Start there where we left off last time at the end of chapter 5, so we'll start in 5.11 and we're going to actually go through chapter 6 verse 8 is where we'll go through tonight. I know people get spooky when you jump a chapter, but I got news for you. The chapter and verse markings weren't in the original, so it's not you know, inspired necessarily the divisions. Don't tell people I said that. Those ones that want to assign numerology to Bible verses, they don't like that, but I'm right, so. You can be right with me or you can be wrong by yourself, that's okay. I'm going to look at this text tonight and look and see here in this text, I think what What we're going to see the writer of Hebrews talking about is the idea of dullness, being spiritually dull, apathetic, being spiritually weak. I think we'd all have to confess that we've been there at different times in our lives. We've felt dull. It's a common experience. We've felt apathetic about the things of God at times in our lives. reality of being human. I think many people have dealt with and are dealing with that type of situation in their spiritual life. And so, why does it happen? In this passage today, I think what we're going to see are a couple of possibilities to why spiritual dullness is a reality, how it can come to pass. One possibility is that you're a Christian that has, for one reason or another, stunted your own growth, and you're laboring in some level of immaturity, and that could be different in different people's lives, right? Maybe you're more immature than you should be, or maybe it is you're very immature and you've never moved forward from the fundamentals that you learned early on in the faith, and you've not grown from there. So that's one possibility. The second possibility is that you're pretending. There are those who have never known Christ in the first place but gone through the motions. And I think in this text today that the writer of Hebrews is going to show us this and let it be a mirror for the realizing, I think, in our lives, the dangers of dullness, the dangers of dullness. And so I want to look here at the end of chapter 5, and I'm going to actually, I'll back up to verse 10, just for context sake, and then we'll go on through the first part of chapter 6. It said, called by God as high priest according to the order of Melchizedek, of whom we have much to say and hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God. And you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are full of age, that is, those who, by reason of use, have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead and of eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits. For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away to renew again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame. For the earth drinks in the rain that often comes upon it and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated, receives blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and briars, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned." So the writer of Hebrews here It says that, it has much to say in verse 11, but it's hard to explain because you're dull of hearing. Now, remember, Hebrews is written, at least in a general sense, to the people of God. Right? Jewish background believers to the people of God. He's writing this to, just like most of the other letters in the New Testament, we believe to a gathered church somewhere. Now, was this letter circulated like the other letters? Yes. And again, it had the context of, we can tell by everything we've talked about in Hebrew so far, of people who had a really good grasp of the Old Testament. And so, he's saying, I want to tell you a lot of things, but you're dull. You're dull of hearing. He said, I have much to say. About what? about Christ as the high priest after the order of Melchizedek that we talked about last week and all that that means. And he says, but these things, these deeper things, and look, even from our perspective, we talked about it last week, this is deep stuff trying to pull out of this the doctrinal truths that are present here. And so he said it's hard. He wants to help them understand this, and he's going to spend a bunch of territory doing it in the letter, but he's telling them that there are many among them that are in this situation of being dull of hearing, making his job really difficult. You ever tried to talk to a glazed-over teenager? Yeah? Well, I can tell you this. Sometimes I'm focused in on something. The only time my wife ever uses my first name. And she'd say, hey, hey, if I should say, Russell. And I said, what? Don't yell at me, right? I said, it was the fifth time I tried to say something to you. Because I was getting a little dull of hearing. The rejection or disobedience, I believe, of revealed truth, what they have known, what they should have already known, When we disobey that which we understand, you know what becomes really hard? To learn more about the things that we should be moving forward in an obedience. If we're not obeying in what we know, then we got problems. And one of the issues that I encounter a lot, kind of out in the Christian world, I'm sure Brother Harold would back me up on this, is that we got a lot of people that want to talk about all of these big, magnanimous concepts, right? And they want to argue over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but they don't even really understand the gospel well. And you want to say, what's the deal here? You're not obeying that. What do you mean you won't share Christ with people? What do you mean that you're not gathering somewhere with a local body of believers? I'm just going to tell you this right now. I can encounter the smartest individual that's got such a good grasp of doctrine. and I want to read what they write or I want to talk to them, but the second I find out that they have somehow said that they're smarter than everybody else and there's no church out there that believes just right and they have no fellowship with a local body