I'm gonna invite you to take your Bibles and turn to Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews 12, I'm gonna read verses 12 through 17. Our focus is gonna be on verses 14 through 17, but begin reading with Hebrews 12, verse 12. Hebrews 12, beginning with verse 12, there the preacher writes, therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees and make straight paths for your feet so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. Strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and by it, many become defiled. That no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent. though he sought it with tears." Well, the larger context I want to remind you is the running of the Christian race. That is how the chapter began. The preacher reminded us that the Christian race is a marathon and therefore what is needed is endurance. It's a lifelong marathon. It's not a sprint where speed is needed, where you just have to have a kind of quick burst and you can kind of, you know, coast on your laurels, so to speak, and, you know, kind of coast into heaven. No, it is a lifelong marathon and endurance is needed. And he wanted us to run with perseverance the race marked out for us to the very end. And in running the Christian race, it involves the pursuit of holiness. He brought that out in verse one. And holiness is so important in the lives of God's people that God the Father gets involved in the whole affair. And last time we considered how he disciplines those whom he loves, and that that discipline is all about forming more of Christ's character in us, that peaceable fruit of righteousness. And then we noted last time at the end of the sermon how he came back to the theme of the race. In verses 12 and 13, he writes, therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees and make straight paths for your feet so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. In verse 13, he talks about running in the straight path. The straight path is not crooked. It doesn't deviate from the creeds and the deeds of biblical Christianity. And when there are people who have so run, it has done good for those who are lame or weak of faith, spoken about at the end of the verse. In other words, warm-hearted Christianity is a contagious thing. It has oftentimes done others good. It's oftentimes been helpful when we ourselves are like a cold coal to be brought alongside of that warm coal, and it kind of can warm us up. Well, it's not just that a few of us need to be concerned about holiness because in our text today, the pursuit of holiness involves us all as verses 14 through 17 make clear. In other words, the pursuit of holiness is not an optional elective in the Christian life. It is an absolute essential to true Christianity. Verse 14, strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Well, what we're going to do today is consider the two aims of the straight path, that's verse 14, and then three dangers to running the straight path, that's verses 15 through 17. The two aims of the straight path, would you look again at verse 14. Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Now there are two specific aims of the straight path. One aim is in relationship to men and that is to seek after peace. And the other is in our relationship with God to pursue, to strive after holiness. We're going to look at both of those this morning. Let's begin with the straight path in relationship to man. The straight path is one that pursues peace with everyone. Now that doesn't mean peace at any price. William Plumer notes that peace and holiness are tied together. It can never be a peace at the expense of holiness. He says, and I quote, peace and holiness are well united. They promote each other. It can never be peace at the expense of holiness. Think about what James says about that true wisdom that is from above, that is distinct from earthly, unspiritual wisdom that is associated with the devil. That wisdom, by contrast to the wisdom from below, that wisdom that is from God, that is from above, is first, James tells us, pure, that is, it's holy, And then, secondly, it's peaceable. The holiness has to come before the peace. It can't be peace at any price. That is a price too high to pay for peace if it is at the expense of holiness. That's a bad bargain. That's peace at too great a price. But we are to strive for peace as far as it is possible. Paul writes this in Romans 12, 18. If it is possible, As far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. And by the way, when the preacher tells us to strive for peace in verse 14 of Hebrews 12, he uses a very strong word. And even in our English translation, strive is a strong word, isn't it? But in the Greek, if anything, it's even stronger. The Greek word, for example, when it's used in a negative context is the word that is translated persecute. The Apostle Paul, before he was the Apostle Paul, when he was Rabbi Saul, the persecutor of the church, he went after the church with a great deal of zeal, didn't he? A great deal of energy. I kind of think of him like that man in the deer stand, you know, who gets his deer. And then, you know, the wounded deer runs off and that man is out of the stand and he's tracking the deer, he's following the blood in the snow and he's all alive