052 - Ready for Solid Food?

You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there something here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink.

Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages. Welcome to More Than Ink. So, heads never watched a baby when they first give them Cheerios on their high chair tray. They've never had anything in their mouth but milk, and they roll it around and they spit it out. Spit it out, yeah. Why do they spit it out? Yeah, because it's not soft like what they've had before.

They can swallow it without chewing. Yeah, well, today we're moving on to solid food. Are you ready?

Today on More Than Ink. Well, good morning. This is Jim.

And I'm Dorothy. And we're delighted that you're with us again. We are wading our way into Hebrews, and it's just now getting extraordinarily fascinating.

It really is. And so, last time we were together, we broke off in the middle of chapter five. It seems like a strange place to break, but he got us all ready to talk about a fascinating topic.

And so, let me just wind you back a second to where we were in chapter five. And he introduces the idea of Jesus, because he talked a lot about, you know, God has this promise of rest for us. And rest is like an interesting picture for what God's ultimate pasture for us as his sheep. You know, the wonderful life with God. But he brings in the idea that Jesus is critical to us being able to get to that rest.

He's critical. And so, at the end of the last section in Hebrews five, you know, about verse nine, he says, And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. And we read that, and the Jews read that, and they go, what?

And so, today we pick up that response to, what? Well, and just by way of reminder, you kind of skipped over that after he talks about rest, then he introduces this idea of Jesus as our high priest. As our high priest. And he talks a whole lot about what a priest is and what a priest does. And we talked about last time that he doesn't really explain it much. I mean, you've got Jewish listeners who know what a high priest is, but they're not really sure what the role of a high priest is to get us into the place of rest with God.

So, he just introduces this whole dynamic. There's Jesus. He's our high priest. God promises us rest.

Promise remains. You don't want to miss it because of disbelief. But there's Jesus right there, and he doesn't explain it. Well, and then he introduces this character, Melchizedek, who does this walk-on cameo appearance in the life of Abraham back in Genesis. And there's no explanation in Genesis, and only a couple of other places in Scripture where Melchizedek is even mentioned. Yeah, so he's a really mysterious connection. And unfortunately, you're going to have to wait until next week because in this section today, in terms of talking about Melchizedek, in this section, he stops us right in our tracks.

Yeah, he does. Now that he's got our interest about Melchizedek and Jesus and rest and pastor and all that kind of stuff, he stops us in our tracks and says, Are you really ready for this? Because we have a lot to explain, but it's difficult. We have a lot we want to say.

So, he stops the forward progress, and he says, Let's pause for a second. And so, after he says Melchizedek from last week in verse 10, today he says in verse 11, So about this, we have much to say, and it's hard to explain since you've become dull of hearing. So we're going to talk about that problem. I mean, are you ready for this? And are you ready for this, listeners?

We're going to take the day just to kind of step back for a second before we launch back into Melchizedek because it's really great. Well, and to talk about why we become dull of hearing and what the remedy for that is. So, let's just pause along with the author and say, Yeah, are we ready for this?

Let's just dive in and we'll see. I mean, it sounds very confusing at this point. Why don't you read for us starting 11 of chapter 5.

About this, or about him, we have much to say, and it's 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 basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food.

For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness since he's a child. But solid food is for the mature, those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. Oh, I really like the ESV translation of this here.

I do too. You know what I really dislike about the King James? Every time he says solid food here, they translate it as meat. Meat, I know. But this is a good translation. I really like this. Yeah, because the contrast is between baby food, which is pre-digested and mashed up.

Right, and really not bad. Well, no. It's appropriate. Babies need it. It's appropriate for babies. Yeah, and even I remember we were looking at 1 Peter, a little girl at church, and in 1 Peter 2, he says you actually need to yearn like newborns. You need to yearn for that pure spiritual milk.

So it's not bad in the right context. But he's saying you should have grown past that. You should be on solid food now. So we're getting into solid food land when we talk about Melchizedek.

Are you on solid food? Right. Yeah, so that's what he's challenging us with. And he tells us in this opening section what keeps us from being able to be on solid food. Yeah, because he says you have become dull of hearing. Dull of hearing. You know, if you are, we would say these days, hard of hearing, or the edge has gone off your hearing, what are you missing when you're listening to people talk? You're missing some really subtle cues that would lead you into a deeper understanding.

