To Encourage You

Hebrews 6:7-8 “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.”

It is a perilous thing to be exposed to the Truth of God’s Word and yet be unchanged by it.  The book of Hebrews was written primarily to Jewish people who had been instructed and trained their entire lives in the writings of the Old Testament.  They would have been very familiar with the illustrations that are used throughout the letter about the Old Testament’s spiritual leaders, the priesthood, the temple and its ceremonies, and the like. But in the sober warning above, they are told that if all this teaching, here likened to wonderful spiritual rain, never produced a useful “crop,” i.e., spiritual fruit, judgment awaited.  In the end it will only be what has done to the glory of God that will matter.  Everything else is likened to thorns and thistles, worthless for anything but to be burned in the fire. 

So, consider the incredible privilege it is to live in a land where God’s Word is so available to us.  At the click of a mouse on a computer we have available to us every Bible translation that’s ever been compiled, commentaries written by hundreds of authors, and one study tool after another.  Beyond that, we live in a land where we are free to worship as we like.  This is unlike so many other places in the world.  Throughout large portions of the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, to worship openly is to invite arrest, prison, and sometimes death. 

In thinking about this, I’ve wondered if the same problems we see in many churches in America are true there?  Where to have the Scriptures is a rare privilege and where any gathering to worship must be done in secret, is there internal bickering and strife about things that can be so insignificant?  Are churches there plagued with false teaching about worldly prosperity, when to profess Christ in those cultures makes the loss of worldly possessions and physical suffering much more likely than the opposite?  Is the preaching and teaching of God’s Word affecting our lives in a way that brings forth spiritual fruit, or are we producing worthless thorns and thistles?  As the apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 3:12-13, “Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.”

And then there are those who have never responded to the gospel, although the message has been so freely available and accessible all their lives.  How tragic to live in a place marked by such freedom of religion with so many opportunities to hear God’s Truth and yet spurn the greatest message that was ever told.  May our souls be thirsty for the refreshing and life-giving rain which is the Word of God, and may the soil of our hearts bring forth that which is to the glory of God as a result.