Heb No.12 Still in the Nursery 5v11-6v3

Let me read again from Hebrews 5, and this time just the few verses indicated as being the passage for our study tonight. That is from the 11th verse through to the third of the sixth chapter. And now I'm reading from the King James Version of the Bible.

"...of whom we have many things to say," reference there is to Melchizedek, "...and hard to be understood, seeing ye are dull of hearing. For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again, which be the first principles of the oracles of God. And ye are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.

For every one that useth milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.

And this we will do, if God permit." When I was in North London, endeavouring to educate, without much success, some of the younger citizens of the then borough of Tottenham, I would frequently be given a class who were known as our ESN group. That meant to say that they didn't have as much grey matter, as much brain, as the rest of our school. And if you'd known what the rest of our school was like, you'd have appreciated that those fellows in the ESN category really had problems.

The teachers had even greater problems trying to keep these children interested in anything, let alone learning something. And so it is that in the notes that I handed out this evening, bearing in upon this particular passage of Scripture, I make comment about the frustration of trying to teach people who can't learn. And that's very, very difficult indeed, trying to occupy those who can't learn.

But an even more distressing situation is trying to teach those who won't learn. And there's a subtle distinction between can't learn and won't learn. With the former, it's not really their fault.

With the latter, it is their fault. And their inability to grasp certain elementary subjects is simply because of their laziness, at worst their disinterest. Now Christian people, ideally speaking, should never be in the category of those who don't want to learn.

After all, we sing so sincerely and enthusiastically about Jesus, Jesus our manna bee, and the idea is of feeding and feasting upon the Lord. We pray, bread of heaven, bread of heaven, feed me now and evermore. And the whole idea behind these hymns is that we might learn more of the Christian faith.

Now this is what the writer of the Hebrews would argue for. He would want the people to whom he directs this epistle to be eager for truth. He'd want them to go on to maturity in the Christian faith.

But it's pretty obvious he's got a problem as you zoom in this evening on the eleventh verse, because he says to them, there's a lot that I want to teach you but ye are dull of hearing. And actually that's not a present tense as is indicated in the AV, it's a past tense. You have become dull of hearing.

There was a time when you were eager, when you thirsted for truth, but the years have elapsed and something of that initial hunger after the things of God and the truth of the gospel, they've dimmed. And your mind has become cloudy. No longer are you as eager as you were and you're certainly not as eager as you should be.

You have become dull of hearing. He wants to tell them, you see, about Melchizedek. He wants to tell them about the priestly office of the Lord Jesus Christ.

But they don't want to know these things. They want to go back to more simple items concerning the Christian faith. So the NIV tells us in the eleventh verse, giving us perhaps a clearer translation than the AV, it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn.

And if you go on to the sixth verse, you find a further reference to slothfulness, the lack of concern for people to come to a real understanding of God's truth. Look at the twelfth verse of chapter six, that ye be not slothful. Let's read it in the NIV.

We do not want you to become lazy. Now, it is possible to be lazy in the Christian faith. It's possible to have an attitude that says, I don't want to know anything more.

I don't like coming to Bible studies. For me, I'd be much more content simply to listen to the children's talk on a Sunday morning than to have any exposition of Scripture because the latter means that I have to extend my brain and I don't want to do that. I'd rather be told stories and maybe a few humorous jokes and for everything to be through in ten or fifteen minutes.

But you see, the Bible asks of those of us who trust Jesus as Lord and Savior that we might come to grips with the Word of God. We're not to be slothful. Way back in the book of Proverbs, the sixth chapter and the twelfth verse, you read this.

The sixth chapter and verse 12. I'm sorry, I've got the wrong reference there, but let's stay with Proverbs because there's another example in the twelfth chapter and the twenty-seventh verse. It's speaking about slothfulness, about laziness.

Proverbs 12, 27, and this is accurate. I put the other reference down as I was coming back on the train from London this afternoon and I can't read my own writing properly. However, this is correct.

The slothful man roasteth not that which he took in hunting, but the substance of a diligent man is precious. And the Bible goes on to say, in the way of righteousness is life and in the pathway thereof there is no death. And when you go on to the twenty-fourth chapter, still in Proverbs, thinking about laziness and the way the Bible does not commend such an attitude, you discover right at the end of Proverbs 24 this rude reminder of what God wants you to be by way of contrast with the picture of a lazy person.

