Not be afraid of holiness. Holiness. Let's read verses 14
through 17. Hebrews 12. Follow peace with
all, all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. Looking diligently. Notice there's
a colon there. without which no man shall see
the Lord looking diligently, lest any man fail or fall from
the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble
you, and thereby many be defiled, lest there be any fornicator
or profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his
birthright. You know how that afterward,
when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected
We found no place of repentance, though we sought it carefully
with tears. My pastor, our pastor, Brother
Tom and I have a blessed man as our pastor, and he often said
this, Scriptures are full of promises lest we despair, warnings
lest we presume. Scriptures are full of warnings,
lest we presume upon the grace and the mercy of God, like Israel. And then full of promises, lest
we despair. Because we would despair of salvation,
wouldn't we, unless we look to His blessed promises. The promise
is, look to me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth. For
I am God. There's none else. The promise is, looking unto
Jesus, who is the author and finisher of our faith. That's
how this chapter started. Blessed and sure promises. Peter
said that by these great and precious promises we might be
partakers of the divine nature. That means being made like Christ. By these promises. By his worth.
By his spirit. By trials and tribulation. By
chastening. The Lord uses these things to
mold us into the image of God's Son. That's what salvation is
all about. Doesn't it say predestined to
be conformed to the image of His Son? That's what it's all
about. And that's the desire of every
true child of God. Every child of God that loves
the Lord Jesus Christ wants to be just like Him. You see, they
love Him. They love the way He is. Not
just what He did for them, they love who He is. They think he's
altogether lovely, and they want to be like him. The old saying
is, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. More than flattery
of God's people, though, they admire him, and they want to
be like him. And so the Heavenly Father is
conforming his people to the image of Christ. David said that. I'll behold your face in righteousness,
and I'll be satisfied," he said. Meaning, I'm not going to be
satisfied until I awake with thy likeness. So that's what
it's all about. That's what salvation is all
about. That we might be partakers, verse 10 says, be partakers of
his holiness. And that's a whole lot deeper
than we know. Okay? Not just having righteousness
imputed to us, but having it imparted to us. We used to be
scared to death of that, didn't we, Brother Solomon? Imparted
righteousness. Because so many people have abused
it. Legalists take it and run with
it and abuse it and make it sound like it's something that you
do. But it is something God does in us. It's the work of the Holy
Spirit in us. That's sanctification. Alright,
the dire warnings here. As the pastor said, the dire
warnings here, verse 13, make straight paths for your feet,
lest that which is lame be turned out of the way. Turned out of the way. Straight
paths. Walk by faith. Go straight to Christ. Keep straight
on. I love, you remember that in
Proverbs 4? I read it to you last week where
he said, let thine eyes look right on. Let thine eye, Liz,
look straight before thee." Where? Where? Looking unto Jesus. Looking to Him without whom we
can nothing. Looking to Him. Hanging on that
cross. Seated on the throne. Ponder
the path of thy feet. Let all thy ways be established.
Turn not to the right hand or to the left. Don't go after this.
Don't go after that. Don't look here. Don't look there.
Look straight on. Remove thy foot from evil. He
says, make straight paths for your feet. Straight is the gate,
narrow is the way. What is the way? Christ. And
look to Him, and lest that which is lame be turned out of the
way. We're prone to wander, aren't we? Prone to wander. Lord, I
feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart. Oh,
take and seal it. Keep me, Lord. Keep me looking
to Thee. Walking in paths of righteousness.
And lest that which is lame be turned out of the way. I don't
want to be turned out of the way. I was that way before. Lord,
turn me and I'll be turned. Don't let me turn out of the
way. Well, how does He do that? Look. Verse 14. Follow peace with all men and
holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. He won't
see the Lord. Here's a dire warning. Without this peace and holiness,
no man will see the Lord. I want to see the Lord, don't
you? I want to see the Lord. Job said, I want to see Him.
