This sermon emphasizes the danger of spiritual immaturity and dependency on basic teachings, likening it to being stuck in a state of infancy and unable to grasp deeper truths. The speaker urges believers to move beyond the 'milky way' of faith and embrace the profound truths of God's Word, challenging them to grow deeper in their understanding and relationship with God.

I mean, Gose spent 30 years exegeting Hebrews. You think you've got it bad. I mean, he preached for 30 years in his church on Hebrews, and I've got his commentary. It costs $250. It's worth every penny. It's better than the 250 other commentaries I bought on Hebrews. Here's what Gose said. He said, this text reminds him, me, of the doctors of ancient days who used to prescribe that adults who are critically ill to nurse upon women's breasts. That's bizarre. That's what the text wants you to think. You are adult Christians, at least ought to be, outwardly, and you're still nursing on mama's breasts. That's why I say it's pathetic, and that's what the text implies. It's pathetic. Some are so lactose dependent in spiritual things they will not accept any attempt to grow deeper. Jesus said the Pharisees, the old law teachers of Judaism, were this way. In Matthew chapter 9, verses 14 through 17, it'll be on your screen. So then the disciples of John came, saying to him, why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast? And Jesus said to them, the attendants of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. Now let me stop right there. He's saying, you guys fast because you're yearning for Him and truth and God, and I'm here. So the ones who are with me don't need to fast, they need to join me in glorying me. Now he's going to say, but see this is too deep for you guys, you can't grasp this, and he gives an illustration of what happens when the hardened, calloused, old, milky Christian gets deeper truth. Here's what happens. The hardened, old, calloused, moss-backed deacon, still on milk, we don't have any of those. I mean that. We don't have any of those, as far as I know. There's a lot of them out there, and they get some new truth. Here's what happens. Verse 16. But no one puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the worst tear results. He said, if I try to give you the deeper truth, it's like putting a patch that's never shrunk, or hasn't shrunk yet, on an old garment that's already done all its shrinking. You sew it on there, then you wash it a couple times, then that new patch shrinks, it tears a bigger hole. It just tears everything out. Then he gives another illustration. Nor do men put new wine into old wineskins, otherwise the wineskins burst, and the wine pours out, and the wineskins are ruined, but they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved. He said, you take somebody hardened in the shallow first principles, milky truths of Judaism, and pour in the deeper truth of Christ fulfilling all of that, and that old brittle dried wineskin, it doesn't have the flexibility of a new wineskin, and that wine swells and expands, and it bursts. That old brittle wineskin is all lost. You know what? I've had powerful high up people tell me, you keep preaching all the doctrines you're preaching, you're going to run people off. They're not going to hear it. They're not going to come back to it. That's true for some of the old brittle hardened wineskins, but you know what I'm finding? There's some fresh wineskins out there, and they love the new wine of the real truth, and by the way, it's not new as like you and I found out about it. It's always been there. It's been there for 2,000 years right here in this book. Thank God for the new wineskins who want the new wine. Amen. Praise his name. Well, Roman numeral 3, the Milky Way will probably have two parts. We'll probably pick up next week with some of it and continue on. Their shallow milk dependency is a sin. It's not just without excuse. It's not just pathetic. It's a sin before God. It ought to be repented of, and I suppose starting with this pastor this morning, who's not a person in this room that shouldn't in this service, very humbly before God said, Oh God, help me to grow deeper. Help me to know you better and understand you better and not according to my predispositions, not according to my natural inborn prejudice, not according to my human understanding and the limitations that I'm comfortable with. Explode those and let me see you for who you are as you reveal yourself in your word. Help me just take one more step and one more step and one more step. You know what I hope? Unless God does something, I think you're stuck with me until I retire, and I'm not going to retire. But I hope that 15, 20 years from now, we're rolling around in our wheelchairs. Well, 30 years from now, we're rolling around in our wheelchairs full of God, full of God, and young people will come from all over the country saying, We want to sit at the feet of these people, hear more about God and learn about... Don't you want to be effective when you get old? Don't send me to some senior adult retreat and entertain me with comedians. Send me to a conference where men of God preach the glories of Christ so I'll love him more and desire him more and hunger for him more and look for him more. Amen? God help us. Is anything wrong with Christian comedians? No. Nothing wrong with that. I'm not saying that's wrong. It's just when I look at the brochures that I get on my desk, that's about all they got. There's not anything out there for people who are growing hungrier and deeper as they... You older folks, you're precious to me. Keep growing deeper. Keep growing deeper. Keep growing deeper. Don't get trapped in the milky way. I gotta get on with it being sin. He says there in our text, we're still in verse 12, of course, for though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, to teach you the elementary principles. That phrase, elementary principle, means the elements of the beginning. Just the beginning stuff. One scholar said that this word elementary comes from a verb which means to go. He explained it this way. He said a child's first demonstration of strength is that he feels his little legs and he stands up and he goes. I don't know where he's going, but he's going. That's what this means. It's just the first thing, the first part. This is a phrase that's used in the arts. It means the first principles you must have before you go forward. For example, if you were taught to be a painter, there's things about the canvas you must learn first and different types of brushes and different types of paint and all that's the first principles or you'll not ever be a good painter, but you don't stay there. I mean, if your mom and dad send you to school to learn to be a painter and a year later you've had a lesson every week and they're paying big bucks and they ask you at the end of the year, now what have you learned? They say, well, here's a wide brush and here's a narrow brush. Well, honey, what have you painted? I haven't done that yet, but I love this part of it. I love the difference in the brushes and then you got oil painting and you got whatever other kind of thing. You say, I don't paint. And you'd say, this is wrong. You've wasted my money. Yes, you've got to know the basics, but you're never meant to just stop and glory there. Elementary school, same word here. Elementary schools teach first principles. Math, 2 plus 2 is 4, addition, subtraction, going up a little later to multiplication, maybe in division, and English, this is a noun, this is a verb, this is a simple sentence, etc., etc. The first principles. All Christians have to have their first principles. Then you add something that shows you the way to the...