to the task, isn't he? I mean, the adrenaline is pumping, he's fully engaged. Well, that's the significance of this word strive. When it is used in a positive context as it is in our text, it is talking about that kind of energy, that kind of zeal. It is a striving for peace with all men, and that would include the unconverted. Jesus talked about how to do that in his day. He told his disciples in Palestine that one of the ways that they could pursue peace with that kind of zeal was when the Roman soldier commandeered them as law allowed them to do, to commandeer any citizen that they wished and make that citizen carry their gear for a mile. When the Roman soldier did that, when he acted like a total jerk, and he availed himself of that privilege, and he made you carry his gear for a mile, when he's such a jerk as to do that, Jesus says, carry his stuff two miles. That's what Jesus said. In other words, strive to live at peace with even those who are so impossible. That's the idea here. Striving for peace means that we need to tie peace to righteousness. It was earlier in this chapter when he talked about the peaceable fruit of righteousness in verse 11. Peter ties peace to righteousness in 1 Peter 3, 10 and 11 as he references Psalm 34 and he writes this. For whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech. He must turn from evil and do good. He must seek peace and pursue it." Now Peter emphasizes in this context of pursuing peace, guarding your tongue, that what comes out of your mouth is important when it comes to peace. And don't we see that in our modern world? Isn't there a lack of peace, for example, in Washington, DC, in our nation's capital, with the vitriol of the speech of the political class? They don't even know how to be civil with each other anymore. And Peter is saying, well, don't act like that. Don't contribute to that. Be a peacemaker by how you talk. Talk in a civil manner, even to uncivil people. Talk in that civil manner. You know, it's still true that a gentle answer turneth away wrath. It still works that way, even in this wicked world that we live in. So the straight path strives for peace with all men, so far as it lies within us. But the straight path also strives for holiness in relationship to God. Again, verse 14, strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Now, this verse, if it is wrongly read and interpreted, will keep a Christian up at night, and so we need to kind of make sure that we understand what is being said here. The point is not, says Richard Phillips, that you must be saved by your holiness, a teaching that could only drive you to despair. I mean, after all, the best that we do is still tainted with sin. And, you know, if we had to be saved by our holiness, how would you ever know that you had enough? Thank God we are not saved by our personal holiness, we are saved by Christ and his holy life, his perfectly obedient life, and his obedience to death, even death on the cross where he made the perfect sacrifice for our sins. And it is through faith in this Christ that we are positionally set apart as holy in God's sight so that God himself sees us if we are believers in Christ as clean in his sight, as holy in his sight. Positionally we are holy in Christ. The preacher himself taught that in Hebrews 10 verse 10. But the point of this statement is nonetheless quite direct and serious. It's about the necessity of sanctification for everyone who calls himself a Christian and seeks to be saved. And by the way, I just quoted Phillips without realizing it. So I want to give him credit. What I just said came from Richard Phillips. Let me read it again. But the point of this statement is nonetheless quite direct and serious. It is about the necessity of sanctification for everyone who calls himself a Christian and seeks to be saved. What the preacher is talking about is the striving involved in sanctification. God is clearly holy, and he is committed to his children sharing in his holiness, and that's why he disciplines us in love. That's what we looked at last time, that we might grow in moral likeness to him. Sanctification doesn't put us right with God. Sanctification is a process that is going on in the life of someone who is already in a right relationship with God. And what sanctification simply does is it evidences that here is a true Christian. Sanctification is important in terms of God's honor, but it's also important in terms of our own personal assurance and peace. And so we need to take it very, very seriously. This verse is not meant to disturb the peace of the conscientious Christian. It is, however, meant to disturb the peace of the so-called carnal Christian. Again, the governing word is striving. Paul modeled what striving looks like in Philippians 3. Let me remind you what he wrote. Not that I have already attained or am already perfected, but I press on that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. This is a man who clearly was striving after holiness. He was pursuing holiness. You can't sleep your way to heaven. People can sleep their way to hell, but you can't sleep your way to heaven. This is a man who models how the Christian life is to be lived. And if it doesn't characterize you, then if you are a true Christian, it explains why you're lacking