Time To Grow Up, Part 2 (Hebrews 5:11-12)

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The Twin Pillars of a Godly Marriage - “The Role of a Wife” (Part 3) | Adult Sunday School

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Well, I'm gonna start again with a baby analogy I did this last week and that might not have been the best thing to do because I don't know if you noticed it but few people mentioned that the infants in the congregation were far more restless than normal and Dave rich suggested that might be because they were trying to get back at me for Calling them freakishly out of proportion and making fun of their heads and all that stuff

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But I'm gonna I'm gonna use a baby analogy now to start off and this one will be more Complimentary so as not to insult any of the infants and I promise from this point forward not to say anything bad about infants or Make fun of them.

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I Don't actually but I'm today I won't so there is a there is this parallel with spirit with babies and infants to certain realities that are true in our own spiritual lives and One of the parallels we talked about last week

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That is that when somebody you expect somebody to be mature after the passing of time You expect that they will pick up and and mature in certain ways and acquire certain capabilities

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There's another sort of parallel between infants physically and infant spiritually and that is that in the just as in the physical realm we know or we know what to expect in terms of someone's a child's ability to grow and grasp certain things

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Over the course of time. We don't expect children to have fine motor skills and all of that but we do expect them to be able to acquire those things over the course of time and we know what

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What normal and natural development in those ways looks like and what it means in fact, we can we can chart it

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We have some expectation of how old a baby will be when they start to roll over by themselves or when they start to crawl we know approximately how old they are when they start to walk and approximately how old they are when they start to to run and run well and and Eat solid food and when they can be potty trained and when they can be weaned and and though it's not the same with every

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Child that's born not even all the same with every child that's born into one home We do have some ability here.

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We have a I didn't say anything insulting toward infants this morning at all And I'm not even done with my analogy

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So we do have some way of tracking what we expect to be a normal progress of growth and though It's not the same for every infant

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There is sort of a natural expectation a natural rate at which we expect infants to grow up and to acquire certain abilities and These are in ranges and every kid is going to be different But the fact that we have some way of tracking that also allows us to understand when we see something that is outside Of the norm something that is extra normal or extraordinary on one side of that spectrum or the other

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So for instance this this last year my kids play with Kootenai Thunder They play basketball in this last year on one of the junior varsity teams there was a kid who

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I inquired about this because He was in eighth grade, but he was a well -developed

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Eighth grader he was what he was a well -developed young man He was probably six feet three six feet four something like that He had a well -developed beard for an eighth grader.

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He had a well -developed beard for a 20 year old young man and Just as seeing him out on the court practicing and warming up.

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I thought to myself either this kid is from Clark Ford or And and he's probably on his third attempt at eighth grade and and probably taken more than one shot at multiple other grades as well

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Either that is the case or he is far ahead of the curve Far more developed than normal people are and you could just see him out amongst all of the other kids

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I would call them he looked I thought he was the coach at first turns out No, he was an eighth grader

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So he's the he's the anomaly but was since we know what a normal eighth grader looks like within a certain range

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We know when somebody is not up to that level of development. We know that when somebody is beyond that level of development and It scares us when we see somebody who is developed to a certain point physically begin to regress for instance parents if you saw that your seven -year -old was starting to lose his ability to walk and Lose his ability to form complete sentences and lose his memory

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You would have that kid into the hospital tomorrow or today Immediately because you would recognize that having acquired a certain ability once they have lost that ability that something

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Dangerous is taking place something spiritually wrong something something probably life -threatening is happening

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And it's this is true in the physical realm and I understand that my analogy breaks down a little bit because as we progress and get

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Older we do start to lose certain capabilities, right? We start to lose some motor skills and agility. We start to lose our speed

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We start to lose our memory. We start to lose certain mental capacities We start to lose all kinds of the other things that are natural to us when we're younger

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I understand that but even in even in that case Those lost capacities once we get to a certain age once we grow those lost capacities are marks or Mars or deviations

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Deficiencies in what is otherwise mature, right? We recognize that once committee gets to a point of maturity they start to lose those capacities physical or mental

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That that is the mark of sin something has gone wrong there and it's it's sin that has gone wrong

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Something has affected it and we notice that that's not natural in the sense. It's natural in the sense that we're all dying

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Really those those loss of capacities are harbingers of the inevitability and a soon -coming death and by soon