I went by the field of the slothful and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding and lo, it was all grown over with thorns and nestles, had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down. Then I saw and considered it well. I looked upon it and received instruction.

Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep, so shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth and thy want as an armed man. What do those references in Proverbs tell us? That God does not in any way commend the lazy person, the one who will sit back with his arms folded and let others get on with the work. That's not what God wants, not in the area of our job, not in the area of our profession, and certainly not in the area of Bible study.

He wants us to be alert. He requires us to come before his word, endeavouring to be instructed more and more. So in Peter, the apostle there, the fisherman there, speaks about acquiring knowledge and he says, gird up the loins of your mind.

Do you remember that little instruction, 1 Peter 1.13? Gird up the loins of your mind. And he's got the idea of the old-fashioned dress, the long skirt that men used to wear, and in a hurry you can't run fast with a skirt on. I've never tried myself but I will take that as being an assumption that you won't question.

So what did the men in the East used to do? They'd pull up their skirt and they'd tuck it into their belts and then they'd run along with their legs absolutely free. Well this is what the word of God says about studying the book. Gird up the loins of your mind.

Apply yourself to God's word. Be tidy in your Bible study and you'll be amazed what you'll discover. And Paul, when he's writing to Timothy, the young man who wants to be a preacher, he says, study to show yourself approved unto God.

Do you know, I tell you this, not directing it at any one person, certainly no one here this evening, but one of the problems about some young men who wish to be preachers, who wish to occupy a pulpit, is they don't realize that before you can proclaim the word of God, you must give hours and hours and hours and hours of study to the word of God. It's almost impudent to get in front of a congregation and to wax eloquent about something you know very little about at all. So I'm always thrilled when young people in particular come before us and ask for Bible tuition.

Very glad that we have our tracks who meet midweek for specially geared Bible studies directed to them. Thrilled in India when dozens and dozens of fellows will come along to have their minds saturated in the word of God. Now, why have we said all this? Because the writer to the Hebrews was concerned that the people who were reading this letter were lazy.

They were dull of hearing. They were educationally able to grasp truth. But because of their laziness, they wanted to go back to the ABC.

Now, I wonder, well it would hardly apply to you this evening or else you wouldn't be present in our Bible school now, would you? But I wonder how much that applies to a great deal of people in evangelicalism today. I was listening to a tape. Now, I never criticize other people's ministry.

I'm always on the side of the preacher, having made so many mistakes myself. But I was listening to a tape that I was given the other day and it lasted for 40 or 50 minutes and it purported to be an explanation of the word of God and it was really just a joke a minute. You know, it could have been Hancock's half hour, really.

Certainly it would have held the attention of the people, but the limited amount of actual Bible content was so small that it didn't really rate being described in terms of exposition. And yet I'm sure that the people who were there, and it sounded from the tape that there were hundreds there, they'd have gone away feeling happy and joyful. But one could not have said that they were taught the word of God.

They had some tremendous jokes told them, really good. I was chuckling away as I was driving my car, but they certainly were not informed. And it's this attitude that the writer of the Hebrews is advising, is arguing against.

He wants people's mind to be stretched. And so he talks in these verses about what I have listed to help you to memorize it. He talks about the tragedy of stunted growth.

And I have right to make that particular comment because at the end of the 13th verse, there's reference to someone who should be an adult. And the phrase describing that person is, he is a babe. He is a babe.

These people, you see, they should have been mature in the Christian faith, but they weren't. And the writer has to say in the 12th verse, for when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again, which be the first principles of the oracles of God, and are become such as have need of milk and not of strong meat. They were spiritual simpletons.

And that's not a good condition to find yourself in. God wants healthy men and women mature in Christ Jesus. And so we find here under the tragedy of stunted growth, a further description what these people should have been, but weren't.

What should they have been? Verse 12, ye ought to be teachers. Now that doesn't mean to say that the writer envisages that every member of a congregation will be a preacher. But it is definitely a conclusion to be drawn that every Christian ought to have the ability to teach somebody else.

