Hebrews 5 (Part 2) :11-14 • Solid food is for the mature

we're in hebrews let's go there please we are making our way here on sunday morning through the new testament we're in hebrews chapter five and we're going to finish uh that chapter this morning with the last four verses 11 12 13 14. and i'm gonna go ahead and read follow along as i do then we'll pray verse 11 hebrews 5 11 about this we have much to say and it is hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing for though by this time you ought to be teachers you need someone to teach you

again the basic principles of the oracles of god you need milk not solid food for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness since he is a child but solid food is for the mature for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil stop there let's pray father we thank you so much for your word and the the power of it we believe that it nourishes our hearts equips us and prepares us for the days to come and we pray that you would do

that today all of that we humbly present our hearts to you we ask god that you would fill us with understanding insight and truth for we ask it in jesus name amen amen amen leading up to this last few verses of of hebrews chapter 5 the author of this letter has been teaching about the high priestly ministry of jesus and how that ministry was prefigured by the old testament priesthood that functioned under the mosaic law but then also how it was uh prefigured in in a particular and rather mysterious old testament character by the name

of melchizedek and that gets into some stuff and he has a lot more to say about this stuff but he stops here and in what almost sounds to me like an outburst of frustration a little bit he he he begins to confront his readers with their stunted spiritual growth and the very first thing he says to them is he kind of pauses with this little interlude he says about all this stuff and he's talking about the fact that he's been getting into this whole high priestly ministry of jesus how how jesus has taken over that

position of high priest uh in in in god's redemptive program he says you know we have a lot more to say about this but it's kind of hard and and i don't know if this is a offensive thing to say to people or not but he says it's kind of hard to explain not because i'm having not because i don't understand it but because you guys are dull of hearing and when he says dull of hearing this is not something that you know a hearing aid can solve not that they had those back then and

i imagine hearing loss was probably just as common back in those days as it is today especially well i don't know those of us who exposed ourselves to the 70s rock and roll might be a little worse off than some of the others but you know enough about us anyway this isn't a physical condition that he's talking about here this is a spiritual condition and the greek term for dull literally means slow or sluggish so he says you're slow of hearing it means that they were having trouble receiving the word of god they could hear

it just fine with their physical ears it was embracing it receiving it that was a problem and it's a condition that i think we should probably think about a little bit because i don't think it's gone away by any stretch and it's one that we need to consider because i think it has been something perhaps that some of us may have dealt with in the past some of us may even be dealing with now and you may have people in your family or good friends or something like that uh for whom this condition applies you

ever talk to somebody about the scriptures and they just kind of like have that glazed look on their face or it just kind of looks like you just were speaking another language there for a moment and they were listening politely and nodding but it didn't really get through and that's kind of what we're we're talking about there but you know what's interesting about this is the question how did this author know that his audience was dull of hearing i mean he's not in the same room with them he's not able to kind of look at

their facial expressions he can't see if their mouths are hanging open or if they're kind of nodding off or looking off into space or jotting down unrelated notes how does he know how is it that this man can just kind of stop in the midst of this very important teaching on the person of jesus christ his importance and superiority over the law and then just say you know i i'd like to say more about this but you guys are really kind of just dull and you're slow to understand the things that we've been sharing well

i'll tell you how he knew he knew it because he saw what was happening to their faith and that's how he knew we you know we've made the point several times as we've studied through uh here in in hebrews that the recipients of this letter were jews who had come to faith in jesus christ but now we're experiencing persecution and social pressure to the point that they were beginning to waffle on the importance of the cross as the only means of our salvation they were beginning to waffle on that they were kind of backing away

a little bit from that from that whole thing and the reason is because you know they were getting a lot of pushback from their fellow jews because the jews considered the cross of christ to be an extremely offensive thing we forget that to us the cross i mean we understand it's interesting you know we sang this morning you know he's he's leading us to the cross i liked i like that lyric in connection with what we're saying today in this study but to us the cross we understand the cross of christ is the means by

