An Anchor for the Soul

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Florence Chadwick was the first woman to swim the English Channel in both directions. In 1952, Florence attempted to swim the 26 miles between Catalina Island and the California coastline. As she began, she was flanked by small boats that watched for sharks and were prepared to help her if she got hurt or grew tired. After about 15 hours a thick fog set in. Florence began to doubt her ability, and she told her mother, who was in one of the boats, that she didn’t think she could make it. She swam for another hour before asking to be pulled out, unable to see the coastline due to the fog. As she sat in the boat, she found out she’d stopped swimming just one mile away from her destination.

Two months later, Chadwick tried again. This time was different. The same thick fog set in, but she made it because she said that she kept a mental image of the shoreline in her mind while she swam.

Living the Christian life is sometimes a struggle. It can feel like being surrounded by sharks and blanketed in thick fog. Being crystal clear about where we’re headed makes all the difference. Our passage of Scripture today helps us to get clear.

The Jubilee is now behind us and we’re back to our series on the letter to the Hebrews. My title is ‘An Anchor for the Soul’ and we’re looking at Hebrews 6v13-20.

Two weeks ago Ian spoke about how difficult it can be to keep going in the Christian life. Sometimes obedience is difficult. Sometimes circumstances are difficult. So what does Hebrews have to say to those for whom the going is tough? Ian summed up 5v11 – 6v12 in this way. You need to grasp the basics of the gospel again. Don’t think you can reject Jesus and still have a relationship with God. But keep going in faith and obedience and you’ll find assurance about where you stand with God. Ian described 6v4-6 as “one of the strongest warnings in the Bible”. Essentially those verses are saying “If you utterly reject Christ, then there’s no way back. So don’t do it.”

Now we move on to 6v13-20, and David Gooding in his commentary on Hebrews called ‘An Unshakeable Kingdom’ has this to say:

… these next few verses, 6.13-20, are one of the strongest statements in the whole Bible of the utterly unbreakable security that every believer may constantly enjoy.

So cheek by jowl we’ve got one of the strongest warnings in Scripture, and one of the strongest statements in Scripture about the absolute security of the believer. And for healthy discipleship we need to hear both. As the great Anglican evangelical leader of 200 years ago, Charles Simeon, said:

The truth is not in the middle, and not in one extreme, but in both extremes.

In the preface to his published sermons he says:

… as wheels in a complicated machine may move in opposite directions and yet [serve] one common end, so may truths apparently opposite be perfectly reconcilable with each other, and equally [serve] the purposes of God in the accomplishment of man’s salvation.

So we need to hear the warning. But we desperately need the encouragement as well. And that’s what comes now. That earlier section ends in 6v12 with this:

We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised. (v12)

What the writer is urging is faith and patience. Faith in what? Faith in what has been promised. Patience for what? Patience while waiting confidently for what has been promised to come about – however long the wait might be.

So, keeping going when things are tough is all about practical, strong-minded, confident trust that what God has promised will happen. And it will. And that’s exactly what this next section of Hebrews – 6v13-20 – is all about.

As you can see on my outline, I want to take it in four chunks, under four headings. First: Against all appearances, God kept his promise to Abraham (verses 13-15). Secondly: God wants us to be very clear that he keeps his promises to us (16-17). Thirdly: We can draw great strength from the fact that God keeps his promises (18). And fourthly: This certain hope is an immoveable anchor for the soul (19-20). So:

First, AGAINST ALL APPEARANCES, GOD KEPT HIS PROMISE TO ABRAHAM (13-15)

As soon as the writer to the Hebrews has written about imitating “those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised”, his mind turns to Abraham. 6v13-15:

When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself, saying, “I will surely bless you and give you many descendants.” And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised. (v13-15)

That refers back in particular to Genesis 22, and the account of God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac.

I remember a scene in a gripping TV drama. One character called Otto was reconciled with his beloved Maria after several years of separation. A whole new life was opening out for the two of them. But this was war time, and Otto was in a bomb disposal unit. He had to deal with an unexploded bomb – and we watched him slowly work on it to defuse it, just waiting for it to go off. It was one of those scenes that ties a tense knot inside you. And then the bomb did go off, and all the promise of Otto and Maria’s love was destroyed in that moment. Even though we knew it was going to happen, it was still a shock.

There’s the same tension and the same sense of shock in the story of God testing Abraham over his son Isaac. I don’t know how many times I’ve read it, but every time I feel the tension and the danger and the horror of it. Abraham is told to take his son Isaac – his only son – the son whom Abraham loves with all his heart, and sacrifice him. And Abraham goes, and there is that awful moment as he stands over his only son with knife in hand to kill him. At that instant Abraham was ready to destroy all that God had given him and promised him. Year after year after year Abraham had waited for God to give him this son. Through Isaac, God said, Abraham’s descendants would become as many as the grains of sand on the beach. And not only that – through Isaac every nation on earth would be blessed. And God said: “sacrifice him”.

Why did Abraham do that? When that whole longed for future had finally arrived, why was he prepared to destroy it? Why was he prepared to lift that knife to the son he loved? It can only have been because he knew God, and he knew for sure what God had said to him. He had God’s promise. He had been told (this is in Genesis 12v1-3):

… go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. (Genesis 12v1-3)

And he’d been told by God that it would be through Isaac that this would be fulfilled. But he’d also been told to sacrifice Isaac. He knew that – there was no mistaking it. I don’t suppose for a moment that Abraham understood how God was going to fulfil his promises if Isaac was sacrificed – but by that stage of his life he knew that somehow God would. He knew that somehow God would provide a way even though it seemed impossible. That was his sure and certain hope.

