This time we will have a message from God's word. If you would turn to Hebrews chapter three. I have greatly enjoyed the book of Hebrews. It's the sixth sermon. We'll be completing chapter three today. I was particularly pleased to hear this morning's sermon on matters of the heart. Our heart fails us in many ways. And often it's like going down a road. You have two ditches, one on each side. And this morning we heard about the ditch of when your heart is wilting, when you stand self-condemned, when your heart wrongly condemns you. And we heard of the remedy of reassuring ourself that God knows all and that God is stronger than our heart. I was smiling. I don't know if Sam, you could see me smiling in the back there because this evening also the Lord would teach us more about the heart. He'd teach us about the other ditch on the other side, that the heart can be hardened. that the heart can be set to stray in its own way. And there's a different remedy put forth this evening in Hebrews chapter three. The remedy is taking heed, being watchful over your heart and also exhorting one another while it is called today. So we have a heart that can wilt under pressure and under calamity. We also have a heart that goes astray, that can become stiff necked. Heart failure today is prominent in American life. There's six million people in the United States that suffer from heart failure. There's 900,000 new cases a year of heart failure. And heart failure isn't necessarily a full stop of the heart. It's the insufficiency of the heart to pump blood for the needs of the body. So it can be a reduction in its pumping ability as well as a full stop. We're often told to recognize the symptoms. I don't know about your workplace. We're told to recognize the symptoms of shortness of breath. We've had coworkers. I've been a first responder to someone who fell unconscious on the floor. And symptoms can include shortness of breath, coughing, fatigue, nausea, confusion. These are all signs that the heart physically is not operating as it should. Remedies are usually lifestyle changes, medications, devices, and surgery. Heart failure is a very scary thing. People do get our attention when they say, that is as serious as a heart attack. Yes, because it's a very serious matter. And yet, spiritual heart failure far exceeds in its danger and its conclusions, its repercussions than even physical heart failure. Spiritual heart failure, is the eternal consequences that arrive from it rather than simply temporal and rather than just a physical matter. And I'm not trying to downplay the action that needs to be taken with heart failure in the physical realm, but how much more so heart failure that sets God himself against you. How fearful when men would go astray from hearing his voice and God in anger would swear in his wrath that that door shall be closed and they shall never enter his rest. That is scary heart failure. The Bible is so wonderfully careful of our souls. If your heart is wilting, you have this morning's message for the remedy, for the way forward, for the comfort. If you find your heart going astray and being distracted this evening, We'll have a warning against that. We'll have remedies for that as well. Do you see a caring, loving shepherd guarding his sheep? Your hearts are like this. J.C. Ryle says that God has the prerogative, that he knows the depth of the human heart. We have something within us that we do not understand its own depth, but our heavenly father does. And so he gives us his word. So this evening, As a preparation for the Lord's table, we'll have a warning, a remedy, an awareness of spiritual heart failure. Let me read in your presence Hebrews 3, starting at verse 7. I'll read through verse 11. 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. where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for 40 years. Therefore, I was provoked with that generation and said, they always go astray in their heart. They have not known my ways. As I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. In these verses, we have a warning against spiritual heart failure. We can't miss it. The words are so very strong. The words are so grounded in history itself. Verse seven tells us that heart failure is a present concern. One of the great things about the author of Hebrews, you'll see, he says, therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, You know, a lot of times you'll hear the phrase, it was written, or you have heard. But the author of Hebrews is very consistent. The Holy Spirit says, God says, these words of the Old Testament are alive now. They are present now. There's not a relevancy issue here. The Holy Spirit says, do you see him taking from the Psalm? You know I opened the service with Psalm 95. This is the passage right here. Interesting that Hebrews 3, 7-11 is a repeat of Psalm 95, 7-11, even identical in those verses. But here we see the Holy Spirit says, he is present, he is active, he is relevant. If you read the scriptures and you're thinking, oh, that's nice, that was old history. That was Old Testament. That was a different time, and those principles applied then. I would say the author of Hebrews has a bone to pick with you. The Spirit says now God's truth, it's life. It's as live and conquering and piercing through bone and marrow today as it was 1,400 years ago when they rebelled in the wilderness, as it was 1,000 years ago under David when he quoted that psalm. In fact, actually, it's interesting, this passage is alive to four generations. You have the generation of people in the wilderness who actually the content of this verse speaks of those whose hearts were hardened in the wilderness. Then you have