Turn in your Bibles, if you would,
to the 10th chapter of Hebrews. When Peter sought a message from God, he
went up under the rooftop and prayed. They didn't have recorded
messages like we have in today's world. I didn't go up onto the
rooftop. I'm not real good on ladders.
So I listened to a message by Pastor David Edmondson last Sunday.
And I'll be right honest with you, a lot of what I've got to
say this morning is exactly what he said from his pulpit last
Sunday. So if I'm not good at it, please, please, I encourage
you to go listen to him. He's a whole lot better at this
message than I am. But there were some points that
he brought out that hit home. Grabbed a hold of me. The Lord said, that's a message
I've got to preach on. And I've been thinking about
it all week long after I listened to it. Are you in the book of Hebrews
chapter 10? Will you look with me at verses
19 through 25? Having therefore, brethren, boldness
to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. We enter into the holiest of
holies. You remember in the old days,
in the temple of God, there was a section for the congregation
to be in, in the temple, and then there was these big, huge,
heavy, thick, Tapestries hanging down in the
middle. They called them the veil. And inside that section
of the temple was the holiest of holies. Only one could go
in there, and he could only go in once a year. He went in as
the representation of the whole congregation, and he had to have
blood with him. And inside that room was the
mercy seat. Now we know who that's a picture
of, don't we? the very Lord and Savior of all of His people,
our mercy seat, the Lord Jesus Christ. And He would go into
that holiest of holies and sprinkle that blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ on the mercy seat. But when the Lord Jesus Christ
died on that cross, that temple, that veil, was rent. And it opened the door for all
of God's people to approach His throne. The blood of God washed all the
sins of His people away. Every sin that we've ever committed,
every sin that we shall commit, every sin that we'll commit this
very day. Amen. Having therefore, brethren, boldness
to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new
and living way which He hath consecrated for us through the
veil. That is to say, His flesh. And
having in high priest over the house of God, let us draw near
with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled
from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering,
for He is faithful that promised And let us consider one another
to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling
of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting
one another. And so much the more as you see
the day approaching. I want to talk to you folks this
morning about exhorting one another. Lifting each other up. That's not easy to do, especially
in times of losing a loved one. How do we lift up a sister in
love? How do we lift up a brother in love? How do we encourage one another
to stand strong in the faith? This is my heart's desire. This
is my thought as I prepare each and every message. But as I read
these words, I notice that the writer is not addressing preachers. He's not addressing the pastors
of the world. He's not addressing the deacons He's not addressing the leaders
of the congregation. No. Look at verse 19. What does
it say in verse 19? Having therefore brethren. He's talking to all of you. He's
talking to me. He's talking to all of God's
children throughout all of time who come to know the Lord through
His Word. Notice what it says in verse
24. Let us, us, the brethren, the
sister, let us consider one another. Have you ever thought about how
it is that you personally exhort the others here at rescue? Mark our text here for just a
moment in Hebrews, if you would, and turn over to the 122nd Psalm. Mark your text in Hebrews. Lord
willing, I'll have time when I come back to it. And turn over
to Psalms number 122. It's pretty obvious how a preacher
exhorts the congregation, isn't it? Pretty simple. How does John exhort the congregation? We bring a message. We study
throughout the week, some more than others. I'm probably the
lowest on that amount of time. I don't spend as much time as
I'd like to. I don't spend as much time as I should. But I
spend time considering what God would have me bring before you
on a Sunday. in hopes to encourage you as
you go out of this building, this building of worship, to
encourage you as you walk before those around you in the world,
to encourage you to put the things of your pride aside and to look
to the one thing that you all should be looking to, and that's
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's my desire to exhort you,
to encourage you. And that's pretty obvious. I mean, you come here and you
listen to me every Sunday, every Friday night. We point you to Christ. We sing
this song. You've heard it, I'm sure. Turn
your eyes upon Jesus. Look full on His wonderful face. And the world will turn strangely
dim in the light of His glory and grace. Yes, we must bring
out the total depravity of man. Nobody understands grace until
they understand their depravity. The world loves to think more
of themselves than they truly are. And you and I at one time
did the very same thing. But along with depravity, when
a true man of God brings out the Word properly, pointing us
to Jesus Christ in Him crucified, with that comes the grace of
election. I mentioned it before the song. There's power in the blood. If
God's blood was shed for you, you shall be saved. He's called
Jesus for He shall save His people. And along with the grace of election
comes the grace of limited atonement. That blood that was shed on the
cross effectually saved every one of God's children. Not one
