Hebrews 6:4-8
The clock above the sanctuary door was running fast again. It always did on Sunday nights.
A moth tapped at the stained glass, thudding its small, frantic body against the blue shard above the baptistry. Somewhere near the back, a child coughed into a coat sleeve. And the pastor stood behind the pulpit, flipping open his Bible to a passage no one quotes on a coffee mug.
“It is impossible… if they fall away… to renew them again to repentance.”
No one moved. The verse rang out like a slammed gate.
Imagine two fields. Same soil. Same sky. Same rain falling heavy and sure.
The rain doesn’t hesitate. It soaks both plots. It slips into furrows, drips from fenceposts, puddles under thorns and herbs alike. You wouldn’t know the difference between the fields at first, not from a distance. Not even up close.
But harvest tells the truth.
In one field, shoots rise green and obedient. There are herbs that heal, stalks that feed. Fruit that gladdens the one who planted it.
In the other, there’s a snarl of briars. Thistles twist upward. Nothing grows that was prayed for.
So the farmer comes with fire. And the field that drank just as deeply is the field that burns.
Hebrews isn’t speaking to outsiders.
It’s written to those who wear Sunday shoes, who take notes in the margins, who once wept at the altar. To the men and women who say, “I’m a Christian,” and mean it.
They’ve seen the gospel’s light click on in the dark. They’ve tasted grace on their lips. They’ve felt the Spirit blow through the room like a sudden wind. They’ve found Scripture strangely sweet. They’ve looked at the invisible world and nodded, yes it’s real.
The rain fell.
But something started to shift.
They stopped going forward. Sluggishness crept in. Familiarity calcified. And now, some of them are quietly turning back to where they came from.
For the Hebrews, it was old Judaism. For us, it might be self-made religion. Comfort. Bitterness. Pleasure. Pride. Maybe just exhaustion.
And the writer of Hebrews picks up his pen and says: Stop. Listen. If you walk away from Christ, you won’t find another Savior waiting at the end of that road.
God does not send the rain so that you can grow thorns.
It’s not your story that proves you’re saved. It’s your fruit.
Not your testimony. Not your spiritual resume. Not the experiences you had at a revival in ‘03 or the time you felt goosebumps during a worship chorus. Not the leadership roles. Not even answered prayers.
Rain fell on both fields.
What matters is what’s growing now.
Hebrews reaches for the old language of farming. Galatians picks it up with sharper detail.
The fruit of the Spirit is not a personality shift. It’s not a warm, private glow. It’s a harvest that feeds heaven’s table: love for God, joy in Christ, peace that doesn’t panic, patience with difficult people, kindness that costs something, faithfulness that outlasts pressure, gentleness in conflict, self-control behind closed doors.
You can’t fake that with language or lighting or social media scripture posts. Either the Spirit is at work in your soul or He’s not.
And if He is, He’s not producing Instagram religion. He’s growing a life that smells like Jesus.
The other harvest? The writer of Hebrews doesn’t flinch.
It’s a soul that looks alive for a season, then slips back into what it was. Or worse.
Galatians names it: sexual sin, impurity, jealousy, drunkenness, rage, division, addiction, envy, idolatry. The list isn’t exhaustive. It doesn’t need to be. The point is clear: If those are the things growing in your life, then your field is not blessed. It’s cursed.
God didn’t open your eyes so you could stare at the world again.
He didn’t give you a taste of heaven so you could chase hell in peace.
He didn’t put His name on your lips so you could trample it when you’re tired.
And here comes the most terrifying line in the whole chapter:
“It is impossible… to renew them again to repentance.”
This isn’t about a stumble. This is not the weary believer crying out through tears, “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.”
This is someone who walks away. Eyes open. Mind made up.
And God lets them go.
It’s not a slide. It’s a choice. And once it’s made, Hebrews says, there may be no coming back.
When that field is burned, it stays burned.
But the letter does not end with ash.
The preacher lifts his eyes and speaks tenderly now: “Beloved, we are persuaded of better things concerning you – things that belong to salvation.”
He remembers how they once loved the saints. He recalls the joy they had when the gospel first struck fire in their hearts. And then he gives them a command that still stings and sings today:
“Do not be sluggish… be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”
In other words: Pedal.
This life is uphill. Always has been. You don’t coast into heaven.
Stop pedaling, and you will slide backward. Not immediately. But eventually. The weeds always come back.
The only way to know your salvation is real, Hebrews says, is to see it working. Moving. Pushing. Pedaling uphill with grit in your teeth.
God gives assurance to those who obey. Not perfectly. But persistently. That’s the path the saints walked and they made it.
So here’s the question, quiet and sharp:
What will the Farmer find in your field?
He sent the rain. It fell on your head and soaked your shoes. It softened the ground around your heart.
What’s growing?
Fruit or thorns?
He will come at morning, walking the rows in the hush before dawn, brushing dew from the leaves, stooping low to look beneath the shade. His hands will know what they find.
And when He lights the fire—
will your field burn,
or will He gather what grew?
Can a Christian lose their salvation?
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