Well, I want to see Him too. Well, whatever this means, without
it, we won't see the Lord. Verse 15, looking diligently,
lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness
spring up, trouble you, many are defiled, lest there be a
fornicator. profane person, like Esau. Here's the warning. Esau, for one morsel of meat, sold his soul, didn't he? My,
my. And it says in verse 17, he tried
to change, but he couldn't. Found no place of repentance. No way back. And Peter said this
even more graphically. He said, it's happened according
to the proverb, the dog is turned to his own vomit again. A sow
that was washed to his wallowing in the mire. I don't want to
do that, do you? I don't want to do that. Okay,
let's look and see. So there's dire warnings of terrible
consequences. Dire warning. But great promises. Sure and blessed, wonderful promises
from God who cannot lie to all who look and all who follow. All right, verse 14. Follow peace
with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. Follow. The word follow means
to walk after. It means to pursue. It means
to go after. Remember Paul said, Forgetting
those things that are behind. This one thing I did, I press.
I follow after. I press toward tomorrow. It means to pursue. It means
to go after, to pursue it. Peace and holiness. Now, holiness, what is it? We've been
looking at this, haven't we? What is it? It's not what men
think it is. And we've just concluded And
it's just safe to conclude this, that what holiness is, it's whatever
Jesus Christ is. He is holiness. He is made unto
us holiness, and he himself is holiness personified. We need
his holiness charged to us, reckoned to us, and we need his image
conformed in us. We need His own, without which
no man shall see the Lord. It's both. It's both. We're not going to shy away from
it at all. Spurgeon said this, though, and
he's right. He said, you don't follow imputed
righteousness. He said, that's what you are.
That's something God does for you and to you, and that's what
Christ did for you, the Holy Spirit reckons that to your account. This is something you pursue.
This is something you pursue. Although we do. Keep looking
to Him. Keep looking to Him. Pursue after
Him. To be found in Him. Not having
our own rights in it. But he did say that, and I agree
with him, that this is talking about following Christlikeness. going after that. And it's not
a thing, it's a person. We don't divorce holiness from
His person. I loved this man, I admired him,
and I wanted to be like him as a child. I was his son. And proof that I loved him is
I wanted to be like him. I wanted to emulate him. My older
brother, I loved him dearly. And I wanted to be like Him.
And so what did I do? I tried to emulate the way He
walked, the way He talked, and everything. That's love. Christlikeness. Plain and simple.
And it's not some standard set by men. Touch not, taste not,
handle not. No, no, no, no. We heard on the
radio a little bit this morning about His glory. What's His glory?
What is Christ's holiness? What does that mean? Love, mercy,
peace, gentleness, goodness. Who shouldn't and wouldn't want
to follow after that? Be like Christ. That's a good
thing. That's a good thing. Plain and simple. It means Christ's
likeness. That we might be partakers of
His holiness. Go back to 2 Corinthians 6. Stay
with me now. Don't leave me because I'm not
going to leave you thinking that this is something you do. Okay? I'm not going to leave you in
despair here. with promises. 2 Corinthians
6, look at this. Scripture wasn't written in chapters
and verses, you remember? You know that. Verse 17, the
Lord said, Come out from among them, be ye separate, saith the
Lord, touch not the unclean. I will receive you, be a father
unto you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, saith the
Lord Almighty. Have him therefore these promises.
What did he tell us to do? Come out from among them. I'll
be a father. Having therefore these promises,
dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness
of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God."
You know he's not saying we make ourselves holy. But this has something to do
with growing in grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Ephesians. Go to Ephesians 4. This growth
in grace. It's perfecting. Be perfect. Didn't our Lord say this in his
Sermon on the Mount? Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect. Well, that's what he said. Ephesians
4, look at this. In the same thought, he says, Christ gave
pastors and prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, verse 12,
for the perfecting of the saints. for the work of the ministry,
for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come into
the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God unto
a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness
of Christ." Verse 15, speaking the truth in love, and this is
what does it, this work, truth, that we grow up into Him. Grow up into Him. Not only just
in faith only, but in his likeness in all things. So that's what we're talking
about here. All right, go back to the text,
Hebrews 12. Follow, follow. Now, here's the difference in
what the Scripture says and what legalists and Pharisees and self-righteous
people say. Here's the difference between
Scripture and here's the difference What we're saying is, there's
no period at the end of verse 14. "...follow peace with all
men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord, looking
diligently." Looking diligently. As he started,
looking unto the Lord Jesus Christ, who said, without me you can't
do nothing. Don't even try it. Don't even
try it. False religion says you can do
it. You can do it. And they pretend that they do.
