Psalm 95. Psalm 95. The title of this message, A Call to Worship the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's what we have here in this
psalm, is a call to worship the Lord. And we know that the Lord
is the Lord Jesus Christ. We know who He is. And we are
called upon to worship Him. You know, worship of the Lord
and fear of the Lord are pretty much one and the same throughout
the Word of God. Those who fear the Lord, they
worship the Lord. And those who worship the Lord,
they fear the Lord. They are one and the same. And this psalm is a call to worship
to give unto Him the glory and the honor due unto His name. That's my privilege and my responsibility,
standing here preaching, and it's our privilege as a church
to do so this evening, to worship the Lord and to worship, listen,
as it says in this Psalm, excuse me, in His presence. I try to fix in my mind when
I come to worship with you, we gather here together, I try to
fix in my mind gathering in the presence of Jesus Christ. He is that real to me. There's a man in glory the Lord
Jesus Christ, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. It's hard to get
this in our minds at times because we're so sinful and we have these
little peanut minds, we still have. But to think upon Him and
to realize and understand right now, we are in the presence of
the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. I tell you what, that
thought alone is humbling. That thought alone is sobering. It will make what we are doing
here tonight true worship if we gather in His presence. Now we are told to gather here,
we are told to come by singing, by submission, bow to Him, kneel
to Him. By confessing, by giving Him
the glory due unto His name, He's the Lord God. He's the Lord
our King. It is to acknowledge His sovereign
right over all. He made heaven. He made earth. And it says He made us. He made
us. He made us His people. And we
acknowledge that. And we acknowledge His power
to save. As the leper said, Lord, if you
will, his sovereign power to save, the leper said, Lord, if
you will, you can make me clean, if you will. And we recognize
the sovereign will of our Lord. And it's to acknowledge his power
over all men, over all angels, over all creation. We recognize
he is the potter and we are the clay. Let's not ever get that
turned around. He's not the clay and we are
the potter. He's the potter, we are the clay.
Can not the potter do with his own as he will? Absolutely, he
can do as he will with his own. And he owns it all. So he can
do as he will. I heard someone, well, I've heard
someone, oh, I didn't hear him, I was reading. I was reading
someone, I believe it was, I don't know if it was Spurgeon or who
it was, they said, whenever you make your own earth, you do with
it what you want to. But this one's his. And this
one, and he'll do with it as he will. And I know this, God
being God, I don't understand all that the Lord does. I don't
even, I mean, my understanding doesn't even scratch the surface
of what he does. But I understand who he is. He's
holy. He's right. He's good. His word
is right. We read that in the Psalm earlier.
His word is right. His judgments are right. What
the Lord does is right, and it's right because He does it. He
don't do it because it's right. It's right because He does it.
And I understand that. In understanding that, I understand
that everything He does, everything He does is right and has an eternal
purpose to it. Now he says in verse 1, here's
a call to worship. Oh come. It's a call for us to
come together and worship the Lord. This is important. I cannot
express how important gathering together as God's people, listening
to God's Word under God's Spirit, and worshiping Him. He said,
where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am
I in the midst of them. He's here with us. If there's
just two or three people here tonight, the Lord's here. That's a promise. That's a promise. He's here. And it's a call for
us to come together and worship the Lord. Jehovah. The self-existing One. To worship Him. And it's a call
to come together in unity. Oh, come and let us. This call is not to all religions
out there. Let's all just get together.
