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Now, we've been doing the same
scripture reading for a couple of weeks. We're going to move
a little differently. Your notes will have the old
scripture reading that we've done a few times. And what we're
going to do today is Hebrews chapter 3, verse 1, and we're
going to read to chapter 4, verse 2. We'll get a larger context here. Won't be able to explain all
those verses, but we're going to get in, get started, and get
some good context, I think. But Hebrews chapter 3, starting
with verse 1. Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers
of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of
our profession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to him that
appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house.
For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch
as he who hath builded the house hath more honor than the house."
For every house is built by some man, but he that built all things
is God. And Moses verily was faithful
in all his house as a servant for a testimony of those things
which were to be spoken after. But Christ, as a son over his
own house, whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence
and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. Wherefore,
as the Holy Ghost saith, today if you will hear his voice, harden
not your hearts as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the
wilderness, when your fathers tempted me and proved me and
saw my works 40 years. Wherefore, I was grieved with
that generation and said, they do all way err in their heart,
and they have not known my ways. So I swear in my wrath that they
shall not enter into my rest. Take heed, brethren. lest there
be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from
the living God. But exhort one another daily
while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through
the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of
Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto
the end. While it is said today, if you
will hear his voice, Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. For some, when they had heard,
did provoke, howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses.
But with whom was he grieved forty years? Was it not with
them that had sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness? And to
whom swear he that they should not enter into his rest, but
to them that believed not? So we see that they could not
enter in because of unbelief. Let us therefore fear, lest a
promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should
seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached
as well as unto them, but the word preached did not profit
them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it." And there
ends our scripture reading. And we are ever mindful of this
overwhelming project, the book of Hebrews. I call it a project
because it's got some very important, overwhelming themes. Using a
lot of the Old Testament, it was addressed to Hebrews in particular,
though we all benefit from this. But the superiority of Christ
and the new covenant, the gospel, and the work of the Spirit to
the old covenant, and the workings there. And as it told us carefully,
Moses spoke of things, revealed things that would be actually
spoken of later. What he did was often symbolic,
the things in the tabernacle and the sacrifices, and they
were only indicating and illustrating the perfect and permanent work
of Christ. And so the superiority of Christ,
The word better keeps popping up in this book. And when we
look at when this book was written, and I don't know what everybody
says, but all the people I've studied have told me it was around
70, well, excuse me, around 68, AD 68. And just a couple of years
before the besiegement of Jerusalem, that utter destruction of that
place, there goes the temple, there goes the festivals and
feasts, and all the props are gonna be kicked out And you have
people who were Hebrew people, and they profess faith in Christ,
but they were still clinging to the old things. They were
trying to have the best of two worlds. Jewish Christians back
then would worship both on the seventh day of the week and the
first day of the week. They didn't impose that on the Gentiles,
but there was a way of kind of hanging on to base here. And
they had all these beautiful things, and it was a part of
their culture and a part of their heritage. and God was getting
them ready for a lot of props to be kicked out. As well, he
might have to prepare us if suddenly we lost our freedoms, and we
couldn't have our nice church buildings, and we couldn't have
our nice baptistries, and our nice stuff, and I could go on
and on about all the nice things we can have, Christian schools
and so forth. If government ever became a thing
that was going to try to obliterate those great comfortable freedoms
we've had. And I shouldn't say comfortable,
because I don't think, it's funny, God likes the word comfort, but
not comfortable. He even calls himself the comforter.
but comfortable is sort of a dangerous word, but we might do well to
remember what it is to worship God in spirit and in truth, and
to cling on to the eternal truths and the realities, Christ in
us, in our faith working powerfully. And so everybody can benefit
from the book of Hebrews, but in so doing, there's an overwhelming
theme, and it's aimed specifically at the Hebrew people, but we
can all apply it, and that is don't turn back. Don't turn back. The first New Testament book
written was the book of James, and James had to deal with a
similar thing. His Jewish Christians were getting
it from both sides. They already knew what it was
like to be persecuted as Jews from the non-believing Gentiles,
but now... confessing Christ, they had also
the persecution of the other Jews who didn't believe. And
so they were getting it from both ends. And so James had to
do a lot of work about all these trials, all these things, count
it all joy, and blessed is the man that endures temptation.
There's some very important things. And he's been likened unto the
New Testament version of the book of Proverbs. Like, don't
throw out the baby with the bathwater here. There's all these things
that you have learned that are not undone just because you're
saved by grace without works. It doesn't mean that you now
toss out your values, your character. Oh, I'm saved by grace so I don't
have to worry about stuff. James gets hard-hitting. And
he brings down powerful teachings about how to control the tongue
and how to look at the heart and to do things right and treating
one another and very carefully. And a lot of his teachings resemble
the Proverbs and they also resemble things in the Sermon on the Mount.