They actually think that they do. Paul, you remember Saul of
Tarsus, he said concerning the righteousness of the law, he
said, I was blameless. Oh, how ignorant can you be? And he later wrote in Romans
10, oh, they're ignorant of the righteousness of God. I know
because I was. Going about to establish your
own. And he was just trying to be righteous for his own glory
and his own honor, just for the sake of, you know, for his own
glory. But this striving is out of love
and admiration to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're
not trying to establish a righteousness that God will accept. That's
already been established. But Paul said he thought he was
blameless, and people do today. They think they are, but they're
full of self-righteousness, and it's all vainglory. Brother Mahan
once said this, and think about this. He said most of these so-called
holiness people, they mistake The restraining grace of God
for their own personal holiness. Let me repeat that. The only thing that keeps you
and I from the worst and the most gross sins is the restraining
grace of God. We do not keep ourselves. We cannot do anything. Without
Him, without His Holy Spirit, who leads and guides and directs.
It is God which worketh in us, both to will and to do of His
good pleasure. Without me, you can't do nothing,
certainly nothing good. All we can do is sin without
Him. Now, it's a restraining grace
of God, but most people mistake that for their own personal holiness.
Oh, no. Our Lord said, look unto him.
He did say that. Here's the promise. Look unto
me. Without him, we can do nothing. But what does it say? John, you
love this verse. It says, with Christ, in Christ, by Christ,
I can do all things. All things. All things. The disciples were
Wonderful examples of that, weren't there? There were nobodies, nothings
and nobodies from nowhere, just fishermen, rough, gruff, sinful
men. And the Lord took them and called them and conformed them,
gave new birth and new creatures and transformed them. And they
followed Him as long as they were looking to Him and following
Him. It's amazing. The transformation. But Peter
realized then, as soon as he thought he could do it, fell
miserably. Reverted right back to his old
self. So the difference is, what we're
saying is, what the scripture says, you keep looking at him,
looking diligently. Follow. Pursue. Look indeligently. If we do, we'll not fall. We'll
walk. And if we do, He gets all the
glory. If we do not fall, He'll get
all the glory. He'll get all the credit. There's
the difference. Follow peace. Verse 14. Follow peace with all. This is
a command of our Lord. Follow it. Pursue it. Strive
for it. As much as peaceably, he quoted it this morning, as
much as life within us live peaceably with all men. Our Lord said,
blessed are the peace, what? Makers. Makers. Oh my. The blessed Lord Jesus
Christ made peace. God gave Him a name above every
name. The blessed peacemaker between
us and God. Well, that's His people too.
They're peacemakers. They're peacemakers. Blessed
are the peacemakers. James said this, Oh, the blessed
fruit of righteousness. What's the fruit of righteousness? Christ in us. What's the fruit? Love, joy, peace, amen. Oh, the blessed fruit of righteousness
is sown in peace of them that make peace. Our Lord came and
made peace. He sowed it. He sowed it in the
hearts of His men. Like I said, old Peter, he's
a longshoreman, buddy. He's ready to fight at the drop
of a hat, isn't he? A longshoreman. You don't cross those fellas.
They're looking for a fight. Get off that boat. Go in a bar,
you know, a clean house. That's what they're looking for.
But the Lord changed him. Changed him. And as I said, just
the minute he got lifted up with pride, he started cussing and
reverting right back to that old fellow there. But the Lord,
you know, makes peacemakers out of his people. Peace in the home. Blessed is this peace. Follow
after it. Pursue it. Strive for it. Work for it. Peace in the home. Peace between husbands and wives.