Let's all just worship the Lord. Well, let's define who the Lord
is. You can't get together. Listen,
this is why true Christianity, the Gospel, is hated because
it's so dogmatic. There's only one God. Remember
Paul in the Bible class last Sunday? They thought one was
Jupiter and the other one was Mercurius and they were going
to offer sacrifices to him and they had all these gods. I looked
it up and there was like 41 gods plus. But the gospel declares
one God. One God. So the true God of heaven
and earth, that is the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ,
who is God in the flesh, cannot get together and sing with Islam
or Buddha. But this is a call for us to
come together in unity who believe God, who believe and worship
the one God and the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a call for us to
come together and do this in unity of heart. And it's a call
for us to come together, as one man wrote, this man named Martin
Gere, he wrote this, our foot has a great proclivity to depart
to the field, the oxen, and the new wife, than to come to the
sacred courts and worship the Lord. You go over there in Luke
14, 18, don't go over there right now, but later on, or I'll read
it to you later on Forget it. But that's where they made excuses
when they were told to come to the wedding feast. And they all
made excuses. One had to go plow, another one
was married, and this and that. They all made excuses. And that's
us by nature. We have a real, as he says, proclivity
to go do something else than to be here. The flesh does not
want to be here. The spirit is willing, but the
flesh is what? It's weak. It's in the way. It
gets in the way. You know and I know by experience
that it seems like if anything's going to come up or if we ever
have an excuse for something, it's always when it has to come
to worship service. Something always seems to want
to come up. But here He says, Oh, come, come
and let us. And we're told here how we are
to come. Let us come. Let us sing unto the Lord. O
come, let us sing unto the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to
the rock of our salvation. This is the attitude with which
we are to come. It's one ready to sing. It's
a part of worship. You know, this really sets the
tone and mood of worship. It is our song. Singing from
the heart unto the Lord. and making a joyful noise, people
that are glad to be here. Are you glad to be here? I'm glad to be here. I'm glad,
I tell you what, I'm glad God give me the desire and the ability
to be here. There was a time the desire was
not there. The desire was not there. The
ability was, but the desire wasn't. But He's given us a desire to
be here and the ability to be here. Now, that being so, make
a joyful noise, a glad noise. And then it says here, let us
sing unto the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to
the rock of our salvation. He's the object of our worship.
We know whom we worship, don't we? Christ said to that woman at
12, you worship you know not what, you don't know what you're
doing. You're going through this hocus pocus and all this mumbo
jumbo, you don't know what you're doing. We know, thank God Almighty,
we know what we're doing here tonight. We are worshiping the
Lord Jesus Christ. We are worshiping God in Christ.
We know what we're doing. He's the object of our worship.
He's the rock of our salvation, which denotes a sure foundation, a hiding place, a place of protection, an unchanging place, stable,
one that doesn't move all over the place, immutable, immutable. And worship is all about Him,
isn't it? This service tonight, and every
time we have one, is all about Him. It's not about us. We're not the subject matter
of the service. He is. He is. And He's the subject matter of
worship for time and eternity. Not just now, but for time and
eternity. We'll worship Him throughout
eternity. And it'll be perfect worship. It will be without sin. We will worship Him as we ought
to. We will worship Him, as the song
says, with unsinning heart. There won't be any sin, any imperfections
in our worship. Just think of those who have
gone on already They are in His presence. They are worshiping
Him right now. Right now, as we gather here
to worship Him, they are right now worshiping Him with perfect
worship and perfect love. They're giving unto Him the glory
that's really due unto His name that you and I try to, desire
to, attempt to, But you know and I know sin always creeps
in. You know, our mind drifts. Their mind doesn't drift. Isn't
that amazing? The saints that are in glory right now, their
minds are not drifting. They're not thinking about this
and that and what's going on. Their mind's not drifting. I
can't even imagine that. I cannot imagine having complete,
pure, 100% attention on Him. But it'll happen in a little
while. I'm 66 years old. In just this
much time, I'll be looking at him. The one I'm preaching, I
think of this often. The one I stand here and preach,
week after week, in a little while, I'm gonna be looking at
him face to face. Hope's gonna give way to reality.
Faith's gonna give way to sight. And love is gonna explode. It's
gonna grow and grow and grow. There's no end to the growth
of love. Now, notice where we are to come. Let us come. And that word come
here in this verse means speedily. It has the meaning of speedily.
Let us come speedily, not hesitantly. Now listen, if we come hesitantly,
you can be pretty sure worship's not going to happen. He's saying
here, let us come speedily. That means with a ready heart,
quick to worship, quick to listen, quick to hear. Speak, Lord. Speak, thy servant heareth. But
let us come speedily before his presence. Oh, now listen, this really puts
the worship in worship. When we realize we are in his
presence right now, right now. Let us come before His presence
with thanksgiving and make a joyful noise unto Him with psalms. True
worship is always done in His presence. Always. And we are gathered in His presence
right now. The whole church is gathered
in His presence right now. It's always in His presence. And our attitude when we come
together to worship Him is one with thanksgiving. I wrote an
article here a week or two ago about Thanksgiving and happiness.