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I mean like it could be years away. Okay, but it's still soon in terms of it's inevitable for you Sorry to remind you of that, but that's just the reality

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So that's where the analogy breaks down a little bit But there is a parallel in the spiritual realm when we see somebody progress to a point spiritually and then they begin to lose ground

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We have to stop and say something is wrong here Something is wrong either this individual has not really understood the basics of salvation and So they have they looked as if they were progressing for a period of time and then now they're regressing because they're not really born

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Again regenerated by the Holy Spirit or something has happened in their spiritual life that has caused them to plateau to stagnate or to begin to slip back a little bit and It should be concerning for us when we see that it was to the author of Hebrews who identifies this in his audience

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Here in Hebrews chapter 5 beginning in verse 11 He begins to to speak to them about their their lack of spiritual understanding a spiritual immaturity

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Something was wrong in the congregation and it is possible that they were unbelievers and he is addressing some of them it is possible that they were believers who for for some reason that he does not identify they have become dull in their hearing and dull in their understanding

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He says in verse 11 that concerning Christ and his high priesthood and his connection with Melchizedek That he had a lot more things to say to them

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But it was difficult to explain to them because these people had become dull in hearing they'd become lazy listeners

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We looked at that last week and we saw that this lazy listening was was not due to The the subject matter being erudite and high -minded are too complex for them to understand.

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There's nothing wrong with the subject matter Nothing wrong with the spiritual instruction nor was there anything wrong with the spiritual instructor?

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It wasn't the the fault didn't lie with the teacher It wasn't his inability to communicate his inarticulateness or or his his lack of ability and understanding it himself and it wasn't due to some mental defect in the audience that they just were

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Dumbed down a little bit and they they couldn't understand these things and and so they had some mental defect themselves that kept them from Grasping deep truths.

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It was not due to any of that. It was due to the fact that they had become lazy listeners They had become slothful in their hearing and understanding and their apprehension of spiritual truth

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They'd become lazy in their obedience So that the instruction and the word and the truth began to fall upon their ears

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But it didn't move them toward spiritual maturity The instruction that they had been receiving did not move them toward obedience or to taking any kind of action at all

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And so he identifies them in verse 11 as lazy listeners. That's all the further we got last week today We're looking at verse 12.

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We see that they had also become stagnant students Don't you love the alliteration? For those of you who do you're welcome for those of you who don't and don't even care just admire it at least

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Lazy listeners and stagnant students they had become dull of hearing and now look what he says in verse 12

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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've come to need milk

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And not solid food now that that contrast there between milk and solid food is explained and developed a little bit in verses 13 and 14

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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

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So they had become stagnant students and again the difficulty was not in the subject in the teacher or in their mental capacity

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The problem was because they had become dull of hearing And as a result of their dullness in hearing even though they had plenty of time

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So it wasn't a lack of time, but because they had become dull in their hearing some of them probably who were believers had stagnated

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They had plateaued and maybe even regressed a little bit Some of them who were not believers at all made a good showing at the beginning and now they have slipped right back into a spirit a state of infancy or or uh

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And demonstrating the lack of salvation and true regeneration. So the problem was not that they didn't have a lack of time

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That's what he identifies the beginning of verse 12 for though by this time Now if they had been if they had been new infants in the faith if these had been brand new converts

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The author here probably would have bared with them in some sense until they had come along a little bit

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You don't get impatient with a six -month -old because they're not walking yet Likewise, you don't get impatient with somebody who's a brand new believer

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Just because they don't understand the concept of a triune god that he has three persons in one god

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You don't get impatient with somebody like that If a brand new believer comes up and says explain to me How it is that jesus can be both fully god and fully man truly god and truly man

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They don't get grasp that you don't get impatient with them But if somebody's 20 years old and the lord does not understand the humanity and the deity of christ

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Something has gone drastically wrong in their salvation. Something has gone drastically wrong in their spiritual maturity

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And so if it had been a matter of time that they were brand new in the lord He would have been patient. He would have bared with them.

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There would have been no need for reproof This was not a brand new congregation In fact, how long had it been for these hebrews who had come to faith in christ?

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How long had it been that they had been believers? There's nothing in the context that tells us exactly how old this congregation was in the lord

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But all indication is that they have had plenty of time that they are well beyond having any excuse due to time and some have suggested that If hebrews was written towards 70 80 in the later part of the 60s that if christ had been crucified in 33 80 that you have a congregation that may be upwards of 30 years old in the lord

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That's a long time to have people who have been believers for that period of time Or maybe people who have been pretending to be believers for that period of time and now they are spiritually immature all over again

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Or maybe demonstrating that they never had salvation to begin with The problem was not insufficient time.