peace and assurance. Striving again is Not just about God's honor, it's also about your peace and it's very, very important to be pursuing after holiness. Now what is meant by seeing the Lord is enjoying his presence and fellowship in the fullest sense. who doesn't pursue holiness will not see the Lord, not meaning that he won't see the Lord with his own eyeballs, because everybody's gonna see the Lord with their eyeballs. You realize that, don't you? At the second advent, every creature that has ever existed is gonna see the Lord Jesus. Coming in the glory of his person and of the kingdom on the clouds of heaven, Associated with deity, by the way, there's not going to be any Jehovah Witness creed being recited at that moment. And every eye will behold him coming on the clouds and the tribes of the earth will mourn at that sight. The church won't be mourning, but the world will be mourning at that site. Everyone will see the Lord with their eyeballs, including the so-called carnal Christian who will see the Lord coming in a spirit of utter shame and terror. What is meant by seeing the Lord is enjoying his presence and his fellowship in the fullest sense. William Plumer says this, to see God is to enjoy God. To see the salvation of God is to enjoy that salvation, and to see life is to enjoy life. And he gives a number of biblical references. And then he says, so to see the Lord is to behold his face in peace, receive his smile, and enjoy his favor and his fellowship. So the straight path involves the pursuit of peace in our relationship with men, the pursuit of holiness in our relationship to God. But there are three dangers to the running of the straight path that are spelled out for us in verses 15 through 17. And these dangers are both individual and corporate dangers, which you look at verses 15 through 17 as I read them. I see to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled, that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears. Well, the first danger to running the straight path is the danger of personal apostasy. Look at verse 15a. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God. The language is likely borrowing from the metaphor of a runner running the race. That's in the background of this chapter. And support for this view comes from a Christian commentator by the name of McLean. I don't know who he is. William Plumer cites him in his commentary. He was another man from an earlier era of the church, and in that earlier era they were all persuaded that Paul was the writer of Hebrews, and that will be brought out in this A quotation, most Christian commentators today do not believe that Paul is the writer, the preacher here, but McLean was of that opinion. This is what he said. It appears to me that the apostle has still the metaphor of a race in his view, and that the word here used signifies to fall behind in that race, like those who are tired and faint, or come up short of the prize held out to the victor at the end of the race. You know we've been looking at the sin and the danger of apostasy as we have been going through this apostasy prevention book of the Bible called Hebrews. And apostasy is a real sin. It's a real danger. And weren't we reminded of that this past week? Many of us were very saddened and shocked to hear that Joshua Harris, a man who wrote a very helpful book years ago about dating and was a pastor of a large mega church with a reformed soteriology, has not only announced that he is divorcing his wife, but he is walking away publicly from the Christian faith. And he is apologizing to the homosexual community for all the things that he has preached and written about biblical marriage. And it has shaken people. And if you're interested in a good response to that, I recommend you watch a YouTube video by Michael Kruger. I think he's the president of RTS Charlotte. He's got a few-minute video out there addressing this concern. But the point is that apostasy is real. There are real people that commit apostasy. They went out from us, for they were not of us. In other words, they never really were true Christians, but they appeared to be real Christians, and they were taken to be real Christians, and sometimes they even filled pulpits of influential churches. And yet they walk away from Christ. They publicly walk away from the gospel. This is a real sin. It's not a hypothetical that we're looking at as we've been going through Hebrews. There are five major warning sections of apostasy in the book of Hebrews. Chapter 2, verses 1 through 3 was the first major warning. Let me remind you of what he said. those verses, therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable and every transgression or disobedience received a just Retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? And then he gave us another major apostasy warning section at some point, beginning in chapter three and running into chapter four. And in chapter three, verse 12, in the midst of that second warning, he wrote this, Hebrews 13, 12, take care, brothers. lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God." And then he went on to give us another major warning section at the beginning of Hebrews 6. And then he gave us another one in chapter 10, and before chapter 12 is over, he's going to give us a fifth major warning. But already, even in our text, he gives us a verse that alludes to personal apostasy in verse 15. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God. You know, he has been using throughout this letter what I would call the carrot and the stick. The carrot are the promises of God to encourage us. The stick are the warnings, the dangers that are posed to our soul as we live in this world. Both are needed. A man by the name of Koster says this about our text today. This passage is designed to awaken people to danger, not to give them, not to make them give up hope. Warning is the counterpart to promise. Both pertain to the future. Warnings disturb people while promises encourage them, but together they serve the same end, which is encouraging people to persevere in faith. see to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God. Well, that speaks of an oversight responsibility on the part of the church. If you take that participle translated see to it and you put it into a noun, it is the noun episkopos or we would say bishop. An episkopos is describing the function of a pastor, of an elder, but here it's not talking to the pastors of the church, it's talking to every member of the church. And on one level, every true Christian is given the responsibility of pastoral oversight of the souls of others. Do you realize that? It's not just the preacher's job to talk to the souls of people. Every one of us who named the name of Christ, we are our brother's keeper. We are our sister's keeper. We have a pastoral responsibility as an individual Christian to everyone who names the name of Christ among us. Now, we don't need to be harsh in the exercise of that responsibility. Indeed, we must not be harsh. It may be a kindly phone call or passing along a helpful book that is done without a confrontational posture at all, but it is concern. It's caring about the other individual. You know, that's one of the things I do like about a small church. I've never been a fan of the megachurches, even if they have a really capable, gifted expositor in the pulpit, because you can get lost in a megachurch. I mean, who's going to know if you're there on the Lord's Day? There's a benefit to a small church. There's a benefit. You get noticed. If you're beginning to drift, people see it. People can pray for you. People can reach out to you and I think that's important in this age of apostasy in which we live. We need the prayers, we need the help, we need the input of our brothers and sisters in Christ. So the first danger is the danger of personal apostasy, verse 15a. That's the first danger to running the straight race. The second danger is the danger of heresy in the church and corporate apostasy. Look at verse 15b, that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and by it, many become defiled. Now the preacher here is referencing a text from Deuteronomy 29, 18 that speaks of heresy. Let me read that text. Moses says, make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the Lord our God to go and worship the gods of those nations. Make sure there is no root among you that produces such bitter poison. In other words, what the preacher is talking about here is not a bitter person, but a person or persons who are introducing into the New Covenant community now the poison of idolatry, of apostasy from the gospel. That is what is in view. an individual or a group of people who are introducing something that undermines the gospel of Jesus Christ and that can defile many and cause spiritual death. And the many who are defiled are those who are caught up in this heresy, caught up in this apostasy, and because of that they are labeled here as unclean. In other words, they really are not part of spiritual Israel. No matter how much they may promise themselves safety, And they do promise themselves safety, read the next book in Deuteronomy, but they will not know it. It's not safe to turn away from the true gospel and from the true God. It has often happened in the history of the church, hasn't it, in the name of Christianity that a false gospel emerges. I mean, already in the pages of the New Testament, we have books in our Bible that only exist in our Bible because the poisonous root of idolatry had come into the new covenant community called the church. And that's why we have Galatians. Galatians is Paul seeking his utter to the uttermost, to pluck out of the church all of that false gospel of the Judaizers and their false gospel of faith in Christ plus their own little work. That's a false gospel. Whenever you add anything to faith in Christ, you've got a false gospel. And Paul writes Galatians, and it's in our Bible because the poisonous root of idolatry has come into the covenant community of the churches of Galatia. And it has to be dealt with. Or think about the Apostle John. The only reason we've got 1 John in our Bibles is because the poisonous root of Gnosticism has emerged in the churches of Asia Minor. which include Ephesus, and Paul the Apostle, by the Spirit, prophesied that it was going to come, and by John's elderly years, it had come. But this is what Paul said to the elders of Ephesus in Acts 20, 28 through 32. Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number, even from the eldership, men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard. Remember that for three years, I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears. Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. I mean, isn't this something that we have seen in the long history of the Christian church? I mean, it's already happening big time in the days of the apostles and throughout church history. We have seen that poisonous root of idolatry planted in the Christian church in the name of Christianity. These false gospels have come. No wonder Paul warned with tears and was so vigilant and urged the faithful elders in Ephesus to likewise be vigilant and faithful. There are crooked paths introduced by Satan in the history of the church which turn people away from the gospel and they do it in the name of the gospel. They do it in the name of Christ and of Christianity. Doctrine matters if we're going to make it to heaven. I remember when I was a freshman at Iowa State University, one of the books that we read in our Bible study group was Know What You Believe by Paul Little. It's important that we know what we believe. We can't imbibe the Rodney King motto. Can't we all just get along? Now sometimes there can't be peace in the church because it would be at the expense of holiness, it would be at the expense of the gospel. Do you understand that there are times when there needs to be holy war in the church? If from this pulpit there should be preached a false gospel, it would be incumbent upon this church to fire the preacher. Do you understand that? If there should ever be a false gospel coming from this pulpit, You are to show no sympathy for it. You are to root out that bitter root. When it happens on the seminary level, I don't care if it's a relative of a big donor of the seminary, but this professor is teaching a false gospel, something contrary to the faith. And by the way, that happened when I was in seminary. They had to fire one of the professors because he was a crypto-Roman Catholic at Reform Theological Seminary. And they did the right thing. It has to be removed. Sometimes denominations begin to slide and they really begin to slide. And it's clear that many of the pastors no longer believe the confession of faith that the denomination was founded on. And when that denomination begins to slide, it becomes the responsibility of the church officers to lead that church out of that denomination. and associate themselves with another group of churches that are faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ. The cost of tolerating apostasy is too high. It will defile many. It will, in the end, damn many. And here's something else to think about. Think about the generational impact. You realize why so many people showed up at the Southern Baptist Convention meeting years ago when they were fighting that battle for the Bible? So many little people showed up at that convention, and it was because they wanted to make sure that their children and their grandchildren would hear the gospel. There's a generational impact when you lose the gospel. There are churches in our land where young people attend and there's no gospel in the pulpit. What a loss. Take care that you are not defiled by a false gospel. And then the third danger to the straight path is the danger of sensual godlessness. And this is the most insidious of them all. Look at verses 16 and 17. that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place to repent. though he sought it with tears. Now the preacher says in verse 16, see to it that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau. The first word is pornos, it means sexually immoral. You've heard the word pornos, it comes into our word pornography. Here it refers to sexual immorality. The second word is a word that speaks of being profane, godless, unholy, irreligious. That's the idea. And commentators have debated as to whether both of these words apply to Esau. Everyone agrees that the second word applies to Esau, that he was profane, he was godless, he was a man for whom the spiritual blessings of the covenant did not mean a cotton-picking thing. Everybody agrees about that, but Christians differ as to whether the preacher means to include Esau as someone who was sexually immoral. Some say that he does mean to include Esau, others say not so. The book of Genesis does not describe Esau as being a sexually immoral man per se, but then it's been pointed out the book of Genesis doesn't tell us everything about Esau, does it? But others point out, but what it does tell us about Esau is that he was even sensual when it came to sex and marriage. I mean, look at who he chose for his wives. He chose multiple wives, by the way, and his first two wives were Canaanites. and they were a source of great grief to Abraham and Sarah because it was clear that this man was not looking for a wife who would help him under God. He just wanted someone who would be sexy and fun and someone who could also establish his place in Canaanite society. That was his criteria. He was utterly worldly. He was utterly sensual in everything that he did. Now the second word that describes Esau is translated unholy. The one lexicon gives additional entries, vile, godless, irreligious. That's what he was. And in combination with the first word tells us that he was