Well, please take your Bibles, and let's turn to the book of Hebrews, which by now you're getting kind of used to it. Hebrews is going to be subject matter for us for a few more weeks of different areas of Hebrews. But Hebrews chapter 4, as you go to Hebrews chapter 4, we're going to read verses 1 through 11. Warnings from the book of Hebrews. starting with verse 1 of Hebrews 4. 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. For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, as I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest, although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, God did rest the seventh day from all his works. And in this place again, if they shall enter into my rest, seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief, again he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, Today, after so long a time, as it is said, Today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. For if Jesus, and they're actually referring to Joshua there, Jesus and Joshua are actually the same names, but may I say, for if Joshua had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works as God did from his. Let us labor, therefore, to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief." So, if you're not familiar with the background story of Israel coming out of Egypt and then receiving instructions and being taken to a land, and they sent in spies, and the majority did not believe that they could conquer the people of that land, and they made excuses, and they were afraid their children would not make it because they'd all be killed, and they said a lot of things, and they didn't pay attention to who had told them to go. They didn't pay attention to who he was and what he had already done. And not taking a proper inventory, they couldn't respond properly. God finally says, fine, have it your way. You won't go in. And those children that you were worried about, they will. I'll take them in myself. And so the longest funeral procession in all of history took place 40 years. They wandered in circles in the wilderness. and many, many stories. Some have called the Book of Numbers the Book of Murmurs, and the things they experienced, and failures, and testings, and lessons, and all kinds of things. But a generation was being raised up, and by the time we get to the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses is restating the law and applying it to the next generation. He didn't just repeat it as was already written in Exodus and Leviticus and so forth. He gave them more. He gave them application. He gave them context. Don't be as your fathers. Don't be stubborn. Don't be hard-hearted, stiff-necked. Harden not your hearts, because that seems to be the trend. And last week's discussion from chapter three dealt with that somewhat. We looked in chapter 2, and we're warned in verses 1 and 3, people let things slip or drift away. We learn in chapter 3, people do not hold fast or firmly to our confidence in Christ. We also learn in chapter 3, last week, people harden their hearts. And so, when we look at Hebrews and its warnings, there's a two-pronged thrust going on. Some people will hear these warnings and they need to realize that they do not have a true relationship with Christ, they're not born again. And others may be alerted to their need to revive, to repent, to get back on track with the Lord. And so, Hebrews is exposing dangerous things people do and the gospel-driven call to correct or protect our situation. Because, you know, when you say gospel, you tend to think John 3.16 and talk about Jesus. Well, gospel truth is really the whole Bible. If you understand it, if you explain it, if you receive it as the truth as it is in Jesus, the gospel is from Genesis 1-1 to Revelation 22. 22, 23, I forget that last verse. But you got the idea. From cover to cover, it's really the gospel. It's the record that God gave concerning His Son. And so parallels are drawn. The old covenant people give us examples to learn from, to follow or to not follow, to do the opposite. And we're instructed how to interpret these things. And humbly, we can't sit here and shake our fingers at the Old Testament saints and the Old Testament people of Israel. and say, oh, pity them. They didn't do this right. They didn't do that right. Without the grace of God, folks, we'd been those people ourselves doing those things. We've received a lot of grace. And so our text is telling us that all this we have learned, all the benefit, all the things we've been taught and shown. Now, we must make sure that the knowledge we receive is profitable. Okay, here's our theme. People gain unprofitable knowledge of God's Word. This is another dangerous thing people do. I repeat the first two verses. Let us therefore fear lest a promise be 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 mingled with faith in them that heard it. Now, there was some rather mysterious statements I read, and I can't explain them all this morning. If I want to say what I need to say, I can't explain everything. But understand this, that entering into the rest is not going to heaven. We talk about entering into eternal rest, you go to a funeral and the wording will be, and rest in peace, we say. And I'm not saying there isn't rest for the saint when they pass away, of course there is. But Canaan represents maturity, spiritual maturity. Canaan represents getting a handle on the grace of God and being strong in that grace, and not wobbling and going to and fro. There's a level of maturity, and God wants to bring us into that, but people fight it. They resist it. They let things slip and drift away. They don't hold fast, firmly, our confidence