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It was not insufficient instruction They had had adequate time to give attention to these things to grasp these things to wrestle with them to understand them

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And I think that the assumption of the author he is assuming the best here of his audience He is assuming number one that they are believers

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He's assuming that they have had appropriate instruction in the truth for this period of time

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Because he doesn't identify those as being potential causes of their spiritual dullness And he is also assuming that they have been in some sense listening and obeying

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Instruction for some period of time and yet they have still have gone to the point of recessing and becoming now

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Of regressing and becoming now dull of hearing lazy listeners And if that is the case if they have had adequate time and they have had adequate instruction and they are indeed believers

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Then by this point in their spiritual walk, look what he says in verse 12 you ought to be teachers You ought to be teaching these things

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Now he does not by that mean that every individual in the congregation ought to be a public teacher who teaches everybody else

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You can't have that you don't have that in any congregation of people unless you're congregating people who are all teachers

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You get all the teachers together and you're teaching them about teaching you're teaching them about theology Then you would expect all the teachers who are there to be teachers, but that's not the case in in every congregation

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So he's not suggesting that all of them ought to be by this time public teachers of the congregation Because it is true in a reality that not all people are gifted to teach right

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There are even people who think they're gifted to teach but nobody's gifted to listen to them Not everybody is gifted to teach

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Not everybody is called to teach not everybody is qualified to teach Not everybody should be teaching.

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He's not talking about their office. They're calling in the church He's not talking about their spiritual giftedness.

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He is talking about their grasp and understanding of spiritual things By this point in their christian life

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They should all be teachers in the sense that they would have an adequate grasp of these things

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To be able to at least pass those on to other people To be able to at least to explain to a new believer.

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Here is what the deity of christ means Here is the implications of the resurrection. Here's what the doctrine of the trinity is.

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Here's what we mean by inspiration of scripture Here's what we mean by when we say that christ is the fulfillment of the old covenant

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Here is our relationship as believers to the old testament law to the ironic priesthood to the sacrifice the feast the festivals

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Those are the basic and elementary aspects of the christian faith Those are the things that all of us should be able to grasp and come to grips with at some point

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We may not be able to stand up and teach a seminary class on these subjects But we ought to be able by some point in our christian life

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And it should be early in our christian life to be able to communicate these things to other people in some way That we are teaching them on and passing that truth on to others

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That's why paul said to timothy that you take the young men from among you Raise them up and teach them to pass these things on to other men and paul said in titus that the women in the home the older women should be teaching the younger women to to do certain things and to behave in a certain way and Passing on the christian faith to the younger women.

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Everybody should be teaching in some sense We should at least be striving toward spiritual maturity to the point

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That we can take somebody else and come alongside them and explain certain things and mentor certain things and bring them along where they are

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Weak, that's not just the job of the elders Or the deacons or the teachers in the church

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That's your job of every believer to counsel one another and to share with one another and to grow one another up and a

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A healthy body has that going on and a healthy body does that? And this type of maturity this type of ability Listen, it is possible for every christian

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There is no truth revealed in scripture that is not accessible to every single christian

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Barring any kind of a mental handicap I'm talking about in the normal course of events

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There is no truth revealed in scripture that is outside of the ability of every christian to grasp

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In such a manner and to such a degree that they can explain it and converse about those things There's you might be thinking to yourself, but there's this one truth

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That I just cannot get my head around there's all kinds of truths that we can't get our head around But that doesn't mean that we can't apprehend them

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We may not be able to comprehend fully the sovereignty of god and responsibility man how that plays out

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We not be able to comprehend that fully but we can apprehend it we can at least be conversant and the ability to Converse about those things and discuss those things amongst ourselves and even teach other people the realities of those truths

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There is no truth revealed in scripture that is outside of the ability of every christian to understand and to grasp there is none

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Otherwise that we would have some collection of truths some collection of doctrinal content Which was the the purview and the possession of only an elite few amongst the congregation and that's gnosticism.

