Hebrews chapter 3 beginning at
verse 1, therefore holy brothers who share in the heavenly calling
fix your thoughts on Jesus the Apostle and High Priest whom
we confess He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just
as Moses was faithful in all God's house. Jesus has been found
worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of
a house has greater honor than the house itself. For every house
is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything.
Moses was faithful as a servant in all God's house, testifying
to what would be said in the future. But Christ is faithful
as a son over God's house. And we are his house if we hold
on to our courage and the hope of which we boast. So as the
Holy Spirit says, today, if you hear his voice, Do not harden
your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of
testing in the desert, when your fathers tested and tried me and
for forty years saw what I did. That is why I was angry with
that generation, and I said, their hearts are always going
astray, and they have not known my ways. So I declared on oath
in my anger, they shall never enter my rest. See to it, brothers,
that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns
away from the living God. but encourage one another daily,
as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened
by sin's deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ
if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. As has just been said today,
if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did
in the rebellion. Who are they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses
led out of Egypt? And with whom was he angry for
40 years? Was it not with those who sinned,
whose bodies fell in the desert? And to whom did God swear that
they would never enter his rest, if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were not
able to enter because of their unbelief. Verse 12 of Hebrews 3 will provide
the central theme of this morning's message. See to it, brothers, that none
of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the
living God. Now, if I could give that to
you in a little stricter form, he says, see to it or watch out,
be on the watch, brothers. that none of you has an evil
heart of unbelief. I like it that way simply because
it makes it clear that it's, when he says an evil, unbelieving
heart as our translation has, as though that's two different
things. What he's saying is the unbelieving heart is the evil
heart. Anyone with an evil heart is
an unbeliever, and every unbeliever has an evil heart. Now here is
a warning to those who profess faith. Notice here he says, see
to it, brothers. What brothers is he talking about?
Look back at verse one. He says, therefore, holy brothers
who share in the heavenly calling. Now, it's true that the scriptures
often address people according to what they profess themselves
to be. For example, our Lord said, the Son of Man has not
come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. And you
might say, well, the Bible says there are non-righteous. Why
would he even mention the righteous? Because there were some people
who thought they were righteous. And so he addressed them according
to what they thought themselves to be. And so when he speaks
to these people and calls them holy brothers who share in the
heavenly calling, he's calling them that not because he has
some insight into their hearts and can say for a certainty these
are indeed the holy brethren who have shared in the heavenly
calling. He's saying that's what you say you are and so far I
have no reason to believe that you aren't. There is no such
thing, and I'm making this point, straining it a little bit here,
because there's no such thing as someone who's truly one of
the holy brethren. And even back then in ancient
Greece, when they said brothers, they were including men and women
of a fellowship in society. And so, holy men and women, brothers
and sisters in Christ. He calls them that, and he says
that they have shared in that heavenly calling. And he assumed
that that was so. And to that kind of person, he
gives this warning, see to it, be careful, watch out, that it
is not discovered that in you who claim to be the holy brethren,
who claim to have shared in the heavenly calling that in reality
there is in you an evil heart of unbelief. We might tend to
think that true believers need no warning because they're preserved
under all circumstances. Well, it's true that God's people
are preserved by God because he works in them to persevere.
God perseveres in them. He that began a good work in
you will continue it. He will perfect it until the
day of Christ. And because God perseveres, all
those people in whom he's begun that good work, they persevere
too. But you know something? I can't look in your heart, and
quite frankly, I can't even look in my own heart. and say of a
certainty, God began a good work there. The heart's deceitful
above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? That's
what the scriptures say. There's only one person that
can know your heart and that's God. Men have been deceiving
themselves about their hearts from the very beginning. Cain
thought everything was okay between him and God. He professed to be a believer.
Remember, when Cain Just before Cain killed his brother, what
was he doing? While he was at whatever was the common place
of worship for that family, he was offering sacrifices to God.
He claimed to be one of the holy brethren and a sharer in the
heavenly calling. And what was found out about
him? He had an evil heart of unbelief. And so this warning
is given to us. And this warning is one of the
ways that God preserves his people. He causes us to remain watchful
that we not fall to those things which would destroy us. And we
should be glad for warnings. We should be glad that God gives
us warnings like this. Why? Well, such warnings as this
are evidence of his love for us. Now, what would you think
of a parent that never warned his child not to play in the
street? What would you think if that
parent said, you know, I realize it's dangerous, but every time
I warn him or set a restriction on him, he gets kind of upset,
and I just didn't want to do that. What would you say about
such a parent? You'd say, well, don't you love
your child enough, even if necessary, to make him a little bit worried,
make him a little watchful, so that he doesn't get himself killed?
