God expects progression from believers, urging them to move beyond the foundational principles of Christianity toward spiritual maturity. The sermon highlights the writer's assessment of the readers as dull, forgetful, and stunted, needing to be retaught basic doctrines. It contrasts this with the call to 'go on' or 'press on,' emphasizing the importance of building upon the foundation rather than dwelling on it, and warns against apostasy, which is impossible to renew. The message concludes by encouraging believers, despite their immaturity, to show diligence, love, and hope, following the example of those who inherit God's promises through faith and patience.
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This morning we come to our fourth and last insertion. And we're going to read from chapter five to begin with. And you'll remember that we suggested, in connection with the first one, where we read letter C, that God expects our attention. And in the second where we read letter C, that God expects our devotion. And in the third one, where we read, let us labor, the God expects our occupation. And in this one, let us go on. God expects our progression. That's a good ending to this series of four, I think.
Let us go on. We'll read these few verses ahead of that verse, which opens number six chapter. Verse eleven. I'm reading in Hebrews chapter five. I just give you the chapter and I forget to mention the book. Hebrews chapter five and verse eleven. And by the way, if you would just compare verse ten where it says, Call to God, an high priest out of the order of Melchizedek, with verse thirteen of the next chapter, when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he swear by himself, you can see that that is the continuation.
He introduces Melchizedek and then introduces Abraham and Melchizedek and carries on into chapter seven. So once again, what is in between is an insertion. When the writer is constrained to bring some practical lesson or lessons to his reader or readers he says we have many things to say verse eleven and hard to be uttered 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 are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.
For every one that uses 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. Now, I don't think that would have put the reader into a very comfortable frame of mind. Do you? Verse one of chapter six says, Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection or maturity. not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms or washings, and of laying on of hands and of resurrection of the dead and of eternal judgment, and this we will do if God permit.
For it is impossible, for those who were once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers or participators of the Holy Ghost, and have pasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance, seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame. For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh up upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveeth blessing from God.
but that which beareth thorns and briars is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing, whose end is to be burned. But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you. Now, we won't read any more at this point. I hope we'll get the time to read the last verse or two. But once again, this word go on. Let us go on. That's the authorized version in James that we have in our hands. And I suppose when you think of keep on going on, you're thinking of not stopping. But the revised version says, let us press on.
Now that's a little different thought, and the thought there is that of no slowing. And I notice that Westcott, in his commentary, uses this expression, let us allow ourselves to be born on. And I think the thought may be there of no slipping, allowing ourselves to let God carry us on so that we constantly move successfully in the direction that He has in mind for us. Now I have again a little outline for you. I think it's good to have pegs on which to hang our thoughts.
At least it helps me I'm that kind of simple soul that if a preacher gives to me four headings, straight away I have pegs on which to hang the thoughts. So I want to talk briefly, I want to point out first of all a description in those verses at the end of chapter five. And then I want to point out a suggestion in the first three verses of chapter six. And then a denunciation. in the verses four through eight where we have that to some people very difficult very difficult portion it never creates a problem for me and then finally in the last three verses which we haven't yet read a calculation now the description is of the readers and it is not very complimentary he says of them in effect ye are dull And by the way, that word in the original language occurs again in the next chapter where we read, it's verse twelve, that ye be not slothful.
Now, that's the same word as this word, do. And it really means to be sluggish. To be sluggish. Ye are sluggish, he says, you do. Then he says, ye are forgetful. You need to be taught again. the things that you learned from the first. I have a marginal reading, I think, here, somewhere here. Perhaps it's not too important. But the thought is, what you were told when you were a very young Christian, you have to be taught these things again. You've got a very short spiritual memory. And he says, because of that, you have to be fed with milk.
When you ought to be being fed with meat. It's rather striking that the writer here says to them that you need milk and not meat, but he goes on to feed them meat. Of his doctrine, the doctrine he's to bring before them about the Melchizedek priesthood, he says, of whom, that is of Melchizedek, we have many things to say and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing. Then he goes on to say, you need to be retaught those early things because you have such a forgetful memory, if you can have a forgetful memory, and then he says, you're stunted.
You're still babes. But in spite of that, although he says, you need to be fed milk and not meat, and feeding you the doctrine about Melchizedek is meat, I'm going to feed it to you anyway, and that's what he does. as we saw last night and the night before. But there's one other thought he comes to before he ends this... I was going to say tirade. It's not a tirade. This sad assessment of their spiritual state. You're dull. You're forgetful. And you're stunted. He says you're accountable.
