I'm not sure how many of you have been following the boxing scene lately. Have your head in the sand. Yesterday there was a huge boxing match. The boxing match was between an Irishman named McGregor and an American named Mayweather. And Mayweather is this kind of world champion boxer. But he's an aging boxer. I think he's 39 or 40 years old. 40 years old. I guess somebody's been paying attention. 40-year-old boxer, which would be kind of over the hill for a boxer, you would think. And a 29-year-old Irishman. And you know, one thing that this showed, and we've always seen these boxing matches happen over the years, Remember 30 years ago, 1987, marvelous Marvin Hagler and Sugar Ray Leonard. All of you who are from Brockton, you know good and well you remember that match. Or some of the others that have occurred over the years like Muhammad Ali and Frazier and Muhammad Ali and Foreman and all these great boxing matches that have been hyped over the years. But you know what's very interesting about this match? Even though you had this fellow, this Irishman, who is not a boxer, but he's kind of a UFC fighter, kind of a street fighter guy, there was something intriguing because this kind of fighting has become very popular over the last several years, and people were wondering, who would win, a boxer or a fighter? And certainly all the odds were stacked in favor of the fire, weren't they? And it's very interesting that when the...and by the way, by the way, I am not condoning what I'm about to mention here in a minute. But I found an interesting point of reference. I read an article that I think was four days ago that 95% of all the bets, now I have never bet on boxing or anything like that, but 95% of all the bets in boxing have come down on McGregor's side. Come down on McGregor's side. That was four days ago. The interesting thing is, is at the same time, every boxing expert told you what? Mayweather was going to win. Everyone, just maybe with an exception of somebody who wanted to get on the news. But for the most part, they all said Mayweather's going to win, but 95% of the people who were going to bet money on this fight thought that McGregor was going to win. And what it made me realize is that sometimes we think that something new and something that's different is better. Sometimes we think that something that is new and something that is different is better. In fact, as we look at this text, We have something like this to some degree. We have these believers, these Christians, they're locked in a battle. And this battle that they're locked in is one that's calling them to turn away from Christ. I read an article from 2014, it's from Christianity Today magazine written by Ed Stetzer. And in this article, Ed Stetzer is an expert on demographics and research. And what he pointed out was that 70% of all high school students, when they go to college, drop out of church. 70%. of high school kids who went to church for a length of a year drop out of church when they go to college. Now the good news was, and this is good news, and often when we hear these kinds of statistics that make us depressed, we don't hear the other side of it. Within the range of this study, and I'm not sure how many years it was, but within the range of that study, two-thirds of those had come back. Two-thirds of those had come back. I think we rarely hear that side of it. But still, I think that leaves somewhere in the neighborhood of a little more than 20% of those kids, upon sort of stepping out of church, maybe they go off to college, or maybe their life turning in a different direction, or maybe they go into a career, or maybe they go into a trade. Somehow, that 70% turn away from the faith. You see, sometimes something that is new, something that is different grabs our attention. Or sometimes it's just something that is different. Or maybe it's this, sometimes things that seem easier grab our attention. Sometimes things that seem easier grab our attention, and this is something that these believers were dealing with. You know, the easier way for them, these were Christians, they were Jewish believers. As we've said time and time again here, the first Christians, for the most part, were all Jewish. And we have this group of Jewish believers. It's a letter written to the Hebrews. And when Christ rose from the dead, the faith literally exploded. I mean, we have a savior who rose up from the dead. Is there not something to be excited about there? Is there not something to believe when somebody rises from the dead? Are you not gonna believe the things that he says when he comes back from the dead? And so you have this massive explosion of Christianity among these Jewish believers. Not only that, but you had people who knew the Lord, the Jewish believers who knew the Lord before Christ's coming and before His death and resurrection. These are people who knew the Lord that when they came into contact with the Lord, of course He was the Messiah. And so, of course they believed. And that's why the first Christians were Jewish. And over time, pressure began to be exerted on them. Pressure was exerted, first of all, from some of their own countrymen who began to exclude them from the synagogue. And this was scary, this was dangerous for them. For to be excluded from the synagogue meant that you were now cast out to the Romans. You see, the Romans had a law that you had to worship the emperor if you were within the Roman domain. with the exception of if you were Jewish. And so by exerting pressure on them in certain ways and having them pushed out from underneath the protection of the synagogue and from underneath the protection