Disclaimer: This transcription is provided for informational purposes, reference, and convenience. Please note that it may contain errors, omissions, or spelling mistakes due to the nature of live audio transcriptions. While we strive for accuracy, this document should not be considered a fully authoritative record of the sermon. For clarification, we recommend referring to the original source. Thank you for your understanding and patience. 

It is, once again, a great privilege that we have to immerse ourselves in the Word of God, and I would like to do that by taking you to Hebrews chapter five as we continue to make our way through this amazing epistle. And this morning, we will be looking at verses 11 through 14. This will be the first of a three-part series on the idea of "Discerning True Believers from False." And this is actually a very serious problem in the church today; the writer to the Hebrews continues to deal with this. It was a problem then, as it is today. In fact, they had what you might call borderline unbelievers, or you could say borderline believers, maybe that would be more accurate. And they had what I would call "Christian" unbelievers, Christian in quotes, both of whom had attached themselves to the church in some superficial way.

The borderline believers were the Jewish people that were right on the edge of placing their faith in Christ, but they had not wholeheartedly committed themselves to him and made a clean break with Judaism. And they also had what I call Christian unbelievers. They were Christian in name only, those who had made some shallow profession of faith, perhaps even enthusiastically. They had dabbled in some of the truths of the gospel, believing various aspects of it, but likewise, they had not fully committed themselves to Christ as Savior and Lord, and in both cases, they were unreconciled to God. They were unregenerate, unsaved, guilty and condemned before a holy God. In both cases, they were self-deceived, and they had deceived, no doubt, many in relationship with them. And I'm sure when this letter was read to them, they were very uncomfortable, especially in chapters five and six that speaks to this issue.

And in the text this morning, we discover that the writer makes a third warning to these kinds of people, and in so doing, he gives us better insight and discerning between true and false believers. Remember that there was the first warning that was made in chapter two, verses one through four, where he warned them that you're not paying close attention to what you're being taught concerning the gospel. So he said that you're drifting away from what you have heard. You're neglecting so great a salvation. And then again, in chapter three, beginning in verse seven through verse 19, he warns them that you're like your ancestors were in the wilderness that hardened their hearts against the truth. They were guilty of that deadly sin of unbelief. They had never come to a place - these people in this first century - they had never come to a place of genuine brokenness over their sin. And so because of this, their heart had become increasingly hardened to the things of God, and they were tempted to fall away from the truth; fall back into Judaism. And now the author addresses these unbelieving Jews once again in a third warning.

Let me pick it up, beginning in verse nine, and here he continues his argument to try to persuade them to understand the superiority of Christ. He says,

"And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation,

"being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

"Concerning him 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 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.

"For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.

"But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice, have their senses trained to discern good and evil."

Now, many will argue that this is being addressed to true believers, but I do not find that argument compelling, given the theme of Hebrews and the context in which this passage is written. Remember the recurring theme in Hebrews is the deity, the superiority of Christ, and therefore, the superiority of the New Covenant over the Old Covenant, the supremacy of Christianity over Judaism. This epistle is not a contrast between immature and mature believers, that is not the focus. It's a contrast between unbelieving Jews and believing Christians, between Judaism and Christianity. And without an understanding of this distinction, the epistle cannot be properly interpreted, and you'll run into all kinds of problems, especially trying to explain chapter six, verses one through eight, where many people go to, to tell us that believers can lose their salvation, when in fact, that section is not talking about believers at all.

It's for this reason that I intend to exposit verse 11 here in chapter five through verse 12 of chapter six in three parts, each of which speaks to the issue of of the process of spiritual maturation. And this is going to provide us, again, great insight into the matter of discerning between genuine believers and imitation believers. Part one that we'll look at today in chapter five, verses 11 through 14, is going to speak of unbelievers who become dull of hearing. And then part two, that we'll look at the next time we're together, we'll look at verses one through eight of chapter six, where, again, it speaks of unbelievers who will fall away from the truth. And then part three of chapter six, verses nine through 12, we'll look at believers who, by contrast, love and imitate Christ.