You'll find nice corollaries between all of those. But all
that to say that James had a similar project in mind is keeping people
from turning back and that they must go forward. Hebrews is telling
us, here's the heritage you were given. Here is beautifully illustrated
the sacrifices, the temple, the animals that were sacrificed,
the priesthood. But Jesus is the better way. Jesus is the
perfect high priest. Jesus has perfected forever them
that are sanctified. And by one offering, not the
multiple offerings. And so this is given layer by
layer throughout this book. And what I've done, I'm not going
to teach verse by verse through the whole book of Hebrews, but
I'm looking for this theme. Now, originally I've been calling
up the gospel a perpetual need. Because we have looked at how
the gospel is to be ministered to believers, not just to new
people who are unbelievers. Gospel truth sanctifies us, sharpens
us, gives us momentum and motive and many things we need. It's
powerful to the believer, not simply to unbelievers who need
to believe. And when I was putting this series up online, I had
a problem with spacing. They only allow me so much room
to put a title, and sometimes I don't feel like my titles are
getting the point across. And so on Sermon Audio, I've
changed the title to Warnings from Hebrews. Warnings from Hebrews. And I offer that to you today.
You see it in the bulletin. Warnings from the book of Hebrews.
And two basic categories we've tried to help people understand
is that the same scriptures, whether it be Hebrews or some
other places in the scriptures that are very powerfully doing
this, those scriptures can, number one, be taking a person who professes
to know Christ, but really doesn't have that relationship, and to
wake them up out of their formal Christianity. whether it be legalistic
or whether it just be sort of a carnal adherence to things
and just having a good time. There's lots of ways to try to
look like a Christian and try to hang out with Christians,
but you're not a Christian. I kind of gave up on that saying. It
says, if it looks like a duck and acts like a duck and hangs
out with other ducks, it's probably a duck. That does not apply to
Christianity. Just trying to look like them,
hang out with them, do what they do. You may not be born again.
So that's constant warning. And so certain people had to
be brought to a place of reality and urgency to receive Christ
in the true sense and be born again and get out of the patterns
of just imitating Christianity. On the other hand, the same scriptures
are designed to take sleepy Christians, careless Christians, distracted
Christians, maybe they haven't been well-taught, or maybe they've
been well-taught but haven't paid much attention, haven't
applied it, and to shake them up out of their lethargy, shake
them up out of the error of their ways, and put light on their
path, and alert them. And in their case, like with
others, they've got to repent. And if the Holy Spirit's in it,
they're going to come back to the path that they perhaps started
out on, or they've been lopsided walking it, haven't been walking
straightly on it. And so this leads to why we have
so many divisions in Christendom today, where people think, oh,
a person was saved and they lost their salvation. They got to
get saved again. That's not actually what the Bible's teaching. One
true work of grace is all we need. By grace are we saved through
faith, and that not of ourselves. It's a gift of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast." But then he goes on to say, for we
are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
which God has before ordained that we should walk in them.
And sometimes we stop at verse 9 and we don't get on to verse
10 the way we should. These scriptures need to scare
the sinfulness out of us, scare the carelessness out of us. Would
I get in trouble if I said scare the hell out of us? Because I
think we kind of need to have the hell scared out of us. Hell
has a doctrine. The demons believe and tremble.
And sometimes the doctrines of demons cause people to believe
intellectually, but they don't tremble. They don't tremble. Or if they do tremble, it's a
legalistic fear. And they're going to try to do
what some call legal works. Not out of love, not out of gratitude,
not out of the resources of Christ and the Holy Spirit. They're
doing this because, I've got to keep earning my way, I've
got to do stuff, I've got to perform. Okay, yeah, that's so
much for my light introduction of that first page. But those
two things will assist us as we look at tough passages in
Hebrews. Are they talking to believers?
Or are they talking to non-believers? Are they talking to believers
who are no longer believers? And questions could rise up.
Those two categories, I think, will help us. Now, last week,
we focused on Hebrews 2 and how people let things slip. or drift
away. And they need to give more earnest
heed, pay much closer and careful attention to the things that
we have heard. So that was Hebrews 2, 1 through 3. Today, I want
to focus on chapter 3, best I can. I want us to see the need to
hold fast and firmly to our confidence. Now, the heading at the top of
this second part of the second page is looking at the book of
Hebrews, let's examine some dangerous things people do. Now, verse
6 and 14 have some things in common. Christ as a son over
his own house. Now, compared to Moses who was
a servant over his house. They want you to understand the
higher rank of Christ. Moses was a servant and he was
faithful. Not perfect, but he was faithful. And he had a household. He had
a covenant. He had a following, a congregation.