of Judaism itself, now they were in violation of Roman law and now the Romans were beginning to exert pressure on them. And trusting in Christ and following Christ became a difficult thing. You see, the culture was set against them, many of their own friends and families were set against them, and for them it was easier just to kind of diminish Jesus, to embrace Jesus, but a lesser form of Jesus, maybe for them a more benign form of Jesus. Maybe he was like a prophet, they might say. Well, as you remember, as we began this book at the very beginning, the point was made that Jesus was greater than the prophets. Others said, well, maybe he's greater than a prophet, but he's kind of like an angel. And then the writer of this book began to say, well, he is far superior to the angels. And now in this section that we're looking at, some might say, well, maybe he was, okay, so he was great, greater than a prophet. Maybe he was like the greatest man in all of the Old Testament. Maybe he was like Moses. And now he's making the point that he is greater than Moses. And so here's where we find ourselves. He's putting them in a position where they have to choose. But in the text in front of us, he's giving them solid reasons why they should resist the push of culture, they should resist the push of their friends, and they should trust Christ. That is the same thing for us. We are in a culture that is growing more and more hostile to the exclusive message that Jesus Christ is the only Savior, are we not? This is the culture we're in. This is the pressure we feel. Every day when we go off to work and we're in the, maybe around the cooler with our friends, they'll say to us, do you actually believe that the only Savior of the world is Jesus, that there's no other way to eternal life other than Jesus? And we say, yeah. And they look at us like we're Neanderthal, right? You ever experienced that? Or perhaps we are, maybe we're with our family, and maybe our family and friends do things that we know are out of bounds of the way that Christians ought to live, and we don't really partake in those things, and they push us, and they push us, and they push us, and we say no! And they look at us like we're crazy. You ever feel that? This is exactly how these people were feeling in their day. They were feeling ostracized. They were feeling alienated. And sometimes we can feel the same way as Christians. And so what he's doing here in this text is he's giving us hope. He's giving us a reason to hold firmly to the Christ who has saved us. Now, just as a couple of side notes, I want to mention these things because I think they are so encouraging. They're background assumptions that the author here makes. Number one, God is the author of Scripture. Notice here in verse seven, he says this, therefore, as the Holy Spirit says. Now, he could have said, therefore, as the psalmist says, couldn't he have? I mean, wouldn't that have been true? What does he say? As the Holy Spirit says. This book, this book that we have, is a book that is from God to us. This is the Word of God. It is inspired. It is inerrant. It is upon this Word that God has given us directives for life and living. The Holy Spirit of God gave us this. I love how he uses God is the author. The second thing that we notice here, and by the way, this is in agreement with what we read in 2 Peter 1 verse 21, it says Peter affirmed exactly this thing when he said that the biblical authors were carried along by the Holy Spirit. The second thing is that Scripture is timeless, Scripture is timeless. We notice at the second part of verse 7 and then into verse 8 we read this, today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion. Now, first of all, these words were always read. These words would have been memorized by this audience. This Jewish Christian audience would have had these words memorized because they were read at the beginning of every Sabbath evening to the people of God for ages and ages and ages, over and over and over again. This call, this call, today, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion. Now the interesting thing is, is that the writer of this book believed that those words, today hear his voice, were just as applicable in his own day as they were when the psalmist wrote hundreds of years before. And this section that we're looking at, now there are a couple of biblical references and places that you could put it in the biblical story, but this is from an actual event that took place. What he's referencing here is an event that took place in Numbers 13 and 14, and we're gonna talk about this a little bit more later. When the people of God rebelled against God, And this is an event where he is saying just as in those days the people were called not to rebel against God, which they did end up rebelling against God. So it was true in his own day that the call must go out. So it must go in the writer to the Hebrews own day that the call must go out. And so it must go in our own day that the call must go out today. Do not harden your hearts like they did in the rebellion. That is something that we need to remember and to consider and constantly have on our minds because it is so easy, it is so easy to allow our hearts to be hardened, is it not? We might feel like we are on the top of the world and we are spiritually where we ought to be. Maybe we've spent time in our Bible and we spent some time praying and then all of a sudden we hear some news that sets us off, right? You ever have that happen to you? And you go from being on the top of the mountain spiritually to be in a second to the lowest pit and you are filled with fury a