If you take your Bibles and turn
with me to Hebrews, Hebrews will begin in chapter
5, but my main text will be in chapter 6. And the title of the message
this morning is, Six Principles of Spiritual Growth. Six principles. six foundations upon which all
spiritual growth is built. Now, last time we saw in verses
7 and 8 of chapter 5, the Scripture says, "...who in the days of
His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplication with
strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him
from death, and was heard in that he feared, though he were
a son, yet he learned obedience by the things which he suffered."
We saw then the necessity of suffering. That Christ, in order
to be our High Priest, He must have accomplished those things
for us pertaining to God. He was to offer gifts and sacrifices,
not of His own choosing, but those that God required of us. And so Christ, in the days of
His flesh, the Scripture says, learned He obedience. How did He learn obedience? By the things He suffered. He suffered. You see, Christ
must have suffered. He told His disciples that when
He had rose from the dead. He said, ought not Christ to
have suffered? and entered into His rest. And
beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them
all things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures. He must
have suffered in obedience to the law of God, in obedience
to the death of the cross, or none of us would have been redeemed. None of us could have been reconciled
had He not learned obedience by suffering. But praise God that He did suffer. I'm thankful. Praise God He did
suffer for us. And by His suffering, He put
away our sins. And seeing that Christ was a
Son and how He learned obedience, He learned it by suffering, by
the loss of His own will. And even so, let us learn the
truth. Suffering is the best teacher.
If you are suffering, I recognize that, believers. Suffering is
a good teacher. It's much better than prosperity. Suffering teaches us obedience. It's not meant to destroy us,
nor will it cause one of God's elect to be lost or forsake Christ. That's not the purpose of suffering.
Instead, affliction, chastisement, and earthly trials and tribulations
only cause the believer to be more rooted and grounded in Christ. And we only, by the things we
suffer, learn and grow. And that's what Paul is entering
into now. In verse 10, he calls this, he
wants to bring out a point about Christ's perfect priesthood.
And he says in verse 10 that he was called of God and high
priest after the order of Melchizedek. Now, this was going to be a question. The Jews, no doubt, would have
raised this question. If Christ were to be a high priest,
How could he, seeing that he was of the tribe of Judah and
not of Levi? Remember, the priests were all
of the tribe of Levi, especially the high priests were of specifically
the sons of Aaron. How then could he? And Paul begins
this, he says, well, because he was not after the order of
Aaron, but rather of a higher order, a higher order which was
typified and pictured by this man Melchizedek, an Old Testament
high priest before the law, When Abraham was returning from the
slaughter of the kings, it was then Melchizedek met him. Where
did he come from? We don't know. He was a priest,
and he was God's priest, and he was God's king before there
was ever a priesthood established. And this was to picture Christ.
But before he gets into this, and he will get into this in
chapter 7, but before this, Paul reveals this. Instead of revealing
the type of Melchizedek, he pauses, he stops here in order to give
a rebuke. So if you were to now section
this book, you would see that verse 11, Verse 11 of chapter
5 would go all the way down to verse 19 or 20 at the end of
chapter 6. And if you'll notice chapter
7, look for this male kiss deck. You see he's bringing them back
around. So verse 11 of chapter 5 and
most all of chapter 6 is an aside. It's a necessary rebuke for these
believers. Now, these Jewish believers were
well-versed in the Old Testament Scriptures. They were raised
up from a child to recite and to learn the Old Testament history
and ceremony and law. They were well-versed. They could
recite it from memory and tell you the complete history of Israel
in great detail. You remember Paul said, what
advantage has a Jew over a Gentile in Romans 3? He said, much in
every way. And what does that mean? Because
unto them were committed the oracles of God. Unto them they
had the Word of God from their youth. You that are young, you
are at an advantage. An advantage above the others
who don't know any of these things. And you would assume that this
would be an advantage to those who are raised under it to then
believe in Christ, it would be an advantage. But why then did they not see
Christ in the Old Testament? Why was Paul having to expound
these things to them, things that they should have already
been teachers of? They knew these things from their
youth, and yet when they were saved, these things should have
been their desire to look into. But because of spiritual immaturity,
they were not capable of enduring these types and pictures. They were not capable of seeing
them. I thought it kind of funny. There was a man, a popular man,
does a radio show. His brother wrote a book, Rush
Limbaugh's brother. He wrote a book. And in the commercial
of it, he was so excited as though he had found something that no
one else found. Christ is in the Old Testament.