David giving it to his generation in Psalm 95. You have the author of Hebrews giving it to his generation in the first century. And now of course it comes to us. The spirit speaks to all generations. This passage identifies that for us. In this warning we see that heart failure requires urgency. You'll see the word today repeated It's three times in this passage, verse 7, verse 13 and 15. We'll get to those other two. When's the best time to protect yourself against heart failure? It's now. When's the best time to act if you see symptoms in a brother or a sister, someone at work? Best to act now. And therefore, he's very adamant in verse 7. Today, if you hear, Today, the Spirit says. Today, the voice of God. Today, do not harden your heart. Do you see the urgency? Is there a sense in which we can't just let it slide? We can't say, I'll have a little more of the world, and I'll just, I'll just, you know what, I want to walk on that edge like Lot. You know, Lot was a saved man, but he lived among sinners, and he just seemed to want to linger where he was at. You know, I'll just try and live that life. No, today, hear the Spirit. Do not harden your heart. It's a matter of urgency. Verses eight and nine, we see heart failure defined simply this, heart failure is resistance to God's voice. It's an insufficient response for the need of the good of your soul to God's word. It's not necessarily a full stop of your heart that you turn and you say, I won't believe God, but it can be an insufficient response to hearing his voice. It can be a little hardness, which is the beginning step. If you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. We actually get our word sclerosis from that, a hardening. Someone has sclerosis of the arteries or sclerosis of skin that just becomes hard as the body decays day by day. Again, the author takes from Hebrew, in this section of Hebrews, he takes from Psalm 95, it's the source. How do we hear God's voice? It was evident to the people in the wilderness. It was evident to David in the Psalm. It was evident to the Hebrews and now evident to us. We have to ask the question, how do we hear God's voice? Here we can line up today, Sunday school, morning worship, evening. How do we hear his voice? We hear it from his word, from the scriptures, being convinced of its truth by the power of the Holy Spirit. We hear it in the preaching by the people that God has appointed to bring forth his word. We hear it from conviction of the Holy Spirit. Maybe he enlivens us to a particular place in our life and scripture is now meeting that place and we hear the voice of God. Do you know what it is to be convicted by the word of God? Do you know what it is to desire some action and you know that the word of God tells you not to go after that action? even our own conscience. And we've been instructed well in this today too. Not the Jiminy Cricket, not follow your heart as our day and age would tell us, but a conscience educated by the word of God. You know, even if your conscience bears testimony against you, God is greater than your conscience. That was this morning. These are all ways that we hear God's voice. There is a response of hardness seen in these people's response to God. When they were in the wilderness in testing, They flipped it around. They tested God instead. And isn't that often the case when calamity comes? People often that have no thought of God's claim upon their life. And then something horrible happens, like Texas this last week. And they say, how can God allow that? Wait, wait, we've forgotten about God. We don't have the bearing of his law upon our hearts. We won't have anything to do with him altogether. And then when this happens, we say, God, how could you allow it? I'm not trying to minimize the pain and disaster there. We weep with those who weep. We would pray for safety for people in the United States. God is in favor of the wrongness and His laws tell us this is a wrong action that should not be taken. But do we hear His voice? We hear it in many ways. These people are particularly culpable because they saw the miracles of God. They saw the miracles in Egypt. They walked through the Red Sea. God's laws, put in stone and handed to them, were given to them. The fire by day, the cloud by night, the manna by morning, victories when Moses' arms would be raised up in battle. They saw so many of these things in 40 years. They saw them consistently. They saw God's goodness. And yet, they hardened their hearts In fact, we're even told that, as in the rebellion, on the day of testing, that's Meribah. Remember the water? We don't have water. It's actually, the word testing and the word put to the test are actually two words that are places in the Old Testament. One is Meribah, where the rock was struck to bring forth water. And the other was Masa, where they contended. They contended the point of winding stone, Moses himself. how quickly they forgot the miracles of God, and how quickly their hardness of heart became contempt of their leaders, and how their hearts moved them to murder. Once you're on that slippery slope, matters fall rather quickly. Even though they saw these miracles, they were full of fear, they complained, they were immoral, they were disobedient to the commands, they were greedy, they opposed the leadership, They even made agreements with the wicked without consulting the Lord in this time. Verses 10 and 11, we see not only is there a present concern and urgency and a definition here, but we see that there are fearful consequences. It's fearful when God himself is provoked. Eli tried to tell his sons, when you go against man, when you go against God, there's no man that can stand to bring