Preaching a Watered-Down Gospel Is Sin — Jeff Noblit

The Enemy’s Gradual Infiltration of the Church

Hebrews chapter 5, would you turn there? While you're turning there, let me give you these introductory thoughts. I would ask you to listen carefully to what I'm going to say. You'll get the gist of where we're going.

I was watching a documentary while I was trying to overcome some malady that came upon me this week. And it was about World War II and the two atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

About 150 ,000 people perished. And World War II came to an abrupt and sudden end. I thought about that and I was thinking about that. I switched into preacher mode and I thought, you know, the enemies of the church and the enemies of the Christian don't attack that way.

They don't just come in suddenly and abruptly, let their presence be known, like dropping an atomic bomb. No, they're more seductive, they're slower, they take a more gradual approach. More like a cancer in the body that works there and far too often isn't noticed until it's too late.

Or like weeds in your yard that just creep along and after several seasons you notice you have more weeds than you do grass. The good grass is being choked out. Or like a serpent in the rocks that slithers gently and slowly until it ambushes its prey and it's too late.

It's like Jude said in Jude verse 4, that there are persons who have crept in unawares. Seductively, sneakily, craftily, the enemy works on Christians and on the church. And there is an enemy that has been creeping into the church for several generations now.

Now I'm not implying that he hasn't always been working on the church, but I think in an unusually large way and more effective way, this enemy's been creeping into the church for several generations.

Now if it had stormed in all at once, the church would have seen it and rejected it and cut off its head like a serpent. But it slowly and carefully and seductively has crept in until today it has an almost vice-like grip on evangelical Christianity.

At first it was just tolerated and then it grew to be accepted. And now in most quarters this enemy is embraced and even defended against the truth. When the truth is preached and it is exposed for the error that it really is, and thus the enemy, the evil, becomes a friend that we fend off the truth for.

What is this enemy of Christ and of the church? Well, I'm going to expose it to you. And many of you, and perhaps, well, not this church, not most of you, but perhaps many of you, when you hear what I'm going to say, you're going to yawn and you're going to say, what is the big deal?

That's no real problem. Well, that's just a straw man. That's a paper tiger. But that very response indicates how thoroughly well the enemy has infiltrated the body and well-loved into false security you have become.

It's kind of like when Jonathan Edwards, probably the greatest intellectual of American history and certainly the greatest pastor and the leader of the Great Awakening that shook America and Europe. When Jonathan Edwards preached his famed sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, at his own church, he said his men left the service, went out on the steps of the church and yawned and talked about the hay crop that year.

Didn't have any effect. He preached at other places and Great Revival broke out. Well, what is this enemy I'm talking about today? Well, I'm going to call it the Milky Way. The Milky Way. I'm not attempting to be clever or cute.

I'm using Bible terminology. You'll see that when we read the text. When I say the Milky Way, I mean the idol of elementary or first or shallow principles of Christianity. It's when there is a glorying in shallowness, doctrinally speaking, and a general spirit of demeaning or condemning any attempt to go deeper in the doctrines of Christ.

Seeing this idolatry is a demeaning or condemning spirit. And they use catchphrases. And to be politically correct, you must reject all teaching and all teachers that can be labeled or associated with these phrases.

One phrase that's been used through the years is the deeper life. If you hear somebody's into the deeper things, run from them. That's dangerous. That's bad stuff. Or I used to hear about the seminary.

If you go to the seminary, why, it's really the cemetery. Well, that's true. Our seminaries have been bad. But that's because they were liberal, not because they were deep. There's a difference there.

A couple of late-coming catchphrases, and don't get hung up here, we're going to move on. Calvinist or Reformed. If you see that, run and cover your ears. Get away from it. The very persons using it have no idea what they're even talking about.

When they condemn these things, if you understand what they're saying, they're talking about extreme or hyper-Calvinism, not a true understanding of historic Reformed theology or Calvinism. And it all comes from this idol of glorying in shallowness, which I'm calling the Milky Way.

The Milky Way and Spiritual Infantilism

Now, you can search far and wide across the Baptist or evangelical universe, and you will see the dominance of the Milky Way. You have milky churches that demand that milky preachers preach milky sermons to milky Christians who desire to have their bottles refilled with formula each week, that they might nurse themselves back to sleep and satisfy their lactose dependency.

But in the natural realm, an adult man still sucking on a bottle or nursing at his mother's breast is pathetic. It's a perversity. It's even a crime punishable by law. But for Christians to love milk and stay on milk and embrace milk, and in turn reject and even ridicule solid food or meat, is to God a perversity, even a sin.