Can you believe that? Christ was in the Old Testament
as though He had just unlocked the secrets of the universe,
as though He just now Himself had found this. No, this has
been there all the time. And the problem is if we don't
understand these types and pictures of Christ in the Old Testament,
it's basic immaturity. It's immaturity. You would expect these Jews who
knew the Word of God and so long to see the Messiah come that
they should see that all Scripture testified, pictured, and shadowed
Him. But they didn't. Did profess to believe on Christ? They seem to be genuine believers,
but the problem was spiritual immaturity. These Jews should
have been teachers, Paul said. Look, in verse 11, he says, "...of
many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing that you
are dull of hearing. For when, for the time, you ought
to be teachers, you need 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 strong meat. For everyone that useth
milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness, for he is a
babe. But strong meat belongeth to
them that are of full age, even to those who by reason of use
have their seasons exercised to discern both good and evil,
spiritual immaturity. These were spiritually immature
like babies and small children who must continually be instructed
in elementary principles. Even so, there are some found
among the saints today, those who refuse to grow up in the
faith. There are some who suppose it
good enough to be in Christ, saved from death and hell, but
have no desire to be useful in the service of God." Now listen,
if you just are content, if you are content to just be saved
from hell, if you're just content to be in Christ and you have
no desire to be useful in the things of God, that is spiritual
immaturity. It's spiritual immaturity. You're
just immature. Because believers desire to grow. We desire to grow in the things
of God. These believers that are spiritually
immature, they lose much. They lose much, so much because
of it. They miss out on the great treasures
of Christ. They miss out on the treasures
of His Word, the treasures of His person, the treasures of
His work. Do you suppose you know all there
is to know about Christ? Do you suppose that you've reached
the bottom of His deity, of His holiness, of His blood, of His
righteousness, of His holiness, of His perfections? Do you suppose
that we've reached so far in our understanding that we cannot
dig deeper into these things? Oh no. Paul himself said, we
see through a glass darkly. We don't know it all. Paul said,
yet I have not yet attained unto perfection, but I press. That's the idea of a mature believer
is that we press toward the mark of the high calling of God. We
press. And as it was difficult for these
to enter into this priesthood, so the Holy Spirit inspired Paul
to speak to these childish saints and compel them. And it's sad
but true, there are many who believe on Christ for so long
a time and ought to be teachers. They ought to be the ones helping
others, and yet they themselves are in constant need of being
taught again the things that they should affirm and know We who ought to be useful in
the ministry of Christ, but because of immaturity we become a burden. But for whatever reason, whatever
reason for immaturity, all reasons are bad excuses. Whatever excuse
you can make for immaturity is just a bad one. It's just a bad
excuse. Remaining babies. There's no
reason for that. If you are such a saint, it should
be shameful. Now, I'll tell you this, if you
have a grown son and he were to refer back to sucking on pacifiers,
That'd be shameful. You wouldn't want to be seen
with that child. That would be horrible. If he
were to refer back to having coloring books and crayons and
not be growing up and learning and experiencing and growing
in wisdom, that'd be shameful. So it is with believers. And I'll tell you, it's expected
of young believers. And I'm not shaming those who
are babes in Christ because that's necessary. For babies in Christ,
it is necessary. And I'm talking about when we
know that our brother JD came to us and he was 66 years old
when the Lord saved him. At that time, he was a babe when
he was 66 years old. So age in the body has nothing
to do with this. But those who are babes in Christ,
they do need milk, and we don't shame them because they need
milk. If you're a mature believer and you see a babe in Christ,
we're not shaming them. What we want for them is them
to grow up in the faith. That's what we desire. We desire
to see one another grow in the things of God. And so for babes,
we must spoon-feed them, not expect them to eat strong meat, These babies are incapable of
discerning, Paul said, good or evil. Therefore, we must be faithful
and constant and persistent to gently feed babies. But one who is satisfied with
such immaturity must be rebuked. One who is satisfied with such
immaturity must be rebuked as Paul does these believers. One who is satisfied with the
ABCs of the gospel, that man robs himself of great joy and
blessing and will remain unprofitable in the kingdom of God. Therefore, we should pray for
spiritual growth. Pray for it. And we'll see soon
enough that all spiritual growth is truly in the hands of God.
