Friends, God's will for you as a Christian is that you be confident in your relationship with Him. And God's will for you as a Christian is that you be extremely careful about your relationship with Him. God wants you to be confident in Him that you might know that He loves you, that you might know that He's never going to leave you. But a Christian should never reach a point where we become so comfortable that we think, well, I'm immune from ever walking away from Jesus. I won't ever fall into great sin. I won't ever deny my Lord. I'll never leave him. See, God wants his children to be carefully, daily watching their own hearts. Lest our hearts fall in love with this world instead of Jesus, and then lead us away from him. The song that we sang is just right. We ought to be praying, prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Bind my wandering heart to Thee. So in Hebrews chapter three, our Lord makes a parallel between the experience of His people, the Israelites, in the wilderness, and the experience of believers today in the church of Jesus Christ. The Israelites had gotten off to a good start. And God with a mighty hand had saved them from Egypt. God had parted the Red Sea. They walked through on dry ground. But for the first generation of believers in the wilderness, or Israelites in the wilderness, they had a good start, but they didn't have a good ending. Because as they walked through the wilderness and the challenges that it brought, they would not trust God. And so for almost all of that first generations of Jews, they ended up dead in the wilderness instead of in the promised land. And so our Lord here in Hebrews takes that historical example and he applies it to the church of Jesus Christ in the form of a sober warning to us. And many of us here in church today, if you're in church today, that probably means that you've gotten off to a good start. You've heard the good news of Jesus. He died for you and he rose from the dead. And that he gives eternal life as a gift to whoever believes. Probably if I, if we took a poll, almost everybody in the room has made some sort of personal profession of faith in Jesus Christ, where we would say, yes, that's, I love Jesus, I follow him. We're off to a good start by the fact that we're here. And God promises eternal life in heaven to all who believe in him. It is a glorious future that we're on our way to. But we are not in heaven yet. In between our good start, our profession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and the glorious ending of God's eternal rest, every believer must first cross through a barren wilderness in which our faith will be tested See, this Christian life is hard. It's full of tests, and there are many who begin the journey gladly professing faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who do not make it to the end. There are many who say at one point in their lives, I love Jesus, I wanna follow him, who will not be with us in heaven. Will you be in heaven when you come to the end of this life? Or will you be like the children of Israel whose unbelief kept them from entrance into the promised land? I put on your sheets there at the beginning a summary of this passage. I was gonna summarize what it's about, what the point of it is, what God's urging us today. It's this, keep trusting in the Lord. Keep trusting in the Lord through the wilderness of this life so that you can enter his rest at the end of this life. Okay, here's how the author of Hebrews is going to make his point in Hebrews chapter three. First, he's going to simply quote Psalm 95. He's gonna quote Psalm 95 and then he's going to take Psalm 95 and he's going to apply it to those of us who are in the church of Jesus Christ. So let's start with the quote, Psalm 95, the point of Psalm 95 that he quotes is, don't harden your hearts when God speaks like the Israelites did. Don't harden your hearts when God speaks like the Israelites did. Look here at Hebrews chapter 3. I'll start in verse 6. One verse before Noah started reading. So we looked at this last time we were together in Hebrews. Hebrews 3, 6. It says Christ is faithful over God's house as a son. And we are his house. If indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope. Then verse seven, therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion on the day of testing in the wilderness. In verse seven, the author of Hebrews introduces a quote of Psalm 95 by saying, as the Holy Spirit says. That's interesting, it teaches us a couple of things. One, it shows us that everything that we find in scripture is the word of the Holy Spirit. When I come to the Old Testament or the New Testament, I open it up, this is God, the Holy Spirit, speaking to me. Also, that shows us that the Holy Spirit is God. Because this is the word of God, and when he says, he just picks a passage from the word of God and says, as the Holy Spirit says, it shows us that the Holy Spirit is God. Well, what is it that the Holy Spirit has to say to us today? Hebrews 3, verses 7 through 11, is basically a word-for-word quotation of Psalm 95, 7 through 11. If you were to flip back to Psalm 95 in your Bibles and compare across, most of the differences you see there are just translational differences. Basically, he's just quoting the Psalm to us and saying, this is for us. There is one thing that you would notice, though, as you If you