Now, today I'm going to be preaching
from the book of Hebrews, chapter 3. I'm going to begin with verse
14, but I want to introduce this message by reading back up into
the book of Hebrews, chapter 3, a few verses. The title of
this message is Our Confidence in Christ. Our Confidence in
Christ. Now, this whole section of Paul's
epistle to the Hebrews has been a warning against unbelief. Unbelief is the greatest of all
sins. And the reason is because unbelief
casts a shame and reproach. It's an attack against the very
glory of God in the promise of salvation for sinners through
the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, when God purposed to
save a people from their sins, sinful people and gave them to
Christ. God engaged everything that he
is to fulfill that promise by the Lord Jesus Christ. And the
command of the gospel is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and
thou shalt be saved. Look to him, a sinner. You see,
the gospel is for sinners. It's not for the self-righteous.
Those who are self-righteous don't need a Savior. Christ said
that when He spoke to the Pharisees about repentance. He said, I
didn't come to call the righteous to repentance, but sinners. You
see, the physician, he goes to the sick. He doesn't go to the
healthy. The healthy do not need a physician.
It's a sinner who is in need of the blood of Christ for the
forgiveness of sins. It's an unrighteous man or woman
who needs the righteousness of Christ to be justified before
God. It's an unholy person who needs
the holiness of Christ in order to be sanctified and fit for
heaven. You see, it's a dead man, think
about this, it's a dead sinner who needs life from above. Well,
we all by nature are dead sinners, unholy, unrighteous, sinful,
who are in need of the forgiveness of sins, but by nature we don't
realize it. We have to be shown the way.
We have to be given ears to hear, eyes to see. Our hearts have
to be shown what we are by nature and our need of grace. God has
to kill us before he makes us alive. He has to bring us down
before he brings us up. And therefore, the command of
the gospel is to look to Christ alone, his blood, his righteousness,
his holiness, his power to give life, his redemptive purpose,
to be saved. Look nowhere else. Don't look
inside. Don't look to yourself. Don't
look to your denomination. Don't look to any of your works.
Don't look to your heritage. Don't look to your pedigree.
Look to Christ. Look unto me, and be ye saved,
all the ends of the earth. For I am God, and there is none
beside me." And that's the command of the gospel. Well, all who
hear that message of grace, just like the Hebrew children in the
wilderness when they came out of Egypt, the promise that God
had made of an earthly land, which pictured salvation in Christ. All who hear that promise are
commanded to believe it. And believing it honors God. It honors every attribute of
His character. Believing that gospel exalts
Christ. And believing it humbles us,
puts us in the dust where we belong. Unbelief is the greatest
sin. Back up in Hebrews chapter 3
and verse 12, He says, take ye, brethren, lest there be in any
of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living
God. You see, how do you know whether a person has a heart
that is right with God or if that person has a heart that
is an evil heart? The question is, do they know
Christ? Do they believe on Him? Have
they submitted to Him as their only way of salvation? Have they
submitted to Him as their wisdom, their righteousness, their holiness,
and their redemption? Have they seen themselves as
sinners who are in need of salvation by free and sovereign mercy? God be merciful to me, the sinner. I have nothing to recommend me
unto God. There's nothing good in me or
about me or that comes from me. I am totally at the mercy of
God. Lord, if you will, you can make
me clean. I have nowhere to go, no one
to look to, but Christ and Him crucified." Now, that's a heart
that is right with God. And those who do not see that
and believe it, the Bible says that's an evil heart of unbelief. It's evil because it has no Redeemer. The person who is in unbelief
has no righteousness before God. He has no holiness before God. He has no one to forgive him
of his sins. He has no Savior. He has no mediator. He's on his own, standing before
God in his filthy rags and an evil heart of unbelief. He has
a nature of sin that is opposed to everything that God is in
his glory. That's an evil heart of unbelief.