minute before your peace and love, right? And now you're full of fury. Oh, it's so easy. It's so easy. But then there's something else. There's a song not too many years ago talking about a slow fade. There's another kind of fade. There's another kind of hardening that creeps up over us slowly over time. It begins to affect us. Well, one thing that we understand here from the scriptures, and what we see as kind of a side note to what we're looking at together, is that the scriptures are timeless. They're just as applicable to our day as it was in this writer's day, the book of Hebrews, and it's just as applicable to his day as it was in the day when the psalmist first wrote it in Psalm 95. And so we have this beautiful picture. It's an amazing thing about human nature, human beings. Transportation changes, by the way, I'm sure you've read articles that in a few years they're saying we're not gonna get to drive our own cars anymore, right? Transportation changes. Communication changes. Those of you who around 30 years ago, could you have ever imagined email? Could you have ever imagined the kinds of communication devices that we have today? Transportation changes. Communication changes. The way that we store information changes. Human nature never changes. And God's Word certainly doesn't change. And so it doesn't matter how much our culture changes, it doesn't matter how much the external changes, inwardly we are the same people and God's Word is always relevant and always applicable. This is so critical. And that's why we need to hide ourselves in God's Word all the time, as much as possible. And so, we read here in the text, again, in verses 7 through 11, these words that are actually, again, from Psalm 95, verses 7, 11, which makes it really easy for a man who has a brain that things fall out of all the time, that Hebrews 3, 7, 11 is the same thing as Psalm 95 went through, or 7 through 11. See, I almost forgot right there. So this is what it says, therefore as the Holy Spirit says today if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart as in the rebellion on the day of testing in the wilderness where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. Therefore I was provoked with that generation and said they always go astray in their heart, they have not known my ways as I swore in my wrath they shall never Now, what is this about? What story does the psalmist have in mind when he mentions those words? Well, again, it's a story from Numbers chapter 13 and 14. You think about the life of the children of Israel, how so many of them began their lives in bondage, 400 years of bondage under the mighty Pharaoh. And there they are, they're suffering under this great load of being mistreated and suffering just simply because of their identity. And then all of a sudden, God comes along and he raises up someone to rescue them named Moses. And Moses comes onto the scene after much travail in his life. And through His ministry, God, through a series of plagues that He unleashes on the Egyptian people, He frees His people. The people come out of Egypt, they plunder the Egyptians. And as they're making their way out, God leads them with a pillar, a cloud of smoke that goes before them. And as they make their way, they make their way to the Red Sea, and God parts the sea in front of them, and at night, God gives them this flaming pillar of fire to lead them, and they go across the Red Sea, and the Pharaoh comes after them, and the Pharaoh and his army are swept up in the Red Sea. God's people make it to the other side. God feeds them miraculously. He gives them manna to eat, food from heaven, He gives them water to drink, He takes care of His people, He shows them miracle after miracle after miracle. And finally now they make it to the edge of the promised land. There they are ready to go in. There are these spies, these 12 spies go, they search out the land, they look through the land, and as they're going through the land, 10 of the 12 spies are getting a little bit nervous. People are like giants, and we're like grasshoppers. They have cities with fortified walls. We can't go into that land. There's Caleb and Joshua, on the other hand, two men of faith, and said, we can trust God. God will deliver us. He will deliver it into our hands. See, God brought us out from the hand of the Pharaoh, and God brought us across the Red Sea, and God took care of us here in the wilderness, and we just need to trust him. The people said, no, no, we will not trust Him. No, no, we will not believe Him. They became obstinate and they became stubborn and they resisted what God wanted to do for them. He wanted them to experience life in the promised land. He wanted them to experience all the fullness that He had to offer them in a land that was flowing with milk and honey. It's pretty amazing here as we look at this text. We notice that at the base of this, was a kind of unbelief. In fact, we notice here that he begins a little bit later when he comments on these verses in verse 12. He says this, "'Take care, brothers, lest there be any of you with an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. In fact, he emphasizes this unbelieving heart here in verse 12 and in verse 19. If you look at 19 at the end, he says this, so we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. Now that's an amazing thing. Here they are, the children of Israel, they've gone out into the wilderness, they've seen God's miracle leading them in the day, they've seen God's miracle leading them in the night, they've seen God's miracle leading them across the Red Sea, they've seen God's miracles leading them around in the