Hebrews chapter 6, and I just
want to read and begin in verse 7, down through verse 12. Hebrews
chapter 6 and verse 7. For the earth which drinketh
in the rain, that comes often upon it, and brings forth herbs,
meat, are fit, profitable, for them for whom it is dressed,
receives blessings from God. But that which beareth thorns
and brars is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing, whose end
is to be burned. But, beloved, we are persuaded
better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though
we thus speak. For God is not unrighteous to
forget your work and labor of love which you have showed towards
His name, in that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister.
And we desire that every one of you show the same diligence
to the full assurance of hope unto the end, that you be not
slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience
inherit the promises. We've been looking here in verses
4 through verse 6 and trying the best we can to determine
the meaning of these verses. And it seems here, in a sense
at least, it comes right down to what he's saying here in verses
7 and verse 8 about the rain that comes down on the earth
and waters the earth and brings forth different kinds of fruit. Sometimes it brings forth fruit
that can be eaten, that's tilled and tended. Other times it bears
flowers and thorns. And it seemed like to me, this
that Paul is telling us here, that it really comes down that
we can examine and judge by the fruit. Judge by fruit. The rain is God's Word. We read that in Isaiah 55, the
Word that comes down. His doctrine coming down distills
like rain. And grace, grace. And it comes
down I think to this, what is God's Word, what is God's grace
doing in the heart? The earth everywhere in the Scriptures
is the heart of man. The seed that was sown on good
ground is the heart. And I think we could ask ourselves
this question. What is God's Word? What is His
grace doing in the heart? Is it like the rain coming down
upon the earth that softens the earth? Is it softening the heart? Is it bringing forth fruit? Is
it bringing forth the fruit of love and joy and peace and long-suffering
and kindness and so on? Is it like the slow seed that
germinates from the rain, the moisture, and sends the sprouts
upward towards heaven? Is the Word and grace doing this
in our hearts? Is the seed, as it were, of faith
and love and hope and the fruits of the Spirit, are they slowly
growing up towards heaven? Is our hearts being affected
by the Word of God and by the grace of God to produce fruit,
gospel fruit? Are we being taken from the world
and from sin and from self? And are affections being set
on things above? That's the good ground. That's
what the Word of God should do. That's what the grace of God
should do and does in our hearts. And he says here in verse 7,
when this happens, when it produces fruit, then it's evident that
that heart, the land, is receiving blessings from God. But then
he goes on in verse 8 and he talks about the ground also producing
thorns and brars. If the heart is not being wooed
and won from self and from sin and from this world, if it's
not causing these affections of the heart to produce and the
will and the understanding enlightened to grow up before Him, if all
that's being produced in our hearts is what is produced by
a cursed nature, then we've got no right to think that our profession
is honest, our profession is real. That's what he's saying
here. The Lord said, You shall know
them by their fruits, didn't He? And we can know the honesty
and sincerity of our own profession. and our maturity as a child of
God by the fruits that we bear. And these Hebrew believers, these
Christian Jews here, probably could understand this more than
you and I can today. They had hundreds and hundreds
of years. They could look back on their
Jewish forefathers, and they could see all of the blessings,
all the privileges that their forefathers had, And yet, it
produced nothing in their hearts but thorns and brars. I want to show you a couple of
places. Over in Isaiah chapter 5, Paul reminded these Hebrews here
about their forefathers that came out of Egypt. He said the
Word preached to them, the Gospel that was preached to them. And
it was preached to them. The Gospel was preached to them.
Those that came out of Egypt, they spent 40 years in the wilderness
and they had the Gospel. It was preached to them in prediction. Moses predicted the coming of
the Messiah. It was promised to them. It was preached to them in shadows
and pictures and types. But you know, it didn't profit
them. The word preached did not profit them, and he tells us
why. Not being mixed with faith in
them that heard it. So they were truly, even though
they had all the temporal advantages, God adopted them as His earthly
people. He gave them His presence, His
yacanta glory. He gave them His Word, He gave
them His prophets, He gave them the priesthood to teach them.