Now the combined warnings that the author gives us in this epistle, provide us with a composite picture of the character and the conduct of an unbeliever. Again, as you look at all of them, an unbeliever just simply refuses to pay close attention to what they're taught concerning the gospel, so they gradually drift away from it; they neglect the salvation available to them, and then, because of the deceitfulness of their sin that has convinced them that they are right with God, when the very opposite is true, their heart becomes increasingly hardened to the truths of the gospel that presents their true condition. And so what happens next? Well, they become dull of hearing. That's what we'll look at today. And in this passage, we see at least three characteristics of what this actually looks like, in the borderline believer and the Christian unbeliever, if you will. They are spiritually and doctrinally three things: one, apathetic; secondly, they're ignorant; and third, they are undiscerning, so they eventually fall back into Judaism.

Before we look at this, may I say that we see this pattern all the time, and even in evangelical circles today, especially among our young adults. Here's how it works, they get real excited, they hear the Gospel, and they make some profession of faith, but it's phony. It's not real, and the deceitfulness of sin convinces them that they're right with God, but they're not. And so their heart becomes increasingly hardened to the truth of the gospel that would really present to them the reality of their lost condition. So eventually they become dull of hearing, they become apathetic, they grow willfully ignorant and undiscerning. And what do they do? They fall back into whatever ungodly belief system that is appealing to their flesh. Maybe it's agnosticism, atheism. Maybe they fall into the pluralism cult, so to speak, or some cult. Or perhaps worst of all, they fall into cultural Christianity, which is equally damning.

Now, please understand even those of us who know and love Christ, even true believers, can experience seasons in our life where these things are characteristics of us, where our sin causes us to be apathetic and willfully ignorant and undiscerning; that can infect the soul and bring about all manner of misery, from the grievous sins of King David to Peter's denial of Christ. You have examples of this all through Scripture. But dear friends, these things will not be the life dominating pattern of the life of a believer. They may have seasons of this, but it will not be the life dominating pattern of their life. No true believer will be able to stand very long out of fellowship with the lover of their soul. The guilt is too great, the misery is too painful, and the Father's discipline is too motivating. Haven't we all been there? Like David, eventually they will confess, like he did in Psalm 32, eventually we all say as David did,

"When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long,

"For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer.

"I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I did not hide; I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the LORD'; and You forgave the guilt of my sin."

And he goes on to talk about how that the Lord restored to him the joy of his salvation. But dear friends, when a person's life is characterized by apathy towards the relationship with the living God, when it's characterized by kind of a willful ignorance of God's Word and his will, and it's characterized by just a lack of discernment - they just simply can't see right and wrong, error and truth - then that person has no basis to make the claim that they have been made a new creature in Christ and they're walking in newness of life. And sadly, these characteristics describe, I fear, the vast majority of evangelicalism today. Folks who claim they love Christ, but they live as if he doesn't even exist; people who live a Christless Christianity, a cultural Christianity; one that is bereft, really, of spiritual life, of spiritual power. They have no passion, no discernment, no joy, no burden for the lost, no hungering and thirsting for righteousness, no longing to see the Lord. They just float along in their life. Now, for the most part, it's easy for us to discern unbelievers. I mean, some of them make it very clear with their life and their language that they want nothing to do with Christ, with Christianity, the church, the Bible, all of those types of things. For example, you show me a man who wants nothing to do with a solid church, and I'll show you a man who wants nothing to do with Christ. But when people claim to be Christians, and they attach themselves to a church, yet demonstrate by their life and their language that they're apathetic, they're willfully ignorant, they're undiscerning. We would really be foolish not to question the genuineness of their faith. So this passage really serves as a warning to those Jews who fell into those categories.

And by the way, it also served as a rich encouragement to those people to whom it did not apply. And we need to remember that it should be a warning to those of you who might see yourself being described here. But if you see that your life, in your heart, that these things are not true of you, that the opposite is true, then you should be greatly encouraged.

So let's examine the text more closely. Notice verse 11. He says, "Concerning him we have much to say..." The "him" refers back to Melchizedek, "...and it is hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing." You will recall that as we discussed a little bit last week in Genesis 14, verse 18, Melchizedek, whose name means righteous king, was the king of Salem, ancient Jerusalem. He was a priest. The text says of God Most High. He was a type of Christ; his priesthood and his kingship prefigured the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the superior anti type, the perfect priest, the eternal King. You will recall there in verse 10, Jesus was "designated by God," it says, "as a high priest, according to the order of Melchizedek." So the point here is the priesthood of Christ was far superior to the priesthood of Aaron that that the Jews revered, and he's going to speak much more in depth on this in chapter seven. And here's what's happening, the implications of this are absolutely astounding to the believer, because when you understand what is being said here, you understand more clearly who Christ is. This has to do with the eternal destiny of men's souls.

