Let's open our Bibles this evening to the book of Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 3. And I'm out of respect for the Lord and His Word, but stand and ask His blessing upon the reading and the teaching of it tonight. And Father, we do love You. And we thank You for meeting our needs and Lord even those things we don't realize that we need. We ask that you would come now and bless your word to our hearts. We need it so. We need your word to dwell within us richly. We need transformation. We need the Holy Spirit to enlighten us and to give us understanding and to help us walk in the light. And so Father, do take this warning here tonight in the book of Hebrews and press it upon us deeply. Let not one mind leave here, one heart, one soul, leave here tonight unaffected, whereby it's teaching, young or old. Father, bless your Word, we pray for Christ's sake. Amen. Beloved, I want to begin reading chapter 3 and verse 7, read through verse 19. This is the Word of the Living God. Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, today if you hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as when they provoked me as in the day of trial in the wilderness where your fathers tried me by testing me and saw my works for 40 years. Therefore, I was angry with this generation and said they always go astray in their heart and they did not know my ways. As I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called today, so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. If we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance, Firm unto the end, while it is said, today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as when they provoked me. For who provoked him when they had heard? Indeed, did not all of those who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest? but to those who were disobedient. So we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief. Thus ends the reading of God's Word. Please be seated. Beloved, it's very sobering to take a few weeks and really go back and look at these warnings in the book of Hebrews. Last week we covered the very first one and we addressed carelessness. not being careless with the gospel, not being careless with the person of Jesus Christ, making sure that we give that which is important its due. That's something we don't need to forget. We are not to be careless with our souls. And when we begin to neglect and put off The gospel, we are being careless with Jesus Christ. We're being careless with the gospel. I mean, no one here would give a, you know, a small two-year-old little girl, you know, $20,000 ear rings. They'd be careless to do so because it would just only be a matter of minutes probably before they're lost and they're gone. And we would think it's absurd to entrust a child with that kind of wealth. And yet that's exactly what we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. We must be careful that we always maintain this high view of Jesus Christ and this need. We need this Jesus. We need the Jesus described in chapter 1 as the final word of God, as the glory of the Godhead. in Jesus Christ. He who is the Creator. We need this glorious, powerful Savior who is both man and God. And not to maintain that understanding. To give it maintenance is to be careless with the Gospel. That was the first warning. You can go back and listen to that if you wish. Tonight we're going to deal with a little bit more serious situation. We're going to deal with hardness of heart. Carelessness, drifting. Tonight we're going to deal with that spiritual infection of the hardness of heart. I think there's another way to see this hardness of heart to sort of help us understand what we are addressing with. The word used for hardness actually means stubbornness or contumacy. Be contumacious. There's this willful, be careful that your carelessness, and again I'm not saying there is a chronology or steps or degrees into this apostasy, though one knows that they just don't wake up stubborn, that that happens over time. but that be careful, that's the warning, be careful that you don't find in yourself one day a heart that is stubborn to the Word of God. Now let's look at the warning. First of all, we need to realize that the writer, Paul, is using an event in the Old Testament to establish the importance of this warning. In verse 7 he begins quoting Psalm 95 which addresses Exodus chapter 17 and Numbers chapter 20. Let's look at, just please read these words again. It says, Therefore just as the Holy Spirit says, today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as when they provoked me as in the day of trial in the wilderness. where your fathers tried me by testing me and saw my works for forty years. Therefore, I was angry with this generation and said, they always go astray in their heart. They did not know my ways. As I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. Paul here perfectly establishes how much God hates stubbornness. how much God despises contumacy, hardness of heart, those who are not careful to heed His Word. Every one of these warnings, beloved, address the Word of God. All of these warnings are going to address, first one, the drifting from it. This one, not hearing it. Developing a hardness, a callousness, the Word of God does not have a saving effect upon you, but in fact, there is a built up established stubbornness toward God and His Word. We must be careful of this. The event that he is speaking of here, in fact, let's just turn there. I think Exodus 17 will be a good place to begin. And then all the congregation of the sons of Israel journeyed by stages