I could give you scriptures to warrant what I'm now arguing, and will later on if you so desire. Women are told that they should have an ability to teach women. In Titus, we get the comment that the older women should be able to talk to the young wives intelligently.

Deuteronomy 6 tells us that parents ought to be able to instruct children. Again in the New Testament, we come across the assertion that brothers ought to be able to teach brothers. There's something that all of us ought to be able to share with another believer about the gospel and our understandings of the doctrines of the Lord Jesus.

When the apostle Peter is writing his second letter, he says in the opening verses, the fourth for example, that we have received great and precious doctrines or promises, and we're to learn something about these doctrines. And he goes on, and you would think that he was a teacher waxing eloquent about the subject of mathematics, because he says besides this initial doctrine that you should have learnt, give all diligence and add to your faith virtue, and to virtue add knowledge, and to knowledge add temperance, and to temperance add patience, and to patience add godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and so on and so forth. Here if you like is the curriculum.

Here is the syllabus for the child of God. He's always to be grasping after knowledge, and when he's got it, an opportunity presents itself. He shares it with other people.

But these Hebrews, they were of such a condition that they couldn't teach anyone else. They should have had a reasonable vocabulary, but they needed for someone to go and to train them once more in the ABC of the faith, or as Dr Hughes puts it, their spiritual comprehension corresponds to their shame with that of children in the kindergarten who, unable to write, have to start at the very beginning by learning the alphabet. The tragedy of stunted growth, what they should have been, but weren't.

What they should have eaten, but didn't. Verse 13, everyone that useth milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe, but strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age. Let's get that from the NIV.

But solid food is for the mature. What they should have eaten, meat, but instead they were still on a milk diet. It's legitimate at times to go on a diet, isn't it? To try to trim your waistline down.

To achieve what has been referred to as the art of positive shrinking by going without food that adds to your girth. But I'm not too sure that there's ever need for the power of positive shrinking to be argued for in respect of Christians. Rather, having had milk, having been fed in the early months and years of their spiritual life, they should progress and delight in progressing to more solid foods.

But what a shame that these people, although they've been Christians years, still required the milkman to come around in the morning to deliver something that they could live on. Not, of course, that this was only the complaint of the Hebrews to which our writer is addressing his epistle. Paul found the same problem when he was writing to the Christians at Corinth.

1 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 1, I brethren could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk and not with meat, for hitherto you were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. I saw the most delightful little baby when I was coming back from London.

Beautiful little girl, gurgling away, keeping everyone in the compartment really entertained by her exploits as she was trying to walk with considerable difficulty. Mum was delighted in this child and Dad was too. He was sitting alongside and you could see the sort of Cheshire cat grin expression on their face because this was their child.

They had a right to be proud of it. But if you were to add ten years to that baby girl's age and she was still acting then as she was now, or as she was a couple of hours ago, they would have been terribly concerned. Our daughter is immature.

It's a great problem to us. She is not developing physically. She's not developing mentally.

It's a tragedy. Well, these people were a tragedy. And do you know, I say this lovingly.

I say it humbly because the Word of God has got to expose my inconsistencies too. But we've got a lot of tragic Christians going around today. People who've been ten, twenty, thirty years in the faith and they still only want the ABC.

What a shame. The Apostle Paul writing to the Corinthians says, be not children in understanding, but be men. And then he says later on in the same epistle, 1 Corinthians 15, 13, quit, quit yourself like men.

Of course, it might be objected as I note in my handout that it doesn't really matter. After all, these are Christian people. The fact that they're saved, that's all that we really need to be concerned about.

Well, what a limited attitude. All we really want is for men to cross the borderline into the category of the saved and then they should be content. No.

Jesus says that he wants men to get spiritually strong and tall. His teaching was to build men up in the holy faith. We want to grow in grace.

Yes, that's very important. And also in the knowledge of God. Because the taller I grow, the more useful I am as a member of the Christian congregation.

You see, we can all teach somebody, but you can't teach what you don't know. We should all be skillful to some degree in the word of righteousness, quoting from verse 13 of Hebrews 5. And therefore it's necessary for us to learn, to acquire knowledge of the Christian faith. So the Apostle Paul, we might well employ his words right now and say our attitude at this moment is to forget those things which are behind.