these parties together. God judges those who go astray and who do not know his ways. That's how these people are described. And I find this phrase particularly fearful. He swears in his wrath. We probably read that wonderful part of Hebrews where it says, by an oath, God attended his promise with an oath that by two things we would have a tremendous encouragement in his saving hand towards us. And as much as that is a comfort, this is the other side of the spectrum. This is as much a fear that God would swear in his wrath that they shall never enter my rest. It's fearful when we walk our own way and won't enter in the gate that God would have for us to the point where God is provoked, where he closes that door and it's no longer an option. This is a fearful consequence of heart failure. Then all these things comprise a warning about spiritual heart failure. It should now pop up on our radar. Am I, in any sense, near the edge of spiritual heart failure? Because these are very severe consequences. Secondly, we have a remedy. Quick, let's get to the remedy. The remedy for heart failure, verses 12 through 15. 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. 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. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. As it is said today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion. So we have a twofold remedy here. And the first one is one that we apply to ourselves. We look at ourselves, we take care, we see to it, literally the word is see or behold. Take heed, some of your translations may have the word beware, but the idea is seeing and watching, being a watchman on the wall of your own heart. He gives us a reason. He says there's a reason we should be taking care, lest there be an evil, unbelieving heart. Some may take this, Wait a minute, if God elects his people on one hand, and they have an evil, unbelieving heart on the other hand, how can those two mesh? Well, it's a problem if you view these words in an absolute sense, that God has elected his people, and these people are fully evil, fully unbelieving, and the author is not saying that. In fact, the very context of the verse shows that this evil and unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living God. Do you see that we battle the influences in our own heart? It's not speaking in an absolute sense, it's saying, you still have indwelling sin. You're a new creature, you're a Christian, but you still have indwelling sin, and you need to do battle with that. And just a little side advice, this is something I have found over the years when I get perplexed per se between what God is to be doing in his election and our salvation and what we are to be doing. There was a time in my life where I put those two things together and I saw them conflicting. There's an easy way out of that conflict. Let God be responsible for what he declares he's responsible for and you be responsible for what you are to be responsible for. I don't know who's elected and who's not. God does and I can rest with that. It's not my responsibility to know who he has saved and who he has not. But it is my responsibility to labor, to follow after Christ, to beware of my own heart and the evil that's there and the unbelieving. Do you see, if we get confused about how these two things mesh, give it time. God brings forth a maturity and a greater understanding and a greater submission to it. But until you get to that point, I would commend you to look at what is your responsibility, and you follow your side of the equation. I'm an engineer, so I usually, you know, follow your side of the equation. Do those things that you're responsible for, and the error will clear. God will, I believe, will eventually bring in a new, depthy understanding. It's a great help. And so we have this remedy. It's twofold. First to ourself, be watchful, verse 12. Check your own heart. And here, isn't it wonderful? He even identifies what to look for in your own heart. You're looking for anything that is evil, anything that is unbelieving, anything that you have to fight, anything that is amiss from the word of God. And so it kind of helps you detect, okay, this is maybe it over here, maybe it's over here, this motive, this desire, this way I spend my time, these are things that I've got to look for for these traces that I might beware of it, that I might be watchful over it. There's also another factor about this first step of watching over yourself. Before you get to the second step of the remedy of exhorting others, you are best prepared when you've already dealt with your own heart. Have you ever talked with someone who wants to exhort you because you're the problem? They're everything that's right, and you're everything that's wrong? I would say that's a person who hasn't been properly prepared to exhort another person. But see, as you deal with your own heart, and you understand your own sin, and your own struggles, and relying upon Christ for that grace, that makes you a ready person by dealing with your own heart in dealing with the heart of another. Maybe one of the reasons we fear the second step of exhorting one another is because we too quickly polarize the picture into someone who thinks they're all right and I'm all wrong. And so we don't want to receive that. And there's two sides to work on. The person giving the exhortation needs to work on a loving, informed, even self-examined way of giving that exhortation. And the person receiving it has to look for the good, the biblical, the benefit of such an exhortation being given to them. And where's a great place to learn this? Right in the church, where one is instructed to look at their own heart and then