So he says, "Concerning him we have much to say, and it is hard to explain." Well, why is that? Well, it's because your ears have become "dull of hearing." You see, for the borderline Christian who had an intellectual understanding of the gospel but refused to go all the way, and wholeheartedly commit themselves to the New Covenant, and for the Christian unbeliever who had merely made some superficial, perhaps emotional profession of faith, but we're no different than their borderline counterparts, all of this stuff is boring, irrelevant, unimportant, dull of hearing. I can hear them now. "What's all this ancient Melchizedek stuff? I mean, after all, who cares about any of that? I've got more important things to do in my life than than understand some of these obscure doctrines out of the Old Testament." "Yeah," someone else would respond. "I'm not sure about all this New Covenant stuff, and I'm already experiencing a lot of criticism and even hostility among some of my family member and friends." Another one says, "Yeah, I mean, they're asking us to choose between our earthly priests and this new high priest, Jesus Christ, who they say is the head of the church. Not sure if I can go all the way with all of that." In fact, another person says, "Yeah, you know, I'm afraid I'm going to be put out of the synagogue. Can you imagine if that happens to us? Then what are we going to do? You know, I think the cost of following Jesus may be just too high." That's the type of thing that's going on in their minds. And folks, this is what happens when Satan brings the full force of his worldly system against the fickle flesh of men, because we are prone, apart from Christ to preferred darkness rather than light, because our deeds are evil, we want things our way where we are comfortable. And frankly, Satan's lies appeal to our flesh like heroin appeals to a junkie. And in order to support our habit, we have to become dull of hearing. Don't want to hear that stuff. We only hear what we want to hear and have no concern whatsoever for anything else.

The term "dull" in the original language is a compound term that uses two words that we would translate "no" n-o, "push." Literally, "no push." It's hard to move. It's a mind that is hard to move; a mentally lazy mind, slow to understand, indifferent. And it's interesting because it's in the perfect tense. The implication here is that they were once eager to hear but now they have fallen back into an apathetic condition; and he's going to go on to describe them in chapter six and verse four, when he when he says that they had once been enlightened and tasted the heavenly gift. In other words, they were once interested, they were once open in the gospel, but now they have retrogressed, that's the idea. They've moved backwards into an even worse state than they were before, and they're no longer open to instruction.

So number one, we see the result of this, they become apathetic. Notice again, verse 11, "Concerning him..." if I can paraphrase something, "Concerning him," meaning concerning the glorious truths of the regal office and priesthood of Melchizedek, and how all of that pictured and is now perfectly fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ, "Concerning him we have much to say, and it's hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing." These truths are going in one ear and out the other like an arrogant, unteachable teenager. Your attitude is "whatever." Have you heard that before parents? Whatever. The high priesthood of Jesus Christ - too heavy, too advanced, too difficult to understand; not interested, boring. F.F Bruce describes the situation perfectly. He said this, "Their sluggishness showed itself in a disposition to settle down at the point which they had reached, since to go farther would have meant to complete a severing of old ties. To such people, the exposition of the high priestly service of Christ with the corollary that the old order of priesthood and sacrifice had been abolished once for all, might well have been unacceptable." Then he says this, "The intellect is not over ready to entertain an idea that the heart finds unpalatable."