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That's a heresy There is no doctrine relating to god or salvation or christ or anything that is outside of the ability of every single christian to grasp

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And so we ought to be pursuing maturity and an understanding and all of those things I think even identifying our weaknesses our weak areas and then addressing them

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And wanting to come to a grasp of those things and wanting to be taught those things and to understand them So every biblical truth is available to every christian

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But these believers in these believers are fake believers in hebrews And i'm going to maintain that there are two groups probably here intended in his audience

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This group needed to be taught these things all over again Look at verse 12 you ought to be teachers, but you have need again for someone to teach you

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So now the roles have been reversed These are the people sitting here who have need to be taught again these elemental principles and we'll get to what those are in just A second, they need to be taught those things even though they themselves should be communicating these things to somebody else

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But now they're in a place where they have they have regressed spiritually To the point where they need to be taught all over again

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And I want you to notice again because we looked at this last week. This was an acquired condition in verse 11 He says you have become dull of hearing

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The implication there is that there was some point in time at which they were not dull of hearing and then he says here in verse 11

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Or he says in verse 11 you have become dull of hearing in verse 12 You have need again to be taught these things verse 12.

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You have come to need milk and not solid food Something had happened in this congregation

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That they were no longer what they previously were and if you just if you think back

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To experiences probably in your own life If you've been a christian for a period of time have been exposed to different spiritual environments

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You can probably identify places and times where churches or groups of people or studies or classes or whatever

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Were really on fire and had a good understanding of thing But something happened over the course of time that that began to slip back

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That the quality went down the understanding went down the maturity went down For some rate for some reason or in some way it happens all the time

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It had happened here in the hebrew congregation. This was an acquired condition They had made progress at some point now they had moved backwards and that's not good.

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This is like a seven -year -old forgetting how to walk Like a 15 year old forgetting how to ride their bike

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Unable to unable to walk and keep their balance and and form complete sentences or remember simple things and These are harbingers of dangers.

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These are these were indications of a spiritual condition in the flock in of the hebrews these hebrew christians

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That threatened their spiritual well -being And he says they needed to be instructed in the elementary principles this acquired condition that they had of they should have been teaching these things and now they

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Had regressed to the point where they weren't teaching these things. In fact, they not only were they not teaching them They had to be reminded of these simple things all over again

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That was regression in their spiritual life and they ought to be we expect progress We don't expect regress and we don't expect no grass.

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No grass I just made that up that's staying in the middle and not going anywhere We expect progress not no grass or regress and if you want to use the term no grass

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You can do so freely. You don't have to give me credit. In fact, I'd prefer if you didn't just If If you get to a point where somebody says, what are you doing?

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I'm no gressing. I'm just staying right here I'm not doing anything. I'm sitting on the couch and no grass all afternoon, which is probably what i'm going to do

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So they needed to be taught now again all of the elementary principles of the word of god What are the elementary principles?

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What were these things? what does it refer to and here is where commentaries and commentators are a little bit divided because It seems as if you they will understand the term elementary principles

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Oftentimes in light of their understanding of the entire context So as we talked about a couple weeks ago, if you believe that this passage teaches you can lose your salvation

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You're going to think that this is describing one thing Namely believers who needed to be taught again spiritual truths and were on the process of losing their salvation

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If you think that this passage does not teach that you can lose your salvation You're going to take the other position Which is that these elementary principles are references to the old testament law and the old covenant and the things attached with that Now, let me break down both of those options for you

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Some people will say that the it is suggested by some I should say that the elementary principles here refers to the old covenant

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The types the shadows of the old testament the teaching about the purpose of those things That these elementary principles were the the truths or the understanding of the realities of the old testament

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Those are the elemental things the types the shadows the symbols of the old testament and now we have laid aside the elementary things

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Of of religion and of faith and now we have come into the fullness and the reality of jesus christ

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So that those elemental things refer to the old covenant Those things which were true in the old covenant that brought the people like a school master would

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Bringing the people up to an understanding of their need for christ and now having come into the new covenant and being in christ

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They should have laid aside those elemental things They should have already understood them But now the author would be saying you have need again for me to go back and teach you about the real purpose of the old testament covenant and the old covenant and our

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Our our relationship to the law of god and our relationship to the aspects of the law

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The ceremonial law and the old covenant stuff. So I have to go through all of that all over again Because having progressed into the into the new covenant now, you seem to be going back into the old covenant

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All right. So that's one perspective. The other perspective is that this refers to the elemental and basic aspects of christian faith

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The doctrine of god and who he is and his sovereignty and who christ is and why he came and the nature of the resurrection

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And the nature of scripture and our relationship to god and salvation by faith and by grace alone in faith alone

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These basic and fundamental truths upon which all of the greater and majestic Doctrines of scripture are built and our understanding of them is built on these foundational understanding of who god is who man is who?