of believers, I really don't have much use for them after that. And it's not because they might not be right, it's because they don't have any skin in the game. So many guys that have left ministry want to tell people what's wrong with ministry. I say, that's really throwing rocks at something that you left because you didn't want to continue to fight the good fight of faith because people act like people. Right? When we reject what we know to be true, that's why guys get pet doctrines and just live in them. I've been guilty of it. It's because it's easier, it's more fun to argue about all of these things that maybe you know more about than most people because you've studied it and they haven't, because it's just kind of an out-here principle or a third-level doctrine. And then they say, well, how's it going sharing the gospel? And you say, well, I don't really do that. Okay. It happens. And I think that's what he's wrestling with here. There's a lack of obedience and there's a lack of understanding. And so he's not able to go deeper with them. He goes on in the next couple of verses, really 12 through 14, to really tell them the reality of where they are in this moment. He's diagnosing where some of those that he's speaking of here, those that are dull of hearing, what their situation actually is. And he tells them that by this time you ought to be teachers. You ought to be. And so the implication I would draw from that is that there are some there that have had enough information, and they've had enough longevity in the faith, that they should be able to be a conduit of truth for others, and yet they're not. because they've become dull of hearing. They should be teaching and discipling the next generation, but they're not there. I'm not talking about necessarily having a position as teacher, and I don't think necessarily that that's exactly what he's talking about there, though it could be. But many of us have gotten ourselves at times in places where we can't even rightly disciple those closest to us in the way that we should. because we've stunted our spiritual growth. I truly believe this, that there are many people in many churches who have some sort of a calling on their life, but they aren't fulfilling it because they haven't studied to show themselves approved. They're laboring in immaturity that's their own fault. They're just not there yet. He's saying you don't even really have a grasp on the foundational things in the way that you should. He said you're still on milk. Unskilled in the word is what he's saying. That's specifically what it says. Unskilled in the word of righteousness for he is a babe. That's verse 13. He said, well, didn't you just get through saying we got to know the fundamentals well and practice them well? I did. But if we have no desire to know more, We have no desire to understand the Word of God more and more and more. It's like the kid that only eats chicken nuggets. It's like, yeah, chicken nuggets are good, but you don't want some steak, right? I don't think you have to get a PhD in theology, all right? Really, I don't. Some of the smartest, most biblical, godly people I've ever known were faithful. servants in the local church, faithful Sunday school teachers served in the church, and they knew more about the Bible than half the people that teach in seminaries. And they lived it. And they were practical theologians. I want to tell you this. A baby with a bottle is a beautiful thing. It really is. When somebody comes to Christ, that is a wonderful and glorious thing. But there are none of us that would think, when we use the same illustration that's being used here, that if we have somebody that obviously doesn't have medical problems, that is 30 years old, if they're still drinking out of the bottle and eating baby food and wearing diapers and not walking, all of a sudden we'd say, what in the world is going on here? And yet in the church we act like that's okay. And it's just not. A grown person with a bottle is wrong. It's off-putting. It's even ridiculous. But we won't call it what it is because we don't want to hurt people's feelings. If a man golfed every week, two, three, four, five times a week for decades, And you went golfing with him and you knew this about him? And he couldn't hit the ball with any skill? What would you think? Well, this guy's not really a golfer at all. I don't know what he's doing out here when he comes out here, but it ain't golf. And yet, If someone claims to be a Christian, they go to church a few times a week, they do this and they do that, and yet there's no depth of knowledge, there's no growth, when you try to engage in the things of God with them, you try to bring them along and have them be a part in serving this way or serving that way, and they're just like, no, no. Are they what they say they are? I'm not trying to throw rocks at people and make someone doubt their salvation that's legitimate, but I think that's the call of the Scriptures that we examine ourselves. If the Apostle Paul had to examine his self, I have to too. Whatever it was that guy, the golfer, the guy that said he was a golfer was doing out there, it wasn't golf. We would think that was insane. But we've got to apply a similar logic. If I voiced that to somebody individually, I'm just telling you, I've been doing this a little while, if I pulled somebody aside and said, look, I'm concerned, you say you've been saved for this long, and it just doesn't seem to be any desire there, and I did it out of love and pastoral care, you know what would happen in some situations? I'd end up a topic in a business meeting or a social media post. That's just the way it is in this day. We've got to be willing to move people along. Now look, the church, the pastors, we have a role in that, right? We have to have some sort of idea of what it looks to help people mature in the faith. We have to recognize when somebody has an area for growth and we need to seek to find them ways to grow, whether it's through individual discipleship and service in one area or another. That