My friends, this is the mark of the unregenerate. And think how this plays out in the church today. I see it all the time. Let me give you some examples. Most people find the doctrines of grace and salvation and God's sovereignty to be unpalatable. They don't want to hear it so they become dull of hearing. Try preaching on the doctrines of man's depravity and his total inability to contribute to his salvation unpalatable. How about preaching on Christian purity and church discipline? "Unkind, Jesus is love." How about preaching a literal Genesis and a six-day creation? "Unscientific. Don't want to hear that." How about marriage is only between a man and a woman? "Homophobic, can't handle that." Well, how about preach what Jesus said, that he is the only way to salvation. All other religions are false. "That's bigotry. How unloving to other people." See? That's how it works. "I just don't want to hear it. It's too controversial. It's just unkind." In fact, it is to a point today in evangelicalism that most pulpits avoid anything that is difficult, anything that is difficult to understand, or controversial or offensive to the stubbornly apathetic people whose minds have become prejudiced to the truth. So much for preaching the whole council of God; and as a result, dear friends, what we have, in many cases, pusillanimous pastors that are sowing so many tares amongst the wheat that true believers are being choked out of their own churches today. Paul admonished frightened young Timothy in Second Timothy four, he told him, "Timothy, preach the Word even when it's not popular. Preach it." And he goes on to say, "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires. And will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths." The Greek is so fascinating here. The first phrase, "turn away their ears from the truth" is in the active voice. It means that they will deliberately hear the truth and say, "I don't like that. I want to go in a different direction." Consciously, they will reject it. The second phrase is in the passive voice. It says, "and they will turn aside to myths." What that means is: the myths will do the action. It will take you over. You won't even know it's happening. When you reject the truth, consciously, you will get sucked into myths and won't even realize it. This is what was happening with some of those first century Hebrews, they became dull of hearing.

Dear friends, please understand this, this is a mark of an unbeliever. When they when they hear the Gospel, an unbeliever is either going to reject it outright, or they are going to embrace it superficially and then gradually tweak it and kind of reinvent it so that it accommodates their fleshly desires. But then there is a progression that begins to happen. They will become dull of hearing because of the hardness of their heart. They will get to a point where they can't comprehend truth. You try to give them deeper truths, and they don't get it. And then when you try to build an edifice of Christian maturity upon a foundation that doesn't exist, then everything collapses in a heap of ruin. And how many times have you seen that in people's lives? You tell an unbeliever that God teaches this, and he commands this and that, what do they say, in essence? "Whatever"; Too deep, too controversial, offensive, not interested. "Tell me what I want to hear. Give me a God that I can understand; a God that I can support, a God that I can appease, a God that I can manipulate." "Give me a smiley face Jesus that will wink at sin." "Give me a God that accommodates the changing morality of our culture. Give me a gospel that is fun and inclusive and a kingdom that's easy to enter into, none of this striving to enter through a narrow door. None of this deny yourself and take up your cross daily to follow Christ; and by all means, give me a man centered church that makes me feel good." "I want a church that is all about me and my needs, not God and his glory. I want a country club religion."

So the point is, we see the same kind of pattern today in our culture. First, they were apathetic, they became dull of hearing. Secondly, they were ignorant. Notice verse 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." The "principles" here refers to the elementary principles; it’s a Greek term that means "that which comes first." In other words, the most rudimentary elements of a particular subject. We might call it the ABCs. And the ABCs, here in the analogy, are the oracles of God, which refers to the Old Testament. The oracles of God, the Old Testament, where God revealed his character through the Law, through the ceremonies, the sacrifices, the Holy Days, the rituals, the cleansings, the ordinances, even the furnishings, even the structure of the tabernacle and later on, the temple. So the Jews understood this very well, and this included all that foreshadowed and pictured God's plan of redemption and the coming Messiah. So what you have is the Old Testament and the Old Covenant, which included the concepts of the priesthood of Melchizedek. All of that was a, you might say, the ABCs of God's revelation to prepare them for Christ.

You recall what Paul said in Galatians three, verse 23 and following, he says,

"But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed.

"Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.

"But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor."

You see a tutor referred to, as you can imagine, someone who trained children, someone who taught their kids. The Old Testament was like a child's tutor to the Jews, or like a picture book that we would give our children. You know, those picture books, both pages are pictures, and maybe five words on one page and six on the other. And that, that's the extent of it.

So the Old Testament was what God used to begin to prepare the Jews. It was a picture to prepare their hearts for the Messiah, for the blessings of the New Covenant that was about to come. Now, the first century Hebrew unbelievers in these churches had heard the clear and compelling teachings concerning Christ in the New Covenant; they had heard it to the point that, by now, they ought to be teachers. But we know, as Paul says in First Corinthians 2:14, "a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God."  In other words, an unsaved man; "for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually appraised." The term "appraised" carries the idea, in the original language, that they have no capacity to discern truth from error. They just can't see it, even when it's presented to them. So they heard all of the basics, but they never unreservedly embraced Christ in repentant brokenness and genuine faith. They never experienced, if you will, the miracle of the new birth, of regeneration. So the Spirit of God did not dwell within them. And therefore, all of this doctrine that was coming there, they don't want that, they don't understand it, they don't want to hear it. They became dull of hearing. Stubbornly apathetic, willfully ignorant. They were so ignorant that they needed, he says, someone to teach them, once again, "the elementary principles of the oracles of God." He says, "and you have come to need milk and not solid food." In other words, you have come to need, you have regressed back to the point where you need the very beginning level of gospel instruction, not advanced instruction.