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Christ is what god has done and what our responsibility is etc Those foundational things those were the basic christian truth.

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So these people had come along to a point where they were I just used an analogy. They were discussing the complexities of salvation and soteriology and now they come back to needing to be reminded again

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So, okay who's god again? What god are we talking about again? It regressed to that point So which is it?

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Is it is it the old testament old covenant? aspects of faith or Is it basic and foundational christian doctrine?

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And I would suggest to you that it is that there can be a combination of both of these things and I think that There is some overlap in what we would consider elementary things for these believers

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I think that this well, let me let me define before I described it this year Let me define what the the term elements here or basic or elementary things is here in the context

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The word that is used here is the word that describes the building block or the basic principles or the elementary concepts of something

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So it refers to the first truths that you give to somebody and so in the ancient world

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It was used in language and in math and in science and we're familiar with its use in all of these ways So for instance when you teach somebody to read you teach your child to read

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You don't drop them into the middle of a shakespearean sonnet and say okay go at it Instead you you show them the elementary principles.

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This is the letter a It makes these sounds As an apple or ape and you show them a picture of an apple and an ape and you're teaching them what the letter a refers to now

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If i'm misrepresenting phonics in any way to those of you who are teaching your children. I apologize for that I don't remember learning to read much myself

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I remember being hooked on phonics for a period of time and it worked for me, but I don't remember anything else okay, so in in language we refer to the the giving of individual elements of the the basic building blocks of letters

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Then we take those letters and we build on top of those. What does an e and an i say? What does an i and an e say what does an a and an i say and an i and an a say put those together

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In a th what does that those sounds then we put those sounds into words Then we put those words into sentences put those sentences into paragraphs

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You see what we're doing. We're taking the elementary principles and you're building upon them In math the elementary principles refer to the basic functions of math basic addition subtraction multiplication and division

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And upon those basic principles and those basic laws of mathematics are built calculus and physics and trigonometry

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And all of the other aspects of mathematics that we get into in science. We recognize even ourselves.

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We have a table of elements We recognize that there are elements that make up everything around us And these elements combine to build the building blocks of all of reality around us.

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It's the table of elements It's the the foundational things upon which other things are built So in terms of the book of hebrews and the original audience

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Here's what I would suggest to you. The elementary principles are I think that it is something that is connected in this context

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It is something connected to their salvation And to their spiritual growth they have come out of the old covenant the old testament

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They have moved into the new to an understanding of who christ is They have seen in christ the fulfillment of everything that they had grown up with Those for them would have been the elementary things

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Those would have been the building blocks of their faith in christ When we come into salvation

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Uh and and faith in jesus christ, we're not building upon Air, we're not christ is not a doctrine or a figure that is simply dropped into human history completely

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Unconnected from anything else He is rooted and grounded in the old testament and the old covenant and the promises to the prophets

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He is there in the promise in the garden of eden in genesis 3 verse 15 He's all the way back there in the garden and all of the old testament is moving toward him so that he is fulfilled in that And so there is for them an understanding that their salvation in jesus christ is rooted and ground in this it's connected to this

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We don't unhitch jesus from the old testament or unhitch the old testament from our christian faith We don't do that because it is all one

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And so the elementary and basic principles for them Would have been understanding those truths which made them transition out of their faith and reliance upon the old covenant

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And the old aspects of the old testament and their embrace fully of jesus christ Those would have been the elementary things and you see this even in the the description in the context of these elemental things

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Look at chapter 5 verse 12. He refers to them. He notices the contrast between milk and solid food

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The milk seems to be the elementary teachings you go to chapter 6 verse 1 He says therefore leaving the elementary teaching and we have to ignore the chapter divisions there for our convenience

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But it wasn't there for the author ignore the chapter division chapter 6 verse 1 leaving the elementary teachings about the christ

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Let us press on to maturity not laying again. Here we go. The foundation he's referring there again

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There's milk elementary teaching and foundation regarding the lord Jesus christ and what does he refer to as the foundation the milk the elementary teaching look at verse 2

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Sorry, it's in verse 1 laying again the foundation of repentance the foundation of repentance from the dead works of faith toward god