a sensual man who lived to satisfy his fleshly appetites. He lived as if he didn't have a soul. He lived as if he were nothing more than a highly evolved animal. He lived for the moment. He was, to describe him in the language of John Bunyan, he was passion in pilgrim's progress who is contrasted with patience. In other words, passion has to have his best life now. His pastor would have been Joel Osteen, quite frankly. That was Esau. He had to have his best life now. He had to have all his good things now. The spiritual blessings of the covenant didn't mean anything to him. The preacher gives us an example of his profane life. Verse 16b, Esau sold his birthright for a single meal. That recalls the story of Genesis 25 where a famished Esau is taken advantage of by his brother Jacob who barters away who gets Esau to barter away his birthright, and even though Jacob doesn't behave very well in that chapter, it's not the sin of Jacob that stands out, it is the sin of Esau that stands out. The Holy Spirit tells us that the man despised his birthright. That was the greatest sin in that chapter. He despised his birthright. I want to remind you that he didn't come from just any old family. He was born into a believing home. He was born into the covenant community. And the blessings associated with the firstborn were great in the minds of that covenant family. I want to remind you that later on when God refers to Israel, he refers to Israel as his firstborn son in distinction from the world. What the Bible is simply telling us is that Esau had absolutely no regard for the spiritual blessings of the covenant. He had no interest in that. He didn't think about that. He was a godless man. God was not in his thoughts. What mattered to him was the now. He lived for the moment. He lived to satisfy his fleshly appetite. A bowl of soup was more valuable to him than a relationship and a fellowship with God. He was, as my former pastor Andrew Kamiga said, the Marlboro man. Some of you children might not know who the Marlboro man The Marlboro company was a cigarette company and they had as their ad man a cowboy that had a leather face and a rugged individual and a chain-smoking cowboy. That was, I mean, you're a rugged individual if you smoke our brand. That was the idea. You're a John Wayne kind of person. You're a macho, macho man. The Marlboro man. Well, that was Esau. He was the Marlboro man. He was an outdoors man. He could tell tall tales about his adventures out in the wilds, and he did, I'm sure, to his children and grandchildren, and they begged him to tell more, tell us more. He could tell them all about his adventures. He could give them tall tales, but he never talked to them about God, and he never truly prayed in their presence. All he ever gave his family was tall tales. His was not a life well-lived. It was godless, it was unholy, it was profane, it was irreligious, it was wicked. Now the preacher talks in verse 17 how it ended in tears for the Marlboro man. Verse 17, for you know that afterward when he desired to inherit the blessing he was rejected For he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears. Now this text has posed some difficulties for the translators. Who do we associate the repentance with? By the way, repentance simply means to change one's mind. The ESV connects it to Esau. And they've taken the position that it was too late for repentance in Genesis 27. But I think the American Standard Version has probably got this one right. They associate the repentance with Isaac. Remember, repentance means to change one's mind. And you remember in Genesis 27, Esau is in tears and he is begging his father to bless him. and Isaac will not do it because now Isaac is reconciled to the sovereign will of God and he's not going to fight God anymore. This is how the American Standard Version translates verse 17, for you know that even when he afterward desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected for he found no place for a change of mind in his father, though he sought it diligently with tears. One thing is for certain, we mustn't come to this verse and think that Esau was repentant and God was reluctant to welcome and to receive a repentant sinner. Esau never repented of his sins. He was never repentant. if anything he was harder in his sin on the other side of this event because you remember he planned to kill his brother Jacob. That's not the sign of a repentant man. If he had been truly repentant, he would have sought to find a place under his brother's wing. He would have sought a place under what would be known as Israel, but he doesn't seek that. He doesn't desire that. He never repented of his sin. He was never sorry for his sin. What he was sorry about was the consequences of his sin. That's what he was sorry about. And even though the Marlboro man pleaded and he begged, he could not have what he had thrown away earlier with two hands. And there's a warning in this. We mustn't throw away the spiritual blessings of the gospel for this present world. The person who does that will someday weep like Esau, but there will be no altering the loss. And isn't there a warning here for young people who are raised in the church, not to think that the central world is where it is at. The world can only give you a share