“The Worthless Ground” – Hebrews 6:7-8

Kootenai Church

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And now will you please turn to Hebrews chapter six. And when you've found your place, let's bow in prayer together.

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Father, we have sung our praise to you and we have spoken to you what is good and glorious and true concerning you and your nature and your plan of redemption.

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We've affirmed those things that scripture teaches that there is no power in hell and no scheme of man that can pluck us from the hand of the

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Savior, for we are safe in him. And that has been the confidence of your people since the beginning of your redemptive plan.

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We know that you are a God who is sovereign and works all things to accomplish your purposes and your plans and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

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And so we thank you that you have purpose to redeem a people for yourself. And we thank you that by your choice and by your grace, you have made us your own and we belong to you and Christ belongs to us.

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And we look forward to that hope of eternal life with great expectation and great anticipation, for we know with certainty that you shall bring to pass all that you have promised.

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We pray now today as we look at your word that you would convince us of these truths, that you would make our hearts to trust and to rest in Christ and Christ alone for our salvation, and that you would convince us and comfort us with the truth that we are secure in him.

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And we pray that by our time together here that you would also shake out of false sense of security any who have tasted of these blessings but have never believed in Christ.

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Be glorified here today through the preaching of your word, our understanding of it, and help us to understand it rightly as we should, we ask in Christ's name, amen.

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Well, we are back today in this warning passage that is in Hebrews 6, and I listed some weeks ago five things that I needed to demonstrate from Hebrews chapter 6 in order to prove that my interpretation of this passage was accurate.

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Five things about this passage and my understanding of this passage, not five things about other passages of scripture that may tie into this controversy over whether or not a believer can lose their salvation, but five specific things concerning this passage.

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And I don't expect you to remember what those five things were, because quite frankly, I didn't remember what they were.

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I had to go back and ask myself, what is it I'm trying to prove again? And I had to relist those five things.

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So I'm gonna give you those five things as I've listed them several weeks ago, remind you of what they are, and show you where we are at in our progression through those five hurdles, as it were.

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First, I suggested that I had to explain these phrases in verses four and five, these phrases that describe this group of people that walk away from the faith or fall away from the faith.

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I had to explain what that was and to show that it does not definitively describe a believer.

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I didn't have to prove to you that it describes an unbeliever. All I had to show you was that it does not definitively, beyond any shadow of a doubt, describe those who are truly and genuinely saved.

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And I think that I have made that case. None of these phrases can be taken to certainly define or describe a believer beyond any shadow of a doubt.

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The other side has to prove that these phrases can only describe a true and genuine Christian in order to prove that they have fallen away.

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And I think I've done enough to show that externally, these things can be true. They can taste, they can experience, they can partake, they can be enlightened without necessarily being real and true, genuine

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Christians. The second thing that I told you I had to show was I had to explain the strong language of verse six.

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What does it mean that they fell away? What does it mean to crucify, again, the son of God? And what does it mean to put him to open shame?

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And how is it possible that these group of people who are not believers in walking away or falling away would do that?

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That's what I had to show. And we talked about that last week. Second, I had to show you that my view fits the context of this warning passage, that the warnings to the immature believers in verse 11 of chapter five through chapter six, verse three, that those concerns concerning immature believers can be understood in terms of being one cohesive unit with this group that is described in verses four through six.

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And the fourth thing, and I did that last week as well, the fourth thing that I told you I had to do was to show you that my understanding or the interpretation that I had proposed for verses four to six, and if you're new here,

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I'll get into that in just a second as to what that is so that you're not completely lost, but I needed to show you that it fits better than all of the other alternatives, the illustration in verses seven and eight.

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And that's what we're at today. We finished up verse six last week by looking at what it means to put Christ to an open shame.

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And today we are looking at this illustration that is given in verses seven and eight. Let's read it together, verse seven.

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For ground, actually let's back up and read beginning at verse four of chapter six.

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For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the

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Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come and have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance since they again crucified to themselves the

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Son of God and put him to open shame. For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation, useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God.

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But if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed and it ends up being burned.

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So that is our concern today, verses seven and eight. And what I need to show you is, first of all, we need to talk about what is the meaning of this illustration or this analogy that he uses?

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What do the individual things refer to? The ground, the thorns and the thistles, the rain that falls, what are these elements?

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What is this analogous to? I have to demonstrate that. And then we have to ask, what interpretation of this passage does this analogy or illustration best fit?

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Does it fit the interpretation that says these are Christians who lose their salvation? Or does it fit the interpretation that says these are

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Christians who lose their rewards? Or does it fit the interpretation that says that verses four through six, those positive statements regarding this group of people that he is describing here, that they have been enlightened, that they have tasted and that they have partaken.

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That that describes a group of people whose spiritual state is unknown to the author and indiscernible to the author because they have experienced these outward things.

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But then they reveal or demonstrate their true nature by producing bad fruit in walking away from Christ.

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And that is my interpretation of the passage. Verses four to six is not describing Christians. I believe it is describing a group of people whose spiritual state is unknown and indiscernible to the author.