wilderness, and now they get to the edge of it and they refuse to go in. Why? Well, it tells us very clearly, it was because of their unbelief. Well, the question is, why in the world would people hang around? Why would they have left Egypt in the first place if they never really believed God, if they never really trusted Him? Well, there are a lot of answers to this. Well, they were part of the community of Israel. They had a heritage that they've been given. There were patriarchs. There were people who did great things. Very rich and powerful people like Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph. And they were proud to be in that lineage. But also it was more than that. This is where their friends and their family were. They shared a common language. They would eat together in ways that were comfortable and nice. And so even though they were part of Israel, they didn't really believe. In a sense, they weren't part of true Israel. They were part of Israel in the sense where they enjoyed the customs of national Israel, but they didn't know what it meant to be part of spiritual Israel. They didn't really believe. And you know what the truth is today in the church? We have the same problem. We have the same problem. And I'm not saying anyone in particular here, but the reality is that any body, any place, anywhere you go, you're gonna have people in the churches who are there for the very same reasons. Why would you say, well, why would someone go to church who doesn't really trust God? Well, there are a lot of reasons. It's their heritage. Some people can say, and you hear that a lot in New England, you'll say, well, you know, I go to a congregational church because that's what my mother was, and that's what my mother's mother was, and my mother's mother's mother was. And we could go back, but I would get tongue-tied. And we can trace our lineage all the way back to the pilgrims and say that's what they were. We can say, well, this is part of our heritage. The Congregational Church was the state church of Massachusetts for hundreds of years. We can go back to other things, maybe not heritage related. Maybe it's simply, this is where our friends are. This is where people are who are like me, who speak like me, who eat like me, who enjoy what I like. But there's no real relationship with God. This is exactly the setting that they're in, so that when the real time of testing came, they melted away. Here, God had spoon-fed them all the way along, spoon-fed them miracle after miracle after miracle after miracle. And then when it's time for them simply to step out and trust Him, they couldn't. It wasn't simply because they didn't believe Him, They wouldn't, well, they wouldn't, but the reason why they wouldn't was because they didn't have the inner capacity to. They didn't have a relationship with God. Yes, they saw the external miracles that God had done, but they had never experienced the inward power of a life changed through his wonderful gospel message of salvation in their own heart and life. And so when the troubles of this life came upon them, when the tests of this life came upon them, they scurried away. What do you mean, trust God? What do you mean, put my security in God? What do you mean, becoming vulnerable for God? I want to protect my own, and I want to keep my own, and if God wants to lead me out of Israel, and if He wants to take care of all of my enemies on every side, and if God wants to do those things, and He wants to feed me, and He wants to give me the gold and silver of the Egyptians, so be it. But if I've actually got to go out there and trust Him, I don't want any part of that. This is where they found themselves. This is what he's addressing. This is what he's dealing with. And I believe that this is the same kind of thing that we're dealing with today in our world. And so, he says here at the beginning, take care in verse 12. Now, this is an imperative. And it's in the present tense, which imperative means it's a command. What he's saying here is that we must always remain vigilant. We must always take care. The word could be translated be careful. It could be translated to watch out. He's saying always watch out for this. This kind of unbelief creeping up in our heart, this unwillingness to trust God. And so as we look at this, we can look at a number of ways that he calls us to be careful. He says this, number one, take care because willful rejection of Christ means alienating ourselves from the living God. This is the number one reason why we do not want to reject him. Why we want to take care in this area. What is it that we believe? Who is it that we trust? Where do we place our security? He says take care because I shouldn't say he says this, but this is a summary of what he says. Take care because willful rejection of Christ means alienating ourselves from the living God. It's easier to navigate the world for ourselves. than it is to trust Christ on one level. It is easier for us to do that. And human beings, like water, we always find our lowest point. We tend to want what's easiest. We're those places in our lives where we can go and we can just find our way without too much trouble. And as we mentioned a little bit earlier, as we mentioned a little bit earlier, the message that we have, the message that we believe is very offensive to the wider world. And it's all-encompassing. In fact, the Scriptures say that we are to take obedient every thought captive to Christ. that when you're in that relationship with Him, that's what He wants you to do. Not just take thoughts captive to Him while we're in church, not just take thoughts captive to Him while we're