Spiritual Retrogression - 20

Well, today in our preaching series through the book of Hebrews, we come to a section of warning and exhortation. Hebrews, as you probably already noticed, is punctuated with a number of similar warnings. And we are now in the midst of a fairly extended section about Jesus, the high priest. And in the course of that teaching, the writer of Hebrews has quoted from Psalm 110 verse 4 about the order of Melchizedek and the fact that God the Father has appointed Jesus Christ to be a priest, not after the order of Aaron, but rather after the order of Melchizedek. That's an important truth, the order of Melchizedek. And there's a lot more that could be said about it than what has already been said.

And that's exactly what the writer of Hebrews says. There's more to say. I need to say more, but I've got a problem. And the problem is that you're not very well prepared to receive this teaching.

You're not as capable to understand this as you really ought to be. And so the author has a need to go further in this doctrine about the Melchizedekian priesthood, and he says, well, if you turn your page to chapter 7 verse 1, you see, for this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him. And on he goes into chapter 7 with the teaching about Melchizedek.

But here's a pause. At the end of chapter 5 and throughout chapter 6, there's a pause in this teaching because the Hebrews are ill-prepared to understand what he is going to teach. They need to deal with their weak spiritual condition before he can go on and before they can profit from what else he has to say to them. And so to be better able to understand what is coming the writer of Hebrews stops and talks about spiritual retrogression.

And he says that's what's happened to you. Spiritual retrogression. We see the condition described in verse 11. We see the condition manifested in verses 12 and 13. And we see this condition remedied or how it may be remedied in verse 14.

The condition described in verse 11. Of whom, speaking of Melchizedek, of whom we have much to say and hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing. Here's a doctrinal opportunity to explain more about the significance of Melchizedek, a very mysterious Old Testament figure that all of us are curious about and wish we knew more about. And yet probably there is more about him in the Bible than we have uncovered because you have to dig it out.

It's found in the book of Hebrews. You have to be willing to roll up your mental sleeves as it were and to find out what the Bible tells us. Because the doctrine that involves Melchizedek is a doctrine involving some difficulty. And the difficulty is not because the writer has difficulty expressing himself. The difficulty is because of the reader's immaturity and sluggishness in receiving and understanding spiritual truth.

And so there is a doctrinal opportunity set before us, before them, the readers of that day and before us in our day. But there is this reality of receptive difficulty. You have become dull of hearing. The word dull in the Greek literally means no push. It could be translated slow.

It could be translated sluggish. You're not pushing. You're not able to push. You're not willing to push. You're not pushing yourself to grasp a hold of these truths. You have become dull in your reception of God's word, receptive difficulty. They are impaired in their ability to receive strong doctrinal teaching. Not necessarily totally deaf.

He's not saying that about them. But he is saying you are partially impaired. You can hear some but you miss a lot.

You can get a little bit but you miss a whole lot more that you ought to be receiving. Receptive difficulty. And he also describes this as not only receptional difficulty but spiritual regression. You have become dull of hearing. Not you remain dull of hearing but you have become dull of hearing. In other words, you used to be able to understand more than you do now. You used to be able to receive solid truth to a greater level than you do now. But something has happened. There has been a regression or a retrogression.

I wasn't sure which of those two words to use so pulling my handy Webster's dictionary off the shelf, I looked up the definition of these two words. Regression. A trend toward a lower or less perfect state. You regress when you tend toward a lower or less perfect state in the context here when you tend toward less ability to understand God's truth than you had before.

That's regression. Retrogression similar to it. A return to a former level of development.

That's really what he's describing here. You used to be able to. This is not just a trend away from but it's really a change in your condition. It is a return to a former level of development or we might say to a former level of underdevelopment. Like what you had when you were first saved and weren't able to understand God's word to any great extent but you rose above that as you progressed on your Christian journey but now for some reason you have slid backwards again in your ability to understand God's truth. There has been a retrogression. You previously enjoyed a better level of spiritual understanding and ability to understand than you have now.

You have regressed to a lower level of receptive ability. Question. Could that have happened to any of us who are here today? Clearly it could. Question.