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He includes them in the case of those, this group of people who have all of these positive blessings and then they fall away, they walk away, putting

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Christ to open shame, crucifying him all over again, casting their vote with those who would have called for the blood of Christ.

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This act of spiritual apostasy and turning from the faith demonstrates that they were never saved to begin with.

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That is my take on the passage, that verses four through six does not definitively describe

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Christians. And their falling away from the truth definitively identifies them as apostates who were not

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Christians all along. So my goal today is to show you that verses seven and eight best fits the interpretation that I've been suggesting you for the last five or six weeks that we've been going through this.

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I had to kind of count them up in my mind, right? We had apostates part one, two, three, four, and five and then was there something else? No, we're at number six now today.

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So there we go. So the interpretation that I have suggested over the last six weeks, the analogy best fits that.

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So let's look briefly at the analogy. We'll kind of give you a couple of points of overview and then we'll work through the details of it.

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Notice that verse seven begins with what is called an explanatory conjunction. It is the word for.

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And in the original language, that intimately connects the illustration of verses seven and eight with all that has come before it in verses four through six.

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He has described this group of people in verses four through six. They have been enlightened, they have tasted, and they have partaken.

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And then they have walked away. There's those five descriptions that are there. They have enjoyed the blessings, those various blessings, and then they have walked away or turned away from it.

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And then in verse seven, he is giving an illustration that he has been saying in verses four through six.

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So he begins it with for, as if to connect the illustration to, intimately to verses four through six.

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And so we would expect that the details of the illustration is going to be analogous, almost a one -to -one correspondence with the details that we've looked at in going through verses four through six.

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So whatever interpretation we come up with in verses four to six, this is the short way of saying everything I've been saying up until now, whatever interpretation we come up with verses four through six, it has to fit this illustration.

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The illustration is making this point. He's creating a word picture for us that gets right to the heart of what he has been describing in verses four through six.

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So notice second of all that there is one piece of ground that is described and not two. And this I think is key to understanding the illustration.

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He is not contrasting two separate kinds of soil in this analogy. He is talking about hypothetically one piece of ground.

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And this one piece of ground receives rain and it receives the rain regularly and it drinks in the rain and then something happens to it.

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It does one of two things, this piece of ground. It either produces vegetation or it produces thorns and thistles.

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So it is not two pieces of ground as if he is giving a parable that says, okay, there were two lots, one of them on the right -hand side of the fence and one of them on the left -hand side of the fence and they both received the rain and one lot produced this and one lot produced that.

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It is one piece of ground hypothetically that he is describing. And this piece of ground receives these blessings and then it does one of two things.

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So that is that the same piece of ground drinks the same rain. And what I want you to notice is that the thorns and thistles cannot be blamed on the lack of rain, the lack of the abundance of the rain or the kind of rain or the environment.

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He is describing one analogy. You have land that drinks rain and then there is a point of divergence in which one of these two things is true of this piece of land.

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It either does this or it does that. It can go one of two ways. And notice what is different in the analogy.

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What differs is the crops. There are two crops. There's the crop of vegetation, which is something edible and profitable and useful.

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Or there's the crop of thorns and thistles, which is, by the way, a sign of the curse. And I sometimes wonder if this,

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I don't know this because the author doesn't say this, but if in the back of the mind of the author, there is a reference here or at least a connection with Genesis chapter three.

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What was the result of the fall of man and his disobedience in the garden? It was that the ground, there was a curse on the man and the woman and the serpent and the ground.

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The ground now produces thorns and thistles. And so God cursed Adam and said, you're gonna work and you're gonna labor and you're gonna sweat and you're gonna eat your bread from the sweat of your brow.

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And in your tilling of the land and your producing of the and your work on the land, it's going to produce thorns and thistles, which we wage war against every time we plant a garden or plant a flower bed.

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You have to go to war against thorns and thistles because thorns and thistles are a result of the curse. And what brought about the curse?

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It was Adam sinning against the light. And what do we have in Hebrews chapter six? We have a group of people who have been enlightened.

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Have they not? They have received these blessings and they have partaken of these things and experienced these things and understood these things and yet they turn and walk away from that.

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And so I think that there is a connection here between Genesis chapter three and Hebrews chapter six. I don't know if it was the intention of the author there or if it was intention of the

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Holy Spirit. I don't wanna say that it was the intention of either one because I can't speak for either of them since I can't have a conversation with either one of them.

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But I can say that I see a connection there between this passage and Genesis chapter three, that the thorns and the thistles are the result of the curse, that's the fruit of the curse.

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And so notice then that there are two descriptions. It's either useful or it is worthless. And notice then that there are two results.

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It either receives a blessing from God or it is close to being cursed and burned up. So now what does the analogy mean?

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Notice that we have ground, we have rain, we have vegetation, we have thorns and thistles, then we have a result from this, either being burned or being blessed.

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Those are the two results of that. So what is the ground or who is the ground in the analogy?

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Since we are describing in verses four through six, verses four and five specifically, since we're describing in verses four and five a group of people, for in the case of those, and I would remind you that we're dealing here with two different pronouns.

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You remember the pronoun change? This is important. Chapter five, verse 11 through chapter six, verse three, we have the certain pronoun, us and we and you and our and us and all of that.