But Jesus is the son of this household. And here's the catch. It says, whose house are we if
we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm
unto the end. Now, this does not mean that
we have to keep working and performing to be the household of Christ. Or if you want to put it another
way, his church, he says he's building as a spiritual house,
or it's called a temple in the New Testament. We are not a part
of Christ's house as we perform and in again, off again. This
is showing us a picture of what it looks like if you're one of
those true living stones built on Christ, and part of that spiritual
house, here's what you do. You are one who holds fast. You are rejoicing, or glorying,
or boasting of your hope in Christ. And you're clinging to that.
Now some people start to receive the word with joy, as the one
parable says, but then persecution, the sun comes up, everything
withers. We need to, and you understand
these multiple slashes I make with these quotes, I'm gleaning
from different translations in case you have a different one
out there. We're told to rejoice, or glory, or boast of our hope
in Christ. Now the fact is, if we do not
celebrate our faith, we will be unable to live our faith.
Okay? Celebrating is an active part
of being able to do what the will of the Lord is. Because
our confidence is in Christ and not in the flesh. Not in works. Not in forms of religious things. It's in Christ himself. So we
celebrate it. And it energizes us and gives
us momentum. Now, the example throughout chapter
three, verse one, all the way to chapter four, verse 11, we
didn't read that far today, but they're going back to make us
look at Israel coming out of Egypt and getting into the promised
land. The promised land is the rest.
Some of our old hymns try to describe Canaan land as going
to heaven, but I think there's some problems with that because
in heaven, we don't have to fight any more wars. Someday I'm going
to lay my Bible down, down by the riverside, down by the riverside,
down by the riverside. Someday I'll lay my Bible down,
down by the riverside, and study war no more. And the Bible being
the sword of the Spirit, you will not get rid of the Word
of God when you go to heaven, but you won't need it as a weapon
to fight sin anymore. And Canaan was full of battles. Canaan was full of cities to
conquer. Somewhere around 33 different
kings are mentioned. I have a little booklet and it
tries to cite 33 things that are the battles we have as Christians
to actually take a settlement of that country. These things
have to go down. Different areas of weakness,
different areas of temptation, different areas of false teaching.
And so sanctification, of the believer. And there comes this
point, and I'm not trying to get into a second work of grace
where now all of a sudden you have no things to do, you're
sinless. Some have gotten off on that
error. But the place of rest, the place in which I am His and
He is mine. I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless
I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life that
I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God
who loved me and gave himself for me. I'm able to rid myself
of fleshly trust, of fleshly efforts, and I'm learning to
walk in the Spirit now. In conquering these particular
things, we're seeking to take settlement of the land that God
has given us. So it's talking about in this life. But now,
this example of Israel as a nation, they were all brought out of
Egypt, and they all passed through that water, and that's likened
in 1 Corinthians 10 to a baptism. But then, as they only needed
about three weeks to get to Canaan, because of unbelief, because
of rebellion, because of murmuring and complaining, They actually
got 40 years to walk and walk, and the longest funeral procession
in all history took place in the wilderness. Oddly enough,
it's called the Wilderness of Sin. People who did not have
faith to enter the promised land did not. And another generation
went in. But the picture of the nation
as a whole is they had to go through some terrible times until
they finally could get it in harmony with God that, yes, by
faith we can have this. We sometimes just say, oh, it's
too hard a battle. God doesn't expect that much of us, and we
don't want to fight. God says, fight, and I'll be
with you. Don't fight, and you're going to wander in the wilderness
of sin. And so some of the individual
Jewish people, actually a lot of them, were not real believers. They were a picture of the believer
coming out of Egypt, but they were also, as individuals, pictures
of religious people who really don't love God, don't trust God,
don't want to walk with God. And so they have to walk in circles.
Their life ends up being a big zero. They're just placeholders.
It's their children that are going to get to go in, except
for Joshua and Caleb. The rest of them just had to
die out there. Big zeros, placeholders till the other generation could
go in. That's why Moses had to give the law twice. Deuteronomy
is the restating of the law with more to help the next generation
be faithful and go in. So there's this great big picture.
And I just put as a recommendation the chapter 3 verse 1 through
4, 11. Consult commentaries like John
MacArthur or Warren Worsby, and I certainly have others I could
recommend to you. But you could do some real study
here and get the closer parallels with Israel coming out of Egypt,
going through the wilderness, into the promised land, and what's
being said here in this chapter. that we need to learn from their
examples. Because we're no better than
them if we just hear the Word of God and don't take it to heart,
don't do anything with it, don't trust and obey. We could be just
like them. So it's a firm warning, isn't
it? So when we hear the gospel, we need to hold fast to everything
Jesus said. Now verse 14. is of the same stripe here. For
we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our
confidence steadfast unto the end. Again, that's a picture
of what it looks like. This is what you're like if you're
one of Christ's true people. You will hold firm that steadfastness. And a believer might read this
who has been getting sloppy. losing their joy, not practicing
the things that make the promises of God important and powerful.
