Turn back to Hebrews chapter
12. Title of the message is, Looking
Diligently. Looking diligently. That's what
it says in verse 15. That's the one that caught my
attention. Looking diligently lest any fail or fall from the
grace of God. The apostle has spoken, as I
just read to you and as we looked at last week, about the chastening
hand of God on his children. That he chastens us, and when
he chastens us, it's for discipline, it's for correction, it's for
training. But on top of all that, it's
out of love. It's out of love. The father
disciplines every son, every son and daughter whom he receives,
because first and foremost, he loves them. He loves them. He never leaves his children
alone. It's written in the prophets, it says, in John, they shall
be all taught of God. He takes every one of his children
in hand and he teaches them. And the rest of that scripture
says that, and every man therefore that hath heard, he's heard the
gospel, he's heard the voice of God, and hath learned of the
Father, he's been taught of God, comes to me. That one goes to Christ, mercy
for forgiveness, for acceptance, and that one finds in Christ,
absolutely, everything it needs, everything. Our Heavenly Father
will not leave us to learn on our own. What parent, what parent
would leave their children to figure it out for themselves,
to learn on their own? You just figure it out. That
would be terrible, wouldn't it? That would be terrible. And our father never leaves us
alone to learn on our own. He teaches us and he teaches
us out of his word. Do you realize, and I know this,
I know we can't realize fully what a privilege and blessing
it is to be here right now where God's word opened. It's opened
right in front of you. I'm standing here teaching. We
have the favor of God. We have his word, he teaches
us out of his word, and he teaches us by his spirit. Without his
spirit, this book is a closed book. I'm telling you, without
his spirit, without the Holy Spirit, this book is a closed
book. And he teaches us by providence. You know, you'd think, I would
think, concerning myself, that at the end of every day that
I would sit down and get alone and sit down and say, now, what
did the Lord teach you today? What did you learn today? Everything
that went on today, first of all, was providential, everything. And there's a lesson in it. There's
instruction in it in every day. There's instruction in every
day. And he teaches us by his word, by his spirit, by providence,
by pastors. That's why he's given pastors
and teachers. And whatever means he sees fit because all are his
servants and he can use whomever, whatever, whenever to teach us
a lesson and to bring us to himself. Now it says in verse 12, we looked
at this last week, but I'm just going to touch on this. Because
of this chastening, because of this discipline, they were rejected
somewhere. They were just what you would
call cast down. There's David said this one time. Why are thou cast out? Oh my
soul, hope thou in God. But with the Lord is mercy. Hope
thou in the Lord, but with him is mercy. Plenteous mercy. Plenteous
mercy. So it says here, it's wherefore,
so then lift up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees,
seeing it is God who's doing the discipline. You're not just
going through trouble to be going through trouble. You're not just
going through trouble because you live in a troublesome world.
Every ounce of trouble is appointed of God, is directed of God. And he says, knowing that, then
lift up your hand, be encouraged. Be encouraged. You know, we are
still in this flesh and sin is still very present. I might add,
very strong. You know, I never, I never struggled
with sin until God saved me. I never struggled with it at
all. The thing I struggled with was how to fulfill it. I was
trying to figure out how in the world do you fulfill the lust
of the flesh? And you were too. You were too. But now, now that God has saved
us, we have this struggle with sin. And this struggle, it begins
within. There's a warfare going on within
us. And we struggle with it. And
we have a tendency from time to time to faint and grow weary
of the Lord's correcting us. We do. As I said last week, sometimes
you wonder, is it ever gonna be over? Is it ever gonna stop?
Will the sun ever shine again? Sometimes it feels like that. Sometimes God puts a child through,
you know, Job. Job, a child of God, look what
he put him through. After that first trial, now after
the first trial of losing his 10 children, losing all that
he had, Satan came to God again. You read that, he came to him
again. I don't know how much time lapsed,
but he came to him again and the second round started. And
that's when he lost his health and he sat there with sackcloth
and ashes and scraped the boil off his skin. And his wife, he
said, my breath is strange to my wife. She doesn't even know me. That
was the second round. Is it ever going to end? Listen, the danger from
falling into such an attitude and letting it continue... Let
me give you some of the dangers of that. If it's left to grow,
it discourages us from seeking the Lord. It does. You begin to think, why? It doesn't
get any better. That was a poem I meant to bring
down here by John Newton. And I left it on my desk. But
it fits this. But it discourages us from seeking
the Lord. And I tell you what, if that
attitude of this being cast down, if it continues, it discourages
us from reading His Word because we just don't seem to get anything
out of it. It discourages you from praying. And listen, it discourages others
who are watching us, the weaker brethren. And if that attitude continues,
it keeps our minds on ourselves instead of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Listen to Colossians chapter three, verse one and two. If
ye then be risen with Christ, Seek those things which are above
where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection
on things above, not on things of this earth. One of the best
ways to get yourself out of a hole is to get your mind off yourself.
