Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to Hebrews chapter 5 and verse
12. This is only one part of this
verse that is really upon my spirit, but the whole, of course,
we must read. The words upon my spirit are
the first principles of the Oracles of God. The whole verse reads,
For when, for the time, ye ought to be teachers, ye have need
that one teach you again, which be the first principles of the
Oracles of God, and are become such as have need of milk, and
not of strong meat. Hebrews chapter 5 and verse 12. The apostle writing to the Hebrews
here desires to set before them some of the deeper doctrines
of the faith of Jesus Christ. In fact, to explain in more deeper
and detail of his high priestly office and after the order of
Melchizedek. To do so, he will go right back
to Genesis. He will go into some of the deeper
points of the law of God, of the types and of the shadows,
and entering into those things that are hard to be understood. But he says of these Hebrews
that they were like babes. Now if we picture a baby that
is having milk and it can't yet stomach strong meat, it can't
stomach solid food. And we can see the distinction
there in a natural way. And when that baby grows, then
it grows to have stronger meat. We can see the distinction as
well in a natural way with our children when they go to school.
When they go to school, they're taught the first principles first,
or back to basics. The principles are what everything
else is based upon. And of course, they are taught
to read and to write. They are taught to do some basic
mathematics. And what they learn then reading
and writing is the basis of their learning for years to come or
the rest of their lives. Even when you get into higher
education, remember when doing calculus for the first time in
higher education, and we were given the basics, the basic formulas
and expressions that we used then in all what we were to learn
later on. And we had to learn those off
by heart. And really in every discipline,
whether it be engineering or medicine, there are those basics. There's where there's a beginning
to be taught and to learn. And one would not think of just
diving in and just going into the real, very complicated things
straight away. And this is so needful with the
things of God. Those that are first coming to
faith, those that are first seeking the Christian faith or to know
about the things of God must begin at the basics, not be seeking
to look into deep and complicated things or things which even those
that are professed Christians for many, many years would struggle
with or perhaps even disagree with one Christian with another. And so with the Hebrews here,
Paul, he says that here is a people that had known those basics and
was to be expected that he could have taught them more things,
but in a way they had stagnated. They had not gone on, they had
not learned further, and they'd even lost those basic things. They had to go back and learn
them again. I really think that many of the
errors, many of the problems in the Church of God today is
that men have departed from the first principles, those basic
truths, the building blocks, are foundational to every other
doctrine and teaching. And so the apostle is identifying
the Hebrews in this way and say that, ye have need that one teach
you again which be the first principles of the oracles of
God. What does he mean by the oracles
of God? Well, the apostle Peter, he speaks
of the oracles of God in his epistles, and he speaks of that
if a man speak, let him speak according to the oracles of God. In his first epistle, chapter
four, verse 11, If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles
of God. If any man minister, let him
do it as of the ability which God giveth, that God in all things
may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and
dominion forever and ever. Amen. And the oracles of God
are the Bible, the holy word of God. And really just what
Peter says testifies that this is the Word of God. All scripture
is given by inspiration of God and from Genesis to Revelation
and there is a curse on those in the Revelation that add or
subtract from the Word of God. Wherever you get a statement
of faith or what men believe, what a church believes or a denomination
believes, they always state as the very first thing their belief
in the holy scriptures and what those scriptures consist of.