in Christ. They harden their hearts. And now here's another one. They learn stuff, but they don't learn. They don't benefit from it. The knowledge they gain is not profitable because faith has not been applied to it. No application means no transformation, no real profit. The way we were taught in school, preacher school, is exposition must have application. It sounds really nice, easy to repeat. But what it's saying is, as you are teaching the Bible, you better give people something to do. change their mind, change their thoughts, change their habits, change their actions, change something, maybe just change their wardrobe a little bit, I don't know, but there's something to do with what God teaches us, and God teaches us in order to profit us, to give us benefit. So faith wasn't mingled with people who were hearing the word of God in Moses' day. The faith that is meant here is not a mere intellectual understanding and superficial agreement. And you know, Israel more or less had to say after Moses had delivered the law, all that the Lord has said we will do. What else would they say? Well, I don't think so. No. But they didn't realize, what they didn't realize is they were saying that, and it's good that they said it, but did they mean it? Did they know what they were getting into? And so, we have to be careful. Superficially, we can say, agree with things. But the prophet comes, you know how John says it in John 1, 17, the law came by Moses, well and good. But grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. The grace means change, transformation, ability, Christ-likeness, all those good things, and we need grace to go with our truth, folks. So faith is a belief that produces decision, change, and action. Now, I'll give one of my little warnings. If you saw the second page stapled to these notes, you might have been horrified. But I'm offering something for you to do. This addendum from Hebrews 11, by faith we serve, by faith we minister, This is the result of a Bible study we did, mid-week Bible study, years ago, and it lasted for weeks. And we wonderfully took the characters mentioned in Hebrews 11, which is called the Hall of Faith, and we did this study. I'm going to present it to you. I can't teach through all of it, but I'm going to present it to you afterwards here. But I wanted you to see what inspired it to be added on to the notes of what we're looking at today. is because faith needs to work. It needs to do something. It needs to transform with the truth that it's given. So, we are not saved by faith that merely knows or believes things. We are saved by faith that produces good works based on our relationship with Christ and develops Christ-likeness. Now, here I want to linger a little bit with the other references. And if you can keep a place, if you've got a spare finger to stick in Hebrews 4, well, we may get back to it. But I'm going to Matthew chapter 7. And I call these the scariest verses in the Bible. Because it could describe anybody who is a churchgoer. Anybody who is serving in a church, anybody who is a minister, a preacher, a missionary, it could describe anybody. And what a horrible thing to find out too late. If this was your case, Jesus kindly warns us ahead of time so that we can Wake up. Repent. Do what's needed. As the book of Hebrews is showing us, Jesus is giving us a reason to want to examine ourselves. Matthew chapter 7, verse 21, he says, Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works. And you can hear elbows popping as they're reaching behind and patting themselves on the back. And then, verse 23, will I, Jesus, profess unto them I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work iniquity." It'd be a horrible thing to find out too late. They were basing their salvation and their worthiness of reward on their efforts. And they might have even been sincere, though sincerely mistaken. But the telling words And verse 23 is, I never knew you. Not, oh, I knew you and I decided not to know you anymore. I never knew you. We never had that relationship. You jumped in and started doing all this stuff and I wasn't involved. Paul does this again in Galatians 4, 9, I think it is. After you have known God, or rather, are known of God. We want to find evidence not just of things we do and say that are better than before. We want to find evidence that the Lord Jesus Christ has intervened in our life, intersected with us, come into us, changed us, and the change is still going on. It's about relationship. That's why I said earlier, it's about good works based on a relationship with Christ and develops Christ-likeness. Therefore, all of their many wonderful works, he says, your workers of iniquity." That's very hard to take. Galatians 5, 6 uses this expression, faith works by love. We're not saved by circumcision, we're not saved by ordinances and performances in ritual or anything like that. We're saved by faith, which works by love. Faith which works by love. That's more exact the quote there. Romans 2.13, I do want to turn there. I can't quote it so perfectly and I don't want to mess it up. But in the book of Romans chapter two, verse 13, for not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. Now that raises questions. Because we're not saved by works, we're not even saved by faith plus works. And Martin Luther said it so perfectly, we're saved by faith that works. And you get to study James 2 sometime, if you haven't already, many times. James 2 says, our faith without works is dead. Show me your faith without your works, I'll show you my faith by my works. And I think he and Paul would get along just fine and shake hands on this discussion about the relationship of faith