“Concerning him we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. 13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. 1 Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, 2 of instruction about washings and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. 3 And this we will do, if God permits. 4 For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame. 7 For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God; 8 but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned. 9 But, beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way. 10 For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints. 11 And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, 12 so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” NASB
“We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. 12 In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! 13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. 1 Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, 2 instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3 And God permitting, we will do so. 4 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, 6 if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. 7 Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. 8 But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned. 9 Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are confident of better things in your case—things that accompany salvation. 10 God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them. 11 We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure. 12 We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.” NIV
Everyone delights in a newborn baby. But no one delights in a man, or even an older child, who reverts in his behavior to childish actions and emotions. Everyone delights in a newborn Christian. They are eager, hungry, trusting, discovering a whole new world. But if they stay babes, they become a burden. Useless to the body. Repugnant.
In his ‘HEBREWS - Verse by verse’, W.R. Newell lists some identifying traits of those who have become dull of hearing; slow to learn; babes. I developed my own thoughts based upon his list so he must share partial credit for my introduction
.
Let’s look at their identifying marks:
1. They are ‘tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine’ (Eph 4:14), making them easy marks for the charlatans; for the false teachers; for the word faith proponents who say believers have the power of God in their own words and so on.
2. They ‘belong’ to some particular denomination, which they call, like a baby with a toy, ‘MY CHURCH’. That is all important and they are more defensive of the denomination than of the Bible itself.
3. They exalt men. They don’t know what the church of God is; the Body of Christ; and that ‘membership’ is IN CHRIST.
“I am of Paul. I am of Apollos. I am of Cephas” is heard from them.
4. They are distracted. Only a preacher can know the heartache of having studied and prayed for hours over a sermon, wishing to impart truths of an eternal value – truths that should usher the spirit into the very presence of God, with joy and renewed hope – and as he looks out he sees people checking their watch, looking out the window, digging through a purse, fussing with a child; Several years ago as I was preaching in a certain church a young mother on the very front row, took her 5 year old boy out to the bathroom three times during a 25-30 minute sermon.
These same folks would hardly dare blink in a movie theatre, for fear they might miss something.
5. They ‘fuss’. Like little babies who, never shedding a tear, kick and grow purple in the face and clench their little fists and scream until they get what they want. [Remind you of any business meetings?] These are the people who quarrel and cause division and sulk and threaten to ‘go to a different church’ or stop going altogether, as though they would really be removing something valuable from the church if they went. They want their own way.
6. Finally, there are those who are ‘church members’. They may as well be club members – Knights of Columbus, Elks Club, Boy/Girl Scouts. They may have started out on fire for the scriptures, fervent in prayer, full of thanksgiving, zealous for reaching the lost. But they have become ‘church members’ – respectable, unspiritual, dull, soft, disinterested in study of the Bible and the deeper things of God; unwilling to take any of their own very important time to serve others or reach out to a fallen society.
Let us bow our heads and hearts in a moment of silent grief, for those who have come to need milk.
What marks the difference between babes and the spiritually mature? The mature…’because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil’.
That is the contrast made by the author of this letter to the HEBREWS. That is what we will be looking at today.
PREPARATION FOR MELCHIZEDEK
These words of the author in the final verses of chapter 5 lend credence to the speculation that this may have first been preached as a sermon. It is certainly addressing a particular congregation of people, for this charge regarding their sloth and digression in spiritual growth could not be made generally to the church everywhere; it could not in fairness be made to even a small association of churches in a bordered region. Because to make this sort of accusation generally to a scattered community of Christians would be an insult to those who are studying God’s Word faithfully and continuing to avail themselves to the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.
No, the writer is addressing a particular group who have, as a congregation, withdrawn into themselves and settled down comfortably, happy to be saved and Heaven-bound but heedless of the Spirit’s call to follow farther up and in. Note that he doesn’t say ‘some of you’, but says ‘you have become dull of hearing’ as though every single one in his audience is guilty.
