Seeking once again the Lord's
help to give me the ability to speak this night, I'd like to
turn with me to the chapter that we read, Hebrews chapter 3, and
the text you'll find in verses 7 and 8. 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."
And it goes on and it continues about the way in which the people
of Israel rejected God's leading and they walked for 40 years
in the wilderness. The subject this evening really
is a matter of urgency, as the scripture declares by the Holy
Spirit today, if you will hear his voice. We know that the scripture is
the word of God. It is revealed to us as God's
Word given by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And the Holy
Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. We believe in a
triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit reveals to
the Lord's people the purposes of God the Father and God the
Son. We know that the scripture tells
us that before the foundation of the world, God the Father
chose a people and gave those people to the Son. Those people
were people who had sinned against God, fallen short of the glory
of God and had no hope of saving themselves. And so they were
given to the Son so that the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, should
be their substitute. that Christ had to be born into
this world to live that perfect life, to fulfil the whole law
of God, to die upon the cross and to be punished for the sins
of those people and then to be raised again from the dead and
ascend up into heaven. We know that that took place
over 2000 years ago but that work of redeeming love continues
to go forth that those people who were in Christ Jesus, those
who were on his shoulders, those who were on his breastplate,
those who are in his heart, they are to be called out of nature's
darkness. The scripture tells us that the
work of the Holy Spirit is to continue on the work of the Lord
Jesus Christ. We see in the book of Acts as
the Lord Jesus ascends up into heaven the Holy Spirit continues
working with the apostles and as they preach the gospel the
Holy Spirit works in the hearts of people to bring them to receive
the truth of God's word and to cause them to turn away from
their beloved sin, from their previous lifestyles and to come
and to follow of the Lord Jesus Christ. He gives them faith to
enable them to believe and to lay hold of the Lord Jesus Christ
and so the Holy Spirit reveals the purposes of God the Father
and God the Son. He then, as we saw this morning,
he indwells in the body of everyone who believes. in John 14 as we looked at a
bit this morning in 14 and 16 and 17 or 14 and 16 we have the
Lord Jesus Christ really introducing the church to the Holy Spirit. He tells his apostles that he
is going to to go away from them and he tells them that he is
going to give them a comforter in the Gospel of John chapter
14. He says if you love me, verse
15, keep my commandments. I will pray the Father and he
shall give you another comforter that he may abide with you forever
even the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because
it seeth him not neither knoweth him but ye know him for he dwells
with you and shall be in you I will not leave you comfortless
I will come to you and if we remember the words of the Lord
Jesus Christ he says that if you have seen me you have seen
the Father And so he's able to say about the Trinity, the Holy
Spirit of God, that he is going to come. And Christ says, I will
comfort you. And so the Holy Spirit is the
other comforter. Christ, we know, was the comforter
of his people as he walked this earth. He wasn't a hard man to
his people. He was a compassionate friend
to those who followed him and he was a comforter. And so he
says I'm going to give you another comforter, the spirit of truth. So the Holy Spirit has other
names as does the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Holy Ghost.
He is the spirit of truth. He is the Comforter. In verse
26 it says, But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom
the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things.
and shall bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I
have said unto you. Peace I leave with you, and my
peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth give I unto
you. Let not your hearts be troubled,
neither let it be afraid. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
tells us something of the work of the Holy Spirit that he is
going to bring to the memory the teachings of the Lord Jesus
Christ and those of you who walk the Christian pathway will have
experienced that, that as you walk day by day and as you enter
into various circumstances of life things are brought to your
memory that God has taught you. And that is the work of the Holy
Spirit to comfort the Lord's people as they walk through this
narrow way that leads to life. And the Spirit of God is the
comforter, the spirit of truth. In chapter 16, again, as we looked
at this morning, he is referred to again in verse 7 as the comforter.
that he is going to reprove the world of sin and of righteousness
and of judgment, of sin because they believe not in me, of righteousness
because I go to my father and you shall see me no more, of
judgment because the prince of this world is judged. I have
yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now.