and works. It's not adding two things together, it's having something that has such quality, it produces the other. Faith produces works, and works not done out of fear, works not done out of obligation, works not done out of pride, but works that are done out of love, gratitude, responding to the grace we've already been given. Now then, 1 John 5, 4 and 5, for whatsoever or whosoever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcomes the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God? 1 John 5, 4 and 5. And we sang victory in Jesus today, didn't we? But it's a faith that overcomes, a faith that truly has made a difference in our lives, in our essence. And in turn, it can be making a difference in other people's lives. For Romans 1, as we studied a while back, From faith to faith. The just shall live by faith. From faith to faith. That's how it works, and that's why we're here. My faith to your faith, your faith to my faith, our faith to each other's faith, and people we don't even know yet. Our faith is to be a powerful force because it's embedded in the gospel of Jesus Christ. You and I have God stories that are documented by scripture, and then we get to say, here's what it looks like in my life Or we can say even somebody else's life, here's what it can look like in your life. It's not just a theology. It's not just a doctrine. It is a living seed planted in water, bursts into not only a plant, but into the fruit that that plant produces. So it is, we reproduce. So let's talk about unprofitable knowledge of God's word. Because you don't always hear, not every sermon you hear, oh, man, I'm going to do this and that, and oh, I got that. You may look at this and say, well, there's lots of times I don't seem to profit from the Word. But God's Word is planted, and it's going to do something eventually. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word of God. I think you saw that on the front of the bulletin. And the Word of God being planted, it brings its fruit in its season. And there's some things you do right now, there's some things you might do later, and that Word of God will speak to you at another time, and so on. If I say brainwashing, doesn't that sound negative? But maybe I am washing brains and planting seeds. And you get to do that too in your reading of the Bible, your listening to messages, your reading of things, that fellowship produces this environment. But what makes the Word of God unprofitable to people? It's not the Word's fault. But the first thing we have here, the unprofitable knowledge of God's Word is a result of pride, foolishness, carelessness, a lack of fearing God, a lack of desiring to please God. Now, we've looked at Hebrews 4, verses 1 and 2, but how about Hebrews 11, in verse 6? Hebrews 11 verse 6, but without faith it is impossible for God to please me. Oops, did I get that wrong? No, but without faith it's impossible to please him. For he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. So if I told you there was a bomb in the basement going to go off in 15 minutes, And one of you stood up and said, you said that so well, Pastor. I want to write that down. I want to get that quote. Another one says, yeah, that's inspired a song. I'm going to sing, there is a bomb in our basement. And people are memorizing what I said. They're singing songs to what I said. Did they really get what I said? No. If there's a bomb in the basement, you get out of here and take everybody with you. And God says that if you want a faith that pleases God, you'll not only believe that He is, but you'll believe that He rewards those that diligently seek Him. And then you're going to do what? You're going to diligently seek Him. You're going to do that thing that pleases Him. Because pleasing God is the thing that we don't naturally desire. We may have a whim or say, oh, I would like to bless God. I'm sure I already do. How could He not love me? but to say that I want to devote my life to the honor and the pleasure of God. That was the original design when God made angels and men, is that they would have this wonderful humility and they knew who God was, they knew who they were, they knew they depended on Him, and they were so glad to know Him that they were His. And sin came in and wrenched that up. In the angelic realm and in the human family, sin took away our humility. We save humility for the times that, oh, we've really botched it up and I'm humbled because, oh, Lord, I really did it this time, so I'll be humble for a while. No, humility should be a state in which we're getting back to the original order of things. And once we get rid of this world and Satan and our old bodies, all those things removed, We will get back to the order of things that truly, truly are a blessing. Humility is to thrive, to have abundance of joy, to live in a world of love that's centered on God. We love him because he first loved us and that he's redeemed us and brought us back so we can get back to what God originally designed. And as much as we can, we start now. We've got all kinds of things interfering But we start now to know and love God. Now, in Hebrews chapter 12, verses 28 and 29, Wherefore, we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire. Let us have grace. Some translations say, let us be gracious. And some would refer to the Greek word that implies, let us be grateful. Let us be grateful. You know where unholiness comes from? According to Romans 1, it comes from unthankfulness. What wrecks humility? An unthankful heart. Humility, gratitude have to go together. We are really aware of the true situation. There is God. And all we have gone astray. But He sent His Son, delivered Him up for