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

Hebrews 6:4-6 and the Question of Apostasy

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

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

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. 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. 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. 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.

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. 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.

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 six in order to prove that my interpretation of this passage was accurate.

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.

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

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. 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.

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

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. 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.

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 Christians.

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

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

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, 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.

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. And today we are looking at this illustration that is given in verses seven and eight.

Let's read it together, verse seven. For ground, actually let's back up and read beginning at verse four of chapter six. 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 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 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. But if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed and it ends up being burned.

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? What do the individual things refer to?

The ground, the thorns and the thistles, the rain that falls, what are these elements? 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?

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

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

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.

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

This act of spiritual apostasy and turning from the faith demonstrates that they were never saved to begin with. That is my take on the passage, that verses four through six does not definitively describe Christians.

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

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

The Rain, the Ground, and the Fruit They Produce

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. Notice that verse seven begins with what is called an explanatory conjunction.

It is the word for. 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. He has described this group of people in verses four through six.

They have been enlightened, they have tasted, and they have partaken. 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.

And then in verse seven, he is giving an illustration that he has been saying in verses four through six. So he begins it with for, as if to connect the illustration to, intimately to, verses four through six.

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.

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 in verses four through six, it has to fit this illustration.

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

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

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. 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. 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. It either does this, or it does that. It can go one of two ways.

And notice what is different in the analogy. What differs is the crops. There are two crops. There's the crop of vegetation, which is something edible, and profitable, and useful. 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, 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.

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. 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, 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.

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? 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, 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.

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

I don't wanna say that it is the intention of either one because I can't speak for either of them since I can't, you know, have a conversation with either one of them. 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.

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. It either receives a blessing from God or it is close to being cursed and burned up.

So now what does the analogy mean? 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. Those are the two results of that.

So what is the ground or who is the ground in the analogy? Since we are describing in verses four through six, and 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.

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. And then 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.

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

That is intentional. 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.

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

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

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?

That this ground, the people in verses four to six, has drank up, drunken up. What is it that has fallen upon them? It is, may I suggest, all of the positive things described in verses four and five. They have been enlightened.

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

All of those rich and good blessings, those are the graces, the kindnesses. That is the refreshing rain that has fallen upon this ground 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. And notice that the analogy says they have, it drinks up these blessings. In other words, they have imbibed deeply with these things. 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. This is a people who, this is a group of people or describes a group of people who have sat amongst Christians and that rain, that blessing that comes from being among and with the people of God, it has fallen upon them frequently.

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.

They have drank it. They have, would you say they've tasted it?

Right?

They've tasted of the heavenly gift.

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. These are people who have had a real serious, deep and abiding experience of these realities all without ever being saved 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, without ever believing and having faith and repenting and turning from their sins, they can experience all of these things.

And so they have drank deeply from this well. The rain has often fallen upon them. They really have been enlightened. They've come to understand these things. They have tasted of these realities. They've experienced 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 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. We might say that they have absolutely no excuse for their continued disobedience, none whatsoever.

And having experienced these things drinkly, having experienced these things frequently and having drank often from these blessings, this is the ground that then produces one of two things. It either produces vegetation or it produces fruit.

First, sorry, thorns and thistles. 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.

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. 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. 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.

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.

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? 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? 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.

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. I wouldn't put it past my mother-in-law to give it a shot.

But other than that, I guess we could say that it could be done, but it would not be a good thing. And so there's no benefit or blessing that comes from the thorns and the thistles that come from bad ground.

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?

There is the fruit or the vegetables that come from the land, okay? So we have two different hypothetical scenarios. You have land that receives the blessing of the rain, and as a result, it produces vegetation, and it is a blessing.

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

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

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

Scenario B, this land doesn't produce the vegetation, but instead, it produces the thorns and the thistles. And so we have the vegetation that is, the vegetation and the vegetables that comes from the land that is indicative of verse nine.

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.

Why?

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

It is walking away from the faith, crucifying Christ all over again, and putting him to open shame. There's nothing more thorny and thistly than that type of an individual. That's what the apostate does.

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.

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.

That evidences an individual who's producing the vegetation or the fruitfulness, having received those blessings. And the one that is close to being cursed, notice that description in verse eight. 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, right? As if you're standing somewhere and something falls right next to you, 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. 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.

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. I'll give you an example of several examples of how that word is used throughout scripture.

It's used of false teachers in Titus chapter one, verse 16. They profess to know God, but by their deeds, they deny him being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed. 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.

You can't trust them to adorn the gospel of God with their works of righteousness because they're false teachers. So when it comes to, they're worthless. It's also used the false teachers in second Timothy chapter three, verse eight, just as Johnnys and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also opposed the truth.

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

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

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.

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

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

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. There's no greater or more significant indication that we are a nation or 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.

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. 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. 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. 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? 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 God blesses it.

In the other scenario, the land receives the blessing, produces thorns and thistles, and God judges it and damns it. And notice, and this is important, that in the analogy, it is the land that is burned, not the thorns and the thistles.

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

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.

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

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

In terms of just observing wetland that has received all of these blessings, you have to step back and say, we're not certain which direction this is going to go. But if that land produces vegetation, fruit, and is blessed by God, then you know you have believers.

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

Unbelievers.

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

Something must happen to reveal the nature of the land. What is it that must happen? They must either produce the fruits that evidence repentance and faith, or they will produce the thorns and the thistles and walk away.

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. 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.

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. 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 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.

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. They had never truly been saved in the first place.

Close quote.

That's what the illustration proves. You have somebody who has come into a church and they've followed along. They pretend to be believers. They seem to look like they're believers. They've heard the same gospel that we have.

I'll give you an illustration from my own personal life. 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. And we sat in the same service and we heard the same gospel message. And when the altar call, which 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.

I had to have Christ because he was precious to me. Now the other two guys, both of whom had girls on their arms, 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. I could barely contain my tears and I went outside and I sat down and I prayed a prayer with my camp counselor. 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. 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.

I understood the gospel, I got it, it made sense, I repented, I turned from my sin, I believed upon Christ 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, 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 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? 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 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? And both of them said to me basically the same thing. Well, you know, I kind of did that, but I did it in my heart. I didn't feel like I needed to do that.

Going on, I thought, okay, well good, then we're all Christians, 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.

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, 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 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 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.