Howbeit, when the spirit of truth will come, he will guide you
in all truth. shall speak not of himself whatsoever
he shall hear that shall he speak and he will show you things to
come he shall glorify me he shall receive of mine and shall show
it unto you all things that the Father hath are mine. Therefore
said I that he shall take of mine and shall show it unto you. And so I've heard it said before
that the Holy Spirit is like the shy one of the Trinity. He doesn't manifest himself but
he points people to the Lord Jesus Christ and often we see
when people deviate from the truth there is a over-emphasis
on the Holy Spirit and they remove the Lord Jesus Christ but the
work of the Holy Spirit of God is to point people to Christ
to enable them to open up the scriptures and to rightly divide
the truth and to find comfort in the Word of God and he says
and he will not speak of himself but whatsoever he shall hear
that he will speak and he will show you things to come he shall
glorify me that is Christ he shall receive of mine and shall
show it unto you and so the Spirit of God it takes those things
of the Lord Jesus Christ and reveals them unto the people
of God. despite the Holy Spirit that
the Scriptures have been written. The Scripture tells us itself in
Timothy that all Scripture 2 Timothy 3, all scripture is given by
inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for
correction and for instruction in righteousness, that the man
of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished, unto all good works. And so the Holy Spirit of God
moved the men of God to write the scriptures. Although it's
written with the hand of Paul, yet the Holy Spirit of God is
moving those men through his inspiration to write the scriptures. Peter tells us that that holy
men of God are moved by the Spirit. Knowing this, that no prophecy
of the scripture is by private interpretation, for the prophecy
came not in old time by the will of men, but holy men of God spake
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. And so the word really
means carried along by. the Holy Spirit. As we read through
the prophets they were not always under the inspiration of God.
There were times when the Spirit came upon them and they proclaimed
they thus saith the Lord. they proclaim a message from
God and so as we read from the scriptures we are reading a message
from God through the hand of Peter, through the hand of Paul,
through the hand of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and such like
and we are reading the words of God which is why we can say
it is truth, it is without error, the word of God through the inspiration
or the moving along, the carrying along of the Holy Spirit. It is said like a ship on the
sea. It is without the wind it just
is moved by the currents and the tide but when the wind comes
it is carried along the ocean. And that is like how those men
of old wrote the Word of God. They were carried along by the
wind of the Holy Spirit. And the scripture tells us itself
that it is a living word. We read in Hebrews 4 that the
Word of God is quick or it is alive, it is living, it is powerful. It is sharper than any two-edged
sword, pacing it even. even and to the dividing asunder
of the soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow and is
a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. We know
that the Lord Jesus Christ himself is the word of God and he is
a living word and his word that he speaks is also a living word. The word of God is a living word.
It has an effect upon people's lives, it is sharp, it is powerful,
sharper than any two-edged sword and if we are in our right minds
we will confess that the word of God is cutting And it has
cut down multitudes of people and brought them to the knowledge
of their sin. It has divided the hard hearts
of thousands and thousands of people. And it reveals to us
the inner workings of ourselves. This book is able to dismantle
the hardest of heart. It is able to look deep down
within our soul. As the scripture tells us that that we are laid open. In verse 13, neither is there
any creature that is not manifest in his sight, but all things
are naked and open to the eyes of him with whom we have to do. And so his word is living and
Christ is living and his eyes are able to penetrate into the
very inner workings of every single person. We are laid open
before him and his word lays us open. And it is a blessing when it
does. As we said this morning, sometimes
we can listen to a doctor and we cannot believe him and we
ignore his advice. But if we listen to him when
he tells us that we have a serious condition and we undergo the
knife and he operates upon us and he deals with us, that is
what we want the Word of God to do. We don't want it just
to go over us as water on a duck's back. We want it to have an effect. We want it to cut us open and
to change us and to transform us. and to make us into a more
of a Christ-like character. It is a sword. It divides us. Jeremiah tells us that not only
is it a sword, but it is a hammer. Jeremiah 23, verse 28. The prophet that hath a dream,
let him tell a dream. And he that hath my word, let
him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat,
saith the Lord? Is not my word like as a fire,
saith the Lord? and like a hammer that breaketh
the rock in pieces. And so God's word is a living
word, it is a sword to divide the soul but also it is a fire