But all of these things basically profited natural Israel nothing. They were still fit for nothing
but to be cursed. And here is how He explains it,
how the Lord Himself explains it in Isaiah chapter 5. It reminds
me of the text that we just read in Hebrews chapter 6 and verse
8 about the ground bringing forth nothing but thorns and brars. Isaiah chapter 5, and look at
this. He likens Israel to the ground, to a vineyard. And now I will sing to my well-beloved
a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My well-beloved
has a vineyard in a very fruitful hill. And he fenced it in, and
gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choices
fine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a
winepress therein. And he looked that it should
bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. And now, O
inhabitants of Jerusalem, ye men of Judah, judge, I pray you,
betwixt me and my vineyard." What could have been done more
to my vineyard that I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I
looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild
grapes? And now go to, I tell you, what
I will do to my vineyard, I will take away the edge thereof, and
it shall be eaten up, and break down the wall thereof, and it
shall be trodden down, and I will lay it waste, It shall not be
pruned nor digged, but there shall come up brars and thorns."
That is what is said of natural Israel, all of Israel. That is
what is said of them. That reminds us of our text,
doesn't it? After all the blessings in the Old Testament that God
gave it, what did it produce? Brars and thorns. And I will
command the clouds that they rain no more upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord
of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah His pleasant
plant. And He looked for judgment, but
behold, oppression, for righteousness, but behold, a cry." So that's
what they brought forth in spite of all that God had did for them. But you know, we have even a
better testimony and better example of that. Look over in Matthew's
Gospel in the New Testament, chapter 11. Matthew chapter 11. And look
in verse 20. Matthew chapter 11 and verse
20. Here's where the Lord Jesus had
been preaching and doing great miracles to these cities and
how blessed those people were. He told Capernaum, you are exalted to
heaven. And what he meant with that,
the presence of heaven is among you, preaching to you and doing
miracles in your very presence. But look what he says about him
in verse 20. Then began he to upbraid the
cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they
repented not. Woe unto thee, Chorazin." That
was one of the cities he preached to. Woe unto thee, Bethsaida,
for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done
in Tyre and Sidon, Gentile cities, they would have repented long
ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, it shall
be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment
than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art
exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell. For if
the mighty works which have been done in thee had been done in
Sodom, it would have remained unto this day. But I say unto
you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the
day of judgment than for you." And look what he says in chapter
12 of the same book. And look in verse 41. Chapter
12, verse 41, "...the men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment
with this generation, and shall condemn it, because they repented
at the preaching of Jonah's. And behold, a greater than Jonah
is here. The queen of the south shall
rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it, for she
came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom
of Solomon. And behold, a greater than Solomon
is here." So what profit did Christ's presence do them? What
profit did His preaching and all of His miracles do them?
It didn't do them any good at all. And why? What was the reason? Unbelief. Absolute hardness of
heart. He said to them, He said, How
often I would have taken you under My wings as a chicken,
a hen does her brood, and you would not. You would not. So isn't that a perfect example
of how the heart may have all the temporal advantages and all
the privileges and yet not profit from it because of wretched,
unbelief, and hardness of heart. The Apostle Paul said they killed
the Lord Jesus and their own prophets and have persecuted
us. They please not God. They are contrary to all men.
Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved,
to fill up their sins always, for the wrath of God is come
upon them to the uttermost." Wrath. So, these Jewish believers
that we're studying about here in Hebrews, boy, they have some
good examples of what it meant to have such privileges. I'm producing nothing but thorns
and brars. So we could ask that question,
couldn't we? We could ask, what is the Word of God doing in my
heart? What is the grace of God doing in my heart? Is it truly
working in me? Is it softening my heart? Is
it teaching me? Is it bringing me nearer to Christ
and setting my affection on things above? Or is it just cursed nature? You know, what I'm producing
is just out of my own nature. But look back over in our text
now. Look back over in our text, what he says in chapter 6 and look in verse 9. He completely changes now. I
love this, what he says. We can learn something from this
verse. Chapter 6, verse 9 of Hebrews. But beloved, Wayne likes
those buts. But, beloved, we are persuaded
better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though
we thus speak." This word, persuade, I am persuaded better, it means
to be assured of. It means to be convinced of and
to be confident of. And though Paul had been given
these warnings about apostasy, he was convinced that it would
never happen to them. This is clear proof that Paul
was certain that a true believer would never fall away and be
lost. If he believed that they could,
if he believed that these Hebrews really could, then how could
he be persuaded that they never would? I am persuaded better
things of you and things that accompany salvation." He said,
it will never happen even though I've been saying these things.