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Of instruction about washings and laying on of hands the resurrection of the dead and eternal punishment He lists there what he believes to be the foundational elements for them

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Now for them in that context Those are things that understanding those things would have moved them from the old testament

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Or from the old covenant into a reliance of on christ in the new covenant So for instance the repentance would have been a repentance from works of righteousness from dead works

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From obedience to those covenants and those laws and the ceremonial aspects of it under the mosaic covenant that quid pro quo

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Covenant where you obey and god will bless you you're moving on from that You repent from the dead works and then you have faith toward god

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Which would refer to justification by faith that abraham was saved by faith and david was saved by faith And that there is a faith that we are to place in the messiah whom god would bring to us

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This would have pointed them toward christ And then the washing of hands and the laying on of hands and the washings would refer to the ceremonial aspects

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Of the old covenant and the resurrection of the dead They would have needed to understand why it is that the messiah would die and then rise again

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And what the implications of his resurrection will be for us And what that resurrection means for us and that we have a hope just as the old testament taught of a resurrection

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That is to come because of what christ has done And then the eternal judgment is the thing that we have been saved from of course by the fulfillment

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That christ has brought to all of the old testament types and shadows and symbols and so in understanding these basic things repents toward god and faith and the purpose of the ceremonial washings laying on of hands and The nature of the resurrection of christ and escaping of eternal judgment

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Those things would have moved them upon reliance upon the the the abraham or the ironic priesthood into the priesthood that christ fulfills

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Understanding those things would have made them turn from the works of the old covenant to faith in christ and christ alone

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From their their hope in their own good deeds to a hope in the resurrection of jesus christ and all that that's secured so all of these aspects that he calls the the basic foundational elementary aspects of the

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Of their faith of their christian walk These are the truths that they would have had to been taught to get them to let go of the old covenant

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The ironic priesthood the sacrifices the temple the ceremonies and all of that and to embrace jesus christ

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Is the fulfillment of all of those things? so for them These are the foundational doctrines that moved them from one to the other

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And now having been moved from one to the other there were people in that congregation who were looking back

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So they had walked out of this And christ was the new thing

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And being part of that christian community was the new thing And they walked into that community and I felt warmed and embraced

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And now they have started to become persecuted and they're suffering lightly for their faith in christ

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And now some of those people are looking back to the old covenant And the author of hebrews is saying stop

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Now I have to teach you all over again these basic and fundamental truths that you cannot have salvation in those things

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That you must turn from those things to embrace jesus christ I have to go back to grade school and walk you through the abcs all over again

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And if you truly understood those things you would never want to go back to those things So in this context,

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I think that the elementary principles are those truths those doctrines which moved them toward christ

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And now they're have paused in their spiritual progress and some of them even christians are looking back and saying

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But that Did we have that and now we you're telling us to move this direction

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But we want to go back to that And he has to identify in his audience that among those who were considering going back

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Now they're needing milk all over again They've come he says in verse 12. You've come an acquired condition to need milk and not solid food

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I would love to teach you more about melchizedek But I got to go back and teach you again that salvation cannot be had in these things

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So when you got to go back and explain the gospel all over again to somebody They have not made any progress in their faith.

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Have they? because I've run into people that you think are believers and then you sit down with them and you talk with them for a period of time and they talk about We I had one lady who came to me and she's not here so don't worry about this

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This is years ago before 90 of the people who were here showed up But I had one lady who came and sat down and talked with me one time and I had to explain to her the gospel

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And this was somebody who said that they understood spiritual things but then in having a conversation You could just tell she didn't understand even the basic foundational elements of the gospel

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And she had been in church and she had known believers and hung around christians for years But then in trying to to move her out of a certain way of thinking

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It becomes apparent really quickly when I had to start all the way back. I had to go back to the basics This person doesn't even know what it means to be saved and justified by faith and faith alone

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You can't take this person into deeper things because now we have to go back and lay a foundation again although all over again foundation again all over again, that's

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Yeah Like yogi berra said it's deja vu all over again You go back and lay these foundational elements down and teach them those things

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They haven't made any progress toward toward maturity or to faith and that makes you Say that one of two things is true of this individual

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Either they are a christian who has become stagnant and stunted in their spiritual growth for a period of time

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Or this person is not even a believer This this reality when you see it in somebody's life.