He ends up by saying... For the time he ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again the oracles of God. You ought to be teachers. You've been long enough Christians. You had the Word of God delivered to you for such a long time. You ought to be teachers, instead of which you're still students and still in kindergarten. But you're going to give an account to God for that. That's his description of the reading. Now, there's a lot more that could be said about that, as I'm sure you realize.
But when we come into the early part of chapter six, we have a suggestion. Here it is. I want to suggest to you, he says in effect, that we leave, that you leave the principles. Now, there's a marginal reading which says, the word of the beginning... and that you move forward. Let us go on unto maturity, not laying again the foundation. Now, he's speaking here, of course, about progression. Let us go on, not laying again the foundation, but moving ahead. If you go to visit Mr.
Gilbert, and you look in the underbrush, close to his house you'll find that somebody started to build a house and laid the foundation but they never did anything else it's all overgrown now with underbrush it's overgrown with underbrush well that's pretty apt and you can't even see it unless you look for it now this is what these believers have been allowing and More than that, they had been sort of relaying it. They were going over it and over it and over it again. Even, that's the thought in the Greek, the foundation of washings, of laying on of hands, of the resurrection and the judgment.
These were the things that they paid heed to instead of moving on into a greater spiritual maturity. their progression was not what the Apostle Paul wanted to see. He wanted them to go from the elementary to the mature. Having received the foundation and accepted the foundation, he wanted them to begin to go on with the process of building, not only progression, but construction. You've been paying too much attention to the foundation. You've been tidivating the foundation.
You've been sort of putting a fence around the foundation, and you've been occupying yourselves with divers washings. The word baptisms there, apparently, is not Christian baptism, as we know it, but ordinance and ritual washings. They've been sort of paying attention to, laying on of hands, giving it an all-too-great emphasis, and the only spiritual thoughts that really... brought any kind of response from them were the one about the resurrection and the one about judgment. Those they thought about, but never leaving the foundation and going on into the building.
I wonder how many of you here ever heard of Edinburgh? Oh, all the Scots and people, they've heard of Edinburgh. How many of you ever been to Edinburgh? All right. Do you remember that hill way in the distance? And on the top of it, there's a building with Roman columns very, very imposing. It got started, but what? They never finished it. Do you know what that's called? It's called Edinburgh's Folly. Because... The disgrace of Edinburgh. The disgrace of Edinburgh. That's right. They spent, they poured a lot of money into that, and then they realized that if they kept on doing that, they'd be bankrupt of the city, so they brought the work to a halt, and it stands there as an indictment of the city fathers.
Edinburgh's folly. Now, you know, these people hadn't even started to build. They were still at the foundation. Paul says, let's get busy, or I should say the writer to the Hebrew says, let's get busy and put up the building. And he says, let's do it with determination. Verse three, and this we will do. Now the time has come, he said, let's get busy, let's go on, let's press on, let's be born forward. But you notice what he adds. if God permit. It's all dependent upon the Lord.
Now he stirred them up with a description of them that wasn't very complimentary and a suggestion to them that it's the time to get moving and they should be progressing, they should be constructing, and they should be doing it with a brand new determination supplied by the Lord himself. And then we come to this portion. verses four through eight and this is a denunciation now people have difficulty with this when phrases like tasted of the heavenly gift and partakers of the holy ghost tasting the good word of god and the powers of the world to come they assume that such expressions necessarily mean that the person mentioned here is a Christian.
Now, if that is true, then there is a great problem, because it goes on to say, if they fall away, it's impossible for them to renew these things again. Now, we know, and we know it from our own experience, that we as Christians backslide. God is very gracious. The time comes when we are on our knees in tears. confessing our sin to God, and what does God do? He restores us. It evidently is not impossible for the believer who was backslidden to be renewed and restored. It's happening all the time. Then this means to say this cannot be a believer.
Now there's a word that we use quite often, and it's applicable here. I believe, of course, this was apostasy, and the man that is pictured here, an apostate. Now, that means one who has run with the Church of God and professed the things of God and then turned around, renounced them, and fought against them. Basically, that is what an apostate is. And that's the man that the writer is speaking of here. Now, let me again point out a few things to you. First of all, the people that are pictured here, they are spoken of as being enlightened.