And I'm telling you, that's the hardest thing to do. I'm telling
you something that's very difficult to do, but that's what he tells
us to do right here. Set your affection on things
above, not on things on the earth. That's what he's telling us. Now the way to avoid such an
attitude is to make straight paths for your feet. Let that
which is lame be turned out of the way, but let it rather be
healed. Make smooth paths. This is what
he's saying. Make smooth paths for your feet. Don't We complicate things, don't we?
I tell Vicki this often. I said, you know, sin has really
complicated us. I said, it really complicates
us and it really complicates everything else. And what he's
saying here is don't complicate things for yourself and others.
Don't do that. Make straight paths for your
feet. Smooth paths is what that means. Stay on that well-worn
path that the saints of old have followed. Year after year after
year. Generation after generation.
Stay on it. It's a well-worn path. And he
gives us here instructions for spiritual health. If you would
have spiritual health, we need this. We need this. First of
all, follow peace. Follow peace with all men. You
know, you can't follow something you don't have. You know that?
You can't. It's impossible to follow peace
if you don't even know what it is. To follow peace, you have
to have some knowledge and some understanding of what the peace
he's talking about is, by experience, by experience. Follow peace with all men in
holiness, without which no man will see the Lord. Pursue peace.
Pursue peace among the brethren. It is written in a Psalm, I'm
thinking it's Psalm 133, how beautiful it is when brethren
dwell together in unity. There's nothing more beautiful
than when a group of people like this, brethren, when we get together
and there's unity, there is complete unity and peace and harmony,
not division and strife. Pursue peace among the British.
Pursue it at home. Make your home a peaceful place.
I was talking to my granddaughter this, during Christmas, and I
was telling her, we was talking about living out of town. We
lived in town. Here, we live out of town. We
live out in what we call country. I said, well, you're only 10
minutes out of town, Madison. She said, well, I like to live
in town. I said, I like to live out. So that when it's time to
go home, I can get away from the hustle and the bustle and
all that. And I said, I can go home and
it's peaceful, quiet. And I said, let me tell you.
Let me give you a piece of advice. Make your home a peaceful home. Make it a quiet place. I said,
now when you want to go out and play in this town and the city,
let that be the ruckus. But when you come home, that's
a place of peace. Home should be a place of peace
and peace at work. We should be known as a peaceful
people. We should be known as a peaceful
people. And let me say this, being peaceful
is not weakness. That is not a weakness. Just
like meekness is not a weakness. If meekness were a weakness,
Jesus Christ would be the weakest of all because he was the meekest
of all. He said, I am meek and lowly
of heart. That doesn't mean he's weak.
I'll tell you what it does mean. Among other things, he's approachable. You can sit down and talk to
him. A publican, a harlot, or a Pharisee. You can sit down
and talk to him. He didn't run anybody off that
wanted to sit down and talk to him. In holiness, follow after Christ
His righteousness, His holiness. But it also means this. It also
means this, to walk a life of godliness. To walk a life of
godliness. You know, when Enoch walked with
God, he walked with God by faith. But he also walked a life, I'm
totally confident, of godliness. Godliness. And looking diligently
here in verse 15 now, This is where I've gotten my
title from. Looking diligently, lest any man fail or fall of
the grace of God or fall from the grace of God, or falling
back away from it. That's what it has a meaning,
is falling back away from it. Lest any root of bitterness,
and that's what happens. When you see someone falling,
away from the grace of God, back away from it, you can be sure
there's gonna be a root of bitterness that's gonna rise up and they're
gonna blame you for this and that and they don't do this down
there at that church and it's gonna be a root of bitterness.