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It is evidence of these one of these two things They're either not believers and they're like the wilderness generation came out of egypt

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They've walked right up to the edge of the promised land and they said no and they want to turn back and go back And be in disobedience.

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They're like that wilderness generation and they've never really embraced christ They can come in and sit in a congregation just like this one and hear the word preached and enjoy the fellowship

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With everybody around here and visit and talk about football and faith and the potluck and all the other stuff that goes on and enjoy the new building and Look forward to when we have carpet and all of that stuff and be part of this building and part of our our gathering here

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But they're not really believers. This happens in every church all the time And they're exposed to the christian faith, but they have never embraced it by faith in jesus christ

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And so they have never been born again And then it can be happen of believers who for some reason their own apathy their own indolence

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Their own neglect of their own spiritual life in some way they become stagnant and then for a period of time

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They look just like unbelievers Because they're making no more progress than an unbeliever is in their spiritual life and so if you look at a believer who has plateaued and a

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And an unbeliever who has never had any spiritual life at all if you if you judge them side by side

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They would look identical and sometimes it is very difficult to tell Between a believer who is just growing imperceptibly slow

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And an unbeliever who has never and is not growing at all In fact, sometimes the unbeliever can look like they are making leaps and bounds ahead of the believer in their spiritual progress

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Because anybody can act like a believer in front of other people Say we judge by outward appearances

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And god sees the heart You can't tell just by looking at somebody whether they're a believer or not You can try and examine the fruit, but some people can put on a lot of fruit

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And look really fruitful for a period of time And we all know the people that we're talking about They look like they're just Light years ahead of us growing so much faster and so much quicker

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And we went man, we're going to keep up with that person And then they plateau and then before long they've walked away from the faith entirely

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And all you can say about those individuals is they were able to pretend About their salvation for a long period of time and very convincingly

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And it is truly tragic John, owens said a believer can decrease in holiness as well as in knowledge

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It is that we can increase in our knowledge of something and be able to talk to it other people about it But we can lose knowledge and forget things and decrease in knowledge just like we can decrease in holiness

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We can make great strides in holiness and we can decrease in holiness And the believer who begins to decrease in knowledge and holiness

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The promise of scripture and i'm thankful for this is that god will discipline them. That's hebrews chapter 12 These believers who were who were thinking about turning back to the old covenant.

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They were giving some thought to that There is a promise You stagnate or you regress or you nogress and god will discipline you

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That is a very good thing When god disciplines us because it is always for us our good that we may produce the peaceable fruits of righteousness

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And that's a good thing No, no discipline is pleasant in the moment, but it yields good fruit

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And this is what god does when we? regress So there's a two -part concern here with the author

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First he is concerned about believers who may have stagnated or for some reason they have become Stunted in their spiritual growth he's concerned about the implications of that it leaves them

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It leaves a believer open to false doctrine It leaves a believer open to decreasing in holiness and and in sinning against the lord and bring

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Bring reproach upon the name of christ He is also I think concerned in an evangelistic sense

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With the unbelievers in the congregation who for a period of time made a good showing of the things of faith

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For a good time. They made a good demonstration that yeah, we're just like you we're christians, too We believe the same things look at how holy we are

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I've given up all of these things and i'm progressing in my faith and I read my bible every day But these were not genuine and true believers.

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And so there is a response of self -examination that is appropriate for all of us if we are

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If you are an unbeliever I can tell you this the same god who saves

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Is a god and the same god who secures the god who saves and the god who secures is the same god who sanctifies

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He promises to do all of these things for his people to save us to sanctify us and to secure us

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That is all his work. Our salvation is entirely his work Our sanctification is entirely him at work in us to do and to will for his good pleasure and his securing work

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It is entirely him. He does that work He keeps us by his power for a salvation ready to be revealed at the last time peter says

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The god who saves is and the god who secures is a god who sanctifies If you are sitting here and you think that you are a believer and you have never seen any growth or progress in holiness or sanctification

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I promise you this god has not saved you And god has not secured you if god has not sanctified you

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If you're not progressing and there's no room in any of scripture or in biblical christian theology

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For someone who says I am a christian and gets born again And then is a flat line of good deeds and works and faith and holiness and progression and sanctification and then goes to glory

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No such creature exists Because god has promised he will sanctify his people

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In the truth and by the truth through the word of god in the power of the holy spirit who has sealed and lives within A believer there is no such thing as somebody who is born again and has no progress in sanctification

