The Book of Hebrews 5:11-14 Hearing and Food - Part 2
Hebrews 5:11-14 · Vern Peterman · Aug 11, 2013
Hebrews, No. 18
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492635916216

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. We're going to continue in this same passage that we covered last week, but there's a reason for going through it again. As we introduced last week, this is the beginning of an exhortation that starts here in verse 11 and continues on into chapter 6, verse 12. And we're going to go over initially some of the things we covered last week just to make sure we're on track together on that and then proceed into some new things.

Now the question I have for you is how do you like retro? You know, do you like that retro stuff? You know, things from a ways back? Some you remember and some so long you can't remember it, right? I remember some of this stuff. At any rate, What we're going to talk about here is not retro quite like that in fashion and style and such, but retro in terms of retrogression. That's the problem that this body of believers has that this letter is written to.

And so we're going to go through the Ephesians 5.11-14 sandwich. And what we mean by that is the first part is 5.11 and the last part here is 5.14, at least the last part of that verse. And today, after an initial review, we're going to be stepping into the middle of the sandwich, verses 12 through the first part of 14. So that's going to be our approach.

And one of the things we're going to do is, after last week having eaten the bread first, that is, the first part and the last part, today moving into the middle, Hebrews 5.11 tells the believers there that are reading this letter where they are spiritually, and it's not a pretty picture. It's actually not so good.

Hebrews 5.14, the last part of the passage, tells them where they ought to be, and in fact, the picture just couldn't look any better. It's just, it's great. This is where they ought to be.

In the middle part, verses 12 and 13, and the first part of 14 actually, tells them how to get from the really terrible spiritual, and this is retro, but it's retro-aggressive, okay? Retro-aggressive state they're in now to the place where they ought to be, spiritually speaking.

Now, it goes like this, and you have this on the first part of your handout there. The senses with regards to hearing are referred to in a bad or a negative way in verse 11. And so we get the thumbs down on that. And then in the last part of verse 14, the senses are referred to in a good way. This is where they ought to be. This is where they should be going. And so we give thumbs up on that. This middle part is what we're going to put most of our focus on today.

But this is how God's Word is the instrument, God's Word is the instrument that is intended for spiritual growth and for development of the spiritual senses. And the analogy is used as God's Word is food, and we'll obviously look at that in a little more detail here shortly. It is the means, God's Word is the means, as food, from going to the place where they are now, where they are hard of hearing, spiritually speaking, to the place of having their senses trained to discern good and evil. God's word is the instrument for spiritual growth between one place and the next.

One of the things we introduced last week is in the same way we have five senses in the spiritual realm, and you may have varying degrees of function in those, right? In the same way that we have five senses in the spiritual realm, there are also five senses in the physical realm in the spiritual realm. So you have five senses in the physical realm, five senses in the spiritual realm. Sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste, they're all five referred to in the New Testament one or in some cases many times. Now, so here are those five senses and where they're addressed. The five senses in the physical realm have an analog in the spiritual realm. First is seeing.

We saw that already in Hebrews, in Hebrews 2.9.

We'll see it again in Hebrews 12.2. And there are other passages as well in Hebrews, in chapter 11, three more times.

Spiritually speaking, seeing. Next, what we have after that is hearing. That's referred to in this passage and also in Chapter 3, which we already saw, and Chapter 4, which we already saw. So then there's spiritual hearing that's being referred to. Next, we have tasting, which will be in the next chapter, Chapter 6, verses 4 and 5. Tasted actually twice in that passage there. And additionally, we saw it in 2.9.

So one of the points we made last week is, if the teaching on spiritual senses was a country, Hebrews would be the capital. It is the place where there is the majority of teaching on this subject, and specifically on seeing, hearing, and tasting. Now, in addition to that, outside of Hebrews, you also have 2 Corinthians 2, 14 through 16, the sweet aroma of the knowledge of him, which is the sense of smell in the spiritual realm. And so then in addition, feeling in Ephesians 4, 19. And that's put in a negative sense that the unbelieving Gentiles are past feeling. They have no spiritual sensation of feeling.

