Now the only time that a thrice
holy God, you know why I say a thrice holy God? Because God
the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Three times
holy. He's the holy God. And the only
time a holy God will allow a man, a boy, a girl, to approach Him
is after our sin-filled hearts and bodies have been made holy. And that doesn't happen by our
doing at all. Therefore our sins, as we are
in our natural condition, our sins are a constant reminder
that they're a witness to us. That left to ourselves, sinners
could have never approached God. And then all God's Word, throughout
this Word, every Everything written here tells us, throughout the
Law and the Prophets, tells us that the righteousness of God,
without the sinner's obedience to the Law, which is by the faith
of Christ Jesus the Lord, that righteousness has been brought
in by Christ alone. And so it's unto all those that
God gave Him from the foundation of the world. It's upon all them
that believe, that are sitting here that believe, and elsewhere
throughout the world. And that's a witness to us. That
if we're going to come to God, we can only come through the
blood of the Redeemer. And then, in addition, the Lord
Jesus Christ is a witness to us. For He truly walked this
earth. And when He walked this earth,
He said, He said, sacrifice and offering, thou willed not. It wasn't God's will to put away
sin by sacrifice and offering. But a body hast thou prepared
me. Burnt offerings and offerings for sin, the Lord wasn't satisfied
with those. They never made satisfaction. And so He said, I come to do
thy will, O God. And He takes away the ordinances
that were against us, the earthly carnal commandments and the killing
letter of the law. He's taken that away from His
people and it was nailed to the cross when He was nailed to the
cross. And so now, and that's a witness to us. And then we
have here in Hebrews 10.15 we saw last time, it says, whereof
the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us. All of these things witness
to us that the way to God is through the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what God the Father purposed
from the beginning. It's what God the Son agreed
to in the covenant of grace. It's what the Holy Spirit witnesses
in the hearts when He comes and reveals these things in us. There's one way. There's really
one truth, and the truth is Christ. That's what this book is all
about, is about Him. And He's the life. If we're going
to have life, I know you have eyes wide open right now for
things out in the world and for all the things that have your
attention right now. But those things aren't life.
Life is Christ. And in just a blink of an eye,
this life is going to be gone. What the Lord says in His Word
is that that which we see and we call life is really not life. Real life, true life is spiritual
life. It's eternal. It's not temporal
like this fleeting thing that we're involved in right now.
It's all passing away quickly, rapidly passing away. Are you
in the family of God? Have you ever thought about that?
Have you ever asked yourself that question? Am I truly a brother
or a sister of the firstborn of Christ Jesus the Lord, that
firstborn among many brethren. Am I truly in that family? That's a good question to ask.
That's a better question to ask than where you're planning on
going to college. Or what you're going to do when you graduate
high school. Or what classes you want to be
taking next year. Or what you're going to do this
summer. The real question is, what do you think of Christ?
What think ye of Christ? We ought not give ourselves any
rest till we find out the answer. What do I think of Him? Is He
in all your thoughts? When you wake up in the morning,
throughout your day, when you lay down at night, is He in our
thoughts? I want to give you something
here that the Lord commands us. There are four privileges of
saints. And I call them privileges because
they're privileges given to us because of what Christ accomplished. Now listen to these four things
and let's go through them here. First of all, the first one is
to draw near to Him. That's a privilege we can draw
near to God. And secondly, we can hold on to Him, trusting
Him. Thirdly, we can consider one
another. We have brethren. We have a large
family in this earth. We can consider one another and
love one another. we have a place to come and worship.
And we don't want to forsake that. And then I want to give
you a warning at the end. A warning. So let's look here. First of all, we can draw near. Hebrews 10.19. 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 a high priest over
the house of God, now listen to this, 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.
When it says there a true heart, a true heart, That's a heart
that's been made new by God the Holy Spirit. It's a heart that's
persuaded that Christ is truly salvation. It's a heart that
believes God. It's a true heart that believes
God. It's set on Christ. It's desirous to know more of
Christ, to walk with Christ. That's a true heart. It's not
a, it's not a, A double-minded heart, or a heart set on multiple
things. It's a heart set on one thing.
On Christ. You know, the Lord has promised
us. This is what the Lord promised. Is there anybody in here that's
satisfied with the things you have right now? With what you
have right now? Are you satisfied? I bet you
the new shoes that you got. You thought, if I just get those
new shoes, I'll be satisfied. But I bet you right now, after
you're sitting with those new shoes on your feet, I bet there's
something else you want in it. They didn't satisfy, did they?