which we are saved but to us it's it's a rather beautiful thing i mean it's something we appreciate but for the jews it was incredibly offensive because their own hebrew scriptures told them that anyone who was hung on a tree and a cross qualified was cursed of god let me show you where that's actually shown it's in the book of deuteronomy up on the screen for you to see from deuteronomy chapter 21 it says if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death and you hang him on a

tree his body shall not remain all night on the tree but you shall bury him the same day look at this for a hanged man is cursed by god and as far as the jews were concerned jesus totally met that description so you can understand how a jew who'd been raised on the torah would think about these christians who come along claiming that this man who is clearly cursed according to my bible you're telling me he's the anointed one and my bible tells me he's the cursed one not only are you trying to convince me

the cursed one is the anointed one which is what messiah means you're trying to tell me that what he did on that cursed thing over the cross is that he made a way for me to be righteous before god this cursed man is going to make me righteous before god to a jew not only was that ridiculous in the extreme it was hideous to think about and offensive and that's exactly what the apostle paul wrote concerning the jews check this out from first corinthians chapter 1 verse 23 he said but we preach christ crucified and

what is that it's a stumbling block to the jews why was it a stumbling block because their scriptures said a man hung on a tree is cursed and by the way jesus was cursed it's true he was cursed for you how he can be the cursed one and the anointed one is just the mysteries of god that's the part they couldn't get to them it was just you know so in any way so for the for the believing jews to whom this letter is addressed for them to somehow remove some of that offensive language and

offensive ideas uh from their belief they began to compromise the message of the cross and the way they would do that is they would introduce certain elements of the mosaic law into the gospel to kind of make it a little more palatable to a jew right and you know if we can if we can bring a little judaism a little bit of law keeping into the gospel we can deflect some of this persecution some of this pushback that we're getting from our neighbors now you'll recall that when the apostle paul penned his letter to the

churches in the region of galatia this is exactly what was going on in that area those christians although they were gentiles in that case they had been they were being influenced by jews who were making their way up to that region of galatia and they were basically telling the people that they had to practice circumcision along with believing in the message of the cross they were saying oh yeah jesus cross cool that's all good and fine but you also need to be circumcised according to the law in order for you to be saved and so

these were the same kind of people these are the same kind of people these jews who had compromised the cross and now we're trying to influence gentile christians in the case of the galatian churches and and these people that were coming to the region of galatia were even telling them this is what paul preaches you know the apostle paul who came and taught yeah oh yeah he he's totally in agreement with us so paul wrote his letter back to the churches there do you remember what he said galatians 5 11 up on the screen he

said listen he says if i still preach circumcision why am i still being persecuted and then he said this in that case the offense of the cross has been removed you get it you see to add a jewish element to the gospel is to remove some of that offensiveness and to make it more palatable so paul says hey listen i'm not preaching circumcision if i was preaching circumcision i probably wouldn't be behind bars most of the time and i wouldn't be constantly in disfavor with my fellow jews so you see this temptation you know was

very strong among these believing jews to remove the offense of the cross but the problem is when you remove the offense of the cross either because of hardship or persecution you remove the power of the gospel you want to take away the offense of the cross because people are offended by it fine but you're not going to end up with the gospel you're going to end up with something less and and to to do this to to change the gospel message by adding some element of legalism or whatever to it is to cause an individual

to actually fall away from the lord to fall away from the lord and jesus told us that it was so that it was possible when he gave to us the parable of the sower and in the parable of the sower you'll remember that he spoke of the word of god likening it to seed that fell upon different kinds of ground and there is a portion of that parable i'll put it on the screen for you from matthew 13 which says here then the parable of the sower as for what was sown on rocky ground this

is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy even yet he has no root in himself but endures for a while and look at this when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word immediately he falls away and this is what this author is trying to avoid by writing this letter to these people these christians these jews he's trying to awaken them to this idea but the very fact that they were beginning to entertain some sort of an understanding of righteousness through the law or or should i say they were

