Pastor Rusty Milton
Hebrews 6:4-9 ESV
Repentance is a work of God's grace in our life that's not to be taken lightly; it is a grace God does not give to some.
In Hebrews 6:4-9, the author addresses the question of seeming believers who fall away from a relationship with God. How are we to understand this? In vs. 4-6, this falling away was the result of a calculated step away from God despite having experienced the gifts of God: the presence of the Holy Spirit in other believers; the teaching of the Word of God; and excitement over the world to come. In vs. 7-8, the metaphor of different soils is used to help explain this process: having received rain, one soil bears fruit, and one soil bears thorns. Clarification comes when one sees that focus is placed on what is already within the soil: seeds of one or the other. How do we apply this to our lives? Make a choice to take hold of the means of grace (prayer, the Word, communion, fellowship), and you will bear fruit. But, if you find that you are only bearing worthless, outward adherence to religious tenets without experiencing a heart change, your "religion" is worthless and it would seem you have never been renewed by the Spirit. Turn to Christ, and ask God to search your heart and lead you to true repentance.
Hebrews 6:4-9
English Standard Version
4 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, 5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 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. 7 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. 8 But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.
9 Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation.