were to go back to Psalm 95 and compare it to what we read in Hebrews 3. There's a change that's made from the original into ours. The original has place names. So in Psalm 95 it says today if you hear his voice don't harden your hearts as at Meribah. as on the day at Massa in the wilderness. So the original, he says, hey, don't harden your hearts like they did at Meribah and Massa, where in Hebrews, he says, don't harden your hearts as in the rebellion, as in the day of testing. Why is there a change there? We can pick up on that pretty easily if we just go back and read the historical account. Okay, so hold your finger here in Hebrews and turn back with me to Exodus. So both the psalmist and the author of Hebrews are quoting from Exodus and events that happened there. So Exodus is the second book of the Bible. Let's turn there together. Exodus chapter 12. These are key events in your Bibles. It's fun. So I was talking to Christy. Christy Doherty teaches our TNT kids and she just taught on this passage in her, in the Juana. And then today in my ABF, we read from numbers and we're gonna be reading from numbers. So it's fun how the Lord brings it all together. But anyway, so Exodus, we're going to Exodus. Exodus chapter 12, what happens is the Israelites have been captives in Egypt for 400 years. And in Exodus 12, God leads them out. And then in Exodus chapter 14, God parts the Red Sea. And we do not see this as some kind of metaphor or exaggeration or something, but like there's a body of water, the Israelites cross on dry land, and the army of Pharaoh follows them through and then drowns. I mean, what a deliverance. Okay, Exodus chapter 15, they're just singing songs on the other side, having seen God's deliverance of them. Look at Exodus chapter 15, verse 21. Miriam is Aaron and Moses' sister. Exodus 15, 21, and Miriam sang to them, sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. But look at what happens next. Exodus 15, 22. Then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea and they went into the wilderness of Shur. They went three days into the wilderness and found no water. When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter. Therefore they named it Marah. And the people grumbled against Moses saying, what shall we drink? And he cried to the Lord and the Lord showed him a log and he threw it into the water and the water became sweet. I don't see this as something like scientific properties of the log, but just the water is not drinkable and the Lord does a miracle for them. He makes it so that they can drink the water he provides for them. It says, there the Lord made for them a statute and a rule, and there he tested them, saying, if you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commands, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, your healer. Okay, so three days into the wilderness, after they crossed the Red Sea miraculously, Three days in the wilderness, they run out of water, and immediately they start complaining. God heals the water there, and then he gives them this lesson. He's trying to teach them right at the beginning of their relationship, listen, what you need to do is just trust me. Just trust me, I'll take care of you. If you're gonna have needs, I'll meet them for you. Listen to what I say and trust me. Okay, you get to chapter 16, verse two. So we have not moved very far. Now they run out of food. Exodus 16 verse 2, And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the people of Israel said to them, Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full. For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. Now they're struggling with this whole trust the Lord thing, right? But God is patient with them, they're just starting this journey. And so, as he did with the water, he miraculously provides food for them. And so from at this point in the story, even though they don't really ask him to, they just complain. The Lord starts to miraculously give them food every day. So they get up in the morning, and as the dew dries off the land, in its place, there's bread, manna. And every day now, for 40 years, they're gonna walk through the wilderness, and they're gonna go and they're gonna pick up bread that God sends them from heaven. He's teaching them, listen, you trust in me, I'll meet your needs. Okay, now we're ready for the Masa and Meribah story that the psalmist is talking about. So go to Exodus 17. Still early in their time in the wilderness. Exodus 17, one. All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of sin by stages, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim. But there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people said, how we can trust God? He gave us water one other time. That's not what it says, does it? Look what does happen. They don't have water. Therefore, verse two, the people quarreled with Moses and said, give us water to drink. And Moses said to them, why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord? But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst? So Moses cried to the Lord, What shall I do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me. And the Lord said to Moses, Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the 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 shall come out of it and the people will drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massa