After reading Matthew and Hebrews a few time it becomes quite obvious that there are some verses that causes or should at least cause a believer, no matter how seasoned he is, to examine themselves and immediately preach the Gospel to themselves. When I am being unmerciful, impatient, unkind, selfish, self-righteous, and stingy these verses spring to front of my mind as if they are purifying me. In addition to both Matthew and Hebrews we see the words of the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul when he says in 2 Corinthians 13:
5 Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!
Paul admonishes the Church at Corinth with these very sobering words! Why? He has written them previously (this is the third letter) and uses this verse as to say “if you are not heeding my warnings, they you are not in the faith”. I think the rest of the bible becomes our litmus test. Are we measuring up? Are we growing in grace and knowledge, are we growing in love with the Church, are finding ourselves to be growing in humility, patience, kindness, compassion, mercy? Is our zeal for the things of the world shrinking while are zeal for the things of God growing? Are we learning how to yield ourselves to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, is our appetite for God’s word driving us to study it, to listen to it, to desire it more than television? Do we have an unquenchable desire to share Christ with a dying world? If the answer is a no, but I want it then these verses are motivators, if the answer to this is yes but I know it is only by the Grace of God then these verses are motivators, if your answer to this is no and I don’t care, take heed because these verses are screaming with a bullhorn to the deepest parts of your soul and you should tremble with fear. So lets check them out shall we.
Matthew 7
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
This my friend was the start of me dying to self-righteousness and running to the throne of Grace. I said to myself “self, you are okay, you are doing some great things, look at the rest of the pew potatoes” then whalah! These verses rubbed up against me like a grater on a soft block of cheese and they were very abrasive! I thought to myself how is this possible. Look at the verses again “not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord”! Now hopefully you have heard a clear exposition on this before, but I hadn’t, when I met these verses for the first time (I had passed them in the mall a couple of times, even sat next to them in a coffee shop, but we were never formally introduced you see). I started to think they acknowledge that Jesus was Lord and even recognized him, well what about 1 John 4 “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God“. Then Romans 10:9-10 came to mind. They had to confess Jesus right? They had to recognize His Lordship, Jesus makes that clear in the opening section of the verse. So how did this work. Then it dawned on me. They professed Him, but He didn’t know them!
We ask the next obvious question. But, but Jesus knows everybody, He is God correct? Well yes and no! The greek language does us a favor by using to words that are rendered “know” in the english language one is “eidon” the other is “ginōskō” the first means to perceive or to see the other is to know intimately and is even a Jewish idiom for sexual intercourse. Which one do you think Jesus was using? Ding, Ding, Ding he used the word “ginōskō”. If you go up a few verses Jesus makes it clear that you can only enter in the narrow way. If you have ever read or saw “Pilgrims Progress” John Bunyan conveys this beautifully. So those who tried to sneak in through the back door, or bypass the narrow way and chose the broad road, we are given a clear picture of what will happen to them. There is much to be said but I will move on to the one that causes the biggest concern for me.
Hebrews 6:
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.
Now if you are a Pastor, a small group leader, a spouse, or just a plain ol single Christian walking as a priest before God this should be like fingernails on a chalkboard. I rather hear County and Blues being played back to back for 5 days straight than here this scripture being read. I used to struggle so much, and still do sometimes, with these verses. I used to because I have a decent understanding of what is saying now, versus my old Pentecostal days when I would argue with those who believed the silly doctrine “once saved always saved or OSAS”. I still struggle with it because as far as we can tell safe Christianity is punted with this section of scriptures.
Let me explain what I think the verse is saying and would love some feedback on it. We first have to ask what does it mean “to be enlightened, to tasted and to share”? These words are strong words that seems to be conveying that this person was truly saved. When asked this question by someone you can’t ignore that these words are used in other places to denote saving faith or at least insinuate it. The next question is does “impossible” really mean impossible? Those are the hardest things to get around in this section of Hebrews. The next question is if Christ has already resurrected how is that we can nail Him back to the cross and crucify Him again.
I believe that key lies at the end of the verse. The writer says “for the land that drinks the rain” and then he goes on to talk about producing crops or thorns. It sounds a lot like Matthew 13 to me which is the other scary portion of scripture for me. In Matthew 13 the seed was good, but the soil was the problem. At the end of this section the rain is good but the land is the problem the writer says “but if”. So in both sections the seed isn’t the problem, the seed isn’t the problem but the soil/land is! Thus I think we have an idea. I believe a person (soil, stony ground, wayside) can partake, taste, and be enlightened (the Seed which is the Gospel) but still never produce fruit. Why? Because they are bad soil/land! You can have the best farmer, the greatest brand of crops, and the flowing waters of the Nile and still not produce a crop because of the soil you are attempting to cultivate. Bad land is a farmers nightmare! The only thing to be done with it is fertilize it, cultivate and pray that God will do something with it. The same with a person who can sit in church, Sunday after Sunday, teach Sunday School, sing in the choir, lead bible studies, be faithful attendees and givers while at the same time, being soil that will never produce any fruit.