Bring it up, trouble you, and thereby many, many be defiled. The Christian life, and I mean
that in its truest sense of the word, The Christian life is not
some happy all the time life. Instead, it's one constantly
under attack. When our Lord walked on this
earth in the flesh, he was constantly under attack. And most of the
time, most of the time for us, the attack comes from within,
doesn't it? It comes from within by unfounded
fears and doubts. I have learned this. In 63 years,
I've learned this. My imagination of something is
usually worse than the reality of it. My imagination can get
carried away. It can get carried away. And
they, because of the persecution and things that was going on,
their imagination of their troubles and heartaches I think it was
just being exploded. But to keep on the safe side
of this course that we are running, we are given some instructions
here. First, looking diligently. This has the same meaning as
bishops. You know, when Paul was talking
to Timothy about bishops and being the overseers of the church,
overseers of God's people, this has the exact same meaning. When
he says here, look indeligently, he's saying here, you be the
bishop of your own soul. You be the overseer of your own
soul. You look over your soul. You look over yourselves. You
take care of yourselves. It means to constantly be looking
after yourself, your soul, your spiritual welfare, your relationship
to Jesus Christ. It is a relationship. It's not
a belief of some doctrines. It's a relationship. And you
constantly be looking over that. I have to say, this human race
is absolutely terrible at relationships, isn't it? Aren't we? We are. Terrible at it. And that's why
he said, you be the overseer. Don't just look to me every Sunday. You go home and you be the overseer.
You be the bishop of your soul. Take care of it. Take care of
it. See to it that you're being fed.
See to it that you're drinking at the fountain of living water.
See to it. Now look indeligent, lest any
man fail of the grace of God. It means to be, here's what this
means. It means to be left behind. Lest any man be left behind.
It means to fail to complete the race. Lest any man fail to
finish the race. It means to come up short in
the end. Lest any man come up short. It means to come late. Lest any man comes late. You
know, it's like when you run a marathon. You have a time limit,
right? You have a time limit in running
a marathon. I mean, I don't know how many
hours it is, but there's a time, there's a certain amount of hours.
And if you don't hit that time limit, guess what? It's just
like you didn't run the race. Your name's not down there. They
don't give you a time that you finished the race. You didn't
make it, you didn't hit the time limit. And that's what it's saying
here. It's to come late. It's to come
up short. It's not to meet the time limit.
And it has a present meaning of this, falling back away from
the grace of God. The Hebrews that the apostles
writing to were making progress. The church was making progress,
but there were some in that church who had professed to believe
and evidently did not believe. And there were some weaker, that
I believe weaker ones that did believe, but there's been so
influenced by the ones that were wanting to draw back. And they
was really struggling. They were struggling. And he
says here, lest any man finds himself falling back, withdrawing
from the grace of God, listen, withdrawing from salvation by
grace alone, in Christ alone. That's what they were drawing
back from. They were falling back and drawing back from grace
alone, in Christ alone. They wanted to go back to the
temple, the sacrifices, the priesthood. They wanted to go back to those
things, those old religious ways. And they were gone. Those things
were done. They were done with. They were done with. There's
nothing to go back to. Nothing to go back to. And this was a warning to those
who were teetering on quitting. They were going to quit at the
grace of God. Can you imagine that? They were
going to quit. It says there in verse 12, 15, And what he's telling us here
in verse 15, we are to look carefully and diligently to ourselves and then to one another. We're
to help ourselves. We are to look diligently to
ourselves. And I think we're to look diligently to ourselves
first, because you can't help somebody until you get your problems
strained out. You can't do it. You know, when
you're on an airplane, When you're on an airplane, they
give, you know, right before you take off, they always get
these, you know, that stewardess always does this one thing about
putting the mask on, you know, and stuff like that. And one
thing that Pyle says, put the mask on yourself first before
you help anybody else. That's what they say every time.