And they might say, hey, wait a minute. That's what Christ's
people are supposed to be like. I better wake up. And somebody
else might say, I never even had this. I didn't know you could
know you're saved. I didn't know that you could have this kind
of power in your life. I just thought, well, I started
here. Now I got to duke my way out.
And basically, as legalistic as an Old Testament saint might
be, And if that word partaker gets your attention, it's because
over a year ago, I did a series called Partakers of Christ, where
we delved into this more heavily. But I must move on now. And Hebrews
3 verses 8 through 13 deal with the subject of hardening your
hearts. What are some of the dangerous things that people
do? They let things slip and drift away. They do not hold
fast and firmly to our confidence in Christ. But here, the warning
is that people harden their hearts. They don't take care of them.
Allow me to read verses 8 through 13 again. Harden not your hearts
as in the provocation, referring to how Israel would not trust
God and they murmured and complained and wouldn't go into the promised
land. That's the provocation. In the day of temptation in the
wilderness, when your fathers tempted me, proved me and saw
my works 40 years, wherefore I was grieved with that generation
and said, they do all way err in their hearts. We're going
to deal with that word in a big way. and they have not known
my ways." Have not known. Not, oh, they knew and they forgot,
or they knew and they changed their mind. In reality, they
never knew. When Jesus warns in Matthew 7
about those false professors of faith, even some of them were
teachers and preachers, and, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied
thy name and cast out demons and done many wonderful works?
And he says, depart unto me ye that work iniquity. I never knew
you. They are workers of iniquity,
even though they're professing to be Christian ministers. And
he says, I never knew you. And there is the rub, and some
people don't get it. You ask a person, do you know
the Lord? And they say, yes, it's because they know about
him. They know about the Lord. They don't actually know Him
in an intimate, relational way. But Jesus here says, I never
knew you. Does the Lord know you? How can
I tell if the Lord knows me or not? Because doesn't He know
everything? We're talking about a relationship kind of knowing.
And you know that the Lord knows you when he speaks to you through
the word, when he touches your heart and convicts you of things,
when he changes your mind or gives you encouragement when
there's no natural way to be encouraged, when the word of
God speaks, when the worship and the fellowship of the saints
blesses you and you come to hunger for Christian fellowship, scriptural
fellowship, time privately with God, time corporately with God
and his people. And when you're getting blessed
and when God intervenes, He changes you, sometimes He's correcting
us, sometimes He's encouraging us, but that's where I want to
make sure I am known of Him to keep me from becoming a worker
of iniquity because I know so much Christian doctrine and I
know so much Christian technique and procedure. I have heard of
people in the ministry, and they've served God all their lives. And
at the end of their lives, they were so busy. They've learned
so many things. They had so many talents. And
at the end of their ministries, they were deciding, you know,
I'm done that work now, but I'm just going to read my Bible for
fun. And they realized they hadn't been following the Lord's teachings.
In the end, they said, I don't even agree with what I was saying
and doing. That's a tragedy. Some people in the middle of
their ministries have actually said, wait a minute, I was never born
again. I've talked about it. Others even may have come to
faith. I am not really that person. Strange things have happened
like that. So books like this try to help us. They are good
for us. And so we have to learn about
these things. And here in Hebrews 3 is this
warning. about not having hard hearts,
not letting our hearts harden. We're told to beware, or take
heed, or take care, so that we do not have an evil, sinful,
hardened, unbelieving heart. In the middle of saying you're
a believer, you could actually be unbelieving. It's only superficial
what you believe. And God has to test us on that,
and he invites us to invite him into the testing. Search me,
O God, and know my heart. Try me, O Lord, and know my ways,
and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in a way
everlasting. Psalm 139, 23, 24. We've been
singing it a little bit lately. And if we do allow our hearts
to become hardened, evil, sinful, unbelieving. It can cause us
to depart, to fall away, turn away from the opportunity to
have a vibrant, interactive relationship with the living God. Now, one
word Theological word that can be used here is apostasy. Apostasy. You've perhaps heard
people refer to backsliding, and that's a mixed up terminology
because most people today think of backsliding as getting off
track, getting distracted, getting careless, and waking up and getting
back and revitalized, revived, and that's important. But in
the Old Testament, the word backslide was used harshly as the equivalent
of the New Testament apostasy. It's not just, oh, I'm off base
a little bit, it's you are not with me at all. And so apostasy
is turning away from the true God and the true gospel. Apostasy
is not the loss of salvation, it is the outcome of a person
who has professed a relationship with God but did not really possess
such a relationship. profess or possess. That's the
point. This is defecting from the teaching of the faith and
going the way of the world. I have two passages here I'd
like to emphasize. They are like marking the ditches
on both sides of the road. Galatians 5.4. If you go with
me, please. Galatians 5.4. Now, in Galatians, it's another
one of those books that's trying to keep us from getting off base,
going back. Paul had taught to a whole region
of Galatia, and in those churches, after he left, and he had spent
a long time with them, false teachers came in, false brethren,
unaware, as it's referred to, I think, in the book of Acts.
