Preaching a Watered Down Gospel - Part 5 — Jeff Noblit

The Sin of Neglecting God's Word

...of their sin. It's not just elementary principles, it's the elementary principles of the oracles of God. Of the oracles of God. Folks, that is the most serious of all disciplines. The oracles of God.

So this deepens the sin of the Hebrew Christians. They have neglected not the elementary principles of the human arts. They have neglected not the elementary principles of a human craft, but the very God who gave them His Word.

From Biblical Knowledge to Christ-Centered Transformation

That's sin. Even God Himself. Even the principles of His precious and treasured Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. As Hebrews chapter 6 verse 1 talks about the teaching or the doctrine of Christ. To be as 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 7 says, Always learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth is a great shame.

Just learning, learning, learning, learning. Head knowledge, head knowledge, head knowledge. The brain is very important. The intellect is very important. But it's never meant just to fill your brain with facts and figures and interesting ideas about the Bible.

But the deeper truth so that you might love and treasure Christ and change your life and keep reforming your understanding and your lifestyle and reforming the church to be more scriptural and biblical and God-centered and Christ-honoring and Bible-saturated.

It's a sin if we're not on that course. In this shallow milk dependency, God is much dishonored, His Word is dishonored, and His minister is dishonored. Remaining on milk, even true milk, are the first, are elementary principles.

Spiritual Immaturity and Vulnerability to False Teachers

And not striving to deeper truths makes us so vulnerable to false teachers. And that's why you have the most incredible, goofy, unbiblical nonsense in evangelical Christianity today. Because we kept it milky, milky, milky for several generations and we left the sheep vulnerable to every charlatan, slick talker, charismatic, persuasive goofball that can get a television broadcast.

You ought to be able to turn on your television and 95%, if everybody comes on there, in 20 minutes you ought to be able to say whether that's a man of God and that's the Word of God or he's deceitfully using God's Word for his own ministry and not for God's glory.

And I believe, by God's grace, I've taught you well enough that you ought to be able to know the difference. I want you to know something, church. I take this seriously. I don't just preach up here to get through.

The Mature Church and Discernment

I want us to be different and show the world what a mature church can look like or does look like. For the glory of God. Go in his 400-year-old commentary, he said this, Such also may soon be made prey to every seducer.

See, that's the seriousness of this. Some guy cross downtown, start his carnival in his church and hear the sheep run over there. Another guy on this side of town, start his entertainment in his church, all the sheep run over there and they just run after one thing after another.

Because they're so immature, so shallow, so fickle, so inconsistent. Ephesians chapter 4, verse 14 says,. As a result, we're no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming.

Fathers’ Responsibility for Their Families’ Church

Whatever else this tells you, fathers, heads of households, you do whatever it takes to get your family in a church that has strong, true, godly Bible preaching. I mean, whatever else, fathers, you do, get your family in that kind of church.

Milk, Solid Food, and Spiritual Responsibility

Now, in conclusion, he gives this phrase at the end. Boy, I'm going long. I ought to get sick more often. All I do is just lay around and, well, I'm not going to tell you everything I did, but lay around and meditate when I could.

I didn't have brain enough to do it sometimes this week. Anyway, look at this last phrase. And you've come to need milk and not solid food. Of course, milk is the food of light digestion. Milk is fit for weak stomachs, such as children have.

And it's proper for little bitty baby infants to suckle at their mother's breasts. They need that. Solid food here is like meat. It's for strong stomachs. It's for those who have some years on them. And the apostle says, in effect, that he had no choice but to continue to address and teach them, not just as children.

He uses the word for infants here, suckling infants. He had given them sufficient teaching to have grown so that they would have learned to know that they need and even enjoy meat. But the implication is they have flatly resisted that work of God through God's preacher.

And they were given by God all the provisions to now be strong men spiritually. But he said, you... Notice how he words it there, last part. You have come to need... It's not my fault. It's not your environment.

And you can't blame all the pressures of your Jewish culture that don't want you to go on. You knew when you came to Jesus you were carrying a cross. You knew you were going against the flow of the culture, even the professing Christian culture.

But you have decided to not go further, and you've made yourself to still be children. The fault is your own. And you've brought upon yourselves the unfitness to be fed with solid food. That's what he's saying.

The Danger of Stagnant Spiritual Nourishment

One last thought about the Milky Way. You know what happens when you just stay on milk, even good milk? Milk goes bad. It sours. And pretty soon, not only are you just shallow, you're shallow with error.

And that's the worst of all. Let's rededicate our hearts and our minds to strive to go deeper and learn more and more and more about our great and glorious and wondrous Lord and His great way of salvation that He enfolds to us in the Word of God.

Prayer for Deeper Knowledge and Faith

Let's stand together in prayer.