Now we know that a man can be enlightened in the things of God. He can be brought up in a Christian home. He can have a Christian neighbor. He can go to a Christian church and still not be a Christian. So there's no problem there. They're enlightened. But then it says... tasted of the heavenly gift. Now, is there any problem there? I think that the unsaved man who has a godly wife is constantly tasting of the heavenly gift. Do you remember in First Corinthians it speaks about a Christian wife not leaving her non-Christian husband, but it says he's sanctified by the wife.
And if she stays, the children are holy. Otherwise, they'd be unclean. Now, do you understand that? That is not saying the fact that a Christian wife stays with her non-Christian husband, and so her children are automatically saved. It isn't saying that at all. It's talking about they're being singled out by her being there for the blessings of God upon their lives and their household. They are not only... tasters of the heavenly gift, but I believe they are participators in the work of the Holy Ghost. For every, every spiritual blessing that comes into that woman's life is automatically spread over her family, and every time the Spirit of God speaks to her, deals with her, uses her, they are the benefactors.
I don't think there's any problem here. The word is not possessor, it's partaker or participator. I think just as it's possible to be enlightened and not to be a Christian, it is possible to taste of the heavenly gift, and it's possible to participate in the ministry of the Holy Spirit through those who know the Lord Jesus and who possess the Holy Spirit. And to taste the good word of God, that creates no problem for me. because there are many unbelievers that can come to the Word of God in times of need and read it and be comforted by it.
There's a blessing in reading the Word of God, even though perhaps one is not saved. So I have no problem there and the powers of the world to come. And surely there's no problem there. If a man who's not saved has a wife who gets saved... and her life is changed, and she no longer is an alcoholic, and she looks after the children, his meal is always on the table now, when before she never fed him, what is happening there? He's tasting the powers of the world to come. For the thing that changed his wife was just that. The power of the world to come. So I have no difficulty in seeing the apostate here In fact, it was rather interesting to me where it says, if they shall fall away, I notice that strong in his concordance says, if they apostasize.
Very interesting. I believe it's an apostate that is here, so that it's not surprising that we read, it is impossible. If they shall fall away, they shall apostasize to renew them again. Now, what have they done? They've run with the Church of God. They've been covered by the umbrella of the Church of God. They've enjoyed something of the ministry of the Holy Spirit through others to them. They've tasted the powers of the world to come and the good of the Word of God as they ran with the people of God, even though they never got saved. But if they shall fall away, if they shall apostasize, having run with the Church, If suddenly they pull themselves up and turn around and renounce it all and become opposers of the church and of the things of God, then it says, it is impossible for them to renew them again unto repentance because this is what they do.
They crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame. Do you know what that means? It means that when they turn, they're back on these things for themselves, they're taking the Lord Jesus again, putting him on a cross and saying, What did that do? What did that accomplish? He's not the Messiah after all. And so they put him to an open shame because they go abroad and this is what they tell the people. They make his shame an open shame when basically there's no shame there at all.
He is what he said he was. He is what the church has preached him to be. But they are saying, I see him again, on the cross for myself. He's no different from others who've died that way. The countless hundreds who've died that way. And he tells the people, forget him. It's all a hoax. and they put him to an open shame. I don't wonder that God says it is impossible for them to renew them again. Now we know that with God nothing is impossible. But writing from his own standpoint and facing the dreadful truth of apostasy, in human fashion he's saying it can't be done.
He's burned his bridges behind him And that for him is the end. And, you know, the Word of God does say, My Spirit shall not always strive with man. And I'm quite sure there have been apostates in the past with whom the Spirit of God stopped striving. And for them, without the ministry of the Spirit of God, it was utterly and absolutely impossible that they could be restored to their... their position of appreciating these things and eventually to salvation. So we have the people pictured.
They are participators in and not possessors of these spiritual things. Their action is described as falling away. The condition that is created is one of making it impossible for them to renew again these things, because for themselves they crucify the Lord Jesus afresh, and then publishing these things abroad they put him to an open shame. But you know it ends with an illustration. There's an illustration provided here, and it ends with these words. Whose end is to...
be burned. Now, if I had any problem at all about whether the man spoken of here was a Christian or not, I would have no doubt after that. The illustration speaks about the earth drinking in the rain. Verse eight, verse seven, it also applies to verse eight. There's rain on both. There's a harvest from both. one brings forth herbs meat for them for whom it is dressed the other brings forth thorns and briars and is cursed whose end is to be burned there's a subsequent treatment for both for the scripture says the first receive a blessing from God and the second judgment it's burned so there's blessing and burning And the burning can never apply to the Christian, but certainly does to the apostate.