But the Lord said, He says this, He says, Seek ye first the kingdom
of God, and the other things will be added to you. But what
you'll find is, is when you seek the kingdom of God and you lay
hold of Christ, you're so satisfied with Christ, that you're satisfied
even if you don't have those other things. You're satisfied
for the Lord to give you what you need when you need it because
you got the one thing needful. But if we never have Him, we
go through our life wanting more and more and more and never satisfied
because our heart's not a true heart. Our heart is just divided
and split and going in every different direction. He said,
draw near me. with a true heart. Set your heart
on things above and draw near Him in full assurance of faith."
It's God-given faith. It's faith increased by God. It's faith kept by God. And it's
faith that's fully assured that what God says is so. And it says,
"...having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience." That's
the conscience that's in us by nature, but if it's purged by
the blood of Christ, by the Holy Spirit, do you believe that Christ's
work is sufficient to save apart from your own work? Maybe I should
back up. Maybe I should ask this. Do you
believe that you need to be saved? Do you need to believe that your
sin is so vile that you need salvation? I don't think very
many people believe that. I don't think most religionists
believe that. Most folks that are in church
believe it. I think we have an idea that once we get to a certain
age, we ought to get our children in church. And so we found a
church. People choose a church like they
choose a pair of socks. Does it feel good? Is it a good
fit? That's not it. This thing's got
to be We got to come to God knowing we need Him. Do you need Him? And it says here, having our
hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, that's hating those
things that we once loved. That's not looking at my works,
not looking at my activities I did in religion
or outside of religion. Those things are gone now. I
want to draw near to Him with purge to those things. Those
things are gone. I don't want to interfere with
my worship. I want to come and draw near
with a true heart. And having your bodies washed
with pure water. If the Lord Jesus Christ has
cleansed us and washed us in the heart, you can be assured
He's washed us in the body too. We have to draw near to God in
holiness. He won't accept us any other
way. And that has to do too with turning from the outward pollution
and not walking in it anymore. Not walking in it anymore. I'd like to see our young people
do things together. I know when I was growing up,
we were in a church and everybody was coming from an hour in every
direction. And I didn't spend a lot of time
with the kids in the church. And the kids in the church left. I mean, when they got up and
got grown and left, they were gone and didn't stay. And that's
the opposite of the church at Franklin. The folks that are
there at that church are still all there. The older folks are
still there. The younger folks are all gone.
But in Franklin, the younger folks all live closer together. And if they didn't, they made
an effort to get together and do things together. And it's
such a family, such a tight-knit family. And I'd like to see that. I think that'd be good. And then,
next thing it says here is to persevere. Persevere. Verse 19, "...having therefore,
brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus."
Verse 23, "...let us hold fast the profession of our faith without
wavering, for He is faithful that promised." Coming to Christ
is not an activity. It's not an event. It's life. It's life. It continues
from then on. Once we come to Christ, We hold
Christ. We hold our profession. You know
what a profession is? Scott works with computers. That's
his profession. This is a profession. When we
come to Christ and we trust Christ, it's a profession. We're not
leaving Him. This is our life. This is our
livelihood. This is day to day for us. Every
day. We don't take vacations from
Him. He's with us all the time. It's
our profession. And we hold fast when a person
makes a profession. They confess Christ to be their
all. And that they forsake this world for Christ. They're crucified
with Him. When He died, I died. When He
rose, I rose. To new life. To live anew. And
now I'm walking with Him. Stayed upon Him. And we hold
fast that profession. Do y'all have a track at your
schools or sports of any kind? Well, if somebody starts a race,
running a race, do you get a prize if you drop out of the race?
You don't, do you? The first one that crosses the
finish line gets the prize. They get it because they started
the race. They kept running in the race.
They didn't stop in the race and they went all the way to
the end and crossed the finish line. Scriptures tell us that. Paul said that to the Corinthians. He said, no you not, that they
which run in a race, all run, but one receiveth the prize,
so run. You run that you may obtain that
prize. The prize is the Lord Jesus Christ. The prize is eternal life. The prize is the crown of righteousness. It's righteousness, being made
the righteousness of God. That's the crown. So run that
race. Get in the race and run that
race. Look over there at Hebrews 12
with me. Hebrews 12. Look there at verse 1. Wherefore,
seeing we also accomplished about with so great a cloud of witnesses,
let us lay aside every weight. It's hard to run with weight
on it. Lay aside the weight and the sin which does so easily
beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set
before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our
faith. who for the joy that was set before Him. We have Him as
our joy. And He had a people as His joy
set before Him. And He ran the race, enduring
the cross. It was painful. He despised the
shame of it. But He sat down now at the right
hand of the throne of God. You see that? Well, and it says
here, without wavering, without wavering. We don't live too far
from the shore. How do you say it? Down the shore?