and Meribah because of the quarreling of the people of Israel and because they tested the Lord by saying, is the Lord among us or not? So you see, Meribah means rebellion or quarreling. Massa means testing. They named the place after the quarreling and the testing of God that happened amongst the people there. So Psalm 95 just leaves the names of the places and Hebrews 3 translates them. Okay, come back with me to Hebrews chapter three again. So the command of the Lord to whoever you are, whether you're an Old Testament person reading Psalm 95 in the old days or a Christian reading it now, the command of the Lord is, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts So what he's saying is that the Israelites' problem was they were hardening their hearts. Well, in what way are they hardening their hearts? If you think about it, God keeps, he keeps delivering them and they just, they don't learn. They don't take to heart what God is teaching them. Right? So they, I mean, God delivers them from Egypt by a mighty hand. He parts the waters. They walked through on the dry land. And now, now like God gave them water twice when they didn't have water. And he gives them food every morning. For the Israelites in the wilderness, I just can't imagine the visual nature of their relationship with God. So for them, in the middle of the camp, like you get up in the morning, you look towards the middle of the camp, and there's a pillar of cloud, because God's presence is there. Or you get up at night, and look towards the middle of the camp, they can see a pillar of fire, like Yahweh lives in our midst. And yet, He speaks and they harden their hearts. They just keep thinking, well, God's out to get us, right? So they're walking through the wilderness and every time something bad happens, every time something hard happens, they think, oh, here it is. I knew God just brought us out here to kill us. Instead of like, wait, I should be learning that God cares for us. He always meets our needs. And He's going to do it now. They don't accept that lesson of God's goodness. They harden their hearts. And God just wants them to trust Him. And they won't. And their hardness of heart stays with them for 40 years. Look at Hebrews 3, verse 7. Hebrews 3, 7. Don't harden your hearts, verse 8. As in the rebellion, as in the... in on the day of testing in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for 40 years. Okay, so the command of the passage from Psalm 95 in Hebrews is don't harden your hearts like they did. Now, what we're gonna see next in the next couple of verses is why that would be bad. Maybe only this part far into the story, you're like, well, you know what? It's working out fine for them. Their hearts are hard, but God just always forgives them and gives them what they need. Well, we're going to find in the next few verses three reasons why it's bad to harden your heart when God speaks. The first negative result of a hard heart is this. Letter A on your sheets. Their hard heart stirred up God's anger against them. Eventually, their hard heart stirred up God's anger against them. Look there at chapter 3 verse 10. It says, therefore, I was provoked with that generation. This word provoked is only used here in the New Testament, the Greek word for it, but in the Greek translation of the Old Testament that the author of Hebrews used as his daily Bible, this word provoked came up all the time in the Old Testament. And if you look back at where this word is used in the Old Testament, you get a sense for what does it mean when it says God is provoked with them? Okay, usually, in the Old Testament, where you find this word provoked, it means, it's translated to loathe or to abhor something or someone. In fact, in Leviticus, this word provoked means to vomit something out, out of sheer disgust. So, the Lord is provoked by the fact that they just won't trust him. They keep hardening their hearts. Okay, why is it bad? Why was it bad for them to harden their hearts? Well, first, it stirred up God's anger against them. Secondly, hardening their hearts, it kept them from knowing God's ways. Hardening their hearts against God's goodness to them, it kept them from knowing God's ways. Look at verse 10. He says, therefore, I was provoked with that generation and said, they always go astray in their heart. They have not known my ways. If you were to translate that a little more word for word it reads, always wandering is the heart and they did not know my ways. What does the Lord want from you if you're his child this morning? He wants a heart that doesn't wander from him. He wants you to learn and know his ways. How does a person go about learning and knowing God's ways? There's a couple of things you can do to learn God's ways. One, you can watch in your own life God's ways in working with you, and you can see his goodness to you, and you can learn to trust him in that. The problem with that, with learning God's ways from my own life, is that my story's only half done, and I don't know how it's gonna end. So that's not the only way to learn God's ways. God's given us another way to learn his ways. He's given us his word. So you can learn God's ways and learn to know him by looking at scripture. And the advantage of looking at scripture is those stories are complete. And so not only do we see God starting the story, but we see how he ends the story and it teaches us about him. So just take any part of scripture and look at it. And this is something we can do day to day. As Jesus' followers, we can open up his word and just as we're opening it up, say, oh God, I wanna know you, I wanna learn your ways. So today will you teach me your ways? Maybe you open up your Bible and you read the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, right? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, you can learn about God's ways. God doesn't always make it easy for us, right? They got taken captive out of their land, got thrown into a fiery furnace, but with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, we have the whole story, and so we would also learn about God's ways by seeing God go into the fire with them, and deliver them, and bring praise to himself from a pagan king, right? If you wanna know God's ways, read his word, and ask him to show you what he is like and what he does. Psalm 25 verses eight to 10 just speaks to us directly about what God's ways are. Look at what Psalm 25 says about God's ways. Good and upright is the Lord. Therefore, he instructs sinners in the way. He leads the humble in what is right and he teaches the humble his way. All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies. If you've learned the Lord's ways by looking at scripture and then by examining your own life, what can come from it is you get yourself in a difficult time and you can say, okay God, I have read and I know your ways. I know that all of your paths are steadfast love and faithfulness. And so this that I'm going through is really hard. It's really hard, but I know, God, that you put your people through tests, but you're always faithful and steadfast. And so I'm gonna trust you because I've learned your ways. This is what God wants from us. He wants us to look at his word, learn his ways, and then trust him. God had showed his good ways to the Israelites over and over and over again. He showed his kindness and his mercy to them and he met their needs even though they kept saying, oh, you brought us out here to kill us. And yet through all of this, they never learned his ways. In fact, the Israelites in the wilderness, they respond to each new trial with fresh unbelief. Now here it is, here it is. I told you, I told you God's against us. I told you he wasn't good. I told you he wouldn't come through for us. Always wandering is the heart. And they did not know my ways. Why was it so bad for them to harden their hearts? First, it stirred up God's anger against them. Second, it kept them from knowing his ways. And third, it made him swear that they would not enter his rest. Their hard heartedness caused him eventually to swear that they would not enter his rest. Look at verse 10 of Hebrews chapter three. So end of verse 10 it says, they always go astray in their heart and they have not known my ways. And then verse 11, as I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. Okay, now what we've done, we've skipped ahead in the Old Testament account to the crowning moment of Israel's unbelief in the wilderness. And that is in Numbers 14. So hold your finger here in Hebrews and go back to Numbers. Okay, Numbers in your Bible, it's the fourth book of the Bible. So Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers. Where we're at in Numbers, the Israelites have been going through the wilderness and they've come up now on the border of the promised land. And the Lord has said, this is the land I'm gonna give you. They're right on the edge. And so what they do is they decide to send 12 spies in to the land and kind of check it out. Figure out where the cities are they're gonna have to conquer and what, it's a land, bountiful. The 12 spies come back and they bring a report. What they say is, the land is flowing with milk and honey. It's a bountiful land. It's good, it's fertile, it's beautiful. The other thing they say is, this land is so well defended. Like it's full of enemies. There's these tall and mighty cities, and they have walls around them that are huge. And not only that, but the people in the cities are huge, that we would have to conquer if we want this land. In fact, look at Numbers chapter 13, verse 33. The spies are giving the report. They say it's good there, but there's huge walls, there's huge people. Verse 33, they said, and there we saw the Nephilim. The sons of Anak who come from the Nephilim, and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them. Okay, what's the people's response gonna be? 12 spies come back and say, oh, it's a beautiful land, but oh, so many enemies. Numbers 14, then all the creation, all the congregation, Numbers 14, one, all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, would that we had died in the land of Egypt or would that we had died in this wilderness? Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt? And they said to one another, let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt. Okay, now there's two of the spies, Joshua and Caleb, that object. They say, no, no, no, no. The Lord is with us. Don't fear them. The Lord is with us. He's given us, given them into our hands. Let's trust him. You know what the congregation's response was to the Joshua and Caleb when they said, hey, we gotta trust God? Look at 1410. Here's what the congregation thought about the advice that we had to trust the Lord. Then all the congregation said, to stone them with stones. Joshua and Caleb, you don't know what you're talking about. We're gonna die. We can't trust God. Let's kill these men. Okay, Hebrews 3 says, the Lord was provoked with that generation. Until now, the Lord had been giving them more and more chances. They would grumble and complain and not trust him, and he'd still meet their need. They'd grumble and complain and meet their need, but now the Lord's patience has come to an end. The first thing the Lord says in Numbers is, I'm gonna destroy them all and start over with you, Moses. Moses says, no, Lord remember your promises to Abraham. Don't destroy them all. And so the Lord responds in this way. Look at Numbers 14, 20. Then the Lord said, I have pardoned. What he means by that is I'm not going to wipe them all out right now. I have pardoned according to your word, but truly as I live and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness and yet have put me to the test these 10 times and have not obeyed my voice shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it. Go down to verse 28. Say to them, as I live, declares the Lord, what you have said in my hearing, I will do to you. Your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. And of all your number listed in the census from 20 years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, not one shall come into the land where I swore that I should make you dwell, except Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua, the son of Nun. And that's exactly what happened in the story. The Israelites went back into the wilderness and they wandered around for 40 years. They just went in circles for 40 years until they all, that whole generation died. Until everybody who was 20 years older is buried in the wilderness. They just have to wait. God says, you wouldn't believe me. And so I'm not gonna let you into my land. I'm not gonna bring you to a place of rest. The Lord swears, as I live, none of this generation will enter the promised land. Go back with me to Hebrews 3. So far, our author has just quoted Psalm 95. Now what he's going to do is he's going to apply Psalm 95 to followers of Jesus. To Christians today. Okay, so we're just gonna walk through his application to us. What he's gonna say is, this isn't just for the Jews to learn from, this story is for us to learn from, who follow Jesus. Okay, first application is this, letter A, watch your heart. Watch your heart, lest it causes you to walk away from God. Okay, look at Hebrews chapter three, verse 12. Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. What's the author of Hebrews saying? He's writing a letter to a church, to Christians that are gathered somewhere, and he says, brothers and sisters in the church of Jesus Christ, you are not immune to this same fate. He's writing a letter, but if he were preaching it, he'd look around the room, as it were, and say, each one of you needs to be careful that you do not fall away from the living God. See, trusting God through the wilderness, through the difficulty of our life, it takes active, careful attention to one's own heart. A person who is careless with what their heart is falling in love with A professing Christian who's careless about what his heart is trusting is in danger of walking away from his God. And the author of Hebrews knows what the Bible teaches about the security of the believer, right? The Lord has said, if he saves us, he's going to keep us. The author of Hebrews knows that. But how does God keep believers secure? Partially, he keeps us secure by means of us being alert to what's going on in our hearts. No Christian should ever come to the point where we think, oh, psh, I got this. I don't have to worry. Like, I'm a Christian. God saved me. I don't have to worry about my heart and what it's loving or which way I'm going. I don't have to, like, I'm good. I'm guaranteed heaven. And then just stop paying attention to our hearts. No Christian should ever be there. If you know Christ, yes, you are secure in Christ, and yes, the Father holds you, and you ought to rejoice in it, but at the same time, he says, take care, brothers, take care, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. Fall away, I'm not quite sure why they translated it like that, it's walk away, like an active thing. Be careful that your heart doesn't cause you to walk away from God. Christians need to have a resolve as we walk through this life that it's like, I know it's a wilderness. So, and I know from God's ways, there's gonna be things that come in this life that are gonna test me. And so a Christian needs to have a resolve as I walk through this life. Listen, no matter what comes tomorrow, maybe tomorrow's gonna be something that just really rocks my world. No matter what comes tomorrow, my heart belongs exclusively to Jesus Christ. So I will not love anything as much as I love him. No matter what happens tomorrow, when it gets hard and it might look hopeless, I will trust in him. Every professing Christian needs to pray, oh God, guard my heart, keep me from wandering away from you. A heart of faith is something that must be watched and protected as we walk towards eternity. Look at this verse from Proverbs chapter four, verse 23. It says, watch over your heart with all diligence for from it flow the springs of life. Friends, if you let your heart