in the 39 books of the Old Testament, the 27 of the New, 66 in all,
and that that is the only revelation of God to man, and that all the
doctrines, all of the teachings, or as in the words of our text,
all of these first principles are all found in the Word of
God. We are not to look in any other
place, in any other man or wisdom, or any other teaching, but in
the oracles of God. And that is very, very important. And when we think of so many
today, even professed Christians, that will pull apart the word
of God, that will destroy the doctrine of the word, the infallibility
of Scripture, the inerrancy of Scripture. In the words of the
psalmist, every word of God is pure. Thy words were found, says
Jeremiah, and I did eat them, thy words are the joy and rejoicing
of my soul. So really one of the first foundation
doctrines and principles and teachings is the oracle of God
itself, what we believe. in the Word of God. We have in Isaiah 8, to the law,
to the testimony, if they speak not according to these things,
it is because there is no light in them. And we are like our
Lord, when tempted by Satan, we are to answer with the Word
of God. And all our teaching, all of
our preaching, preach the Word. and we are to open up the scriptures
of truth. So then what is upon my spirit
then this morning is to really go back for those of us that
have been long in the way and for those who may be joining
us, joining us online that may be coming and these are new things. They haven't known them before. They need those first principles
and everyone, everyone that is brought to faith and brought
to know the things of God must begin somewhere. And it is beginning
at those first principles, thinking of the illustration of a young
child or one that is learning something at school, first going
to school, or first learning a discipline of some kind. there
are those first principles. So my desire is that you and
I, that we might be well established in those first principles that
don't need lots of elaborate arguments or searching of scripture
and comparing of scripture to show them forth as stated clearly
in scripture and all other teaching is based upon them. So what I wanted to do with the
Lord's help is to split up these first principles into three main
headings. The first, the first principles
of God and man's existence, where we are now today, God, and man. And thinking especially along
those lines, it is the opening, the opening chapters of the Word
of God in Genesis. We would expect first principles
would be first in the Word of God, and they are. And then we have the first principles
of salvation. Again, we would expect them,
how man is saved, to be right at the beginning of the Word
of God in Genesis, and especially at the beginning of the Gospels. The Gospel is the good news of
salvation. So we'd expect to see it in Matthew,
in the Gospels, in John, we'll look at it there. And then thirdly,
the first principles of personal faith. You and I need personal
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Where would we expect that? It
is where the Gospel is first set forth in the Acts of the
Apostles. The first preaching with the
power of the Holy Spirit and men and women are brought to
faith. The first principles are clearly
set forth there, especially in Acts chapter 2. So firstly then,
the first principles of God and man's existence. And for this then we go right
back to the beginning in the first book of Moses called Genesis. The very first words in the holy
scriptures, in the beginning God. In the beginning God. We read in Hebrews that he that
cometh to God must believe that he is. There is a God, an eternal
God, and the God of the Bible is a creating God. We read in Jeremiah that the
gods that have not created the heavens and the earth shall perish
from under the heavens and the earth. In the very first principle,
is that there is a God and that he made the heavens and the earth
that we know now. And that should be a statement
of fact, a statement of the revelation in the oracles of God that is
immovable. It is a declaration from God
himself. the creation of the world by
God in six days. The establishment of six days
and then a day of rest as God rested from all the works that
he did. And so we have again the principle
of a day of worship for God. A day of rest. God's work and
then a day of rest. Then we have the principle of
man. Man is introduced to us in part
of the creation and how God has created man. God tells us that he made man
in his own image. And we have in the creation of
man also a first pointing to a trinity, a God that is of more
than one person, but three gods, three in one. We read in Genesis
chapter one, verse 26 and 27, And God said, let us. So there is more than one. One
God, but three persons. Let us make man in our image,
after our likeness. And let them have dominion over
the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over
the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping
thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in
his own image. In the image of God created he
him, male and female created he them. And just in those couple
of verses, we have the principles of a triune God. We have the
principle of being made in the likeness of God and one of the
aspects of that likeness is that he should have dominion over
the creation. And then we have the very clear
principle of being created male and female. And when you think
of the complete denials of that in our society today, completely
against not just the word of God, but biology and common sense. And you think, how can man depart
from such clear principles of male and female? But he has,
as far as what man can go into confusion, fallen man, that these
are principles that God's people especially must hold fast to. We have as well a principle in
Genesis chapter 2 and verse 7 where God, the Lord God, formed man
of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life and man became a living soul. Man is different
than the beasts of the earth. They were also formed of the
ground. But we read in Ecclesiastes,
who knows, the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to
the earth and the spirit of man which goeth upward. Man was made
and given a living soul, so man is eternal. God is eternal. God's image is eternal. There
was never a beginning and there will never be an ending of God.