You go down the shore? Well, when you go down the shore,
and you go down to the ocean, and you see the waves on the
water, how stable are those waves? Not very stable, are they? They
come in, and they hit a rock, and they just crash. and they
just go back into the sea, don't they? You can't walk on them.
You can't put any weight on them. They're unstable. Unstable. James said in his epistle, he
says, Let us ask God in faith, nothing wavering. And he says
this, For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven
with the wind and tossed If the wind stops blowing, what happens?
The water just gets calm, doesn't it? But if the wind's blowing,
the heart of that wind's blowing, it just pushes that wave wherever
it wants to push it, tosses it any way it wants to toss it.
Is that you? Is that you? You're going to
have waves of friends that's going to want you to go do things
with them. You're going to have waves of people that you admire,
that you think are somebody to listen to, that may tell you
wrong. You're going to have all types.
You're going to have fashion and all that, you know, where
you want to dress just so. All that's like the wind. You're
going to be like the wave where whichever way it goes, that's
which way you go. The Lord said, draw near unto
Me. He's the anchor. Remember we saw that? He's the
anchor. The anchor holds steady, holds fast. He's the anchor. We draw near to Him in full assurance
of faith. Having our bodies, having our
conscience purged and our bodies washed with pure water, we hold
fast to Him. If you ever draw near to Him,
I guarantee you it's because He's drawn you near to Him. And
if He's drawn you near to Him, even though you may let go of
Him, He won't let go of you. He's going to hold on to you.
Now, let's look here. And then thirdly, it says, consider
one another. Consider one another. Hebrews
10.24. Let us consider one another. When you come into the house
of God, and I mean spiritually, when the Lord calls you unto
Him and you're born again and you believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, this thing is not a... You have family that you didn't
know you had. You have brothers and sisters
you didn't know you had. Now, they care for you often
more than your own brothers and sisters. Your earthly brothers
and sisters will. And it says here, consider one
another to provoke unto love and to good works, and not forsaking
the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but
exhorting one another, so much the more as you see the day approaching.
Let us consider one another. Brethren, as brethren, we think
about what we are. Let's think about what we are
and let us consider one another as we are. What are we? We're
sinners. We're sinners. When the Lord Jesus Christ came
to you who know Him, and you were given new life, born again
from above, nothing happened to that old nature. God didn't
do anything at all to that old nature. He didn't do anything
to those old desires. They don't have dominion over
you now because the Spirit of God has dominion. Christ has
dominion. But that old flesh is still there. It's still present. And so if
we consider that we're all sinners, then we have to consider that
we're going to likely offend one another, aren't we? We're
going to offend one another. We're going to say something
we wish we hadn't have said. Or give a look we wish we hadn't
have given. We're going to have infirmities.
We're going to be sick. We're going to be sad. Those
are fruits of sin. And then we're frail. We need encouragement because
we're easily downtrodden. We easily get depressed over
things. And we need to be encouraged.
All of us need to be encouraged. So it says, let us consider one
another. And we consider that as believers, you belong to Christ.
Belong to Christ. And the Lord said this. He said
to the ones, He said He'll separate people in the end. And He'll
have the sheep on His right hand goats on his left, those that
aren't his people, and the sheep that are his people. And he'll
tell the sheep, he'll say, now, I was thirsty and you gave me
water. I was hungry, you fed me. I was naked, you clothed
me. And the believer, seeing no good in himself, the believer
will say, Lord, when did I ever do those things for you? And
the Lord said, as much as you've done it, as you've done it to
one of these, the least of my brethren, You've done it unto
me." And to the others he says, you didn't bring me any water,
you didn't clothe me, you didn't feed me, you didn't do anything
for me. And the self-righteous man, the
religious man that thought he was pleasing God all along will
say, when did I not do those things for you? And the Lord
said, as much as you did not do it to one of the least of
these, my brethren, you've done it unto me. So what I'm saying,
brethren, is how we treat one another. If somebody's professed
to be a believer, treat that person as Christ.
Because Christ said, as much as you've done it unto them,
you've done it unto me. They're mine. He bought them.
He laid down His life for them. And that's a serious charge.
To lay a charge against somebody that He died for, that's to lay
a charge against Him. And then we're one with each
other in the body of Christ. Same grace chose us unto salvation
in Christ. It was the same blood that was
spilled out that put away sin, justified us before God. It's one Spirit that called us
out of darkness into His marvelous light, from spiritual death into
life. We were called into one body,
one church. We're baptized with one baptism.