I'm using this a little out of context, and let's press on. Let's press on to spiritual maturity. And even if we've not been as consistent in Bible studies as we ought to have been, if we've wanted a much more simple type of address always, then let's say to the Lord God, no.

We're going to stretch our minds before your word. We're going to come to grips with this book. We're going to read some of the devotional classics of centuries gone by so that we may have a greater understanding and become more like the Lord Jesus wants us to be.

So that's the tragedy of stunted growth. And you can also lift out from these verses the target of spiritual growth. I reckon that that's in the 14th verse through to the first of the sixth chapter.

The target of spiritual growth. I have, of course, hinted at this already. Let's take the first verse in the NIV of chapter six.

Therefore, let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity. That's the target. Take your arrow out and point it towards a bull.

And may God in his grace enable you to get bull's eye in this respect. We want to be mature, not laying again. The ABC of the faith, which we should already be informed of.

The apostle, the writer rather of Hebrews goes on to say in the first verse of the 12th chapter, we are to run with patience the race that is set before us. There's a clearly defined goal that Christian people have. When I was a student, I used to have specific objectives.

I had a program of my curriculum. This was absolutely necessary. I couldn't have achieved what I wanted to achieve unless with a certain amount of discipline and hours and hours of study as an investment, I came to grips with what had been prescribed by the university.

Now, I think that that is the same in the Christian faith. There's a goal that we're aiming at. Now, don't misunderstand me.

I don't want us all to be theological students. I believe that growth in knowledge must be accompanied with growth in grace. But we are to grow in knowledge.

We are to extend our minds. We are to be on target. On target for what? For perfection, for spiritual maturity.

The only person who was absolutely perfect who lived on earth was our Lord Jesus, of course. But inasmuch as we're partakers of his nature, then we want to reproduce something of his characteristic or something of his characteristics. Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 15 should be tattooed upon the chest of every Christian as an objective towards which they are working.

Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 15. When we are enjoined to speak the truth in love and to grow up into him, that is into Christ Jesus, in all things which is the head. To grow as tall as Jesus grew is to be our objective.

And although we know that absolutely it's unattainable, in degree it can be realized. And this is what the apostle Paul was saying when in Philippians he discloses his own heart's goal and he says, I have not yet reached perfection but I press on hoping to take hold of that for which Christ took hold of me. So we want to become more like the Lord Jesus Christ.

We want something of his perfections in our own spiritual being. And the amazing thing, my friend, is that for this to come about, you need to know more about the Word of God. You need to know more about the Word of God.

You see, you can get unbalanced even in the pursuit of legitimate things. What do I mean? Well, let's take a more mystical approach to the doctrine of sanctification. This means prayer, and more prayer, and more prayer, and going to courses of meditation and so on and so forth.

And one feels that the more time you spend in prayer and in the presence of the living God, so the more you will grow. Now in a sense that's true. But it needs balancing.

It needs balancing because the Bible enjoins us that we are to come before the Word of the living God. Because God will speak to us through this Word, God will correct us through this Word, God will inform our minds through this Word. You see, there's no contradiction in Scripture between the man of the Word and the man of the Spirit.

We make these subtle distinctions today. What you need to be, brother, is baptized in the Holy Ghost and then you'll be all right. And then on the other hand, taking another aspect of modern evangelicalism, what you need to do is to spend 50 pounds on Banner of Truth books and lock yourself in the attic for a month and then you'll mature.

No, it's a synthesis, a joining together of both. A desire to worship the living God, to open your heart to the fullness of His Spirit. A desire to feed your mind upon the Word of God, to be stretched by biblical truths.

So often we go into a state of spiritual imbalance because we just emphasize one aspect of Christian disciplines over against another. So on target for what? On target so that we might become mature in Christ. On target with what? What's going to help us? I've spent time a few moments ago with my thoughts running ahead of me.

We are going to grow to be like the Lord Jesus as we apply ourselves to the strong meat of His Word. Solid doctrine, broken up, digested and absorbed by the Christian. This will add to his spiritual stamina.

