Hebrews chapter 3, I'm going to read verses 7 through 19. This is God's Holy Word. And I want to remind you that if God wants you to walk through that door and speak to you in person, face to face, He would not be speaking with any more truth or authority than He speaks to us through the Bible. The Bible is the very Word of God. during the time of testing in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried me, and for 40 years saw what I did. That is why I was angry with that generation, and I said, their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways. So I declared on oath, in my anger, they shall never enter my way. that turns away from the living God, but encourage one another daily as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. As has been said, today if you hear this voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion. Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? And with whom was he angry for 40 years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert? And to whom did God swear that they would never enter His rest, if not those who disobeyed? So we see that they were not able to enter because of their unbelief. Amen. that God had his blessing to the reading and hearing of his perfect word. As we read that passage, you may have noticed over and over a word repeated in some verses, and the word is that word heart. And this sermon is really about how God deals with our hearts and how we need to give our hearts to the Lord. In fact, John Calvin, his motto was that, Lord, I offer to you quickly and without reservation for your worship and your glory. And when our hearts are not with the Lord, he is upset with us. In fact, the scripture here says he is angry with us and he is sad because of the state of our hearts. And he was angry and upset at the state of their hearts. And you've probably all known in your past somebody Their life seems to be just transformed. And then it's exciting to see that new commitment to truth and the changes in speech, which was a big one in my life. My language changed very quickly, as God had given me new life. But then, in some of the people's lives that you may know, they face difficult trials. Their lives may be shaken by some really hard happen sometimes. They stop coming to church. They stop going to Bible study. They pull back the fellowship. They avoid the very Christians with whom they had worshiped, they had prayed, they had fellowship meals with. And you wonder, you wonder, what happened? What happened in their lives? Was his testimony And since Christians can't lose their salvation, we have to ask that question, was he ever really one of us? Will he ever be back? Or is he gone forever? And Jesus himself talked about it in a parable, the parable of the sower in Mark chapter four. He talked about this situation. And he said that there was good seed that fell in four kinds of places. The first kind of seed fell, it was by the wayside, of the road, and birds came and ate it. Then there was the hard and stony soil that springs up, but it has little depth, and it fails just as quickly, and it produces no fruit. Then there's the soil that is infested with thorns, where this good seed falls into this thorny, infested dirt, and it springs up again, but it also has no crop. And then, of course, we remember the good soil, Let's bring up 30, 60, 100 fold. Well, each of these is dealing with the state of the heart. I just described the seed that fell on the rocky soil. The seed that fell on the rocky soil is the hard heart. They do not persevere to bear fruit unto eternal life. And that's because of the state of their heart, of their parts, their hearts, The hearts are thorny. Their hearts will not receive in any depth. And that's true about so many people. They want a little bit of the Bible. They want a little bit of Christianity. They want a little bit of the comforts of religion. But they don't really want to be healed. that his readers, this church in Jerusalem, that they are people who are hard-sought, that their hearts are hard, and in a heat of affliction and persecution, which they were undergoing, he was concerned that their hearts would not respond rightly, their hearts would not receive and continue in the Word. They were in danger of going back to their old religion, which was a false religion in its incompleteness. It was true in what it was given, but it stopped short, and it was not true because it wasn't complete. So as he concludes his history lesson in our text, which you've probably heard about, he's showing that Jesus is superior to most in, verse six. And then he continues by illustrating his point with an episode from Jewish history that all of his readers knew very well. The history of Israel in the wilderness, that 40 years marching through the wilderness on that 11 day trip. Did y'all know that? They could have gone to Kadesh Barnea from Egypt in 11 days if they had the right route. 