Take care of yourself first before you can help the next one beside
of you. And what he's saying here is
you take care of yourself, then you can help somebody else. You
can't help somebody till you get yourself straightened out. Now, let me say this. Believers,
true believers, do not fall from the love of God. They do not
fall away from the grace of God, because they had nothing to do
in getting it. I did not do anything to get
God to love me or to show grace to me. He loved me with an everlasting
love because he loved me. I just can't explain it any other
way. And there's nothing I can do. There's nothing you can do
that can destroy the love of God in Christ for you and for
me. Can't do it. Let me read it to
you another, let's read it one more time in Romans chapter 28,
Romans chapter eight. In Romans chapter 8, let's read
it again. Verse 35. Who shall separate
us from the love of Christ? Huh? Who shall separate us from
the love of Christ? Shall tribulation? or distress,
or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Shall these things separate us from the love of Christ? No,
they drive us to Christ. They will not separate a child
from Christ. It will drive the child to Him.
As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long.
We are counted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these
things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For
I am persuaded. Are you? Seriously, I'm asking
you a question. I'm asking myself a question.
Are you persuaded? Because if you are, this will
settle your fears. This will settle your doubts
if you're persuaded. When you're not persuaded, that's
when doubts creep in. That's when you begin to fear
and you have unfounded fears is when you're not persuaded.
For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels,
nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things
to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall
be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord." I think he covered everything there. Nothing, nothing. As sinful as I am, and as the,
The things that I still do and the things that I still think
cannot separate me from his love because he loved me before the
foundation of the world. When he looked upon me, he saw
all of me from beginning to end. There's nothing
I'll ever do in my life that the Lord hasn't already seen,
observed, and taken care of. Nothing, nothing. That's right. Believers do not
fall from the love of God. They do not fall from the grace
of God. They can't. They can fall in
sin. They can stumble. They can do
that. But God's love and grace depends on Him, not me and you. But there were some there who
professed to believe. They professed to believe. They
professed to know the grace of God. They professed to love God.
They professed to embrace the gospel. and then turn around
and left. Now that's scary. That's scary. We never want to be presumptuous
about salvation. Never. The heart, the scripture says,
is deceitful and wicked, desperately wicked. Above all things, who
can know it? Who can trust it? Well, I know
my own heart. That's the last thing you know
in your own heart. It's deceitful. It's deceitful. I would rather trust him who's
not deceitful. Trust him. Take him at his word.
Now he says here, look indeligently lest any fall from the grace
of God, lest any root of bitterness. And I think this root of bitterness
starts toward God. It's a bitterness toward God.
I thought I was your son. Why is this happening to me?
If I'm yours, why this? Man, I'm about ready to run upstairs
and get that phone. But you can't find it on my desk.
I know that's what you went to do. You can't find it. I know
exactly where it's at, but anyway. Maybe I'll bring it Sunday and
read it to you. But lest any of us fall from the grace of
God, and some profess to know and love, but they didn't. They didn't. And they've had
a root of bitterness. He said, lest any root of bitterness
springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled. Let
me tell you something about a root. It grows underground. You don't
even see it. Most of the time you don't see
it. It draws its nourishment from the soil it is planted in. And if it's a bad root, if it's
a bitter root, it produces bitter fruit. Let me read you a quote
that I read today. The root not only is, but grows. It has a vital self-increasing
principle. Unless you kill it, you cannot
keep it down. So with a sinful disposition
in the heart, it is not the existence of the thing merely that we have
to dread, but it's vitality, it's strength. The scripture
speaks of there in Ephesians chapter two, of men being dead
in sins and yet walking according to the course of this world.
In like manner, in like manner, though the guilty state of the
soul be called death, yet it is a death that lives and grows
I never thought of that before. It's a death that lives and grows.
It not only bears fruit upward, but strikes root downward. And
the more vigorously it shoots its fibers down into the soul,
the heavier a harvest of wickedness it bears. I thought, ooh, that's
a powerful quote. The deeper those roots get, the
more the harvest of wickedness comes out. Fruit tells us what
the root is. And here he calls it a root of
bitterness. It's a root of bitterness. It
lies hidden in a man's heart. And it springs up. It springs
up. It springs up unexpected. You
didn't see that coming, did you? I mean, I've done things and
I have no doubt, but I've seen things done and I've seen people
leave, get mad and leave. And I thought, man, I didn't
see that coming. That root finally sprung up above the ground. All
that time it was an undercurrent under the surface. And then that
root of bitterness came up, that root of contention. And when
you see that happening, contention, not over the gospel now, but
just contention over just anything but the gospel. Contention, when
you see that, when you see malice, I don't like that guy. You're starting to reveal a root.