And when God made man, he made man so that man was eternal. He will never cease to exist. Man is a living soul. And that
is a first principle, that as we are upon this earth, we shall
have an eternal existence. But then we have another principle
that is said before us, and that is the law of God. God gave to man a command. In Genesis 2, verse 16, we read,
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of
the garden thou mayest freely eat, But of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that
thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. And so in those two
verses we have the principle of man is created by God given
the law of God. Given the law of God that he
must obey, And in disobedience of that, the sentence is death. And we've sung of this in our
middle hymn. How that our first parents, they
broke that law, they ate of the forbidden fruit, and therefore
God brought that sentence upon them. Instantly, spiritually
dead, alienated and separated from God, We read that they were
banished from the garden. And we read of this, of course,
in Genesis 3, of the fall. And in due time, they were to
die. And we all today, we are spiritually
dead. And that is very evident by men
not knowing God, hating God, rejecting God, desiring not His
ways. Hatred against God is very, very
evident in the world. One cannot escape that fact that
men are alienated from God. We also know that men die. You cannot escape that fact. You think of those who've gone
before us, we think of the graveyards all the way around us. There
is no man that has been born that has not died, apart from,
we may say, Enoch, who walked with God and was not, and Elijah
that was taken up into heaven. And they are types of what shall
happen at the end of the world, when the Lord shall return, and
those of his people, believers, shall be caught up with him in
the clouds. they will be changed rather than
dying. But for most part of men, man
must die. And these are first principles,
they are first principles, a broken law, a law given, a law that
is broken, and the sentence that is acted against that law. The Apostle Paul, when he writes
to the Romans, In Romans chapter 5 and verse 12, he speaks of
this principle, wherefore as by one man sin entered into the
world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men,
for that all have sinned. Very, very clear. The principle
of sin is the transgression of the law of God. And we see it
right at the beginning there. These are those first principles
of God in the very first chapters in the Holy Word of God. And may we cleave and hold fast
to that. We've sung in the middle hymn
that all are sinners. But all don't feel that. They
don't realise that they are sinners. They're not under that conviction
of sin. They're dead in sin. They're
in a condition that they have but don't know it. But the Word
of God, the Oracles of God, they declare these truths. And they're
truths that we are to hold fast to. There's no man that liveth
and sinneth not. all have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. By the law is the knowledge of
sin. Cursed is everyone that continueth
not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do
them. And from Adam until Moses we are told that sin still reigned,
but sin is not imputed or put upon man, when there is not a
law. And so with Moses, the law was
written and established in the Ten Commandments. But the law
of God was given, clearly given, and broken, there in the Garden
of Eden. And that is why death came. You know, these first principles,
they explain our existence here, They explain the world we live
in, the beautiful part of it. God saw his creation that it
was good. It also explains all of the curse
and the misery and the death that is in the world as well.
If we would need to know the first principles of God and man's
existence now, We as sinners then read, pray over and study
those first three chapters in the Holy Word of God. And there is the principles and
the foundations there that run right through the Holy Word of
God. We want to then look secondly
at the first principles of salvation, that is, how God saves. How God saves. Again, we go back
to Genesis chapter three. And when sin entered into the
world, when Adam and Eve were convinced of their sin, then
the Lord gave them a promise. It was a promise in a word that
was really spoken to Satan. In verse 15, And I will put enmity
between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head, and
thou shalt bruise his heel. And this was the first promise
of a saviour, is the first promise of Christ, who is to be the seed
of the woman, It was very clearly understood by those Old Testament
saints. They look forward to the coming
of a promised seed. In fact, Eve, when she bore Cain,
she says, I have borne a man-child from the Lord. You could understand
that she would think that immediately he would come. But he wasn't
Cain. In fact, Cain was a murderer.