Okay, so those are the five senses and how and where they're presented. As you can see, substantially in Hebrews, that's where that figure is mostly presented. Now, one other thing. We have a chart here on page two, and we're going to kind of introduce it slowly. You have a chart that shows the physical realm on the left side and the spiritual realm on the right side.

And human beings are created beings that have an aspect, a reality, in both of those realms. We are both physical beings as well as spiritual beings. The angels, by the way, are spiritual beings that can present themselves in the physical realm. But they're not exactly just human beings.

And by the way, when someone dies here, they don't turn into an angel. That doesn't happen. In the physical realm we have five senses, and you might notice on the spiritual realm this is really dark. That's the place of the unbeliever. Their spiritual senses are greatly dulled. Their sensibility in the spiritual realm for the unbeliever is greatly dulled.

We as believers have those five spiritual senses turned on. So that's the presentation we have from scripture. We're going to go stepping a little bit at a time through this little chart that you have there. In the physical realm, we have a body, a part of which is the brain. In the spiritual realm, we have a spirit, a part of which is the soul. And so that's what this chart begins to present. We have both in the physical realm and in the spiritual realm, mind, emotions, and will. that are part of brain function as well as soul function.

Next, as we studied through Hebrews 4.12, and we see continually here into this passage, there is sight, hearing, and touch is the way that we take in the Bible. And I say touch because if you read Braille, that's how you take it in.

And that impacts at the dividing line, as Hebrews 4.12 says, impacts deeply at the dividing line between soul and spirit. There's nothing that goes that deep. The Word of God is intended to impact us deeply and to penetrate deeply and to have a great impact. Here is this physical entity. Some of you brought a Bible. That's great. There's also Bibles in the pew racks. Here is this physical entity that is intended to penetrate deeply into the spiritual realm of the human being.

In addition to that, we have several places in Hebrew, some of which we've covered, some of which we have yet to get to, where those spiritual senses are to be impacted by the Word of God. What we find in this passage here today is that the spiritual senses are used for training, excuse me, God's Word is intended to train the spiritual senses in the believer. As a matter of fact, all senses are addressed in 514. All the spiritual senses are trained, and like the gymnastic slide that we had up there initially, all spiritual senses are trained by the Word of God. for the purpose of discernment of spiritually and morally right and spiritually and morally wrong.

But that comes with maturity and only by the Word of God. So we have this passage here where we're going to be focusing on the middle part, 12, 13, and the very first part of verse 14. So we'll take this on, having covered the bread part, and step into the middle of the sandwich. One of the things that's abundantly clear, and one of the reasons, by the way, why we had that Pheasants 411 song, I find that there are very few songs that talk about spiritual growth and how that takes place. And so that's one of the reasons for bringing that out. It's clear from God's Word that it's God's desire and intent that believers grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and that an essential agent in that growth is the Word of God.

1 Peter 2.2, which we'll get to in a little bit here, 1 Peter 2.2 says that you are to long for the pure milk of the Word that by it you may grow. By it you may grow.

2 Peter 3.18 is the one that talks about growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. How do you do that?

It's by the Word of God. By the Word of God. Being conformed and transformed into the image of Christ, and growing and maturing, given the position we have in Christ, and He in us, ought to be the outcome, but it can fail to happen. And that's the point of the author here, as he's writing to the believers. Being conformed and transformed, and having our senses trained by the Word of God, ought to be what happens. But it's not guaranteed to happen. So there's some things we have to know. And that's what the author is wanting to point out here.