And I'll tell you, there's another good reason for a warning. A
warning implies that we are not in a condition for which there
is no remedy. Let me give you an example. If
a man falls off a tall building, no one is going to say to him,
watch out for the ground. Why? Because there's nothing
can be done about it. People turn their head away from
it because they know disaster is inevitable. They may scream
just out of shock, but they give that man no warning. Why? Because
no warning is of any insignificance. Now, if he's up on the top of
the building, maybe up there playing around, doing whatever,
that would be the time for warning. You might say, hey, be careful,
don't get too close to the edge, you might fall off. Now that's
a good warning because that's at the point that something could
be done about it. Man might take heed, not fall
off the edge. So when the scriptures warn us
like this, it's good, it shows God's love, and it shows us that
we're in a situation where this warning can do us some good.
We are not yet in a position in which there is no hope. Now, unbelief. Unbelief is the
greatest evil of all. He didn't say, see to it brothers
that none of you has a evil heart of and then named various sins
which, yeah they're bad, I'm not saying they're not, but the
sins that most of religion is always warning people about.
He says an evil heart of unbelief. Now there are many kinds of evil
and many ways to express evil nature. And Paul mentioned those
in Galatians chapter 5, we'll not turn there but if you want
well you can if you want it's in Galatians 5 beginning in verse
19 Paul says the works of the flesh are evident, sexual immorality,
impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy,
fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness,
orgies, and things like these. I warned you, as I warned you
before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom
of God. You say, wait a minute, preacher,
wait a minute. You've mentioned some things
there I'm guilty of. And then Paul says that people
who do such things don't get to enter the kingdom of God.
How is it then? that I have any chance of entering
the kingdom of God. For that matter, how does anybody enter
the kingdom of God? Because that pretty well, I don't
think there's a person here who could say that they were innocent
of everything on there. You probably, if you were honest,
I wouldn't require you to tell anybody else, but if you're just
honest with yourself, you'd probably have to check a whole lot of
those off. So what does he mean when he says those that do those
things will not inherit the kingdom of God? He's speaking of how
a person lives their life on purpose. A real believer, because
he's got flesh just like everybody else, may fall into any of these
things at any time. But it is not what he wants to
do. What did Paul say? What I don't
want to do, that's what I do. And what I do want to do, that's
what I don't do. And I find this principle, this
law within me, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
But he's talking about people here, this is the way they are
and they're okay with it. They don't repent of it. If you're a child of God and
you find these things in operation in you, and you fall to him,
I can tell you one thing. I don't know how long it'll take,
but God's gonna get your attention about it, and you're gonna be
like David when Nathan confronted him over his sin with Bathsheba,
and it just broke him. And David said against you and
you alone, Have I sinned and done this evil in your sight?
And my sin is ever before me." See, David here, there was guilty
of sexual immorality, impurity, and sensuality. He had been,
through his murder of Uriah, Bathsheba's husband, he'd obviously
been guilty of envy and jealousy of another man's wife, fits of
anger, When his attempt to cover up his sin didn't work, he even went on to murder the
man, or have him killed, which is all the same thing. Now, I'm
not making excuses for us. I always kind of put that qualification
out there because I know how prone we are to a legalistic
spirit. But these are all ways, all manners of ways that people
can act out the evil within them, and there's more. But these are sins of the flesh. Unbelief is a sin of the heart. The greatest evil is unbelief. We read of the evil deeds of
men and we're appalled. We may look, well, if we're believers
we do, we look at our own evil deeds and we're appalled. We're
brought up short by what we're capable of doing. And the devil often takes advantage
of that rightful feeling of we've done
something horrible and makes us begin to question. Do I really
know God? We're appalled at these things.
We're appalled when we hear the stories of men like Hitler and
Stalin, or the corruption of our politicians and the entertainment
people, the wickedness in our society, which To me, the most
obvious examples, and I realize this isn't the root of it, but
it's certainly some of the most obvious outward examples in the
sexual perversion and the abortion that goes on. And it's not just
that those things happen. Those things have been happening
for centuries. It's now that it's accepted and
even praised. And we're appalled. How did we
get there? How did we become like that as a society? The gross
perversions of Christianity that dominate the airwaves and much
of the world. And we look at all of that and
say, it's awful. And you know what? We're right,
it's awful. But not any one of those or all
of those things put together can match the evil of an unbelieving
heart. How is that? Why is unbelief
such a great evil? Well, all the general wickedness
of men is merely an expression of the flesh, man's animal nature. And that's why we say they're
acting like a beast, because that's what they're doing, because that's
what they are. But unbelief's a matter of the heart, the spiritual
nature of man, which is called the image of God. Man is unique. We're animals, that's for sure.