We behold Him by one faith. We're one. We're in one body.
One body. So we consider one another. The
Lord was making a point, but He made this statement and it
holds true here. He said, if a house be divided
against itself, the house can't stand. It can't stand. You know, let me, I hate to use
my family for illustrations, but one thing I have to say this
one thing that I'm gonna embarrass her. But one thing my wife never
does is she never talks bad about me in front of my children ever. She just, she just does not do
it. And because if she did, my children
would think what she said about me. That's what they'd think
about me. That's how they'd look at me. If we would talk, would you say
something negative about Christ? We wouldn't do that. So we don't
want to say anything negative about our brethren either, do
we? We want to always be, it's always good to be gracious. It's
always good to be gracious. If you can't find anything positive
to say, just keep your mouth shut then. It's always good to
be gracious. Well, and then it says here that
we provoke one another unto love and to good works. We need to
be provoked, don't we? There's some ways that you can
provoke people in a bad way. The Lord tells us as parents
not to provoke our children to anger. But here we see this is
a good way to provoke one another. We need to be provoked to love
one another, to be kind to one another, to forgive one another,
to be patient, to be long-suffering towards one another, to continue
in the faith, to not forsake assembling together with one
another. And we do this by exhorting one another. You know what? That's
a big word, exhort. You know what it means? Just comfort. Comfort. Be kind and encouraging
to somebody. You know what that means, don't
you? Encouraging. Encourage somebody. And we do that by taking them
to this Word. That's where we go to. If we're
not reading this Word, we won't have anything to use to encourage
somebody. I'm not too encouraged by what
Oprah said or any of the TV people. I want to know what's the Lord
saying. That's what encourages me. So we read this Word every
day. And I'll tell you what will happen.
As you're reading this Word, Somebody will call you with some
problem, and it will be just what you're reading in this Word.
And you can use just what you're reading to encourage them with
it. That's provoking them to love and to good works. And look
here particularly. It says, "...not forsaking the
assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but
exhorting one another, so much the more as you see the day approaching."
Public worship. What we're doing right here today,
this is the most important aspect of our lives. I don't know if you agree with
that or not. I think you do. I think the adults
here do, the believers here do. This is most important. Most
important. The Lord didn't give us, He didn't
order all things and rule nations. Send forth all the different
men that he did and give them this word through the Holy Spirit
and Preserve this Bible that he's preserved for us If it wasn't
important for us to come together and hear what he says in his
word He wouldn't have done it He wouldn't have he wouldn't
have said it pleased him by the foolishness of preaching to save
them that believe if this wasn't important The Lord Jesus Christ
wouldn't have said, if two or three are gathered, dare I be
in the midst of them, if this was not important. This is important,
brethren. It's one thing to listen to a
message when you're alone. And that's good. I'd encourage
you all to do that. But the Lord meets with His people
when they're gathered together. He meets with them when they're
gathered together. And it can't be replaced. A CD or a message
on the computer or something like that can't replace gathering
together and worshiping God under the sound of a voice and with
brethren. It can't. It can't replace it.
And we do ourselves harm. We do ourselves much harm. And
we do our brethren much harm. And we set a poor example, too,
when we don't gather together to worship. And let the world
interfere with assembling ourselves together to worship. If you all
came together here and got together like you were when I walked in
here this morning. And I never came in, I never
showed up. And you called me and said, we
missed you today. And I said, yeah, well, I had,
fish was biting down at the Arnicott Bay, so I went down there this
morning. You wouldn't think very highly of me, would you? Be a
little disappointed, wouldn't you? Or, you know, well, I had
to, something went on over here, I had to be it in. You wouldn't
like that. Well, and it's not just discouraging
to the person who's preaching the message, it's discouraging
to your brethren too, because we all, I love this fellowship
because when we're finished here at every service, Thursday nights
too, you know, when we're finished, I can't run you off. I can't
get you to leave. Everybody wants to stay and visit,
you know. And that's good. That's good. And that's as much,
that's as important as what we're doing right here. Because whatever
you say, we're just encouraging one another. To know we've got
one another. That the Lord's brought us together
like He has. And it's important. And I'll
tell you something too. Somebody who can willfully not
assemble with the saints. I guarantee you they'll neglect
worship alone, too. They'll neglect worshiping the
Lord when they're by themselves, too. And I know, brethren, and
I don't want you to feel guilty if you miss services. That's not what I'm talking about.
