This is a vital exhortation here,
and I was so impressed by it. I dealt with this in New Jersey
also, but this is so vital. that it really continues through
the whole book of Hebrews. Verse 1 of chapter 2 says, Therefore,
we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have
heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. And the margin
says it run out as leaking vessels. In other words, that we don't
lay hold of these things, but they just let slide. And if we approach, I don't like
the term Bible study. I mean, that's what we're doing,
looking into God's Word. I certainly don't like Sunday
school. That's Armenian religion. If we approach this, if I approach
this, if you approach this merely as a Bible study, we're going
to let it slip. We're going to let it slide. It's an intellectual thing. If the Word of God is not just
that, the Word of God, as Peter said, Words of life. Thou hast
the words of life. And many fell away, didn't they?
They walked no more with him. And the Lord said, there's the
door. You going? And Peter said, no,
this is life. What you're saying, our lives
depend upon this. That's what he's saying. So this
is vital. And this is to me first. It's
me first. It's like the letters to the
churches. All are addressed to the angel of the church of Laodicea. That's the preacher. Talking
to him first. Paul wrote to young Timothy and
said, take heed to yourself. first in the doctrine. He said,
in doing so, you will both save yourselves and them that hear
you. So it's to me and to you. Now, the Scripture throughout
God's Word, it warns us that today is the day of salvation. And this is over and over in
the Hebrew. Today, if you'll hear His voice,
it's a day of salvation. Today, if you'll hear His voice. Look across the page, chapter
3. Chapter 3, verses 12 through
15. Take heed, brethren. Take heed. He just told us that. Give more
earnest heed. Take heed, brethren, lest there
be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from
the living God. Any of you. Me. Any of us. An evil heart in departing from
the living God. Read on. But exhorts one another
daily, every day, while it's called today. Now, there is no
promise for tomorrow. We worry about tomorrow, but
the fact is our Lord said There may not be a tomorrow. The Lord
said that. He said, take no anxious thought
for tomorrow. Today is the day, He said. Right
now. Right now. Read on. And lest any of you
be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, we are made partakers
of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto
the end. Continue to hold. While it is
said today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your heart
like the Israelites did in the provocation, how they provoked
God. Talk about how the Israelites,
chapter 4, the Israelites, they heard the gospel just like we
heard the gospel. But God said, I swear in my wrath
they're not going in. Why? Because they heard it, but
they didn't hear it. They didn't hear. They weren't
listening. Forty years. Forty years Moses was telling
them, we're almost there. And they murmured, complained,
and finally got tired of hearing Moses talk, didn't they? And so, today. He says, if you'll hear his voice. In chapter 2, verse 1, the things
which we have heard, We need to give more earnest heed. And
not just things, this is God has spoken. The Lord, God, sundry
times and divers manners spake unto the fathers by the prophet.
But in these last days, he came. He came. God Himself came and
spoke. And so, that's why we need to
give earnest. God came down and God said something. And our lives depend on hearing
what He said. Now, today if you'll hear His
voice. Our Lord said, My sheep hear
My voice. Wasn't a figure of speech. He
does speak to his people. So let me ask you, have you ever
heard Jesus Christ speak to you out loud? Anybody in here? Anybody? No. Have you ever felt
like He has spoken to your heart? Anybody? I hope so. He said, My sheep
hear my voice. Well, when did he do that? When did he speak to you like
that? When was the first time he spoke to you like that? Right
here. Wasn't it? Or wherever you first
heard the gospel, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching. He called you by our gospel.
God uses this thing of preaching through a man, yes, but Christ
said, my sheep will hear my voice through a preacher. And isn't
it so that the first time, Mac, the first time you ever felt
like the Lord was speaking to you, it was through the preaching
of the gospel, wasn't it? And you felt like, He's talking
to me. You sat through so many. All of us did this. Sat through
so many messages, so many sermons, and that's all they were, were
sermons. And then finally, one day, he's talking to me. And
you felt like you were the only one in there. That's Christ speaking
to you. Alright? We must continue to
hear his voice. My old dog Abner, and he's not
going to be long with us, How could you get emotional over
a dog? Anyway, every day I call him. Every day. There's not a day that goes by
that I don't call him. He's waiting to hear from me
too. He's laying outside the door, waiting for my attention,
waiting for a word from me, looking to me, and I call him. And he
still gets in trouble, but I stand and I still call him. I'm still
calling him. Well, the Lord continues to call,
speak to his sheep daily, today, if you'll hear his voice. So
that's how important to see us, what we're doing today, now more
than ever. The Lord has promised to speak.