in its judgment in the future, and the scalding tears of hell can never change that. Christ is the only one who is big enough and great enough to satisfy these hearts of ours. and to satisfy our hearts in time and in eternity. So don't turn away from the gospel that is preached in this church. But it isn't just young people who need the warning of Esau. Those of us who are getting old and maybe in danger of losing our zeal and because of the godlessness of the culture, maybe even being tempted today to round off the sharp edges of certain doctrine. I mean, Josh Harris actually came to the point where he is apologizing to the homosexual community for the things that he wrote and for the things that he taught at one time. I'm sure that he didn't get there overnight. that there was a rounding off of the edges of those sharp doctrines that went on for a long time. And so those of us who are older and maybe we're losing some of our zeal, maybe we are tempted because of the godlessness of the time to take the sharpness off of certain doctrines. to find our place more comfortable in this world, to fit into the slippers, as it were, of this world. The world is real, isn't it? The world is like Delilah, the seductress, and the Christian is like Samson, and there is a real danger, and there's a real threat in being drawn into the embrace of this prostitute. called the world or Babylon. And it's not just that the world is real, the Esau within us is real. That's how my former pastor put it and what he meant by that is that we have the remnant of remaining sin in us and it's very Esau-like, isn't it? And the battle against our remaining sin is a daily battle and we have to fight that battle. And we have to fight against the spirit of the age, which is to be tolerant of all manner of evil. We have to fight that battle by being a Bible-dependent people and a prayerful people, don't we? In fact, James tells us that the way that we are to respond to the word of God, even those doctrines with sharp edges, is to welcome that word, to give a welcome to it like a host or hostess would welcome somebody into their home. We are to welcome the word. We are to receive the word in that spirit because that implanted word, James says, can save us. That is how we are to meet the danger of the present hour. And then we must not neglect the Lord's Day and worshipping with a confessional church. The chill of secularism needs to be countered by the spiritual warmth of the spirit who delights to manifest both light and warmth through the corporate gatherings of the church. Sometimes we come to church and there is The air just seems to be still, and there are other Lord's Days where you just really sense the stirrings of the Spirit, and not all Lord's Days are the same, are they? But the fact is, is that the spirit of God still is working through the context of the gathered church on the Lord's day, where the word is faithfully preached, where people gather to sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and to pray to the Lord and to come to the Lord's table and so forth. The spirit of God is still pleased to come into those contexts and to strengthen his people and to communicate grace to his people. And sometimes there are powerful stirrings of the spirit that take place that make the world look to be as shallow as it is. I remember being in a wedding back in 1998. And it was an extraordinary night. It was a Christian wedding. It was a Christian worship service. The whole wedding had been designed as a worship service. And there was a faithful exposition of the word of God, and there was the singing of good hymns, and there was earnest, zealous prayer that was offered that night. And people commented afterwards what a sense of God's presence we had tonight. I can remember it vividly, and my parents were there that night with me, and I remember that they couldn't stay for the reception. They were there for the ceremony, but they had to cut out immediately afterwards because they had a couple of friends in town that had bought some tickets to the grandstand show of a very famous country western singer that was singing at the fairgrounds that night, and so they left after that worship service and they went over to the show and my mom said to me the next day that having been in the place of worship where the spirit was so working that that show seemed to be so shallow and so empty afterwards. So let's pray that the Lord would be pleased to bless us and meet with us in powerful ways, in public worship. Pray for yourself, pray for the preacher. And let us ask the Lord Jesus to pray for us. Isn't that what we did earlier when we sang that hymn in the hour of trial? In the hour of trial, Jesus, plead for me. lest by base denial I depart from thee, when thou seest me waver, with a look recall, nor for fear or favor suffer me to fall. Amen. Our Father, we thank you for this passage from Hebrews. We thank you for the grace design for which you put it in the Bible. And we pray that that grace design would be realized today in our experience. And we pray, too, that you would bless the grace design that you have in the Lord's Supper as we come in a moment to the table of the Lord. We pray that we would have fellowship with the triune God. For we pray it in Jesus' name, amen.