to purify. Fire in the scripture signifies
purification and so the word of God acts as a fire to purify
the soul. but also as a hammer to smash
open our hard hearts. The Bible tells us that our hearts
are as hard rock, deceitful above all things and desperately wicked
and so it needs the hammer of the word of God to break us open. The Bible tells us a new heart
will I give you. I'll take away your hard heart
of stone and I'm going to give you a hard heart of flesh. And
it's done through the work of the Spirit and the application
of the Holy Living Word of God. And so he says in our text, wherefore,
as the Holy Ghost said today, if you hear his voice. He adds the emphasis that it's
not me saying this. This is something that the Holy
Spirit has laid heavy upon my heart to remind you of the Lord's
dealings with the people long ago. That it's the Holy Spirit
that is adding an emphasis of urgency to the word. Why today? Why does the scripture put an
urgency on this message? Quite simple. Because there might
not be a tomorrow. And if we are honest with ourselves
we all know that deep down. We all know that our lives are
very frail and as Jonathan Edwards preached all
those years ago that we hang like a spider over hell hanging
by a little thread. Our lives are so fragile that
we can be snuffed out at any moment. We like to deceive ourselves that we have
a long length of time. But the scripture emphasises
the point that it's today. Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your heart. James tells us. And remember
when we go through the scripture and we say James tells us, James
is under the influence of the Holy Spirit of God. And so it
is God telling us through the pen of James. And he says, go
to now or hang on a minute. Listen to what I have got to
say. Don't think you have very much
time. Go to now. You that say tomorrow,
today or tomorrow, we will go into such a city and continue
there a year and buy and sell and get gain. Whereas ye know
not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is
even a vapour. It appeareth for a little time,
then vanishes away. For you ought to say, if the
Lord will, we shall live and do this or do that. So God is saying, sit down a
minute and let me just remind you something. you might not
have or I might not have a tomorrow. He says your life is very fragile
just like a vapour. The scripture tells us it's just
like a tale that is told. We read of people's lives from
years ago and they may live for 60, 70 years. We read their lives
and they're gone. just a tale that is told and
one day that will be you and me. One day people might be looking
back and say oh remember our auntie so-and-so or remember
our mother or remember our brother or remember our uncle or remember
our pastor. We were just, we are gone. Life
just continues and it's just a vapour. It appears we appear
for a little time and even if we live to a hundred it's nothing
in comparison to eternity. And it's very arrogant of us
to say that tomorrow I am going to do this and tomorrow I'm going
to do that and next week I'm going to do this with my life
and the next year I'm going to do that with my life. I'm going
to do what I want to do. It's very arrogant to say that
because You are not in control and I am not in control of our
time. All we see is now. We are not
able to see the length of days that God has allotted for us.
And so he says today is the day of consideration. Today is the
day that you need to think wisely about things. And if you want
to do something tomorrow then acknowledge me. Acknowledge that
God willing I am going to do something. If God enables me
to do it, if God allows me to live till tomorrow, I would like
to do this or I would like to do that. And so James tells us,
God tells us, your life is just a vapour and it is passing away. And the writer of the Hebrew
says, today, if you hear his voice, And there is then an urgency
in what he is going to say. An urgency. There are many voices
that we hear. There is one voice that we are
to listen to very carefully. That is the voice of the Lord
Jesus Christ. That is the voice of the gospel. The scripture tells us, if you
have ears to hear, then hear. When Jesus told the parables,
he that has ears to hear, let him hear. Today, if you hear his voice, there is an urgency to listen
to the gospel. As we said this morning, It's
the gospel of truth. And the gospel of truth has an
eternal consequence if it's rejected. If our heart is hardened to this
gospel truth it has an eternal consequence. And so that's why
the Holy Spirit puts an urgency on it. Today, if you hear his
voice, do not be like the people of Israel years ago who hardened
their hearts to the voice of God in telling them to cross
over into the promised land. Don't be like them, he says.
Today, if you hear his voice. There are many voices, aren't
there, that we have in this modern world in which we live. Everybody
seems to want to grab our attention. We have voices on the radio.
We have voices on the TV, on the news, on the internet. We
go into shops, there are voices. Everything is trying to grab
our attention and to take us away from really listening to
the voice of God. You see, I mean to get at the
young people, even older people, you see them jogging along with
headphones, the young people walking along with their headphones
on. They're not even interested in what is going on around them.