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And then in beginning in chapter six, verse four, it is in case of those who, themselves and they and them, and it's a different set of pronouns.

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He's describing a different group other than his primary audience. He's describing there, I think, a hypothetical group or an imaginary group, and then in beginning in verse nine, it is back to you.

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For brethren, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and he switches back the pronouns again. That is intentional.

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Because in verses four through six, he's describing a certain group of people that is not whom he is normally, generally convinced is his audience throughout the rest of this epistle.

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And so who is he describing, or who would be the ground in verse seven?

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Who is the ground there that drinks the rain? It is this group of people, for in the case of those, this group of people that he is describing in verses four and five and six, that is the ground.

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Now, what is the rain? Rain is a sign of blessing and grace and goodness, especially in an arid and dry and hot

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Middle Eastern climate like these folks would have been familiar with. That sign of rain and that drink of rain and the rain falling from the sky would have been such a rich blessing that would bring forth fruit and abundant blessing on the land and all of that.

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What is the rain that is being described? Is there a parallel? If there's a parallel between the ground and these people, what is it, what blessing, what good thing, what kindness and grace has fallen upon these people?

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That this ground, the people in verses four to six, has drank up, drunken up. What is it that has fallen upon them?

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It is, may I suggest, all of the positive things described in verses four and five. They have been enlightened.

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They have tasted of the goodness of God, the gift from heaven in Christ.

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They have been partakers, been made partakers of the Holy Spirit. They have tasted of the good word of God and they have tasted of the powers of the age to come.

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All of those rich and good blessings, those are the graces, the kindnesses. That is the refreshing rain that has fallen upon this ground.

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So the people in verses four to six is the ground and what is the rain that has fallen upon him? They have received all of these blessings.

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And notice that the analogy says they have, it drinks up these blessings. In other words, they have imbibed deeply with these things.

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These are not occasional thing. The rain has fallen upon them frequently. This is not somebody who has passed through a group of believers and briefly been exposed to Christian things.

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This is a people who, this is a group of people or describes a group of people who have sat amongst

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Christians and that rain, that blessing that comes from being among and with the people of God, it has fallen upon them frequently.

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Look at the analogy in verse seven. The ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it. We're talking about an abundance of rain, not just an occasional glance of spiritual things but a regular imbibing and taking in and living and experiences.

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They have drank it. They have, would you say they've tasted it? Right? They've tasted of the heavenly gift.

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They've tasted the powers of the age to come. They've tasted of the good word of God. These are not people who just had a superficial experience of it.

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These are people who have had a real, serious, deep and abiding experience of these realities all without ever being saved.

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Because all of these things are things that can be experienced external to the person without ever having a genuine internal conversion to Jesus Christ.

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Without ever believing and having faith and repenting and turning from their sins, they can experience all of these things.

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And so they have drank deeply from this well. The rain has often fallen upon them.

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They really have been enlightened. They've come to understand these things. They have tasted of these realities. They've experienced

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Christ in a real way due because of their proximity to the people of God. Because they're in and among the people of God.

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Because they've been associated with things. They've even worked and participated along with things that the Holy Spirit is doing all without being regenerated.

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We might say that they have absolutely no excuse for their continued disobedience. None whatsoever. And having experienced these things frequently and having drank often from these blessings, this is the ground that then produces one of two things.

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It either produces vegetation or it produces fruit. First, sorry, thorns and thistles.

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First of all, the vegetation. That's fruit and profit and sustenance. And the reason, he says, is because it is for the sake of those, it is a blessing for the sake of those for whose sake it is tilled.

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These people who have worked the land and they have tilled it up and they have prepared it and then the rain comes and if it produces vegetation, it's fruitful for them.

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They get something off of it. You get to enjoy the fruit of the vine. They get to enjoy the grapes. They get to enjoy the wine that comes from that.

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They get to enjoy all of the sustenance and the grain that would be the fruit of an abundant harvest from good land with good seed and all of that.

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And when a person who tills it and puts forth all of that work and gets to enjoy the blessings and the benefit of it, it is a rich and gracious blessing to that individual and the result of it is that the land is blessed.

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But what if the land should produce thorns and thistles? What does that produce? Is that a benefit or a blessing to any of you?

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You ever gone out in your garden and said, look at that, it's overcome with Canadian thistle. What a rich blessing. It's gonna be a great day of salad tonight, right?

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We might take some crab meat and sprinkle it over top of that and drizzle that with ranch dressing. There's nothing like thorns and thistles to make a good meal.

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Have you ever said that? No, it's completely useless. Thorns and thistles don't make good jam. They don't make good wine. They don't make sandwiches.

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I wouldn't put it past my mother -in -law to give it a shot. But other than that, so I guess we could say that it could be done, but it would not be a good thing.

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And so there's no benefit or blessing that comes from the thorns and the thistles that come from bad ground.

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And so when it produces thorns and thistles, there's no profit in that. You say that that is bad fruit. Who are then are these two different individuals or persons that are symbolized by these two different yields?

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There is the fruit or the vegetables that come from the land. So we have two different hypothetical scenarios.