11 days. How do you march 40 years in an area that you could traverse in another day? It's amazing. It's just amazing. But he quotes in our passage, Hebrews chapter three, the latter half of Psalm 95, which in its entirety, Psalm 95 was used every week, every week, every week because remember, Repetition causes you to know that. I mean, if I were to stop right now and say, what is your only comfort in life right now? I bet all of you could stand up and say it. Why? Because we repeat it so often. Well, they repeated Psalm 95 because it was a reminder of their history. And they used it as their very call to worship, which starts out with these glorious things about how great God is, and then it comes back down to your responsibility before that great and glorious God. And it tells about a people who had been redeemed from Egypt. And they had been redeemed by a client of the blood of the Passover over the doorpost of their houses. It also talks about them having been baptized into Moses through the cloud and through the sea. And that's actually repeated again and again, particularly 1 Corinthians 10. They had eaten what we might even think of as a sacrament. They had eaten the heavenly manna. And they had drunk the water from the rock, as we think about those things. So seemingly, they were a redeemed people, and yet they were in jeopardy. And as Paul states in 1 Corinthians 10, though with most of them, God was not well pleased, for their bodies died. Their bodies, their dead bodies were scattered in the wilderness. Why did God kill them? unbelief, unbelieving hearts, the sins of their hard and unbelieving hearts. And this same God is just as concerned today about us as he repeats his concerns in the New Testament to the Corinthian church and to the church in Jerusalem, to the Hebrews. And he goes on to tell in 1 Corinthians 10, 6, that those things were given to be our examples. So I want you to notice that We must hear his inspired warning. And what indicates that this word that we're reading in Hebrews chapter, you know, if you had a scroll that wasn't in a Bible, what would indicate to you that this passage is his word? Well, verse seven, look how it begins, verse seven. Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, as the Holy Spirit says. And then he quotes from Psalm 95, 2,000 years, 2,300 years early. And he says, today, if you will hear this voice, the Greek there says, if you will hear the same voice. When you read the scriptures, according to Romans chapter 10, 17, you're hearing the voice of God. You're hearing the voice of Christ as you read the scriptures. So hear that voice. And if we look ahead in the very next chapter, in chapter four, we would see there that the author attributes these words to David. So God used a man whom he superintended by inspiration to cause him to write the very words that he would have written for their instruction. And for our instruction, and our instruction, kind of a double instruction, because we not only saw what happened to them, we have the history of what happened to them to be reminded of, but we also have the instruction to us. So we have the repetition. So we need to hear, and we need to keep what the Bible says, because it was God speaking to them, and it is God speaking to us. The Holy Spirit gives to human authors to write God's truth. and we need to heed it as God's truth. Now, the foundational point for avoiding a hardened, evil heart is to do five things that God commands that we do with the Bible. Five things that you're supposed to do with God's word. You're supposed to hear it. You're supposed to read it. You're supposed to study it. So you need to get a grip on God's word. That's my metaphor, you need to get a grip on God's word. Now you think about it, in Matthew chapter four, Jesus was being tempted by the devil himself, remember last time. And he tried to take the word out of Jesus' life, but what did Jesus do? He held on to the word. But don't you know that Jesus would hear it, read it, study it, memorize it, Do you help grab onto God's Word? Are you only hearing the Bible? Are you only hearing it? That's like trying to hold the Word with your little finger. It's like trying to hold it. And the world, the flesh, the devil can come by and pretty easily take it out of your hand. But if you hear it and you read it, now you've got two methods of input. And now, as you hold the Bible, you're holding it But if you But they can pull it away from you. And you think, well, you know, here it, read it, study it, and memorize it. So now I'm going to hear it, read it, study it, and memorize it. Now I've really got it in my life, right, if I'm memorizing it. So I've got this, I've got a pretty good grip. And I could give anybody in here a pretty good run for his money pulling this out of my hand. But it could be done. I'm sure the Christian could pull it right out of my hand with good force. And it can be pulled away because I've only got four, I'm only obeying God with four or five points. But if I hear it, read it, study it, memorize it, meditate on it, I've got it. And I, even Christian, I would deny, I would defy Christian to try it, as strong as he is, to get it down the line. Well, that metaphor works because, you know, if you're, how are you taking the Bible into your life? Are you just hearing it? Or maybe there's some people who aren't hearing it at all, but they're just reading it. And then there's people who may study it, they read it, they study it, but they don't really hear from really good sources. And how do you know what a good Bible teacher is? How do you know who the good Bible teachers are? Is it a flip in a coin? Is it a turn on the radio, whatever comes comes? I hope not. You see, if you don't know the Bible, you are a victim. You're potentially a victim for anything anybody says. But if you know the Bible, then you can measure what anybody says, what everybody says, and you ought to by the very Word