Now having said that, let me ask a rhetorical question. Are there churches like this today? And another question; are there individual Christians like this, even in churches where the Bible is faithfully taught and the deeper things pertaining to God are pursued and explored?
Rhetorical or not, I’ll answer. The answer to both is ‘yes’, undeniably, in epidemic proportions.
If you have any doubts about my assertion here, I would invite you to do your own survey. Take a clipboard and in places where Christians are gathered, stop people at random and ask them to explain to you who Melchizedek was and the significance of his mention in the letter to the HEBREWS. Once done, please share with me the responses you got. Thank you.
The author wants to continue his teaching here concerning the High Priesthood of Christ, who did not descend from the Aaronic line, but was appointed, designated by God – a priesthood that was typified in the person and position of Melchizedek, priest of the Most High God who came out and blessed Abraham in the King’s valley (Gen 14:17) – and we will be studying this person in as much detail as the Scriptures allow in the next chapter or two. But the recipients of this sermon/letter were not ready for it yet and this is the problem he is illuminating for them in very clear, non-politically correct terms.
As we move into chapter 6, just keep in mind that he is continuing his explanation, he has not deviated from course, but being a good preacher he will not either leave them behind and go on teaching over their heads and past their ears, nor will he stay back with them and let them continue in their infantile behavior.
Years ago my wife and I were in a small church in Texas. We weren’t there long before we noticed that the sermons and the teaching in that church maintained a very shallow and superficial level. When we asked the pastor one day why he did not take the people deeper into the doctrines of the Christian faith and the teachings about Christ, his response was that the congregation was made up of babes who would not understand deeper things.
So his teaching remained shallow, and so did the people. One Wednesday evening as our midweek study was drawing to a close, as we still sat at the table near the pastor and people were one and two at a time rising to leave, my wife mentioned again that she was hungry for deeper discussions that would inspire and require thought. A man going out the door heard her, and as he disappeared from view we heard him say, “Oh, don’t make me think! I don’t want to think!”
A sad story, but true.
As time went on and personalities became better known we observed that where the real problem lay was in that the pastor himself seemed incapable of going deeper.
Having said that, I have to finish the story. In time, God graciously took that man out of pastoral ministry and led him into a chaplaincy in a large, metropolitan hospital, where he was able to give comfort and counsel to the hurting and the sick; a position for which he was well qualified, as his heart was full of compassion and mercy
LET US PRESS ON
The preacher makes a very interesting suggestion in the opening verses of chapter 6. He wants to leave behind, the elementary teaching about the Christ.
As we go on and read the syllabus of these elementary teachings he has referred to, we find the very fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith. These are the things apart from which there is no Christianity.
- Repentance from dead works and faith toward God
- Instruction about washings (baptism)
- Laying on of hands (in prayer for the sick or for ordination into ministry – not an essential, but an important teaching nonetheless)
- The resurrection of the dead
- Eternal judgment
I think we would all agree that these are the basics, and we have all agreed also in the past that the basics are a good thing to return to often, haven’t we?
But the preacher is not advocating that we forget those things. They are the foundation. When a man sets out to build a house, if he lays the foundation and stops there, what good is it? If nothing is built up on it, is it really a foundation; or is it a cold concrete slab, supporting nothing and offering no shelter or useful function whatsoever?
Did you see that he said, ‘not laying again a foundation’? That would only compound the absurdity, wouldn’t it, if a man laid a foundation and instead of building on it continued to lay foundation; either one on top of the other or side by side until he has laid some ridiculously expansive slab bearing nothing more?
That’s what the author is going for here. Friends, you will often hear me preach that frequent return to the basics is good for us and it is refreshing and encouraging. The cross must always be preached and in our daily walk our feet are cleansed, so to speak, with the reminders of our need for a repentant spirit and the anticipation of the great resurrection of the dead.