So what we see there is this. Good and evil can only be measured
by our relationship with Christ. If we know him, if we see him
as our Savior, if we trust him, if he's our Lord and our Master,
if he's our all in all, that's the heart of faith that is the
gift of God. And those who do not know him
and believe in him have an evil heart of unbelief. He says in
verse 13, he says, but exhort one another. That's encourage
one another daily. Encourage one another daily while
it is called today, while there's still time. lest any of you be
hardened through the deceitfulness of sin." The deceptiveness of
sin. What is that deception? Now let
me show you this very carefully. The deceitfulness, the deception
of sin is anything. I don't care what it is or how
it appears to the natural eye or how it is judged by man by
nature. Anything that keeps you from
Christ is a deception. It's sin. It's unbelief. Anything
that keeps a sinner from falling on his face at the feet of Christ
and begging for mercy, seeking the grace of God, knowing that
he's a sinner who has nothing to offer to God, nothing good,
anything that keeps a sinner from doing that is a sin of deception. It may be religion. It may be
an experience that you had years ago. It may be some act that
you performed. Some people say, well, I was
baptized when I was 12, or I was baptized as a baby. Let me tell
you something. If that's what you're depending
on, if that's what you're trusting in, that's a sinful deception
because it keeps you from coming to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now,
what is the heart of faith then? Well, it's the heart of confidence
in Christ. And that's the title of the message
today. Look at verse 14. He says, For we are made partakers
of Christ, fellowshipers with him, participants in his grace,
in his love, in his mercy, in the forgiveness of sins through
his blood, in justification before God by his righteousness imputed. We are made partakers of Christ,
believers, fellowshipers with him, if we hold the beginning
of our confidence steadfast unto the end. Now, the if there is
not a condition which sinners must meet in order to attain
fellowship with Christ. The if there is the evidence
of a sinner who has been made a partaker of Christ, a fellowshipper
of Christ. And, O Lord, if you are in fellowship
with Christ by faith, by union with him, if you know him, trust
him, submit to him, then you will hold the beginning of your
confidence steadfast, firm, and immovable until the end, until
you go to be with Christ. Now, what is that confidence?
And that's important because this sets the tone for the whole
message, sets the tone for everything that Paul is saying here about
unbelief in his warning. Where is our confidence? Where is our hope? Where is our
assurance? Well, the title of the message
tells you where I'm going with this, and I'm not trying to trick
you, I'm not trying to come around through the back door, I'm just
simply telling you this. Those who believe in Christ,
those who know him, Those who have been delivered by the power
of God's grace from that evil heart of unbelief, which we all
have by nature, they are those who have confidence in Christ. Their assurance of salvation,
their assurance, their confidence of forgiveness, of being accepted
before God, is in the Beloved, the Lord Jesus Christ. Back over
in Philippians 3, I preached on this before, but the Apostle
Paul shows us what that means. In verse 3, he says, "...for
we are the circumcision, which worship God in the Spirit." Now,
what he's speaking there is of spiritual circumcision. What
is spiritual circumcision? It's circumcision by the Holy
Spirit, it's a spiritual matter, the cutting away of the filth
of the flesh in the heart. And how does the Spirit do that?
He does that by convincing us of sin, showing us who we are
by nature, what we are by nature. That sin is not just what I do,
but sin is what I am by nature. And that without Christ, everything
I do and everything I am is sinful in the sight of God, an evil
heart of unbelief. That without Christ, I am nothing
and I can do nothing. Without Christ, there is no acceptance
with God. Without Christ, there is no eternal
life. And the Spirit cuts away the
filth of the flesh and shows us that our only hope of salvation
is in Christ and His blood, His righteousness imputed, His power,
His grace, the Holy Spirit to give us life and to abide within
us by His word, Christ in us, the hope of glory. So he says,
we are the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit, and
the next line he says this, we rejoice in Christ Jesus. Now that's the key. We rejoice
in him. That word rejoice is translated
in Galatians chapter 6 and verse 14 as glory. God forbid that
I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. In
other words, we glory in Christ, our confidence is in Christ,
and then he goes on to say, and have no confidence in the flesh. Those who have a heart of faith,
who have been delivered from the evil heart of unbelief, they
are those who have confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ, and
they have no confidence in themselves. My hope, my assurance is not
in me. not in my power to keep on, not
in my power or goodness to attain or maintain salvation, but my
complete confidence and assurance is in Christ alone, who has saved
me, who keeps me, and who will bring me to glory. There's an
old hymn that says, my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus'
blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame but wholly lean on Jesus' name, on Christ the solid rock
I stand, all other ground is sinking sand." That hymn expresses
this truth. Well, back over in Hebrews chapter
3, the apostle goes on. Now, in light of this, in light
of this great testimony of God's grace and power in Christ that
