Pilgrims Should Progress (Heb. 5:11 - 6:8)

There’s a lot of things I need to explain to you today, but its going to be difficult because you really don’t have the mental capacity to understand them.

There’s a lot of things I need to explain to you today, but its going to be difficult because you really don’t have the mental capacity to understand them.

What if I actually said that and meant it? I want you to understand how the Hebrew reader of this letter would have felt when he read that indictment.

I have much more to say and its hard to explain because you are dull of hearing. What the writer is saying by dull of hearing is mental dullness or lethargy. In other words, it’s hard for the writer to say this in a way that the readers will understand because of their sluggish minds. It’s about their laziness. The same thing can happen to us.

The Hebrews’ inability to comprehend the teachings about Jesus was not because of an intellectual problem; It is a moral problem. They became lazy. We all need to think about this admonition.

The Hebrews weren’t moving forward in implementing what they had been taught. The pilgrim should progress. Some should have been teachers by this time, but they were still needing someone to teach them the basic principles of God. They still had a diet of spiritual milk because they were acting like children still.

Think about the diet of a newborn. They start with milk and eventually graduate to more solid foods. If the child gets to a certain age and is still unable to handle solid foods, then the parent is going to take some action. There’s something wrong here.

Why don’t we think the same way spiritually? Do you ever become alarmed if you’re not progressing in your faith? Growing in knowledge and discernment.

Here’s the thing about faith— we are to come to God with a childlike faith. You come to God humbly and trusting. You don’t know everything the Bible teaches when you are converted and there are things in your life that you know the Lord wouldn’t approve of. But you come humbly to Him, asking forgiveness, and committing to a life of following Him. That childlike faith should become a maturing faith.

One way you know you are a maturing believer is that your ability to discern between good and evil have been trained and developed more. Maturing believers have greater ability to discern between good and evil.

So the writer of Hebrews is admonishing the people to leave the elementary doctrines and go on to maturity. The pilgrim should progress.

V.4-8 gives a very graphic illustration of this principle. A very graphic warning.

These are very difficult verses in this book by the way, and some would say that these are some of the most difficult in the NT. But when we take them in context of the immediate passage around it in Hebrews, as well as the context of the whole NT, it is not as difficult as we might initially think.

“For” connects it to the previous section. The writer is continuing his thought here. Pilgrims should progress. Believers should maturate.

If you’re not maturing, then there should be reason for concern— is there genuine faith or someone playing along with the church?

Think about the diet of a newborn. They start with milk and eventually graduate to more solid foods. If the child gets to a certain age and is still unable to handle solid foods, then the parent is going to take some action. There’s something wrong here.

Why don’t we think the same way spiritually? Do you ever become alarmed if you’re not progressing in your faith? Growing in knowledge and discernment.

There are people who play the salvation game. They think they’re saved, and they are even participating in and experiencing some of the blessings of being part of the family of God.

It is possible for people to be

enlightened in the Word,

tasting heavenly gifts,

seeing the powerful work of the Holy Spirit,

tasting the goodness of God’s Word,

but not be born again.

What is impossible for these unregenerate people when they fall away, or go out from the church, is to be brought to repentance.

Why? Because they are rejecting Jesus Christ (this is what crucifying once again the Son of God refers to—severe rejection). To have knowledge of Christ and even to see the blessings of God through His church, and then to turn away from His grace is holding him up to contempt.

Contempt: “the feeling that a person or a thing is beneath consideration, worthless, or deserving scorn.”

To experience the blessings of God and then turn away from Him is like holding him up and saying He’s worthless. Someone possessing this attitude cannot be restored to repentance because he will not humble himself under the authority of the One he is holding up as being worthless, the only One who can forgive him.

You can’t be forgiven when you consider the Forgiver to be worthless.

I don’t think you can make a strong argument that this is talking about genuine believers losing salvation. Not in the immediate context, which is found throughout Hebrews, like in 3:14— the expectation is that genuine will hold to the end. There will be moments of disobedience or maybe even longer periods of disobedience, but the Holy Spirit will convict that person and she will eventually repent and pursue righteousness.

The greater context of the NT teaches that Jesus holds on to those He saves. It also teaches us in : “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.” (, ESV)

3:14— hold to the end.

Some people leave the Church because they were never truly part of it. They were never saved to begin with. They might have experienced the blessings of the church, but were not born again.

The warning here in Hebrews is that you should be progressing in your faith, and if not, you should pause and consider your soul. It seems that the writer doesn’t believe that many of the Hebrew people were in that position because of v.9— yet in your case, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation.

This part of Hebrews appears to be an admonition to those in the church who are faking it. And that should be a strong word for us today— are you born again or are you faking it?

The agricultural illustration in v.7-8 is a powerful application of Jesus’ parable of the Sower in . The expectation is that if you receive the rain, then you produce a crop. This is what God blesses.

But if someone receives that same “rain” and his life does not display the appropriate fruit, instead producing thorns and thistles, then he will be cursed for eternity.

What fruit are you progressing? Are you living in righteousness? Are you serving God faithfully? Do the people around you know that you belong to Jesus by the way you act?

We need to be faithful to the end. Pilgrims must progress!

Are you familiar with the historic city of Pompeii? In AD 79, Mount Vesuvius erupted and ashes, pumice and other rocks were spewed very high in the air and then as it cooled, it drifted to earth in layers.

By the next day, Pompeii was buried under millions of tons of volcanic ash. About 2,000 Pompeiians were dead, but the eruption killed as many as 16,000 people overall. Some people drifted back to town in search of lost relatives or belongings, but there was not much left to find. Pompeii, along with neighboring towns were abandoned for centuries.

Rediscovering Pompeii

Until 1748, when a group of explorers stumbled on it. They found that the ashes had acted as a great preservative: Underneath all that dust, Pompeii was almost exactly as it had been almost 2,000 years before. Its buildings were intact. Skeletons were frozen right where they’d fallen. Everyday objects and household goods littered the streets. Later archaeologists even uncovered jars of preserved fruit and loaves of bread!

Many people were buried in the ruins. Some were found in cellars, as if they had gone there for security. Some were found in the upper rooms of buildings.

But where was the Roman sentinel found? There were a couple skeletons found standing at the city gate. Most likely where they had been placed by the captain, with his hands still grasping his weapon. There, while the earth shook beneath him—there, while the floods of ashes and cinders covered him—he had stood at his post. And there, after a thousand years, was this faithful man still to be found.

We need to be genuine and faithful. Maturing in Christ, not rejecting Him.