of God. You need to be doing all of those things because until you hear it, Romans 10, until you read it, Revelation 1, until you study it, Psalm 111-2, until you memorize it, 1 Corinthians 65. And I know when I talk about memory, that a lot of people go, oh, I can't do that. It's so hard. It's so difficult. Yes, you can. Yes, you can. But way long ago, I met a guy. Stop it. I'm gonna go. I met a guy, and he was telling me how he just had so much trouble memorizing. Couldn't do it, he was too old, he was too feeble, he was just not smart enough. And I noticed that he had on a Pittsburgh Steelers shirt. I said, what do you think a Steelers gonna do this season, 2024, 25 season? Man, let me tell you, they recruited and he names these people. He named the draft picks, he named their stats from last year. He named the running backs. He knew their 40-yard speeds. He knew the weight of one. Then he just was pouring the stuff out. I said, wait a minute. What are you more interested in, the Scriptures or the Pittsburgh Steelers? And he lied to me and said, the Scriptures. But you get the point. It's not a matter of intellect. It's a matter of interest. It's not a matter of intellect. It's a matter of interest. And are you more interested in memorizing scripture and meditating on scripture, these five things, than other things? It really needs to be a part of your heart. And this is one of those catch-22s, because the more you study the scripture and hear it and memorize it and meditate on it, the more you want to. But until you do those things, you really don't want to. It's kind of like me eating broccoli. Get a grip on the Word. Get a grip on the Word and read large portions of the Word. You know, I know that Kurt, he uses audio and video, videos all the time, what do you call it, podcasts, to learn things. He's measuring these people by the Scriptures and he likes what they're saying. But if you're dependent on a pre-fab TV dinner devotional once a day, it's usually two-layer cookies. It's not gonna do you much good. There's not much spiritual nutrition in those things. So here read, study, memorize, and meditate on the scriptures. And the scriptures will soften your heart because Jeremiah says that the scriptures are a hammer, a hammer. And my heart needs a hammering sometimes. So today if you will hear his voice, He says, now he has a command for us. If you will hear his voice, we go to verse 8, and he has a command for us. Do not harden your hearts. Now, we've been talking about that already, but what does it mean to harden? Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness." Now, you've all heard the saying that those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. So here comes another one of those friendly reminders from God that this scripture was written for our remembrance of a previous to our own peril. So he's saying, to you churchmen in Jerusalem, and I'm saying to you churchmen in Savannah, think back to the history of what God did through Moses. As they were being led out and as you are being led through this world, that you're being led out of slavery, you're being delivered more and more and more from your sin, more and more from your evil, more and more you're being delivered for the kingdom of God. But you're still being tested, aren't you? Every day, you are being tested. And that's by design, that's God's design. So here, as you're being tested, as you're going through this wilderness, here, and in Hebrew, when it says here, it's not just hearing the, it's not just the eardrums vibrating, you know, with the Kapli and all of this, that go in there. But to hear is to take to heart. There's that word again. Take to heart and obey what he says for us to hear. Now, this is a reference to a historical point in history. And he's referring back to Exodus 15, 16, and 17. And Exodus 15, 16, and 17, interestingly, was turned into a psalm. The Jews, because they wanted to remember it and carry it with them all the time, they added a tune to it. And they organized it in a metrical note. And Psalm 95, the hymn book of Israel, they learned it so that they could remember it. They learned it so that they could have it right at their fingertips all the time. And going back to, and isn't it much easier to memorize a hymn than it is to memorize just a text? Hymns, I still remember, I don't even still remember commercials from when I was that big. I still remember tunes from the 50s and 60s. Jimmy is a rock and roll aficionado. He knows these things. He even knows the names of the band. But we don't want to be, like Barney Fife, who, do you know who Barney Fife was? Anybody not know Barney Fife? Anybody not know Barney Fife? Oh, good. That makes it easier. Barney Fife was so incompetent as a policeman on the Andy Griffith show that he had a pistol, but he kept it pulled out of his pocket. And any time something happened, he had to pull out his pistol and it would fall over his pocket. He was not on the ready in an emergency. He was never on his belly, in a knee. He had to fumble. If you have not memorized the scriptures, and if you're not, if you have a grip on the scriptures, if you don't have it in your mind and can sing it out of a redeemed heart, then you're like 45. You're going to have to fumble for your bullet to deal with. Well, in Exodus 15 through 17, Israel came out of Egypt through God's mighty deliverance. And then they went three days into the wilderness and they