We have bodies just like other animals do. We may be at the
top of the food chain most of the time, but these bodies, they're
just animal bodies. But when God made Adam, he did
something different with him that he didn't do with the other
animals. It said, God breathed into his nostrils the breath
of life and man became a living soul. God commanded the various
aspects of his creation to bring forth other life. You read that
in creation, he said he told the ground to bring forth plants.
He told the ocean to bring forth fish and whales and things like
that. He told the ground to bring forth all the rest of the animal
kingdom, but when it came to man, God personally took on some
created form And it said he formed man out of the dust of the earth. He didn't command the earth to
bring forth man. God came and made man. And having done that, God breathed
life into him, which is kind of a picture of him You know,
in Hebrew and Greek both, the words for breath, wind, and spirit
are all the same word. When it says he breathed into
his nostrils the breath of life, you could just as well read that,
and he spirited into him that spirit of life. He gave to Adam
a nature he did not give to the other animals, nature called
spirit. And that nature is what connects
us with God. It's what we have in common with
God. And unbelief is a sin coming out of that nature. And when
a man is an unbeliever, he is not simply transgressing laws,
he's not simply giving vent to some uncontrolled passions of
his flesh. He is at the very root of his
being, at the very place where God made him special from the
other animals, At that very place, he is rebelling against God. Why is unbelief worse? All the
evil of the flesh is evil indeed, but it is only the fruit of the
heart of unbelief. Do you realize every other sin
finds its origin in unbelief? In Genesis chapter three, we
won't have time to turn there, but in the temptation, what did
Satan do first? Did he just walk up to Eve, say,
hey, eat some of that fruit? If he'd have done that, Eve would
have said, no. What did he do? He put a question
mark on God's word. He started by creating doubt,
which led to unbelief, which led to sin. He said, did God
say you're not allowed to eat that tree? She said, oh no, we're
not allowed to eat from it. We can't even touch it. And I'm paraphrasing here that
the devil said, really now? Really now? You gotta understand God's holding
back this tree from you because he knows if you eat from it,
you'll be like him, and he's kinda jealous that way. He cast
doubt on God's word. He cast doubt on God's character. He cast doubt on all manner of
things about God. And when he created that question
mark in Eve's mind, then what happened? She looked at that
tree a different way. And she saw that the fruit did
look good. Why all the fruit in the Garden of Eden look good?
And she saw that that fruit was able to make one wise. The Lord
called it the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Why would God
want to hold knowledge back from her? And so she took some, and evidently
when she did, Adam was right there with her. Now why he didn't
tell her to stop, I don't know. But once she ate from it, she
said, here Adam, it's good. And for whatever reason, I tend
to think that Adam realized that his wife's sin had separated
him from his wife. And she was dearer to him. than
any of us. Our spouses are dear to us. Remember,
they started out perfect. Their love for one another was
perfect. He couldn't bear the thought of losing her, and he
would rather join her in sin and all that sin brings than
to be separate from her. See, he wasn't deceived like
Eve was. He went in with his eyes wide
open, but it all started with unbelief, expressing itself and
doubting God's word and doubting God's character, and then with
Adam, doubting whether or not it was better to have God as
opposed to his wife. Unbelief's the root of all evil.
Unbelief calls God's existence into question. In Hebrews chapter
11, verse six, it says, he that comes to him must believe that
he is. After all, you wouldn't come
to him if you didn't believe he existed. If there was ever any
proof that man's heart is deceitful above all things and desperately
wicked, it's that men come to believe there is no God or to
believe that God is like some beast or a creeping thing. How corrupt must a man's heart
be to think there is no God? Or to think that he's like some
of those mythological creatures that men worshipped. Or he's
just like another man. And unbelief calls God's goodness
in question. We begin to see just how evil
unbelief here is. It calls God's existence into
question. But it goes on there, in Hebrews 11, 6, it says, he
that comes to him must believe that he is, and he is the rewarder
of them that diligently seek him. Unbelief says, I can seek God
and still be lost. The religion of some of you,
the youth of, in your youth, what you grew up in, that's exactly
what they said. They said, yeah, there is a God,
and you should diligently seek him, but you don't know whether
or not you're gonna be saved till you get there. What do you
mean? You don't believe that if a man
diligently seeks the Lord, the Lord will reward him? I'm not
talking about a reward earned, but it's a reward given nonetheless.