in religious settings or in Bible studies, but to take every thought captive to Him so that when we're at work and we're behind the desk or whatever we're doing and we're dealing with ethical dilemmas in our particular situation, we need to bring to our mind, what does God say about this? Constantly, every day, in every interaction, every thought, It changes who we are from the inside out, from our whole way of doing things, our whole way of living. It's all-encompassing. It is a total commitment. And part of this is there's an accountability, and sometimes we don't want accountability. Jesus said these words in Luke 9, verse 23, He said this, That certainly doesn't sound like the easy way, does it? This is the picture that we get. One of the most dangerous things that we could ever fall into is something called apostasy. He says, take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. The word there for fall away is actually translated, fall away, it's translating the Greek word for apostasy. Apostasy means to turn away from God. It's a reference to someone who may be part of the community of faith, just like these children of Israel prior to going into the promised land, when they turned away from God, they committed apostasy, and it's the same thing. Sometimes you have people who are churchgoers, who come to a point where God says, trust me in this, and it may be difficult. It may be a disease that you're going through. It might be an emotional trial that you're going through. It might be a temptation that you're going through. And God says, trust me in this. And finally, they come to a place and they say, I will not trust him in this. I will not trust God. And then they turn and they apostatize. They fall away from the living God. You know, it's amazing. It's amazing that there are so many Bible scholars who don't believe that the scriptures are true. Do you know that? You can go to many universities and find that. You can find that situation happening. In fact, there are many universities that won't allow someone who actually believes that the Bible is true to teach in those universities. And the question is, is why in the world would someone want to be a Bible scholar if they don't even believe? Why would you even be interested enough to pursue that with your whole life and go and study and earn master's degrees and PhD degrees? Is it just so that you can go on the History Channel? Because it seems like those are the only ones they want to interview on the History Channel. Most Bible scholars do believe, but they only want to interview the ones who don't. But the question is, why in the world would anyone want to do that? Well, one of the reasons why is because some of these people are churchmen who think that they're saving the faith. You say, well, how in the world could they possibly think that they are saving the faith by teaching that the Bible isn't true? How in the world do they think that? Well, they think that they're saving the faith from people like us. They think that they're saving the faith from people like us because they will say that if you go around saying that Jesus is the only way to heaven, if you go around and affirm all the miracles of the Bible, if you say that Jesus rose on the third day and you say that there is a real heaven and there's a real hell and these kinds of things, that no one will go to church anymore if you say those things. Did you know that? You're not supposed to be here. because we believe those things. But that's what they think. They think that nobody will go to church if you teach the truths of Scripture. It's like Jefferson. Remember Jefferson, he was a D.S. Thomas Jefferson, and what did he do? He had the Jeffersonian Bibles where he cut out all the miracles of the Bible. He believed, he thought that by doing that, he was saving the faith, saving Christianity. Oh, brothers and sisters, there's only one who can save the faith. There's only one who can save Christianity, and you know who that is? That is Jesus Christ, and he's alive, and he did come back from the dead, and that is why, if you wanna look across the country and you wanna see the churches that are full, the churches that are full are the churches that proclaim the supernatural power of the living God. You wanna know what churches are empty? The churches, not all churches that are empty, but many of the churches that are absolutely empty, are the churches that proclaim this new kind of anti-supernatural kind of religion. You see, those of us who have entered into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, we know the power within. What attracts us isn't the beauty of the sanctuary. What attracts us isn't the beauty of the organ, though it's beautiful, and the sanctuary's beautiful, and all these things. But that isn't what attracts us. It's to gaze upon the glory of Jesus Christ, and all of his splendor, and all of his majesty, and to realize that there's nothing in heaven or on earth or under the earth or anywhere else in all the universe that compares with Him and His wonder and His splendor and His power. If you've experienced it within, it doesn't matter if you're in some backwoods cabin listening to a message with five other people. When you experience the power of the Holy Spirit within you, this is the most wonderful thing you could ever know or conceive or ever be a part of. That's what God calls us to, that kind of life in Him. And so when we find ourselves on the edge of the promised land, He says, don't turn back, for I'm with you, and I'm on the other side. We read here about this apostasy, He says in verse 14, He says this, for we have come to share