leads a convicted sinner, a guilty sinner, to see that he has no
hope of salvation but in Christ. He goes on in verse 15, he says,
"...while it is said, Today, if ye will hear his voice, harden
not your hearts, as in the provocation." Now, he says today. That means
immediately, right now, while there's time, while you're hearing
the gospel. You see, there may come a time
when you won't hear it at all. when you won't even have the
means of faith, but immediately this expresses an urgency. This is urgent. This is nothing
that you should put off till tomorrow. It's something you
should deal with right now, today. And he says, if you will hear
his voice. That's the voice of God. That's
the word of God, the word of Christ. Now, when do we hear
the voice of God? He's not speaking of dreams and
visions and audible voices, mysticism. He's talking about the preaching
of this Word right here. This Bible is the Word of God,
from Genesis to Revelation. This Bible here is the inspired
Word of God. All Scripture is given by inspiration
of God. That's 2 Timothy chapter 3. And
it means it's God-breathed. And these words, these words
of life, speak of salvation by Christ. The Lord told the Pharisees
that. He says, you do search the scriptures,
for in them you think you have eternal life. Well, they are
they which testify of me. You see, he told his disciples
that the writings of Moses, that's the first five books of the Old
Testament, and in all the prophets, and in all the Psalms, were written
concerning himself, who he is, what he did, why he did it, and
where he is now. So that when a messenger of God
stands before you and preaches Christ according to the Scriptures,
that's the voice of God. If he preaches according to the
Word now, and I'm not talking about his own Word, I'm not talking
about getting off on tangents, I'm talking about preaching the
Word of God. and showing you your sin, and
showing you the greatness and the glory of Christ to save sinners,
to the glory of God, to the praise of the glory of God, sovereign,
free, and mercy and grace, then that preacher is preaching the
Word of God. So today, if you will hear his
voice, harden not your hearts as in the provocation. Don't
fail to come to believe this message. Seek faith in Christ. Now, we know faith is the gift
of God. It's not what we have in us by nature. It doesn't come
by our free will. But we know faith is the gift
of God, so what are we commanded to do? Seek faith. Seek Christ. That's what we're commanded to
do. Don't look to your faith. Don't look to yourself. Look
to Christ. And God gives faith to all his children and brings
them to look to Christ. Now, he says, as in the provocation,
that word provocation, comes from the word provoke. Now, to
provoke here, he's talking about the children of Israel in the
wilderness when they provoked God. In other words, by their
unbelief, they moved God to anger and wrath. This particular event
here, I believe, speaks of the time when the children of Israel,
having gone out of Egypt, having crossed over the Red Sea, and
they came to the brink of the Promised Land. Now, God had already
promised to give the children of Israel, the Hebrew children,
that land. God had made that promise a little
over 400 years before they came out of Egypt when he gave the
promise to Abraham. And he told them, he said, I'll
give you this land. It was a gift from God. He didn't
say you have to earn it. He didn't say you have to get
up weapons and by your own power overcome the enemy to obtain
it. He said, I give it to you. It's
yours. All you have to do is go over
and possess it. All you have to do is take possession
of it because it's a free gift of God. It was called the land
of promise because God had promised it to them through Abraham. But
when they come upon the brink of the promised land, they sent
spies over into the promised land. And when the spies came
back, there were two different reports. I call it this way.
There was a majority report. and a minority report. The majority
report said this, that this land was a beautiful land, it was
a fruitful land, full of milk and honey, that the crops were
just tremendous, but they said, the majority said, we cannot
have this land, the people that dwell there are too strong, they're
too powerful, they're giants, they're bigger than us, they're
more powerful than us, and we don't have the wherewithal, we
don't have the strength to take that land. Well, the minority
report came back from Joshua and a man named Caleb, the two
men, the minority report. And I believe it was Caleb who
spoke up and he said, wait a minute. He said, you're all looking at
this all wrong. Our possession of that land is not conditioned
on or dependent upon our strength and our power to overcome them.
It's God's power. It's of God. God's given us that
land. Let's go over there and possess
it. It's by promise. Now, what we have there is a
picture of salvation. Men and women, just like the
majority of those spies, they try to work their way into heaven.
They're trying to work their way into God's favor. They're
trying to do it by their own power, their own goodness, their
own wisdom. And God has already said that's
impossible. For by deeds of law shall no
flesh be justified in the sight of God. And yet men insist upon
trying to do that. That's an evil heart of unbelief.
But the minority report is the gospel. Joshua, he represents
Christ, the Savior. He's the one who eventually led
the next generation of Hebrews into the promised land, just
like Christ, our Savior, leads his generation into the eternal
rest. And then Caleb, Caleb's name
means faithful one. So here we have the report of
Joshua and Caleb. Joshua representing Christ and
Caleb representing the faithful ones, those who believe in him.