But there are means and things that God has given us that we
should use at our disposal. Now, Peter mentions this in 2
Peter 3 and verse 17. He said, "...Ye therefore, beloved,
seeing you know these things before, beware, lest ye also,
being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your
own steadfastness, but grow in grace and in the knowledge of
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." So what is the Remedy then so
that we not be led away with error and from our own steadfastness. What's the remedy for this? Peter
says it is to grow. To grow in the grace and knowledge
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, we begin in chapter 6. After
he's rebuked them, he now gives them this. Verse 1, Therefore
leaving the principles of the doctrines of Christ, Let us go
on unto perfection." That word means maturity. "...not laying
again the foundation of repentance from dead works, of faith toward
God, doctrine of baptism, laying on of hands the resurrection
of the dead, and of eternal judgment." Now, as we enter into this, many
men are going to twist this chapter to their own destruction, many
false preachers, messengers of Satan, in order to cast doubt
upon the work and the person of Christ. They tried to teach that men
are saved can be lost again. That's what they're going to
use this chapter for. But as we go through this, and
he's going to handle apostasy in this chapter. Apostasy is
very important for us to understand what it is. But remember the
basic principle and context of his argument. The basic principle
is grow up. That's his basic principle. And
so as we do this, my intention is not to debate, because we
know this. is of the Lord, and He says,
I am the Lord, I change not. Therefore, you sons of Jacob
are not consumed." We know His salvation is immutable. His salvation
is unchangeable. that His love and His gifts and
callings are without repentance. We know this. In Romans 11, it
says, without a doubt, all Israel shall be saved. For God said,
I will deliver and turn away ungodliness from Jacob. I shall
take away their sin. And we know He did this when
Christ died for our sin. Therefore, it's not Paul's intention
Nor is it mine to debate such fools, but only to instruct and
encourage believers to continue in the faith. That's my intent. The purpose of this text is to
encourage you, to strengthen you. If needs be, rebuke you,
but that is not an evil thing, it is a good thing that we move
on. Now this time frame that the
apostle was living in here was a time of great apostasy. Many who had professed faith
in Christ of these Hebrews he's writing to, many of them had
returned to the old way. They had turned back to Judaism,
to false religion. And these ones he was writing
to were being tempted to draw back, to come back to Judaism, to leave Christ. I tell you that we are in no
different a time. We are in no different situation.
There are many today who profess to believe the gospel, profess
to believe Christ, But because of the smallness of the church
and the greatness and excitement of the false church, because
of their rituals and beauty and orthodoxy and ceremony, many
have left the gospel of Christ for a false gospel. Believer, this is never meant
to discourage you. Let none of these things discourage
you because Christ said this would happen. The apostles warned
us that the great apostasy must take place. Paul said that heresies are a
necessity among you. Why? So as to separate. to make division
among you so as to weed out those that are true believers and those
that are not. That's what this does. So believers
see as to why we are encouraged to grow up, to grow in the grace
and knowledge so as to not be fooled by these impostors. so as not to be drawn away with
their excitement, with their glamour, and with the fame that
they have. Don't be fooled by their apparent
success of false religion. The world will love its own. That's just a basic principle.
So then, let us grow in grace and knowledge so as not to be
moved." Now, Paul says this, look, let us go on to perfection,
leaving the principles. Let us go on. What does he mean
by that? That may sound confusing. Paul, what are you saying? Are
we to leave the basic foundation of the gospel? Are we to go on
to something else? Listen, false teachers will teach
that. I had a man that was reading of the doctrine of election and
he was so thrilled with this doctrine and he brought it to
his pastor and he said, look at this, this is glorious, this
is wonderful. And his pastor said, don't worry,
you'll outgrow that. You see, he's twisted this scripture
as to say, well, you just will grow out of that. You need to
leave that first principle out. That's not what Paul is saying.
Paul is not saying to believers that we are to forsake the basic
principles of the gospel, nor are we to forget or deny or cease
to preach the first and basic truths of our faith. But what
he is telling you is that you should build on those principles. Build on them as one would lay
a foundation. And then you would build the
building on top of the foundation. The foundation would support
the weight of the building. Then the building we build must
be according to the plan, the architectural design of the building. But in this metaphor, as Paul
is talking to children, let's put it in this light. As a child
must first learn letters. Why do we learn letters? So that we can build words, form
words. And we form words so as we should
build on that to make sentences, ideas, thoughts. And by these we are able to read,
to write, to learn vast amounts of things. If we understand the
alphabet, if we understand how to form words and sentences and
thoughts and ideas, then we are able then to understand and bring
in more knowledge. But if I can write a book, if
I can read the most challenging literature, do I set aside the
alphabet? Is that possible? As I'm reading these words to
you, are they not written with our letters and put together
with words? You see, I've built it on those
things. I've not left them completely.