from the wilderness of sin, according to the command of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim. And there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, Give us water that we may drink. And Moses said to them, Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord? And the people thirsted there for water, and they grumbled against Moses and said, Why now have you brought us up from Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst? So Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, What shall I do to these people? A little more, and they will stone me. And the Lord said to Moses, Pass before the people and take with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand your staff, with which you struck the Nile, and go, behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, and the people may drink." And Moses did so inside of the elders. And he named that place Massah and Meribah because of the quarrel of the sons of Israel, and because they tested the Lord, saying, is the Lord among us or not? Now, that's the setting. Now, Numbers 20 gives us a little bit more information. It talks about how Moses struck a rock twice and how the Lord rebuked Moses for doing what He had commanded him, what He did not command him to do. But it's still the same event. Now, this is the episode in history that the author of Hebrews is quoting from Psalm 95. These are the words from Psalm 95. And notice the event. Here's the people of God, the covenant people of God. Notice, is God among us or not? So what are we dealing with here? We're dealing with unbelief. You've got the preface to the Ten Commandments, right? I am the Lord thy God. I brought you out of the land of Egypt. I delivered you out of the house of bondage. I'm with you. He was present with them in the pillar of fire by night and a pillar of clouds by day. They had seen many miraculous events that the Lord did for them. The Lord demonstrated time and time again His watch care over them and His presence. And yet, notice how they displayed their unbelief. They begin to quarrel and complain and argue over being thirsty. Is our God bringing us out into the desert to kill us? Constantly questioning what? The goodness of God. Constantly clamoring against the Lord's provision. Always challenging His goodness. Always challenging His kindness. Always, always questioning everything He does. All of those, beloved, are signs unbelief. There are signs of the hardness of heart. And when we go back to the book of Hebrews, we see what the Lord thought about that. He says, as your fathers tried me by testing me, they saw my works before you. Therefore, I was angry with this generation and said, they always go astray in their heart. Basically, what he's saying there is it's a moral issue. It's not an intellectual issue. It's not a factual issue. I parted the sea. I rolled the waters of the river back. You walked over on dry ground. I'm giving you water out of a rock. I mean, I've done all these things that offend you. Manna from heaven, I'm giving you quail to eat. It's not a factual, it's not a factual matter. It's a moral matter. It's a moral for others. It's a heart that refuses to see God for who He is. It's a heart that refuses to yield to the goodness of God, to His sovereignty, to acknowledging Him. It's a heart that fails to humble itself before God. That's that hard heart. We're talking about that heart of stubbornness and that heart of contumacy here. And he says they go astray in their hearts. They did not know my ways. To know my ways is another way of saying they don't know me. They don't know my paths. They don't know me. They don't know how I work. They're not familiar with me. They don't know me. That's what he's saying. They're unbelievers. They're not connected to me through my Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And as I've swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. This is a, for the church, it should certainly get our attention. If there is one sin that we commit, isn't it complaining? Aren't we guilty of the sin of complaining? Or aren't we guilty of questioning God? What is he trying to do? You know, we must be careful because again, notice the Lord saw it as them testing Him, challenging His kindness, His hesedness, His loving kindness, His covenantal kindness. Where the Lord is the one that demonstrated His hesedness, Covenantal loving kindness that the Bible says is everlasting and eternal to his people where the Lord brought about ten plagues on Egypt He judged every God they had and brought great darkness on the land killed the firstborn of the nation and delivered them out of the iron fist of Pharaoh With all of their plunder And we would say, oh, if I could see that, oh, I would believe. Beloved, it's never a factual issue with man. Without the conversion of the heart, without the changing of our nature, we are prone to question and challenge and despise God. He comes and changes us and renews us and refreshes us He gives us His dear Son. He makes us know His ways. And guess what we're doing from that point on? We're battling doubt. In our sanctification, we battle unbelief. We battle complaining against the providence of God. We battle questioning in His goodness. Why would the Lord do this to me? Why would He allow our church to experience these things? And we must be careful that we don't display an unbelieving heart, a heart that's not sensitive to the things of God, a heart that's not sensitive to His leading, His prompting, and His guidance. Notice it says that they didn't hear my voice. Today if you hear His voice, hear what He's teaching, you