going back to an understanding of righteousness uh through the law was proof that to him that they'd become dull of hearing so you know you think about what what had early christians what were they taught about the law what were they taught concerning the law of god how how were they to understand the law well let me show you what paul taught romans chapter 3 paul wrote we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under it who are under the law so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole

world may be held accountable to god for by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight that's a big statement since through the law comes knowledge of sin for we hold that that that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law now this is the stuff that was taught to the early christians they were told that what the law says it says to those who are under it because it is given to us to show how just how sinful we really are but it was never given to

us as a means of our righteous standing before god you can't be righteous before god according to the law because you can't keep the law perfectly you'd have to keep it perfectly in order to be you know in righteous standing before god based on the law so this is the kind of stuff that the these christians were taught and it was tough it was probably a tough lesson for these jews who had been raised on the law raised on the torah raised on the understanding i mean they had it just drilled into their brain that

our righteous standing is through the law and then they came to know jesus christ as their savior and they began to embrace and accept the fact that we cannot be righteous according to the law our righteous is in fact imputed to us by jesus christ through his death on the cross for us where he bore our penalty our law breaking right and they they embraced that but now they're beginning to swerve from it now they're beginning to kind of deviate from that message and that's why the author goes on to say look with me in

your bible in verse 12 here in hebrews 5. he says for though by this time you ought to be teachers you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of god he says you need milk not solid food for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness since he's a child and what he's saying here is that you people ought to be at the place where you're ready to instruct others in these things but you but you can because you need to be taught again the fact that

you're deviating from the cross tells me that you're not grounded in these things to the point where there's a maturity and you you need someone to go over with you the basic principles what are the basic principles well you know all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of god wonderful principle but it's basic we're all sinners you know i i have to go over that with with with baby christians over and over again i have to you know it's you got to keep repeating it we're also if you ever notice that when you're

with a little child you got to repeat things over and over and over again until they get it and then you you with a baby christian you have to explain the wages of sin is death jesus bore our death through his on the cross and all who put their faith in him are saved forgiven guys those are basics that's like you know zipping up your zipper and tying your shoes and getting the basics down it's the milk of the word and don't get me wrong milk is good but a diet of milk alone is what

we expect if you're a baby right but you know look at what peter said in his first letter first peter chapter two he said like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up in your salvation and what he's saying there is great the milk is wonderful but grow up you know there's a point where you gotta grow up and there's a point where you gotta begin to take solid food and solid food is what this author is trying to give to these people which is interesting because after this

little short interlude here in the end of chapter five he's gonna get back into it and he's gonna he's gonna keep giving him solid food throughout the rest of this letter he really does so he's kind of like telling them you know get ready you might need to wash this down because this is going to be a mouthful but we have an expectation that you're going to grow up and do this look what he goes on to say in verse 14 he says solid food is for the mature in other words when you've got your

teeth and you can chew you can bite and you can break it up you know how to break up the word so that you can digest it you know solid food doesn't mean i put a steak in my mouth and gulp it down it means that i chew it up and make it so my body can assimilate it and so the the the teeth that we gain spiritually speaking is our ability to read our bible and break it down and look at it not just read it people people write me all the time just say

you know when i read my bible i just don't get it well very few people do if you're just reading the bible but you're not thinking and meditating on what you're reading taking notes breaking it out maybe even circling words or underlining words and then praying and lord what what do you mean there what's that mean that's that chewing process right where we kind of break it down yeah i mean that's what i do every sunday and every wednesday when we're going through the word i break it down we go through the word we talk

about what the words mean i give you some of the greek or hebrew meanings to help maybe give a little dynamic relevance to the word and and we we talk about it and and that's why people assimilate better when they're being taught or when they're breaking it down and so forth just i mean just reading through the bible i'll be honest with you just reading through the bible doesn't do a great a whole lot for just for me and i this is my third time teaching through the whole bible this is where i really grow