They're consumed in their self and their music and there's no
opportunity for them to listen to the voice of God. Today, if
you hear his voice, What voices do we listen to? What other influences
do we allow into our minds? I was speaking to one of our
visitors this morning and he said if you watch the TV he said
it's just like drip feeding poison. He said it's like the music that
people listen to. It's like just a dripping of
a poison into the mind. to slowly draw people away from
God, to fill their minds with the things that the musician
or the programme is promoting. And none of them want to promote
the things of God. All of them have a hidden agenda
to draw people away from contemplating the voice of Almighty God. So there are many things, many
voices calling for our attention and they're loud voices. Think of the world and its music,
it's loud. My mind went to Elijah. when Elijah, after he had defeated
those prophets of Baal and he ran away in a depressed state
and he went and hid himself in the mountains and God came to
him. And because I was reminded of
this, I was reminded of a testimony that I heard of a friend of mine
And he said, every day I drove to work with the radio on, blaring. He said, I went to chapel, had
no concern for my soul whatsoever. I was able to sit under the ministry
for maybe 40 years and it just washed over me, had no effect
whatsoever. And I came out on a Monday morning
and got into my car, whacked on the radio and drove to work. And then one day he said, I was
just thinking, this is just so noisy. This is so loud. And he turned it off. And he
said, and then I heard the still small voice of God. And so it
was like Satan for years and years has been distracting him
with this thumping music and then he turned it off and he
heard the still small voice of God and he was born again and
changed. And the still small voice comes
from 1 Kings 19. And he said, go forth and stand
upon the mount before the Lord and behold the Lord passed by.
And the great and strong wind rent the mountain and breaking
pieces the rocks before the Lord. But the Lord was not in the wind.
And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.
And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.
And after the fire a still small voice. And so there was a dramatic
events taking place of wind, of earthquakes and fire. And often we see, though this
was not the work of Satan, but Satan likes to work in a dramatic
way that attracts the flesh. We only have to look at the Glastonbury
Festival and the amount of money and effort that is pumped into
entertaining the masses. Lights and smoke and speakers
and entertainment and it just is loud. And it's just to push
out any voice of God or any thoughts of God and to grab the sensations
and the emotions of people. But it says, God was not in the
fire than a still small voice. And it was so when Elijah heard
it. that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and
stood in the entering of the cave and behold there came a
voice unto him and said what doest thou hear Elijah and he
said I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts because
of the the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant thrown
down thine altars and slain thy prophets with the sword and I
even I only am left and they that seek my life to take it
away And the Lord said unto him go return on thy way to the wilderness
of Damascus and when thou comest anoint Haziel to be king over
Syria. And so the Lord appeared to him
in a still small voice. And you know when we are so distracted
with so many things, so much noise and so hectic, sometimes
it's good to step out for a little while, go for a little walk,
sit down in the quiet and meditate upon God and think upon God and
hear what God is saying. and he can, by his Holy Spirit,
apply the truths of scripture to your life and you will hear
his voice as Elijah did, not in the chaos of this world, but
in the quietness. God came. He that has ears to hear, let
him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. In Revelations
2 as the Lord Jesus Christ has walked amongst the churches and
he gives his rundown on what he sees. He tells them the truths
of what he sees is going on. And then he says, he that has
an ear let him hear what the Spirit says unto the churches. And that's what we need. We need
it as believers to hear what the Spirit is saying to us. And
it cannot be found in what this world has to offer but it can
be found only in the quietness of when God speaks. And it's
today if you will hear his voice. Harden not your heart. And God speaks to his people
through his word. He, as I've said, the Holy Spirit
brings things to our remembrance. There was a time in my life when someone wanted to buy my business
off me. And they said, I'll buy everything.
And I said, oh, I'll think about it. And as soon as I walked away
from the man, this word came, my son, if sinners entice thee,
consent thou not. Now I can't ever remember reading
that passage of scripture. It wasn't marked in my diary,
I didn't even know where it was. I had to search, it's in the
book of Proverbs. But the Holy Spirit brought it
to my memory to stop me from doing something that I might
have done. My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. And so the Lord can and does
bring scripture to our minds to speak to us and to guide us
through life and to stop us and to encourage us to go forward.
Also, he speaks to us through providential things. Elijah heard
the voice of God. The people of Israel followed
the cloud and the fire. the people in the Apostle Paul
was providentially ushered into Macedonia, the Lord hedged his
way and so we are spoken to by God through providential circumstances
or things in life that take place that may guide us and direct
us or stop us from doing something and so the Lord speaks and we
need to be aware and to listen to his voice and we need to be
aware to look at what is taking place to have our ears open to
what the Lord is saying but also maybe by persuasion. You know
in the life of a Christian if we are endowed by the Spirit
of God we may be persuaded internally to do something. God may lay
something in our heart. Go to visit so-and-so. And you go and you find that
they just needed somebody. and you arrived just at the right
time and you are of great benefit and comfort to them and so we
have to be sensitive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit of God. He
lives within us and therefore we are to hear his voice and
sometimes we can suppress that voice, we can suppress those
promptings and that time will pass. And it's not today that
we leave it till tomorrow and we find that it was too late.