He says there, you ought to be teachers by now. You ought to be teachers by now. And you think about how old should a teacher be? A teacher should be old enough where they've learned a lot, enough to turn around and to teach others. Doesn't mean they're done learning. But it means they have enough of an understanding that they can turn around and teach others. So the author of Hebrews is telling his readers, you ought to be there by now, given the time that's passed, given the things you've been taught, you ought to be there. But you'll have to get back in your crib, right? They've got a problem. They've retrogressed. gone where they ought to be, and instead they're back at an infantile stage. That's a problem.

So the original readers had actually been taught fairly well and fairly extensively, if he's saying they ought to be teachers, they had been given plenty of good input. They just had intentionally, that's what verse 11 tells us, they had intentionally shut down listening to the truth that they had. They had actively been dull of hearing. That's the way the Greek word comes out. It wasn't that they just kind of forgot and were negligent. They had actively shut down their hearing. Intentionally shutting it down. The result of having actively pursued this dullness of hearing, not taking in the teaching, I don't want to hear it, was to put them back in need of spiritual milk again. Back in need of spiritual milk again. They ought to be teachers, but that's certainly not where they're at.

Now, he says, you have need again of the elementary principles. The words that are translated as elementary principles means literally elements of the beginning. And while I've got ABC blocks up here, I'm going to put a line out on it. Why? It's there earlier than that. They're before that because the blocks is where you can actually recognize the letters. They're back at the point of milk. They're way back there. So the ABC blocks is ahead of where they're at. Ahead of where they're at. So how elementary are we talking here? The author tells us milk and not solid food kind of elementary.

That retrogressed. That backwards. It's a really bad kind of retro. These believers ought to be teachers by now, considering all that they had been taught, and all the time that's passed, but spiritually they're just infants. They can't handle solid food yet. That's not good.

And one of the things we see here in this passage, there's actually a couple of different references to the Word of God. And one of them here is the Oracles of God. So he calls the Bible the Oracles of God and the Word of Righteousness here in this passage.

And we saw just in the last chapter, 4.12, Hebrews 4.12, and we'll see it again in 13.7, the Bible is the Word of God. In addition to that, 4.12 says that the Bible is said to be sharper than any two-edged sword. So it's not as sharp as, it's sharper still. Sharper still.

In Hebrews 5.12 and 13, the Bible is spiritual food.

Spiritual food, which is milk for infants and solid food for the youth and the mature. Milk for infants, solid food for the youth and the mature. And I'm sorry, we don't have a hamburger quite that size to share with you afterwards here. Okay. So there's the right food for the right level of maturity. That's one of the key things to look at here. So let's step our way through those four levels of maturity and the right food for each one.

One is newborns. Newborn, definitely milk. And this is the 1 Peter 2.2 passage. Actually, what's interesting is that passage refers to newborns not so much in focusing on the milk, but in talking about their longing for the pure milk of the Word. So it has to do with the degree of desire. So that's the first one, and definitely milk. The next one is infant.

1 Corinthians 3.1 uses that word.

Ephesians 4.14 uses that word. And now, as we see in this passage here, that word is used again, and it refers to that milk as elementary principles, not even ABCs. Remember, this is milk.

This is an infant, not just a young child, but an infant. Still back in the milk, still back in the milk stage, not ready for solid food. So not a newborn, but still quite young. The next thing that we see here is a youth. And of course, that covers a wide range of ages. But that does include meat and solid food. So that's the next stage. First Corinthians 1420 and First John 213 both make use of that word and the food that goes along with it.

And finally we have here mature, 1 Corinthians 14.20 makes reference to that.

Ephesians 4.13 makes reference to that, as does Hebrews 5.14 here in this passage. So we have those four stages and the appropriate food that goes along with them, newborn and infant requiring milk, the youth and the mature, requiring then meat and solid food. So there's an appropriate food for each stage.

One of the things we won't go into in any detail, but it's something I think for us to think about is, okay, what's elementary? That's going to be things like, okay, you believe that Christ died for your sins and was buried and rose again, and what happened? You know, what does that mean? You get the basics of the gospel and who is God and who is Jesus Christ and those beginning things and then going on into meat and solid food, things that are more substantial, things to grow on. Things that are perhaps a little bit more complex and things that are appropriate to being farther along spiritually. We're coming to our senses here.

