People that hear warnings and say, I don't need that, are in grave danger.

People that hear warnings and say, I hear you, and I'm with you, and I'm fighting.

I fight the fight of faith every day, and I fight it with a great sense of security that I have been bought by God.

What does the fight for hope in God involve?

In this episode of Light and Truth,

John Piper turns to Hebrew 6, 9 to 12,

to show how God strengthens us to endure to the end.

The sermon was originally preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church on October 20, 1996.

I invite you to you to turn with me in your Bible to Hebrew chapter 6

verses 9 through 12. You remember that this writer in verses 4 to 8 has delivered a very hard word of warning to the effect that some of his listeners might

be in danger of making shipwreck of faith and being lost.

But now here he gives an encouraging word and expresses his confidence in them.

Like this, starting in verse 9. But beloved we are convinced of better things

concerning you. In other words, he doesn't believe that it's as bleak as it might have sounded when he gave that warning.

Better things that accompany salvation though we are speaking in this way, this warning way.

Verse 10, 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. And we desire that each one of

you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance

of hope to the end.

So in spite of what anybody might have thought, the goal of that warning was assurance. Strong, full, not half full, but full assurance of hope, and not just partway to the end, but all the way

to the end, verse 12.

That you may not be sluggish. That's been his concern all the way through this book is he sees in

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