Those who are truly thankful are truly happy. A person who
is not happy, he's just not a happy person, is a person that is not
thankful. You can't be thankful and unhappy.
You can't be. And those who come with Thanksgiving,
they come with joy and they come with real genuine happiness. Because they're coming into His
presence. The pursuit of happiness is like trying to catch soap
bubbles, but the pursuit of Jesus Christ will end in happiness.
When we pursue Him, we're happy. When we pursue happy, we're miserable. We're miserable. You know, the
scripture says, he that love of silver will not be satisfied
with silver. A person who wants to be happy,
they love happiness and are pursuing it, they'll never be happy. But
boy, when you pursue the Lord Jesus Christ, that's when you'll
find real happiness and real joy. And let us come before Him
with thanksgiving. A thankful people are a happy
people. And listen, and we do so in Psalms. He says to make
a joyful noise unto Him with Psalms. See, David wrote the
Psalms and Moses wrote some, but David wrote most of them.
And a lot of them were to be sung. They were to be sung in
the worship service. The Psalms were, many of them
were. I heard Henry say this in the
message that he preached on this. I listened to it, I think I was
driving back home, I listened to it. But what he's talking about here,
when he says, make a joyful noise unto him with Psalms, that means
carefully selected songs of worship. carefully selected. David said
to sing this song, this song. It's a carefully selected song
that gives unto Him the glory due unto His name. It's not about
me and you. It's about the King of glory. And that's why we carefully
select those songs that are about Him. The songs we sing are of
great importance. Great importance. And listen, we have in verse
3, we have three aspects in which the Lord is to be worshipped.
For the Lord is a great God and a great King above all gods.
He is presented here in three characters in this verse. For the Lord, capital L-O-R-D,
Jehovah, the self-existing one. This is the name that the Jews
wouldn't even mention. They wouldn't mention the name
Jehovah or Yahweh. They call Him the Lord. Capital
L-O-R-D. The Self-Existing One, Elohim,
the Great and Powerful God, God who is great in power. We worship
Him who is Self-Existing, worship Him who is great in power, who
has all power, and we worship Him as our King. This One who
is Self-Existing, this One who has all power is our King. Isn't
He? Boy, that just thrills my soul.
I tell you, I don't think there's any, well, one of the things
that gets me fired up in preaching was I get to preach on the kingship
of Jesus Christ. When I get to talk about my king,
the king of glory. We worship him as Jehovah, God
who's great in power. And king, you see this king is
his covenant relationship to us. He's our king. He's our king. He's the king
of the church. He's the king of the universe.
He's the king over all the world. He rules and he reigns as King
Jesus. That's how he reigns, as King
Jesus. The Lord Jesus Christ, that's who he is. The church
has ample reason to sing praises to her King, doesn't it? Doesn't
she? She has ample reason to sing
praises unto Him. We are to make it known that
our God is the only God there is, that our God, who is our
King, is the King of kings and Lord of lords. We're glad to
make it known. Paul did. He got put in prison
for it. He got stoned for it. They thought
he was dead. He got beaten for it. But he
never stopped making it known that the God of heaven and earth
is the King of kings and Lord of lords and his name is Jesus
Christ. And we make that known. We make known the glory of His
person. He's God in human flesh. You
know, the older I get, the more powerful that thought is to me.
That God came into this world and became flesh. He became a man. A man who could
hunger and thirst and hurt and cry. He wept over Jerusalem.
He wept there at the grave of Lazarus. God. That's God standing there. That's
God you're watching. That's God you're listening to.
That's God of creation. That's the God of heaven and
earth. That's the God of redemption who's going to the cross and
dying on the cross under the penalty of His own law. The penalty
of His own law. And He did it for me. And He
did it for you who believe. And for a multitude of other
sinners who believe and who are yet to believe. Oh, the glory. There's none compared
to Him in His person. There's none compared to Him
in His power. He said to the dead, arise, and the dead arose.