I get concerned sometimes when Christian people just go to gospel meetings. Now, you know me well enough to know that my life is dedicated to the cause of preaching the gospel. I believe if necessary I would die for the gospel.

I trust I would if such an emergency arose. But there's more to the Christian faith than John 3.16. That needs to be emphasized and we clearly hear I believe on a Sunday, particularly a Sunday night, must make the essentials of the gospel message plain. But there's meat beyond that which is available for you and for me and it will help us to grow.

So strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. When you've got strong meat, when you're mature in the teachings of God's Word, then you can distinguish between falsehood and a correct exposition of scripture. How many evangelicals are almost pawns in the theological game of chess when they are confronted by a Jehovah's Witness? I was amazed at the knowledge that this moony girl who was associating with my wife and I for some weeks here in Worthing, I was amazed at the knowledge that she had of moon doctrine.

She had so immersed herself in the teachings of that rather strange individual from North Korea, to the extent that I reckon she could have matched the average Christian in her understanding of the perverted way that moon interprets the Word of God. That girl needs help, not just her, thousands who pack the cults need to be reached with the truth of God's Word, and only Christians who've been on strong meat can do this. So then the tragedy of stunted growth, the target of spiritual growth, and then briefly I hardly need to comment, the tenets of simple faith, the tenets of simple faith, leaving the ABC of the doctrine of Christ, let's go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and faith toward God.

Here the author is enjoining us not to leave behind the ABC, but to build on it. Shakespeare was desperately requiring the alphabet when he wrote the plays that he authored. You couldn't have taken the alphabet away, there would have been no Macbeth, there would have been no Twelfth Night.

Some people say we might have been better off without them, because they're not particular Shakespeare fans, but I appreciated them and I'm glad for that English bard who taught the Americans how to use English properly. But he needed the alphabet, as you need the alphabet, as I need the alphabet in writing letters, and we need the simple aspects of the faith so that we can build on them and become tall and strong for Jesus Christ. So here is not in any way a belittling of the ABC, but rather arguing that when the foundation is laid, if it's properly laid, it doesn't need to be relayed, but one can go on from that.

And it's very interesting actually to look at what the ABC is in this author's economy. He talks about repentance, faith, baptisms, I'm just reading the list in front of me, you can see it yourself, laying on of hands, resurrection, judgment, all these things, they might well have been the syllabus for a Bible beginners class, and beyond that you'd go. But some of us perhaps would feel that there are one or two things here that we've still got to get to grips with.

So you see the challenge of this word. I'm not bringing it to your attention this evening to convince you of spiritual immaturity as opposed to myself. I'm still, God knows, a learner, still learning at the feet of the Lord Jesus and praise God for the books of men like Martin Lloyd-Jones and Campbell Morgan and Spurgeon and the like, and for modern preachers like Paul Tucker who can help me to come to a greater understanding of God's word.

No, I'm not belittling anyone, I'm just challenging you and I'm challenging me to go on, to grow in knowledge and in the grace of God. And the writer of this epistle says, I believe that this is what we're all going to do. If God permits, God gives us the enabling, we shall move on to plumb deeper depths of learning, to change the metaphor, to scale higher heights of truth.

And as a result of this, we will be better equipped to serve our Lord and Savior. So then, still in the nursery? No, not for mature Christian people. They've escaped from the nursery and they're in the university learning under the tuition of God the Holy Spirit.

Amen. Father, we do praise you for the opportunity tonight of being able to come around your word. We realize that there are some levels which are beyond us, for your ways are not our ways, your thoughts are not our thoughts.

There's what Luther called the unknown God, the God God that has not been revealed in full, but you have revealed to us sufficient of yourself, of your nature, of your purposes for us to be able to place 100 percent confidence in our Lord Jesus and to know sin's forgiven. And we want a greater understanding of him and his word. We want greater maturity, Father God, in Christian things so we might serve you the better.

We ask then for your blessing to rest upon us. We praise you for the privilege of being able to study to some degree this marvelous epistle to the Hebrews, send us on our way more convinced than ever of the reality of God and the adequacy of the gospel. For Jesus' sake.

Amen.