Takes work, doesn't it? And without Him, we can't do
it. We can't do it. Lord, make me love my wife as
Christ loved me. The woman say, Lord, make me
submit to my husband and follow him like the bride follows thee. Some of you have experienced
the terrible consequences of warring between husband and wife,
and it's a horrible thing, isn't it? Many suffer, especially the
children and others. Follow after it. Fruit of peace
in the home. Peace in the church. Peace in
the church. Go after it. Make it. Make peace. Be a peacemaker. Blessed are
the peacemakers. Don't wait on someone to apologize. Don't wait on someone to approach
you. You go after it. Provoke them to love. I'm going
to make you love me. And once again, without Him,
we can't do it. We can't do it. Peace. Peace. Some of you have
experienced what it's like to be in a so-called church where
there's nothing but fussing and fighting and so forth. It's a terrible thing. And God
has ordained peace. Peace. Follow after it. Go after
it. Peace with our neighbors. Peace with our neighbors. Our
Lord said this, Love your neighbor. Now, can you do that without
Him? Oh, no. You see the other impossibility
without looking to Him. The utter impossibility. Love
your neighbor. That doesn't mean just tolerate
them. But I'm going to put up with
him, and one of these days he's going to die, and I'm going to
buy his property or piece of ground. It's actually literally
loving. Do things for him. You'll heat
coals of fire on his head and so on. Feed him and so forth. Follow after him. Who is my neighbor? Remember our Lord gave that The
illustration of the Samaritan, who is my neighbor? Oh, my. Follow after holiness,
peace. Be, therefore, perfect. But I
can't. No, you can't. No, you can't. But you look to Him. You look
to Him for grace, for help, for strength. Look at Him. Look at
Him. Emulate Him. Don't emulate men. Emulate Him. Strive to. Verse 15, looking diligently
lest any man fall, fail of the grace of God. What we're doing
right now is looking. We come here looking, hoping
we'll see the Lord high and lifted up. He'll draw us to Himself.
Looking, looking to Him for grace, for pardon, for peace. for help,
for salvation, looking to Him. Looking to Him for instruction.
Looking to Him for wisdom. Because we don't have it. Any
man like wisdom, we say, ask. We're looking to Him. That's
why we've come here. We're looking into His Word.
We're looking to Him. We're looking at Him. We're looking
unto Him. Looking, looking, looking. That's
what we're doing. Hopefully we don't come just to hear a sermon
or just to get the duty over on a Sunday morning, but to see
Him, to look to Him. Look into Him. Look into Him. Follow after Him. Follow after
Him. Listen to His instruction and follow Him. Follow Him. Lest
any man fail of the grace of God. God's grace does not fail.
It cannot fail. You know that. One Scripture
does not stand alone. Catch myself quoting him more
and more as days go by. That's fine. Quote other men.
But he said this one time. He said, if a scripture, you
think it means something. And he said, put it up on a pedestal
and take other scripture and throw it at it. And if you can
knock it off, it wasn't what you thought it was. You follow
me? No scripture stands alone. We compare spiritual things with
spiritual things, scripture with scripture. God, Barnard used
to say, God's Word is the best commentary on God's Word. God's
Word. If we look hard enough, keep
looking, we'll see scripture that testifies of scripture. If we can take another scripture
and And knock it off, alright? Fall from grace. Didn't our Lord
say, I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish?
By grace you say? Through faith? Grace? Eternal
grace? Huh? Didn't he say that? So this doesn't mean, and scripture
after scripture tells us that God's grace is His power. And
God's grace cannot fail. Cannot fail. But he's simply
saying here, if we leave the gospel, we're just going to prove
in the end. Like John said this, he said,
they went out from it. And our Lord said they'll never
leave, never perish, his people. But some do. Why? Because they were not of us.
If they had been of us, They no doubt would have continued
with us. Why? Because they're kept by
the power of God. They're kept by the Lord Jesus
Christ, who said they will not perish. But if anyone does, if
any man falls, if any man quits the gospel, they were never of
you. It's just a fact of it. Is that right, Brother Thompson?
They were just never of you. Or they no doubt would have continued.