If only I had listened yesterday and I had gone and I had obeyed. And so the Lord speaks by his
word. He speaks through providence.
He speaks by persuasion. And he even speaks through the
ministry of the word of God. As we sit under the preached
ministry the Holy Spirit applies truth. We can learn and be guided
and directed. And so he says today if you will
hear his voice. I wonder if we have ever heard
the voice of God. Maybe not as in the old days,
the olden times when the spirit spoke audibly to people. Have you ever been persuaded
by scripture? Has the scripture ever been applied
to your life and you have felt that God has spoken to you? You have had a benefit and comfort
from the word of God. Well that is God speaking. And
he only speaks to his people who he has made alive by the
Spirit of God. He does not deal with the unbelievers. The only time he deals with them
is to break their hearts and bring him or her to themselves. And so if you have heard the
voice of God, if you have had the Scripture of God applied
to your life and heart and no comfort from it, then you can
be assured that your Father, your Heavenly Father, has spoken
to you. that you are his son, that you
are his daughter, that he is dealing with you in a loving
and a compassionate and a kind a way. He goes on, harden not
your hearts as in the day of propagation, in the day of temptation
in the wilderness. In the book of Psalms, Psalm
95, It really reads the exact same words. Verse 6 it says,
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. Today, if you hear
his voice, harden not your heart as in the provocation as in the
day of temptation in the wilderness, when your fathers tempted me,
proved me and saw my work. Forty years long I was grieved
with this generation and said, this is the people that do err
in their heart and they have not known my ways. and to whom
I swear in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest. And so the writer of the Hebrews
is repeating what he knows to have been written in the book
of Psalms and he's repeating how the Lord dealt with the people
of Israel as they came out of Egypt. We know the story, it's
been mentioned time and time again, how they were delivered
by God in that miraculous delivery. they were brought through by
the by the cloud to the banks of the river to the promised
land. The spies were sent over into
that land and they were told to go and search out the land. we know that they came back and
they had an evil report. Caleb was the man who said let
us go up at once and possess the land for we are able to overcome
it. the men that went up with him
said we are not able to go against the people for they are stronger
than we. Number 13 verse 32 and they brought
up an evil report of the land which they had searched and to
the children of Israel saying the land through which we have
gone to search it it is a land that eateth up inhabitants thereof
and all the people that saw it are men of great stature And
there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the
giants. And we were in our own sight
as grasshoppers. So we were in their sight. And so Caleb comes and he says,
let us go. And these other men say, it's
impossible. And the people believed the lie. They believed the despairing
news that it is impossible for them to go up into the land and
they failed to obey God. Moses intercedes on behalf of
the people. God says I'm going to destroy
them. I've brought them out of Egypt. I've shown them my great
wonders. I've defeated all of the people
of Egypt. I've made that passage through
the Red Sea. I provided them with manna. I provided them with
water. Let me destroy them. But Moses
pleads and God says, OK, I pardon their sin. But. And the Lord said, I have pardoned
according to thy word. But as truly as I live, all the
earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, because all
those men which have seen my glory and my miracles, which
I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, have tempted me now these ten
times, and have not hearkened unto my voice. Surely they shall
not see the land which I swear unto their fathers, neither shall
any of them that provoked me see it, but my servant Caleb,
because he had another spirit with him and followed me fully. Him will I bring into the land
wherein he went and his seed to possess it. So this is the account that the
writers are referring back to. The children of Israel having
seen the wonders of the Lord, told to go and possess the land
they didn't believe. If they had believed Caleb, they
could have crossed over and possessed the land and the Lord judged
them for it. We read that everyone over the
age of 20 years of age died as they wandered around the wilderness
for 40 years. They were not permitted to enter
into the promised land. And he says, don't be like them. To put it simply, harden not
your hearts. Don't be like them. Today if you hear his voice,
today if you hear his voice in the sound of the gospel, don't
harden your hearts like the people of old because they died in the
wilderness because they didn't listen to God. A believer, if
the Lord speaks to you, don't harden your heart. Receive it
as comfort and truth and go forth rejoicing. Know that one day
you will be in the promised land of God. And so he says, don't
be like them. They died in the wilderness.
