A boy was told by his father to go and mow the lawn. The boy said, “I don’t want to mow the grass, dad. You know it really kicks up my allergies. “Why don’t you wear one of those masks I bought for you?” the dad asked. “Well dad,” the boy said, “It isn’t really cool for me to wear one of those masks when I mow the lawn. I look like a geek. How about if I do something else?” I don’t need anything else done right now,” the father remarked. “You need to mow the lawn.” The father went off to work and the boy thought, “I don’t think he really expects me to mow the lawn.”
This scene shows us the boy’s immaturity. He was expecting his father to make an exception for him even though he had given him everything he needed to do the job. I listed only one excuse the boy gave but perhaps we could have looked at several. However, the issue boils down to whether the son would obey his father’s word. Would we expect the father to give his son any more things to do until he had obeyed what he had given him first? Would the father have seen the boy’s excuse making as obedience?
In the same way the author communicates to us the dangers of spiritual immaturity. These verses begin a section that runs well into chapter six that we will entitle, “The Danger of Spiritual Immaturity.” Today we hear the author’s rebuke. 6:1-3 will be his exhortation, 6:4-8 will be his warning and 6:9-12 will conclude with his encouragement. But the rebuke of these verses is summed up in the key idea that there is a danger for those who will not follow all the Word of God to become hardened to its teaching.
I. The Difficulties
There are three aspects to the author’s rebuke. The first aspect is the difficulties. The author notes two difficulties associated with not following all of the Word of God. And these difficulties appeared in the congregation to whom he was writing.
A. They were hard of hearing
The first difficulty the author mentions is they were hard of hearing. Verse 11 says, “Concerning him we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.” If you remember from verses 5-10 the author had begun to speak about this man Melchizedek. The author mentions that he has a lot to say about him but it is going to be difficult because of the state of his readers. Their problem is not they have simply lost their hearing but have stopped up their ears. The word “dull” was used in the ancient world to describe an athlete who had grown out of shape due to laziness. These pseudo athletes were not disciplining their bodies to be able to compete. They were neglecting their responsibility to work out.
In this way the author of Hebrews speaks to a group of Christians who were negligent or sluggish in their responsibility as believers to pay heed to the truth of God’s Word. So he is not speaking to a group who, in spite of their own attempts, could not hear what was being said but to those who were resiliently refusing to dig into God’s Word in order to apply and obey it.
This passage is a warning to those young in the faith against falling into an attitude of complacency and the passage is a rebuke to those who have been Christians for some time and have failed to be diligent to fall in love with God and His Word. There must be a diligent effort on the part of the believer to cultivate a love for God and His Word. It doesn’t happen by avoiding or putting off God’s Word but by setting our heart to seek God’s Word.
As everyone should know there isn’t any “love at first sight.” Those who truly understand, from a biblical perspective, what love is know it is not an infatuation, it is not a visual lusting that draws you to someone. Love is a genuine concern for someone’s well being cultivated by spending time with someone and knowing this person. The same is true with a love for God and His Word. We don’t fall in love with God and His Word magically. We fall in love by taking time with Him in His Word. By reading it, studying it and desiring to know what it says. And by this we begin to know the God of whom the Bible speaks.
But when we hear the Word or read the Word and shut our hearts to it we become dull of hearing. When we don’t want to obey the truth we hear, we close our ears just that much more. When we say I don’t believe this or that. Oh I’ll take what God says here but not there then we are becoming dull of hearing. And it is a serious matter to shut our ears to the truth of God’s Word. R. A. Torrey said, “Nothing goes further to help one understand the Bible than the purpose to obey it . . .Nothing else clears the mind like obedience; nothing darkens the mind like disobedience. To obey a truth you see prepares you to see other truths. To disobey a truth you see darkens your mind to all truths.”