They come in, and they start teaching, oh, yeah, believe in
Jesus, but you've got to get circumcised and get back to the
law of Moses and do this and do that and keep all the festivals.
And so Paul Couldn't go back and revisit all those churches,
so he wrote this letter to be passed around to all those churches,
and thankfully for all of us for the rest of time, is that
you can't start by grace and then go back to the works of
the flesh. You can start with the Holy Spirit
and try to perfect yourselves in the flesh. That's an overall
idea of what Galatians is seeking to do. You can see right there
in chapter 5 verse 1, "...stand fast therefore in the liberty
wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again
with the yoke of bondage." And so he says here in verse 4, if
you go back to the Mosaic law to perfect yourselves, Christ
has become of no effect unto you. whosoever of you are justified
by the law." That is so-called justified by the law. You are
fallen from grace. Now that phrase has been misused
to try to teach, oh, you lost your salvation. Here you are
up on the grace road, you fell off, so you had salvation, now
you lost it. That's not the idea here. What this is, it's falling
from the teaching of grace. Falling from the teaching of
grace and turned to legalism. You have fallen from the platform
of true doctrine. And true Christians can get messed
up in this area. Paul says that as much in the
fourth chapter as I believe you have truly known God, or rather
you are known of God, that's in 4.9. But I hope I haven't
labored in vain, verse 11 of chapter four. And so he's trying
to warn them as believers not to get caught up in this unbelieving
kind of doctrine. Along the way, there could be
people who were wrong from the beginning and need to be completely
corrected. Others are starting to go astray. They've got to
be turned back. And so, falling from grace here is referring
to falling from the proper teaching of grace. And part of that is
that you can't start with Christ and then try to go back to fleshly
things that couldn't save you before and try to use them to
perfect yourself. But there's another ditch on
the other side of the road. And for that, we go to Jude chapter
one. Now, there is only one chapter
of Jude, but if you do search engines, you find that you gotta
put chapter one and verse four to get where I want you to go. But you've got a real Bible there,
I hope. Some of you may be using a device,
and that's fine, but Jude, In verse 4 of the one and only chapter,
and Jude was warning us in verse
3, to earnestly contend for the faith which was once and for
all delivered to the saints. And here's why. Verse 4, for
there are certain men crept in unawares. who were before of
old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace
of our God into lasciviousness." There's a $5 word. You may not
have it in your Bible, but just give me a moment here. They've
turned the grace of our God. Now, they didn't actually change
God's grace, but they changed the teaching of grace. They changed
the gospel of grace. And as Paul would say in the
Galatian epistle in the first chapter, they're preaching another
gospel. It's not really another gospel
that can save you, but they perverted the gospel. And they call it
gospel, and it is really not. And Jude is warning us in a similar
way. They have turned the grace of
our God into lasciviousness, and they are denying the only
Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. So this word, lasciviousness,
okay? They're changing the teaching
of grace into a license to sin. Lasciviousness, lewdness, immorality,
sensuality, And they're saying, grace makes you free now to do
what you want. Jesus paid it all, so I got nothing
to worry about. And that's never the objective
of the true gospel. Now, we learn to love God, fear
God, and enjoy God in a way that the law could never bring to
us. For the law came by Moses, John said in John 117. But grace
and truth come to us by Jesus Christ. Grace and truth come
by Jesus Christ. Grace means ability. Now that's
not a dictionary definition, but grace has to do with unmerited
favor. It has to do with a gift. Many
times the word for grace is translated gift. But the idea is the gift
gives us the power to truly believe, the ability to believe and obey
and to rise up and to follow him. You know, if you're worried
about your free will, understand it operates, it's free in a sense,
but it's actually bound up like a bird put in a cage. It's got
wings and all, but it can't fly because it's stuck in a cage
and that cage is our fallen nature. Jesus has to come with his power
of regeneration, the new birth. And it opens up the cage door
and then we can fly out and do the right thing. Otherwise, we're
just bashing against the cage. And our nature won't let us be
true followers of Jesus. We might try to act like it,
look like it, smell like it, but we have to be born again. And there's a gospel out there
that teaches it's all God's work and Jesus paid it all. But that
means now you're okay. You got a license now to sin
as much as you want. And you'll go to heaven because
it's all of grace and not of works. That's incomplete teaching. That's the rudiments of the world. Okay, so we now come to the matter
of what it means to err or go astray. But before I get there,
let's just take a little quick look. 1 Timothy 4, verse 1. 1 Timothy 4, verse 1. Now the Spirit speaketh expressly,
or explicitly, Or very clearly, that in the latter times, some
shall depart from the faith, the true teaching of faith and
grace, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils,
demons. And we studied 1 John 2 a while
back. And there were some things that he said in verses 15 on
to about 27. And he says, these things I write
unto you concerning them that seduce you. A seduction, a deception,
a luring away. Well, the latter days doesn't
mean just some time just before Jesus comes. The latter days,
according to Hebrews chapter one, the first couple of verses,
Ever since Jesus came, we're in the last days. This age of
grace, this church age, this gospel age we're in, is a time
called the last days. Everything that's been talked
about previously in Scripture, it's come into a climax. The climax is yet to come, the
complete end of all things, the climax, the completion of all
things. But we're in this time where there's spiritual war going
on. and there's false teachers, and demonically inspired doctrines,
and they can have powerful influences. 2 Timothy 4, verses 3 and 4,
it says, for the time will come when they will not endure sound
doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap up to themselves
teachers having itching ears. Now, you could say the teachers
have the itching ears, like, what do they want to hear? That's
what I'll give them. What will lock me into a good position
where I'll be popular and I'll have money and so forth, lots
of influence? Well, I'm itching to hear that.