in Christ, If indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. If we hold our original confidence firm to the end. This idea for sharing in Christ is exactly what we've been talking about. The word here means to be in partnership. It's a word that was used for James and John. They were partners in Peter's fishing business. This is the kind of word we are sharing in Christ. We are sharing in his future. We are sharing in the inheritance that he has given us through his cross. We are sharers in all that he has. And so he says, we have come to share in Christ. It's a reference to the moment of conversion. It's a moment when we have come to believe in him and trust in him as savior. It's a moment that he's referring to when we have been born again, born of the spirit, born from above. This happens divinely and supernaturally by his power. He says, we have experienced this if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. What does he mean this original confidence? He's talking about the basis of our faith, the gospel that we believe. That Jesus came to ransom sinners, that Jesus came to reconcile lost people with God. In fact, it's very similar to what John says in 1 John chapter 2 verse 19. 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 are all not of us." What was John saying? He was saying the reason why people become apostate isn't because somehow they believe and they were converted and then they turn away from the faith. John's point there is that the reason why people turn away from the faith was because they were never converted to begin with. This is what he is saying here. He's saying that if we have experienced that genuine life transformation, it will show, the evidence of it will be in the fruit of our life. When we're standing on the edge of that promised land and we look out over it, we will continue on and trust God. This is what he's saying here. It's reminiscent of A.W. Tozer's words when he was asked often, where does a man go when he dies? A.W. Tozer said, a man goes where he belongs. A man goes where he belongs. You stand on the edge of the promised land and God says, trust in me and you'll enter into that promised land and you say, no, I don't want it. Well, you won't go in the promised land. But if you're on the edge of the promised land and God says, trust me and I will bring you into the promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and you say, yes, Lord, I will go. It is perilous, but I will go. It is fraught with trouble, but I will go. That's where you will be. That's where you will be for all eternity. Second thing is, take care because a willful rejection of Christ will lead to a hard heart. It will lead to a hard heart. Have you ever tried to pour concrete on a hot day? That's a problem. It can make the concrete shrink and crack. And what do you do if you're in a situation like that? Well, I'm told, not that I poured a lot of concrete, but I'm told what you do is you add a little bit of cold water. It eases the temperature in it, and it helps the mix so that when the concrete is poured, it cures properly. and in the right way. You know what the one additive we can have in our life to keep ourselves from developing a hard, and by the way, that's where it could be translated obstinate, hard, obstinate heart? You know what the one additive? You're not gonna be surprised. It's Jesus Christ. When you have Jesus in your life, he doesn't allow you to get hard, and when you begin to feel that, he brings things into your life that causes you to soften, your heart to soften again and again and again and again. You see, when we refuse to believe Him, when we refuse to trust, we develop a hard heart. Now, this is what I'd like to say to anyone here who may be listening and may have never come to a place where you've trusted Christ. And when you've heard the appeals to trusting Christ, you say, no, no, not now, not now. A hardened heart is an awful thing, and very often in Scripture, like Pharaoh, we see how he hardened his own heart. But you might remember in that story that eventually, do you know what God did? God finished the job. God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Pharaoh hardened his own heart, and then there came a day where God hardened Pharaoh's heart. And so the writer of this book is writing to them, and he's saying, look, don't harden your heart today. Listen, hear, turn to him now. Today is the day of salvation. Don't wait because you might come to a place where you are completely incapacitated spiritually, and you have no desire and no longing to turn to him. There's a famous story of Ben Franklin. And Ben Franklin loved to hear George Whitefield preach. And George Whitefield was one of the great preachers ever lived. And George Whitefield would come to America and he would preach and there would be fields with thousands of people in them listening to his messages. And one person told me once that George Whitefield may have even come to Middleborough. I know that he was in some of the surrounding towns around here, but sometimes 10, 20,000 people would come and he knew how to throw his voice. North Middleborough, there we are, yes. See there, so it was true, what I heard was true. Okay, so this great George Whitefield who lived in the 1700s, he came and he preached with great power. And you know one of his greatest admirers of George Whitefield was? Ben Franklin, Ben Franklin. Like Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin was also a deist. He believed that God started the world, got it going, but God was uninvolved in the affairs of men, but he loved to hear George Whitefield preach the same kind