But it should be a return, always a return, from our course of pressing on to maturity – of a practice of study and meditation and development so that our spiritual senses are trained to discern good and evil – trained to discern between worldly thinking and Godly thinking, the world’s philosophy and the wisdom of God.
POINT OF DEPARTURE
Now there is a point of departure here in verse 4 from admonition to warning, offered in the form of drawing a line in the sand, as it were, between true believers and ones who have proven to have dry and hardened hearts, where the gospel seed has either not taken root, or rooted shallowly and burns in the heat of the day – in other words, the pressure and persecutions of the world (Matt 13:20-21).
This is a passage of Scripture that has been a struggle for many Christians and even teachers who have not understood the doctrines of grace.
They see here that the writer is talking about people who have been enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and they think that the author must be talking about saved people, and they wonder how this can possibly jive with the doctrine of eternal security, or, not believing themselves in the perseverance of the saints, they simply accept this passage as a reference to people who are Christians, then decide not to be Christians any more, and backslide back into the world and are lost to God and the church.
Now I am not going to go into a full teaching on the doctrine of eternal security today. In truth, that is one of the things the author has suggested we move on from and go deeper.
Believer in Christ, if you are a true Christ-follower, born from above and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, this is a work accomplished by God alone and nothing can snatch you out of His hand.
In response to this teaching there are those who say, “No, nothing can snatch you out of His hand, but you can walk away willingly”. No, you cannot, and if you are a Spirit-filled believer you will not want to. God is not weak and He does not change. If you are one of His chosen ones then once He has brought you into the fold you are secure forever, because your security is in Him. Your security is not in your ability to remain faithful. It is in His faithfulness, and He does not change.
That’s all I’ll say about that here, because if you cannot understand that then you are one who has come to need milk.
What we need to understand from verses 4 through 8 of Hebrews 6 today, is that there are people who come into the church, either having heard the gospel or coming to hear it, and they learn just enough to understand on some superficial level that they have come to a good thing; that they have heard good news.
They enjoy Christian fellowship and the comfort of acceptance. They are beneficiaries of the moving of the Holy Spirit by virtue of their association with those among whom the Holy Spirit moves and operates. They hear teaching about the blood of Christ shed for them and about the resurrection from the dead and about the age to come when Jesus will rule from the New Jerusalem when the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our God and of His Christ.
But all of this is never mixed with faith in those who heard, and as soon as it becomes uncomfortable to be there, or they receive a hint of pressure or mockery from their worldly friends and family around them, they cower in shame and slither away, and they ‘again crucify to themselves the Son of God, and put Him to open shame’.
What does that mean? It means that in the eyes of those around them that thought they were Christians, when they witness their departure from the church and from any Godly living, they have now rejected the faith and Christ is maligned as a child’s myth, unable to save and unable to preserve.
I have witnessed these people and if you have been a Christian for a time then you have witnessed them also. They come and go from the church, usually doing harm to the church as they leave, causing disappointment and heartache and discouragement in those who had hoped for their eternal salvation.
I have baptized people who came to me making a confession of faith and asking for baptism, and it soon became apparent that their confession was false, that they thought the act of being baptized would secure them a place in the kingdom, and that they could then go off and live as they pleased and be accepted by God when the time came for them to be ushered over death’s threshold. I baptized them and never saw them in church again.
I have a word for them and for all who think God owes them something for their empty pretense at religious piety. It goes like this:
“Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.” Gal 6:7
Man or Woman, boy or girl in the church, “… ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God; but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned.” Heb 6:7-8
Do not be deceived. And what more can I say about this portion? Test yourselves; examine yourselves; be really and truly sure that you are in the faith. If you are, you will know. If you doubt, then I encourage you to pour your heart out to God and ask Him to save you and not let you fall away from that which you have tasted and partaken of shallowly. Ask Him to give you a new heart and a place in His eternal family before it is too late.