i love teaching through the bible because i grow i mean i i benefit from the time spent in the word but just reading through the scriptures doesn't do a lot for me because i'm one of those incredibly distractible people maybe you are too and and i i read a page and i get done reading it and i go i didn't hear anything i just read you have anybody like that remember doing that in school remember when the teacher would tell you to read a chapter and then you're gonna have a test and you read through

the chapter and realized the whole time you were thinking about what you're gonna do after school but you read it but the words just went they were gone and then she goes all right close your book we're gonna have a test you're like i don't even know what i read i gotta guess now my wife not to embarrass her or anything like that she reads through her bible the entire bible every year which is you know wonderful and i've done that before too but she gets a lot out of it just reading through it i

don't i have to i have to stop you know and really focus all right what are we looking at here you know i gotta break it up and take notes and stuff like that it's just you know that's the chewing process you know it's important to to do and when you're mature you get teeth and you start chewing and you break things up and so forth but if you don't get mature if you don't mature at some point then your growth in the lord is going to become stagnant you're going to just plateau and you

get to a point and you've probably been there in your own life or you know somebody else who has gotten to a place in their spiritual growth and they're growing and growing and then just kind of they don't really move past it they're just kind of there and there are all kinds of reasons why that happens i suppose but i mean as i think about some of those reasons i suppose you know it could be that a person is attending a church where there's no real teaching ministry going on and that will cause a person

to plateau if if you're going to church and you're hearing basic christianity week after week after week after week after week in the form of a topical kind of a message or something like that you're probably you're not going to be encouraged to dig in and chew the the meat of the word i've had people you know come here and say you know pastor paul i have learned more in six months coming to here than 10 years somewhere else well it's not me it's just going through the word and taking time to do it chapter

by chapter and verse by verse that's how we grow i really believe this method that we use on sundays and wednesdays is the means by which christians grow and mature in the word i really do and i wish more churches did it i mean taught didn't just teach the bible i wish they would teach through the bible the whole thing genesis to revelation and don't leave out anything i'll never forget one time years year many years ago i was talking to a lady she didn't attend our church but her daughter did at the time and

she was like we were just kind of chatting about church and she said i understand you're teaching through leviticus and she said it in kind of a way of like how in the world do you teach through leviticus and you know if you've ever just read through leviticus and you think we're going to go to church tonight and we're going to go through leviticus you might kind of think well it's going to be boring seriously because when you read through it there's just a lot of details and that don't seem to be very relevant at

all and yet our every time we go through the book of leviticus it's one of the coolest studies it really is when you take time to chew it up and assimilate and see what's really kind of going on there i think other times when when when people just don't grow it's kind of what's it it could be because what's happening like here in this case with this these people that that are the recipients of this letter there's some kind of compromise going on now their compromise with the gospel was going on because of persecution then

it could but compromise can happen for all kinds of different reasons you know when we when we first started this church almost 30 years well it was over 30 years ago now but like in the first year of our fellowship here i got a call from a guy who had been to church and he called me up to tell me that i was wrong because i had made some comment in the message about mormonism and i don't even remember what i said but i was probably just comparing christianity with with biblical christianity with mormonism uh

which of course is the farthest thing from biblical christianity and he called me that during the week to tell me i was wrong and he was very forceful about it and he told me you know he wanted me to know that that mormonism was no different than any other christian denomination it was just you know they had their own little stuff differences but it was no major differences at all and i mean whatever i said it just it wasn't impacting this guy at all and as we talked it came out in our conversation that his

daughter had just recently married a practicing mormon and he desperately wanted to believe that his daughter had made a a good decision and so for the love of his daughter he decided that the cross of christ wasn't that big of a deal that's called compromise okay and i understand the reason behind it just like i understand what was going on in this letter you know at the very first church that i was on staff at back in the 80s one of our one of the pastors on staff was relating to me about a gal who