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You have land that receives the blessing of the rain, and as a result, it produces vegetation, and it is a blessing.

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Who would be those who produce the profit, the benefit, and the blessing of vegetables? It would be the ones described in verse nine.

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But brethren, we are convinced of better things concerning you, things that accompany salvation, like your work and your love and your ministering to the saints and your perseverance in the faith.

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It's the vegetation that comes from that land that has received those blessings. Those, in Hebrews, to whom this author is writing, whose salvation he is convinced of, they have produced that vegetable, that fruit, and the blessing and benefit of it.

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But who are the thorns and the thistles? They are the ones that have fallen away, in verse six.

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They have been enlightened, and they have tasted, and they have partaken, and they have received the same rain, but in this instance, in this hypothetical scenario, rather than producing vegetation, fruit, and things that accompany salvation, that we are convinced are true concerning this one group, this particular group has done the other scenario, right?

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Scenario B, this land doesn't produce the vegetation, but instead it produces the thorns and the thistles.

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And so we have the vegetation that is, the vegetation and the vegetables that comes from the land that is indicative of verse nine.

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We have this group of people that is, whose salvation he is absolutely convinced, and then you have this other group of people whose salvation he knows is absolutely not certain.

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Why? Because they have produced thorns and thistles. It's the same group of ground, two different crops, two different destinies.

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One is cursed, and one is blessed. So in the case of those who are cursed, the land that is cursed, they produce thorns and thistles, and what is the thorns and thistles?

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It is walking away from the faith, crucifying Christ all over again, and putting him to open shame.

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There's nothing more thorny and thistly than that type of an individual. That's what the apostate does.

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Having received the blessing, the apostate is the land that produces the thorns and the thistles. But having received the blessing, the believer is the one who produces fruit unto righteousness, whose salvation we can be convinced of.

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Notice the two different descriptions. One is useful, that's the people of verse nine. They showed the certainty of their salvation by ministering to the saints, by loving the name of Christ, by producing works of love and faith and obedience, and holding fast their confidence all the way to the very end, persevering in the faith.

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That evidence is an individual who's producing the vegetation of the fruitfulness, having received those blessings. And the one that is close to being cursed, notice that description in verse eight.

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The one piece of ground that yields thorns and thistles is worthless and close to being cursed. And by the way, the word close there and that idea of being close to being cursed, it's not talking about geographical proximity.

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Right, as if you're standing somewhere and something falls right next to you, and you think, wow, that was close, that almost hit me. That's not the idea, it's not geographical proximity that's being described, it's chronological proximity.

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In other words, these people are right on the verge of being cursed, that is where they are at, and it's not the curse has fallen, it is that chronologically speaking, this is going to happen, and they are very close to stepping into a cursed eternity and being cursed for all of eternity.

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And not only that, but they are worthless and the ground is burned. Look at the description worthless, it means damned or cursed, worthy of judgment, broken, or not functioning properly.

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I'll give you an example of, several examples of how that word is used throughout scripture. It's used to false teachers in Titus chapter one, verse 16.

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They profess to know God, but by their deeds, they deny him being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed.

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Look at the false teacher, they are broken and worthless and useless, and they are worthy of being judged and damned and close to it because they're worthless or useless, broken for any good deed.

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You can't trust them to adorn the gospel of God with their works of righteousness because they're false teachers.

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So when it comes to, they're worthless. It's also used to false teachers in second

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Timothy chapter three, verse eight, just as Johnnys and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also opposed the truth.

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Men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith. Rejected, that's the word, worthless. In terms of their faith, worthless, useless.

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And then significantly, it's also used of a depraved mind in Romans chapter one to describe the uselessness, the worthlessness, the brokenness and inability to function properly.

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Romans chapter one, verse 28, and just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, a worthless mind, to do those things which are not proper.

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Romans chapter one, verse 28, uses the same word to describe a mind that does not function properly.

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And this is exactly what we're seeing today in our own day, in our own nation, our own culture. Today, you're seeing in the world, a world, a nation, a culture that is being given over to its own worthless and useless and rejected and broken depravity, the depraved mind which does not function.

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And you watch the news and you say to yourself, the world is losing, no, the world has lost its mind.

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Unbelievers do not think properly. That is why they can tell you in one breath that gender does not matter, that gender is irrelevant, that it is a social construct and there's no difference between men and women, and then turn around, right around, and tell you with the next breath, but gender means everything because this man wants to become a woman.

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And so we recognize this distinction between the genders. And you and I look at that and we say, you're crazy.

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You have lost your mind, you have gone insane. No, God has given them over to their own mind which is broken and does not function and is worthy of being judged.

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It does not function properly. Land that does not produce vegetation and only produces thorns and thistles is not functioning properly, it's worthless, ready to be burned up, that's the word.

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There's no greater or more significant indication that we are a nation and a culture under the judgment of God than the fact that everybody is losing their mind, except believers who can discern these things, that we have been given over.

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God has said, you want that, I'll let you have that. Here's the fruit of it, you get to enjoy it. It's just thorns and thistles and damnation at the end of that road.

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But if that's the road you wanna go down, he's not gonna stop us or restrain us from going down that road. Same thing with the worthless piece of ground.