Yeah, yeah. Or like Jesus says, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. Let him hear. So is the sound going in? But are you listening? Is it actually doing something inside? Because we still use that expression.

It went in one ear and out the other. It didn't penetrate the mind or the heart on the way through. And that's kind of what the writer is going to aim at here.

So he's saying you've sort of lost your edge on that by now. If you just look at the timeline for believers, you really ought to be teachers yourselves. But I'm questioning whether we're ready to get into this deeper stuff. Should we go back to the basic principles of the oracles of God?

Oracles is just a plural word for logos for this word. Right. The things that God has to say. Yeah. So do you want to go back to the basics? And there's nothing wrong with basics again. The ABCs, the first things, the starting things. But you should be past that now. So am I going to spend my time right now, he says, talking about the ABCs again? Or should we go forward?

And are you ready for going forward? So, this is interesting because that's one of the things I like about this ESV translation in verse 13 says, everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the Word of God. Right? That word means inexperienced or untried. They've never exercised that muscle. Like an infant, like a pre-walking baby is inexperienced at walking. They've never had to exercise those muscles. Indeed, they don't have the coordination or the strength. But it is a tragedy when past the point where a child should be walking, they simply don't. They don't.

Because they'd rather just sit still. Yeah, yeah. So he's saying, milk is appropriate for babies. But there's a point at which in your growth, natural healthy growth will press you past that to develop those skills. And you need to challenge yourself to go past. And look what he says.

He says, solid food is for the mature. For those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice. Yeah. Are you using your mind?

Are you thinking or interpreting the word? Are you wrestling over it? Are you chewing on it? Are you actually putting effort into that?

Or is it just going to wash it in or wash it out? Right. And how do you develop a habit? Right? By constant practice.

Constant practice. Yeah. So he's saying if you had been doing this constantly, then what we're coming to next, you would have muscles that are developed to deal with. Right. So I'm asking the open question he's saying.

The open question is, are you ready for this? By the way, I like the fact when he says discernment trained by constant practice, that word trained you'd recognize in the Greek. It looks like the word gymnasium. Right. So it's really this place where you do this training for a competition. You exercise.

You exercise. Yeah. So are you ready for this? He just opens the question. Are you ready for this?

And then he jumps into chapter six and says, well, we could go back to the ABCs or we could go forward. Let's keep thinking about this. Yeah. Let's keep moving forward.

So let's press on. Yeah. Right. Let's leave behind those elementary things.

Not because they're not important and not because they don't matter. Right. But because you are ready for something that challenges your thinking and will challenge you to change the way you live. Right.

Live differently. So in coming into chapter six, he says, okay, so I'll tell you what. Let's go forward. And this is how he says it in chapter six, verse one, therefore, let's leave the elementary doctrines of Christ and go on to maturity and not laying again a foundation. Now, this is not bad stuff, but not laying again in what he's writing here, a foundation of number one, repentance from dead works. Number two, faith toward God and of instruction about washings. That's number three. Of laying on of hands. That's number four.

About the resurrection from the dead. That's number five. And eternal judgment.

Number six. And those are all good things. And those are things that we ought to be versed in and nobody's talking about. But those are things we have to understand.

That's right. And those are the basics. That's where we start in our walk with Christ and understanding biblically. So we have to have that down. But we're not going to go back to that today is what he's saying. We're not going to flesh that out again. And there's a reason coming up in a second why we're not going to go through that again. And so at this point, he's saying, let's go forward.

So verse three. And so this will do if God permits. Okay.

Right. Let's press on to maturity. Let's press on. Let's do this. Let's not be satisfied sitting on our rumps.

You're right. Let's press on to maturity. And Paul actually speaks about that same idea in Philippians 3 where he says, I press on to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has laid hold of me. So there is this forward fixed on growing up in Christ. Go forward. And so for our benefit, we actually get to understand what this Melchizedek mystery is all about.

He's going to go forward. But before he gets there, he's going to say, you know, we could go back. We could. We could go back and talk about the elementary doctrines, but you know what, that would only serve to convince those who already know this stuff, but they sort of wandered away from it. That would really be the only thing that works here is if we wanted to make them an appeal to someone who doesn't look like they're really latched onto the gospel. So next he's going to go into an argument saying, you know, and even that's not going to be very worthwhile.