single child of God will ever go to hell. The reason time still
exists is because one of God's children have not been called
from darkness yet. I have hopes for my children. Grace will reveal its irresistibility. Along with the power of the blood
of God comes the power of His will, and if it's God's will
to save His people, they shall be saved. All that the Father
giveth me shall come to me, and those that come to me I shall
in no wise cast out. And of course, we never leave
out the grace of His preserving His people. If His blood was
shed for you, who can lay anything to the charge
of God's elect? It is God that justifies it. I'm convinced that nothing can
separate me from the love of my God because my God rules over
everything, including me. But our text is talking about
all of us. Not just the preacher preaching
these points and bringing exhortation to those of you. But what about
you folks? Before the Lord made me the preacher
here, what about me? What did I do to exhort my brothers
and sisters in Christ, to build them up, to encourage them in
the faith? Our text is talking about all
of us, you and I, both. And I don't mean you exhorting
me. I'm talking about, do we exhort
each other? I'm not looking for your exhortation. It scares me to death when people
walk out that door. What a great message you have,
brother. I don't want that stuff to go to my head. I think about
that every time. Those of you who have known me
know how hard it was for me to stand at the back of the room
before. And I pray the Lord never lets me get any easier at it. No, our text is talking about
all of us. We are to exhort one another.
The word means to call near, to invite, to invoke, to beseech,
to call for, to comfort, to desire, King David was lifted up. A joy
was raised in his heart when the people of God did something. Remember the words that we just
read before in our text? In chapter 10 it says, not forsaking
the assembling of ourselves together. Do you remember that? We just
read that a moment ago? Look with me if you would at verse
1 of Psalms 122. I was glad when they, when they, the people
of God, when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the
Lord. Are you glad? Are you glad to
be here? Now I'm not talking about getting
up and waving your hands and making a big scene of things.
You know better than that. But are you glad in your heart?
Our conference will be wrapping up by this time next week. Our invitation to those pastors
outside of our area begins Friday night. And our invitation to
all of those around is to come. We send word out everywhere.
We send bulletins. We send flyers out. I think the only thing we
didn't do this year was we didn't put a notice in the local newspaper. I don't even know who reads newspapers
anymore. Come to the feast. Come to the Lord's house. Hear
the only peace that you're going to hear in the entire world,
and that is the peace of God Almighty ruling everything in
His sovereign will. Come to the feasts and feast
on Christ. It is here. Are you excited? I am. Not just because I'm standing
here in this pulpit, but I've always been excited about the
preachers coming here. It's always excited me when I...
Oh yeah, more people are coming to preach. Great. I love Pastor
Gene. He's my pastor. Don't get me wrong. But it's
always good to hear it from other people too. It confirms that
my pastor's preaching the truth from the Scriptures. Come and
hear other men preach the Word of God. Are you glad to come into the
house of the Lord? Folks, if you're here this morning,
and you're here out of a feeling of dreaded necessity. In other
words, if you're here because, if I don't go to church, how
do I know that I'm saved? One of our brothers is missing
this morning. Do you know who I'm talking about? James Looper.
God bless that young man. He called me up, or he texted
me, and he said, I'm sorry. You don't need to be sorry to
John Reeves for anything, ever. I'm sorry. I started a project
tomorrow, and I can't be here this morning. Praise the Lord,
brother. God be with you as you go about
taking care of that project you need to do, and God bless whatever
it is you need to do today. He misses being here. Isn't that
amazing? It blows me away. He misses being here. He can't
wait to be here Friday night. I can't wait for Friday night.
How about you? Are you here this morning under
obligation to yourself to prove that you're saved? If that's
the case, then something is wrong. Worship services are a time of
refreshment. We trudge through the mud and
the muck of this earth all week long in a world that does not
know God. Today we're in the house of the
Lord with people who know the Lord. And that brings joy to
my heart. Again, I'm not encouraging you
to jump up and down and flap around, bringing attention to
yourself, or being destructive and distracting to those others
that are here. But I am saying this. Salvation
to a sinner is a joyous thing. Is there joy in your heart? Are
you like David when he said, I was glad when they said unto
me, let us go into the house of the Lord? A true sinner of
God, a true sinner of this world who has seen their sin revealed
to them by the Holy God, takes great joy in going into the house
of God where there is mercy, where there is grace. I've had
some really good employers in my life, but not one has ever
showed mercy and grace like my Savior has. Not one of them has
ever been long-suffering like my Savior has. I don't know about
you folks, but long-suffering is a really, really, really,
really good word for John Reeves. When one has had the depth of
what they are, a sinful creature before a thrice holy God, salvation
becomes our greatest desire. I want to hear about it. I want
to hear about it. And I want to hear about it.