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It produces fruit, or sorry, not fruit, thorns and thistles that is worthy of being judged and damned and that's what it's going to receive.

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And it is given over and the land then is burned. And notice the two different results. One land, or in one scenario, it is blessed by God, why?

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Because it produces vegetation. So this ground receives the blessing in the favor of God. The ground has received the rain and the blessings, it's produced the vegetation, then

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God blesses it. In the other scenario, the land receives the blessing, produces thorns and thistles, and God judges it and damns it.

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And notice, and this is important, that in the analogy, it is the land that is burned, not the thorns and the thistles.

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It's the land that's scorched. It's not the fruit that is burned, it is the land that is scorched. So now that we've walked through all the details, what is the land that is spoken of?

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What is the ground that is spoken of? It is this undefined group of people described in verses four to six. What is the rain that they have received?

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It is all of the positive blessings that they have benefited from and enjoyed externally without any indication or certainty of their salvation.

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And then what is the product of that? Well, they have done one of two things with this. They either continue in the faith and produce the fruit and vegetation, in which case they're blessed, or this land produces thorns and thistles, in which case it is damned.

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There are two possible ways that that can go. All right, so that's the analogy. So now let's ask the question, which interpretation of the passage does this illustration best fit?

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I would suggest to you that you observe how appropriate this illustration is to the interpretation of the passage that I have been giving you for now going on six weeks, as we've worked our way through this.

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Notice how appropriate it is. What have I been saying? I have been saying that there is a group of people, a land out there, that has received all of this rain and this blessing.

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And just looking at the land and looking at the rain, you cannot tell what that is going to produce.

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In terms of just observing wetland that has received all these blessings, you have to step back and say, we're not certain which direction this is going to go.

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But if that land produces vegetation, fruit, and is blessed by God, then you know you have believers.

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If that land produces thorns and thistles, then you know you have what? Unbelievers.

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You'd have apostates. Now that perfectly fits the illustration of what I've been saying beforehand.

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In my interpretation of the passage, the author does not know for certain. Their spiritual state is not known simply from the fact that there is ground and that it has received rain.

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Something must happen to reveal the nature of the land. What is it that must happen?

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They must either produce the fruits that evidence repentance and faith, or they will produce the thorns and the thistles and walk away.

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And when they produce the fruits, then you know we have a believer. If they produce thorns and thistles, then you know what? We have an apostate.

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That's what I suggested to you last week. It is not until they walk away that you know for certain what the spiritual condition of the land is.

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It is not until they produce thorns and thistles that you know that you're dealing with unbelievers. Or it is not until they produce vegetation that you know that you're dealing with Christians.

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Wayne Grudem says this, in exactly the same way were the people in verses four through six truly saved when they were enlightened and tasted and partook of the

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Holy Spirit? At that point, their status was uncertain because these experiences were all things they had received, but these experiences did not give any indication of their response or the kind of fruit they would bear, whether good or bad.

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But once they fell away and held Christ up to open contempt, this bad fruit, in a similar way, revealed what their true status was all along.

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They had never truly been saved in the first place. Close quote. That's what the illustration proves.

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You have somebody who has come into a church and they've followed along. They pretend to be believers.

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They seem to look like they're believers. They've heard the same gospel that we have. And I'll give you an illustration from my own personal life.

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When the Lord saved me, I was sitting between two of my best friends at the time. Right? One on one side and one on the other side.

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And we sat in the same service and we heard the same gospel message. And when the altar call, which

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I'm opposed to altar calls, but when the altar call was given, I got up and ran forward like my pants were on fire.

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I had to have Christ because he was precious to me. Now, the other two guys, both of whom had girls on their arms,

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I didn't, well, for obvious reasons, but both of the other guys had girls on, they didn't get up and go forward. And I went up and got forward.

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I could barely contain my tears. And I went outside and I sat down and I prayed a prayer with my camp counselor.

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I didn't get saved by going forward. I didn't get saved by praying the prayer. I got saved sitting in that place and in that chair, hearing the gospel.

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And in that moment, before I ever got up and went forward, my world went from black and white to technicolor and Dolby surround sound all in an instant.

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I understood the gospel. I got it. It made sense. I repented. I turned from my sin. I believed upon Christ.

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And in that instance, I was saved. And if the camp counselor had told me at that moment, you have to swim across the Pacific Ocean to be saved,

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I would have gone out and jumped in the Pacific Ocean and started swimming. But the guy said, wrongly so, you need to come forward and pray this prayer.

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And I did all of that, but I was saved before that. Okay, now what happened to the two guys who were on either side of me?

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When we all got back from camp the following day, we got home and I called up one of them and sat down and chatted with my friends.

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And I said, did you hear the same message that I heard? How did you not go forward? I went forward and you didn't go forward. Why is that?

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And both of them said to me basically the same thing. And I said, well, you know, I kind of did that, but I did it in my heart.

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I didn't feel like I needed to do that. Now, going on, I thought, okay, well, good, then we're all Christians.

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I get it, we all understand that. Now, going on from that moment forward, neither one of them evidenced any changes in their life, no evidence of salvation whatsoever.

