Well, I'm going to tell you what
it was. We were in a hotel together.
And well, I had stuff in the floor
and throwing stuff around. And we were in the hotel together
for two or three days. And at some point, he said, hey,
Todd, ain't this kind of childish? Yeah. I pick my stuff up. Would you turn to Hebrews chapter
3? I have enjoyed this meeting so much. I love to hear preaching
that when I hear it I know I'm saved. That's my favorite kind
of preaching. And when I hear preaching that
makes me question whether or not I'm saved, I don't like it
at all. I'm hearing something different,
but I've been blessed when I've heard these messages, I know
I'm saved. And I love that. Hebrews chapter
three, verse seven. Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost
saith today, if you will hear his voice. Verse 13, but exhort one another
daily while it's called today. There will be a time when time
is no more. Look in verse 15, while it said
today, if you will hear his voice, Harden not your hearts. Look in chapter four, verse seven. Again, he limiteth a certain
day. Note that language. He limiteth
a certain day. Saying in David, today, after
so long a time, If you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. I've entitled this message Today. Today. And I think the easiest
way it is for me to understand that concept of today is to think
of the manna that came down from heaven. You know, it didn't come
into your house, you had to go out and gather it. But it came
down every day, and by noon, it would melt. You were to go
out and gather it. Now, if you were to save some
of yesterday's manna for today, what would happen if you ate
it? All of a sudden, your mouth would
be filled with worms, and it would stink. What if you save some of today's
manna for tomorrow? Same thing. It would breed worms
and stink. Faith is always in the present. The two biggest false refuges
that we can hide in are yesterday and tomorrow. Yesterday, what I did, what I
believed, what I experienced. To look at what took place yesterday
in my experience For today is not trusting Christ. It's trusting
what I did. Tomorrow, if I'm intending on
doing something tomorrow, tomorrow it'll be different. Tomorrow
I'll believe. Boast not thyself of the morrow,
for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. I think of what the Lord said
to the church in Sardis. He said, you have a name that
you live and you're living off the past. You're dead. Yesterday is a false refuge and
tomorrow is a false refuge. Yesterday is what I did. Tomorrow
is what I intend to do. Today. Today. Paul said to the Corinthians,
now is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation. Now I pray that the Lord will
put it in our hearts to believe what we hear right now. Forget yesterday, forget tomorrow. Today is the day of salvation. In verse 7 of our text, Hebrews
chapter 3, Let's actually read verse six
first. But Christ, as a son over his
own house, whose house are we if we hold fast the confidence and
the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end? Wherefore, now
notice that parenthesis. There's a parentheses here. It
means it's a parenthetical statement. It can be lifted out and you
can read it without it. We're not gonna do that. We're
gonna go back to it because it's part of the inspired word. But the translators put the parentheses
in here and it's a quotation from Psalm 95 verses seven through
11. And you can pull that out and
read verse seven and verses 12 through 14 together. So let's
do that and we're gonna come back to verses seven through
11, but he says, wherefore, and then you see that parentheses,
and that parentheses is not over to the end of verse 11. Wherefore,
take heed, brethren. Who's he speaking to? Brethren. Brethren. Take heed, brethren,
lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing
from the living God. I love what you said about once
saved, always saved. Do you believe once saved, always
saved? Yes! Yes. We believe in the eternal security
of God's elect. If Jesus Christ died for you,
you cannot be anything but saved. What glorious power there is
in his blood, and I'm thankful for the eternal security of God's
elect. And he still says, take ye brethren,
lest there be in any of you. And you and I ought to know ourselves
enough to know for sure that we will fall away unless he keeps
us. I'm as sure of that as I am standing
before you. I will fall away unless he keeps
me. Take heed, brethren. lest there be in any of you an
evil heart of unbelief. Look in chapter four, verse one. Let us, these brethren that he's
speaking to, let us therefore fear lest a promise being left
us of entering into his rest Any of you should seem to come
short of it. Come short of entering into His
rest. And my dear friends, that's what
faith is. It's entering into His rest. What do you do when
you rest? You rest. You're not working,
you're resting. And He warns us. Let us therefore
fear, lest a promise being left to us of entering into His rest.