What we presented last week is that the Word of God is an essential agent. It's not optional. You know, it would be really nice to have the Word of God once in a while. No, it's an essential agent in the spiritual growth and maturity of every believer. The Word of God is needed for the full use of the spiritual senses. You can't have full use of the spiritual senses without the Word of God to train you. Can't. Not happening. That's what this passage is saying. You must have it. You must have it.

Ephesians 1.18 and 19 convey that the spiritual senses are turned on at the moment we believe.

In 1.18, the translations often say something like, I pray that the eyes of your hearts may be opened. Wrong answer. The Greek there conveys, I pray that the eyes of your hearts, having been opened, that you might see. So he's wanting them to have the function of the vision that they have the capacity for.

The full use of the senses comes only through spiritual maturity and it must happen through God's Word. You don't get there by accident. You don't get there by accident. One of the key things to point out here is we have this analogy of faith in the facts is like the train in the tracks, and the feelings follow. So here are the tracks, and there's the facts, and you have the facts are spiritual truths from God's Word.

If you don't have the tracks, how well is the train going to do? Not so good. The train's not going to go very far at all. Faith is the train. Facts is the track. So the faith and the facts is like the train and the tracks. And the feelings, like the caboose, follow. Key principle. Guess what? As a believer, if you don't have any tracks, your train's not going to go very far. It may even fall over. It's not going to go very far.

As an essential, we need to have the spiritual facts from God's Word. Have to. Essential. Now, I have a question. Can one suffer from spiritual malnutrition? Eating food very occasionally. It would be like, okay, we're having a family fellowship meal this afternoon. We're not, but I'm just saying as an example. And we'll do that again next month. And we won't eat between now and then.

How's that going to work? Probably not real good, right? So way spread out. Here's the other problem. And we've got that in the picture. It's probably good food, but it's awfully small, right? So that can be a problem. So you have lack of food. You can have poor quality of food. How about spiritual junk food? Spiritual junk food, is that possible? Oh, yeah. A lot of people serve it up. Virtual junk food.

How about not the right food for the stage of maturity? You know, when our son Randy was born, we brought him home from the hospital, and I said, boy, it's sure great to have you here, and we plopped down a great big T-bone right in front of him, and a potato, and a few other things, right? Is that what we did? Not even close, right? Not going to work. Not going to work. We don't have a family fellowship meal and go downstairs and we all drink a glass of milk. We don't do that.

The right food for the stage of maturity. Got to be. And here's another question. Can a believer or whole family suffer from poor spiritual nutrition, either from quality or quantity issues, or from the wrong food for the level of maturity? Can that happen? You hear about the families, they go to church regularly. Every year on Christmas and Easter. And that's just way, way far apart between meals. So, yes, it can happen.

And you can still have spiritual junk food. Spiritual junk food. So, it's possible, you know, and it's something I think to ponder, you know, we would regularly go and, you know, fill up our refrigerator and prepare meals and all that. What kind of spiritual food is my family getting? How often is my family getting the spiritual food? Where does it come from? Is it junk food? Is it spiritual junk food or is it quality stuff here?

So, most of Christendom has this problem. Most of Christendom, and notice I use that word Christendom. That includes everything that gets lumped under Christianity. Most of Christendom has a problem with a lack of the right food. Most of Christendom has a problem with spiritual junk food. Most of Christendom has a problem with the quantity and quality of food.

Now we get into this immaturity and retrogression issue. Spiritual immaturity goes along with only tolerating milk from God's Word. Especially when that's been going on for a while or the believer has slipped back into that after having solid food. Staying spiritually immature or retrogression back to spiritual immaturity can happen a couple of ways. It can either happen by intent, and these believers were intentionally going backwards, or it can happen just by neglect.