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As far as I know, both of them to this day would be the thorns and thistles of this passage. So how is it that the ground can receive the rain and the blessings, the enlightenment, the understanding?

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And then one piece of ground runs forward and the other piece of ground stays there with girls on their arms and does nothing, but both of them profess to know

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Christ. And then both of them afterwards come back to the same church and hang out in the same youth group and attend the same

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Sunday school and the same VBS and fellowship together and have the same Sunday school teachers and the same pastor and listen to the same messages.

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And over the course of time, two of those walk away entirely and one of them goes on to produce vegetation or fruit.

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And I'm the one in the analogy that's fruity, just in case you're wondering which one of us was producing the fruit, that would be me.

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But listen, I've said before and I would say again right now, I affirm to you and I promise to you that the difference between me and those two friends of mine, my best friends, is not because I was any more spiritual or righteous, that goes back to the sovereign grace of God who does this in turning hearts.

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But of all three of us, professing to know Christ, professing to have understood and believed this, of all the three of us, it is time that tells you the nature of that soil.

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It is time that tells you the nature of conversion. There's sometimes you cannot know, just because somebody has had an emotional experience and prayed a prayer, it takes time for that fruit to reveal itself.

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You plant a tree, it's not overnight that it produces fruit. Sometimes it takes time to produce that fruit.

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And it is the time itself that reveals whether or not the tree is good or bad, whether the soil is good or bad, whether the blessings of the rain have produced what it is intended or should produce.

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And time has to pass for that to happen. And that I think is the interpretation of this passage. So number one, the nature of the ground is not revealed until the fruit is manifested.

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That's what I've been suggesting all along. The nature of this group of people is not revealed until there is fruit. Fruit are thorns and thistles, one of the two.

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But once that comes to the forefront, then you know what you're dealing with. Are we dealing with Christians or are we dealing with non -Christians?

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You can't tell just by looking at the rain that's fallen on them. You can't tell just by saying, well, he has received this enlightenment, he has tasted this and experienced this and partaken of the

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Holy Spirit. He's been amongst us and with us, and so therefore he must be a Christian. He's been baptized and he raised his hand and he went forward and he prayed a prayer in his heart or whatever it is.

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You cannot tell just from all of that. The blessing can fall on the land and you can't tell whether or not that land is gonna produce thorns and thistles until the thorns and thistles come or until the vegetation is produced.

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But once that is produced, then the nature of the land is revealed. And that, I think, is the point of the author.

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Second, the rain does not say anything about the kind of ground upon which it falls. And third, the soil can only be known by its fruit, and this is what

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Jesus said. He was using a different analogy, but the truth is still the same. A bad tree will produce bad fruit and a good tree will produce good fruit.

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And you're not gonna be able to tell whether it's a good tree or a bad tree just by looking at it. What do you judge it by? The fruit.

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It's the fruit. It's the time. It's what comes out of it that tells you whether the tree is good or bad that tells you whether the ground is good or bad.

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You can't tell just by looking at the rain that has fallen upon it. The analogy of the passage, I think, fits this interpretation. Now, what about the alternatives?

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There are suggested two other alternatives. One is that this describes a believer who loses his rewards or his effectiveness.

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This group, this interpretation, you'll remember this says that these are genuine Christians that are being described here. But because of some lack of passion or because of some apathy or because they have slipped or fallen into some sin, they end up producing bad fruit after a period of time.

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And so these are Christians who, when the ground is burned, they are disciplined and brought back into profitability or productiveness for the

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Lord. And so it is the fruit that is burned up and not the Christians themselves, that they lose rewards that they otherwise would have had.

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That's the interpretation. And I'd point out a couple of things. First of all, the ground is described as worthless.

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That is fit for destruction. And that is not the language that is used to describe a Christian. It is used to describe an unbeliever.

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It is used to describe a false teacher. It is not used to describe a Christian. So for the author to use that word, useless, worthless, worthy of judgment, rejected, broken, not working, functioning as it should, for him to use that to describe a

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Christian, that doesn't fit. Second, notice that it is not the thorns that are burned, but it is the ground itself.

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This interpretation, the other one, would have to say that it is not the Christian who is burned, since he can't lose his salvation, but it is his fruitfulness that is burned, or the fruit of his life that is burned up, or the rewards that he loses.

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But in the analogy, it is not the thorns and the thistles that is burned. It's the ground itself that receives the punishment.

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And third, I would point out that burning is the language of judgment. And this fits with Hebrews chapter 10, where the author says, it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of living

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God. And that those who fall into this camp have a terrifying expectation of judgment to come, the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries, and they received a much severer judgment.

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The language of Hebrews 10, which is analogous or a parallel, I have suggested to this warning passage, in Hebrews chapter six, describes those who are burned, and it is not their fruits, and it is not their blessings that are burned up, or their usefulness for the

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Lord. It is they themselves that suffer this fiery punishment. Why? Because they have seen the truth, and they have turned away from it.