Any of you should seem to come short of it, for unto us was
the gospel preached, as well as unto them. But the word preached
did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that
heard it, for we which have believed do enter into a rest. Now if
faith is mixed with what I'm hearing, you know what I'm gonna
do? I'm going to rest in the Lord Jesus Christ. I know that
everything God requires of me, He looks to His Son for, and
I rest. And I fear coming short of entering
into His rest, trusting my own work somehow. It's a foolish
thing to do. Why would you do something that
stupid? Because I'm stupid. You are too. Amen? In and of ourselves. And we will
come short of entering into His rest if he doesn't prevent it. Verse 12, once again. Take heed, brethren, lest there
be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief. You know, we're aware of unbelief
right now, aren't we? I believe. Help thou mine unbelief. There's never a time when I do
not say that. I believe. Let me tell you why. We have two natures. One believes,
the other doesn't. That's why it's that way all
the time. I believe. Help thou mine unbelief. But exhort one another daily
while it's called today. lest any of you be hardened through
the deceitfulness of sin. I'm gonna give you some scriptures. Be not deceived. God is not mocked. Evil communications corrupt good
manners. They always do. Be not deceived, God is not mocked,
for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. He that
soweth to the flesh. Now this has so many applications,
but here's the one I want to think about right now. He that
soweth to his flesh, his fleshly works. shall of the flesh reap
corruption. But he that soweth to the Spirit
shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. 1 John 1.8 says,
if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. Remember,
he's warning us about being hardened through the deceitfulness of
sin. You know, all God's got to do
to harden our hearts is to leave us alone and not do anything
with us. Happens every time. We read, when a man thinks himself
to be something when he's nothing, he deceiveth himself. The moment I start thinking I'm
something, I've deceived myself. We read of the deceitfulness
of riches and deceitful lusts and being spoiled with philosophy
and vain deceit. And this deceiving ourselves
has a hardening effect. But exhort one another daily
while it's called today, lest any of you be hardened through
the deceitfulness of sin. Now, what came to my mind when
I was thinking about this thing of being hardened through the
deceitfulness of sin, I thought about the manna. Do you remember in Numbers chapter
21, that very day manna came down from heaven and water came
from that rock? And they said, we don't have
anything to eat or drink. And our souls loathe this light
bread. Had the bread changed? Not at
all. It was still manna from heaven.
But they said, our souls loathe this light bread. But exhort one another daily
while it's called today, lest any of you be hardened through
the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of
Christ. I want to be that, don't you?
More than anything else, I want to be a partaker of Christ. We
are made partakers of Christ if. Now this if is not so much
a conditional if as an evidential if. This is the evidence that
we're partakers of Christ. If we hold the beginning of our
confidence. Now what's the beginning of your
confidence? Let me tell you what mine is
and I'm sure it's the same as you. The beginning of my confidence is
when all I had was Christ. Didn't have anything else. Didn't
have any other ground of assurance. I didn't have any works to feel
good about. All I had was Christ. My only hope, and let me repeat,
my only hope is that when Jesus Christ said, it is finished,
My salvation was finished. Now that's the beginning of my
hope. And you know what? I haven't moved from that. That's
still my only hope. I've not grown past that. I've
not graduated to bigger and better things. And the evidence of salvation
is holding fast the beginning of that hope, Christ alone. Not Christ and. Boy, anytime
we put Christ and, we've left Christ alone. Christ alone. Nothing more, nothing less, nothing
else. Now, let's go back up to verse
seven again to where that parentheses begins. Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost
saith, today, if you will hear his voice. Now, I've already
touched on this, but the only way I understand today is that
manna. What I ate today, yesterday's
manna would do me no good. It would breed worms and stink.