He said to the possessed of the devil, come out, and they came
out. He fed 5,000 with a lad's lunch. A few loaves of bread
and fish. He fed 5,000. It just kept coming. And why
do we worry? Why do we worry on belief? That's the answer. There's none compared to Him
in glory. Whatever all that glory is, I
mean, we've got a glimpse of it. It's like having a glimpse
through the lattice. Through those blinds, if they
just opened up a little bit, you get a little glimpse of what's
outside. We've had a little glimpse of His glory, My soul, what we're
about to see, you know when James and John and Peter that went
up on the Mount of Transfiguration and he just, and they got a glimpse
of his glory. He just glistened in front of
them. They fell on their face. Uncompared to Jesus Christ, our
King, He's the King of Kings and He's Lord of Lords right
now. right now. And I tell you what,
Craig read it. His counsel shall stand. Boy,
that just thrilled my heart when you read that. He says he'll
bring their counsel tonight. I don't know if you all caught
that when you were listening to him read. What was that? Chapter
33? Yeah, look at 33. I've got to show you this. It's blessed me. In Psalm 33 verse 8, let all
the earth fear the Lord. Now I'll wait till I hear the
pages quit. Let all the earth fear the Lord.
Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For
He spake and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast.
Now that's power. The Lord bringeth the counsel
of the heathen to nought. He maketh the devices of the
people of noneffect. You know, I can't hear what's
going on behind the walls in the powers that be, but he does.
He hears their counsel. Listen, he makes the devices
of the people of noneffect. The counsel of the Lord standeth
forever. He hath the thoughts of his hearts to all generation.
Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord and the people whom
he has chosen for his own inheritance. There is a nation, there is one
nation, there's one nation that is the Lord's, and it's the church. It's a holy nation. It's made
up of a peculiar people. I don't mean weird people, that
means purchased people. It means purchased people, made
up of a purchased people. There's a nation. And his counsel
shall stand, the counsel of the great king shall stand. And once
you and I came here, what's been devised against us, he hears
it. What's been devised against the church, he hears it. You
see, he sees all this going on, we don't. We can't see very little,
but very little of what's going on. It's His. It's His. The Lord
is a great God. Our God is a great God because
He's the only God there is. But He's great in His person,
in His character, in His work, and He's great and a great King
above all the other kings of the earth. And listen. We get a glimpse
of His ownership here. You see, all the kings of the
earth have boundaries. They got boundaries. Every last
one of them got boundaries. Every governor, every president,
or every leader, everyone's got, even every dictator has boundaries
that he cannot pass and go over, but not ours, not our king. Listen, you know, there's a song
that says he's got the whole world in his hand. He's got the
whole, I ain't gonna start singing it, because I couldn't care less,
but he's got the whole world in his hand. Listen, Psalm, verse
4. In His hand are the deep places
of the earth. The strength of the hills is
His also. You know, we've been on this earth 6,000 years, man
has. And you know He still has not
plumbed the depths of the earth and found all the riches that
are there? You know man has not been able to plumb the depth
of the sea and all the riches that are there? He struggles
to climb the highest mountain. I mean, he climbs up on top of
the mountain, but when he gets there, he don't know what he's
looking at. He don't know what he's looking at. He don't know
the riches he's standing on. He has no clue of the riches
that he's standing on, those high mountains that God created,
and that deep sea, the depths of the earth. But God does. God does. In His hand. Can you imagine how big a hand
has to be to hold all that? He's trying to give us an image
here of the greatness of God when He's talking about the deep
places and the high hills. They're all in one hand. One
hand. He holds it. In His hand are the deep places
of the earth, the strength of the hills is His also. This shows
He is the preserver of all things. For all things are in His hand. Your life is in His hand. Your
success is in His hand. You know, when Satan came before
God and he wanted to tempt, he wanted, he wanted, he wanted
to Job. He wanted to get him. He said,
I know I can make this man deny you. I can, I can, just let him,
just let me have him. And God said, all right, you
can't touch your life. He said, but you put a hedge
about him. And you know what else it says? You have blessed
the work of his hand. If God doesn't bless the work
of your hand and my hand, nothing will increase. We produce nothing
but sin. But if God blesses, if God gives
the increase, it's God who gives the increase, then we will be
successful. But apart from Him, we're not.