is my responsibility, that is the responsibility of the church. We gotta give them solid food. That's what he goes on to say in verse 14, but solid food belongs to those who are of full age. That is those who, by reason of use, have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. Did you get that? Did you get what, how you come to full age in this, how you come to maturity? He says, by reason of use. It means you gotta do it. You gotta live it. If you run into a guy out in the grocery store, and he's got arms bigger around than your legs, what do you assume about that guy? Sometime, regularly, he's lifting weights, somehow, that look something like this. Because his arms are massive. Got the Hulk Hogan pythons, right? You can see, you can observe, that he's been putting those muscles to use. Friends, we have to understand that the only way we can wax eloquent, we can talk Bible, we can talk the things of God, and we should, but if we never put them to work in our lives or as a church, we're just going to have a whole lot of people that know a lot of stuff. But they're going to be like a keyboard warrior that tells the guy that's got videos out there that's bench pressing 500 pounds, You're doing it wrong and they're sitting there and their arms are this big around. Big around as a pencil. You're doing it wrong. even as a church. There is a real danger in a church, particularly a church like ours that I truly believe loves the Bible, wants to hear the Bible preached, wants to hear the Bible taught. We are passionate about the Bible, and we should be, all of us, more than we probably are. But there is a danger in the fact where we say, man, I'm going to tell you something, we're about the Bible at our church, and that's what we do. But if we never take it from the preaching and the teaching, and put it into practice in the life of the church, that's problematic. We have to have both things. Because it is only by reason of use that we develop these things that mark us forth maturity. Our senses are exercised to discern both good and evil. You know how you get discerning? You use your spiritual muscles in service and in study. Prayer, walking with God, It's proof of maturity, discernment. A small child will put anything in their mouth because they got no concept of what's good, what's right to be put in your mouth, what tastes good even. In fact, that's really how they figure that out. The way in which this happens for us is through the Word of God, through the operation of the Spirit. It shows us and sharpens our sense of discernment. as we come to know the Word of God and as we live in light of the Word of God. Again, some of us know a lot and do very little with it. Mature Christian allows it to be their guide, not just a textbook. In the next chapter, beginning in verse 6, he begins to talk about some of these elementary principles and some of the things that we should be striving toward. He says, look, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, of faith toward God. He's saying, look, you should know that. If you don't know about repentance and you don't know about faith toward God, the rest of this is going to be beyond your reach. Now should we constantly remind ourselves of the gospel of repentance and faith? Absolutely we should, but it should be as a springboard into action into deeper knowledge, understanding that it is the gospel that informs every other thing. He goes on to talk about the doctrine of baptisms, laying on hands, resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. He said, look, these are These are gospel basics. Baptism is a gospel basic. We should understand what baptism is. We should be able to articulate that a little bit, even in a Baptist church. You know how many people think that when they got baptized, it actually physically washed their sins away? Materially washed them away? A lot. A lot of people think that. That's not the doctrinal understanding we have of the Word of God as it relates to baptism. What's he talking about baptisms? I think there was a, back then in that time, there was a discussion about, you know, the baptism of John. He's not talking about fighting over whether baptizing babies or this or that. No, he's talking, I think he's talking about John's baptism. Like in Acts 19, when those who had received John's baptism, they needed further instruction. I think that's what he's referencing. When he references the laying on of the hands, I think he's talking about the concept of leadership in the church. That we should, as a basic understanding, have an idea of what it is to, what church leadership should be. Now, resurrection of the dead. Is he talking about us raising the dead? No, I don't think he is. He's talking about the resurrection of the dead. When the dead in Christ shall rise, when we all shall be raised up to judgment. Friends, these are basic things. I will tell you that there is more and more and more. The reason that we better have a good foundation of this is, yes, what we've talked about, so that we can grow deeper into things, but also, that when we hear the counterfeit about the foundations of our faith, we'll know what we're hearing. It's so widespread. You would think that the doctrine of the resurrection and judgments, the fact that there is going to be a judgment, that Christ is going to return, that the people of God will be raised up in a real physical sense, that that's going to happen, that that would be a pretty unassailable doctrine evangelical conservative Christian circles. But you would be wrong. Because there are so many in this day that are drifting towards positions that deny the physical future return of Christ, that deny the reality of a physical resurrection. And he says, well, we will move on at some point. If God permits, that's what he says in verse 3. I think it's important to note that what I'm not saying here tonight is that we don't need to talk about this stuff. Or that you don't have a perfect understanding of this, that something's wrong with you. No, I'm saying if you don't have a good