us all, that we might be redeemed back. And now we can know Him. And so when we say, serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, that's not a terrible thing. That's a great thing. The fear of the Lord is to be liberated with humility and love and the joy of the Lord. And if we don't fear God, we think we can create joy and contentment. And we use worldly stuff to do it, and we fail. We make ourselves miserable, and we can often make some other people miserable around us. Well, those are provoking good thoughts there. But I was putting it all away, and as I put my stuff away, I pulled it right back out, because God, you may think I'm crazy, but the inaudible voice of God says, nope, you forgot. Put your blue highlighter on James 1, 18 through 25. So I must read this. And it's just like preachers, when the sermon's long, They blame the Holy Spirit. But James, chapter 1, powerful, important thing for us here, verse 18 to 25, "...of his own will begot he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures." Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Wherefore, lay apart or lay aside all filthiness," and my Bible says superfluity, but overabundance of naughtiness or wickedness or of evil. Let me back up. Wherefore, lay aside all filthiness and overabundance of wickedness and evil, and receive with meekness the engrafted Word, which is able to save your souls. And be ye doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass. For he beholds himself, and goes his way, and straightway forgets what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed." Yeah, so I get up in the morning and I look in the mirror. and I see this stupid big smudge mark. I don't know what I leaned against, or I scratched my head when my hands were greasy. I got this big smudge mark, and I get sidetracked, and I walk away, and I put on a shirt and tie, and I'm going out to meet him, and this big blotch of grease is on my head. Looks pretty foolish. I forgot what I saw when I read the Word of God. I forgot what I learned when the Word of God was presented to me. I forgot, and I left it go, and I didn't do anything about it. and we deceive ourselves. This text is the essence of what I'm trying to say this morning. The word of truth calls us to be born again. And the design was that we would be first fruits of his creatures. Jesus rose from the dead and we're rising spiritually to walk in newness of life. And therefore, as Jesus is holy, we're supposed to be holy. And through Jesus, it's going to happen, folks. I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. Yet not I, but Christ lives in me. In 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 to be firstfruits, which always is a reference to a future harvest. Because if you think this is fruit, when we're yielded to him and we're entering into his rest, the way do we get new bodies, new heavens, new earth, and get the devil out of here? That didn't sound right. See Satan removed. Then wait till you see the harvest. So shall we ever be with the Lord. Pure worship, uninterrupted, unadulterated, no interference, no contaminants, pure worship of God. Our hearts should be yearning for that, just like that helium balloon. It's tied down, and the helium wants that balloon to go up, and it won't. And there's this tension in that string. One day, as it says, we're cut off and we fly away. Just wait till we get everything that's been put in our hearts. And if you're not feeling anything put in your heart, that's something to deal with. That's something Hebrews, it's gospel-driven warnings. Say, get back to Jesus about that. You need this joy. You need this love. You need this hope. And you need evidence of your faith. Give all diligence to make your calling election sure. I know I've read that already recently. But here we are. What makes knowledge unprofitable? The knowledge of God's Word unprofitable? Having false confidence in the flesh? Now, I'm not going to have time to deal with it very deeply here, but in Philippians 3, Paul said, if anybody had a reason to have confidence in the flesh, I did more. And he gives that list. You know, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, tribe of Benjamin, I'm a Pharisee, so zealous for the law I was killing people. But all that became dung that I may win Christ and have a righteousness which is not of my own making, but it's righteousness which is of God by faith in Jesus. that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, and being made conformable to his death." He had that warning in Philippians 3, beware of the concision, which literally means beware of people who like to mutilate flesh. And he was mocking the circumcision crowd who says, well, you can believe in Jesus, but you've got to come back to Moses now and get circumcised. And he more or less is saying, they're a bunch of butchers. They want to glory in that little piece of flesh from the circumcision, but it's faith in Jesus. We are the circumcision of God. We worship God in spirit and we have no confidence in the flesh. So all that stuff you learn, if it's causing you to work up some frenzy of righteousness, Romans 10 will tell you that Israel had a zeal for the law, but not according to knowledge, not according to profitable knowledge. And so Christ is the consummation of what the law is truly doing. the schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. So pride, whether it be religious pride, moral pride, or some other pride, that gets in the way of having profitable knowledge of God's Word. And the third thing mentioned there is desiring earthly comfort and prosperity. You just want to survive. You like to survive well. You got this bucket list, and you want to do this, and you want to do that. Oh, I want this, and I want to have that, and blah, blah, blah. And it's all about me being happy. Remember my original reading of Hebrews 11.6, but without faith, it's impossible for God to please me? Well, I can get pleased by God if I've got the faith he truly designed and gives. Because rather than earthly comfort and prosperity, should be eternal treasure in heaven. Jesus said, don't lay up treasure on this earth. Moth corrupts it. Rust corrupts it. Thieves break through and steal. You lay up treasure in heaven, it can't be touched by man. Man can't give it. Man can't take it away. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And all these things that other people are giving their souls for, that'll be added to you. You'll have food. You'll have clothing. You'll have stuff. And most of us here in this country have more stuff than we need. Well, here I must emphasize 1 Timothy 6. 1 Timothy 6, starting with verse 3. 1 Timothy 6, in verse 3, If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness." Now, I know I'm in the middle of one of Paul's sentences, but you know how long those sentences get? Thank me later that I didn't try to go back and explain what he was saying in the previous chapter or something. But the fact is he's talking about practical things, and godliness, and priorities, and if people don't want to consent to this, if they want to argue about this, if they've got some health and wealth agenda, then they are, it says, proud. They don't really know anything. And you get down there to verse 5. They suppose that gain is godliness. From such, withdraw yourself. But, verse 6 says, godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment, let us therewith be content. And they that will want to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. Now, catch verse 10 carefully. For the love of money, not money, but the love of money is the root of all evil. Some Bibles say the root of many evils. I'm not going to worry about that. But it is that love, that affection for money. It's not money as an object. It's money as a tool, as a vessel to me getting everything I want. I want to be happy with things, and I want to be secure, and I want to make sure I've got all my stuff. We'll worry about you later, but I want to make sure I'm okay." And it just creates selfishness, and greed, and cheating, and embezzling, and it can just produce an awful lot of evil. It says in verse 10, which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith. Remember erred? That root word is planet, the wanderer. Don't be that. They've erred, they've wandered from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But thou, O man of God, flee these things, and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness, fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses. I give thee charge in the sight of God, who quickens all things, who makes alive all things, and before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession, I got to stop there. Why did he bring that up? At all times, right now, why did you bring up Jesus standing before Pilate? Because Pilate said, are you a king? In other words, are you trying to grab for all the gusto? Are you competing with the Caesar? Are you competing with other nations and other powers? And Jesus basically said this, you say I'm a king, yeah, but my kingdom is not of this world. or else my servants would fight." But it's not from hence. I came into the world to bear witness to the truth, and they that are of the truth, they are in my kingdom. He wasn't after anybody's gold. He told people, pay your taxes. It's got Caesar's picture on it. Go ahead, let them have it. But you render unto God the things that are God's. Anyways, The Spirit of God told Paul, tell him to look at Jesus when he stood before a life and death situation. Someone who said he had the power of life and death over him. And Jesus says, if it weren't for the Father, you would have no power over me at all. And that made him scared. Because Jesus wasn't trembling. Jesus wasn't able to be manipulated. Yeah, that was a good testimony, a good witness Jesus had to Pontius Pilate. And we got to say that kind of stuff to the world every day. I guess we better start with saying it to ourselves first. But as I digressed, verse 15, which in his times, whoops, I got lost, just a second here. I'll start with 13. I give thee charge in the sight of God, who quickens all things, and before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession, that thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. which in his times he shall show who is the blessed, the happy, and only potentate, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen nor can see, to whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen. I got a little carried away, went a few verses over, but you know, There is a type of glory, a type of light that people cannot naturally have. And we have been given that light. We have been able to dwell in light. We are made qualified to be partakers of the inheritance of light with all saints. We are so rich. We look poor sometimes, we look weak sometimes, but in Christ we are strong. In Christ we are rich. And if we don't keep those priorities right and teaching our own hearts, when he says, keep this commandment, keep this commandment, if we don't do that, we may not profit from the word of God at all. We could have a whole theology book of knowledge in our heads. So it is dangerous to accumulate scriptural knowledge if you do not mix it with faith and submission. In John 13, 17, Jesus said, if you know these things, happy are you if you do them. It