Not at all. All things are in His hand. Listen,
He is Lord of the deepest part of the earth and the highest
mountains with all their riches. He's Lord of it. No one has dug
so deep that he cannot find the hand of God. And the rich, you
know, you dig down deep, you know where you get diamonds?
You don't find diamonds laying on top of the ground. Diamonds
are made under pressure. It's made under great pressure.
And they dig deep into those mines to get those diamonds.
God made the diamonds. His hand was already there before
anybody started to dig. So whatever the deepest mind
any man has dug, he finds the hand of God. There's no place
he can go, he can't find the hand of God. And He causes the
earth to produce. The strength of the hills is
His also. He causes the earth to produce. The harmony of the
earth is in His hand. You realize how God Almighty
makes all this variety work in such harmony? Wow, what a mind. What a mind. And I know this. He also knows
the deep things of the heart. He knows the deep things of my
heart. I don't know that there's anything
deeper than the heart. Who knows that? God. You know, the heart is deceitful
above all things, desperately wicked, who can know it? God. If there's one thing I can't
know, and that's the real depth of my heart, why I do what I
do. You know, we want to do things
with the right motive, but God knows if my motive is right or
not. Peter said, Lord, you know all
things. You know whether I love you or not. You know, I love
the Lord, but I tell you what, He knows whether I love Him or
not. And I thank God He does. I thank God, because He's the
only one who can reach down into that heart. He can reach down
into the very depth of the heart where you and I can't go, and
He can bring it up and let us see what's really there. Enable
us to repent and flee to Him. He can enable us to see that
we do love Him. We do, I don't love him like
I ought to, but I do love him. I do love him, and you do too,
you who believe. And listen, we have in verse
five the universality of his government. Our King, the Lord
Jesus Christ, he's governor of the whole world. Back in verse 4, in His hand
are the deep places of the earth. The strength of the hills is
His also. The sea is His. The sea has an owner. You know,
we plot out land, don't we? Everybody here, you own a place,
you've got a boundary. Boy, who can plot a boundary out there
on the sea? It's so movable. He says the
sea is His. But the sea is his. And why? Why does he call the sea his? He says he made it. That puts a period at the end
of that sentence, doesn't it? He made it. If you make it, it's
yours. He made it. The sea is his and
he made it. And his hands formed. I'm sure you've seen kids do
this and some grownups do this. You've gone on the beach and
you've made a castle, you know, you've taken, you've made something
out there on the beach. His hands formed, his hand formed
the dry land. It's talking about his government
here and his ownership. He owns, he owns everything. He said He owns the cattle on
a thousand hills. He doesn't have to put a brand
on them. They're His. You can go ahead and brand them
if you want to, to keep your neighbors from stealing them, but they're
His. Everything is His. That's why
I wanted to sing, this is my Father's world. Our God is no small deity conjured
up by man. We are not just another religion
in the world. This is the only true religion
there is. There is a true religion and it's of God. And it concerns
the Lord Jesus Christ. He's no small deity. He's the
mighty God. Listen to Isaiah 9, 6, because
we know this is speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's who
this God is. For unto us a child is born,
unto us a son is given, and the government shall be on his shoulder. Aren't you glad of that? The
governor of this world, the governor of this country is on the shoulders
of Jesus Christ. It's on his shoulders. And his
name shall be called Wonderful. It's hard to call anything wonderful
once you know it belongs to him, it's his name. That's his name. Wonderful. Counselor. Counselor. He counsels us every time we
come together. You know, this is how the church
is counseled. By the preaching of the gospel
week after week. He's the counselor. He is. The
mighty God. The mighty God. The everlasting
Father. The Prince of Peace. He's speaking
of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's who He's speaking of. Listen to Genesis 1-9. And God
said, and I can read it like this. And the Lord Jesus Christ
said, Let the waters under the heaven
be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear.
And it was so. It happened. Just as He said.