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And so they are worthy of the judgment that is described in verse eight. Now the second possible interpretation,

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I think a false interpretation of the passage, is that this describes believers, but that these believers, though they are true

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Christians, they once were fruitful, and then they became worthless over a period of time, because of a lack of keeping up their faith, or a lack of diligence, or a lack of appropriating the means of grace, or whatever it is, they came to produce less and less fruit, and more and more thorns and thistles, to the point where they reach a point where they're no longer really believing, and they have fallen away from faith and salvation, and that these people who are genuine

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Christians, suffer the burning punishment of eternal hell, described in verse eight. That would be the other alternate interpretation.

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These are Christians that are being described, who lose their salvation, and are punished everlastingly. Two things

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I would point out. Number one, I have already demonstrated, and I think conclusively so, that none of these phrases necessarily describes a

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Christian. I don't think you can make that case in verses four through six. And second, I would point out, that that does not fit the analogy, because the analogy is not of a piece of land, that is really fruitful for a period of time, and evidence of salvation, and then slowly changes to become a piece of land, that shows no evidence of salvation.

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That's not the analogy, is it? What is the analogy? You have a scenario, piece of land that receives these blessings, and then it does one of two things.

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You gotta wait to see, what the one of the two things is going to be. It's either gonna produce thorns and thistles, or it's gonna produce fruit. If it produces fruit, you gotta believe it.

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If it produces thorns and thistles, you have an apostate. It is the thorns and the thistles and the fruit, that demonstrate the nature, or reveal the condition of the land.

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That's the analogy. It's not of a piece of property, that slowly changes over a period of time, and eventually is burned. It's of two opposite divergent possibilities, from all of the blessings that have been received.

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So that does not fit the illustration of verses seven and eight. Now, we've reached the end of the warning passage, at least the controversial part, and we only did it in six weeks.

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At least reached the end of the controversial part of it. There's still a little bit of warning passage, in verses nine through 12, because the end of it is in verse 12.

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But we have at least gone through, what I think is the difficult to interpret, and difficult to deal with passage.

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And I promised you weeks ago, or I told you weeks ago, I put all my cards out on the table, and I said, if you believe, that you can lose your salvation, my intention is to change your mind.

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Now, I told you at the beginning, that I had five things that I needed to do. I had to explain these phrases.

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I had to explain the strong language of verse six, crucifying again the son of God. I had to show that my view fits the context.

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I had to show you that my view fits the illustration of verses seven and eight better than any other view. And fifth,

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I had to show you that my view is consistent with all the other warning passages. And in the process of going through the warning passage in chapter six,

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I have tied in the warning passage of chapter 10, and showed you the parallels there, with what the author is saying. The same thing again in chapter 10.

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And I've tied in the warning passage in Hebrews chapter three, where he says that we are partakers of Christ, or we are the house of God, if we hold fast our confidence firm until the end.

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It's the exact same thing. How do I know if somebody is a partaker of Jesus Christ? If they hold fast their confidence firm until the end.

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It is the perseverance in the faith that demonstrates the reality of the faith. That's chapter three and four.

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And the judgment promised in chapter 10 fits with chapter six. So all five of those, look, here's what I did. And I'm speaking to those of you who may believe you can lose your salvation.

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I made this as difficult for myself as I possibly could. In terms of this passage, I put up every hurdle and every roadblock, every objection that you could possibly raise to understanding this passage.

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And I have gone through all five of these and I have made my case. I believe that I have accomplished, I've jumped all five of those hurdles and made my case from this.

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And now I ask you, are you convinced? You may say, no, I'm not convinced that you still can't lose your salvation.

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Not convinced of that. At least you have to admit that Hebrews chapter six is not a slam dunk for your view.

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Because you may wanna jump to other passages of scripture that you think suggest you can lose your salvation. I would suggest to you that this big gun, this big cannon that you thought you had in your arsenal,

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Hebrews chapter six, does not teach that at all. Doesn't teach that at all. So you can't turn to this passage and make that case.

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In fact, I would suggest to you, you can't even honestly turn to this passage at all to try and make that case because this passage is not describing that.

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It's not describing a Christian with certainty, and it is certainly not describing, and the analogy and the illustration doesn't fit.

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I put up five hurdles. I think I've jumped over all five of those and tried to make my case to convince you that a

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Christian can, a true Christian, cannot lose their salvation. Now, I would suggest to you that someone who looks like a

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Christian and sounds like a Christian and thinks they're a Christian and pretends to be a Christian, they can fall away and they can suffer punishment.

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But then again, we're not even talking about a Christian because notice all the qualifications I put in there. Not talking about a true

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Christian. So Hebrews chapter six, I don't think it makes that case at all. I don't think it makes your case that a believer can lose their salvation.

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But for those of you who are Christians here, I think this passage is gonna have one of two effects.

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For those of you who pretend to be Christians and think you're Christians and you're not, my hope and my prayer is that our understanding of this passage and going through this has revealed to you the state of your soul.

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Now, for those of you who are Christians, some of you I know because you've come up to me afterwards and said, I'm starting to wonder if even

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I'm a Christian or if I'm the apostate that's being described in this passage. Listen, apostates don't wonder if they're the ones being described in this passage.

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Apostates are too busy putting Christ to open shame and rejecting him and walking away from the truth.