kind of sets the stage. The happiness isn't from the knowing, the happiness is from the understanding and doing part. Peter has a warning there in 2 Peter 2, it'd been better not to have known the way of life than to after having known it, to depart from it. More responsibility, the more you know. And Peter goes back to a proverb that says, the dog went back to its vomit, and the sow to wallowing in her mire. These weren't sheep, ever. They were dogs and pigs all along, but they were washed up, cleaned up, and they had a nice choir robe on them or something that made them look all great. But the inside hadn't been changed, but they understood more than others. And boy, when we get to Hebrews 6 and 10, look out. There's going to be more about that. But we have an important statement about understanding. I'm going to read you Psalm 111, verse 10. You don't have to turn there. I can just read it nice and carefully to you. Psalm 111, verse 10. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. A good understanding have all they that do his commandments. His praise endureth forever." Now then, let's see God lamenting. Does anybody remember lamentation? Lament and repent. I gave you about five hefty messages last summer. on what it is to sorrow to God, to have godly sorrow, to learn how to grieve to God and get your heart aligned with Him as we're going through difficult things in our personal lives and in our social lives, in our national life, but to grieve to God, get lined up with Him. And God laments. I guess that's one of the good reasons that we should do it, because that's where God is. He laments things. He sorrows for things. And I've got this powerful passage. I would ask you to turn with me to Isaiah 48, verses 17 to 18. Isaiah 48, verses 17 and 18. Thus saith the Lord thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, I am the Lord thy God, which teacheth thee to profit or to benefit, and leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go. Some translations say that he teaches what is good or best for us. And now verse 18 is the lament. Oh, that thou hast hearkened to my commandments, Then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea. There's a note of sorrow. You know about Jesus standing over Jerusalem weeping. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that stonest the prophets. How I would have gathered thee as a hen gather her chicks. But you would not. You wouldn't do it. This shows the sincerity of God's heart. He takes pleasure in the salvation of the righteous, and he takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. And so he laments. And there's another one, but I can't take the time. Isaiah 30, verses 15 through 21. Maybe you can catch that later. I need to give you just a moment here to see this other presentation, which we're not gonna elaborate on in a long way, but by faith we serve. By faith we minister. And in Hebrews 11, and you don't actually have to turn into your Bibles there right now unless you want to see what verse 2 is saying. Hebrews chapter 11, verses 1 and 2. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it, faith, the elders obtained a good report. That is to say, God is commending the saints of old who demonstrated their faith. Testimony. Commendation. Other translations will use such words here. This is called the Christian Hall of Faith. I used to live near Canton, Ohio. We had the Hall of Fame for the football. And I actually went. In the same town, we had a church that had a hall of faith, and they had an enormous building, and they had big hallways, and they had portraits, and mini-biographies of all these people that had served the Lord over the centuries, and told briefly their stories. And you could go to their bookstore, and they had a whole book made up of it, and that was the Christian hall of faith. But Hebrews 11, you got right there with you. And you can do studies. Now, I didn't have a chance to put all of the background information in from all the places in the Old Testament. But what you basically have is, in the Old Testament, there are biographies of people that walked with God. Some failed in areas. Some did good in areas. Some turned out not to be the real thing. But others struggled and struggled. If you can identify with their struggles, know this, that after Jesus died, paid for the sins of his people, and he has given us the new covenant in the New Testament, you don't hear those faults brought up again. You don't. You only hear about the faith part, the faithful part. You wonder what it's going to be like to stand before God one day? You think he's going to kick you in the behind and drag you behind the woodshed for a good thrashing? We're not going to be punished for our sins, folks. Jesus already got punished for us. Now, we may lose reward. We may see where some things, we didn't get the rewards we might have hoped for. But this wonderful testimony, all these people, and if you look in the fine print, people like Samson are in here. That's amazing. to think that he's not going to judge your soul, but he is going to test your works, whether you get rewards, and it'll be tested by fire, 1 Corinthians 3, I can't go there. But here's what I did, and again, this was a Bible study that I conducted years ago here, and we spent many weeks plowing into it, but I have three basic columns. First of all is the scripture reference. like Hebrews 11.4, and then by faith, what did they do? What did the faith do? And the last one is the object of faith. In other words, we're focusing on what was faith saying that enabled them to do what they did. Because if we just say, oh, I have faith in God, and we say that for every occasion, we