Because there's times when things happen we have to miss, you know. We don't want to let anything
come between this. I mean, we want to organize everything
else in our lives around coming together to hear Christ preached. We have to. We have to. And we
will. Believers do that. Believers
do that. Let me show you something. Psalm 84. Psalm 84. The Lord said plainly on one
occasion, He said, where your treasure is, there will your
heart be also. I printed up, Melinda didn't
know I printed up the bulletins this morning, so she printed
up some more. So we got a big stack of bulletins
back there. But I've got, there's a quote in there from Pastor
Tommy Robbins down in Sylacauga, Alabama, Pastor's Fairmont Grace
Church. He made this statement. Let me
read this to you. He said, the treasure of one's
heart will consume his or her life without premeditation. It
is a natural thing. That which we love and cherish
is that which occupies our thoughts and actions to the satisfaction
of our desires. That which we love and cherish
is that which occupies our thoughts and actions to the satisfaction
of our desires. Whatever our heart is set on. Or whatever we consider to be
valuable to us. That's where our heart's going
to be. That's where our heart's going to be. Look here where
David's heart was. Psalm 84, verse 1. How amiable
are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth, even
fainteth for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh crieth
out for the living God. Now look at this. Yea, the sparrow
hath found a house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she
may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my King
and my God. Blessed are they that dwell in
thy house. They will be still praising thee. Selah. David was jealous even
of the sparrows and the swallows that just built nests around
the altars. Now, that's a man who wants to
be in the Lord's house, isn't it? Well, let me give you a warning
here now, and I'll finish up. Hebrews 10.26. For if we sin willfully after
that we've received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth
no more sacrifice for sins. but a certain fearful looking
for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries."
You know, from the beginning of this book up to this point,
everything we've heard has been about the superiority of the
Lord Jesus Christ over everything. Everything. Chapter 1, He's superior
to the prophets. He's superior to the angels.
He's superior to Joshua, to his rest. Superior
to Moses and the law. He's superior to the Sabbath
day. He's our Sabbath rest. He's superior
over the land of Canaan. He is our true heavenly rest.
He's superior over the high priest. He's our high priest forever
in the house of God. He's superior over all the sacrifices. The blood of bulls and goats
could never take away sin. But He, by one offering, has
taken it away. And we're encouraged here now
to draw near to Him, come to Him, and to hold fast our profession
once we come to Him. and to care for our brethren,
our one another, not forsake the assembly where He's preached. And now we're told here if we
do, it's sin. That's what sin is, brethren. These other things, you know,
if I could get you, everybody here, if I could get you to quit,
if there's one bad thought you've got and I get you to quit thinking
that one bad thought, just think positive thoughts, I hadn't stopped
you from being a sinner. Not at all. Because sin is anything
outside of being in Christ through faith. That's what sin is. We
have to come to Him, and we have to remain in Him, continue in
Him, persevere in Him, provide for His brethren because of Him. And He says here, if we don't,
brethren, if we can hear these things and just turn our back
on them and walk away and sin willfully after we receive the
knowledge of this truth, there's no more sacrifice for sin. Nothing
else. This is the only sacrifice. Christ
Jesus the Lord is... There's no more offering for
sin. There's nothing else we can do. This is it. This is the
way. There's only one way and He's
the way. And if we neglect Him, we sin
willfully. There's no more sacrifice for
sin, but the only thing we have to look forward to is a certain,
that means it's coming to pass, fearful, it's an awful thing
to fall into the hands of an angry God. A looking for judgment. Judgments come in the past either. We're gonna be just in Christ
at Calvary. We're gonna be just in our spy
ourselves in ourselves Fiery indignation we shall devour the
adversaries Well, I hope brethren I hope that that by God's grace
this will be Real to everybody I just wish I could I I wish I could make it real.
I can't. I wish I could make it as real
to you as it is to me. I just can't do it. All I can
do is what God's given me to do, and that's to sit here and
tell you what I'm telling you. You gotta be here. You gotta
be here to hear it. And if God's pleased to, One
day you'll be in my shoe. You'll be saying, I just wish
I could... I don't know why they can't see it. You'll say, yeah,
I know why they can't see it. But give yourself to it. Give
yourself to it. You know, I know that the Spirit
has to give us a heart for these things. I'm not saying that it's
not necessary at all. But what I am saying is this.
I know at the same time, you have a Bible. You can pick that
Bible up on a daily basis and read it. There's good books you can pick
up and read to help you study this Bible. Study it. Read it. And ask God
to give you an understanding of it. And we'll wait. We'll wait on Him. I pray He
does.