He said, where two or three are gathered together in my name,
I'll be there. Well, I need to hear from Him,
don't you? I need to. Left to myself. And we go days, sometimes a whole
week, don't we, where we feel like we haven't heard from the
Lord. Maybe He's cast us off. David
says, is mercy's clean gone? And we come back and bless the
Lord, He calls us again. And we think, well, maybe I am
one of His sheep. So this, what we're doing now
more than ever, today, in the last day, Paul wrote 2,000 years
ago, In the last days perilous times shall come. And he went
on to describe right now. It's never applied to a day more
than today. The last of the last day. Perilous
time. A day of so little truth and
so few who care. We ought to give the more earnest
heed. Serious attention, that's what
it means. Total, absolute, complete attention. He says we ought to
give the more earnest heed to the things we've heard. As time
flies, and it's flying by, the older we get, and we're getting
old fast, aren't we? I remember like yesterday, I
took Nancy Park to Golden Corral for her 50th birthday. A young
woman who didn't have a gray hair on her head. Bam! 22 years. It's amazing how fast
it flies by. As time flies by. What is your
life but a vapor? I keep referring to Isabella
as Hannah. Yeah, Hannah. I've lost, it's
all running together. My daughter grew up so fast that
I still think of my granddaughter as my daughter. You have great
grandchildren. Ty, as older we get, the closer
we're getting to death. I hope you'll read the article
in the Bulletin. It's not just filling up time,
not just filling up a piece of paper. I have real mixed emotions about
the Bulletin as to their profit. I don't hear much about it. Number one, I don't like to type.
And I didn't type that one. Robin did for us. But it's an
excerpt from a funeral message that Brother Joseph Irons, a
great preacher, and I love to read, preached his wife's funeral. You need to read that. It's just
outstanding. Outstanding. The closer we get to death, we
ought to give more earnest teaching. Our children, the closer they
get to leaving home. Going out into that world. You don't
want to see them go, do you? I do not want to see Isabella
grow up. I don't want her to get a day
older than three. But she's going to. She's going
to be 23 tomorrow, and might go out into that cesspool
called planet earth if the Lord doesn't speak to her and break
her heart, give her a new heart. And this is the only place she's
going to get it, under the sound of the gospel, today. to death. Wouldn't it be something? Brother
Gabe is down there teaching a young adult. It's life or death. It really
is. Life or death. And as society gets worse, we
ought to give them more earnest heed. We're talking about so
great salvation. Brother, my pastor preached this
last Sunday, didn't he? I wasn't here, so I'm going to
deal with it. He told me, Rock Barnard,
one time heard a fellow preach and he liked his outline. He
said, give me that outline. I want to improve upon it. I'm
not going to do that. But the fact is, we do preach
this great salvation every time, don't we? This is our subject. This is the message. This is
what we come to hear, this so great salvation. Now, it is called
salvation, isn't it? Because that's what it's all
about, us being saved, Brother Wesley, saved. We need saving. Us and our children need saving. We're born dead in trespassing
and sin. Yes, we are. Not a figure of
speech, it's a fact. We're born loving sin, and if
God doesn't do something about this love for sin, we're going
to die in our sin. We're going to perish according
to our sin. We come forth from the womb speaking
lies. Our children and us both. We're
born lost, we're born doomed, and we will be damned if the
Lord doesn't save us and our children. The Lord save us and
our children. But today is that day. The message
of so great salvation is being declared today. The serpent on
a pole is being lifted up today. The prophet said, why will you
die? Just look. That's what our teachers
downstairs are doing, setting forth Christ. Look, look, look. Salvation is what we're talking
about. That Chilean mining disaster, did you watch that? Anybody? Chile. Miners in Chile. Chilean. Did you watch that? Anybody? Some of them. A buddy
of the family's did. The people that needed saving
did. All they thought about for 69 days, the people down there
and the people up there, was salvation. They ate and drank. One of the
wives was camped out there. And said, we're not going home
until they come home. And that's exactly what Scripture
said. We'll not go before them. Heaven awaits the manifestation
of the sons of God. Salvation. And like that story,
somebody went down to bring them out, and every last one of them
was coming out. And I love, I think about this
all the time, it says heaven erupts over one sinner that repents. You think about that. They do
know more than we think they do up there. Because it says
there's joy in heaven over one sinner that repents. You think
about when they all come home. We said that Wednesday night.