And it's a ploy of the enemy. It makes the church weak and pathetic. It dishonors God, it dishonors the church, it dishonors the minister of God, and it is fertile ground for false teachers and their false doctrine.

This Milky Way. But today's Christians, they love their pablum. They demand more of the same. Now, not to say they do not like variety. While the most popular preachers are those who can most craftily and cleverly use milk to delight their shallow appetite.

So they search out teachers who can flavor the milk and package the milk and color the milk in different ways, shapes, varieties and forms, but just make sure it's still milk. By all means, make the milk more interesting, make the milk more appealing, more attractive, more humorous and more entertaining.

But it must be only milk. We don't need any Paul type preachers who are determined to preach, quote, the whole counsel or purpose of God, end of quote, Acts 20, 27. No young Timothy's upon us who will heed Paul's admonition to, quote, preach the word, though it will bring hardship and decreasing attendance.

2 Timothy chapter 4. We'll have no Apollos's among us who is, quote, mighty in the Scriptures, end of quote, teaching accurately the things of Jesus, Acts 18, 24 and 25. Let's not have any Aquila's and Priscilla's among us who took Apollos's side and appalled Apollos further so he could go deeper concerning the things of Christ, Acts 18, 26.

No Jesus type preachers who on the Emmaus road taught the disciples the things concerning him in all the Scriptures, Luke 24, 27. No. We basically only need to know what we learned in Sunday school as a child.

You can say it in different ways, you can say it cleverly. Matter of fact, use alliterative outlines. That's impressive. Teach us about milk with deer hunting stories and bass fishing stories. Get football stars and basketball stars and baseball stars to say it.

That makes Jesus look even better. And then throw in a beauty queen. We don't want people to think Jesus is against popularity. Fascinate us with muscle men who can crack blocks of ice over their heads.

And magicians who can make pretty girls disappear. Get them to say it. Yes, say it in all of these ways, but make sure it's still just milk. You see, our fragile spiritual stomachs can't handle anything more.

And when we get old, send us to the mountains to watch the leaves turn. And send us to a conference that has one Christian comedian, one Christian humorist, one good singer, a gospel quartet, and one Bible preacher as long as he's funny.

But make sure it's just milk. The milky way. What does God say about this? Does God just say, well, it's not the best, but it's good? No, God says it's wicked, it's sin, it's perverse, it's unacceptable.

That's what our text is going to teach us today. Look with me, if you will, to Hebrews chapter 5. Now let's begin in verse 12. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary or first principles of the oracles of God, and you've 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 when you get to verses 12, 13, and 14, he's amplifying what he said in verse 11. He's building upon it, if you will. In verse 12, he basically says, man, there's a need again to teach you guys the elementary principles of the Christian faith again.

What in the world is wrong with you? In verses 13 and 14, he gives the parallel illustration of them being like children, who need plain and easy matters delivered unto them. Now let me give you Roman numeral number one in my outline.

Spiritual Immaturity Is Without Excuse

Roman numeral one, their shallow milk dependency is without excuse. That's the first thing he's going to tell them, that's what he's implying here, it's without excuse. Now sub-point A will be because they have had the teaching.

They have been under the teaching. And you know, scripture has a lot to say about preachers who pamper and pet and conjole babies and never try to take them deeper in the things of God. You see, it's comfortable and easy, especially if you've got my gifts and abilities, I could wow you and woo you and entertain you well for years and only give you milk.

It's a temptation. So scripture has a lot to say, woe to the preacher that does that. But scripture also puts a great weight of responsibility on the sheep to make sure you get the food you need and grow in Christ beyond the first things.

He doesn't just lay all the blame on the preacher. As a matter of fact, it's kind of heavily weighted toward the sheep. As I told you before, I believe, generally speaking, God gives a church the pastor it deserves or really wants.

You want the milky way, He'll give you a milky preacher. But there's enough people that want to go deeper for the glory of God. Not in some proud thing, but because they love God and want to know all that God says about Himself.

Then God will give you a man that tries to take you further. But in this case, He says you're without excuse. He says, verse 12, very clearly, for by this time, in other words, you've had the gospel preached to you.

You've had the truth delivered to you. You should be going further in your understanding of Christ, the things of the gospel, the things of salvation and the ways of God. Then you've gone. Go in his commentary, said it this way, quote, they were called into Christ's church and made scholars in Christ's school and Christ ministers to be their instructors and the Holy Scriptures, their books.