Because I don't hear about it in the world. The only place I see salvation
is in my Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom is worshipped
on Sunday mornings and Friday evenings in this very building
that He has given us. The house of the Lord is where
we hear of this salvation. And I'm glad to see you folks
are here. I'm glad to see that you have
come I am exhorted, encouraged, to see God is still doing a work
of salvation in His people. Calling His chosen people unto
Himself through the preaching of His Word, because that's what
it says in His Bible. That's what it says in His Word,
that He calls His people by the preaching of His Word. If no one showed up this morning,
including my wife. I would have doubts. I would
have doubts of what I'm doing here. Wouldn't you? If you walked through these doors
and nobody was here, wouldn't you stop and think to yourself,
what am I doing here? There's nothing going on. There's
no worship here. But that's not the case, is it?
Each and every one of you are here this morning exhorting one
another just by being here. I'll give you an example of that.
And I know she's on the line along with Jeffrey right now
watching us live via Zoom, joining us. Don and Shirley Jukic moved away
to be with their friends in Arizona, a place where they could afford
to retire and live after California took most of all their money.
And they lived down there where there is no gospel preaching. And they've shared with me over
the time that they've been down there that they would listen
to messages, either on sermon audio or however they could. But when we put together this
Zoom thing and started broadcasting live down there, they couldn't
wait to jump on and join us. Jeffrey would come over. He lived
next door. You remember Jeffrey and Sharon.
Jeffrey lost his wife a little over a year ago. I think a little
bit ago, a little time ago. And he would come over. And they
joined every Friday night. They come to the house of worship. They exhort those who are sitting
in the room, whether it be on Friday night Bible study or here
this morning, because we know that they're here worshiping
our God with us. I'm glad when somebody says,
I'm going down to the house of the Lord and worship, because
that's where I want to be too. Look at your brothers and sisters
in Christ who have come to feast the Jubilee. God has brought
His sheep into graze in green pastures here this morning. Turn
over, if you would, with me. Turn over with just a few pages
to the left to the 23rd Psalm. I bet you there's a whole bunch
of people here this morning who could read this Psalm without
ever even looking at the words in Scripture. But what a wonderful
psalm to sing and to praise and to read at any time. Psalms number 23, read along
with me, will you? The Lord is my shepherd, I shall
not want. He maketh me to lie down in green
pastures. He leadeth me beside the still
waters. Yea, though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou
art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort
me. Thou preparest a table before
me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil. My cup runneth over. Surely,
goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and
I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." Folks, that's
what we're doing here this morning. We're walking through the valley
of the shadow of death. That's our lives and the world
around us. Those who hate our God. Those
who say, I will not have that God rule over me. The very ones
who say those words, just like you and I once said. But by the
grace of God, we have come to know who and what we are. And
now we can say, the Lord is my shepherd. Is that because we
just got smarter? Is that because one day I just
decided, you know, I'm tired of doing all these dumb things
in the world. I'm going to start going to church. I'm going to
start worshiping the true and living God. No. It's because God came to me when
I was dead in trespasses and sin, and gave me life and faith
in His Son, our Lord and Savior. And He's done that for each and
every one of us. Do you ever get tired of hearing
that? I don't. What comfort. we see in this
song. And that's what a psalm is. It's
a psalm. Turn over to Ezekiel. Turn to the right several pages
over to Ezekiel. Ezekiel chapter 34. Our Lord
is not done. searching out His sheep. That's why time continues. Somewhere
in time, somewhere in the world, God has a child of God, just
like you and I were, that needs to come across one of His preachers
and hear the truths of His Word. Now they're not lost in His eyes.