And if he didn't believe they were going to fall away, then
did he believe any child of God would fall away? If I told a man that if he drank
Sinai it would kill him, does that mean I believe he's going
to drink it? Why, no. It's not inconsistent
with Scriptures to say, if you fall away, you can never be saved
again. And then to say, I am convinced
it will never happen to you. And the Apostle Paul was given
these warnings. If you do fall away, then he
turns right around and says, but beloved, I'm convinced that
you won't fall away. I'm convinced better things of
you. When he makes such statements
as this, if you continue in the faith, grounded and settled,
and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, he wasn't
teaching that they may not continue. He also taught that what they
must do, they would do. If they must continue, then they
would continue. Because God would continue to
work to that end. I am persuaded better things
of you." Now where else do we see this word persuade? We see
it in some very precious places in the Bible. I am persuaded.
Romans chapter 8 and verse 39, We are more than conquerors through
him that loved us, for I am persuaded that neither death nor life,
things present nor things to come, nor angels, principalities
of power, heights or death, nor any other creature, can separate
us from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus the Lord. I'm
persuaded better things of you. He says it again in II Timothy
1.12, I know whom I have believed and I am persuaded that He's
able to keep that which I've committed to Him against that
day. I'm persuaded. He uses the same word in Philippians
1.6, being confident, the same word. I am convinced of this
thing, he said. He that hath begun a good work
in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. So Paul is saying here in verse
9, we are convinced you will not fall away. Your profession
of Christ is real, it's true, and you have the fruits to prove
it. You've not borne thorns, and
you've not borne brars. The grace of God, the Word of
God is working in your heart. And he said here in our text,
he said, what is working in you is things that accompany salvation.
You've got fruits that your profession of Christ is real. He said in
verse 1 of this chapter, he talked about repentance, didn't he? Don't lay again the foundation
of repentance. They have that. That accompanies
salvation. And faith towards God, the Word
of God, the Son of God. He said that in verse 1. You've
had faith. And then he goes on there in
verse 4 and talks about they were enlightened. They were made
partakers of the Holy Ghost, so all of these things, he said,
accompany salvation. And here in verse 9 and 10, look
at this again. But beloved, beloved. I love it when he calls the children
of God beloved. And he's just not saying, I love
you. He was saying, you're beloved
of God. He said, we're bound to give thanks to God for you
beloved of the Lord. These people were beloved of
the Lord. He chose them. He redeemed them.
He called them. They were His loved ones. Object
of His special everlasting covenant love. And they loved the Lord. Look in verse 10. For God is
not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love which
you have showed towards His name." They loved God's name. That's why they labored and did
what they did. We love God. We love Him, don't
we? Because He first loved us, but
we love Him. We love His name. And they loved
the saints. Look what he goes on to say.
For ye have showed which ye have showed to his name, in that ye
have ministered to the saints, and ye do minister. So God loved
them. That love was reciprocal. They
loved God back. And they loved one another. These
love accompanies salvation. I used to be, I couldn't stand.
The worst hours of my week is when my dad made me go to church.
I didn't want to be around anybody that professed the Lord's name.
I had no use for them. Didn't mean to do them any harm.