I've just moved on from them. I've built on them. basic principles
of words and sentences and thoughts, but seeing we learned, we build
upon these things, we use them every day in everything we do. Even so,
believer, We who have believed these first principles, who have
received them by the grace and power of God, we must also grow
in our learning and experience and use of these fundamental
principles. That's what growing up is, learning
to use those things we know. I'll tell you the letter A is
A, do I? I'll tell you that. You know
that. You know that. There are things,
believers, that you know. You know these truths and they're
just as natural to you as breathing. And so what are we to do with
these things? We are to use them. to grow in them, to learn more
of them, and Paul uses six principles. I know this. I'm not going to
get through these six principles as I'd like to. But there are
six things here, and I'm going to briefly go through them, and
I'll recap them next time more in depth. But first one is repentance
from dead works. Repentance from dead works. That
is a basic fundamental principle of everyone who is a believer
in Christ. You cannot be a believer in Christ
if you have not repented from dead works and believed on the
Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance and faith go hand
in hand. The Apostle Paul in Philippians
chapter 3 of his own experience, he recounts his own experience
of his birth. And he says, those things which
were good to me, I counted them as dung. All that religion I
had, all those works I had, all those things I thought were my
salvation, when God gave me life, those things became dung. In other words, I repented of
my repentance. I repented of everything that
went before and I've turned to Christ completely. That's a rudimentary
principle. It's just rudimentary. When a
man is born again, he sees the vileness of his nature. His sin
is exposed and he turns to Christ. Is that not your experience in
grace? That's my experience in grace. That's your experience
if you're a believer in Christ. Now then, have you stopped experiencing
this? Have you not seen as you grow
in the grace and knowledge of God that your flesh is even more
vile than you first thought it was? Your flesh. is even more corrupt now than
it was when you first believed. Why is that? Because you've been
growing. You've grown in your understanding
of who you are. And what does this growth in
our understanding, this growth in our repentance, what is this
growth? What does it do? What's the purpose? It causes
us to have more faith in Christ. It causes us and drives us to
Christ. That's what it does. And that's
the second thing. Faith toward God. Repentance and faith go
hand in hand. The more vile you see yourself,
the more you will cling to the perfect person and work of Christ. That's growing. That's growing.
Now, faith toward God, the second one. This is faith. This is the
faith of God's elect, the confession of every true believer. It is by this faith we have the
imputed righteousness of Christ given to us. Our faith, then,
is in God who sent Christ to save us. Our faith is in Christ
who alone justified us and purchased us. And we believe
in His victory and accomplished work of salvation. Now, do you suppose that once
you have believed that you should go on and never believe again?
No. But rather, your faith should
grow. Your faith should grow. How does it grow? It grows by
trials, by difficulties. When your faith is exercised,
it grows. Children run cross-country and
at the beginning of the year, they're huffing and puffing,
they're tired, they don't do so well. But then you look over there
and you see a man who's an experienced runner, one who's run every day
of his life. Their distance is nothing to
him. That's a warm-up to him. Why? He's exercised. And so what it
is is our faith must be exercised. It must be tried. The trying
of your faith, Peter says, is much more precious than gold. So why are you suffering? So
that your faith should grow. Your faith should grow. It must
be exercised. It must grow. And it must be
fed. It must be fed by the Word of
God. Your faith, if it's to grow, it must be fed by the Word of
God. Through the preaching of God's Word, through the reading
and studying on your own. And so as we grow in faith, what
do we see? We see more of Christ. More of His saving fullness. More of His perfect love who
died for me. You see, I see Him more clearly
as my faith grows. And as my faith grows, I tell
you this, I am more confident. I'm more confident. You remember
Peter? Peter, when he was tried by that
little maiden, he failed. He, trusting in his own strength
to keep himself, he failed miserably, denied the Lord Jesus Christ
three times. And you look at him just a few
weeks later, and he is so bold to preach in front of the very
ones that crucified his Lord. What is that but spiritual growth?
Growth in faith. And thirdly, you have baptisms.
He said of doctrines of baptisms. It says plural because there
are two. First, the doctrine of baptisms is concerning the
baptism of the church. When the Lord Jesus Christ ascended,
the Spirit of God was poured out on His church. This is a
basic fundamental principle, that the Spirit of God was poured
out on His church, that His apostles received authority and power
by which they did signs and wonders and miracles which were to testify
of their preaching, of their message. to testify that they
were the ones sent to preach the gospel and to write the Scriptures
that we have. This is a fundamental ABC principle
that we don't move from. The Spirit of God has anointed
His church. And we don't need those signs
anymore because we have the full revelation of God's Word. That
is a baptism of the Spirit of God. And His church is baptized
with His Spirit. And we have His authority, His
Word. by which He gave us through His
apostles. And the second baptism is that
of water baptism. The doctrine of baptism is a
picture. It is a type. It is a shadow.