We could go back to the ABCs, but for people who've heard it and have wandered away, it's not going to be real productive anyway. So that's why in verse four, he segues into this. He says, look, it's impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened, like he's saying, should we go back to enlighten? No. They've been enlightened, who've tasted the heavenly gift and have shared in the Holy Spirit and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come and then have fallen away.

It's impossible to restore them again to repentance. Okay. So this is a hard passage. It is a hard passage. This is a hard passage.

We have to camp here for a minute. But I got to tell you, he's saying this because he's saying we could go back to the ABCs, but for the case of these people, it's not going to change anything. So we're not going to go back to the ABCs for their benefit. But it's what he tells us about these people that's really interesting. And it causes a lot of consternation for people saying, well, does this mean as a believer I can lose my salvation and all that kind of stuff.

So it's difficult to interpret in many respects. Well, it is difficult, but we don't really understand, because we're not reading this in Greek and we don't have any working understanding, that these things that the writer is talking about, these are all things that God has done for those who have accepted his offer of salvation. God has done it.

And so he's going to paint this argument saying, if you have received what God has done for you, then it is impossible to become unsaved, because you're not going to accidentally fall out of the lifeboat. Right. Right. Right. So these people were exposed to the gospel, but like he was saying before, it went in one ear and out the other and didn't really plant. Right. They didn't really latch on. Right.

And so in a real sense, if he goes back to cover the ABCs, it's not going to help. They've already been exposed. And he uses a great metaphor when we get to verse seven. Are you ready to go to verse seven yet? Or did you? Sure. No, no.

Go ahead. He uses a good metaphor, which actually sounds familiar to us. He says, these people, for the land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and that produces a crop useful to those whose forsake it was cultivated, it receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it's worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned. So he's saying, look, these people have had the rain, or they've had the good stuff from God showered on them, and all they produced was weeds and not anything productive.

So if we water them again with the ABCs or the fundamentals of the gospel, it's just not going to make anything get better. They're going to return more weeds. So if our goal here is to help people learn for themselves how to crack into a passage like this, there are some things here, besides looking up those word meanings and the actual understanding, the tenses that are used to describe what God has done for us, if you look at verse seven, seven and eight, there are some things here that actually hearken back to the garden, hearken back to creation. When he's talking about blessing and cursing, he's talking about thorns and thistles, he's talking about cultivation and crops. Why do you cultivate a crop?

In order to bear fruit. And thorns and thistles first show up in the scriptures as an effect of the fall. So in your garden, thorns and thistles are the things that are in opposition to fruitfulness and life and health. So he's saying that those for whom that rain has fallen and all that has been produced is the thorns and thistles, that is the opposite of the fruit that God intends for them to produce. So it's evidence that they have not actually participated in the activity of the Holy Spirit. Exactly. So if you see someone who's been hanging around church for a long time, but they look like a tall weed, well then, you know, pouring more gospel on them may not have much effect because they've already heard what you're probably telling them again. So that's what he's just saying right here. He says, I suspect we could spend our time on the ABCs, but it's not going to be persuasive on these people. It reminds me of the sower parable. Oh, that's what I was thinking. Back in Matthew 13.

I have another one too. Go ahead. You have different hospitalities of soil and the seed falls on it and you get weeds and some die. So it's kind of a context of how fertile the soil is for the gospel. So he's saying these people demonstrate because of the weeds that they become that, you know, if we go over the gospel again, it's not going to make any difference.

So I'm not going to go there right now. Because we can't save them again. Exactly. But it also makes me think of the parable of the weed and the tares. Yeah, the weed and the tares. When Jesus was saying, you know, now the weed and the tares, the weed and the weeds are going to grow up together and don't you go trying to pull out the weeds. The harvester will come at the right time and take out the weeds.

You let them grow up together. Because we can't tell, it might look to us like someone is a weed. So you know, those are kind of the two directions that we in responding to this passage might go. We might go around looking at people going, he's a weed, he's never going to respond to the gospel. Or you know, God's not working his life. Well, maybe not. Maybe not. We can't see that.