give as service to their brethren and to bring forth an exhortation. Another person, all of us should be thinking in terms of, well, how can I best receive that exhortation? So there's the first part. The second part, verse 13, exhort one another every day. We know we have the phrase today in here three times. We also have this phrase every day. We are to exhort one another every day. And here's the real question, how do we winsomely exhort one another every day, now? This should be pressing upon our minds. There should be somebody on our radar every day. I would like to say a word to them. I would like to speak to them. Knowing the needs of my own heart, I would like to perhaps impart to them a blessing, an exhortation. If you picture yourself as two soldiers in the trenches together, you know, your perseverance, your preservation is also dependent on his fighting for you. And his preservation is you fighting for him. We should see ourselves locked together, especially in the church body, longing to exhort one another so we'd be ready soldiers to serve Christ, to protect one another, to be active, to avoid being hardened, to avoid walking and starting down that path of an evil and unbelieving heart. We've got to get over a love-hate relationship with accountability. I've heard brethren, and I agree with them, oh, I want to be in a church where there's accountability, where if I go astray, they're going to catch me. If I'm off and I'm not showing up for service, they're going to come after me. I want to be in a church that has that kind of accountability because I want to serve Christ. And you let a couple years go by, and someone actually approaches them, and it's like, well, who are you? Who are you to tell me I'm supposed to be at such and such a place and time? That sounds legalistic. And we have this strange love-hate relationship with accountability, which perhaps even shows that a little bit of that hardness of heart has already settled in. We talk about a deceitfulness of sin in this passage. And sometimes we parade freedom when really what we're succumbing to is hardness of heart and deceitfulness of sin. We know the social side of exhortation is very powerful, can be very helpful. There's the fear side, isn't there, of accountability. If others knew what I was really doing, boy, the social pressure would just be overwhelming to me. I don't think I could hold my head up again with that. But you know what? There's a very positive side to social pressure, if you want, or I had another phrase for it, the social side of exhortation. Most of us know the fear side, and we chide ourselves with that, wow, if this ever became known. But there's also the camaraderie side. Now, I remember in my university days, I used to play intramural volleyball. And there was great sense of camaraderie, to fight together, to block together, to know who your setter is, you play to your strength, they play to their strength. And that exhortation, come on, let's go nail them, was a way of getting the group together. There was a camaraderie. And so, again, you have this exhort one another as a horizontal way of encouraging one another to do battle against an evil and unbelieving heart. Here again, we're directed, just as in the personal examination, we're directed to look for evil and unfaithfulness, unbelieving heart, Here also we're told as we exhort one another to be addressing the deceitfulness of sin. You know, something about deceitfulness of sin, it's easier for other people to see your sin than it is to see your own. A lot of times doesn't that get translated into perceiving a great hypocrisy on the part of some. You've got all that wrong and you're telling me that I'm being deceived by sin? It's part of the principle that deceitfulness of sin, we're blind to it, But someone else can see it readily. And we can see it readily in others when they're blind to it. So we need a measure of grace as we come to exhort one another. By the way, this word exhort, it's a great word. We probably over-polarized this word, exhort. It does mean to charge. It does mean to rebuke. But you know what? The core of this word is to come alongside. It's not me standing on a tower and pointing down, or you standing up on a tower pointing at me. It's to come alongside. It actually has the side meanings also of encouragement. We actually polarize those two words, don't we? Exhortation is hard and telling you what to do, and encouragement is soft and doesn't quite have the strength to carry us through. Well, here's a word that actually combines both those elements. And in its almost literal sense, it's coming alongside. And if you picture yourself exhorting someone, Can you readily see yourself coming alongside to be a strength to them? That should greatly temper what our exhortation to other people entails. In this remedy for heart failure, we have reassurance. Oh, where does that sound familiar? 