and he slew his brother Abel. And it was then to be in the
line of Seth that followed after Abel, and then through the line
of Noah, then through the line of Abraham, then through the
line of David, and right through the line of Judah. With David
it was his son Solomon to Joseph, who is supposed the father of
our Lord, or the husband, he was the husband of Mary, and
Nathan, his line goes right through to Mary, the mother of our Lord. And that promised seed, it is
clearly traced then in the New Testament, right back down in
Luke, it goes from Mary right down through the generations,
right down to Adam and then to God. And so we see that the saviour,
the way of God's saving men, is through one that should be
born into this world, that was born spotless and sinless and
to be the saviour. So in Genesis we have an expectation
of the saviour, And right through all of the prophecies, right
through the types, the shadows, we have the words of Abraham,
God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. And so when we come then to the
New Testament, that is where we would expect to see in a very
clear light the saviour, the provision, God's plan, of salvation. I refer to that because we are
in New Testament Gospel days. The New Testament opens up and
explains the Old. Now, of course, we can look right
through the Old Testament and see many types of Christ. But they take explaining. Sometimes they're quite deep
things. But when we come to the Gospels,
we come to the clear revelation, the first principles of salvation,
of the Saviour. And so we have in Matthew, Matthew
chapter one, firstly you've got the generations that go from
Abraham to David, to Christ. And then we have the Lord Jesus
Christ set before us. And he is set before us as his
name given as Jesus. Verse 21, she shall bring forth
a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save
his people from their sins. And just in that word, we have
such First principles of the things of God. The very meaning
of his name. In the margin it says that is
saviour. That is what Jesus means. And
the reason is given us. For he shall save his people
from their sins. He has a people. They are sinners. He shall save them from their
sins, not might or maybe, He shall absolutely certainly save
them from their sins. And this should be and is a first
principle of salvation. The Lord Jesus Christ exalted
and lifted up and we find this through and through the teachings
of the New Testament. the Lord Jesus, the eternal Son
of God. And so we have in John chapter
one, again, linking the very beginning of the world with the
beginning of the gospel. In verse one, in the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. very clear statement that the
Lord Jesus Christ is the word, and that he is God, and that
he was, we mentioned, let us make man in our own image, the
idea of a plurality in the Godhead, and our Lord's teaching, very
clearly he says, I and my Father are one, In John chapter 10,
our Lord states that the father is his father. And in verse 33, he says, or
verse 32 first, many good works have I showed you from my father. For which of these were those
works do you stone me? The Jews were taking up stones
to stone him. The Jews answered him, saying,
For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy, because
that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. And the Jews clearly
understood when our Lord was speaking that I and my Father
are one, and the works that he does of his Father, they clearly
understood he was saying that he was God and that he was equal
with the Father. And our Lord is very clear, teaching
his disciples that, if you see me, you see my Father also. I and my Father are one. He says
in John 14, you believe in God, believe also in me. He is the
true God. And John, when he writes with
the epistles, John The last epistle of John, if I can find the passage, in 1 John chapter 5, and we read
at the end of that chapter, verse 20, We know that the Son of God is
come and hath given us an understanding that we may know Him that is
true and we are in Him that is true even in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal
life. How many have made mistakes even
on these first principles read of one that thought, well, he
would see if our Lord claimed to be God himself. And they looked
at all of the red letter parts of the New Testament, came to
the conclusion that Jesus never said that he was God. But when