Hard to tell. And actually the writer of the letter here is going to go on to say, and in verse nine, even though we speak this way, yet in your case, we feel sure of better things, things that belong to salvation. So he's reassuring them, even though they might have doubts about their salvation. He's saying, I'm sure because I see a good crop. I see a good crop.

In fact, his good crop is in verse 10. You know, God's not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you've shown in his name and serving the saints as you do. So he's basically saying you don't look like a weed. In fact, you look like something that's productive. Because I'm seeing love and serving.

Exactly. There's evidence of salvation. There's evidence of regeneration, we talk about that, where God changes the person. So he says, you know, I don't think you guys are these weeds we just talked about. I think you're good material for us to move forward in this mystery about Jesus our high priest. Because I think you're good material.

Let's do it. And God's not going to overlook the fact that he's seeing regenerate kind of outcomes in your life. So verse 11, and we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end.

What a great picture of that productivity, that fruitfulness, this full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Now he's really winding us up. Now he's set us up to talk about it.

We're walking up to the edge and we're looking up at this mountain going, wow, what are you talking about? Man? Yeah. Okay.

So there's something here. This passage is all about growing up, maturity, right? And he's used either mature or maturity a whole bunch of times. And then a couple of times here in verse eight, and then in verse 11, he talks about the end. Well that comes from the same root word as maturity, as the goal, as completion at the end of the process. He's talking about the end of a process, becoming all that you were intended to be.

So we are going to push on on our process and not be sluggish. But it's the closing breath he has in verse 12 that always has intrigued me. He says, you know, we want you to press on toward that hope, which by the way is something you don't see in people who are not regenerate. They're not pressing on to the hope of Christ's coming and all that kind of stuff.

They seem to be kind of stuck. But he says, but you need to be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. And right here when he says this word promises, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, he's really he's ringing a gigantic bell here because remember he talked back in chapter four, I think it was, about the promise of God's rest remains and we can miss it. This is this promise. This P word promise is going to be like a thread that moves its way through all of Hebrews. And it's real central in the next chapter.

Very central. And Jesus is key to this promise happening and key to the life of Abraham. It's going to be a lot of things. So God promises rest and let's talk about that promise, he says, let's talk about that promise. And if that promise is going to come to fruition, do you have hope in that promise? Are you ready to understand what he's talking about? So be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

And you know, in just a second, he's going to introduce our prime example of someone who did that in the Old Testament. So he's used this word hope, which is going to show up a couple of times in the next chapter. And so probably we should take just a second here and talk about hope. That's a good idea. What is a hope?

That's a good idea. Because we kind of say, I hope, I hope, I hope, I hope, wishful thinking, it is not that. Biblical hope is not that. It is a concrete expectation that God will do what he said he would do, even though I can't see it yet.

And so he says, I want you, the writer says, I want you to have to press forward with the same earnestness so that you will have the full assurance of that hope completely. Yeah. Yeah.

It's so strongly stated because this word hope in Greek means it's a full assurance. It's a done deal. It's a done deal. It's a concrete reality. Future reality that will happen. I mean, there's just no doubt about it.

It has nothing to do whether you kind of get your emotions tied up or not. It's gonna happen. We have that hope.

But he says a full assurance. So it's like, here's this future event that's going to happen. It's actually the fruition. It's the fulfillment. It's the telus of God's promise to us. That's where we're all headed.

That's where everything's all about. And he says, I want you to have a full assurance that that reality of that future event is actually there. So if that's your concrete hope, then don't be sluggish. Yeah. Hang in there and be imitators of those who, through faith and patience, believing God and enduring, even when you can't see the reality, inherit the promises.

Yeah. And it'll take us several chapters to get there. But when he talks about faith later on, and he talks about more people than just the next person we're gonna talk about, he'll say they had this faith which basically informed them and persuaded them that they can put their trust in that hope and it will happen. And faith is the thing that puts them there in a persuasive sense.

As opposed to the Israelites who came to the edge of the promised land, and they were obstinate and they basically said, la, la, la, fingers in our ears. You can't convince us. We already made our minds up. We're not gonna listen.