I just didn't love them. But boy, it's amazing when the
Lord saves you, ain't it? We know that we've passed from
death into life because we love the brethren. We love to be around
them. We love to talk with them. We
love to help them and minister to them. Love accompanies salvation. And to exhort such believers,
now listen, to exhort such believers as these were to be sober and
diligent, that's one thing. We need that. We need to exhort
one another that. Be careful, brother. We've got
enemies, haven't we? Be sober. Even to warn them,
we need warnings, don't we? But to go to the next step and
say, the Father will cast away His beloved Son, His Child, that's
a step that the Bible does not take. And that's a step that's gone
too far. And that's a step the Apostle
did not go. And that's a step that would
be offensive to me, to be honest with you. I told you one time
I think about some friends of ours. They were pretty well Baptist. And they just almost seemed to
delight in, well, God's going to lose one of His children.
You know, God's going to lose one of His children. They almost
measured on that. And one day, their son got himself
in trouble, buddy. I mean, he brought shame on his
mom and dad. And his dad and mom, I was talking
to them about it. And you know what they said?
I thought this was very telling. They said, yeah, he's got himself
in a lot of trouble, but he's still my son. And I'm not going
to turn on him. I'm not going to turn on him.
I thought, yeah, you're better than God. You're better than
God that you represent. You're always talking about,
well, he's just going to cast his people away. He's going to
cast one of his child into hell. But you won't do yours that way.
And you say, God would do that? They're beloved of the Lord. And to tell somebody, a believer,
a true believer in Jesus Christ, that he can be severed from the
love of Christ, be taken from Christ, be drugged from his Father,
and put into the flames as brars and thorns, that's repulsive
to me, brothers and sisters, I'll be honest with you. And
the reason is, if the Bible taught it, then I think God would give
me grace to believe it. But the Bible doesn't teach that.
If Paul believed that, and that's what he was teaching you, why
did he turn right around and say, Beloved, we're persuaded
better things than you? It ain't going to happen, he
said. It's not going to happen. If it ain't going to happen to
them, why would we believe that he thinks it's going to happen
to any other child? Notice the condescended goodness
of God here in verse 10. This is so wonderful. For God
is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love. And what he's saying here, God
would count it an unrighteous act on His part if He forgot
what you did in love for His name. God takes notice of the things
that His children suffer. in His cause. And He takes notice
of the labor that they do because they love His blessed name. And
you know something? Not only is He mindful of it,
He's never going to forget it. Even on the Day of Judgment,
He's going to bring it up. I was hungry. I was hungry when
I was down there. When my body was down there,
my mystical body, and you fed me. I was thirsty and you gave
me a drink. I was naked and you clothed me.
I was sick and you visited me. I was in jail and prison and
you came to me." And he remembers that, doesn't he? And he counted
an unrighteous thing in him if he didn't remember that condescending
goodness, especially when we would never bring it up. Would
you ever bring up anything that you've done even in love for
His name? Would you go up to the judgment
and you say, Lord, remember what all I did for You." You know
there's people who are going to say that. We've done many
wonderful works in Your name. We've cast out devils. We've
preached. We've did this and that in Your name. Look what
wonderful things! But I tell you, His people won't
bring stuff like that up. They see the weakness in it.
And they know if they do anything, it's Him that worked in them
to do it anyway. But you know something? He's
going to bring it up. He's never going to forget it.
Never will He do it. But if God never forgets what
His loved ones does for Him, will He ever forget what His
only begotten Son has done to save them? He never will forget
that, will He? He won't forget the groans. He
won't forget the cries. He won't forget the sweat. He
won't forget the blood shedding. He won't forget the sufferings.
He saw the travail of His Son's soul and was satisfied. And it will bring forth fruit.