We're too busy. I've got other things going on. Between work and sleep and taking a shower, I'm full. And so it is a matter of seeing it as a need. Seeing it as a need. There are people who can get stuck in the place of they only drink Bible milk. That's all they do. They don't do anything else. Just Bible milk. It can happen to us, okay?

Because our spiritual diet is inadequate as to quantity, quality, or from not having the right kind of food for the level of maturity for the believer. So, spiritual junk food? Oh, it's served up all the time. Served up all the time. Now, there is an issue with lacking in the spiritual senses. And I'm not talking about common sense or something of that sort. I'm talking about sensation in the spiritual realm. They are turned on when we believe.

That's what the Apostle Paul makes clear. The Word of God as food has to be consumed in adequate quantity, quality, and fitting to the level of maturity. And believers ought to think about all three of those. Quality, quantity, and fitting to the level of maturity. Those are key things.

Whether by neglect or intent, either one, Believers can have spiritual senses that are non-functional. So I have this picture where the senses are darkened. Either it happens because you just pay it no attention, or actually intentionally. We're not doing that Word of God thing here.

Even though it's not at all what God has in mind for believers, God wants full function. He wants us to grow toward full function with the Word of God. He wants fully functional spiritual senses. It comes as a result of taking in the Word of God in quality, quantity, and appropriate to the level of growth. Toward what? Toward spiritual maturity. That's what we aim for.

Nancy and I had three kids, and I just loved having those little kids. As a matter of fact, Nancy asked me one time, how many kids do you want? And I said, six, and she never asked me again. Anyway, so I loved having those little kids. But the thing is, I also did want them to grow up. I did want them to grow up.

If time had passed, you know, and our kids still remained at the same, you know, wonderful stage they were as newborns, after several years, we'd be very concerned, right? toward spiritual maturity is where believers are intended to be headed. That's what God has in mind. The Word of God has to be taken in regularly as spiritual food in quantity, quality, and in fitting to the level of maturity. Must. Those three things must be. One of the ways that will show spiritual maturity, and it's not the only one, is in spiritual and moral discernment.

That's what Hebrews 5.14 tells us. It's not the only evidence, the only thing that comes out of spiritual maturity, but it's a critical one.

So, now we say here's a parenting principle. Children, of course, are born as infants, as if that's some great insight, right? Let's hope they're born as infants. Although, you know, some parents, the way they talk about their kids, it's like they're born at two years old. But their parents do want them to grow up in various ways that lead to maturity and to function as adults. Even though I just love having each one of our kids be born, just really enjoyed their growing up, we did want them all to grow up, which is really good since they're all out of the house now, right?

So this passage, Hebrews 5, 11-14, provides a key insight into the development of those spiritual senses toward maturity. And this is key for parents to keep in mind. So this passage has an insight for parenting. Developing the spiritual senses of our children toward full function requires a good spiritual diet, defined quality, quantity and appropriate to the age at each stage of growth.

And really, if you think about it, does any Christian parent want their kids to grow up physically but not spiritually? No, not really. If you want them to grow up spiritually and to have full use of all five spiritual senses, God's word. God's word in quantity, quality, and appropriate to their level of growth.

This is a parenting principle. which shows itself here. And it's appropriate for Christians to be thinking about, Christian parents to be thinking about, okay, what does our child need now? And even to talk with, we offer a children's ministry, even talking about what are they doing, and where are things at, and talking with the leaders about that. Because there's a lot of thought given to that, as to what's given at each stage. And it's very intentional. It's not accidental. We don't just grab some curriculum off the shelf and do it. It's very carefully thought out. So this is something, as parents, it's well worth giving some thought to.

Now, defining maturity and immaturity, there's this Ephesians 4.11 passage. I want to touch on it quickly because we won't have time to go through it in detail.

But it says here, He gave some as apostles and some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ. And one of the key things about this passage is it talks about where we're headed. Equipping of the saints, and by the way, that's a military outfitting, that's what that word means, for the work of service. And by the way, the work of service, that's your job, not mine. My job is the equipping, yours is the work.