Faith doesn't earn us anything, but it'll get us everything. But when they say things like,
well, you can believe the gospel and you can spend your life seeking
the Lord and trying to find Him and still be lost, that is unbelief
of the worst sort. For that's casting into doubt
His goodness. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord,
for He is good, says the psalmist, and His mercy endures forever.
Well, you put a big question mark on that and tell folks,
well, you might seek the Lord and be lost anyway. I can't think
of anything worse you could say about God than that. You strike
him at the very point of his glory. He is a just God and a
savior. And you said, well, he's a just
God, but I won't say he's a savior. Unbelief calls God's power into
question. In Romans chapter four, verse
20, And then the verses following is talking about Abraham's faith.
And he said, Abraham believed that God had power to do what
he promised he would do. Unbelief says, meh, not really. Unbelief, that form of unbelief
that people wear as a virtue, Trying to act like it's humble.
Oh, I'm such a sinner. God couldn't save me. Oh, come
on, get over yourself. Really? You think you're more
sinful than Christ is righteous? Now you're more sinful than you
think you are, but you're no match for the Lord Jesus Christ
and the power of his righteousness and blood. Do you think you're
so far gone that the grace of God can't reach you? But that's the pious false humility
that people put on. Oh, God couldn't save me, I'm
just too bad of a sinner. Paul said this, if God can save
me, he can save anybody. He said, I'm the chief of sinners.
And he says, God has done save the chief, so the rest of you
Indians don't worry. He can handle you too. Oh, don't let yourself be caught
up in false humility. Don't deprive yourself of confidence
in Christ because you think you're so wicked. God couldn't or wouldn't
save you. Unbelief makes God to be a liar. Look over at 1 John. chapter
5. I want you to see this. I've
just been quoting others but this is one of those will be
good to hear and just see it right here in the Bible. First John chapter 5 beginning
in verse 9. We accept man's testimony and
generally speaking we do. Somebody comes up and tells us
something, yeah, okay. We take their word for it, unless
we can think of some good reason not to. We accept man's testimony. But God's testimony is greater
because it's the testimony of God. I mean, after all, if we're
gonna accept what men have to say, how much more should we
accept what God has to say? Paul said, let God be true in
every man a liar, and that's pretty much the way it is. It's God's testimony, which he
has given about his son, which is who he is and what he's done
and what that means to us sinners. That's the testimony of God.
Verse 10, anyone who believes in the son of God has this testimony
in his heart. If you believe Christ, if you're
trusting your soul with Christ, it's because God's testimony
isn't just in your head, it isn't just a gospel doctrine that's
up there, that you understand what it means. It's something
in your heart. It's part and parcel of what you are. But notice
the next line. Anyone who does not believe God
has made him out to be a liar. but because he has not believed
the testimony God has given about his son. Now once again, I'm
drawn back to these people and their false humility. I asked
a man one time, I was talking to him out front here as my daughter
was mowing the grass, so I'd give you an idea how long ago
this was, probably 20 years ago. And every time I would put up
one of the promises of God, he had some way to block it, you
know? Finally, I said, don't you believe
God? He said, well, I'd like to think
sometimes I do. Sometimes? I didn't think to
say this. Later on, it was one of those
things, wish I'd have said this. But I thought, oh, the rest of
the time he's a liar? Because when you're not believing
God concerning his son, you're saying God's a liar. And there's
no way to put a virtuous name on that. If we confess our sins, He's
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from
all unrighteousness. That's God's testimony concerning
His Son. If you don't believe that, you're
calling God a liar. And that's pretty serious business. Unbelief renders the scriptures
to be a book of history and rules and blinds men's eyes from seeing
Christ. In John chapter 5, the Lord said
to those Pharisees, he says, you search the scriptures for
in them you think you have eternal life. These are the scriptures