He said it and it happened. And then verse 10, And God called
the dry land earth, and the gathering together of the water called
he seas. And God saw, the Lord Jesus Christ
saw, that it was good. Perfect. Perfect. He did that. He formed the dry
land. And he put the oceans and the
seas in their place. And he filled them up with fish
and all that we need. Now in light of who he is, and
this being so, verse six, oh come, quickly, unhesitantly,
oh come, let us worship. That's what I prayed and asked
the Lord before coming down here. I said, Lord, let us worship
you tonight. Let us worship. and bow down. See, if you don't
bow down, you haven't worshipped. You're not worshipping if you
haven't bowed down. If we didn't come in here in
this room tonight, bowed down before the King of Glory, we
ain't worshipping. Let us bow down. Let us kneel
before the Lord Jehovah, our Maker. There's three things that
happen in worship. First of all, submission. Submission. Let's not talk about
Him being our Savior until we get this thing of Lordship down.
You know, these false preachers out here are selling Him off
as a Savior, as an insurance policy to keep people from going
to hell. They're not calling on them to bow down. Bow down. That's the first thing. Bow down.
That's the first form of worship. What did that leper do? He fell
down at his feet. You'll find through the Gospels,
those who came to worship him, the woman who washed his feet
with her tears and dried his feet with her hair, she fell
at his feet. Where was Mary when Martha was complaining? She was
sitting at the feet of Christ. She was bowed down. Bow down. Let's get that straight first.
Let's learn what it is. Let's all learn how to bow. Let's
learn how to bow to the king when he comes in. When the king walks in, you can
watch some of these old shows, documentaries of kings, especially
over in Britain and that part of the country when they had
the kings. When they walked in, they bowed down. They'd bow down
and walk out of the room. They wouldn't turn their back
on the king. They'd bow down and walk out backwards because
they weren't allowed to turn their back on the king. You don't
do that. You don't do that. Bow down. Submission is the first
part. Second part is unity. Unity in
worship. Now, we can't have the left and
the right over here. We don't have no left and right
in here. We have one Lord, one faith, one hope, one baptism. Well, this is what I believe
and this is what I believe. Well, I don't care what you believe.
It doesn't matter what I believe. It does matter what this book
says and that we believe what he says. That we believe what he says.
And that's bowing down and there's unity and then there's acknowledgement. Our Maker. He made us. You know, He made me a believer
and He made some of you believers. He made us believers. He made
us as our Creator and He made us a new creation in Christ Jesus. He made us believers. So we submit,
we worship Him in unity of spirit, and we acknowledge Him as our
Maker. We are to come with reverence, adoration, joy, and submission. That's how we come to worship.
But we haven't come to worship. And here's the reason why. We
come, let us come and worship, bow down and kneel, kneel before
the Lord, our maker, for he is our God. He is our God. And we didn't make him our God
either. He made us his people. And because of that, he is our
God. He said, I'll be their God and
they shall be my people. God made me one of His own. My soul. How can anybody get
over that? How can I, and I speak to myself,
how can I ever feel so cold when God made me a son? I put in the bulletin this week,
I said, faith has to be the gift of God because it seems too good
to be true. Think about this. Your sins are all gone. You're
going to live forever in His presence on a new earth. There's
a new heaven, new earth, and a new body. And we're going to
enjoy paradise forever and ever and ever. Death all gone. Doesn't that sound too good to
be true? Well, it is. It's true. But it takes God to
enable you to believe that. To lay hold of it. Lay hold of it. He's our God. We are the people of his pasture. He put us in his pasture. You
know, you go out and you buy, you know, if you go out and you
buy you a cow or horse, you bring it home, you put it in your pasture.
You don't put it in your neighbor's pasture. You put it in yours.
He put us in his. Well, he said, enter into the
kingdom prepared for you before the foundation of the world.
And the sheep of his hand, He is our God by covenant relation,
by election, by love, by purchase, by sacrifice. He's our God. Now
here's a warning. Here's a warning. You know, all
these blessings come with a warning. Today, if you will hear His voice,
not... It's amazing how many times I
left and never heard His voice when I was younger. How many
times did you leave and not hear His voice? And some have left
and never came back and perish. Today, if you'll hear His voice.
Now, this is the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit, speaking from
here to the end of the chapter. He's speaking to us now. And
He's speaking to those who've not yet believed. And to us who
believe. He's speaking to both people.