may not be thinking about anything very deeply. Trust in the Lord is true, but it also can be shallow if you can't say a little more than that in your life, what God has done for you. So anyways, you've got Abel, one of the two original children born. Abel offered the acceptable sacrifice. and his testimony endured. You can go back and read about that in Genesis. He offered the sacrifice God wanted, and God accepted it. God didn't accept Cain's offering because he didn't know what God wanted, but God reasoned with Cain and says, listen, you're the older son, you can be the leader, but you got to just do this. But if you don't, sin is lying at the door. In other words, the word, it means it's crouching like a lion that pounce on you. And he got so full of jealousy and envy, instead of just saying, well, I'm going to take some of my crops and buy a sheep for my brother and offer that. No, I'm not going to submit to my brother. It was about submitting to God. No, I'm not going to submit to my brother. Matter of fact, I hate him. And in a burst of passion, he killed his brother. And so when it says his testimony endured, it says his blood yet speaketh. That's quite a statement. Because when God came to Cain saying, where's your brother? He says, how should I know? Am I my brother's keeper? Well, actually, we are. But God said, the blood of your brother is crying out from the ground where you put him. And so there's a sense of what we do for the Lord, the offerings we make, they're never in vain. Your labors are not in vain in the Lord, and they will keep speaking. Even after you're dead, there's that hope. So what was the object of Abel's faith? He had faith in God's will. God wants this, well, God gets it. And I might say this right now, worship isn't what pleases us, worship is what pleases Him. So, Enoch. We don't have as much information about him. And forget that book of Enoch, by the way, in case you're tempted. But Enoch was translated out of this world. Enoch walked with God and he was not, for God took him. And the testimony is that he pleased God. That was what his faith did. He wanted to walk with God. You know what other people were doing back in that day? They were walking in their lusts and their envies and full of violence and all those terrible things. Enoch walked with God. Enoch said, God's enough. I want to please God. And so he's called the friend of God. And so that's our object here. He had faith in God's friendship. You want God for a friend. And in so doing, you will not have the friendship of this world. Enoch, faith made him want to be friends with God. And then there's Noah. Now you can read a long thing there about Noah, but here it just succinctly says Noah moved with fear. He was told about a flood, he was told to build an ark, and he didn't ask for a bunch of scientific explanations about what's rain anyways, and how's this going to flood? Why am I going to build this up on this hill? Where's the water? He didn't do any of that. He just got busy. He moved with fear, fear of the Lord. And he had faith in God's Word, he had faith in God's power, he had faith in God's wisdom, justice, and grace. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. And so, it progresses. Call it a homework assignment, but we dealt with every verse except verse 3, because that was more of an abstract thought about the creation. But these are about people. Whether it be Abraham, or Sarah, or Isaac, or Jacob, or Joseph, Finally, the author says, I can't do this anymore right now, but many others. I read the last verses there of Hebrews 11. Yeah, verse 32. that they might obtain a better resurrection. And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, they were tempted, they were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented. of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise, God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. They were willing to live in the light of a promise, and they didn't fully get to embrace it all, but they believed in who had said it, and they were willing to suffer for it. And even though they lost things, they only really gained. What is a man profited if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul? What shall a man give in exchange for his soul? The priority and the power of faith. So I offer this to you as a study. And if you all come up and beg me, yes, we'll have a Bible study and organize it and we'll all go through it one by one. Yes, I'd love that. But our thought today is the Word must be mingled with faith if we want to profit from it. And God wants us to profit from it. God has designed benefit from His Word. Blessed is the man. that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth 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 as a tree, planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he does shall prosper. Now God may be throwing some junk out of our lives to lighten the ship so we can sail better with him. Do you have faith? Make sure it's in Christ. Do you have faith in Christ? Make sure you're walking with him in this faith, that he may lead you and guide you, provide for you, and put you to proper use. Heavenly Father, I ask you to please give faith where it's needed, whether it's someone who has only been religious but not right with God, or whether it be someone who has loved you and known you but has drifted has somehow gotten hard-hearted, or just not paying attention, or just needs revitalizing. God, help each one of us to know what this message means to us, and what it might also mean to some others around us. I just pray, God, for profit from your word today, not for my sake, but for Jesus' sake. In his name, amen.