By the way, it's interesting here, if you look at this and you think about it, an infant never comes to need milk. Does he? No. An infant craves milk from birth. You never have to try to get that infant, you know, to attach himself to Mommy's breast. It just happens automatically. The only person who comes to need basic instruction is one who has regressed; gone back into a state of spiritual infancy. It's fascinating. Peter describes the natural insatiable appetite of a person who has truly been born again in First Peter two, verse two, he says, they are like newborn babes. They, "long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation." And of course - mommy's milk, to a newborn baby; I've seen this with ours, you've seen it with yours - it's a matter of life and death. They've got to have it. Likewise, the new Christian, or any Christian, will crave the Word. They will devour the Word. They will grow into spiritual maturity because of the nourishment of the Word. The Word will become the priority of their life. But the unregenerate who merely tastes the truth a little bit, dabbles in it, but never ingests it fully, they will never grow. They will never develop spiritually to a place where they want the solid food of more in-depth instruction. And I see this from time to time, those kinds of people crawl around the church like underdeveloped, retarded, whiny, demanding little babies, and they will need someone to teach them, once again, "the elementary principles of the oracles of God." Because they have come to need milk and not solid food. Solid food like, if I can put it this way, the filet mignon of the Melchizedekian priesthood that has such amazing implications in our life that pictures for us the universal, royal, righteous, peaceful, eternal priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior and King. Unbelievers aren't concerned about that kind of stuff.

Verse 13, "For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness." Word of righteousness, a reference to New Covenant truths of the gospel and all that's implied with that. Why? "For he is an infant." So think of it this way, borderline unbelievers and Christian believers who only possess an academic kind of intellectual understanding of Christ, but they don't possess Christ Himself, who just partake only of milk, they're not accustomed to, they are inexperienced, if you will, when it comes to the word of righteousness. They're like an infant when it comes to all of that. Now, these people can gain some basic understanding by looking at the picture book of the Old Testament. They can see that, but unless they come to Christ in genuine saving faith, unless they're truly born again, they can no more digest, as we see here, the word of righteousness than a toothless little infant can chew up and digest a steak. It's not going to happen. And by the way, because of this, we all need to say amen and celebrate the fact that we would be right there were it not for God's grace. I personally know men, I went to school with men, who were brilliant Bible scholars, who knew the Scriptures so well academically, but they did not know Christ. They would choke on the gospel. They just couldn't digest it. Therefore, their entire theological system was errant and powerless to save and to sanctify. They needed someone to teach them, again, the elementary principles of the oracles of God. They had come to need milk, not solid food, like the solid food of proper doctrine that adorns the gospel of God.

Verse 14, "But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil." Here we come to the third point. They were not only apathetic and ignorant, they were undiscerning. It's interesting, the author continues, here, to extend the metaphor of an immature infant to help them see their true state. And we've all watched little babies. We've got our little two-year-old granddaughter living with us now, a lot, we take care of her during the day. I love it. We have a ball. But it's obvious that little children are ruled solely by their emotions, by their lust, by their pleasures, their senses. According to this text, are not trained to discern good and evil, right? We can all see that they have zero discernment. They see nothing wrong with eating out of the dog bowl, right? I mean, they actually prefer the dog bowl over the pretty little Mickey Mouse bowl with all of the colors that you spent $8 for at Walmart, the toilet bowl is as much fun as the bathtub, right? They have no discernment. They see no danger. They have no ability to restrain the demands of their flesh and their emotions. And we see how that works. They have no discernment for good and evil, for right or wrong. The rule is, what's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine. That's how it works. If I want it, I get it. If you want it, I get it. If you have it I want it. That's how it works. And share means I get whatever you have that I want. I mean, that's how they think, right? Now, the good news is, physically children begin to grow up. They naturally begin to develop discernment. And of course, physical pain is one of the things that God used to help them understand things like, it is not wise to touch the hot wood burning stove. It is not wise to grab the wasp. It is not wise to stand up on the bar of your bicycle and try to do this going down the road. They begin to learn that those things are not good. But folks, here's the point, an unbeliever who is spiritually dead in his sin, who is separated from the life of God, never grows up spiritually. They never develop any discernment, ever. That person will drink out of a religious toilet bowl and tell you how wonderful it is. That kind of person will devour the dog food of false doctrine and will brag about how nourishing it is and how good it tastes. That person will make life decisions that will destroy their health, destroy their marriage, destroy their family, their career; but only a true believer craves the life giving solid food of the Word of God, and will, therefore, according to verse 14, "practice," which, by the way, means diligently apply, make it a habit, they will practice to train their senses to discern good and evil.