But it really, I think, talks about the ones who are doing
the heaping. They're looking for teachers. Oh, I like what
he says. Mm, that makes me feel good.
Ooh, ooh, yeah, that's just what I always thought. That's just
what I want. And just going around with a shopping cart in a grocery
store, just picking up the things that please you visually and
please you in your sweet tooth or something, you know, not the
true diet. And so in either case, there
is a warning. And as Paul's telling Timothy
in the earlier verses, make sure you preach the word. and be true
about it. There's a day coming when people
won't hear this. And I dare say it's not just dealing with a
certain time period, but it's on and on, seasons of this, where
people get tired of hearing the hard work of truth. I mean, truth
is hard work. Even Solomon said, much study
is weariness of the flesh. But here they come, they're heaping
up teachers, and there's itching ears here getting their scratch.
And verse 4 says, and they shall turn away their ears from the
truth and shall be turned unto fables. Now, if you know a little
grammar here, the they shall turn away their ears is active. They're doing that. But something
kind of passive, it's like they've opened the door. And now what
comes in, they can't control. And as they want to turn away
from hearing the truth, then they get turned. This is more
passive now, but they open the door to it. Kind of like having
a screen door in a submarine. You might filter out some chunks
coming in, but basically that water coming out of the submarine
is not a good thing. And as people open themselves
up to other teaching because they're tired of hearing the
truth, then they get turned and influenced and seduced by other
kinds of teaching that, hey, there's a big crowd. Hey, we're
all together. This many people can't be wrong. So it's a thing
to watch out for. And in 1 John 4, just want to
look at verses 5 and 6. 1 John 4, verses 5 and 6. They are of the world, therefore
speak they of the world, and the world hears them." Can I
just stop there a second? People who are of the world,
which is in essence saying they're not of God, they're not of the
things of God, they're not in league with spiritual truth and
pure doctrine, They haven't been born again. Jesus could look
at certain Pharisees and say, I know you are not of God. God is not your father. And you
have no place in your hearts for his word. Now, he could say
that clearly because he's the son of God and he knows all things.
But we're being warned, some people out there are like this.
They're of the world. Therefore, they speak of the
world. They try to make everything logical and pleasurable and agreeable
and easy to accept. And then the world hears them.
Ah, ooh, I like that. Now, the next verse, verse 6,
says, we are of God. Now, we, I'd like to think, here's
John, an apostle, and he's referring to other apostles, the writers
of the New Testament, particularly. We are of God. He that knows
God hears us. He that is not of God hears not
us. That's kind of simple. The Berean spirit, we see in
the book of Acts. They went home and searched the
scriptures to see if these things were so. And so here's how I
break the tie between what I feel, what I understand, and what other
people are saying and feeling and understanding. How do I know?
I go to the word. And it says, hereby know we the
spirit of truth and the spirit of error. And the whole reason
we go to the trouble, say, turn in your Bibles, or I give you
notes to go home and search your Bibles, is this is how you know
whether you're hearing truth or not. So now we come back to Hebrews
chapter 3 and verse 10. Hebrews 3 verse 10. Now God is saying of the Jews
that perished in the wilderness, wherefore I was grieved with
that generation and said they do always err in their heart. and they have not known, have
not known my ways." So, another way it's translated in modern
Bibles is they err or they go astray. They go astray in their
heart. Their hearts wander away from
the straight path that God presents to them. Now, in this area, he
is quoting Psalm 95-10. We're not going to turn there.