The Lord's going to send them all to greet us. Nobody's going
to be left behind. They're all going. When we meet
the Lord and his saints in the air. Salvation. That's what we're
talking about. So great. Salvation. Now, who's he talking to? Therefore,
we ought to give. Who's we? Well, there's nobody
here in this right now but you and me in here. The world's not
here. This is not going over the Internet
right now. It's us this morning, right now.
We. We. This was written to the Hebrews. Hebrews. The professing Jews. The Jews who professed to believe
God. And most in here, nearly everyone
in here, I believe everyone in here does profess to be a believer.
And so did the Jews. And so this, he says, all of
us, beginning with me, we ought to give the more earnest heed.
I was reading the scripture yesterday morning, and it wasn't long before
I had forgotten all, completely forgotten what I read. I thought, he's so, just let it
slip. I thought, didn't you read, didn't
you understand, I was thinking something, Kelly, or acting a
certain way. I thought, you just read about
that. Just let us live. What's wrong with you? We, we,
we ought to give earnest heed, serious attention to the things
The things that we have heard. Now, we're hearing the same things
over and over and over. And that's why it's so important
that we give more earnest heed. Because Hannah, if you hear something
over and over again, you finally won't hear it at all. If you keep hearing it, it will
be like a voice just droning until you won't even hear it.
Back when I was a kid, my grandparents lived in a little
one-horse town called Tecumseh, Georgia. Their house was right beside
a railroad track. 50 feet, just across a little road
there. And we first started going there,
and we were laying in bed that night, about three of us in a
feather bed. And that train came by. It scared the... I thought it
was running over us. I thought it was coming through
the bedroom. It scared me to death. Well, a couple of nights
later, I didn't hear a thing. Didn't hear a thing. No fear. And scripture says, unite our
hearts to fear by now. Fear thy name. Fear thy word. The things we've heard, so great
salvation, are things needful, vital things. Folks, hang on
the words of newscasters, news reporters, don't they? Just hang
on, especially if someone's life is on the line. Hang on the words. Well, Isaiah said, who hasn't
believed our report? Our lives do hang in the balance. Walter Cronkite was a newscaster
for over 50 years. Tell me, anybody remember anything
he said? Was there anything of any consequence?
That if you didn't listen to him, it's all over. Not one thing. Vanity of that. Everything he
said and did for 50 years of no consequence whatsoever. I remember hearing my father
say this one time after being pastor for over 40 years. He
stood up with tears in his eyes. I remember this like yesterday.
And said, I've been preaching the gospel. And I've got to say
this. He said, I've been preaching
the gospel for over 40 years. And he said, there's some that
I've never heard one comment from. Not one. That's sad, isn't it? That's sad. We ought to give the more earnest
heed. It's a pressing matter. Paul
said, Brethren, I haven't arrived yet. We haven't arrived yet. We're
not there yet. Paul said, but this one thing,
I didn't. Paul said, I press toward the
mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ. Oh,
that I might win Christ and be found. I haven't won Christ yet.
I'm not there yet. He said in another place, we
have been delivered, we are being delivered, and we will yet be
delivered. We have been saved. When God said we're saved, John
in his mind, we were saved. But we're being saved. And we won't be completely saved
until we're over yonder. We must hear this gospel. It's
a pressing matter. We must hear it. Us and our children
and our grandchildren. I think I realize now, even more
than I did for my own daughter, the necessity of my granddaughters
here. As you get older, you ought to
give them more earnest heed. It ought to be more important,
like granddaughters. And because they're a preacher's
daughter or preacher's granddaughter or preacher's great-granddaughter,
it doesn't mean a thing. It doesn't mean a thing. It won't
save them. They've got to hear this gospel. And there must be
a church here with a preacher, or wherever they end up, where
the gospel is being preached. Or they're not going to be saved.