Has that happened to you? And undoubtedly there are some here today of which this is a very apt description. But we move now from the condition described in verse 11 to the condition manifested in verses 12 and 13. This answers the question how did the writer know that they weren't able to receive this truth or were going to have difficulty doing it? Basically what he's saying to them is I give you this warning so that you will work harder at what I'm going to say next.

So that you won't just let it kind of float by you but you will gird up the loins of your mind and apply yourself to this teaching. He seems to be saying you can get it if you'll work at it but if you keep drifting like most of you are right now you won't get it so I'm issuing this exhortation, this rebuke, this warning so that you will understand the need to lay hold on this truth, to wrestle with this truth, to grapple with this truth, to grasp hold of the truth that I'm going to deliver to you about the order of Melchizedek. And how did the writer know that they had regressed? Well there are two tell tale issues, two tell tale symptoms that he mentions, one in verse 12 and one in verse 13. And the manifestation of this retrogressive condition is manifested first of all in their difficulty in talking about biblical truth, verse 12, and secondly in their preference for a light spiritual diet, verse 13.

First of all the difficulty which they had in talking about biblical truth, verse 12. 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. Again the implication, there was a time when you could handle some solid food but you have left that condition and have now come to need milk only without any mixture of solid food. Now healthy adults in the physical world can benefit from a measure of milk. Well there's some debate about that. I read somewhere recently that there are some people who are saying adults shouldn't be taking milk.

Well I beg to differ with you but anyway I'm not a biologist and I'm not a doctor. But just from general observation and experience I think we all know as adults we can enjoy milk, benefit from milk, but if that's all we are taking in we are in trouble. That's for babies to take in milk only because that's all they can take in. So he's talking here about older Christians who ought to be mature Christians but aren't. Older Christians who ought to be spiritual adults but they're not they have come back to just a diet of milk only. They've been saved long enough to be able, where they should have been able to teach others the word of God. What he calls here the first principles of the oracles of God. He's again with the underlying Greek he's literally saying the ABCs of God's word. You've been saved long enough to be able to teach others the elementary truths, the basic truths, the foundational truths, the ABCs of God's word. The first things that you had to learn as a new Christian and now that you've been saved for quite a while you should be able to turn around and teach those elementary truths, the first principles of the oracles of God, the truth of God to others. But you can't do that for some reason. You have regressed.

You have become dull of hearing. He's telling us therefore that new Christians are not able or expected to take the to be able to teach God's word to others basically. But older Christians are expected to, should be able to. That's the distinction. Again in the physical realm we don't expect babes to teach others.

Babes don't even talk. How can they teach others? So they need to grow up and develop and as they grow up and develop they'll eventually get to the place where they can teach others. It's a wonderful thing. It's a joyful thing in a home with children growing up in the home to see an older child teaching a younger child.

Have you had that experience that is just so enjoyable to watch that happen as older brother or sister takes younger brother or sister under their wing and starts teaching them some things which they learned a year or two before and now they're teaching it to others. Well that's what the writer of Hebrews says ought to be the case in the church. That's the way it ought to be among the people of God. The saints who have been saved for a while ought to be able to take the word of God and teach the ABCs of God's word to the younger Christians, the new Christians and yet you're not doing that. New Christians of course are not expected to be able to teach the word of God.

Caution, new converts should not be thrust into public ministry simply because of their personality, their popularity, because they're a movie star, a sports star or whatever as that so often happens and again just an evidence that we've lost sight of the word of God and we think that the way to get people saved is to make Christianity popular, to make it attractive, to tell people that some person that is mired has become a Christian and therefore that's going to make people want to become Christians. How childish are you in your understanding of God's word? That's not the way it happens and the Bible clearly tells us that we shouldn't be thrusting new Christians out on the stage of public ministry. They don't know the word of God well enough to do that yet.

They're still learning the ABCs. They're not ready to teach anybody else but older Christians should be talking about the word of God to others. Maybe not deep theology but at least the rudimentary principles of the oracles of God, the first things, the ABCs of God's word but when you see people who can't seem to find any place or occasion or comfort or ability to talk about the word of God to others, what have you got? You have got a baby Christian no matter how long they've been saved. They may have been saved for 20 or 30 years but if they can't talk about the word of God they are still a baby Christian. So having been saved long enough to be able to teach others instead they need to have others teach them. We none of us get beyond the being taught by other stage.