hear what He's telling you, do not harden your hearts. It's something that we must do. We must be careful of. Turning from God is a moral matter. It's not a matter of not having enough information. It's never a matter of having enough information. It's a moral issue. It's not an intellectual or an educational problem. It's not an economic problem. It is a moral one. I want to just show you a few passages of scripture that support this idea. Look at Acts 19.9. He entered the synagogue and continued speaking out boldly for three months. We know this is the Apostle Paul. Reasoning and persuading them about the Kingdom of God. But when some were becoming hardened and disobedient, speaking evil of the way before the people, he withdrew from them and took away the disciples. Reasoning daily. in the school of Tyrannus. This is the same idea here. This is the same words, the same concept that he is speaking of in the book of Hebrews. It is as Paul exposited the scriptures, as Paul explained rightly Jesus Christ from the Old Testament prophecies, from the law, as Paul showed them Jesus Christ, because remember, the whole Bible is about Jesus. The whole Bible is about Jesus. And as Paul explained Christ from these Old Testament texts of Scripture, what was happening? See, there's something going on here. There's activity going on. Notice what it said. It said that they, some, were becoming hardened. They were beginning to reject the truth. They were beginning to despise what Paul was teaching them about Jesus Christ from the Old Testament prophets. That's what's happening here. is that when the nation of Israel, as Israel was being brought out of the land of Egypt, and as they had to depend upon God, God just didn't bring them magically out of the land of Egypt into the Promised Land with no trials, no temptations, Everybody just poofed in their own house, had their own vineyard outside. Wine was just pouring down out of the walls. Honey just bubbling up in all the buckets. And they were like, this is what we're talking about. This is what we mean, God. This is how things are done. Now God didn't meet their expectations. And that's why they kept saying, did you bring us out of the land of Egypt to kill us? See, we had it good back there, which they didn't have it good. But it shows you how progressive they were. Their unbelief hardened them to the things of God. And every time in God's providence they were tested, they responded in their unbelief. They demonstrated their unbelief by what? Challenging God. Questioning God's faithfulness. Questioning God's goodness. Questioning whether or not He was present with them. But yet that was the whole purpose of it. I'm going to bring you out of the land of Egypt. I'm going to bring you to myself so you can worship me. I'm going to be with you. You're going to be my people. You're going to be my God." That was the major promise of it all. I'm going to be with you. And yet that was the very thing they questioned. The one thing that God constantly emphasized with them was His presence with them and among them. Remember even the rules of the camp? You know, you go back and you look at the sanitary laws. I'm just giving you some nuts and bolts. I'm giving you the raw material of the covenant. God said, I even want you dealing with your sanitation in such a way because, well, I walk among you. And I won't step in anything. That's basically what He said. I want the camp sanitized and cleaned up because guess what? I'm here with you. and you need to make sure this camp is appropriate for my presence. That was the very heart of the covenant and that's still the very heart of the covenant. Emmanuel, God with us. God with us. We see here in Acts 19 that these Jewish men or women were becoming hardened at the teaching of the Apostle Paul as he was correctly, accurately handling the Word of God, explaining Christ to them, he recognized they were becoming hardened in what? Disobedient. And we're not going to heed the teaching of Scripture. So Paul withdrew from them. But I think that's Text alone helps us to understand what we're dealing with here. Beloved, we must, when we come to this particular warning of Scripture, we really need, I mean, we need to take it all seriously, but what we need to realize is there's two aspects of this hardness of heart. First of all, there's that hardness of heart that's never been converted. That's just strictly playing with the heart of unbelief. Raw unbelief. Nature has not been changed. Never going to bend to God. Never going to bow a knee to God whatsoever. Not going to do it. And yet they are in the midst of the church. And they have to be dealt with. In fact, J. Adams says the only thing that you can do to a person who is stubborn, that is, in the state of stubbornness and rebellion and hardness of heart and competency is excommunicated. That's all you can do. You can't do anything else with it. But there's another aspect of this thing, and that's what he's warning believers with. He says, listen, make sure just as God tested them in the wilderness by allowing them to be thirsty, He wasn't allowing them to be thirsty, David, so that they would challenge His faithfulness. He was hoping that they would what? Maybe cry out to Him for water. Petition to God for water. Lord, we're thirsty. And we know You are among us. And we know You're not going to let us... You didn't bring us out of Egypt to die. You didn't bring us out of Egypt to glorify Your name just to see us fall in the wilderness. Lord, You are a covenant-keeping God. See, that's the heart of faith and belief. What happens is, now the church of the