If you turn to Psalm 95, you
will be reading from Psalm 95 and also from Hebrews 3. In particular I would like you
to keep these words in mind in verse 8 of Psalm 95. beginning in the previous verse.
Today if you will hear His voice, verse 8, harden not your heart
as in the provocation and as in the day of temptation in the
wilderness. Let's begin at verse 1. Now Thomas
Bidger's to come together with praise and adoration. What a
great way to start and begin our time together. So with joyful
enthusiasm we are caused to come to Him. O come let us sing unto
the Lord, let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. I trust we are here together
today because we love to sing His praises. Christ is that rock,
isn't He? To those who are perishing, that
rock is a rock of offence, but to those of us who believe, He
is the rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence
for thanksgiving and make a joyful noise unto Him with psalms. I
always think what a remarkable thought that we are so insignificant,
aren't we, to this world. All of us are sinners by nature
and we meet in such a modest building, don't we, and yet our
Lord promises to meet with us. We are before Him in His Presence. He is in us and with us. And here is the description of
this glorious person. For the Lord is a great God and
a great King above all gods. Of course there are no other
gods. He is the great I Am. In His
hand are the deep places of the earth. The strength of the hills
is His also. The sea is His, and He made it,
and His hands formed the dry land. O come, let us worship
and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker, for He is
our God and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep
of His hand. Here is this exhortation, a solemn
call to all who will. Today, if you will hear His voice,
harden not your heart. Time and time again the Lord
showed His provision to the Israelites through His servant Moses. The provision of the Lord was
ever before them. All the while they provoked the
Lord. They provoked the Lord to anger. Their hearts were hard to unbelieve. Today, if you will hear his voice,
harden not your heart as in the provocation and as in the day
of temptation in the wilderness when your fathers tempted me,
proved me and saw my work. Forty long years was I aggrieved
with this generation and said it is the people that do err
in their heart and they have not known my ways. under whom I swear in my wrath
that they should not enter my rest." They had a heart problem
didn't they? They erred in their heart and
they have not known the ways of the Lord. Their hearts weren't
upright before the Lord. We turn to Hebrews chapter 3.
We have this stated again. The Holy Spirit in these first
verses calls us to pause and contemplate the person of our
Lord Jesus. The writer draws a comparison
with Moses showing the great supremacy of the Lord. 1. Wherefore,
holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the
apostle and high priest of our profession, Christ Jesus. He was faithful to him that appointed
him, and also Moses was faithful in all his house. For this man
was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who
buildeth the house hath more honour than the house. For every
house is built by some man, but he that built all things is God.
And Moses verily was faithful in all his house as a servant,
for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after.
But Christ as a son over his own house, whose house are we
if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope,
firm unto the end. when Moses preached the Gospel.
We preach Him, don't we? We preach the supremacy of the
Lord Jesus Christ. We preach Christ. He is the Gospel,
isn't He? And the Holy Spirit makes plain
the vast superiority of the Lord Jesus. And so we see here again
this exhortation from Psalm 95 verse 7, Wherefore, after hearing the
Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, wherefore, as the Holy Ghost
saith, today if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts
as in the provocation in the day of temptation in the wilderness
when your fathers tempted me, proved me and saw my works forty
years, Wherefore I was grieved with
that generation and said they do always err in their heart
and they have not known my ways. So I swear in my wrath they shall
not enter my rest." And here is a word for us. Take heed brethren,
lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing
from the living God. And here is the heart problem,
an evil heart. a heart of unbelief. That's what
an evil heart is, an unbelieving heart. But exhort one another
daily, what it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through
the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of
Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto
the end. And he says it again, verse 15,
while it is said, Today, if ye will hear his voice, harden not
your hearts as in the provocation. The Holy Spirit means for us
to take note. Someone may have heard him provoke. Now be it not all that came out
of Egypt by Moses, but with whom was he grieved forty years? Was it not with them that had
sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness, and to whom
swear he that they should not enter his rest, but to them that
believed not? So we see that they could not
enter in because of unbelief. Years of Israelites perished
because of unbelief. They believed not that God was
able. They believed not in the provision
of God. They believed not that Christ
was that rock. They believed not in that rock.
So they had a hardness of heart, a heart of unbelief. The Scripture speaks harshly
of them, doesn't it? Their carcasses fell in the wilderness. There is no sympathy. We have
recently remembered that story, that record of Ananias and Sapphira. We shouldn't be naive about the
severity of the Lord. It is a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of a living God We know that the Lord will not
suffer the loss of any of His precious sheep. We know that
He shall not lose one. And we know that in order for
us to be willing it is the Lord that must take out that stony
heart of unbelief and put in a heart of flesh that believes
and desires Him. There is a sense of urgency about
these words, isn't there? When we were away on holidays
in Shell Harbour there was one sunset in particular, it was
just magnificent. And we were walking past the band park and
there was lots of people around and I remember looking up and
seeing the beauty of the sunset just becoming greater and greater. Beautiful sunset, magnificent,
and I remember being forced to look up and admire it, and yet
at the same time I looked about and there were people sitting
around everywhere with their backs to the sunset, not even
looking up, not taking any notice. if they saw what we saw. That's the heart of it, isn't
it? Were they caused to look up and
see the provision of the Lord? Today, if you hear His voice,
today, not tomorrow, not the next, not some other time. Today,
if you hear His voice, harden not your heart. That sunset was
here for a moment, seemed and gone the next. The Lord will
indeed save all His people from their sins. Not one will be lost
and yet we have this urgency today. If we will hear His voice,
hardly not your heart. May the Lord bless these words.