They're without excuse. They had it all. So this adds to the sinfulness and the it's not a word perhaps, but excuselessness of their spiritual immaturity. That's true. Some sit under poor, shallow, milky preaching and they remain babes and remain dull.

But this is not the case with the Hebrew church. They're like when Jesus rebuked Philip in John, chapter 14, verse 9. Jesus said, have I been so long with you? And yet you've not come to know me, Philip.

He who has seen me has been seen by the Father. How do you say, show us the Father? Philip, you should know this by now. You've had the time to learn it. In Deuteronomy 29, verse 4, Moses rebukes Israel.

He says in Deuteronomy 29, verse 4,. Yet to this day the Lord has not given you a heart to know, nor eyes to see, nor ears to hear. Forty years. Moses is saying, you wandered in the wilderness and you still don't get what God's trying to tell you.

It's your fault, is what he's saying. Jeremiah's rebuke of Israel says the same thing in Jeremiah, chapter 25, verse 3. From the thirteenth year, Josiah, the son of Ammon, king of Judah, even to this day, these twenty-three years the word of the Lord has come to me and I have spoken to you again and again, but you have not listened.

Twenty-three years, Jeremiah, faithfully preached and they still don't receive the preaching. Without excuse. I'm telling you, there's some Southern Baptists like that. There's some Assembly of God like that.

There's some Pentecostals like that and some Methodists like that. And some Presbyterians like that. Because we are so enamored with bringing worldly amusements and entertainments to keep people going, they've never gotten off their lactose dependency and matured to the milk or to the meat of the word and grown to maturity to be drawn to God and God alone.

The Christian’s Duty to Grow and Teach Others

Well, second sub-point B, there's shallow milk dependencies without excuse because it's their duty, or you could say their debt, to go beyond milk. God saved you. Now listen to me, God saved you first for Himself.

It's not what you're saved from that's really the significant factor, it's who you're saved for. And you're saved for God. And when you're saved, He takes off the blinders so that you can begin a pilgrimage of knowing all that He is.

All the wonders and the glories of who He is. And you have a duty to learn those. All that you can until you get home into heaven. And then there you'll continue to learn. And He says there, by this time you ought to be teachers.

The word ought there has the meaning of a debt you owe, a responsibility or a duty that you have. Did you know that? When we come in here every week and I preach to you, I certainly have a debt to exercise my calling.

I have a duty to give you, rightfully divided, the word of truth. But you have a debt and a duty to receive it, incorporate it, meditate on it, muse on it, pray through it, talk to your children about it, and grow in it.

It's a duty God gives you. So if I'm faithfully giving you God's truth, then you're without excuse if you're still milk dependent. Now He says by this time you ought to be teachers. He doesn't mean the office of teacher in the church, the pastor teacher.

But He means you need to be matured by now to the understanding that you know enough about the word that you can share with others the things of God from the word of God. Now all that have the office of teacher in the church must have the ability to teach.

But all that have the ability need not have the office. So it's a duty of all Christians who have long sit under sound teaching to go beyond milk. You know, Jesus is God's son. I'm a sinner. Jesus died for sinners.

If you believe on Him you're saved and you're not going to hell and you ought to read your Bible and pray. That's pretty milky. It's a whole lot to what Jesus did and how He did it and the reasons why He did it that the scripture teaches that we're to dive into and understand.

Let me give you some cross references here. Titus 2 -3. We got any older women in the congregation? God gives you a job. Older women likewise ought to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips, nor enslaved to much wine.

Now God help us that church ladies run around gossiping drinking booze. It's not a whole lot better to run around gossiping drinking coffee either though. His point being, once you get your kids raised and your husband in the grave, you get some free time on your hands, be careful.

God hadn't grown you to this point to waste it that way. Into knowing the word of God concerning womanhood and teach the younger women the things of God. I tell our widows in our church, you get busy in the church.

Now some of them have responsibilities in their families and that's first, I know that. They don't neglect the church. But when all that's covered, keep yourself busy in the things of God. Who needs some old man to marry anyway?

Amen? Ladies, good night. But if you find one, I'll marry you. Go ahead. Aquila and Priscilla is a great example of this. These are not preacher people. These are just mature lay leaders, if you will, in the church.

Acts 18, 26, and he began to speak out boldly in the synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. Now here's Apollos, a God called preacher.