first century, these Hebrew Christians, they were being tried and tested. And it may be that some of these Christians were beginning to complain about God. Is God truly among us? Is Christ truly resurrected from the dead? Is He really at the right hand of the Father, watching over the church? Is He the head of the church? If He is the head of the church, why does He lay on like a allowing us to suffer greatly? Why did He allow my mother to be drug off to prison? Why did He let my father be executed for the gospel? Why would God, Jesus, allow these things? See, what are they doing? They're beginning to challenge the faithfulness of God. They're challenging God's loving kindness, His covenantal mercies. God's made an explicit promise. I am your God and you are my people and I will never forsake you. What did Jesus say in Matthew 28 to the disciples? When you go and disciple the nations, what? I will be with you to the very end of the ages. It's a promise. I'm with you. As you perform this ministry that I've called you to, as you go out as my church, know this one thing. I am with you. challenging the faithfulness of God. Another helpful passage that will sort of help us set up this, look at 1 Corinthians. You know, this is very common, very, very common. I mean, people can develop physical illnesses. I've been familiar with people that have developed some serious physical illnesses and one of the things that is a very real temptation for them is to question God. And then you say, well, you know, how dare they? Let me tell you something, pain can be a serious opponent. Pain can be a very serious, serious temptation for us to question the goodness of God. So you've got to be careful. And nevertheless, there's no justification. But there can be all kinds of reasons people need a loss of a child. A loss of a child can cause stalwart Christian parents who have always been faithful in the faith to then question and challenge God's love and kindness and leave the church. So these are real. on a regular basis, this covenant, and this is a new warning for us today. 1 Corinthians 10, Paul says, I do not, for I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food and drank from the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them, and the rock was Christ, never the less. With most of them God was not pleased, for they were laid low in the wilderness." That's another text we need to support what we're talking about here. Verse 6 says, Now these things happened as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil things as they also crave. I'm not going to read any more of that. You can go back and read that later. But I just want you to understand that Paul says, listen, even for the Gentile church, Paul says, what the Lord did in the wilderness and the sins that He had to address in the wilderness with an unbelieving heart of people is an example for us today. Be careful. Don't be unaware of this. Make sure you understand. In fact, when verse 12, when He begins to talk to us about the Verse 12 where he says, Take care, brethren, that there be not in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. That word there for take care is show some discernment. That's what Paul is calling us to do. Paul is saying, listen, not just take care, like be careful. He's saying, no, demonstrate. It's a command. Paul says, show discernment. Make sure you have the right mindset and the spiritual eyes to see and to examine yourself. Show discernment. Show a depth of understanding about the Word of God in your own heart. You need this. You need this. Now why do we need this? Well, because, beloved, not everybody claims the name of the Lord Jesus Christ as a Christian. That's what Paul was saying in 1 Corinthians 10. They all drank from the same spiritual rock. They ate from the same spiritual manner. They all came out of Egypt, but they were not all of Christ. Our Confession of Faith has an excellent chapter on the assurance of salvation where it addresses hypocrisy. Let me read it to you. I think it might be helpful for us. This is the assurance of grace and salvation. Now just listen to the wisdom. These were pastors. Now they didn't have euthetic counseling then, but they did have euthetic counseling because it was biblical counseling. And I want you to see the wisdom, hear the wisdom in these words. Chapter 18, paragraph 1. Although hypocrites and other unregenerate men may vainly deceive themselves with false hopes and carnal presumptions of being in the favor of God and a state of salvation, which hope of theirs shall perish, Yet such as truly believe in the Lord Jesus and love Him, in sincerity, endeavoring to walk in all good conscience before Him, may in this life be certainly assured that they are in the state of grace, and may rejoice in the hope of glory of God, which hope shall never make them ashamed. Paragraph two. This certainty is not a bare conjectural or probable persuasion. grounded upon a fallible hope, but an infallible assurance of faith, founded upon the divine truth of the promises of salvation, the inward evidence of those graces unto which these promises are made, the testimony of the spirit of adoption, witnessing with our spirits that we are the children of God, which spirit is the earnest of our inheritance, whereby we are sealed to the day of redemption. This, check paragraph three, This infallible assurance does not so belong to the essence of faith. That means you may at times struggle with the assurance of salvation. But that a true believer may wait long and conflict with many difficulties before he be a partaker of it, yet being enabled by the