They never made it into the promised land. And that is the consequences of the rejection of the gospel. Notice that it says, don't harden
your heart. You and me will be to blame if
we end up in hell. Not God. Jesus says himself, he that believeth
on him is not condemned. But he that believeth not is
condemned already because he has not believed in the name
of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation,
that light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather
than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone that
does evil hates the light, neither comes to the light, lest his
deeds should be reproved. But he that does truth cometh
to the light, and his deeds may be made manifest, that they are
wrought in God. And the scripture tells us very
clearly that although our hearts are hard by nature, we can harden
them to the sound of the gospel. We can make them harder. Because it says harden not your
hearts like the people of Israel. One of the dangers there is in
continually sitting under the ministry of the word that you
can become gospel hardened. As a bricklayer lays bricks his
hands become callous. And as someone sits under the
gospel and ministry week after week after week it's almost it
just flows over them. Heard it all before. Doesn't affect me. God is going
to intervene in my life one day and I'm just going to wait for
that day. But the scripture doesn't tell
us to think like that. The scripture tells us to leave
the things of God to the things of God and the things of man
we are to consider. And so the Spirit presses an
urgency on the day because we don't know. how long that we
have. And so today if you have heard
the voice of God don't harden your heart as it were pour water
upon the fire. Pray that God fans the flames
of what has taken place in your heart that he may bring it to
completion. it will not pass by but it may
prove to be a living word, a wrought word by the Holy Spirit of God. It says in verse 19, so we see
that they could not enter in because of unbelief. Unbelief
kept them from the promised land and unbelief will keep people
out of heaven. Another thought that I had in the Gospel of Luke was Zacchaeus,
chapter 19. And Jesus came to the place and
he looked up and saw him and said, Zacchaeus, make haste,
come down for today. I must abide in your house today,
not tomorrow, but today. Today, I must abide in your house. And he made haste and he came
down and he received him joyfully. He heard the voice of the Lord
Jesus Christ, the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. He obeyed
the words of the Lord Jesus. He came down from the tree. He
received him into his house and he made him a great supper. And
he says this day, his salvation come to this house for as much
as he also is a son of Abraham for the son of man is come to
seek and to save that which is lost and so today if you hear his voice harden
not your hearts and if you don't hear his voice then wonder why
you haven't heard it Why does the word flow over us and have
no effect? Why does the truth of the word
of God flow over us and have no effect? Why would we rather
listen to a lie than listen to the truth? The truth is here
laid out before us. It is a free gospel, the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ. God so loved the world that he
gave his only begotten son that whoever believes may have everlasting
life. And so if it's today, Zacchaeus,
today, I'm going to abide in your house. Today, if you hear
his voice, harden not your hearts. Hear what the Spirit says to
the churches. Exhort one another daily while
it is called today. Lest any of you be hardened through
the deceitfulness of sin. You see, sin is deceitful. Satan
is deceitful. He doesn't want you to hear the
truth of the word of God. Well don't listen to the lies
of Satan. Encourage one another. Exhort
one another daily. Daily while it is called today. And it goes on, today, if you
hear his voice, harden not your hearts. Today, today is the day
of salvation. We don't let today pass by until
we have reckoned, made a reckoning with the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. May the Lord help us as we close
this service by singing hymn number 461 from Gadsby's. Lord dismiss us with thy blessing,
fill our hearts with joy and peace. Let us each thy love possessing,
triumph in redeeming grace. Oh refresh us, travelling through
this wilderness. Hymn number 461 to the tune 671. What is this, such grave-like blessing,
fill our hearts with Let us each thy love possessing,
triumph in redeeming grace. O refresh us, O refresh us, traveling
through this wilderness. ? For thy gospel's joyful sound
? ? May the fruits of thy salvation ? ? In our hearts and minds be
found ? ? May thy presence, may thy presence with us evermore
be found ? So whene'er the signal's given
Us from earth to go on our way Born on angels' wings to heaven
Glad to live our Congress' day May we ready, may we ready Almighty God, we do again thank
Thee for Thy word. We thank Thee that Thou dost
speak to Thy people. We pray that we may hear Thy
voice and we ask that Thou enable us to respond even this day. Help us, Lord, we pray now as
we depart from each other. May thy spirit rest upon each
and every one of us, and we ask that thy word may bear fruit
in our lives for thy honour and for thy glory. And may the grace
of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father, with
the fellowship and the communion of the Holy Spirit, rest and
abide with us now and for evermore. Amen.