Or maybe the root's starting to reveal you. Pride, covetousness,
covetousness. And these things, they divide
people. They divide families, they divide churches. This root
of bitterness, when it springs up, it causes division and malice
and anger. It just turns everything into
a mess. It just turns it into a mess. It's written in Proverbs
4.23, keep thy heart with diligence. Keep your heart, nourish the
heart, take care of the heart. You go to the doctor and he says,
You need to cut out smoking. You need to eat healthier. You've got heart problems. If
you don't do something, you're going to have an early death. You're going to have a heart
attack. I worked with a young man, and they told him, they
said, if you don't have all your teeth pulled now, by the time
you're 40 years old, you're going to be dead. He had some things
going on in his gums and stuff, and he went and had every one
of them pulled. At least he was smart enough to do what he was
told. He says in here, Solomon said, keep thy heart with all
diligence. We're out of it, are the issues
of life. Solomon said in another place,
as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. That's exactly who
I am and who you are, is what's going on in here. It's not what
I say I am, It's what I think. A man thinking, so is he. We must set a watch upon our
hearts, our minds, our tongues, lest Satan get an advantage.
And he says, and many be defiled. It affects many. You think, well,
this little riff, this little tiff is just between me and this,
you know, just, Me and Ray, it's just a little problem going on
with me and Ray, you know. It ain't affecting anybody else,
oh yeah. It affects the whole body of Christ. Right, it affects
the whole body. Oh, that God would give us wisdom
to be able to detect when Satan has reached his hand in. Start
stirring the pot. Lest any, now in verse 16, I
gotta get on here. lest there be any fornicator
or profane person, that is, that means common or unhallowed, unholy,
unholy, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.
He sold his birthright. The birthright which Esau treated
with contempt and sold for a mere morsel of meat, it was much more
than the firstborn getting the double inheritance. He got the
double inheritance is what he got. He got double everything.
It was more than that. The birthright was a spiritual
position that he held in the family. It was God's favor. It was God's favor. He was God's man in the family. He represented God to the family. And it carried with it spiritual
blessings. That's what it carried with it.
And he made nothing of it. He was hungry. He was hungry. He said, I'm going to die. So
what's his birthright? What's going to do me any good?
He said, you can have it, Jacob. Just give me a bowl of soup. Jacob wanted that birthright.
And he said, take it. I'm going to die. If you don't
give me that soup, I'm going to die. It's not going to do
me any good anyway. It'll all fall to you anyway. It meant no more than that to
Him. What does Christ mean to you?
What does He mean to me? To put anything before Jesus
Christ is like Esau selling his birthright. It's to count Him
as nothing. Esau's desire was sensual. That's all he cared about was
his belly. It was fleshly. It was all flesh. That's all it was. He threw aside in favor of God. He tossed it in the trash. Can
you imagine that? Now he says, he said, here now,
be careful. Be careful that you don't do
the same thing. Be careful, he said, right in
these Hebrews, be careful that you don't toss aside the grace
of God. Don't be careful you don't toss
aside salvation in Christ alone just so you can get out from
under this persecution and you're going to go back. So life will
be easier. He said, remember, Esau did that.
Esau did that. And then when it came time, when
it came time for him to have the birthright, It says he found no place of
repentance. And here's what he's saying.
He could not reverse, change Isaac's mind. Once the blessing
was given, it was given to Jacob. Esau, though he sought it bitterly
with tears, though he sat there and he wept before his dad and
boo-hooed and carried on, he couldn't. changed Isaac's mind. He couldn't reverse it. He's
saying to these Hebrews and to us, if you forsake Christ, there's
no hope for you. There's no hope for you. It's
over with. It's over with. He's saying. Well, I'm going to close with
that, and then we'll pick back up. I'll probably pick back up
there with Esau again next week, and Lord willing. But the point
and the message, the message is this. Look diligently to yourself. Look after your own soul. Be
careful. Careful. and look after yourself. Get in the word, stay under the
preaching, seek the Lord, and don't let any heavy trial, whatever
it is that you may be going through, don't let it discourage you and
make you wanna question God, but rather let it bring you to
the throne of grace. Seek help for such a time of
need.