1 John 3 19, this morning's sermon. But we have reassurance in verse 14. For sharing Christ is known by holding confidence firm. This is how we gain that confidence We saw that some in the desert, seeing these wonderful miracles of God, had a horrible example. But you know what, at the same time, and they're few, there's some great examples of those that were in the wilderness and obeyed God long-term, persevered. We see that when they first entered the wilderness, two men, notably, over the age of 20, when they started their 40-year journey, were the only two that we know of that made it out of that 40-year journey. And that was Joshua and Caleb. I like this guy, Caleb. If you guys, if you're ever thinking about age and how age gets you down, listen to this guy, Caleb. He's a firebrand. Let me read to you this good example of the wilderness. Someone who is going to be a positive example for us of holding their confidence firm to the end. Joshua 1410 we're told this the following about Caleb and now this is him speaking and now behold the Lord has kept me alive just as he said these 45 years since the time the Lord spoke this word to Moses while Israel walked in the wilderness And now behold, I am this day 85 years old. I am still as strong today as I was in the day Moses sent me. My strength now is a strength as it was then for war and for going and for coming. Now give me this hill country of which the Lord spoke on that day for you heard on that day how the Anakim were there with great fortified cities. It may be that the Lord will be with me and I shall drive them out just as the Lord said. Caleb's a wild guy. He's old, he's bold, and he's ready to take hold of the land that God had promised him 40 years earlier. This is a guy who's 85. I don't know, my own picture of myself is a walker at 80. Well, this challenges me to look beyond and to seek to be faithful through those years. Is Caleb confident? Oh, yes. Was he hardened? No, he'd been doing battle against that. He's ready to go fight. I mean, those giants are still in the land. And 45 years down the road, he's ready to go fight them. Are you thirsty for this kind of reassurance? Then exhort one another. Come up alongside your brothers and your sisters and surround yourself with brethren and not with the world. Thirdly, verses 16 through 19, we're given awareness about heart failure. Very interesting structure to this passage. Verse 16, 17, 18. It's three sets of questions. And the first question gives you the question. The second question answers the first question. Very interesting. Look for it as I read. Verse 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 40 years? Was it not those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom, it sounds like a catechism, doesn't it? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest? Some people imply a question mark there, but those to whom were disobedient, those who were disobedient. And so here we have an awareness. So you've seen the warning about spiritual heart failure. You've seen the remedy for spiritual heart failure. Now there's an awareness here that we need to take to heart. The awareness is this, that privilege, while it identifies the blessing, does not secure it. You can know and have great knowledge about the ways of God and not enter into heaven on that last day. Privilege identifies the blessing, but it doesn't secure it. Who rebelled? Was it not those who left Egypt, led by Moses? Those that came into a tremendous new freedom. They're the ones that, by the obstinacy of heart, by hardness of heart, came back into slavery that never entered that rest. The privileged people rebelled. Freedom from, think of all the the horrible conditions they were under. If you were a male, you were being slaughtered at birth by the Egyptian nation. You were set to be slaves, to make bricks. You were meant to be controlled. You were meant to be put down. You were meant to serve another man's purpose, to the giving up of your own life. And again, we talked of the miracles they saw, God defending them, a dry path through the Red Sea. They had a humble leader even, even though they rebelled against that leader. God does not lightly regard us presuming on his patience. God shows tremendous patience to these people, 40 years. We also see that privilege deepens our guilt if we harden our hearts. So privilege identifies the blessing but doesn't secure it and privilege deepens our guilt if we harden our hearts. In the light of such privilege, their disobedience was severely punished by God himself. God himself was provoked by them. They sinned and their bodies fell in the wilderness. Again that phrase, God swore that they would not enter his rest. Give a note to 19 before we leave this section of scripture. So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. Unbelief is a particular kind of sin. Men fall into, we fall into a variety of sins, don't we? But there's something of the severity of unbelief that provokes God to give a swearing of his wrath against them that they would not enter his rest. We should be twice as careful when we have a sin that involves unbelief. Some application as we come to the table today. And this word today, very prominent in this passage, today evaluate your heart. Take care, beware. Survey, take a survey of yourself. Take that first remedy step and examine your own heart. Look for signs of evil or unbelief. What are the commands of God that just seem hard to you? That just seems that's asking too much. Could be that's where your heart is hard. Could be that's the point of prayer and the point of battle in your life. Examine your own heart. Where have you perhaps delayed in following a known command of God? That could be hardness of heart as well. Before we partake of the Lord's table, we'll have a moment of silence. We use that moment for examining ourselves, looking at our own hearts. Secondly, pray and plan to exhort one another daily. You know, today we probably have more tools available to us to exhort one another daily than ever in the history. You can send a text, you can send an email, you can send a short voicemail, you can send a full call to somebody. Pray and plan to exhort one another daily. Start now. It says while it's today and every day, after reviewing yourself, be someone who comes alongside for others. Surely there's somebody on your radar that needs encouragement today. You know, I asked before this prayer meeting this evening, I said, you know, on the