And Abraham’s hope was not misplaced. God stopped the sacrifice of Isaac, provided a ram, and repeated his promise to Abraham. And God kept his promise. Isaac has been a source of blessing to the whole world, because Jesus was born into the people that Isaac began.

So that’s the first point: Against all appearances, God kept his promise to Abraham

Secondly, GOD WANTS US TO BE VERY CLEAR THAT HE KEEPS HIS PROMISES TO US (16-17)

Now just as Abraham had to learn through years of experience that when God promises something he means it, so also we must learn that as well.

It’s a difficult lesson to learn for us, because we’re too used to our own behaviour and that of our fellow men and women. When we hear someone say, “I promise I’ll do so and so,” or “I promise I’ll never do that again,” we take it with a pinch of salt. We’ve been let down by promises like that too often really to trust them. And we know how ready we are to promise things, and how quickly those promises get trodden in the dirt.

So to make it easier for us to believe, God didn’t just promise to Abraham a blessing for all the nations on earth. He sealed his promise by swearing on oath as a confirmation of that promise. It wasn’t necessary for God to do that. His word is no more truthful because it is spoken under oath. His word is always truth. Verse 16:

Men swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument. (v16)

We might be a lot more careful about what we say under oath – but God’s tongue is always under perfect control. 6v13:

When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself, saying, “I will surely bless you… (v13-14)

One word from God is enough – but because we are so slow to trust, he puts his double stamp on what he says: first the promise, and then secondly the oath as well. 6v17:

Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. (v17)

That’s the second point: God wants us to be very clear that he keeps his promises to us.

Thirdly, WE CAN DRAW GREAT STRENGTH FROM THE FACT THAT GOD KEEPS HIS PROMISES (18)

God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. (v18)

God’s promise is certain and sure and definite. It is certain because of the very nature of God. God is faithful and truthful. “I am the truth,” said Jesus. In Numbers 23v19, Balaam said to Balak, in words put into his mouth by the Lord:

God is not a man that he should lie … Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfil? (Numbers 23v19)

God’s word is true. And then not only is God truthful – he’s also powerful. We sometimes maybe have every intention of fulfilling our promise – but we’re prevented from doing so by some person or situation that’s more powerful than us. That never happens with God. It can never happen. Take another look at verses 13-14:

When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself, saying, “I will surely bless you… (v13-14)

There is no one greater! Nothing and nobody can prevent God fulfilling those promises.

Well what then are the promises of God for us? Scripture is full of them, which is one of the reasons the Bible makes such exciting reading. Oswald Sanders, the one time mission leader, reports that there are thirty thousand promises in the Bible. I can’t claim to have checked that, but anyway that’s not so important because all of the promises are summed up and concentrated in Jesus Christ. Philippians 4v19:

And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4v19)

Ephesians 1v3:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. (Ephesians 1v3)

And in 2 Corinthians 1v20 Paul says:

For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ. (2 Corinthians 1v20)

The promise of God to us is Christ himself, and the eternal life, love, joy and peace that he brings. In that promise is included everything that we could ever need. That promise can never be broken. So hold on to it. Draw strength from it.

In the struggles of life, we can draw great strength from the fact that God keeps his promises. That’s the third point. Then finally and…

Fourthly, THIS CERTAIN HOPE IS AN IMMOVEABLE ANCHOR FOR THE SOUL (19-20)

So God’s sure promise is there for us. But then in practice we have a choice. We can take hold of that promise, or we can carry on living without any sure hope.

When a promise is made, it is hope that makes that promise worth having – because hope is simply believing the promise. As Hebrews says (6v19):

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. (6v19)

The other night I watched a programme of archive footage of the city of Bristol over the last century. It reminded me of one of my boyhood heroes, the great Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. (Apart from anything else he had such a great name.)

Near where we once lived in Bristol was one of his bridges – the Clifton Suspension Bridge. This bridge hangs high above the Avon Gorge. It’s supported by great iron chains which hang across the two towers each side of the gorge. These chains carry all the weight of the bridge. They are anchored deep down into the rock either side of the gorge, and they never budge an inch. There they stay, firm and secure anchors. You can walk over that gorge trusting your life to that bridge, safe in the knowledge that those anchors are there.

But you see some people going over who are very obviously not at all trusting. They scuttle across as if they expect the whole thing to collapse with the next car that goes over. Sometimes, notoriously, someone loses all hope to the point where he jumps right off the bridge and plummets to his death below. But most people just trust the bridge to stay put and use it all the time to get safely across the gorge.

It’s the same with hoping in the promises of God. Having no hope destroys the power of a Christian’s life and witness and ministry. No hope leads to no action. It leads to a lack of motivation to attempt anything for God. It leads to faithlessness, and dithering and worry and uncertainty. Having no hope leads to an insecurity which is perhaps the greatest destroyer of Christian ministry that there is, because it keeps people from trying. It keeps people stuck on the wrong side of the bridge.

Verses 19-20:

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest for ever, in the order of Melchizedek. (v19-20)

Don’t worry about Melchizedek for the moment – we’ll come back to him next time. Just note again where our sure and certain hope lies. It lies in Jesus. He is our high priest who brings us back to God. His death on the cross for our sins was the once-for-all sacrifice that reconciles us to God and opens the way for the worldwide blessing first promised to Abraham.

The cross, resurrection, ascension and final return of Christ are what give us hope. They provide the anchor for our souls in the storms of life. They give us the absolute security that we need, so that we can live for God, boldly and unafraid. God keeps his promises. Let’s take that to heart.

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