This was the situation the readers of this letter faced. They were willing to compromise with the truth to avoid persecution from those who knew them in their previous Judaism. And so instead of becoming bolder in their faith, instead of becoming more willing to suffer for the sake of truth, as did Jesus, they became duller to hear and obey and rejoice in the Word of God. They were not willing to stand in the midst of persecution that the Gospel brought. No they had become dull of hearing but it was their own culpable negligence that brought it.
B. They were in need of retraining
The second difficulty the author of Hebrews mentions is they were in need of retraining. It wasn’t retraining in the sense of being taught a lesson again because it you didn’t understand it. It was the sense of being retrained to understand how the truths they had already been taught should result in an obedience to follow Christ even in the midst of persecution and martyrdom. In verse 12 the author says, “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, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.”
A significant time had passed for these believers to mature. And yet they continued in a state of infancy because of their stubborn refusal to enter into this acceptance of the basic truths of Christianity, the main being, “we must pass through many tribulations to enter the kingdom of God.” The apostles didn’t flinch at the threats and persecution against them. They prayed to God to stretch out His hand to allow them to bring the Gospel further with greater boldness. However, the readers of this epistle were retreating because of persecution and because of it and they could not move onto maturity.
By this time they should have been teaching others. Their progress in the Christian faith should have allowed them to not only bring others to faith in Christ but to be a shining example of what it means to be a mature Christian. By this verse the author isn’t describing teaching in the sense of getting in front of others and presenting God’s truth. He is describing the general discipling ministry in which everyone should be involved. They should have been teachers by now. They should be into the meat of the Word but instead they find themselves on a diet of milk.
Now no one really raises an eyebrow when my wife takes my littlest son aside to feed him. They are not surprised at all at the fact he is nursing. It is what is expected. But what if my wife took aside our first child or second for the same purpose. Wouldn’t you think it odd? Wouldn’t this raise serious doubts in your mind as to our sanity? Wouldn’t you think something was drastically wrong with either my wife and me or our children? But what about you? Are you going to nurse spiritually when you should be sitting at the table with a knife and fork? Are you still acting like a baby Christian? Are you still unable to feed yourself and be a help to others?
Now unlike 1 Corinthians 3 where Paul says the Corinthians were ready only for the milk and not the meat of the Word because they were carnal, here the author announces they were not ready for the meat of the Word because they were not willing to go on to maturity in suffering persecution for their faith. Again these believers were suffering under an intense family persecution due to the Word. Some of these Jewish Christians had family members who were unconverted, stuck in the Old Testament, and who gave their Christian family members a hard time because they were deserting the traditional family religion.
Five, ten, fifteen years should have been enough to wean these believers off the milk of the word but apparently not. They needed someone to wake them up out of their stupor that kept them from progressing. They were in their own little dream world and not living the reality of the Christian life. “The Christian life is OK,” they may respond, “as long as you don’t become too serious about it and as long it doesn’t cost you too much in way of personal comfort or safety.”
What ever happened to Christians who could speak confidently of their faith in Christ while facing imminent death for their Savior? What has happened to men like Polycarp who when given a chance to deny Christ and gain his life and freedom said, “How can I deny Him whom I have served for 86 years and he has done me no wrong?” Why will we stunt our own Christian growth and refuse to listen to the Word of God? Where are the Christians who are not only willing to die for Christ but also willing to live for Him?
II. The Reason
The next aspect of this rebuke the author gives is the reason for their spiritual immaturity. In verse 13 the author says, “For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.” What is the reason for this spiritual immaturity? Because these believers wished to avoid persecution they never learned to handle the Word of righteousness. Because they began to balk at the initial truths of the Word of Christ they never were able to make progress past where they were. They never became proficient with the Word of God and therefore remained infants for all this time.
When they should have been memorizing the Word of God they were making excuses for obeying it. When they should have been sharing the Word of God with a family member they were telling God why they couldn’t. When they ought to have been meeting together with other believers to study His Word and pray they decided to just hang out alone instead. Instead of cultivating their relationship with Christ they pursued other interests. Why seem so sold out to Jesus when that could get you into a lot of trouble or if not in trouble it could at least get you disinherited from the family wealth. They made concessions with the world around them to avoid persecution instead of following the Word of God wholeheartedly.