previous prayer meeting, I said, well, rather than saying what the prayer requests are and then praying them, I said, well, let's just go ahead and pray for them. And I asked two brothers, I said, what do you think of that? And one of them said, well, I like it when you give the request before because I write them down and Sunday's prayer request becomes, come, you know, show up on Monday's prayer list. So I'm convinced now I'll give the requests and then we'll go pray for them. It sounds, my engineering mind says, you know, okay, that could be a little more efficient if we could just pray for it. but with good sound reasoning like these two brothers gave me. But here, the same thing. We have tools available for us. We have a church calendar. You can pray for members of the church every day of the month and rotate through. That's awesome. That's great. It's very helpful. It's how we can pray. And on that list, someone will pop up where I'd like to send that person a message, a note. I'd like to exhort them, comfort them, come alongside them, be a blessing to them. Encourage others with what the Lord is teaching you. You know, there's even a place to admitting our faults to one another and saying, you know, I've struggled with this and that's how the Lord has recaptured me and recovered me. You know, that can be a blessing to someone else to hear that. And you know what, that can be good for your own heart as well, in terms of humility. And you find at the end of the day, when you say something like that, what you feared is that you might be shunned, but what you find in reality is you got a closer brother. You got a closer sister. You can now relate to each other a little more clearly. Let verse 19 ring in your ears as you pray and plan to exhort one another, because there's something particularly about this sin of unbelief that causes it to be a killing sin, that causes it to be a sin that turns God and provokes God against His people. When we come to this table, do we not mutually encourage one another at this table? We wait for one another as instructed in 1 Corinthians 11. This table isn't just for you as a single. This table is for us, mutually, together. Again, in a sense, isn't this table an exhortation to one another while it is called today? Thirdly, cherish and act on your privileges. Remember, privileges alone do not secure salvation. James tells us to be doers. Matthew 7 says, he who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. Clearly hearing is needed to know where the blessing is and what it looks like, but doing accordingly is what we are commanded to do. Hear and heed, read the word and be a doer. Take the word of Christ and be like a wise man building on the rock. I would even recommend meditating on Caleb. Set yourself up to be a feisty, bold, old person like Caleb. For all his age, he's got a lot of youth and life in him. Isn't that beautiful? That inner life is just pouring through him. Fourthly, lastly, and I like this one particularly with the words used, but pursue rest. This is more of a long-term application. Pursue rest. This is a great passage to begin your study of developing a theology of rest. What does rest mean? You know, I'm getting towards my retirement years and I'm beginning to read books. What does retirement even mean? And you know, the world says you work and then you play. I think the Lord has something different. I think we should study up on what retirement means. But pursue rest. Start developing a theology of rest. What is the rest intended here? These people in the wilderness have Canaan in front of them. That's the immediate context. We have Christ in front of us. I believe as you pursue a theology of rest, that ultimately you're gonna be convinced that your rest is not a place. And your rest is not primarily a time. but your rest is going to be a person. That is the true theology of rest. You find it in a person. Pursuing rest means that you will seek to build faithfulness into your life, that you may enter into that rest. Let us remember these things as we partake of the table. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, rejoice in your word. Thank you for these facts. Sometimes they hit us hard, but we see in them grace that you would give us a remedy for heart failure at the spiritual level, that you would warn us lovingly as a shepherd would warn his sheep of the wolves, that you'd give us a remedy as a great physician would give those things that cure the illnesses of his own children. Lord, thank you for this awareness that you bring forth in your word. Help us to remember it, help us to collect these things together, to build a theology of rest as we build upon Christ, as we look upon him alone. As we think of our forgiveness in your presence, as we come now to your table, we are reminded the only ground that we can stand on to have peace with you is the ground that is at the foot of the cross, in the shadow of your son, where that blood was poured forth. where our sins were born into the temple of heaven not made with human hands. There's only one ground we can stand on and we run to it now. And Lord, as we are disciples of Christ and feel that our hearts can go astray, cause us to cling all the more when we hear your voice not to be hardened, to watch over our own souls as for the aid of your spirit in guarding our own hearts from the evil and unbelief that reside there. And then let us not remain to see these blessings for ourselves, but let us be serving one another to come alongside and help the brethren. Lord, we bless you and thank you as we come to your table, and we long to remember you and you alone. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.