That's not what the writer is saying. He's not saying you transition from being taught where you no longer need to be taught. You transition from someone teaching you to the place where you teach others and you no longer need to be taught because we know from the word of God elsewhere that all Christians are being taught or ought to be being taught the word of God. We know that it's God's design.

He's given to the church, apostles, prophets, evangelists and pastor teachers for the edifying of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ. So the writer of Hebrews is not saying that any Christian gets to the place where he is beyond being taught by others and once in a while you run into a Christian that acts that way. Well I know more than anybody else.

Nobody can teach me anything. Whoops, that's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem.

Sorry. The Trinity hasn't become the quadrennity and you're the fourth member of the Trinity and know everything. Your pride is a problem and you probably don't know as much as you think you do. But on the other hand, every Christian who is being taught and is continuing to grow when he gets beyond the baby stage ought to start teaching others. That's part of what we need to do. But instead of teaching others, they needed others to teach them. I have learned by observation and by my own life that those who teach others benefit the most from being taught by others. Who seems to enjoy my sermons the most? People who are teaching Sunday school classes, Bible studies.

They really like it. And some of those, some of you say, you're a baby Christian and you're not teaching others. If you were, you'd be hungry to learn more and appreciative of what you are learning. Those who teach benefit most from instruction.

But this implication here is very clear. Every Christian when he gets beyond the baby stage can have, ought to have, will find opportunities to teach others, someone else. Every Christian who's not a baby ought to be teaching others. You say, well, nobody's asked me to teach a class. I didn't say teach a class. I said teach others. You can teach people in your family. Parents teach their children, right? Grandparents can teach their grandchildren, right?

We can teach in our families both immediate and extended. We have opportunities in family gatherings and we need to look for opportunities to teach the word of God, the elements, the ABCs of God's word to others and to friends and to neighbors in the neighborhood where God has placed you. Do you think God puts you where you living just by accident or do you think he had a purpose there? Did he think he wanted to witness in that place? Are you a light to shine in that place?

Well, is your light shining? Who are you talking to about the word of God? Co-workers, you think it's simply happenstance that you work where you work or do you think a sovereign God has put you there for a purpose? Well, of course he has and so take advantage to talk to the people around you about the ABCs of Christianity. Talk, talk about the word of God and of course there are many opportunities to teach your church, children's classes and other classes and other ways to teach the word of God in connection with the ministry of the church. The church ought to be a teaching machine. The church ought to have scores and scores and scores of people who are all teaching God's word at some level, in some place, in some way to some people. So how can you tell the difference between a mature Christian and a baby Christian? Mature Christians are teaching others the word of God.

Baby Christians have difficulty talking about God's word to others. Which category does that put you in? I warned you, this is an exhortational section. This means I'm going to step on some toes. I didn't write it. I'm just telling you what it says.

God wrote it. Don't shoot the messenger. Talk to God if you've got a problem with what I'm telling you. Which category does that put you in? Some of you have been saved for 50 years and you're still acting like a baby Christian because you seldom ever opened your mouth to teach anyone to say anything to anyone about the word of God.

Ouch. So the first manifestation of baby Christians is difficulty in talking about biblical truth. And the second manifestation of baby Christians is a preference for light spiritual diet.

Verse 13. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness for he is a babe. Those who choose a steady diet of milk, those who partake because they choose to partake. Everyone who partakes only of milk is one who is unable to handle solid food as it's called in this passage or meat as we might call it in contrast to milk. He's talking about those who prefer the milk because they like it better than the meat. They don't particularly care for the meat. They aren't drawn to solid teaching of God's word. He's talking about people who find solid milk or solid food rather, solid doctrine, theology difficult. It requires mental exertion and I don't like that.

Baby, baby, baby. You can no more digest meat than a baby can digest a steak. And that's an evidence of your spiritual immaturity.

And the consequence of this preference for a light diet of spiritual food for milk as a steady diet and not getting into the meat is that you remain a spiritual baby. You are not going to progress beyond that level because you keep choosing the milk, the milk, the milk, the milk. That's enough. That's all I want. That satisfies me. I don't need any more.

I'm not interested in getting into the mental exercise required to get into something a little more substantial. I'm happy with this and so you will stay a baby. I deliberately use the word baby instead of babe. Babe sounds a little bit less offensive I suppose.