And by the way, this is the great work of the Spirit of God in our life. This is the process of sanctification, right? When we walk by the Spirit, we don't carry out the desires of the flesh. We learn how that works, because the Spirit of God works with us. We discipline ourselves for the sake of godliness and so forth. So the author is telling these unbelieving Jews -some, by the way, of course, who are also believing Christians - is telling them this. If I can summarize it this way, look, some of you folks, have heard the truths of the gospel of God, the unsearchable riches of Christ. You've heard it over and over, but you refuse to pay close attention to it, so you're drifting away from it. You're neglecting so great a salvation, and because of the deceitfulness of your sin, you are convicted that somehow you are right with God, when in fact you are not. And as a result, your heart is becoming increasingly hardened to the truth of the gospel that exposes your hypocrisy and your desperate need for repentance and saving grace, you have become dull of hearing. You have regressed to a state of apathy. You're indifferent about the saving, transforming truths that God offers you in the New Covenant. You have heard it so much that by this time you ought to be able to teach it, but instead, you need someone to come again to you and teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God. Yes, you possess an academic intellectual understanding of Christ, but you don't possess Christ. You're so ignorant that you need someone to teach you the ABCs of the Old Covenant once again, so you can grasp the infinite superiority of the New Covenant to which it pointed. You're like a baby that needs milk because you can't handle solid food, and because of your profound spiritual immaturity, you have no discernment. You're unable to see the superiority of the New Covenant over the Old. You're unable to see who Christ really is. So in your infancy, you keep hanging on to Judaism, rather than growing up into full maturity by giving yourself completely to the New Covenant, to your Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now for a few minutes in closing, I want to make some very practical applications that I hope you will find helpful. These characteristics paint such a clear picture of an unbeliever, maybe it's you or someone you know. And some will ask, well, can't we see similar characteristics in believers, like Paul addressed in First Corinthians three? Well, answer is, of course you can for a season, but there is a big difference between first Corinthians three and what we have here. Remember, in First Corinthians three, Paul is dealing with believers, clearly believers, who enjoyed the milk and wanted the meat, but he says they weren't able to receive it. In other words, literally, the idea is they couldn't understand it to the point of application. They couldn't receive it. Why? Because of their immaturity, their fleshiness, their worldliness. Here in Hebrews five, you have unbelievers who don't even want the milk, much less the meat. They're drifting away. They're neglecting so great a salvation. Their hearts are becoming increasingly hard. They're becoming dull of hearing. They're falling away from the truth - as we're going to see more in chapter six - falling back into Judaism. They were once eager to hear the gospel, but they had fallen back into an apathetic condition. And this is not at all the case with immature believers in First Corinthians three.

Let me read that passage to you First Corinthians three, beginning in verse one, "And I, brethren could not speak to you as to spiritual men." So he's speaking to the brethren here, fellow believers. "I couldn't speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ." "Men of flesh" means men that are controlled by the flesh more than the Spirit. In a word, they were worldly. They were carnal. He says,

"I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now, you're not able,

"for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men?"

In other words, you're still acting like brand new little baby Christians. You tend to pursue your own self-interest, you're self-absorbed, self-centered. You want to be self-sufficient. You want to be independent of God. That's how babies think and act. So Paul couldn't give them the solid food, not because they were just kind of young in their faith, which they were, but primarily because they were still men of flesh, they were still worldly.