we look at those passages that we've referred to, our Lord very
clearly said that he was God. and identified with the Father,
and the Jews understood that. The nation formed of God and
to whom the Lord came, they clearly understood what his teaching
was. When we're looking for the first
principles then, then we must hold very fast to this, that
our Lord Jesus Christ is the Saviour, He is truly the Son
of God. He is the promised seed of the
woman and that He came and He will save His people from their
sins. It also stayed as a clear principle
that in John chapter 8 and verse 24 that the Lord Jesus Christ
is the only saviour. He says, I said therefore unto
you that ye shall die in your sins if ye believe not that I
am he, ye shall die in your sins. And in another place there is
none other name given among men whereby we must be saved. A first principle, the Lord Jesus
alone is the saviour. We have the testimony of John
the Baptist in John chapter 1 and verse 29. We read, John seeth
Jesus coming unto him. and saith, Behold the Lamb of
God, which taketh away the sin of the world. Now the Jews, they
knew full well from all the types and the shadows, the sacrificial
lamb had to be spotless, without any blemish at all, and it had
to be slain. The blood had to be shed. Without
the shedding of blood, there is no remission. And in that
one statement that John makes in pointing out the Lord Jesus
Christ, you have the first principle that Christ is spotless and pure. He is God and he is God's provision. And not only did he live a perfect,
sinless life, but he died a sacrificial death And in his death, he put
away the sins of his people. Without the shedding of blood,
there is no remission. When I see the blood, I will
pass over you." We must hold fast to that. Those two aspects
of Christ's coming, his life, his death, are absolutely crucial
first principles of the salvation of God. The Lord Jesus Christ
alone is the saviour. So those are the first principles
of salvation. A salvation that reconciles God
and man, that brings man back to God, that pays the debt that
was owed by his people on the cross, that gives them a righteousness
that they do not have themselves to stand in the presence of God. But I just want to really, and
of course could be enlarged tremendously, but the first principles of salvation
all centre in the Lord Jesus Christ. who he is, the life he
lived, the death he died, the salvation, the saving. He shall save his
people from their sins. I want to then look lastly at
the first principles of saving faith. And yes, dear friends,
we need a personal faith. We personally need saving. We're not to say, well, Christ
came and he's put away sin, so there's no problem there. If
your eyes and my eyes are open, we'll see sin in ourselves, we'll
see sin in the world, we'll see sin in everything. We'll know
that we are fallen and realize that We are transgressors. We need to be saved from our
sins. We need to be saved from the
power and dominion of them and we need to be saved from the
just judgment of God against them. And we sung again in our
middle hymn of how the Holy Spirit teaches a person that they are
a sinner and that they first feel that and it's a very real
thing for them and that then we must look at those first principles
I said at the very beginning. We look at it in Acts chapter
2 and I want to just before we come to there though refresh
our mind as to the first principle of salvation that it is by grace
in Ephesians chapter 2 And verse 8, for by grace are ye saved
through faith, that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. And our first principle then
is that any are saved is by the grace of God. It is not by their
own works, it's by the kindness of God to them, and that the
means that he uses is by giving men faith. Faith to see what
men do not see otherwise. Faith to believe the Word of
God, to receive the Word of God, to profit from the Word of God. Faith is absolutely vital. Without faith it is impossible
to please God. He that cometh to God must believe
that he is. that He is a rewarder of them
that diligently seek Him. And so if we are brought to seek
the Lord, then the Lord has given us then faith to seek Him, to
desire Him, and to want to be taught by Him. We come then to
Acts chapter 2, and we find there the first principles that are
set before us. Here was the day of Pentecost,
40 days, 50 days, 50 days after our Lord was crucified, 10 days
after he rose from the dead, he promised the Holy Spirit.