grip on this, you need to get a grip on it, Christian. You need to ask questions, you need to read your Bible, you need to study it out. Because these are important things. He says, if God allows, we will do this. We're pressing forward. I think what the writer of Hebrews is saying, some of you are dull, but we're going to press on forward, even though it's going to be difficult. You know, some people will say, oh man, I don't even study that stuff. That's just hard. All the more reason. Ian, what's the old saying? Anything that's worth doing is typically not easy, right? There's always something hard there. We must be willing to sacrificially give of ourselves in order to draw closer to God through the knowledge of His truth. It is going to be the primary way that the majority of us grow in intimacy with God as we know more of Him and know more of what He would have us to do. From verse 1 through 3, as you go into the rest of the passage that we're going to cover, 4 through 8, there's a bit of a transition here. He's saying, you know, basically, if you don't, if this doesn't happen, let me just go ahead and read verse 4. He says, For it is impossible for those who are once enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and become partakers of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame." Here is the interpretation of this. This is where a lot of people get the idea of this. If somehow you apostatize, you walk away from the faith, there's no hope for you at all. What is this text actually teaching? Do I believe that there are those who have had just enough God to make it look like they knew God and then eventually they go ahead and publicly drift away and they end up condemned and judged? Yes, I do. Do I think it is much harder for that person to come back because they played that game for so long? Yes, I do. But I don't think that's completely what's being taught here. He's saying, if you're one of these who's drifted away, who's tasted the good word, and then you fall away, if that's who you are, then you're showing your true condition. This idea of tasted. It's not that they possessed it. They had a little bit of it. They had the window dressing. The language there could have been, if you were saved, if you had the salvation of Christ, if you were in Christ, if you had all of it, but that's not the language. The language is that you tasted it. You touched it. You had it in, not really even in some measure, but you were surrounded by it. Those people who claim to be something they're not and they know it, and then they completely fall away, I truly believe if someone truly apostatizes, which is what that word fall away means, if they truly apostatize, which is they completely divorce themselves from the realities of the truth of the gospel, I do think that that's true. That if they completely have done that, and they have hardened their heart completely, Yeah, they're not going to come back. But here's what I also believe. I don't think those people typically are long for this world. I don't think there's a lot of zombies out there. walking around with no hope of redemption. I don't believe that's what this is teaching. I don't think you could encounter someone and say, are you Christian? You know, I was in church for 25 years, and then I fell away, and so I know I'd really like to be saved, but I'm not gonna be saved, so I just do what I wanna do until I die. I just don't believe that's how God works. I don't think that's the general testimony. There's always the testimony that there is hope of redemption, That's the general flavor of the New Testament as it's written. But people grab on to this, and they'll want to... Look, guys, I have recently personally encountered someone who is walking in this mindset that I have apostatized, and because of that, there's no hope for me. And I really love God, but I just know there's no hope for me. It's so scary. It's so dangerous. It's such despair. But the reality of the ones that he's addressing here, in the light of the context of this conversation of dullness, is that they were dull not because they were Christians who had strayed, but because they never belonged in the first place. Again, some point here to the idea of losing salvation. But let me just turn a couple places to reference this. John 10, 27. 28 says my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give them eternal life and they shall Never perish neither show anyone snatch them out of my hand just a reminder You're not prying open the fingers of God. I Know there's all these metaphors out there. Well, you know, I know God's got a hold of me, but I don't have a hold of God Well, guess what? I grab a hold and turn loose and grab a hold and turn loose all the time But God sometimes still got me by my shirt and I'm hanging there choking because that's what I need in that moment It's my favorite thing. I'm sure I've said this. It's my favorite thing. If you've got one of these on your wall, I'm not throwing rocks at you, okay? Because some of you do. Y'all know the old footprints in the sand? Y'all know that one? There was only one set of footprints because that's when God was carrying me. That's a beautiful picture. I say it this way. If I had that picture and it was related to my life, there'd be a place where there was two sets of footprints and there'd be a place where there was one set of footprints and a drag mark about this wide where Jesus had me by the shirt collar and He was just dragging me in my butt drug all the way across the ground through the sand. Because He didn't turn loose of me. He's promised that He won't. They were dull because they never belonged. I could go to Romans 8, "...who shall separate us from the love of God." Philippians 1.6, "...who begun a good work will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ." And so interpreting in light of the whole testimony of the New Testament, what's being talked about here are those who are dull, those who would depart ultimately because they couldn't handle the application of truth to their