But they went out from us that it might be made manifest that
they're not all of us. They're wheat and tarry. They're
sheep and they're goats always. And we can't tell them apart
a lot of times. But the Lord knows. The foundation
of God stand assured having this seal. The Lord knoweth them that
are healed. And how do you know? How do you end up knowing they
keep following? That's the only way we know,
is they keep following. These all died in faith. Chapter 11. They all died in
faith. None of them left the faith.
They continued in the faith. They held fast their confidence,
stood fast to the end. What's that? It ain't a what,
it's a who. Looking unto Jesus. That's just how you know. That's
how you know. So He's laying the blame on us
if we fall. And He's giving all glory to
Himself if we don't. I don't understand. Yeah, you
do. It's just you can't explain it
in human terms, but that's just the way it is. That's the way
it is. And He says here, "...lest any
root of bitterness..." These are warning signs. He's giving
us warning signs here, isn't He? He's given us warning signs. You see any of these things in
yourself? Warning signs. Bitterness. Root of bitterness
springing up. Bad feeling. Bad spirit and attitude. And I've said this before. The
way that Satan can... You know, this gospel is the
power of God and the salvation of us and our children. And it
is Satan's grand design to keep men and women from hearing it.
To keep us from hearing it. It's his desire to cause strife
and division and schisms and try to get back what was once
his. That means us. And the way he'll do it is by
sowing discord and strife. And he starts in here with us. And the way he really does it,
first of all, is get you mad at the preacher. Because then he's got you. Then
you're not going to hear a word that's said. You get bitter toward
that man. And Martin, oh man, oh my. I don't like myself. Do we, Brother
Tom? Oh. And it's a miracle that,
you know, anybody listens to me. And see that God overlooks
this. But that's what happens. If you're
bitter at that man, you're bitter at somebody in the congregation.
This root of bitterness, bad feelings against the brethren.
And it will trouble you. It won't go away like a bad taste,
a bad feeling won't go away. And many, it says, are defiled.
Many are defiled. Oh, how many are so affected
by a person that We're talking about
apostate. This is somebody that's leaving. Lest there be any fornicator,
and what happens is a person falls into out-and-out open sin,
leads to apostasy, leads to open sin. Read on. A profane person. When we think
of profanity, we think of cursing. But that's what we do when we
leave the gospel. Those of us who have blessed
God at one time, blessed God, now if we leave, we've brought
reproach on Him. We've blasphemed Him. We've cursed
Him. We've done more harm now than good before. Brought great
reproach on His name. For what? What do men and women
leave for? What would a man give in exchange
for something? What would a woman give in exchange
for the self? What would they leave the unsearchable
riches of Christ for? Unbelievably, a morsel of meat. That's what Esau did. The Lord
puts it in such plain language, for one morsel of meat, his God
was his belly. A morsel of meat. Soul is soul. What will people give in exchange
for the soul? Anything. Anything. Anything. It's awful, isn't it? And we would, too. And we will,
too. if we're not kept, if we don't
keep looking. This is the exhortation. This is the warning, and yet
the promise. Look, look, don't take your eyes
off. Remember in chapter 11, it says
if they'd been mindful, they would have had opportunity to
go back, but don't look back. Remember, life's life. Always a harmless, innocent look.
There's no innocent look back. And it says, O Esau found no
place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.
Repentance is not something you find and go after. It's a gift. It's not something you carefully
plot and plan. I'll cry and he'll hear me. We've
all done that with God, haven't we? Surely my tears help with
something. No, they don't. And here's true repentance anyway. Repentance is not... Esau was
sorry for what? Not what he did. Not for rejecting God. But for losing the blessing.
For losing his inheritance. That's what he wanted back. And
he went to his dad, Jacob, Isaac, and begged him to change his
mind. That's what that said. He couldn't
get his father to change his mind. Remember? Isaac said, no, I've blessed
and let me bless. And Esau wasn't sorry for what
he did. Here's repentance. Lord, forgive me for what I am.
Lord, forgive me for what I am, which makes me do what I do.
Forgive me what I've done. Forgive me my sin. My sin is
ever before me, and my sins. Look into Christ. Forgive me
through the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, forgive me through the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Would you please? And it's not
just losing things, But against thee and thee only have I sinned
and done this evil on thy side. Amen.