Now, I hope that that's how it satisfies me. I don't know whether it satisfies you, and I wouldn't want to be adamant and try to force a view upon you, but I have no problem with it. If you do, you'll have to keep on grappling with it, because I still have to believe with all my heart that it can never be said of the backslider, it's impossible for him to be restored. It can only be said of the apostate. So, if you're trying to read a Christian into these things, you've got a problem, and I don't think you're going to solve it.
Now the verses we didn't read as we close that I called a calculation. Beloved, we are persuaded better things of you and the things that accompany salvation. Now, doesn't that underscore what I've just said? Here's the man that's put Christ to an open shame, but I'm persuaded better things of you, the things that accompany salvation. He doesn't have salvation, therefore he doesn't have these things. But you have salvation, and I'm persuaded better things of you. The things that accompany salvation. salvation. Contrast the word those with the word you.
And the difference is, obviously, salvation. And then he says, verse nine, the things that accompany salvation, in spite of them immaturity, and the fact that he can say you're dull and you're slow and you're stunted and so on, in spite of that, they're saved. They have salvation. Verse ten says, and this is another glimpse of the readers. God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love which you've showed toward his name.
Even in your immaturity, when you didn't grow as you should, when you didn't build as you ought to have been building, though you stayed students when you should have been teachers, nevertheless, you showed a care and a love toward his name in ministering to the saints. Obviously these believers, although they were immature, they put their hands into their pockets, and for the Lord's sake they minister to the needy around them. And Paul, who has sort of rocked them back onto their heels in the latter part of chapter five says, and I'll read it again.
for God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love, which ye have showed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister. In view of their kindness, they were marked, and it was God who marked them. God is not unrighteous to forget. I don't know how many times In the course of my fifty years in the ministry, I've used that text, used the reference or used the text, to countless numbers of believers who down through the years, sometimes when they didn't even know the need and met it to the penny, ministered in the Lord's name to myself and to my family.
God is not unrighteous. And there's not a thing we do for the Lord's sake for anybody else that is not noted, marked by God. And more, it'll get its reward. Because he, the Lord Jesus, said, even a cup of cold water given in my name, shall in no wise lose its reward. So in spite of their immaturity, says the Epistle, they were saved. And in view of their kindness, They were marked. God noted them. And in hope of their progress, that they'll get out of the mud, they are exhorted.
Look at verse eleven. And we desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end. The same diligence? Yes, you've been so generous. In the Lord's name you've ministered so open-handedly. Now he says, We desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end that ye be no longer dull, slowful, sluggish, but followers of them who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises. So he starts by making reference to their dullness, and he ends by making reference to their dullness.
He says, this is where you are. This is how you look. This is your state of life. When he gets to the end, he says, don't you let it stay that way. And he's underscoring at the end what he said at the beginning, let us go on. Let us press on. Let us be born forward. And to me, and something like this is always very special, I notice that in verse ten, Love is mentioned. And in verse eleven, hope is mentioned. Now what do you expect to find in verse twelve? Faith, you're not disappointed. There it is.
In verse twelve, those who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises. Now I feel that we've skimmed over these things, these four mornings, but I hope that we've left a little of something with you that will be exor... exortatory. Oh, that's a word for a Friday morning. Exortatory. That you will take it to your own hearts wherever it applies and realize how much God wants to see you. And your age is of no consequence still moving forward. How many of you ever rode a bicycle?
How many of you ever rode a bicycle? Very good, okay. How many of you managed to stay on it with your feet on the pedals after you stopped? You have to have a real sense of balance, because the fact is with a bicycle, if you don't keep going, you fall off. Let's pray, shall we? Our Father, we realize that these words about heating... and fearing, and endeavoring, and going on are words that are meant by the Holy Spirit to stimulate our hearts.
We thank you for any measure that we can look back upon the years that we've known thee and see real progress in the things of God. We thank you for any measure in which our lives are so changed by the things that we have heard and the Savior that we've come to know. But we pray, Lord, that the change might continue, that we might keep on, keeping on, still growing. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.