Spirit to know the things which are freely given him of God, he may without extraordinary revelation, he doesn't need it, in the right use of ordinary means attained thereunto. And therefore it is the duty of everyone to give all diligence to make his calling and election sure, that thereby his heart may be enlarged in peace and joy, in the Holy Ghost, in love and thankfulness to God, in strength and cheerfulness, in the duties of obedience, the proper fruits of this assurance, so far as it from binding men to looseness. Last paragraph. True believers may have their assurance of salvation shaken, diminished, intermended, as by negligence in persevering of it, by falling into some special sin which wounds the conscience and grieves the spirit, by some sudden or vehement temptation, by God's withdrawing the light of His countenance and suffering, even such as fear Him to walk in darkness and to have no light. Yet are they never utterly destitute of that seed of God and the life of faith, that the love of Christ and the brethren, I thought that was interesting, the love of Christ and love of the brethren, that sincerity of heart and conscience of duty, out of which by the operation of the Spirit, this assurance may in due time be revived. and by which, in the meantime, they are supported from utter despair. So if we have the Holy Spirit, we are incapable of utter despair. And we will always demonstrate, it may be in small ways, but we will demonstrate a sincerity, a love for God, a willingness to walk in His ways, and a love for Christ and our brethren. That may be diminished, it may be not as large As prominent as it has been in the past, but a believer can never be destitute of those things, though they diminish greatly. So beloved, we need to understand that what we're doing here, when we look at this warning, we are taking to heart this command for us to show discernment, examine ourselves, to examine ourselves. We are to make sure that we take it seriously and that we see that we do not go astray. Now that's the command here. Show discernment, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. Notice the characteristic there in verse 12 of the unbelieving heart. This is the character, the nature of an unbelieving heart. Because a lot of you may be saying, well, I don't know what an unbelieving heart looks like. Well, we've already seen what it does. It challenges God's prophets. An unbelieving heart has no problem challenging the goodness of God. It has no problem challenging God's faithfulness, questioning God. An unbelieving heart will question the things of God in a very simple way. As God said, putting me to the test. But notice here in verse 12 the other character trait of an unbelieving heart. It falls away from the living God. An unbelieving heart will not lead you to God. It will not lead you to more obedience. It will not lead you to greater faithfulness. It will not lead you to greater contentment. It will not lead you to bear greater fruit of holiness. An unbelieving heart exhibits itself more and more in straying and departing from God. It's just like Stephen sent me a note last week from B.A. Carson on you don't drift toward Christ. You drift away from Christ. A stubborn heart leads you away from God. And that's the evidences. That's what you're looking for. Make sure. The command here, take care brethren. That there not be in any one of you an evil unbelieving heart. How do we know this? Falls away from the living God. And we know to fall away from the living God is to fall away from His Word. It is to fall away from God and to fall into sin. Sin. I want you to think about this, beloved, as you make decisions. Every decision bears fruit. Every idea has a consequence. Every theology has an application. What kind of theology? What application? What's your view of theology leading to the application? Remember, we're dealing with the heart. Remember, Proverbs says, as a man thinketh in his heart, So is he. We're dealing with the essence of the person. We're not just dealing with the mind. We're dealing with who we are. I am stubborn. I am contumacious. I'm an unbeliever or a believer. And because of who I am, it bears out in time, in history, in my decisions. We must ask ourselves the question, is my unbelief being exhibited in the decisions that I'm making? Are my decisions leading me to bear more fruit of holiness or less fruit? What you have to see is over time, you get further and further away from God. Are my decisions leading me down the paths of righteousness or are they leading me away from God? Where is my thinking taking me? You can ask yourself this. If I don't believe that there's a law, if I don't believe there are any moral requirements in the Word of God for me as a Christian, where will that theology take me? Will it bring me closer to God or further away from God? Well, to walk with God knows what He says. over in the beginning of the chapter, they didn't know my ways. The word there for ways in the Old Testament is another word for law. You know, the Torah, the way you should go. This is how you should walk. This is where you're going. That's the idea. The Hebrew mind addressing the morality of the people, their ethics is this is how you should live. This is the path you should walk. This is the way. Beloved, it's the same way for us today. no different at all whatsoever. Where is my thinking leading me? And again, Dr. Adams addresses this very strongly in his commentary on the book of Hebrews. He says the only thing a session and pastors can do when they deal with church members that begin making decisions that lead them away from God