life. Dullness happens, it happens to those in the church, and it happens to those who were not in Christ. They fall away and they reject His truth, they reject the body of believers, and they reject everything about God. That's what apostasy really means. That's what falling away really means. That they were ultimately and completely walked away from God. I think it's the same thing as the idea of the unpardonable sin, which is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Jesus tells us that. It's the same idea. What is the ultimate blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? Well, what is the work of the Holy Spirit ultimately? To point us to the work of Christ. That is the ultimate heading of what the Holy Spirit does in all of the functions that He undertakes. He is pointing us again and again and again to the work of Christ. He's illuminating it. And so how do we ultimately blaspheme the Holy Spirit? We do it by rejecting that which his entire function, his entire work is about. We reject the work of Christ ultimately and completely. 1 John 2, verse 19. I'll read that to you. I'm going the wrong direction. I've never claimed to be good at finding addresses all the time. 1 John 2, 19. What's it say? It says, they went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out that they might be made manifest that none of them were of us. If they depart and they depart completely, it's because they weren't what they said they were. That's what John says. I do think it's possible. for a man who was saved to be backslidden for a time, to even die while backslidden, but he has hope because he is bound to Christ. But the writer of Hebrews is telling us it's impossible for the one who has completely fallen away. Maybe they were a part of the visible church, but they completely reject the ultimate truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And if you completely reject It doesn't matter if you went to church. It doesn't matter if your whole family was Christian. It doesn't matter if you were baptized. It doesn't matter if you were a Sunday school teacher. It doesn't matter if you were a deacon. It doesn't matter if you had a good taste of all of that. If you have fallen away and rejected the truth of the gospel, there is no hope for you. That's what he's telling us. Verse 7 and 8 gives us this picture, this illustration the earth which drinks in the rain that often comes upon it and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated and receives blessings from God. But if it bears thorns and briars, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned." What's the illustration? It's the illustration that we've had all over the New Testament from Jesus himself and others. It's that it's about the fruit, isn't it? What is the ultimate fruit? Am I being useful for the one who cultivated me? In this situation, obviously being God? Or, am I bearing briars and thorns and my destination is for the burn pile? It doesn't matter if it's like the wheats and tares and they look the same for a period of time. When they grow up into full maturity, it is clear what is wheat and clear what is tares. One is fruitful and one is destructive. Because briars and thorns will tear stuff up and then they'll have to be destroyed. Different ground, different results. The question for us is, are we dull? Maybe you're in a season of dullness. Maybe it's because the circumstances of life have got to you. Maybe it's because you've got sin you need to deal with before God. Here's my admonition to you. Flee into the Word of God. flee into the presence of God. Examine yourself before the truth of God, so that He might show you what pathway you take back into the deeper and intimate fellowship with Him. And should you do that, and should you look into the mirror of the Word of God, and God would show you that you aren't what you said you were, then you need to repent and believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know who I'm talking to on Wednesday night over here. My hope is that everyone sitting here has truly given their lives to Christ. But maybe you're dull. Don't convince yourself that you're outside the faith if you're not. Just feel the way to conviction and go before God in repentance. And allow Him to give you that wonderful promise in 1 John 1.9, that if you confess your sins, He's faithful and just to forgive your sins. to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Maybe you're in disobedience. Maybe you're a babe. Maybe you've been a Christian for 30 years, but you're still a baby because you've never given yourself to the Word of God. You've never truly given yourself to the people of God. You've never served God in the way that you know He would have you to serve. If that's who you are, repent and begin. Take a bite of solid food. Don't say you're going to do everything. Don't say, well, I've been doing this for this long, and well, I guess God wants me to go be a missionary in a foreign country. I've been disobedient for this long, so I've got some time to make up. No. Take you a little bite of solid food. Get a regular pattern of getting in the Word of God. Get in a regular pattern of praying before the Lord. Get in a regular pattern of gathering with the people of God, finding a place of service amongst the body of Christ. And then God will give you more and more and more if you're faithful. Friends, I'm going to confess to you. There's been more times than I care to admit that I have been spiritually dull and I had to just grind it out because of my own dullness, because of things I had to deal with in my own life. And God was gracious to me and He'll be gracious to you. And my prayer for you is that maybe you get a little buff, a little shy, and we'll all shine brighter for Jesus so that we might be about the work that he's called us to do. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for your word. I pray you'll use it in my life and in the life of those who hear. We love you, Lord. We thank you and we praise you in Christ's name. Amen and amen.