wander away from Christ, from trust in him, then soon you will find that you have left him. So the author of Hebrews is taking Psalm 95 and he's applying it to church. First, he says, watch your heart, lest it causes you to walk away from God. And I hope that as you're listening to this, what your thought is, listen, if there's anything that I want in this life, I want to stay true to Christ. So, how do I do it? Like, how do I watch my heart so that I don't wander away from Him? I don't want that. So, how? How can I watch my heart and stay true to believing in Him? That's what he's gonna talk about next. So, letter B on your sheets, second application of this is, every day, encourage one another to trust and obey the Lord. Every day, encourage one another to trust and obey the Lord. Look at verse 13. We'll start in 12. Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. but exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Christianity is not an individual endeavor. Christianity is a team endeavor. I wanted to say it's a team sport, but it's not a game, right? Because our eternal destiny and the eternal destiny of the people around us depends upon it. Okay, Christianity is a team endeavor. You can't play basketball by yourself against another team of five and expect to win, right? That's just not gonna happen. You can't play football, me against 11. You're just not going to succeed. And we as Christians are not meant to follow Jesus through this wilderness alone. That's not a plan for victory. Listen, Satan, your adversary, he is playing with a full team. He has not tied one hand behind his back. He is not playing. If Satan can do it, he will drag you to hell. And if he can't do that because of God's mercy in your life, then he wants to make you as miserable and ineffective as possible. And he's got it schemed up and he's got all of his resources aligned against you. How can you keep from being deceived by him and following your heart? Hebrews says, here's what you do. Surround yourself with people who are running hard after Jesus and then go after him together, right? Exhort one another day after day. Why? Because sin is deceitful and we're not careful, our heart will wander away and then our feet will follow. Richard Phillips gives an example of how sin's deceitfulness works, and it's just, boy, everything, that's what sin does, it lies, Satan lies. But I just thought this was a good example. Richard Phillips gives us one example of how sin's deceitfulness works. He says, consider the case of a man who is tempted to leave his wife and children for another woman. The sin seems so alluring. She is so much more wonderful than the plain old wife he's grown tired of. And she admires him so. She plays to his ego while his wife only nags him. She would be better for him, he thinks, despite the broken taboos. He will be better off and happier with the adulteress. People will understand. They will get over it. His children will ultimately be glad for him. It is, however all, however, a great deceit. He continues, it will not be more wonderful, for the problem in his marriage is his own heart, and he will soon get tired of his new lover as well. She admires him now, but will think of less of him when he loses his job, his reputation, his money, and his self-respect. His children will not get over it, but will bear scars and brokenness all the days of their lives. Sin says it will be better and he will be happy, but it is a deceit. He is stepping forward into misery and ruin, bringing disgrace upon himself. And if he is a Christian, scandal upon the church and even the name of Jesus Christ. Sin advertises pleasure, but brings pain." End quote. And so the author of Hebrews says, watch your heart. And how? He says, okay, here's what you do. You surround yourself with people who are gonna every day exhort you. Who are gonna come alongside you and say, no, brother, no. God has given you this wife. She is a gift from him. You love her. Invest in her. Find your satisfaction in the Lord and he will help you to love. We need people who are gonna come alongside of us and say, listen, God, what you're thinking is a lie. Don't listen to your deceitful heart. You've got to go God's way. And if I don't have a crowd of people around me helping me, I might not keep going. This is God's plan. He says, listen, you every day exhort one another. So internet church is not sufficient to keep you from walking away from Christ. Half-hearted, half-time attendance at a church where no one really knows you is not sufficient to keep you from walking away from Christ. To guard your heart against the deceitfulness of sin, to keep you from walking away from the living God, you need to surround yourself with people who are following hard after Jesus, and when you're hurting, they'll come alongside and say, brother, let's go. We need that, we all do. Psalm 95, he's applying it to us. First he says, watch your heart, watch your heart or it'll cause you to walk away from God. Secondly, every day encourage one another to trust and obey the Lord. Okay, his first two applications of the Psalm were exhortations to us. This third application is more theology. The third thing he says here is this, only those with enduring faith in Christ will enter into God's eternal rest. Only those with enduring faith in Christ will enter into God's eternal rest. See it there, it's in