It is a gospel message in itself. It is identifying with Christ. You know, when someone is saved,
this is a man-made... I want you to come up here and
make your testimony. Give your testimony. Nowhere
in Scripture will you find that. That's a man-made confession
of faith. The only confession of faith
that's given to us in the Word of God is baptism. Baptism is
a picture. It has nothing to do with our
salvation, but yet it is vital because we are commanded to be
baptized. If you believe on Jesus Christ,
you should be baptized because it is a command of God. And so as we see baptism, we
see baptism as we are identifying with Christ in that he died,
we are submerged in the water, we identify with his death, his
burial, we come up out of the water, we identify with his resurrection. That's a doctrine of baptism.
See, now then you won't be moved by those who believe in baptismal
regeneration, will you? Why? Because you're grown up.
You know that's not true. You know you're not going to
be moved by that. That's what it is to grow in these doctrines
of baptism. And I'll tell you what, that
gives us boldness to understand that we are the baptized church.
That we are baptized with the same Spirit of God. That should
give you boldness to go and witness. That should give you boldness
to get out of this chair and go out into the world and witness
of Christ. That should give you boldness
and you should grow up in that. Know this, that we have this
doctrine and we should use it. Now, the next one is laying on
of hands. Now this they did with spiritual
gifts. The apostles laid their hands
on people and they received spiritual gifts. Now the apostles were
the only ones who can convey these spiritual gifts to men. You can read it later if you
want to in Acts chapter 8. When Philip was down there preaching,
it took Peter and John to come down there, and when they came
down there, they saw that they had been baptized in water baptism,
but they had not received gifts of the Holy Spirit. And so they
laid their hands on them, and they received these gifts." Now,
what is that doctrine? Again, that's testifying of their
Word, their authority. And we don't need those anymore
because we have the full authority of His Word. Now, the other laying
on of hands is this, for the presbytery. preaching. This was an ordinance that they
had done when they were anointing someone to the position of a
pastor or a deacon. And this is very important because
Paul says, lay hands on no man suddenly. Lay hands on no man
suddenly. Why? Because pastors are a gift. They're a gift of God to His
people. He said when He ascended, He
gave gifts unto men, some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists,
and some pastor teachers. And these men are those who faithfully
declare the Word of God, but we should not lay hands on some
man suddenly, And let us learn the importance and the need then
of faithful men. Let us grow in the thanks and
praise of God for both His Word and the gift of those who preach
it. And fourthly, resurrection of the dead. This is one that
we've experienced, a doctrine we've both experienced and that
is coming. You were dead and now you're
alive. Now you're living. This is one
we experienced. He that hath part in the first
resurrection, over them the second death hath no power. But believer,
let us remember there's also a resurrection of the dead that's
to come. Don't be... This is so we're not so settled
in this world. This should cause us to grow
up and realize this world is not our home. What you have here
is passing. It's fleeting and it's vain. It's empty. This is a principle
by which we should learn to hang on very loosely to the things
of this life. And the last one is the judgment
of God. He says, the resurrection of the dead and the judgment
of God. Eternal judgment. Friends, there's
a resurrection coming, which is our delight, but there is
also a judgment of God, which is the condemnation of the wicked.
What should this doctrine do for us? It should give us motivation. The Lord said in that parable
to those sent to get the guests for the king's wedding. He said,
go and compel men to come. Is there any greater reason as
you should compel men to come than eternal judgment? You should
compel them to come in. And I tell you, we learned that
at very first principle. We learned that. We were fearful.
We sinned and we knew judgment was coming. That's the first
principle. But now that we see it approaching closer and closer
by the day, should we not be more zealous then for the furtherance
of this gospel? The only gospel of Christ that
can save sinners? We should be the most zealous
people there is. Knowing that eternal judgment
is coming. I do pray. I do pray that God would give
us such desire to grow up in these things. What? Repentance. Knowing who you are.
Knowing your nature. Faith toward God. Always clinging
to Christ in every way that just shall live by faith. In the doctrine of baptisms,
knowing that we are the anointed church, knowing that the resurrection
of the dead is coming, we should set our affection on things above
and not on the things of the earth. And knowing eternal judgment
is coming, we should be most zealous to preach the gospel
to others." And notice what Paul says at the end, this we will
do if God permit. You see, Paul then resigns. You
should grow up and this we will do if God permit. We know it is in the hands of
God to cause growth and therefore we pray for it.
And you know what? God is not slack in His promises. Ask anything in my name and the
Father will give it to you. Is it not His will that you grow
up? It's His revealed will that you
grow up. And so then if you were to ask, Father, cause me to grow,
do you not then suppose He will honor that? He will. He will. May God help us.