And the disciples had to tarry, remain at Jerusalem until the
Holy Spirit was given. Here is again the third person
of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And when the
Holy Spirit was given, and we have the evidence at this particular
time of the cloven tongues of fire and the miracle of speaking
miraculously in tongues, but what I want to set before you
is the preaching, the effect of the preaching of the Word,
the effect of what Peter had to say to that people. And we really have it in the
verses from verse 36 through to 42. In verse 36, we have the
apostle has preached to them and he is preaching to them concerning
the Lord Jesus Christ as the son of David. Remember they had
crucified the Lord as an imposter They had not received Jesus of
Nazareth as the Christ. And so he says in verse 36, Therefore
let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made
that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. The first principle is a belief
that Jesus is the Christ. It is to believe in him. And those that heard what Peter
was saying, they were pricked in their heart. Another principle,
conviction of sin. They had crucified the Lord. And though you and I have not
literally done that, if our sins are put away by the Lord at Calvary,
then the sins that we commit in our life and our original
sin, they were laid on Him. The agonies He felt, the wrath
of God that was upon Him was because of our sin. And we also
must be convinced of our sin, pricked in our hearts, really
feel that we are sinners. One of the first principles then
of a personal saving faith is conviction of our sin. All have
sinned and come short of the glory of God, and to be brought
to this, I have sinned. The next principle is in verse
38, and that is repentance, turning, turning from our sin being sorry
for our sin, turning unto God. Not just a change of, a turning
over of a new leaf, but a real sorrow for sin and a real change,
a real turning. Here were a people that had gone
from crucifying the Lord to believing on Him and to trusting in Him. And so that change is absolutely
vital. No salvation without it. Saul of Tarsus mustn't continue
persecuting the people of God, but he must then be a personal
believer and a preacher, in his case, of those things that he
once destroyed. And so then you have in that
same verse, repent and be baptized,
every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission
of sins. And you shall receive the gift
of the Holy Ghost. Our Lord's commission was to
go into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature.
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. He that believeth
not shall be damned. Right at the very beginning of
the sending forth of the Gospel is this principle of believing
and a believer to be baptised. And those that are outside of
the believing, they are damned. If you remember what we said
about the Lord, if you believe not that I am He, you shall perish
in your sins. So we have obedience, we have
baptism, believers' baptism that is set forth here. And then after
baptism, then a breaking of bread or the Lord's Supper is set before
us in verse 42. And they continued steadfastly
in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of
bread and in prayers. So you see again in 42, the principle
of gathering together, continuing together in the ordinances and
in prayers, in fellowship. In verse 41, we have those that
gladly received his word were baptized. Again, a principle. Who should be baptized? Those
that gladly received the word of God. In the same day there
are added unto them about three thousand souls. You cannot turn
away from that pattern given us whereby here in the early
church three thousand are saved. If you and I are to be saved
then these first principles we are to adhere to don't go on
to trying to understand deeper things, hard things. to be taken up with them, and
yet we may well be found not even believers, not even followers,
not even obedient in baptism or the Lord's Supper, and deceiving
ourselves and even arguing or reasoning with God's people who
have believed, who are following Him, and yet we haven't even
known or walked in, realised those first principles of the
things of God are a personal salvation. Am I saved? Are you saved? Do we know something
of these first principles in Acts chapter 2? And then it is
opened up in other parts of the word of God. And so this morning,
may it be, may the Lord make it a personal word to us. And if we have, and sometimes
we do, we get bogged down. We end up feeling religion's
a complicated thing. We can never understand it. We
get discouraged. We get disheartened. We get confused. May it be this morning that we're
brought back to first principles again. Like the apostle saw that
the Hebrews needed to be before they could have strong means,
further teaching. They needed those first principles,
taught them again. What be the first principles
of the oracles of God? And I know it's been a very quick
going over them this morning, but the message is clear. The
need of these first principles that there are first principles,
and these three headings are those principles of what we are,
God and man, and of our being here, and of the first principles
of salvation, and of a personal faith, a personal belief, and
following, and a discipleship. So may the Lord bless this work,
may be a word to establish and help and strengthen us who may
have got entangled in many different thoughts and many different things
and be brought back again to these first principles and may
our souls truly be blessed and encouraged in this. We come to
our last hymn which is so clearly pointing to our Lord Jesus Christ. as the way, and may we be founded
and grounded upon the rock, Christ Jesus. May the Lord add his blessing. Amen.