And they said, look, salvation is not for us to earn. It's not
by our power. It's not by our goodness. It's
not by our righteousness, which we've done. But it's a promise
from God. It's by His power. And that's
the way eternal life is. It's not a land that we have
to possess by our power and our goodness. We have none. But it's
a land of promise through Christ. Now, he says in verse 16, he
says, "...for some, when they had heard, did provoke." They
heard the promise. And if they didn't believe, they
provoked. How be it not all that came out of Egypt by Moses, there
were some who did believe, Joshua and Caleb, as I mentioned. But
with whom was he grieved forty years? Was it not with them that
had sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness? You remember
that God's punishment for the Hebrew children, because of their
unbelief, that provocation, they provoked him When they were right
on the verge of going into the Promised Land, he said, you'll
not enter in. He said, you're going to wander
in the wilderness until you die. And that whole generation that
came out of Egypt, that went to the brink of the Promised
Land, that whole generation who saw all those miracles, all the
power of God, the killing of Pharaoh and his army, the parting
of the Red Sea, the plagues in Egypt even before that, All that
they found, the man in the wilderness, that whole generation, they could
not enter into the promised land, that earthly land, because of
their unbelief. And they wandered in the wilderness
until that first generation died, and it was the next generation
that went over. Nobody from the older generation
went in except for Joshua and Caleb. Joshua led them over. So he said, their carcasses fell
in the wilderness. And that right there is a picture
of sinners who fail to come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. They're doomed to wander in the
wilderness of sin, under the curse of the law, condemned under
the wrath of God until they die eternally. Well, he says in verse
18, And to whom swear he that they should not enter into his
rest, but to them that believe not. Now, his rest refers here
to that rest of the earthly land of Canaan. That was an earthly
rest. Here the children of Israel had
been in bondage for so many years under hard taskmasters in Egypt. And they were under such a burden,
the burden of the law, the burden of a tyrant, the burden of their
own sins. And you remember how it was,
how it's described, when Moses was there and then he was thrown
out and he went away and came back? Oh, they cried, the cries
of the children of Israel in the bondage of Egypt. And here
they were promised a land of rest, a land of milk and honey,
where God would bless them by his promise, not because they
deserved it. He told them later on, he said,
I didn't choose you because you were the greatest of all people,
for you were the least. There was nothing in this nation
that earned God's promise. Everything that God did for them
was by a promise that He had made 400 and some years before
to Abraham. And you see, that's a picture
of salvation. Everything, if you're saved today,
if you know Christ, if you have eternal life in Him, Everything
that you have and you possess that is eternal and good and
acceptable unto God, it's not because you deserved it. It's
not because I deserved it. It's not because of any goodness
in us. We have none. It's not by our
power or our greatness. Again, it's not by works of righteousness
which we have done, will do, anything like that. It's based
on a promise that was made in eternity past. to our Savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ, the Father and the Son in the covenant of
grace. Well, who is it that would not enter into the promised land
of Canaan, those whom God swore would not enter in because of
unbelief? God's swearing there represents
his oath. God is engaged in opposition
to all who believe not. Well, who is it that will not
be saved eternally and enter heaven's eternal rest? those
who fail to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. God is engaged
in opposition to them. So in verse 19, he closes out
this chapter, so we see that they could not enter in because
of unbelief. Now, let's go back to what we're
talking about here in this message. They could not enter into the
earthly land of Canaan because of their unbelief of the promise.
All who die in their sins without Christ, they die in unbelief
and they will not enter the eternal rest of heaven because they reject
Christ. You see, that's an evil heart
of unbelief. Unbelief is the greatest sin.
And I'll tell you something, the greatest thing that we as
sinners can do, and we cannot do it by ourselves or on our
own or out of our own free will, is believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's the gift of God. having confidence in Christ. Not in ourselves, but in Christ
and Him crucified. You see, the Lord Jesus Christ,
He has already earned eternal, complete salvation for His people. He's earned everything they need. He has worked out and completed
and finished all that God the Father requires. All that God
requires of me, I find in completion and fulfillment in the Lord Jesus
Christ. What the law requires of me,
satisfaction to its justice for my sins, I find in Christ. What
the law requires of me by way of obedience, I find in Christ,
fulfilled. For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. He is all the
wisdom that God requires of me. By nature, I'm a fool. But all
the wisdom that God requires of me, I find in Christ. And
righteousness, all the righteousness God requires of me, all the holiness,
all the redemption that God requires of me, I find fulfilled in Christ. Now, that's why my confidence
is in Him and not in myself. so that I enter into the promised
land, the eternal rest of salvation, eternal peace, eternal forgiveness,
eternal life, and even heaven itself, not by my power or goodness,
but in Christ. And all the work of the Holy
Spirit in me to give me life in the new birth, to bring me
to faith in Christ, to bring me to repentance, to take up
residence in my heart, to abide within me forever by His Spirit
and His Word, Christ in me, the hope of glory, I find in Him
and in Him alone." Confidence in Christ. The opposite of that
is an evil heart of unbelief. Now, you take heed, take heed.
Today, if you'll hear His voice, harden not your heart, but believe
on Him.