found no border except federal border. And I want you to notice that three days is by design, everything God does is by design, because I looked it up yesterday, people can't, you have to be very, very, very strong to live more than five days without border. So he takes them three days out, they're at the point of no return. Three days back, they can't make it, they're dead. So what do they do? They did. They did just that. So three days passed before he would ever return. God purposefully did that so that they would need him and they would look to him. So we all know what they did, right? They're out of water. They're very thirsty. And they said, well, you know, guys, we know that God loves us. We know that God is with us. No, that's not at all what he did. No, they groaned to Moses in their hard heartedness. And Moses, in faith, cried out to God, and God showed him a tree, and he gave Moses instructions, and in chapter 15, in Exodus 15, Moses took that tree, cut it, put it into the water, and it turned the bitter water into sweet water. And then in chapter 16 of Exodus, God provided the manna, to feed Israel every day. And you would think that the manna, that gracious gift and provision would cause them to say, God loves us and we can follow Him. But that wasn't true either. Then you come to Exodus 17 and again they came to a place where there was no war. And rather than asking God to provide, they went to Moses and they quarreled with Moses, they grumbled against And you take those three chapters and then you go over to Numbers 14, and there you find the people again running after the report of the spies. They're giants in the land. We can't whip them. In spite of all that God had done, they were ready to stone Moses, they were ready to return to Egypt, and God says, that's enough. He's finished. He's at his end. and God doesn't have an end, but you get the point. He swore that all those who had grumbled against him would die in the wilderness and not enter the land of rest. Only Joshua and Caleb, who believed God without grumbling, were spared. The point is that we should learn from the Word and history, what God has revealed about his character, and we should hear and obey God in faith. So he goes on, today if you hear his voice, not tomorrow, not next week, but today, this very day, God speaks to us through his word. And that little word today shows the urgency of his message. And the context of this word matches the urgency that someone would have if they were dying of thirst early in the morning. You've been without water three days, you're gonna really be thirsty. He's getting their attention. And God put them in a situation to remind them that they and we are too thirst for righteousness, thirst for God, thirst for life, thirst for Christ, thirst for the Word. So don't put off hearing and doing God's Word. Don't be casual about God's Word. Don't be casual and think you're going to just add God into your schedule. Work it in today as though you are craving the Word of the Word today. And don't wait to obey at a more convenient time. Today is the day, the time to obey. Don't ignore remembering and thinking about His words. Today you have the opportunity to avoid hardness of heart. And you must come to God's Word often, daily, today. You must listen without resistance today, without suppression today, without hardness today. No sclerosis ever. Come with submissive hearts. Come ready to learn His will. Come willing to obey His word. Get a grip on the scriptures. And then in verse eight, do not harm your hearts. And then in verse 10, they always go astray in their hearts. God is accusing them. And in the Bible, the heart refers to that total inner being, the mind, the emotions, the will. And Proverbs 4.23 says, above all else. Now, when God says above all else, Proverbs 4.23, he probably means put it first. Do it right. Get this picture. Above all else, guard your heart, for from it flow the issues of life. Now, if I walk by the coffee pot out there, and I happen to knock the coffee pot over, what do you think comes out of the coffee pot? Coffee. Good, good job. And why does coffee come out of there? There was a time when that receptacle didn't have anything in it. Because we put garbage in it, we get garbage out of it. And if you happen to walk by me and knock me over, if profanity came out of my mouth, why? Because I have put profanity in my life. Nobody can put it into me. You can bring it out of me, but you can't put it in me. If I were to use profanity, it would be because I have put it in my life. Lies in, lies out. Darkness in, darkness out. Worry in, worry out. Wrong answers in, wrong answers out. Video games in, video games out. Bad doctrine in, heresy out. Hatred in, hatred out. Worldliness in, worldliness out. What you give your mind to, what you give your heart to, is what your affections are going to embrace, and that's going to show your heart. And Jesus taught it in Mark 7, 20. He says, Jesus speaking, what comes out of a man defiles the man. For from within, An evil eye, I think that means lustful eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness, all these things come from within and defile the man. You see, the heart of the problem is the problem of the heart. And this is one of the most useful lessons I've ever learned in Christian life, that all sin begins with the heart. And the only remedy for sin with the word of God, and to train the heart with