that testify of me and you won't come to me that you might have
life. We consider the scriptures They're
called the holy, we call them holy scriptures, we call them
true, and all of that, but you know something? Without faith,
they're absolutely useless to us. They just turn us into religious
people. Now what sort of unbelief is
the Bible speaking of here? Every one of us experiences some
kind of unbelief, like that man whose son was demon possessed,
He said to the Lord, if you can heal him, if you can do something,
would you? And the Lord said, if I can. All things are possible to him
that believes. And the man says, I believe. And then you just
see he caught himself, oh, help my unbelief. And you know something,
both things that man said were true. He believed and he had
a lot of unbelief. And that's the way every believer
is. There is nobody perfect in faith. So we're not talking about
that unbelief that simply is the remaining doubt of the flesh
that causes us to think horrible thoughts about God. It's faith
that causes us, you know, the faith that God gives causes us
to ignore that unbelief and continue on pursuing God and pursuing
Christ. And like Paul says, leaving all
those things that were behind, I press on. So we're not talking
about those simple doubts and struggles we have. The writer
of Hebrews has something more serious in mind, which is the
true character of this evil of unbelief. He says here, we're
back in Hebrews chapter three, verse 12, an evil heart of unbelief that
turns away from the living God. Now doubts make us stumble on
the way. unbelief makes us turn away from
God. That's two different things,
to turn away from God. See this is written as I said
to those who professed faith and for them unbelief was a matter
of leaving the God that they claimed to believe. It was, as
it were, a divorce from God, to say, I believe him one day
and then no longer follow him afterward. To divorce oneself
from the many false gods in this world is a good thing, but to
depart from the living God is the height of spiritual ignorance,
arrogance, and wickedness. There's nothing on earth you
could do worse than that. We often bring up David's sin
as an example of the kind of sin in which even believers are
capable of falling. But you know there's one thing
David never did. He never departed the living God. Right there in
the midst of his horrible transgression, what did he do? He sought the
Lord. The very one who was angry at
his sin, The very one who'd caused the prophet Nathan to go to him
and lay his sin before him. He caused David to say, I've
sinned against the Lord. And when David said that, he
understood what the law was and what the penalty for adultery
and murder was. You can imagine how wonderful
it was for David to hear the next words from the prophet.
He said, I've sinned against the Lord. And the prophet said,
in your sin, has been forgiven. I want you to think of how blessed
those words were. He did not say to David, now
the Lord will forgive your sins if. Before Nathan ever came to
confront David with his sin, David's sin had already been
forgiven, had already been washed clean in the blood of the Lamb,
slain from the foundation of the world. But David's conscience
needed to hear that. And so Nathan said, your sin
is forgiven. You will not die. You will not
die. And then David wrote that Psalm,
Psalm 51. And he didn't hide his sin in
that thing. He didn't call it a mistake.
He didn't say I stumbled. He didn't say, well, you know,
we all sin. He said, my sin is ever before me. Against you and
you alone have I done this evil. your side and yet the very God who could
have condemned him is the God to whom he goes to plead for
forgiveness and for restoration to fellowship. How's this unbelief revealed? by going back to the way of works
salvation to refuse to enter his rest and stay there. That's
what the Jews did and that's what the example that's given
to us in chapter 3. They left Egypt. God brought
them out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.
He brought them out of Egypt on Passover night, brought them
through the Red Sea, making a path through the sea for them, and
then drowning the Egyptians behind them. He fed them manna. He gave them quail. He gave them
water out of the rock. He provided everything for them.
And he said, now go to the promised land. And they got there. They
sent some spies in there. And those spies said, you know,
the guys there are so big, we're like grasshoppers in their eyes.
And out of the 12 spies, 10 of them said, we can't go in there.