They wasted all these years by not becoming accustomed to the Word of righteousness. They didn’t desire it like they should have. Apparently the persecution pulled them from that desire. They didn’t learn early enough that a craving for and obedience to the Word of God was to be the way they would grow in their faith and maintain the joy of their salvation.
I can remember early in my Christian life that this peer pressure of persecution was very strong. Classmates and teachers chided me for being a Christian. For some reason, they thought I would miss something by not partying with them any more. But isn’t this what Peter says in his first letter, “In all this they are surprised that you do not run with them into the same excesses of dissipation, and they malign you.” It seemed as if I experienced this early in my Christian life and instead of it causing me distress, it caused me to rejoice even more. As I memorized the beatitudes in Matthew 5 I came across verses 11-12 where Jesus says, “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” When I meditated on these verses it gave me great joy for even though my former friends rejected me I knew Christ was my companion. I knew when I was rejected for Him I was merely sharing in the sufferings of Christ and the Spirit of glory and of grace rested upon me.
I think we do a disservice to new Christians to keep the truth from them that if we are living for Christ we should expect persecution from others. And we do a disservice to our own children to make them think everyone has to like them. We need to teach new believers first and foremost we should be rejoicing in God’s approval through Jesus Christ. If we don’t help them to understand this truth they will fall away, not having been grounded in the central truths of the Gospel, or they will become dull of hearing or sluggish in their Christian lives. Paul made this part of his initial teaching for new converts. He says it his first letter to the Thessalonians. They were with the Thessalonian converts for three weeks before they had to leave. But in 1 Thessalonians, written shortly after they left he says in chapter 3 they had already laid down the doctrine of persecution. The passage reads, “For indeed when we were with you (that is in the first three weeks after their conversion) we kept telling you in advance that we were going to suffer affliction; and so it came to pass, as you know. The passage says, “We kept telling you.” How important is this truth of our expected persecution if they kept telling them in the span of three short weeks?
But more than persecution perhaps the biggest problem for new converts is old converts. Those who are new in the faith and have recently felt the weight of their sin removed and have come to understand there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus are very excited about their newfound faith. They desire to look into God’s Word and they desire to meet together with other believers. But unfortunately other sluggish believers try to throw cold water on their party. They start them on the road to becoming dull of hearing themselves before they have a chance to be established in the faith and feel the joy of experiencing the closeness of Jesus’ presence that results from persecution. These, believers who have become slow to hear, will themselves chide the new believers. “Why are you spending so much time at church? Why are you reading your Bible so much? You shouldn’t really be telling people about Jesus the way you’re doing it.”
Yes sometimes the persecution from other Christians is worse than the persecution from non-believers. We can see an example of this in the life of C.T. Studd who was a famous missionary to China in the 19th Century. Studd had great fame as an athlete in England in the 1880’s. He believed the Lord was calling him to forsake everything and go to China. He describes the time of his decision in the following way.
“I felt that there was one thing alone which could keep me from going, and that was the love of my mother; but I read that passage, ‘He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,’ after which I knew it was God’s will, and I decided to go.
Then came the big test, every persuasion was used, even to the extent of bringing in Christian workers to dissuade him. Even a relation, whose witness had been a great blessing to him, said, ‘Charlie I think you are making a great mistake. You are away every night at the meetings and you do not even see your mother. I see her, and it is breaking her heart. I think you are wrong.’ But C.T. was not again to be moved by human advice.” After that time he went overseas and led many, many people to faith in Christ because he was obedient to the Word of God and not swayed by human persecution.