You've got to be under the sound of the gospel. Our children,
our grandchildren. Paul commended Timothy's grandmother
and mother, Lois and Eunice, for having him under the sound
of the gospel. They were believers as well. He said, they brought
you to hear the Word which is able to make you wise unto salvation,
Timothy. Aren't you glad? Aren't you glad? Mac, I pray that someday you
too will be so glad that Margaret, there you are. What are you doing
back there, Mac? That you and Margaret brought them to hear
the Gospel. That's what it means to give
earnest heed for us and our children, if we're able. It really is that
serious. So great salvation. Listen to
this. Here it is. Here's this great
salvation. And while I'm...turn quickly in closing to Hebrews
10. Turn over to Hebrews 10. I had
so much more to say, but I actually didn't know which message to
preach when this morning. I thought about bringing this
in the next hour. It's preaching. Call it Bible
study, but it's not. It's preaching. God sent his Son down to this
place called planet Earth that's like a sewage hole. He came down
to a people that didn't deserve him, a people that didn't ask
for him to come, people that didn't want him, and when he
got here, they said, go back. Would you say people like that?
God did because God is rich in mercy. He's not like us. And they finally killed Him.
We did. All we did, despised and rejected of all, we killed
Him, but it was according to God's will and purpose. And God
raised Him from the dead, put Him at His right hand, and now
God Almighty says to every human being, bow to the Son. Bow to
the Son. Come to the Son. Confess to the
Son. Kiss the Son. Love the Son. Worship the Son.
He ought to. You need to. He deserves it. You need it. Bow. That's it. Thank Him. Worship Him. Come
one day a week or two at most. Well, it's a reasonable service,
it was so great a salvation. He came and He's merciful. Scripture says He's merciful
to all who call upon Him in truth. All who call upon Him. He said
He'll hear it. Patrick, He said He'll hear it.
Our children, if they call, He's going to hear it. He promised. God is merciful and gracious. We've got to be found in Him
on that great day. We ought to give more earnest
heed because who came? And look at Hebrews 10. Now,
he said in chapter 2, if what the angels said They that didn't hear received
a just recompense. Look at Hebrews 10 verse 27. It says there is a fearful looking
for judgment and fiery indignation that will devour the adversary.
Who's that? Those who don't bow to Christ. He that despised Moses' law died
without mercy. Verse 29, how much sorer punishment,
suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden underfoot
the Son of God, and counted the blood of the covenant, the precious
blood of the Son of God, that saves us, and unholy, unnecessary,
I don't need that, I'm not interested. What would you do, Kelly? What
would you do if you sent your son to die for some unworthy? And they said, I'm not interested. Jeremiah bemoaned, he said, as
people went by, he said, is it nothing to you, all you that
pass by? And that's why we come here. We come here to look into
so great a salvation, to praise our God, to thank Him and honor
Him, honor His Son for so great a salvation to such unworthy
people. And He alone who is worthy came
down to us unworthy people. In the next hour, we're going
to see how He Himself preached this message. He came to preach
this good news. And you know, we preach the same
things, don't we? And that's the problem. That's
both the answer and the problem. We preach the same thing, same
thing, same thing. We're not preaching anything
different. We look for new passages to preach the same thing, but
it's the same thing. And only God can make the same
old, same old new. like good news, like hearing
it again for the first time. And that's how we've got to hear
it. Except we'd be converted and become as little children,
he said. Our Lord said that to His disciples who had been with
Him for three years, hearing Him speak who spoke like no other. And He said, I tell you, you,
you twelve, Peter, James, John, if you don't be like little children,
receive the Word as little children, like, oh, You're not entering
the kingdom of heaven. So today, while it's called today,
we ought to give more earnest heed as time flies by. The day
we're living in is just so perverted. Us and our children. This is
life. Life. Okay. Questioner 2 has a question.