WHAT GOD WILL NOT, CANNOT DO

WHAT GOD WILL NOT, CANNOT DO
Heb 6:9-20
"God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him…." (v.10).

AFTER THE MOST SEVERE WARNING comes the most tender words. The term of endearment "dear friends" (v.9) or "beloved" is used only here in the entire letter. Isn't it like our Lord to speak, as He did to Elijah, after the storm "a gentle whisper" (I Kings 19.1112)? Our author here expresses his confidence in his readers that they would not fall away.

We see how his exhortation to them alternates between admonition and encouragement. In so doing, he neither discourages them by relentless rebuke nor emboldens them to complacency through unceasing praise. This is surely an approach we can emulate in our relationship with those under our charge.

In our passage today, we learn of two things God will not and cannot do. Firstly, He will not forget (v.10). Every little service done for the Lord and out of love for His people will never be forgotten. Weak though our memory may be, we remember the little things people do for us. Can God forget who has perfect recall? If we sometimes feel that people forget easily and take what we do for granted, take heart! God remembers.

"God is not unjust" (v.10), meaning that He not only remembers, He also rewards. Of course, we do not do deeds of kindness with an eye on rewards. Nevertheless, it is a boost to know that, in His own time and way, God rewards.

Secondly, God cannot lie (v.18). When God made a promise to Abraham, He swore by Himself because there was no one greater for Him to swear by. Thus, the word of God was made doubly sure, by "two unchangeable things", viz. the promise and the oath. A story is told of the great missionary to Africa, David Livingstone. At one crucial point in his work, he stood undecided at the bank of a river. Across it lived tribes he knew to be hostile. Should he go, or should he turn back?

For a moment he did not know what to do. Then he took his Bible which fell open at the last verse of the Gospel of Matthew. The verse reads, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." Livingstone said, "It is the word of a gentleman of the most strict and sacred honour - and that's the end of it." He crossed the river. We may take the promise of God with the same confidence.

In God, we "an anchor… firm and secure" (v.19).