when they harden themselves is to excommunicate them, is to discipline them, is to prove to them that they are not Christians at all, because that's not how Christians live. That's contrary to the whole teaching of the Bible. It's contrary in this book of Hebrews. There is a way we should live. There's a way we should think. We're growing up in that, beloved, but when it comes to overwhelm us, that is, when we find ourselves in difficult circumstances, and temptations, well, our true nature comes out. Your true nature will come out when there's pressure. I've always used this illustration, but it's true. If I squeeze a plum, orange juice isn't coming out. If I squeeze a plum in my hands, children, what's going to come out? Plum juice. If I squeeze an apple, what's going to come out of it? Apple juice. So it's us in the midst of temptation and trials. Well, the dross comes to the surface. The sin comes to the surface. And listen, it can be your children. It can be the command of your parents. It can be members, things that the church is asking you to do. Wives, it could be something your husbands have asked you to do. Husbands, it could be things that you know you need to be doing in the home. There's a number of things that the Lord is using in your life to test you right now. So that you can examine yourself. So that you can test, you can see, like Paul said, examine yourselves daily to see whether or not you'd be in the faith. This is the activity and the role of the church. But we see the proof of this unbelief in its decisions being made. These decisions lead people away from God. And here the writer of Hebrews says this is an evil, unbelieving heart. Now notice some of the remedy there in verse 13. Again, I can't address all of it in one sitting, but I'll be able to hit the highlights here. Notice the remedy in verse 13. But encourage one another. But encourage one another. What does he mean by just encouraging one another? Well, this is an exhortation. What is he saying? This word in verse 13, it's not simply, hey Christopher, how you doing? That's not what he means. It's stronger than that. It is when we see one another, And as we know one another, going through difficult times, we are to offer encouragement. Stand fast, my brother. Hold true to Jesus Christ. He'll keep you in this hard time. He'll hold on to you. You hold on to Him. This exhortation is a very strong exhortation. It's to help us understand that we have a role with one another, that we have a role to play in the life of each other's perseverance. You know, I hope that it's never said of this church that we don't care about one another. We let just people meander on off and never You know, try to make connections and contact. Beloved shouldn't be true to us. We should be encouraging people. Now, we're not talking about people that just leave and go to another church. You know what? That's their property. But we're talking about people who decided, you know what? I just don't have time for Jesus right now. But let me get back on my feet, Pastor. Let me get back on my feet, guys. I'll be back. And most of the times, people do not draw near to Christ in the difficult times, they fall away from Christ. And when do they need to draw near? In difficult times. This is a very strong word. Look how it's used in Hebrews chapter 10. In Hebrews chapter 10, verse 25, it's used in the very way that I've just given you the example. Not forsaking our own assembling together as it is the abdicent son, but encouraging one another. And all the more as you see the day drawing near. I mean this word even carries in some translations and in some respects begging. Begging. To beg somebody to do something. That's how strong this word is. Exhorting. encouraging one another. Look at chapter 13 verse 19. And I urge you all the more to do this so that I may be restored to you soon. I urge you. Notice the strength of it being translated there. I'm urging you. I'm imploring you. I'm begging you is the same word being used for the exaltation. We are to exhort one another as the body of Christ. We are to hold firm to Christ and we are to encourage others to hold firm to Christ. Does this mean that we will not doubt? No. You're going to doubt. You're going to struggle with doubt. But you need encouragement. That's why you need encouragement. Will you fail? Will you sin? Yes. That's why you need encouragement. Will you always feel like doing good and obeying? No. That's why you need encouragement. That's why you need urging. That's why you need imploring and begging. No, you won't always feel like following after Jesus. And it may be very costly and expensive to follow after Christ, but we must urge one another to do so. Implore one another. Beg one another. That's the strength of this word. Beloved, if you love one another, you will beg. You will beg. Begging will not be beneath you if you love your brethren as you love Jesus Christ. We must implore one another to press on by His strength in His promises. Then there's a lot of promises in the book of Hebrews. We need to give heed to this. Now let's finish up what he has said because he goes back to this Old Testament example. Let's look at that. Notice what it says, but encourage one another day after day as long as it is still called a day so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. I mean, beloved, the deceitfulness of sin. That's a compelling idea here. Is sin somehow alive? What's he saying? Well, I think what he's addressing here is he's already dealing with a heart that's already attached to something. Because this is the same warning that he gives those who are