Hebrews 6:17-20 Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show to the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath:… I. First, let me call your attention to THE DESIGN OF THE ANCHOR of which our text speaks. The design of an anchor, of course, is to hold the vessel firmly to one place when winds and currents would otherwise remove it. God has given us certain truths, which are intended to hold our minds fast to truth, holiness, perseverance — in a word, to hold us to Himself. But why hold the vessel? 1. The first answer which would suggest itself would be, To keep it from being wrecked. If every wind of doctrine whirled you about at its will you would soon be drifted far away from the truth as it is in Jesus, and concerning it you would make shipwreck; but you cost your Lord too dear for Him to lose you, to see you broken to pieces on the rocks; therefore He has provided for you a glorious holdfast, that when Satan's temptations, your own corruptions, and the trials of the world assail you, hope may be the anchor of your soul, both sure and steadfast. 2. An anchor is also wanted to keep a vessel from discomfort, for even if it be not wrecked it would be a wretched thing to be driven hither and thither, to the north and then to the south, as winds may shift. There are solid and sure truths infallibly certified to us, which operate powerfully upon the mind so as to prevent its being harassed and dismayed. The text speaks of " strong consolation." Is not that a glorious word — we have not merely consolation which will hold us fast and bear us up against the tempest in times of trouble, but strong consolation so that when affliction bursts forth with unusual strength, like a furious tornado, the strong consolation, like a sheet-anchor, may be more than a match for the strong temptation, and may enable us to triumph over all. Very restful is that man who is very believing. 3. An anchor is wanted, too, to preserve us Item losing the headway which we have made. Those who know anything experimentally about Divine things have cast their anchor down, and as they heard the chain running out, they joyfully said, "This I know, and have believed. In this truth I stand fast and immovable. Blow, winds, y-u will never move me from this anchorage; whatsoever I have attained by the teaching of the Spirit, I will hold fast as long as I live." 4. Moreover, the anchor is needed that we may possess constancy and usefulness. The man who is easily moved, and believeth this to-day and that to-morrow, is a fickle creature. Who knows where to find him? II. Secondly, I invite you to consider THE MAKE OF THE ANCHOR — "That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation." Anchor-making is very important work. The anchor-smith has a very responsible business, for if he makes his anchor badly, or of weak material, woe to the shipmaster when the storm comes on. If anything in this world should be strong it should be an anchor, for upon it safety and life often depend. What is our anchor? It is made of two Divine things. The one is "God's promise, a sure and stable thing indeed. To this sure word is added another Divine thing, namely, God's oath. Conceive the majesty, the awe, the certainty of this! Here, then, are two Divine assurances, which, like the flukes of the anchor, hold us fast. We have for our anchor two things, which, in addition to their being Divine, are expressly said to be immutable — that is, two things which cannot change. When the Lord utters a promise He never runs back from it — "the gifts and calling of God are without repentance." Notice next of these two things that it is said — "Wherein it is impossible for God to lie." It is inconsistent with the very idea and thought of God that He should be a liar. A lying God would be a solecism in language, a self-evident contradiction. But now, what is this promise, and what is this oath? The promise is the promise given to Abraham that his seed should be blessed, and in this seed should all nations of the earth be blessed also. To whom was this promise made? Who are the "seed"? To Christ Himself, and to all who are in Christ, is the covenant made sure, that the Lord will bless them for ever and make them blessings. And what is the oath? That may refer to the oath which the Lord sware to Abraham after the patriarch had offered up his son, for which see the twenty-second chapter of Genesis: but I think you will agree with me if I say it more probably refers to the oath recorded in the one hundred and tenth Psalm, which I would have you notice very carefully — "The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec." I think this is referred to, because the twentieth verse of our text goes on to say, "Whither the Forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an High Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek." Now I want you to see this anchor. Here is one of its holdfasts — God has promised to bless the faithful, He has declared that the seed of Abraham, namely, believers, shall be blessed, and made a blessing. Then comes the other arm of the anchor, which is equally strong to hold the soul, namely, the oath of the priesthood, by which the Lord Jesus is declared to be a priest for ever on our behalf; not an ordinary priest after the manner of Aaron, beginning and ending a temporary priesthood, but without beginning of days or end of years, living on for ever; a priest who has finished his sacrificial work, has gone in within the veil, and sits down for ever at the right hand of God, because His work is complete, and His priesthood abides in its eternal efficacy. What better anchor could the Comforter Himself devise for His people? What stronger consolation can the heirs of promise desire? III. OUR HOLD OF THE ANCHOR. It would be of no use for us to have an anchor, however good, unless we had a hold of it. The anchor may be sure, and may have a steadfast grip, but there must be a strong cable to connect the anchor with the ship. Formerly it was very general to use a hempen cable, but large vessels are not content to run the risk of breakage, and therefore they use a chain cable for the anchor. It is a grand thing to have a solid substantial connection between your soul and your hope; to have a confidence which is surely your own, from which you ,'an never be separated. Our text speaks plainly about this laying hold of the anchor in the end of