You are a babe. You are a baby Christian. And so the condition of babyhood is manifested by difficulty in talking about biblical truth and preference for a light spiritual diet.

And then number three, how is this condition remedied? And verse 14 tells us about that. Verse 14 says, but solid food belongs to those who are a full age, that is those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. I have called what I'm going to say from verse 14 the four D's of spiritual growth. Desire, discipline, discernment and dedication. The four D's of spiritual growth.

First of all desire. Those who desire solid food because that belongs to those who are of a full age and those who want to become mature realize that this is the only way for it to happen and therefore if you desire to become a mature Christian then you desire solid food. Your desire for greater maturity will give you a desire for the solid food of God's word. But of course you need to ask God to help you with that. You realize that understanding the more difficult areas of God's word requires the help of God's spirit. And so it's not just simply because you are willing to work at it that you are going to automatically arrive at a better understanding. It's because you are willing to work at it in concert with your dependence upon, your reliance upon the spirit of God that you are continually asking to help you with this.

But it is because you are determined to grow in your ability to comprehend God's word that you will be able to grow. Desire. Number two discipline by reason of use. Have their senses exercised. There's an interesting word, exercise. Exercise. To grow in your ability to handle God's word takes practice. Anything you do in life that you want to improve in you have to practice at it. You have to improve. You have to use whatever ability you have at this point and you've got to use that ability to greater develop that ability to a higher level.

That's the way it's done. It takes discipline. It takes exercise. You have to be willing to do what you ought to do if you want to grow in that area. Not what you feel like doing.

Whatever it may be. To get better at sports at a particular sport you're going to have to get out there and practice. You can't just waltz out on the basketball court without ever having any practice and become the star player on the team. You're going to have to discipline yourself. You're going to have to work hard at it.

Or whatever it may be, music, playing an instrument or whatever it is. You're going to have to be willing to discipline yourself. To work hard at it even when you don't necessarily feel like working hard at it.

To exercise in order to achieve. You must not refuse to involve yourself in something just because you don't feel like it. Because it is difficult. When it comes to the word of God, yes, some things are difficult. How are you going to grow in your ability to understand the difficult things? You're going to have to discipline yourself.

Whatever that means. You're going to have to discipline yourself to a time of daily Bible reading. You're going to have to discipline yourself to be in church on a regular basis. You're going to have to discipline yourself to read books that will help you to understand God's word. All of that takes discipline.

It doesn't happen by accident. But this is what is necessary for you to grow from babyhood into maturity in the handling of God's word. Desire, discipline, and number three, discernment. To discern, we read, those who have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. To discern both good and evil. To have a proper understanding of what is truly good and a proper understanding of what is truly bad. To understand what is truly good. According to God's estimate, which is the only one that really matters, to understand what is truly bad, what is evil.

According to God's estimate, again, the only one that truly matters, we live in a world that doesn't know what's right and what's wrong, what's good, what's evil. It's all been turned upside down during my lifetime. It seemed like society used to understand that certain things were wrong or evil or bad and would not be helpful to society.

They would be harmful and other things would be good. But neglecting the word of God long enough in our society, things have been turned entirely upside down. So that which the Bible calls the most abominable evil is promoted. And anyone who dares to speak up is evil because you dared to question this practice that God says is evil. That's where we are. You know that. I read about a minister in one of the Scandinavian countries that is going to court, has been to court, had a partial victory but still has to go to court on the issue of whether reading the scripture is a violation of law against discrimination. That's what it's come to.

You say they wouldn't do that in America. Don't be too sure. I don't know what's going to happen in the passing of time because the world doesn't know what's good and doesn't know what's evil.

Why not? Because the word of God is neglected. Where do you find out what is truly good and what is truly evil? Only by an understanding of the Bible. And so to be able to discern what is good and evil, what is right and wrong, what is truly good, you have to understand God's word. And therefore, when you understand God's word, you will be able to relinquish what is inferior and helpful and detrimental and to embrace what is truly good and helpful. And discernment grows with a growing understanding of God's word and a growing understanding of God's word contributes to greater discernment.