used to attend their fellowship years before and this lovely saint had prayed for her unbelieving husband for many many years prayed diligently that he would come to know christ as his savior and he finally passed away without ever confessing christ which is of course a terrible thing but the pastor shared with me how after the woman's husband passed she slowly began to change her position on who can be saved and she eventually adopted an idea that everyone is saved regardless of whether they accept jesus or not by the way that's called universalism and it's it's

it's a common common teaching i but this woman adopted it because of she just wasn't able to deal with the emotional fallout from understanding or knowing that her husband had not come to faith in jesus christ and so it goes compromise you know because you know as we've said the message of the cross is hard to hear because it's unrelenting it's uncompromising the message of the cross never compromises by the way the the message of the cross always wins the cross always wins it wins every argument because it is an instrument of death and instruments

of death are not particularly nice to talk about but they always win their arguments and the reason that the cross is so difficult and so unrelenting is because in it the message of the cross removes every possibility of of our being saved on the basis of my my my behavior my goodness in fact the cross tells me i have no goodness that's what the cross tells me jesus came right out and said no one's good but god there you go oh he's such a good person no actually he's not i mean i know what you're

saying you're saying compared to other people you know but fundamentally essentially we are not good and the cross reminds us of that that means there's nothing in you there's nothing in me that can possibly present itself to god in such a way that he's going to go huh all right you're in nothing the cross reminds me of that and it's who wants to be reminded of that message you're not good enough you're not good enough for heaven how you like that you know well thanks a bunch not a very nice thing to say that's what

the cross says it says that we're under a death sentence and you can't do anything about it it's a hard message to swallow listen to this word from john's gospel john chapter 3 verse 18. whoever believes in jesus is not condemned but whoever does not believe ah they're condemned already why because they've not believed in the name of the only son of god that's hard that's in your face hard this is what the cr this is the message of the cross the only way you're going to remove the condemnation that you were born under is

by embracing jesus christ and what he did on the cross that's it it's the only way you can try to be good all your life you'll never measure up that's what the cross says that's this world i don't believe it's very long now before this world will start to see the message of the cross as hate language hate speech i believe we're close i believe we're close here in the united states of america where the teaching of the bible is going to be considered hate speech maybe even closer than we think so i guess we

should probably think about that huh when that happens are you going to keep telling people what the bible really says what if it means loss of your job what if it means going to jail you still wanna you still gonna tell people what the bible says without compromise you see what these people were under these jewish christians you see what they were under they were under that and more loss of work oh yeah imprisoned sure loss of their lives very possibly you're still gonna you're still gonna preach the cross you're still gonna tell people there

is no other way for you to be saved than jesus christ you know the temptations can be overwhelming because you just want the bad stuff to go away stop hassling my children stop harassing my wife leave us alone and pretty soon you know it just comes to the point where we kind of snap and all right okay now it's the cross plus plus something plus something plus something and you know the seriousness of this is such that as we get into hebrews chapter 6 and some of you are very familiar with hebrews chapter 6 but

as we get into it next week lord willing we're going to read in that chapter in the first several verses what is arguably one of the strongest warnings given in the entirety of god's word it's it's a very debated warning there's a lot of different thoughts and opinions about what it means but pretty much everybody agrees on the fact that it's a strong warning and we're going to look at it and we're going to deal with it and i'm probably going to make some enemies next week but be that as it may we're going to

stick to the cross we're going to stick to the cross it's never ever going to be a popular message and jesus said to us if they hate you just remember they hated me first so but i think what we'll do is we'll end with an important statement in the new testament from romans chapter 1. paul wrote i'm not ashamed of the gospel the reason is is it's the power of god for salvation to everyone who believes to the jew first and also to the greek for in it the righteousness of god is revealed from faith

for faith and that's a that's a term that means from the beginning faith to the end faith from faith to faith as it is written the righteous shall live by faith and that's the message and that's the challenge that we have before us because we don't live in mayberry anymore you