But in Psalm 95-10, the Hebrew word to err To wander, to go
astray, to stagger, to be deceived or seduced. That's the kind of
word being used. And here in the New Testament
with the Greek word, we're referring to that. Let me say that little
list again. To err, to wander, to go astray,
to stagger, to be deceived, or to be seduced. Now, this word
that I'm referring to, my Bible says, err, and yours might say,
wander or go astray. But it's also used again in James
chapter 1. And if you'll bear with me, please,
I'm going to go just past Hebrews to James chapter 1, verses 12
through 16. James chapter 1, verses 12 through
16. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he is tried
he shall receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised
to them that love him. Let no man say when he is tempted,
I am tempted of God. For God cannot be tempted with
evil, neither tempts he any man. But every man is tempted when
he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then when lust hath
conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished
bringeth forth death, and then the admonition," verse 16, "'Do
not err, my beloved brethren.'" Do not err. Do not go astray,
my beloved brethren. Now what's interesting here,
same Greek word as in Hebrews 3.10, the root word is the word
for planet. Now you may not be into astronomy
and things like that, but you know, the stars are so stable
that we can tell the seasons. We got that North Star, we can
know true North at all times, but we can tell what season is
by how these other stars move. But there's these radical random
bright lights in our Earth. And if you ever look at them
with magnification, be it binoculars or anything else, they don't
twinkle like the others. They are the planets. And they're
operating in a solar system, and from our point of view, they're
all over the place. Jupiter sometimes will be right
up by the moon, and boy, that's so cool. That's the second biggest
thing in the sky you can see at night, next to the moon. The
next night, it's way over here. The next night, it's way over
there. And some other time, it'll be in a different place entirely,
not near the moon at all. And so they're a different thing
to trace. And so you know what the word
planet actually means? It means wanderer. Wanderer. Not the steady course like the
stars have. They seem to wander. And that
word is given to us. Don't be like that. Don't wander
around. Get on track. Now in Psalm 1, blessed is the
man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly. nor stands in
the way of sinners, and does not sit in the seat of the scornful.
But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth
he meditate day and night, and he shall be like a tree." I'm
not going to read the rest of it. You can go there. But the
person walks in the way of sinners, Let me get this in order. The
person listens to the counsel of ungodly people, then he finds
himself walking in the way of sinners. Next thing you know,
he plum sits down, and he's now in the seat of the scornful.
One time I was trying to make that more powerfully clear to
us, and I used the reference to manure pits. which some of
you may know how deadly a thing that can be, get in a manure
pit, and many people have died there, overcome with fumes and
so forth. Blessed is the man that does not listen to those
who say go to the manure pit, nor stands in the manure pit,
nor takes a seat and sits in the manure pit. See, now you
understand the toxicness of this. But his delight is in the law
of the Lord, and his law doth he meditate day and night, and
he's like a tree. Stability. Oh, planted by the rivers of
water. Rivers there is plural because it's referring to irrigation
canals, river yulets. Most trees don't get the benefit
of more than one river if they're near a river at all. But these
places, these vineyards or whatever, they would have irrigation canals
so that they're going to be fruitful and they're protected by good
water and so forth. So here we're getting the idea
of the prosperity of being well-planted and not wandering around. I've
learned the hard way that if you plant a tree and you don't
like where you plant it and you uproot and plant it somewhere
else, eventually that tree ain't going to make it if you keep
uprooting it. That psalm also started with
the word blessed. Here's another Hebrew root word. Blessed generally means happy.
And it's a joyful, godly, spiritual happiness, not just temporal,
shallow pleasures. But the root word for blessed
here used a lot in the Psalms. The root word means to walk a
straight path, to walk straight on. And the idea is you will
be happy if you don't get off the path and stay on the right
path and walk straight, stay on the level. Because if you
get off this path, there's quagmires, there's lions and tigers and
bears, oh my. There's all kinds of things out
there, quicksand, snakes. You'll be so glad if you stay
on the path. You'll get there faster. You'll get there better.
As a matter of fact, you'll get there. And so that's the kind
of thing. And just for a lovely little
study, I gave you a sample in the Psalms where blessed is used. And I'm not going to deal with
those references, but that's something you could have. And
if every case you think about it, these are the things that
help me walk straight on. stay on the path and not err,
not wander, not go off the path. Now, Psalm 119, verse 59. I obviously have more references
here than I even plan to use. They're just for your benefit
if you'd like to go further, but Psalm 119, verse 59, this
one's straightforward. The psalmist says, I thought
on my ways and turned my feet unto thy testimonies. I thought
about what I was doing. Something didn't seem right.
So I decided I better get back to the book. Get back to the
book. Get on the right path. I'm going
to skip the Proverbs 4 and kind of end with that one in just
a moment. But I'd like to give you something maybe you don't
feel familiar with. It's Jeremiah 14, verse 10. Go farther past Isaiah to Jeremiah
chapter 14. And verse 10. Thus saith the Lord unto this
people, thus have they loved to wander. They have not refrained
their feet. Therefore the Lord does not accept
them. He will now remember their iniquity
and visit their sins. Powerful admonitions. Micah 6,
8. I'd like it if you were familiar
with that, but maybe you aren't, or you don't recognize the reference.