It's a cycle. One feeds the other. The more you know of God's word, the better you can discern what is right and wrong and good and evil, better and best. And the more you grow in your ability to distinguish these things, the better you can understand the word of God. Now, babies have very little discernment. A baby will put almost anything into its mouth.

You have to watch a baby carefully to make sure it doesn't put things in its mouth that are very harmful to it. You have to watch baby Christians pretty carefully because they're going to take in things that are detrimental to them and not even know what they're doing. But there are an awful lot of Christians in this world, awful lot of them in America. Nobody's watching them. Nobody's helping them. Nobody's shepherding them.

Nobody's guarding them in regard to what they're putting into their spiritual mouth that is harmful to them. But spiritual growth requires desire, discipline, discernment and finally dedication. A commitment to walk according to truth. It's not simply enough to know what is right and wrong, but you have to be willing to obey it.

We've all known people who had an amazing knowledge of the Bible and of theology and of doctrine, but they aren't walking in it. You've got to dedicate yourself to applying it to your life. You've got to dedicate yourself to making choices based upon what the Bible teaches you is good and bad. Not what I like best, but what the Bible says is good and bad.

But I like it, but the Bible says, but I think it's good because I enjoy it, the Bible says. All of us need to rededicate ourselves to become an expert in the word of God. That ought to be your goal.

That ought to be your goal. As long as I live, I'm going to study the word of God. As long as I live, I want to grow my understanding of God's word. As long as I live, I want to eventually come to the place where at least somebody considers to me to be an expert in the word of God.

And somebody will, because if you know more than the average American, you pretty much have become an expert in their eyes because most people don't know much, do they? Now, I have a lot of lessons I want to draw from this passage and I want to get into that now. Lesson number one, and the one that is most obvious from the passage, the most obvious application is the danger of spiritual retrogression. And what this passage teaches us is we can't stand still spiritually. If we're not growing, if we're not progressing, if we're not moving forward, we are regressing even if we don't realize it. You cannot remain in the comfortable level. You cannot get to the place where you say, well, I've got to a place in my Christianity, the kind of Christianity that I'm comfortable with, I'm just going to stay here and enjoy it for the rest of my life. If you're not growing, you are regressing. And many, I'm afraid, are regressing and don't even know it because they're comfortable with where they are and nobody is challenging them to grow and to guard against regressing. They have chosen to place themselves among other Christians who are just like they are, comfortable with a sorry, low level of Christian knowledge and that's where they're going to stay because that's where they've chosen to be.

Is that you? The danger of spiritual retrogression. Which brings me secondly to mention the need for word centered churches to challenge you and to help you grow, to keep you from regressing. That's what is needed, word centered churches. Which brings me third to talk about the reason why there are so many entertainment style churches in America instead of word centered churches. And it's because they offer what so many Christians prefer.

Milk only. Along with pleasing entertainment in various forms and it can take all different kinds of forms. Music that is pleasing to what?

What? Pleasing to what? It may be pleasing to the flesh. You may have convinced yourself that boy this is really God honoring, Holy Spirit energized music and it may simply be music that is appealing to your Adamic nature. You just want to convince yourself that it's spiritual. But it can be a form of distracting entertainment. You know I don't want to get into this too much but I can remember years ago when somebody made me aware of a particular radio station, I won't name which one, but it's a whole network of them across the country.

You probably know what I'm talking about. That's what an awful lot of people are listening to, a lot of Christians are listening to. Well I tuned it in so I could know what it was like. I had great difficulty understanding the words of anything that was being sung or said. But if I couldn't tell what the words are for the life of me, I don't know how I would tell that from just a plain old rock station. The music sounded exactly the same.

Move on. It may be music, it may be skyscraper preaching instead of solid Bible doctrinal preaching. What's skyscraper preaching? One story on top of another.

You know what I mean. Now that's fun isn't it? That's entertaining. I was blessed by the Lord and by the wisdom of my parents to be in a Christian school from 7th grade upward. We had outstanding chapel speakers four days a week. Well I say outstanding, I mean all kinds, all varieties. And that was nice to be able to be exposed to a whole variety. And I can tell you what I liked the best when I was in 7th and 8th grade and maybe 9th grade. I liked those ones who told the jokes and told the stories. I did and nearly everybody else liked them too.