the word of God, by hearing and obeying the word of God today, not tomorrow, but listening to it today. And if you deal with your thought life, and if you wash your thought life, if you wash your heart, your mind and the word, then sin can be stopped, and it's very rude. But hear Peter speak about this in 2 Peter 2. He says, some have eyes full of adultery, that cannot cease from sin. They have a heart, catch this next word, they have a heart trained in covetous practices. They are cursed children. What does it mean to train? It means to regularly practice something so that it becomes a habit. You can train to be evil, you can train to be righteous. You can train to be evil. And now Hebrews 3, 10 and 11. Therefore I, this is God speaking, was angry with that generation and said, they always go astray in their heart. And they have not known my God, they have not known God's ways. So I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. God says that he was angry with the generation in the wilderness. Why? Because they did not know his ways. How could they not know his ways? How could they not know God's ways? Well, because even while seeing and experiencing and receiving the benefits of His goodness, they did not have hearts to see what was real. Their hearts were hard. Their hearts were resistant. Their hearts were suppressing the truth. And when it says the author's angry with them, the word angry there means to prosecute. Carl will never talk about that. And why did he prosecute? Because he was disgusted with them. In fact, scripture says he loved them. Psalm 5. And then, we have those very unsettling words where God swears an oath. He swore it in his wrath. Verse 11. Now, that does not mean that someone walked by God and knocked him over, and a curse came falling out, because there's no profanity or cursing in him. That's not the kind of curse we're talking about. What it does mean is that when people who God is leading and loving and delivering and tending to, they show that they're disrespectful and resistant, it angers Him. Their grumbling and their rebelling angers Him. And what came out of the holy, sovereign, pure God was not a curse word, but a word of curse. He promised them that they were cursed. They would not enter the promised land. And that was to whom? It was to the unbelieving. So wrath refers to God's unsettled, just, and passionate opposition to sin. I wish that we hated sin the way God hates sin, but we don't. He's not passive about sin. And in verse 12, he warns us to beware. Beware means to become aware. Beware. Be aware. By looking and learning at the Word. Beware, for evil is ahead, says Exodus 10. Beware, lest you forget the Lord in your heart, says Deuteronomy 6. Beware, lest you have a wicked thought in your heart, says Deuteronomy 15. Beware of the false prophets who lead you away in your heart, Deuteronomy 15. Beware of the false prophets, Hebrews 3.12. Beware them, lest there be any You see, God had given them tests, and the tests were not to make them fall, and the tests were not so that God could learn where their hearts were. God knew where their hearts were. He gave them tests so that they might know their spiritual condition, so that they could know objectively but I might put you to the test whether you are obedient. So when we're tested, what happens? We become aware of ourselves, and we should be because we are commanded to examine ourselves. 2 Corinthians 13, five, examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Anybody here examine yourself lately to see if you're in the faith? Test yourselves. And of course, you fail the test. But brothers and sisters, we need help with our tests. We need help examining ourselves and in keeping ourselves on the narrow path of obedience. Hebrews 3.13 and 14. But exhort one another daily. It doesn't say let everybody mind their own business. Our Kevin over there, he's got a phone, I'll talk to him next month about it. This is what it says. Exhort one another daily while it is called today, lest any of you all be hardened, made hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, the delusion We have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end. You see, we need one another. We depend on one another. That's why I want us to understand our adoption into Christ's family, into God's family, makes us, we're family. Blood is thicker than water and spirit is thicker than water. But what happens when we fail? Well, it anchors God. Hebrews 3.17, He walked with them for 40 years, and they angered Him. Verse 18, because they angered Him, He swore that they could not enter His rest, because they would not obey. They had hard hearts. Verse 19, they could not enter the rest because of unbelief. So the solution is to, you all know it, trust in Jesus. but there's at least a flicker, an ember burning in your heart, then ask for prayer. Ask for help. Rehearse the gospel. And I will help you, but I will help you by taking you to the word. I will not give you my opinions. If you are stirring in your heart right now, but you lack certainty, ask for help. I will take you in the Bible to If you're backslidden, the steps out of hell and the steps out of backsliding are exactly the same steps. Faith and repentance. You want to be saved from hell? Faith and the Lord Jesus Christ and repent of your sin. You want to come out of backsliding? We must together see our duty to love and help one another in all means.