in a better space, I might not be offended. I might actually say, oh, what do you mean by that? Oh, I mean this. Oh, I understand what you mean. And you'd go on. And there would have been no offense in that conversation. But we're not spiritually grounded where we need to be. We're not keeping ourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

You see, Jude anticipates that sometimes we make decisions to do one thing, and sometimes we make decisions to do others, as it says. Some have compassion, making a distinction. This is not the time. This is not the time for me to act. Or maybe this is the time for me to act by having compassion. But on others, save with fear. This is the time to act.

And then in verse 24, he says, Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen.

Jude didn't want God's people to stumble. That's why he gave this final instruction. He wanted them to be edified and built up. In conclusion, I'd like to go back to Hebrew 6, in verse 11. And I'd like to conclude this entire chapter.

We finished off in verse 10, but let's read verse 11 and 12 to conclude. Hebrews 6, verse 11 and 12. I hope we've gone through the context of Hebrews 6, verse 4, both before and after. We've understood the difference between milk and solid food. Now let's read a conclusion of this. It says, We are in a body of believers, and we have examples that we can look to. Let's be connected one to another, asking for understanding, asking for discernment, asking if we are spiritually grounded. Our lives depend on it. We are all subject to this fate. And as we consider the day of Pentecost and the giving of the Holy Spirit, let's rejoice that we have tasted of that good word. We have tasted of this way of life, and let's remain steadfast in it.