Only two of them, Joshua and Caleb said, yeah, the Lord's
given us this land, he said so. And if the Lord gave it to us
and says go in, we can go in. But no, the 10 spread an ill
report throughout the camp. And the camp, the only business
meeting they had in Israel, the camp voted not to go in. And
you know what happened? Because they would not enter
rest through unbelief, our Lord said, all right, You can't go
in now. Oh no, no, no, we realize we
did wrong, we'll go in now. If you go in now, you're gonna
die. No, you just turn back. It says, not one of you over
20 years old will ever enter my rest. And for another 38 or
so years, he led them around the desert until that entire
generation dropped dead. Why? Evil heart of unbelief. When you think of all the things
that they did, even before they got there to Kadesh Barnea and
refused to go in, well, they built an idol. And they'd indulged
in pagan revelry. They'd done all of that. And
none of that moved God to say, you'll not enter my rest. You
know what moved God to say, you'll not enter my rest? When they
refused to enter his rest. And when people refuse to accept the work of
the Lord Jesus Christ as sufficient in and of itself to make the
soul right with God and they try to add a little something
to it, they are refusing to enter God's rest. Look at here in Hebrews chapter 4 verse
9. Hebrews 4 verse 9, there remains
then a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for anyone who enters
God's rest has also rest from his own work, just as God did
from his. Now, is the writer of Hebrews
saying we got to observe a Sabbath day? No. Sabbath day was a picture
of a Sabbath rest. The old covenant had a Sabbath
day, but no Sabbath rest. They were always working. Please,
God, the new covenant has no Sabbath day, but it has a Sabbath
rest. The true rest, and what is that rest? It's God's rest. It's the rest of the Lord Jesus
Christ, for he finished his labors, said, it is finished, and he
entered his rest, and when we believe him, we enter his rest,
and we cease from our own labors. What labors? Those labors of
trying to earn blessings from God. This unbelief and turning from
God is an attempt to add to Christ. It's often revealed in forsaking
the assembly. In Hebrews chapter 10, verse
25, it says, do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together
as the manner of some is. Why were they doing that? They
were more afraid of men than they were of God, and they were
suffering persecution because they associated themselves with
believers. They said, I can fix that. I won't associate with
believers anymore. I'll be a secret Christian. You
know what a secret Christian is? He's an unbeliever. That's
what he is. I'm not saying you gotta go stick
your neck out there on purpose, but you don't hide. You don't
withdraw from the people of God to spare yourself the reproach
this world has for the people of God. Moses said, that he chose
not to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, but rather chose to
suffer reproach with the people of God. If we, for the sake of avoiding
persecution, or for the sake maybe of associating ourselves
with some other version of Christianity which has a little bit more repute
in the world, Whatever reason, if we separate ourselves from
the people of God for those things, you know what's probably happening?
We're departing the living God. You can't refuse God's people
and have God too. Just go together. Well, how can
this be avoided? or four things real quick here.
Chapter 3 verse 1, how can we watch that we do not have this
evil heart of unbelief and depart in the living God? Verse 1, therefore
holy brothers who share in the heavenly calling fix your thoughts
on Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest whom we confess. As the
Apostle, the one sent from God, primarily as the messenger of
the covenant, our prophet, Fix your eyes on or your thoughts
on him and what he said and don't listen to anything else. And
then he's called a high priest and that means fix your thoughts
on what he did and nothing else. What did he do? our high priest
he performed the righteousness that we could never perform and
then sacrificed himself offered himself without spot to God and
he was accepted by God now brethren think on that make that what
occupies your mind and you won't be in danger of departing from
the living God Fix your thoughts on Jesus. Continue meeting together. There in verse 12, he says, you
know, be careful that you don't have this evil heart of unbelief.
And then verse 13, but encourage one another daily as long as
it's called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's
deceitfulness. Now, the sin he's speaking here
is the sin of unbelief. Don't have time to prove it,
but that's what he's talking about. And here's what he's saying.
Get together and encourage one another. I know this is the normal
way churches meet, like we do, but this is really not exactly
how they did it in the beginning. And I think sometimes we need
a little bit more of that. It's too easy to make this into
a spectator religion. You got the audience, you got
the performers. I'm sorry, that's just the way
it's set up, you know? Kind of looks that way. And people come
and they are spectators of faith. They are spectators of worship. They aren't worshiping. I hope
that's not the case with you. And understand this, I'm not
the only one with a good word to say here. He said encourage
one another. Encourage one another daily. We only get together like this
once a week. But this should go on throughout
the week as we come in contact with each other. Do you realize
that God has given you the power to strengthen the hearts of your
brothers and sisters? You say, oh, I try to say something,
I stumble all over myself. Do you think they care? Do you
think if you came with a word of comfort and encouragement,
The one you try to comfort and encourage is going to say, you
know, you didn't use good grammar there. So yeah, I'm just not
going to take that. Brethren, encourage one another. Encourage one another in times
of trial. Encourage one another as you
see them struggling with doubts. And then don't harden your hearts
against the word for the sake of pride or fear. There's a lot that we believe
that the world scorns. Don't cover it up in an attempt
to avoid the scorn of the earth. And then simply rest in Christ. Really, rest. Don't get caught up in this religious
busyness of always trying to do more and more and more so
that you hope you can get more and more and more from God. All
that is necessary for the sinner to have everything God has is
Christ. And no matter how good you are,
you are in desperate need of Christ And no matter how bad
you are, Christ is all you need. Don't turn away from that, for
to do so is to turn away from the living God.