He knows everything. He knows exactly where they are
in time and place. He knows exactly where the minister
is that he will have cross the path. In fact, he guides everything
so that minister and that lost sheep will come together one
day and that lost sheep will be called out of darkness and
given life to come forth. He knows where they are, they
just don't know that they are His sheep yet. They are blind,
dead, lame, and do not seek the One that heals. Just as you and
I were not seeking the true and living God, yet He sought me,
He found me, He brings His loved ones under the sound of His Word,
and He says, come, follow Me. Come, Lazarus, come forth. John
Reeves, Julius, Mike Lovelace, all of you folks, come forth,
he says to his people. And by the power of God, we come
forth. John chapter 10, verse 27 through
30, we read these words again, very familiar. We're going to
be in Ezekiel. Don't turn to John. You can if
you want to me, but my sheep hear my voice. I know them, and
they follow Me. And I give unto them eternal
life, and they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them
out of My hand. My Father which gave them Me
is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of
My Father's hand. I and My Father are one." To a lost sheep, this
is a joyous thing. The blind man told all of what
had happened to him. And they all came to him afterwards.
Pastor Gene and I were talking about this. He told the Sanhedrin,
I was blind. And now I see. Well, who did
that to you? That guy? That guy that people
are calling Jesus? Well, we don't believe you. We
know you're the guy that was sitting at the gates. We've seen
you all your life sitting there blind, asking for alms. But we don't believe you that
that's who saved you. So you went to the parents. Who saved
your son? We don't know. This man told all. He says, I
don't know who or how or why, but he said this, once I was
blind and now I see. Every one of us were that way.
We were all blind and dead in our sins, but the Lord gave us
life. Look at verses 11 through 15
of Ezekiel chapter 34. For thus saith the Lord God, now
listen to this, and I want you to read along as you're reading
along with me on these words. Tell me, is there anything in
these words that man can do? For thus saith the Lord God,
Behold I, even I will both search my sheep
and seek them out. As a shepherd seeketh out his
flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered,
so will I seek out my sheep and will deliver them out of all
the places of all places where they have been scattered in the
cloudy and dark day. And I will bring them out from
the people, and gather them from the countries, and will bring
them to their own land, and feed them upon the mountains of Israel,
by the rivers, and in all the inhabited places of the country.
I will feed them in a good pasture, and upon the high mountains of
Israel shall their fold be, there shall they lie in good fold. And in a fat pasture shall they
feed upon the mountains of Israel. I will feed my flock, and I will
cause them to lie down. Sayeth the Lord God, Amen." I am encouraged to see the sheep
in this pasture. This very place of green pasture. This very place of still waters,
where the Lord God Almighty is preached in truth. And every one of God's children
here this morning are encouraged by the same thing. If you showed up here and there
was nobody here, How disappointing that would be. But our Lord says,
where two or three are gathered in my name, I shall be in their
midst. Now look back at our text in
Hebrews chapter 10. I am encouraged to see the sheep
in this pastor. I am delighted to see God's not
done yet. Maybe there is another. Maybe
there is another right here in this area that the Lord has yet
to call. Are you back in Hebrews chapter
10 with me? Look at verse 12. But this man, it says, this man,
this One who is our High Priest, This one who says in verse 9,
Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away
the first, that he must establish a second. By the witch will we
are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once
and for all. This man, this man after he had
offered one sacrifice, the sacrifice of himself for the sins forever,
sat down on the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting
till his enemies be made his footstool. Wherefore, for by
one offering, verse 14, he hath perfected forever them, them
that are sanctified, whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness
to us. And after that, he had said before,
this is the covenant that I will make with them. After those days,
said the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts and in
their minds, and will write them. and their sins and iniquities
will I remember no more. Now where remission of sins is,
there is no more offering for sin. Having therefore, brethren,
boldness to enter into the holiest of holies by the blood of Jesus,
by a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us through
the veil, that is to say His flesh, and having a high priest
over the house of God. Our high priest sits on his throne
this very day, sprinkling the blood of himself on himself,
our mercy seat. How do we exhort one another?
By holding fast To the profession of our faith, look at verses
23 through 25 once again. Let us draw near with a true
heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from
an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us
hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for He
is faithful at promise. And let us consider one another
to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling
of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting
one another and so much more as you see the day approaching. Hold fast to the profession of
your faith. Provoke one another unto love. And don't forsake. the assembling
of ourselves together as so much more as we see the day approaching. Folks, God's grace is greater
than all of our sin. That should encourage you. To see God's people come together
Worshipping our Lord together. I can't imagine what it would
be like to go off and worship in a cave all by yourself. God's people are encouraged when
we assemble together in the praise of His name. Will you stand with
me please?