By the way, practically speaking, don't waste your time trying to teach deeper doctrines to a Christian whose character and conduct cannot be distinguished from the world. You're really wasting your time, even though they may want you to. Until you see the characteristics of a true believer, as Jesus would describe in Matthew five, one that knows what it is to mourn over their sin;    when you see a person who has developed a gentle a humble heart, who is filled with mercy and committed to purity; a person that is hungering and thirsting for righteousness - until you see that,  they don't need to start grappling with some of the deeper doctrines of the Word of God. But of course, those things are altogether different than the character of the unbeliever that's described here in Hebrews.

Now my challenge to you this morning, to whatever degree this applies to you, please deal with it. Please examine your heart. Be brutally honest. Don't allow your heart to deceive you. Come fully to Christ in humble, repentant faith. Now, some of you are married to people that I've described, borderline believers or perhaps a Christian unbeliever. Maybe you have children that are like this. You’ve got friends, I've got friends; I've got family who are this way. I want to speak to you very directly. The temptation for most of us is to kind of look the other way. Let's not rock the boat so we rationalize and we justify, we make excuses for them, rather than to prayerfully and humbly and forthrightly tell them exactly what you see. I can't tell you how many times I have been to funerals where the deceased clearly had nothing in their life to validate their claim of genuine saving faith, and some of them didn't even claim that. I knew the people and there was nothing about their life that demonstrated any love for Christ. They had no appetite for the Word, no burden for the lost, no separation from the world, no love for other believers. They had no desire to worship and live for his glory. They were absolutely, as I've described here, apathetic towards spiritual things. They lived only for themselves. They were willfully ignorant of the great truths of the Word of God and his will. They had zero discernment in their life. And yet everybody says, "Yeah, but he's in a better place now." No, he's not. He is in the solitary confinement of an eternal hell. And you didn't say anything to him? You'll remember in Matthew seven, Jesus made it clear that self-deception among the ranks of Christianity would be the rule, not the exception. He warned that many will enter through the broad gate of shallow profession without wholehearted commitment and that would lead to destruction (Matthew 7:13), in contrast to the few that would enter through the narrow gate of genuine repentance and wholehearted commitment that leads to life, verse 14. And he warned that many will stand guilty in the Day of Judgment, pleading their innocence based upon their own personal merit, based upon some phony profession of faith that sounded good and kind of looked good at the time, but it wasn't real, pleading their own religious works, rather than the righteousness of Christ. And at that time, the Lord will say, "'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.'"

Well, I know a lot of this is heavy because it's a burden for my heart for some of you, but I want to close on a very encouraging note here, okay? You know what the really good news is? Jesus saves sinners like me and like you. And if you're still breathing today, it's not too late for you. You know, even when we're truly born again, we're a mess, aren't we? I mean, we look at our lives at times we think, Oh, my goodness, I'm just glad it's not, you know, a permanent thing that we love, if so, that we need to question if we truly know Christ. But so often I can, I can read Romans seven and see my name next to it where Paul said, Oh, the things I don't want to do, I do the things I do want to do, I don't. Wretched man that I am who will free me from the body of this death, all of this sin? All this I hate it. I don't want to be that way. And then what does he say? He says, "Thanks be to God through Christ Jesus, our Lord. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death." Praise God for his saving and sanctifying grace. Because folks, without it, we would have no hope, and we would have no help.

So, dear friend, wherever you are on this continuum of spiritual maturity, maybe you've not yet been born again, maybe you have but you're still just kind of a spiritual infant, maybe a toddler, maybe a teen, maybe you're even mature. I don't care where you are, we all have room to grow, don't we? We all have room to grow. So let's examine our hearts, be brutally honest, and get serious about who we are and who God is and go before the throne of grace and find that great help in our time of need. And then just watch what God will do, okay? Watch what he will do. We serve a glorious God, don't we? Amen. Let's pray.

Father, thank you for these eternal truths. May they bear much fruit in our heart and in our lives, that we might enjoy the fullness of your grace, of what it means to be in fellowship with you. And Lord, for those that don't know you, Lord, make it clear to them and cause them to not just under understand the gospel to but to embrace it with all of their heart. Lord only you can ultimately make that happen. And I cry out to you to that end. We give you praise. We give you thanks in Jesus' name, amen.