the 18th verse — "That we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us." We must personally lay hold on the hope; there is the hope, but we are bound to grasp it and hold it fast. As with an anchor, the cable must pass through the ring, and so be bound to it, so must faith lay hold upon the hope of eternal life. "Well," saith one, "but may we lay bold upon it?" My answer is, the text says it is " set before us," — to "'lay hold of the hope set before us." You may grasp it, for it is set before yon. Now, notice that our hold on the anchor should be a present thing and a conscious matter, for we read, "which hope we have." We are conscious that we have it. No one among us has any right to be at peace if he does not know that he has obtained a good hope through grace. May you all be able to say, "which hope we have." As it is well to have a cable made of the same metal as the anchor, so it is a blessed thing when our faith is of the same Divine character as the truth upon which it lays hold: it needs a God-given hope on our part to seize the God-given promise of which our hope is made. The right mode of procedure is to grasp God's promise with a God-created confidence: then you see that right away down from the vessel to the anchor the holdfast is all of a piece, so that at every point it is equally adapted to bear the strain. IV. Fourthly, let us speak of THE ANCHOR'S HOLD OF US. A ship has hold upon her anchor by her chain cable, but at the same time the most important thing is that the anchor keeps its hold upon the ship; and so, b, cause it has entered into the ground of the sea bottom, holds the vessel hard and fast. Do you know anything about your hope holding yon? It. will hold you if it is a good hope; you will not be able to get away from it, but under temptation a, d depression of spirit, end under trial and affliction, you will not only hold your hope — that is your duty, but your hope will hold you — that is your privilege. How is it that our Divine anchor holds so fast? It is because it is in its own nature sure — "Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast." It is in itself sure as to its nature. The gospel is no cunningly devised fable: God has spoken it, it is a mass of fact, it is pure, unalloyed truth, with the broad seal of God Himself set upon it. Then, too, this anchor is "steadfast" as to its hold, it never moves from its lodgment. It is sure in its nature, and steadfast when in use, and thus it is practically safe. The result of the use of this anchor will be very comfortable to you. "Which hope ye have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast." I may say to every believer in Jesus, that his condition is very like that of the landsman on board ship when the sea was rather rough, and he said, "Captain, we are in great danger, are we not?" As an answer did not come, he said, "Captain, don't you see great fear?" Then the old seaman gruffly replied, "Yes, I see plenty of fear, but not a bit of danger." It is often so with us; when the winds are out and the storms are raging there is plenty of fear, but there is no danger. We may be much tossed, but we are quite safe, for we have an anchor of the soul both sure and steadfast, which will not start. One blessed thing is that our hope has such a grip of us that we know it. In a vessel you feel the pull of the anchor, and the more the wind rages the more you feel that the anchor holds you. Like the boy with his kite; the kite is up in the clouds, where he cannot see it, but he knows it is there, for he feels it pull; so our good hope has gone up to heaven, and it is pulling and drawing us towards itself. V. And now, lastly, and best of all, THE ANCHOR'S UNSEEN GRIP, "which entereth into that within the veil." Our anchor is like every other, when it is of any use it is out of sight. When a man sees the anchor it is doing nothing, unless it happen to be some small stream anchor or grapnel in shallow water. When the anchor is of use it is gone: there it went overboard with a splash; far down there, all among the fish, lies the iron holdfast, quite out of sight. Where is your hope, brother? Do you believe because you can see? That is not believing at all. Do you believe because you can feel? That is feeling, it is not believing. But "Blessed is he that hath not seen and yet hath believed." Albeit our anchor is gone out of sight, yet thank God it has taken a very firm grip, and "entered into that which is within the veil." What hold can be equal to that which a man hath upon his God when he can cry, "Thou hast promised, therefore do as Thou hast said"? Note next, that when an anchor has a good grip down below, the more the ship drags the tighter its hold becomes. At first, when the anchor goes down, perhaps, it drops upon a hard rock, and there it cannot bite, but by and by it slips off from the rock and enters into the bottom of the sea; it digs into the soil, and, as the cable draws it on, the fluke goes deeper and deeper till the anchor almost buries itself, and the more it is pulled upon the deeper it descends. The anchor gets such a hold at last that it seems to say, "Now, Boreas, blow away, you must tear up the floor of the sea before the vessel shall be let go." Times of trouble send our hope deep down into fundamental truths. The text concludes with this very sweet reflection, that though our hope is out of sight we have a friend in the unseen land where our hope has found its hold. In anxious moments a sailor might almost wish that he could go with his anchor and fix it firmly. That he cannot do, but we have a friend who has gone to see to everything for us. Our anchor is within the veil, it is where we cannot see it, but Jesus is there, and our hope is inseparably connected with His person and work. Our Lord Jesus by His intercession is drawing us to heaven, and we have only to wait a little while and we shall be with Him where He is. He pleads for our home-bringing, and it will come to pass ere long. No sailor likes his anchor to come home, for if it does so in a storm matters look very ugly; our anchor will never come home, but it is drawing us home; it is drawing us to itself, not downwards beneath devouring waves, but upwards to ecstatic joys. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Parallel Verses KJV: Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: |
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