They were the most popular. But as I grew and matured I began to appreciate, I still enjoyed the entertainment. You know it's fun to go to chapel and hear a lot of jokes and stories but I began to develop a taste for those who were actually expounding the Bible. Imagine that. How strange is that? It shouldn't be strange at all to people who are growing and maturing.

How else are you going to grow and mature? Skyscraper preaching isn't going to get the job done. I remember when I was in college and I was ministering in a church about 80 miles from where I lived.

I went down on weekends and was involved there. At some distance, some drive from that town there was held a huge crusade in a big sports arena and some of the people from that church went. The preacher who is now dead, has been for a long time, and I can't for the life of me I can't tell you his name, but I can tell you what he was known as. He was called the Chaplain of Bourbon Street. Do any of you know who that is?

The Chaplain of Bourbon Street. These people went and they came back and talked about how wonderful it was and they actually brought me back a vinyl record. That's before cassette tapes.

That was way way back. A vinyl record that you put on your record player and listened to a man speaking. I listened to that and I laughed and I enjoyed that entertainment, but there was precious little bible there anywhere.

It packed people in by the tens of thousands to hear this religious entertainment. This guy who was really good at that. He was really good at what he did. I think he was well named the Chaplain of Bourbon Street. He was more Bourbon Street than he was Chaplain.

He fit in real well with the entertainment industry. We need to talk quickly about the difficulty of distinguishing between baby Christians and unsaved people. That's part of the problem here. The writer of Hebrews is talking to people he assumes are Christians, though baby Christians, but as you get into chapter 6 he also raises the possibility of some people who are very much like Christians but really aren't saved at all. Hard to distinguish. Hard to distinguish between baby Christians and unconverted professing Christians.

Both are a reality. What does that person have? Religion? External religion or salvation?

What do you have? Religion or salvation? It's pretty important to distinguish. The fifth lesson we learn from this is the need to push yourself. If you're going to grow, if you're going to get a better understanding of God's word, you're going to have to get into the word. You're going to have to work at it. You're going to have to discipline yourself and you're going to have to find other people that you will talk to about the word of God. It might just be a friend that you can have one-on-one conversations with, somebody else who enjoys talking about the word of God. Get together with somebody who wants to talk about the word of God and talk about the word of God.

That will help you a great deal. And this too, don't get so busy with church activities that you miss a steady diet of God's word. I've seen people who've been in church faithfully for years but they're always in the nursery, they're always in a Sunday school class, they're always in a children's church, they're always around on the periphery, they're never sitting and absorbing the word of God and so decade after decade goes by and they hardly grow a bit. They're still immature Christians. They can teach a little bit on the ABC level but they're not going to grow because they're not getting fed. This milk level Christianity I think explains why there's so much resistance by many Christians to the doctrines of grace. That's just unfathomable to them because you're still messing with the ABCs and you can't get beyond it.

You're going to have to wrestle, you're going to have to stretch, you're going to have to grow but the question is not do you like it? The question is not even do you believe it? The question is does the Bible say it? Does the Bible teach it?

Because if it does, you're required to believe it. You don't have a choice, like it or not. I saw recently a statement by John MacArthur as to why I became a Calvinist and he said, as much as I didn't want to, the Bible forced me to. Well, he got out of the milk into the meat, didn't he?

That's what happened to me too. As much as I didn't want to, the Bible forced me to. If I'm going to believe the Bible, I've got to believe what it says about election and the sovereignty of God and salvation and these weightier doctrines and God's word.

But if 90% of the Christians in America are still milk only Christians, it's no wonder there's a lot of resistance to that truth. I don't like that. No, I don't suppose you do.

Neither does the devil. And my last application, my last lesson. Oh, this next to last one. The need to seek word centered ministries to avoid churches that major on religious entertainment. Of course they're fun.

Of course they're enjoyable, but you're not going to grow. You need to seek solid Bible teaching churches. You need to make wise choices.

You need to make hard choices. You need to dedicate yourself to practice what you've learned today so that you can grow thereby. Shall we pray? Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for when it steps on our toes. Thank you for when it prods and pushes us in areas where we need to be prodded and pushed. Help us, oh Lord, to benefit from this word of warning, this strong exhortation. May it be utilized in every life to the honor and glory of Christ and to the further growth and development of every child of God. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.