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And then dies and goes to glory unless that person is born again on their deathbed But even then you might you should at least expect to see them smile when they die

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Because they have something to look forward to that would be an evidence of sanctifying grace But in the normal course of events for most christians

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If god is not sanctifying you he has not saved you and he is certainly not securing you If there's no progress in sanctification, no growth in holiness

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No growth in your love for the lord the things of the lord the people of god a desire to serve a growth in holiness

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A repentance from sin an increasing hatred of sin an increasing love for righteousness an increasing affection of jesus christ

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If these fruits are not evident in your life There is no reason and I mean no reason not one reason why you should be placing any kind of confidence in your own salvation

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It ought to cause you to examine yourself And now for the believer This should remind us of the danger of spiritual regression

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That we do not want to be perceptively no different than an unbeliever If there is something in our lives that keeps us from walking forward with the lord some sin that we are harboring

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Something that we are unwilling to turn from Some aspect of our life that we refuse to bow the knee to him and to give up or to abandon

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Or to submit to him and be sanctified through if there is something in our lives that stunts our spiritual growth

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We are in dangerous territory There's something spiritually wrong something desperately wrong and it can make you prone to false teaching.

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It can make you prone to error It will inhibit your holiness It will take away your desire for truth

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Your desire for preaching your desire for fellowship your desire for worship And pretty soon the things that you once loved as a believer.

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You have no taste for them anymore The things that you once understood you don't understand anymore

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That decrease in holiness can happen when we cling to sin and we refuse to give it up Or when we are we refuse to cooperate with the lord it being sanctified when we fight against him and kick against his goads

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Scripture promises that the way of the transgressor is hard And that's what brings the discipline of the lord in hebrews chapter 12

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So unbeliever you think you're a christian and you're not You need to repent and be born again. So that god may sanctify you god may save you sanctify you

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And secure you everlastingly We're christian if you've plateaued or you're stunted or you're slipping backwards

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Take stock and inventory of your own spiritual life in your own heart in the state of your own soul recognize You are in a dangerous position

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And you should place no confidence in your own salvation until you see the fruits of genuine holiness there We don't have assurance because we've checked a box or we've walked an aisle or we prayed a prayer.

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We've been baptized We have assurance because we can look at ourselves and see the fruits of regeneration And the fruits of sanctification our own lives that is the evidence that we are christ and that we belong to him

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The fact that we are being sanctified is the evidence of our salvation and the fact that we are being sanctified Is our hope of being eternally secure?

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Because we know that the same god who saves and sanctifies also secures all those who are his everlastingly

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Let's pray together Our father we thank you for the hope of our salvation that is in jesus christ and we are thankful for the reminders in scripture of the dangers that Are faced by us even as believers in jesus christ that it is possible for us because of negligence and apathy and neglect to to lose

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Lose ground that you have brought into our lives in a sanctifying way To lose our affections for your son and our desire for truth and our love and longing for holiness and we pray father that you would convict each one of us of sin that needs to be repented of and things need to be turned from that we may

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Progress in holiness that we may pursue holiness without which we will not see you And we thank you for the elements of the table

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Before us today the bread and the juice and what that symbolizes in the death of christ We thank you that by your grace and by your power.

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You have moved to save a people for yourselves and for your glory And for your son as a bride

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And those of us who are believers we thank you that we are included in that number by your grace And that you knew us before you created even the world

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And we thank you that you have laid upon your son all of our sin all of our iniquity And given us his righteousness

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We thank you for your loving kindness in doing this to us your people And we thank you that you have given us as a gift the faith to believe and the grace of repentance

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You have turned us from our evil deeds and to christ and we pray that you would continue that sanctifying work in our hearts and in our lives

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And inflame in our hearts a love and a passion for christ and for your word and for truth And may we see in our lives the effects and the fruits of holiness

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And growth and sanctification and may we delight in those things And any here who are not believers, we pray that you would bring them to your son

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And stir in their hearts and show them a need for a savior so that they may find in him the fullness of their joy

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Their righteousness a forgiveness for their sins And an eternal security in your kingdom and before your throne

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We thank you that you are doing a work of sanctifying in our hearts Individually and as a church because we know that ultimately you are going to present us faultless before your throne of exceeding joy blameless before christ and we long for that day

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Forgive us and cleanse us we pray And renewing us again the joy of our salvation and our affection for christ we pray in his name.