wealthy. Go to Matthew 13 when we talk about the parable of the sower and the one who receives the seed, but yet the trials and temptations of life and wealth come along. What does he do? He falls away. That's the deceitfulness there. That's what he's dealing with there in Matthew 13. When the deceitfulness of riches capture him, he leaves the faith. That's the idea that our hearts are already clinging to sin. And because our hearts are already clinging to sin, we become deceived. We deceive ourselves because we're already hardened and attached to these sins. And these sins are helping us make the decisions to continue to leave God. You need to understand this. Be careful, he says, of the deceitfulness of sin. We can be tricked and duped by sin. Things we like, things we already attach ourselves to, we can let them persuade us to justify what we're doing. It's kind of like already knowing what you want to do, but acting like you've got to make a decision about it. You know, Christians, or pseudo-Christians say, let me pray about it. I can tell you normally what that means. means you're going to, God's going to give you okay. I mean, I have witnessed it. People say that it's okay to do X when Bible says it's not okay to do X and they will say, I pray to God and I got peace. Well, see, they don't know the ways of God and they may have peace about it, but that peace is not infallible. That peace is not the word of God. You see, they may have a, a piece about it, but it doesn't make it right at all. So that's what we're dealing with here. He says, for we have become partakers of Christ if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm to the end. Notice what it says, brothers and sisters, the proof of your salvation, the proof that your heart is not hardened is your perseverance, steadfastness. You're holding to the things of the Lord. He says, while it is called a day, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as when they provoked me. For who provoked him when they had heard? Notice again the emphasis of what they heard. They heard the gospel. They heard the word of God. And yet they provoked God. They heard his promises, yet they challenged God's goodness. Indeed, did not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses? Now notice the emphasis, all of them. All of them that came out of Egypt, did they not all experience these things? Yes, they did. And with whom was He angry for 40 years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient? The word there is the same word for unbelief. Those who were unbelieving. The disobedience here is not believing in Christ. Notice what he says, those who do not believe in Christ do not receive their rest in Jesus. You see, J. Adams makes a great point here because he says, here's the whole thing. The whole thing is they are trusting in themselves. They trust in their own righteousness. They trust in their own understanding. They lean to their own understanding against what Proverbs 3 says. They don't trust in the things of the Lord. And the Lord says, because you refuse to believe in Me, you shall not enter that eternal rest, that rest of salvation. You won't have it. You'll spend all your lives toiling and working in self-righteousness, exasperating yourself time and time again, but you'll never enter into this eternal rest without believing in Jesus Christ. submitting, and humbling, and walking, and how you know you have Christ. You stay after Him. You stay after Him. You persevere because He's in you, and you are in Him. So, beloved, what should we do? What should we do with this unbelieving, stubborn, confirmationist heart? We should repent, tonight, while it's called today. If you see Even the remnants of this unbelieving heart in you, beloved. Deal with it tonight. Young people, deal with it tonight if you see it. Don't wait. Don't be guilty of putting it off and putting it off and putting it off and then that leads you far away from the Lord. You don't even realize you strayed from Him. That even when you start hearing your parents or hearing the pastor preach, you go like this. You know when the pastor preaches that Jesus is everything, people are like this. That's just what preachers get paid to do. He gets paid to say those things. That's the evidence of an unbelieving, stubborn, hard heart. Let us tonight make sure that that's not true about us. Father, we are grateful for these words like a splash of freezing cold water upon our face. They have gripped our attention. And Lord, we pray that we would not be guilty of contemnation and guilty of rebellion and hardness toward what You would call us to do. And pray that we would be sensible to it. Lord, cause Your Word to persevere us. Cause us to have godly attitudes about hard times The evidence is that, Lord, that You have put in our lives to test us and to shape and to mold us. Lord, let us not be like the children in the desert, challenging Your loving kindness. Lord, tonight, give us a sensitivity to our hearts and to where we are spiritually that we might make the appropriate changes. And be aware, Lord, of the things we need to put our hands to A Lord where we would encourage one another. While it is still called today, let us as a congregation encourage one another to obey, to persevere, to stay steadfast in what you call us to do, even in personal, particular, hard areas of life. And let us receive those encouragements with love and joy. Bless us as your people. Bless us as a congregation seeking to do Your will. Lord, that You might be pleased with us and prosper us as Your people. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.