Aquila and Priscilla hear him and say, man, God's got his hand on him, but he's a little shallow in some areas of doctrine. And I believe very reverently and humbly and respectfully and privately, they pull him aside and teach him.

Not so that they'll be bragged on, but that he'll be more effective. You know, I've had people do me that way. I've had retired preachers in my church that once or twice a month would say, pastor, now when you said that, you were a little out of balance.

And nine times out of ten, they were right and it helped me. They didn't make a big show of it. They were matured. They were used of God in that way. Colossians 1, verse 9, listen to Paul's prayer. For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we've not ceased to pray for you.

What's Paul going to pray? And ask that you may be filled, that means filled to the full, with the knowledge, deeper understanding that is, of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. So the text clearly points out the responsibility, the debt, the duty of the average Christian to grasp the deeper truths and then be able to communicate them with others.

And how much more so, the man of God. I can't challenge you if I'm not learning and growing myself. That's why I'm so grateful for the strong conviction of this church that whatever else the teaching pastor does, he must study and pray to be ready to preach.

The Pathetic State of Remaining on Milk

Well, Roman numeral two. Not only is their milk dependency without excuse, secondly, their shallow milk dependency is pathetic. Pathetic. And that's what he's getting at here. It's a pathetic thing and I want you to grasp what the text wants you to grasp.

And that is, it's not just not preferable to stay immature. It's pathetic. It's bizarre. Not even say grotesque. And in the context of that, I see in evangelical Christianity and often from the pulpits of evangelical Christianity, a glorying in shallowness and even a condemnation of any effort to struggle with and wrestle with and grasp the deeper truths of the Word of God.

And it's a trap of Satan. It's a lie of Satan. Well, he says here in verse 12, he said, Here we are. By this time you ought to be teachers and you have need again. You require your ministers to have to start over again with those basic first principles of Christ and Christianity and you are far beyond the yeaning years as a Christian.

1 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 2 is a good cross-reference here. He says, I gave you milk to drink and not solid food for you are not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you're not able. You're still on the bottle.

And he says to the Hebrew Christians, he says to the Corinthian church, to keep you guys coming and satisfied, I mean, to keep it so basic. You'll walk out, well, he's just over my head. No, you have shirked your duty to grow deeper and deepen your appetite because God gave us the whole counsel of God.

I'm required to preach so that you would know all of Him that He wants you to know until you see Him face to face. And by the way, it's a pretty thick book. And I'm not talking about facts and figures about Moses and Jacob and who was the fourth son and who married who, I mean the spiritual dynamics and truths and principles behind the stories that we apply to our lives today.

You can know the Bible up and down, front and back, and all the facts and figures and be full of hell and full of pride. I'm talking about knowing it so that you can make it incarnational into your heart and life in a more deep way.

Because you see, if you just stop at the first principles, you can make Christianity mean about whatever you want it to mean and still go to heaven. Not really, but that's the way it seems. And that's why Baptists love it so.

Amen. Am I getting in trouble because I tell you the truth? That's the truth. That's why it's so popular. You can take the basic first statements of grace and say, well, I'm checking in on that, I'm jumping through the hoop, I'm getting my ticket punched, and the rest is just mine.

Wrong. That's not biblical. If you go deeper, you begin to see that. Well, Goal is a commentary writer that I'm using. It's 400 years old. By the way, if you want to study the Word of God, study dead men.

Serious. The older guys are much, much richer and deeper. I mean, Goal spent 30 years exegeting Hebrews. You think you've 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 Goal said. He said, this text reminds him, me, of the doctors of ancient days who used to prescribe that adults who were 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 said the Pharisees, the old law teachers of Judaism were this way. In Matthew 9, verses 14 -17, it will 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 join me, in glorying me. 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. But 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.

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 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, their shallow milk dependency is a sin.

Spiritual Immaturity as Sin Against God

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 and 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 God, 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. He said a child's first demonstration of strength is that he feels his little legs and he stands up and he goes. Nowhere 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.

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 got oil painting. You got whatever other kind of painting. 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 and glory there. Elementary school, same word here. Elementary schools teach first principles. Math. Two plus two is four. 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. Et cetera, et cetera. The first principles. All Christians have to have their first principles.

Then he adds something that shows you the weight of the seriousness 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. 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 in 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. 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 give a television broadcast.

You ought to be able to turn on your television. And 95 of everybody that 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.

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 the side of town, start his entertainment in his church, and 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.

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, Meat, and the Responsibility to Mature

Now, in conclusion, 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 breast.

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, is what he's saying.