A Fruitful Plant or a Thorn Bush?

For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.
(Hebrews 6:4-8 ESV)


There is much debate that goes on in christendom regarding texts like this. Whether a Christian can actually loose his salvation or not. So my aim this morning is not to explain the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, but to ask what kind of plant are we?

The illustration the author of Hebrews uses is a simple one. When rain falls down and waters a field, what type of crop comes up? Is it a good crop that is useful, or a bad one that is not? The rain is a symbol of the good and nourishing things mentioned in the text. The Holy Spirit, the goodness of the Bible, the power of God, a taste of what the gift of heaven will be like.

The question for us is this...have you had a taste of these things? Have you drank some of the rain that has fallen on you? If you have, what is the fruit that has come up from it? What's in your field?

The text is challenging us to look back over our lives and see if there was a time when it was producing good and useful fruit. Then to examine our lives now and see if the fruit is more mature, or has it become thorny and full of thistles? If it is thorny now, what you have done is picked up a hand sickle and sliced Jesus to death again. Instead of cutting down the thistles in your field, you have killed the Messiah with it.

I would suggest that a good field is a field good for God's use, one that builds His kingdom. And a bad field would be a field that might be good for you and your kingdom, but bad for God and His kingdom. You and He cannot both sit on the throne at the same time, there's not room enough for two.