Everyone for whom Christ died will be saved. They will be in
heaven. God will never forget what is
signed. And He will never forget and
forsake His own work of grace which He has begun in their souls. Now let's sum this study, this
portion of this, these verses up like this. He said here, though
we thus speak. Why even speak like this? Why
even bring this up? These verses anyway. These warnings. that have caused so much grief
sometimes to our hearts and studded meditation. What profit is there
in these words, in these verses here, 4 through 6? What profit
can we glean from them? Well, let me give you four things
right quickly. I think that these warnings profit that we read
here in verses 4 through 6. How awakening these should be
to the open and profane people. How awakening it should be to
the open and profane people. If such words of warning are
written to those who have repented and believed and been enlightened,
and these warnings are written to them, where does that leave
the open and profane people. If the warnings like this go
out to the godly, where's that going to leave those who don't
give a squat about their soul's salvation? They wouldn't walk
across the street to hear the gospel of eternal life. Where's
that going to leave them? Oh, they say, I'd go to church,
but there's a bunch of hypocrites down there. They use all these
excuses. Well, I still say this, where's
that going to leave you? At least they've got religion
of some kind. That's more than they've got,
is it? Secondly, words of warning like
these in our text may be a source of awakening centers of how solemn
the salvation of the soul is. It's nothing to be toyed with,
is it? This business of being saved,
this business of this great salvation is serious. That's why we've
got these warnings. I was reading a story about this
man, this believer, and he was a godly old Christian. And he
had two boys that were just rowdy as they could be. And they wouldn't
attend worship with him. No respect for the God that he
believed in. He always prayed, Lord, let me
die. When I die, let me die in peace. Let my boy see what it is for a child of God to die
without any fear of death or eternity. And when it came down
for the old man to die, he struggled something awful. He just seemed
to be overwhelmed with darkness and died struggling. And one
of his boys got the other one off and said, you know, I believe
my dad was a godly man. I believe he was a child of God.
And his life burned that out. And if he had that kind of struggle
in his death, where is that going to leave me and you? Where does
that leave us? And those two boys were awakened and began
to seek the Lord. They saw the seriousness of this.
This is serious, isn't it? And if there was no other Scripture
to teach us that, boy, this teaches it here. This teaches it here
in these warnings. Thirdly, these warnings can be
profitable for those who profess the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's
all they have is a profession. They are not honest or they are
not serious about their profession. A true child of God will never
fall away, but any professor of Christ may and have. Look at Judas. Look at Demas. Many walk of whom I told you
often. Many profess. The Scripture teaches
that many went away to walk with Him no more at all. Barnard used to say, honest people
don't go to hell. But so many people who profess
Jesus Christ are not honest. But sometimes when we look at
these warnings and we deal with these things and meditate upon
them and teach them, sometimes it wakens those professors. And
they realize, man, I better get serious about this. I better
be honest with God. I better quit toying and playing
around with this. This is serious. And fourthly, these verses like
we've been studying here and other verses somewhat like them,
can be a help to God's children. They can be like sharp goads
to poke some sleepy believer and awaken him out of his sleep
and get him back on the highway. The Apostle said, Let us not
sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober, for they
that sleep, sleep in the night. And they that be drunken are
drunken in the night, but let us who are of the day be sober,
putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for an helmet
the hope of salvation. For God has not appointed us
to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ." Hebrews
13, he says this, and that knowing the time, that now it is high
time to awake out of sleep. Why would he have wrote that
unless some believers were drowsy and dull and lazy? Now is our
salvation nearer than when we believe the night is far spent,
the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the
works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Put
you on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provisions for the
flesh to fulfill the lust thereof." So if the study of these verses
produce a desired end for good, then we thank God for them, don't
we? And I think if we'll meditate
upon these verses, it will have a tendency to awaken us. These are awakening things. And
we know this, whatever these verses mean, we've tried to look
at them the best we can, but whatever they mean, there's one
thing for sure, that they've got a purpose behind them. and
they will accomplish the purpose that God sent them. Whatever
He pleased, these verses of Scripture will accomplish and they'll prosper
in the things wherein to God sent them. Next week I want us
to look at verse 11. We desire that every one of you
show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until
the end. And I'll just give you a hint
of some of the things we're going to look at. There's three places
that the Apostle mentions this full assurance. And he talks
about the full assurance of hope here. Chapter 10, the full assurance
of faith. In Colossians 1, the full assurance
of understanding. So that's one of the things that
he's wanting them to be careful and to be sober, diligent, that
they may live in the full assurance of their salvation. So the Lord's
willing, we'll take that up next week, next Wednesday night.