I believe Judas to be the case example for such a statement. He saw the miracles, heard the Gospel night in and night out, participated in the feeding of the five thousand, was sent out two by two to proclaim the good news, saw Lazarus raised from the dead, saw Jesus walk on water, heard the confession of Peter, and other such things and he was called a devil by Jesus. So not only did he know Jesus he even partook in most of Jesus’ public ministry. Listen people, there are countless stories of people who were Pastors 50 years, served in every ministry possible, went to seminary, mission trips, maybe even saw miracles performed, but at some point they couldn’t fake the funk anymore! The folded like a house of cards. They came to conclusion that what they were doing was a hoax and as the parable says “the thorns choked them out”. Now some people aren’t as bold as Judas or the other fellas who come right out and say “we don’t believe you Jesus” they continually go through the motions, they continually do good works, the continually “prophesy in your name, cast out demons in your name, and do many miracles in your name” and they will hear in that day “DEPART FROM ME”. This should scare all pastors and anyone else with any type of shepherd responsibilities right out of their socks. This should keep every pastor up late at night and it should keep us up late also.
In closing, we have to examine ourselves but shepherds have to examine the sheep put in their care. The only way this examination will be properly executed is through the unadulterated preaching of the Gospel. We have to be convinced through the preaching of the Gospel that we are Christs and He is ours. But if the church is full of good moral stories, how to reposition ourselves, or how to go “rebuild the city” without understanding “What God Demands from the World” we are in serious trouble. Many will sit comfortably being prepared like a fat cow for dinner. The fires of hell are nipping at their feet all the while the Gospel is being overlooked and ignored by those who are to convey it the most. These are the Keys to the Kingdom Jesus is talking about. This is the rock that motivates Jesus to tell Peter “blessed are you Simon”. This is where true deliverance, power, authority and kingdom living is experienced. This is where the beatitudes are lived out. This his how you love the sheep and lay your life down for them. We have to stop giving people what they want and give them what they need. Even if that means that dislike you for it. Even if they don’t want to talk to you and they call us bigots, narrow-minded, self-righteous, foolish (they called Paul and Jesus fools also) dumb, uneducated, mystics, bubble heads, and so forth. Even if they fold their arms and poke out their bottom lips and say “I am leaving this boring Church”! Let them leave at least you can be like Paul who said in Acts 20 “I did not shrink away from preaching the WHOLE COUNSEL”! We have everything that every human needs. The Gospel! I sign off with the words of the Spirit through Paul “for I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for IT IS the power of God unto salvation to those who believe…..”!
Good thoughts here. I had to read this a couple of times to fully understand where you are coming from. This should keep us up at night lest we are deluded with false assurance. We have it spelled out for us in 1 John how we can know for sure that we have eternal life. Our assurance does have to do with the fruits that we bear - not just the things we do, but the attitudes we have toward God and other people.
The Hebrew passage I think has to do with bearing fruit. This is evident in the first 3 verses of Hebrews 6. I see people, and I’ve been guilty of it myself, who are so burdened with sin that they have trouble getting past the forgiveness part such that they remain focused on their own inadequacy and never realize the power of the Holy Spirit within them toward greater effectiveness in the ministry of Christ. How many of us continue to sin from time to time? Paul did and said as much. But he didn’t let it hold him back from loving the lost enough to continue preaching the gospel and loving the elect enough to continue to exhort them to greater things. In this light, the thorns are our self-obsession with our sins and the good soil is our understanding of our position in grace. We have been contrite, but have been lifted up. It’s like getting stuck on Friday and never quite making it to Sunday.
I agree on the Hebrews 6 Jim and that is what I was referring to also here:
Bad land is a farmers nightmare! The only thing to be done with it is fertilize it, cultivate and pray that God will do something with it. The same with a person who can sit in church, Sunday after Sunday, teach Sunday School, sing in the choir, lead bible studies, be faithful attendees and givers while at the same time, being soil that will never produce any fruit.
I do disagree with your latter statement however. When you say he “thorns are our self-obsession”. If you are referring to the Christian. I don’t think you get a Christian until you get to one that bears fruit. A Christian that never bears any fruit is the one that Jesus says “will be cut down and thrown into the fire”. Jesus didn’t only purchase our redemption He also purchased the power for our sanctification. Sanctification is a promise just as the future redemption of our bodies. The Matthew 13 parable is one about the Gospel (the seed) and the what the seed was sown into (wayside, shallow soil, amongst soil infested with weeds and thorns, or fertile fruit bearing soil). Thus the soil is the subject the seed remains the same.