of message that we're talking about here. And finally one day, Ben Franklin uttered these sad words, if George Whitefield couldn't convert me, nobody could convert me. Brothers and sisters, friends, the worst thing that could ever happen in any person's life. is to reject the gospel call over and over and over again so that we come to a place where we say like Ben Franklin, if that person couldn't convert me, nobody could convert me. The reality is that George Whitefield couldn't convert a soul, only Christ can convert a soul. Only Christ can change a life. And though no man might have the power to do it, maybe every man, every woman that you've ever met who's a Christian has disappointed you. I'm telling you that Jesus will never disappoint you. Put your trust in Him, not in men. and He will save you. Third thing we notice here, third thing we notice here in the text is this, take care because it will mean, if we reject Him, that we will never enter into the life that we were made to have. We read this in verses 16 through 18, we see this. For who are those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for 40 years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And with whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. And so there are three questions that we need to look at here that he poses. Number one, who were those who heard and yet rebelled? He answers it, was it not all those who left Egypt and led by Moses? Was it not the children who were part of the community of God's people? Was it not? And with whom was he provoked for 40 years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And by the way, for your body to fall in the wilderness, that was to look at your soul as accursed if you weren't buried. Who were they? God's people, were they not? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest? He says those who were disobedient. Who were they? God's people, were they not? I want to tell you unequivocally, say that word three times, they were not God's people. They were with God's people. They were around God's people. They took in part in the things that God's people did. They benefited from the culture that was involved in God's people. Their family members were God's people, but they never had trusted him. They'd never believed on him. They'd never given their lives to him. Their faith was cultural. Their life was cultural. And so the one time where God says, just trust me, they said no. They said no. I remember hearing the story of a pastor friend of mine, told me one of the most painful experiences he ever had. He got a call from someone living in Texas. And this person asked him to go visit a family member who was in the hospital. And this family member had never come to faith in Christ. And so he went dutifully to the hospital, he found the room, he went and sat down with the person and he said to him, you know, so and so's giving me a call and this person wants me to share the gospel with you so that you can come to Christ and you can have a relationship with him and you're terminally ill and you don't have much time left. And as soon as he asked him, would you like to follow Christ? Would you like to enter into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? The man looked up at him and he shouted, no! And at that moment he died. It's just like the children of Israel right on the precipice of the promised land. All they had to do was follow God and they were gonna be in the land of milk and honey. He was gonna give them their hearts to light. He was gonna protect them from their enemies. He was gonna give them a land that he had always intended for them, but they refused to listen. Well, the point here of the text is that yes, this is about Israel on the edge of the wilderness and on the edge of the promised land and ready to go in. And it was about following the command of Moses from God. But what he's saying here, the stakes are much higher. Jesus is greater than Moses. And we're not talking about some physical earthly place that we're gonna live for some time the rest of our days in the world. This is Christ we're talking about. They said no to Moses. But we're talking about Christ. And we're not talking about a physical geographical space. We're talking about eternity itself. We're talking about the presence of God in the new Jerusalem, in the true promised land, where there's real milk and honey, where there's a place of abundance, where there are no more tears, no more sorrows, no more troubles, none of those things. It's Christ, and it's him forever, and it's what he wants us to experience through him. This is why he went to a cross, and that's why he paid for our sin on that cross. That's why he died for us, so that we could experience it. And so we are here on this side of the cross, and we look up at this wonderful, beautiful opportunity that God gives us. And the question is, when we see Christ, will we say yes, or will we say no? Oh, that is the most important decision you could ever make in your life. Will you trust Christ with your life? Oh, he has glorious things in store for you. We are God's, we are God's Exodus people. We've been now brought through the wilderness. This life is like a wilderness, and we stand on the precipice of all that He has waiting for us in the promised land. Will you trust Him for it? Will you take Him at His word? Will you follow Him? Will you give up all the security that you have in this world and in this life and make him your only heart's home, your only place of security, your only place of rest? For if you do, he will give you that rest beyond anything you could ever think or imagine. Let's pray.