Preaching a Watered Down Gospel - Part 4 — Jeff Noblit

Spiritual Infancy and the Call to Deeper Truth

I mean, Gose spent 30 years exegeting Hebrews. You think you got it bad. I mean, he preached for 30 years in his church on Hebrews. And I've got his commentary. It costs $250. It's worth every penny. It's better than the 250 other commentaries I bought on Hebrews.

Here's what Gose said. He said, this text reminds him, me, of the doctors of ancient days who used to prescribe that adults who are critically ill to nurse upon women's breasts. That's bizarre. That's what the text wants you to think.

You are adult Christians, at least ought to be, outwardly, and you're still nursing on mama's breasts. That's why I say it's pathetic. And that's what the text implies. It's pathetic. Some are so lactose-dependent in spiritual things they will not accept any attempt to grow deeper.

Jesus' Teaching on Fasting and Spiritual Receptivity

Jesus said the Pharisees, the old law teachers of Judaism, were this way. In Matthew chapter 9, verses 14 through 17, it'll be on your screen. So then the disciples of John came, saying to him, why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?

And Jesus said to them, the attendants of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.

Now let me stop right there. He's saying, you guys fast because you're yearning for him and truth and God, and I'm here. So the ones who are with me don't need to fast, they need to enjoy me and glory in me.

The Old Garment and Old Wineskin as Images of Resistance

Now he's going to say, but see this is too deep for you guys, you can't grasp this. And he gives an illustration of what happens when the hardened, calloused, old, milky Christian gets deeper truth. Here's what happens.

The hardened, old, calloused, moss-backed deacon, still on milk, we don't have any of those. I mean that. We don't have any of those, as far as I know. There's a lot of them out there, and they get some new truth.

Here's what happens, verse 16. But no one puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch pulls away from the garment, and a worse tear results. He said, if I try to give you the deeper truth, it's like putting a patch that's never shrunk, or hasn't shrunk yet, on an old garment that's already done all its shrinking.

You sew it on there, then you wash it a couple of times, then that new patch shrinks, and it tears a bigger hole. It just tears everything up. Then he gives another illustration. Nor do men put new wine into old wineskins, otherwise the wineskins burst, and the wine pours out, and the wineskins are ruined, but they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.

He said, you take somebody hardened in the shallow first principles, milky truths of Judaism, and pour in the deeper truth of Christ fulfilling all of that, and that old, brittle, dried wineskin, it doesn't have the flexibility of a new wineskin, and that wine swells and expands, and it bursts, that old, brittle wineskin, and it's all lost.

New Wineskins for the Fullness of Biblical Truth

And you know what? I've had powerful, high-up people tell me, you keep preaching all the doctrines you're preaching, you're going to run people off, they're not going to hear it, they're not going to come back to it.

That's true for some of the old, brittle, hardened wineskins. But you know what I'm finding? There's some fresh wineskins out there. And they love the new wine of the real truth! And by the way, it's not new as like you and I found out about it.

It's always been there. It's been there for 2 ,000 years right here in this book. Thank God for the new wineskins who want the new wine. Amen. Praise His name. Well, Roman numeral 3, the Milky Way will probably have two parts.

Repenting of Shallow Spiritual Dependency

We'll probably pick up next week with some of it and continue on. Their shallow milk dependency is a sin. It's not just without excuse, it's not just pathetic, it's a sin before God. It ought to be repented of.

And I suppose, starting with this pastor this morning, there's not a person in this room that shouldn't end this service, very humbly before God, saying, Oh God, help me to grow deeper. Help me to know you better and understand you better, and not according to my predispositions, not according to my natural inborn prejudice, not according to my human understanding and the limitations that I'm comforted with.

Explode those and let me see you for who you are! As you reveal yourself in your word. Help me just take one more step, and one more step, and one more step. You know what I hope? Unless God does something, I think you're stuck with me until I retire.

And I'm not going to retire. But I hope that 15, 20 years from now, we're rolling around in our wheelchairs. Well, 30 years from now, we're rolling around in our wheelchairs. Full of God. Full of God.

And young people will come from all over the country saying, We want to sit at the feet of these people and hear more about God. Don't you want to be effective when you get old? Don't send me to some senior adult retreat and entertain me with comedians!

Send me to a conference where men of God preach the glories of Christ! So I'll love Him more, and desire Him more, and hunger for Him more, and look for Him more. Amen? God help us. Is anything wrong with Christian comedians?

No. Nothing wrong with that. I'm not saying that's wrong. It's just when I look at the brochures that I get on my desk, that's about all they got. There's not anything out there for people who are growing hungrier and deeper.

You older folks, you're precious to me. Keep growing deeper. Keep growing deeper. Keep growing deeper. Don't get trapped in the Milky Way. Well, I've got to get on with it being sin. He says there in our text—we're still in verse 12, of course— 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, to teach you the elementary principles.

That phrase, elementary principle, means the elements of the beginning. Just the beginning stuff. One scholar said that this word, elementary, comes from a verb which means to go. And he explained it this way.

First Principles as Preparation for Spiritual Progress

He said a child's first demonstration of strength is that he feels his little legs, and he stands up, and he goes. We don't know where he's going, but he's going. And that's what this means. It's just the first thing, the first part.

This is a phrase that's used in the arts. It means the first principles you must have before you go forward. For example, if you were taught to be a painter, there's things about the canvas you must learn first, and different types of brushes, and different types of paint, and all that's the first principles, or you'll not ever be a good painter.

But you don't stay there. I mean, if your mom and dad send you to school to learn to be a painter, and a year later you've had a lesson every week, and they're paying big bucks, and they ask you at the end of the year, now what have you learned?

They say, well, here's a wide brush, and here's a narrow brush. Well, honey, what have you painted? I haven't done that yet, but I love this part of it. I love the difference in the brushes. And then you've got oil paint, and you've got whatever other kind of paint.

You say, I don't paint. And you'd say, this is wrong. You've wasted my money. Yes, you've got to know the basics, but you're never meant to just stop in glory there. Elementary school, same word here.

Moving Beyond Elementary Christian Doctrine

Elementary schools teach first principles. Math, 2 plus 2 is 4, addition, subtraction, going up a little later to multiplication, maybe in division. In English, this is a noun, this is a verb, this is a simple sentence, etc., etc.

The first principles. All Christians have to have their first principles. Then he adds something that shows you the way to the...