Because this is quoted in Hebrews 3.7, Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost
saith, Today, if you will hear His voice, it's the Holy Spirit
speaking now through the rest of this chapter. And I cannot
express how serious this is. I wish I could really make that
point. How serious it is. Today is all
we have. Today is all we have. We don't
have tomorrow. For many, tomorrow won't come.
There'll be several thousand die before tomorrow comes. And why do we not think it might
be me or you? We just don't think like, people
don't think like that, do they? They don't think like that. Oh my. Now I want you to remember this,
I'm gonna close. These things were written for
our example, to learn from, to learn from. He says, harden not
your heart, as in the provocation, as in the day of temptation in
the wilderness. Harden not your heart, your mind, your will,
your affection. That's what he's talking about.
Because every time they heard, they heard from God. They saw
miracles, but they hardened their heart. How? By turning away from
Him. by not taking heed to what he
said. The Lord said, take heed to how you hear, for with what
measure you measure with, it'll be measured to you again. We can harden our hearts by not
taking heed to the word of God, the gospel when preached. You
know, every day, I thought about this when I wrote it down. Every
day in rebellion, the heart grows harder. Every time one sits under
the gospel and does not believe, there's a hardening effect. There's
a serious business. There's a hardening effect. Every
time. When your fathers tempted me,
proved me, and saw my work, fathers are not always right. Well, this
is the way my daddy did it. That don't mean daddy was right.
You better open the Bible and find out what it says and see
if it's right. Because not all fathers are in
heaven. The ones he's talking about here
perished in the wilderness. Remember, they wanted to see
a sign from God just as they wanted to see a sign from the
Lord Jesus Christ. Men never change. They don't
change. When your fathers tempted me,
proved me, and saw my work, they saw a great sign, manna from
heaven. Can you imagine going out every
day, picking up manna from heaven? And you got your food. I mean,
every day. The shoes, your clothes never
grew old. Water out of a rock. Water flowing out of a rock.
The Red Sea parted. The Jordan parted. They saw many
signs, yet they believed not. They didn't believe. Seeing miracles
has never saved anyone. Hearing the gospel and believing
has saved many. But seeing a miracle, you know,
you could The Lord could raise the dead,
and you could see it. They saw Lazarus. They saw Lazarus. There could be one laying in
a casket here, and the Lord could raise him from the dead. It wouldn't
save no one. It'd clear the room maybe, but
it ain't gonna save no one. It ain't gonna save his soul. Not at all. Faith, the gift of God, it's
the work of God. Listen, 40 years long was I agreed
with this generation and said it is a people that do err in
their heart and they have not known my ways. Always departing
from the right ways, what it was. 40 years God proved himself
to them and they didn't believe. How many years has the gospel
been preached? How many years have some people heard the gospel
preached year after year after year, thousands of sermons and
never believed? And God put up with it. Hmm. We see man's presumption in offending
his maker. Forty years they did this. And
we see their problem was a heart problem with the people that
do err in their heart. That's their problem. And here's
the awful result. Unto whom I swear, and if God
swears it, it happens, right? If you and I swear, nothing happens.
But when God swears, it happens. Unto whom I swear my wrath, they
should not enter into my rest. Now go over to Luke 14. I'm going
to read this to you. I've gone too long tonight. Luke 14. Let me read Luke 14-24 and I'll close. Then said He unto him, A certain
man made a great supper and bade many and sent his servant at
supper time to say to them that were bid and come for all things
are now ready. And they all with one consent
began to make excuse to first said to him, I have bought a
piece of ground that I must go needs go see it. I mean, whoever
buys a piece of ground without looking at it. I pray thee, have
me excused. And another said, I have bought
five yoke of oxen and I go to prove them. I pray thee, have
me excused. Another said, I have married
a wife and therefore I can't come. So that servant came and
showed his lord these things. Then the master of the house,
being angry, said to his servant, go out quickly into the streets
and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed,
and the halt, and the blind. And the servant said, Lord, it's
done, as thou hast commanded, and yet there's room. And the
lord said unto the servant, go out into the highways and hedges,
and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I
say to you that none of those men which were bidden shall taste
of my supper. Well, promises and warnings. All come and let us worship the
Lord Jesus Christ, our King. All right.