To the building up of the body of Christ until, so this tells where we're heading, we all attain to the unity of the faith. Those definite articles are there on purpose. And the knowledge of the Son of God, and so it's not just knowing a lot of stuff about Jesus. It's knowing Him. To a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. Verse 14 gives the opposite. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming." So here is the passage.

Children, and again, I loved our kids, but children are vulnerable. That's one reason why we, for about a couple of decades, parent them. They're vulnerable. And one of the things you're dealing with here in verse 14, no longer children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine. This is a vulnerability, a doctrinal vulnerability that children have. If they're not given an adequate spiritual diet, quality, quantity, appropriate to their stage of growth, They are vulnerable to being disoriented.

And he gives a picture here like a ship that's tossed by waves and going around in circles, just caught up in a storm. If you want your children to be caught up in a spiritual storm, all you have to do is neglect their spiritual upbringing. Carried about by every winds of doctrine and by the trickery of men.

That word trickery is kubeia. It's the word for dice. What they would do is they would have loaded dice. They would have dice that would be weighted. Some of them would have like the number six on opposite sides of the same die. And so someone would come in and play dice games with these loaded dice. That's the trickery of men. So they're subject to being tricked. And the last one, by craftiness and deceitful scheming, con men, swindlers.

Being spiritually vulnerable is the result of those who don't mature. In fact, that's the problem that these people in Hebrews are having. Being spiritually vulnerable is a problem. So the children, as much as we love our kids, the children need to be growing towards their discernment so they aren't vulnerable to these things. And the Word of God is the way to do it. A parenting principle. Okay, here's Hebrews 5, 11, and 12 expanded and explained. You also have this as a slide and we'll do that and the next one.

Concerning whom Christ is the High Priest, according to the Order Melchizedek, we have much to say and it is difficult to explain to you since you have actively become dull of hearing as a fixed and retrogressive spiritual condition. For though by this time, given the amount of teaching that you have had, you ought to be fully taught and trained enough to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, the Bible.

You have retrogressed in your spiritual development to the point that you have come to need the spiritual equivalent of milk and not the spiritual equivalent of solid food. I'm going to skip past a few slides here. And 13 and 14, for everyone among you in the body of Christ who partakes only of the spiritual equivalent of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, the Bible, for he is a spiritual infant. But solid spiritual food, which is substantial spiritual content from the written word of God, is for the spiritually mature who, because of the consistent practice in understanding the truth of the word of God and rightly applying it to life, have their spiritual senses completely trained by guidance and discipline to discern and judge between what is spiritually and morally good and what is spiritually and morally evil.

This passage, on one hand, gives a sense of the spiritual state of these readers that is shocking. To say you should be teachers, but you're such infants that you can't even handle solid food. Is rather stunning but on the other hand it gives us here's how you get from here to there and the there that you're supposed to be at is Spiritually mature the there that you're supposed to be at is all five spiritual senses all fully functional and that only happens by spiritual maturity through the Word of God only Can't get there any other way, okay? So as we look at this passage, what does it come to?

It comes back to God has revealed what he has in his word for a purpose. And it's absolutely essential. It's as essential as food is to our physical bodies. We need it. And he's given it to us because he loves us. He doesn't want us to be vulnerable. He doesn't want us to have shut down senses. He wants us instead to be fully Sensing in the spiritual realm and that happens by the Word of God alone because he loves us because he cares for us Let's pray Lord.

We thank you for what you've revealed here. We thank you for the precious and dear truths here and we do Pray Lord that you would bring these truths home to our hearts. We pray too as as Some of us here have the role of parenting and bringing our kids up. We pray for wisdom and insight there as well and And pray that you would give us understanding as we contemplate, what does this mean about my place as a parent? And Lord, we do just give you thanks that you have given this to us because you love us so very much. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.