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So you're not the person that has gone past that line. But you may indeed be an individual who has been enlightened and has tasted the heavenly gift and been made a partaker of the work and the blessings of the

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Holy Spirit and tasted of the powers of the age to come and tasted of the good word of God. You may in fact be all of those things and still not be a

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Christian. In which case, I want you to examine yourself and to see, am I in the faith? Am I the ground that is producing vegetation, repentance and faith?

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Or am I the ground that is bound to produce thorns and thistles? Am I pretending or have

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I genuinely been born again by the spirit of God? Have I repented and turned from my sin and believed? Or am

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I this group of people described here in verses four through six? But just you lack one thing, and that is the falling away, producing thorns and thistles.

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I hope that our study here has convinced you of those two things. Number one, we do need to examine ourselves.

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And number two, Hebrew chapter six has nothing to do with the permanence of salvation, at least not in the way that you think it does if you believe you can lose your salvation.

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Because this passage does not teach that. Now, for those of you who may be wondering, and a

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Christian and you're somewhat unsettled, the warning passage should have that effect. It does have that effect. It should cause us to examine ourselves.

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But I want to give you this confidence. If you're wondering, what should I be looking for to tell am I producing thorns and thistles or vegetation?

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The answer is in verses nine through 12. Let's just read it together, verse nine. But beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you and things that accompany salvation though we're speaking in this way.

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Now, what are the things that accompany salvation? Verse 10. For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward his name and having ministered and still ministering to the saints.

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And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end so that you will not be sluggish but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

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See, the author was aware that in even describing this and in speaking in this way, that there were Christians in the community who may have been somewhat unsettled and thought to themselves, oi, does that mean?

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He wants to assure them. I'm convinced of something concerning you because what did the author see in those Christians?

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He saw their love for the name of God. He saw their ministering to the saints. He saw their perseverance and he said,

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I want you to become imitators of those who persevere to the very end. In other words, I see this fruit, continue in this fruit, and seeing this fruit and you continuing in this fruit is the evidence of your faith.

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How do I know I have been made a partaker of Christ? If I hold fast my confidence firm until the end.

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And so a Christian will read this passage and say, I'm gonna cling to Christ. I don't want to be this individual. That's the effect that this warning passage is gonna have on you as a

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Christian. Examine myself, cling to the Savior. If you're not a Christian, this warning passage should have the effect of you examining yourself and saying,

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I'm not a believer. I don't have these fruits. I don't think I've been genuinely converted and saved and I don't wanna be the one who falls away so I'm going to come to Christ and believe upon him, and turn from my sin and believe now so that I may have eternal life and not perish.

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And the warning passage to the apostate, the apostate will say, I don't believe any of this is true anyway.

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So it really doesn't matter. I'm not at all concerned about it and I'm not at all worried about it. What effect does this passage have on you?

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Which one of those? I hope it's to do two things. Convince you again this passage has nothing to do with losing your salvation.

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And number two, to examine ourselves, which we will do now before we partake of communion.

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Before I ask the ushers to come forward, I just remind you, communion is not for unbelievers. This is for believers who have turned from their sin, repented and believed upon Christ.

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This is a symbol of the substance of the reality of what Christ has done for us. In the very same way that baptism is something we do to symbolize something that is true of us, that we have been placed into Christ and that we belong to him, so communion reminds us again of something that is true of us, that we have been purchased by the body and the blood of Jesus Christ.

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And we are saved by those means and unto that end. And so if you're an unbeliever, let the elements pass from before you.

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And if you are a Christian, let's bow our heads and examine ourselves, confess our sin, then we'll partake together. Let's bow our heads.

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Our gracious God, we thank you for the mercy that you have provided in the person of Christ and what he has done on behalf of his people.

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We thank you that for our sin, he suffered and died. He bled and paid a price, an atonement, which has secured forever those who are his.

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As the author of Hebrews says, we are perfected forever by that one sacrifice. And we thank you for that.

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We rejoice in that. We admit and confess that we are unworthy recipients of such abundant grace.

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We do not deserve the mercy that you have shown us. We do not deserve the kindness of the sacrifice for our sins.

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We deserve the punishment that has been described here in Hebrews six. We deserve the curse of God.

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We deserve eternal wrath for our sin. And Father, we know that, we recognize that.

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And so it is with adoring and humbled and thankful hearts that we confess to you our iniquity.

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And we reaffirm again our conviction that our righteousness and our hope and our forgiveness and the payment for our sins to be found in Christ and Christ alone.

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Thank you again for that reminder this morning. It is the desire of all those who belong to you that the words that we have looked at here in this book may have its effect in the hearts of all who are here to convince us as Christians that we are safe and secure, not on the merit of our own faith, but on the obedience and the suffering of the

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Lord Jesus Christ and his sacrifice. And for those who are not believers here, Lord, we pray that you would convince them of their need to repent and to believe, that you would change their hearts, grant them repentance, draw them to your son, that Christ may receive the fullest reward for all of his sufferings and be glorified and honored by your people both now and forever.

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We confess our sin. We thank you for the sacrifice of Christ and for his obedience and for the righteousness that comes by faith.