THINGS THAT ACCOMPANY SALVATION
I had shared via email the introduction to this sermon, about ‘babes’, with a fellow pastor, and he in turn sent back a quote he had read recently from an article by Dennis Leary, titled ‘Why We Suck: A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid’. Now, Leary’s social and sometimes political commentaries are not given from a Christian perspective, and sometimes come across slightly embittered; sometimes not worded in a way entirely acceptable in the church setting. But he is usually pretty ‘right on’ in his comments, even if leaning a little to the dark side.
In this article, and this is what my fellow pastor sent me, Leary said, “This country – including you and most of the people related to you by birth or marriage or both – is populated by beings who have been so blessed for so long that they have become almost completely immune to any interests other than their own.”
As the author of the letter to the HEBREWS continues in verse 9, he turns to an encouraging note, in that he assures his hearers that he and apparently those fellow workers with him (since he says ‘we’), are convinced that even though the recipients of the letter might be babes, needing milk and immature in their Christian spirituality, yet they do not fit into the category he has described in chapter 6 verses 4-8, of individuals who are not truly of the Spirit and whose lives yield nothing but thorns and thistles.
Now I’m going to explain in a moment why I quoted Dennis Leary, in case you’re wondering, but let’s take a look at the progression in this portion of the author’s discourse so far, in the framework of our text verses today.
He began admonishing them concerning their sloth and sluggishness in their upward movement and for their perpetual need for milk. In short, he is challenging them to change their thinking; their priorities; and refocus on the Word and on the deeper things of God so that their relationship can grow and so they can more fully enjoy their life of faith.
Next he warned them to be sure they were not among those who were empty and dead, having come into fellowship with the true church and enjoyed the benefits of that company for a time but eventually proving themselves to be enemies of the cross of Christ. So he is dealing now with their hearts.
So as he goes on in this last portion of our study, having given them exhortation regarding the invisible things, their minds and their hearts, he now addresses the physical – the tangible – the ‘where the rubber meets the road’ manifestation of true faith.
This is why I quoted Leary. He did make a point. We have become a nation of fat, lazy, presumptuous people, who have glutted ourselves for so long on the blessings that God has poured out on us, we have largely lost the inability to perceive the needs or the desires or the plights of anyone other than ourselves.
It ought not to be this way in the church. It is this way also in the church. This is a truth that is to our shame.
Christians, can it be said too many times? What we are really will be demonstrated in our deeds and in our expression of life.
The writer is able to assure his readers, though they are babes and need maturity, that he is at least not worried that they are false in their religion.
The evidence he cites for the assurance he enjoys, is that in the name of God they have shown sincere love in ministering to the saints – that is, to one another and to those in ministry – diligently!
The church should be, in sharp contrast to the world around her, a shining example of diligence in service in the name and in the love of God, fellow Christ-followers.
I have to ask you to think about this; why is it that we cannot maintain that kind of diligence and Godly service in times of comfort and ease? It would seem as though that would be the time when it is easiest to maintain. Unfortunately, the reality is that the church comes most alive in service to God and the saints when under persecution and in times of deprivation.
I received an email from a Christian brother in Romania sometime back, wherein he bemoaned the loss of purpose and dedication and, yes, Christian joy that had existed when the church there was under heavy persecution. He said that since that persecution had lifted and the danger was gone, much of the church had grown listless and self-occupied.
That, my friends, is the expression of a heart for God, that he would desire rather to suffer under the hands of men so that God could show His power and grace, than to be at peace with men and live comfortably in this world.
I do not know the name of this Romanian brother. But I am confident that he is numbered among those in verse 12 of chapter 6 of HEBREWS, who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
Peter expressed this same thought in his second letter and this is the grand purpose of the preacher’s call to maturity
“Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble; for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.” 2 Peter 1:10-11
And I very sincerely, along with this Apostle to the Hebrew church, desire that each one of you show the same diligence, laying hold of the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and putting it into service, so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the day He returns or calls you home.