But Micah 6, verse 8, "'He hath showed thee, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require
of thee but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly
with thy God?' Now, I'll be reticent if I don't
give you something encouraging here at this moment. It's in
the book of Isaiah, chapter 53. I like to call it the gospel
according to Isaiah. So much about Christ is in Isaiah. So much about the gospel is in
Isaiah. And in Isaiah 53, verse 6, all we like sheep have gone
astray. We have turned every one to his
own way. And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." So this isn't just a lecture
about walking the straight path, because in the flesh, you're
going to flop. Even if you seem to succeed,
you're going to miss the important part. Did you know the Lord? Because the Lord knows you enough
to know that he's got to do something for you you can't do for yourself. I owed a debt I could not pay.
He paid a debt he did not owe. I needed someone to take my sins
away. And now I sing a brand new song.
Amazing grace the whole day long. Christ Jesus paid the debt that
I could never pay. We're all wanderers. We're all
prone to wander. Lord, I feel it, the hymn says.
Jesus came to rescue us from wandering. And so that last statement,
I got to touch it at least. Hebrews 3.13. We're told to exhort
one another daily while it is called today. And he's referring
to that statement in Psalm 95. Today is the time, the accepted
time. Now is the accepted time. Today
is the day of salvation. So while it's still that today
mode, We're to exhort one another. Exhort means to call somebody
alongside and join you as you walk to follow the Lord. And
if all the sheep are following the Lord, they'll find themselves
near each other too. But sometimes somebody's starting to go off,
hey, come on over here, join me, let's go. It's encouragement. But exhort one another while
it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the
deceitfulness of sin. People's hearts can become hard
through deceptive, sinful temptations." I've got all kinds of goodies
here that I can't touch, but I said I wanted to do Proverbs
4. Let me end on that. Proverbs chapter 4. And verse 23, I hope you'll find a well-beaten
path to this place in your Bible, at least in time. Very practical
truth. Proverbs chapter 4, starting
with verse 23, where we are told to keep thy heart with all diligence. Okay, make it a priority. For
out of it, the heart, are the issues of life. Put away from
thee a froward mouth, a crooked, perverse mouth, and perverse
lips put far from thee. Let not thine eyes look right
on, let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look
straight before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet,
and let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the right hand, nor
to the left. Remove thy foot from evil." Okay. Sloppy read that there, but you
get the idea. There are things you are to put
away from. It kind of boils down to something
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15, that evil communications corrupt
good manners. Evil companions can wreck our
character and our habits of life. And it's kind of funny because
it's a catch-22 here. I've got to keep my heart pure
so that I can do what's right. Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God. But in order to keep my heart
pure, I've got to watch out what I'm doing, too. So it isn't some
abstract over here purifying my heart, and then somehow I'm
going to do everything right. It's a combination. I have to
try to stimulate my heart in pure things, but I also have
to say, look at the influencing. The popular word today, influencers.
What influencers do we have that aren't taking us in godly paths? The counsel of the ungodly, the
stimulization of the ungodly, the media of ungodly, the different
things coming at us, false teachers, whatever they are. But we gotta
keep ourselves away from that. There's things that lure us the
wrong way, and we call it entertainment. We call it being mature and tolerant. And what we're doing is we're
opening up and having screen doors in our submarine, and we
wonder why we're lilting and sinking. Keep our hearts. So what you do with your mouth,
what you do with your eyes, what you do with your feet affects
the heart. Keep the heart. Don't allow yourself
to get a hard heart. Do not go astray. Do not err,
my beloved brother. And if somebody's not a true
brother, God can reveal that to them. and they can get plugged
into the right resource from the very beginning. Others of
us, we know who, we know we have him, but we haven't followed
him. We still got a problem with wandering. So may God help us
with this. Lord willing, I'm gonna deal
with chapter four, verses one and two our next time, but let's
pray. Father, thank you for giving
us these moments to consider a very big message that's encircled
by many other great messages about keeping the heart. not
letting it become hardened, not wandering and going astray. Please
give us your grace. Reveal to us, Lord, that Jesus
is enough and more than enough. Reveal to us whether we have
Jesus or not. And if we do, that we'll now be strong in the grace
which is in Christ Jesus. And I ask that you do these things
for his name's sake. Amen.
Warnings for All - 3
Series Long-term Effect of the Gospel
Some people have professed faith in Christ but do not really possess a saving relationship with Christ. Some people have a true relationship with Christ, but they have not matured, or they have become careless, sleepy, discouraged, and distracted. We will be looking at some important warnings and instructions in the Book of Hebrews that will help us repent and/or stay vitally connected with gospel truth. Let's examine some dangerous things people do.
| Sermon ID | 120251911287 |
| Duration | 56:40 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Hebrews 3; Hebrews 4:1-2 |
| Language | English |
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