But this is exactly the opposite. We have put our trust in the fact that this will happen. And the way I colloquially tell this to people is I say God's promise of what he has for us in rest, or the day of judgment, all this stuff, colloquially I say it's like there's a day on the cosmic calendar that God has already taken a red pen and written his name on and it's there and it will happen and it's never going to change and there's nothing we can do about it. And here we go, we're approaching that. So we place our hope on that day because God has written his name on that day as well. So it's gonna happen. So if that's where you're at as a believer and you're going with us and you wanna know about this high priest guy and this Melchizedek guy and how Jesus figures into us coming to God's promise of rest and be imitators, who do we need to be imitators of to understand the dynamic of placing that full assurance of hope in what's gonna happen?

Who is the guy? And in the next chapter, well, not the next chapter. The next section. In our next getting together, it's gonna be Abraham. Abraham, the man of faith, who the scripture tells us again and again, Abraham believed God and it was reckoned him as righteousness, even though he couldn't see.

He believed God and so we'll dig into that a whole lot more next week, but you can think about that. Well, you can read ahead if you want. Well, okay, so let me give you a passage to read.

Oh, that's a good idea. So Romans 4 talks a great deal about Abraham and the man of faith, and especially from about verses 17 to 22, if you focus on those, you will come to find out exactly what it was that Abraham believed that yielded God's reckoning of righteousness. This promise. Yeah, so that's your teaser.

I'm getting goosebumps already, yeah. I just love, love, love that passage and I love Abraham. So Abraham, God made a promise to Abraham, a solid concrete promise, we'll talk about that next week, and he put his faith in that promise and said, okay, I'm putting my hope in what you're saying, God, I'm aiming my sights in that direction. He faltered a little bit, but as you look at the narrative, but he placed his trust in that and God said, that's good enough for me, that's good enough for me. And then from that point on, he had to exercise patience in order to say, I put my trust in what God's going to do, I continue to put my trust today and tomorrow and the day after that.

And what is he putting his trust in? The last word in this section right here in verse 12. In the promise of God. In the promise of God. And I think that's what it gets down to, it did with the Israelites in the desert, do you believe that what God promised, what God said in his word, do you believe it will happen? Or do you say, no, give me more evidence, God, and maybe then I'll agree.

And so God took task with them when they complained in the desert and said, I told you I was going to take you there, and you're saying I can't? That takes us back into that unpersuadable frame of mind and heart. Nothing you can say. That is that hardened unbelief, nothing you can do or say will change my mind. And that's the hard heart. So are you dull of hearing?

How is your hearing? Are you listening to God and believing what he says? Are you willing to put your trust and hope in what he says as coming to fruition?

Yeah. So in another way too, it's like when I used to live overseas, I took trains to play in places. And you don't really have any confidence where that train's going to take you unless you trust what the sign over the train says. And you get on the right train. And you got to get on the right train, yeah. But I mean, if you don't trust what that sign, you could climb on the train and say, well, I'm not really sure they meant there.

Well, no, if it meant there, you climb on and patiently wait for the arrival of that. And in a sense, that's what Abraham did. And in a very large sense, that's what we do as we received God's verbal promises to us for rest. And in that process of waiting, that's when we grow up. That's when the maturity begins to take root, when we begin to apply the Word of God in the journey from here to there, until that day when we see God do what he said he would do.

Yeah, exactly. And how does Jesus figure into this promise? Well, this is what's going to unfold in a wonderful way.

But just as a teaser, let me tickle you with this. In the beginning of Paul's second letter of the Corinthians, he said, for all the promises of God, find their yes in Jesus. What? Listen to that again.

It's great. For all the promises of God, find their yes in Jesus. So everything God promises to us, for rest and for life with him in it, they all say yes in the person of Jesus. How? Isn't that an astonishing statement?

Yeah. Well, you'll have to come back next time. Come back into that because he's going to tell us exactly how Jesus fits in, how Abraham can be a model for us and all that.

And how Melchizedek gives us great insight into our high priest Jesus. But you got to start exercising your muscles now in order to grasp this. So we're out of time. I'm Jim.

And I'm Dorothy. And we want you to come back because it gets really fun after this. And come back. Hey, it's been fun already.

I think so too. Come back again on More Than Ink. More Than Ink is a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City and is solely responsible for its content. To contact us with your questions or comments, just go to our website, morethanink.org. That's not bad. Let's take another run at it. Okay. And then we're going to get to the Cheerios.