If you are a believer and you really want to grow then the author says you ought to become accustomed to the Word of righteousness. And you shouldn’t back away from persecution that comes when you obey God’s Word. It is when you shy away from the persecution that comes whether from believers or unbelievers that you lose your zeal for the Word and you become dull of hearing and become in need of retraining. Where are you? There is no room for a moderate position in Christianity. Real Christianity has always been radical. This is because real Christianity is Spirit filled Christianity that produces love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, gentleness, kindness, faithfulness and self-control. And a Christianity that doesn’t love the Word of God is a pseudo version of it. And in this you should consider whether the warning of the coming verses in chapter six does not truly apply to you.
III. The Solution – Practice
So if you have found yourself in such a situation what do you do about it? This is the third aspect of the rebuke and it is the solution. The solution is practice. In verse 14 the author says, “But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.” By practice the author describes the fact that if we are to be mature then we must put into practice the Word of God as we see it in the Scripture and not put it off for someone else to do.
I think it was Mark Zuck, the missionary to the Mouk people in PNG, who mentioned in the New Tribes Mission video that when the first tribe he was working with came to Christ what he did initially was to challenge these people immediately to go out and tell others about Christ. He said he remembered his pastor always told him to challenge a new believer to be obedient to the Jesus’ command to share the Gospel before they realize 75% of those who call themselves Christians are disobedient to the command. And when he told them about it they said, “We’re willing to go but we don’t know what to say.” He told them that’s OK I’ll teach you as long as you are willing. And because of their obedience to the Word of God, the Mouk people continued to grow and lead many others to Christ.
If we will not put into practice the things we know we should do because we want to avoid persecution of friends and family then we are going to become dull of hearing and sluggish in our Christian life. When you hear the Word of God and say, “Well I don’t believe that” you have set yourself up to become dull of hearing. This passage is a warning to those who are new in their Christian life. Do not put the Word of God aside for other things. And this passage is a rebuke for those who have been Christians for years but have been satisfied with some false plateau they think they have reached. If you have not been growing in your Christian life, if you are not adept at using the Scripture because you have refused to really cultivate your proficiency in it then you need to do two things. First, you need to humble yourself to realize the reason you do not have the joy of your salvation is because you have been neglecting the Word of God. You have put it off because it was just too much bother, it was causing too much difficulty in your family or for whatever other excuse you have been using. Humble yourself and admit you are not where you ought to be in your Christian life because of your neglect for the Word of God. It no longer has that preeminent place in your life it once did or perhaps it never did.
You need to humble yourself because you have made yourself the judge of the Word of God and have not let the Word of God judge the thoughts and intents of your heart. You have continued to say, “God doesn’t really expect ME to do this” or “God doesn’t really expect ME to not do that.” Usually though to make yourself not sound so blatantly rebellious it sounds like, “The PASTOR doesn’t really expect me to do this” or “I don’t believe what THE CHURCH teaches on this.” You see you have moved it down a level to the “pastor’s word” or the “church’s word” when it really belongs on the level of Scripture. But you do it to assuage your rattled conscience or keep your dull hearing from perking up. You need to humble yourself and stop judging the Word of God.
And once you have humbled yourself you need to repent. You need to turn back from the place you are to once again cultivate a love for God and His Word. In the book of Revelation, Jesus said to those in Ephesus that they had left their first love. It wasn’t that these people were not serving Him they were, but the problem was that they were busy doing too many things and not loving Jesus. They got too busy to sit at His feet and take time to hear from Him.
Friends, if you have become dull of hearing then put off the sin of disobedience to God’s Word you have allowed to come into your life. And seek once again to put into practice the Word of God so you may be able to discern both good and evil. Everything may seem right to you now because you have no discernment. God has removed any discernment from you because you have refused to listen to His Word completely. It is not that you don’t want to hear some things from God’s Word but you don’t want to hear everything. And God will not speak to you concerning other things until you have given yourself to obey Him in everything.
Have you become like that boy whose father told him to mow the grass? God will not speak to you about other things until you are willing to submit yourself to all of the Word of God regardless of persecution. Humble yourself, repent and put into practice the whole counsel of the Word of God.