verse 14. Hebrews 3, 14, he says, for we have come to share in Christ if indeed we hold to our original confidence firm to the end. See, perseverance proves the profession. Perseverance proves the profession. How do you know if someone has come to know Jesus? If they've come to share in Him while you wait and you watch, those who are sharers in Jesus Christ hold on to their confidence firm until the end. Now, okay, friends, the author of Scripture is not telling us here that, oh, I'll always be afraid. I'm not his. The author of Hebrews is not saying that we Christians aren't gonna face times of doubt, because we do. There's questions that come to our minds. Like, is this real? Am I his? Right, some of that's just Satan that's gonna cause us to doubt. That comes, right? What he's talking about here is, huh, what do I do with it? Do I keep trusting Christ? Right? He's saying, look, there's a person that is a sharer in Christ. God's going to hold on to him. He's going to be able to keep trusting. Until the end. Through the wilderness. Okay. So the Israelites They were associated with God, but the Israelites never really trusted God. They didn't have faith. And you can tell that they didn't have faith in two ways. One, they didn't have faith, and you could tell because of the way they responded to difficulty. Because every single time something happened, they said, oh God, God isn't good. He doesn't love us. So you could see in their lives their lack of faith. Another way you could tell that they didn't really trust God was the fact that they ended up dead in the wilderness instead of safe in the promised land. Okay, verses 16 through 19 are just a review of their condition and their destiny. So look there. He's just going over this with us again in case we missed it. Hebrews 3, 16. For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for those 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? So we see they were unable to enter because of unbelief. If we have that same condition, unbelief, then we will have that same destiny. We will not be allowed into God's eternal rest. Okay, so what's the application of this to us? It's back in verse 15, the author pulls it out of the psalm and repeats it, just so we get this is the point. Look back to verse 15, and what he's saying is, the reason he pulls it out of the psalm and says it again, is he's talking to the church, and he says, we need this exhortation too. So verse 15, he says, as it is said, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion. But faith is what we need, not a hard heart. Maybe you're here today and you're like, I've never begun, right? Do you know Jesus Christ died for you and he wants to be your God? He's got good for you, you can learn his ways. It starts with a simple faith saying, Jesus, I trust you. I know it's gonna be hard, I hear it, but I'm gonna trust you with my life. That's an invitation he gives to all of us. Don't harden your heart, today is the day to listen and respond. Also, I think there's hope in this. Not all the Israelites died in the wilderness, right? There were two who believed. There was Joshua, there was Caleb, and those two made it to the promised land. Not because they were special, but because they trusted. God saw it, he blessed them. This is a relationship with Jesus Christ is very simple. He offers us rescue. He offers us an eternal relationship because he died in our place. And so it begins with me coming to Jesus and just saying, God, I trust you. Will you save me? And he does. And then it continues now through the rest of this life, it's a wilderness and there's gonna be tests. It continues as I walk through this wilderness where things come and I say, oh God, in this, I trust you. And something else comes. I say, Oh God, I'm not going to let go. I want to keep trusting You. You are my hope. Watch my heart. I want to trust in You. Until the end. When He gives us our final reward. So where's your heart today? This was the, people were asking me this week. I was talking to people from other places and they always say, well, what can I pray for you, brother? And I think, ah. Does that happen to you? Anyway, so I was talking to someone. He said, well, how can I pray for you? And my answer was, pray for my heart, right? Because my heart can love the wrong things. And I can start to trust in the wrong things. And I want my heart, because God can see it. I want my heart to be trusting in God alone. May God guard me against a hard heart. And so that's my encouragement to you. Let God examine your heart. And if there's something in there that's not right, just admit it to him, put your faith in him, he's gonna help you. But it's so important for us as Christians to be watching our heart, to be guarding our heart, so that we stay with him through the difficulties of this life. Until the end, we're gonna get the reward. Let's pray. Oh God, only you can work in humans' hearts. And so many of us in this room, you have softened our hearts to your good news, and it's a gift, and we're thankful. And so we just pray that you would hold on to us and Lord if there's anything that is a stray in our hearts if we're trusting or running after something instead of you may we just drop that and look to you trust in you for whatever we're going to face this week and and until the time when you return and bring us to your promised land we pray these