It would be positively harmful if I looked to yesterday's manna.
I wouldn't be allowed to look for today's manna tomorrow. It
would do the same thing. Present tense, today. Today. Right now. Today. If you will hear his voice. Now,
I've never heard his voice audibly. I've heard, matter of fact, I
had a preacher write me. and said, God told me to do this.
And I wrote him back. I said, you're lying. You've
never heard from God one time in your life, making a statement
like that, because he's wanting money. And God told him to do
this, and he needed that help. And generally, I just throw something
like that in a trash can. But for whatever reason, I wrote
him back. I want to hear his voice. I've
never heard it haughtily. And I know this. If my voice
is the only voice that's heard tonight, There will be no good
done. There will be no profit in it
at all. Today if you will hear His voice. The hour is coming and now is
when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they
that hear shall live. Today if you'll hear His voice. Now He speaks. He's the God who
speaks. Aren't you thankful? The creation
The heavens declare the glory of God. There's no excuse for
anybody to not believe God. The heavens declare His glory. He speaks by providence. Everything
that happens, everything that happens, He's speaking by. Today, if you will hear His voice,
He speaks in the preaching of the gospel. Now today, if you
will hear His voice, Harden not your hearts as in
the provocation, as in the day of temptation in the wilderness.
Now what he's talking about is what took place in Numbers chapter
13 and 14. Now you'll remember the Lord said, and this is just
a few weeks after they left Egypt, the Lord said, go into Canaan
and take the land. And they got a committee to study
the feasibility of that. And they sent 12 spies in to
see whether or not it could be done. And they come back after
40 days. Everything God said about that
land was true. They had a cluster of grapes so big that it had
to be put on a staff and two men carried it to show how it
was true. But there are giants in the land. that we cannot possibly defeat. We were grasshoppers in their
sight, but the thing I thought of, isn't everybody a grasshopper
in God's sight? But they said, we cannot defeat
them. And they started moaning and
saying, would to God, you didn't leave us out here to cause us
and our children to die in the wilderness. Let's make a captain
and send back, that'll lead us back to Egypt. It was better
for us there than here. And Joshua and Caleb, still the
people with this saying, They're bred for us because God's for
us. If God's for us, who can be against us? You know what
they said? Stone them. Stone both of them. And that's called
the day of provocation. The day they provoked God in
the wilderness. Now He says, harden not your
hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the
wilderness when your fathers tempted me, Prove me, saw my
works 40 years. You remember, God said, for each
of those days you came in, I'm gonna make it 40 years and you're
gonna spend 40 years in the wilderness. And as a matter of fact, none
of those people that were over 20 years old made it into the
promised land. The only people of several million
of people over 20 years old that made it in were Caleb and Joshua. Now let's go on reading. Wherefore I was grieved with
that generation and said they do always err in their hearts. They have not known my ways,
so I swear in my wrath they shall not enter into my rest. Now, what is this rest about?
I wanna know, I wanna rest, don't you? You know, the Lord said,
come unto me, all ye that weary and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest. What does that mean? Well, look
in chapter four, verse nine, there remaineth therefore
a rest. A, literally, a keeping of the
Sabbath. That's the only time this word's
used in the New Testament. A keeping of the Sabbath. Now, this is
not talking about not cooking on Sunday. For one thing, Sabbath's
on Saturday. It never was changed to Sunday
in the first place. It's still Saturday. And if you look at
it in that way, you're making a work out of not working. I
don't want to do that. What is this thing of entering
into this rest? There remaineth therefore a rest
to the people of God, for he that is entered in to his rest,
he also hath ceased from his own works. What's that mean? Well, turn
to Genesis chapter one. Verse 31, and God saw, this is after the
creation, and God saw everything that he had made, and behold,
it was very good. And the evening and the morning
were the sixth day, Thus, the heavens and the earth were, what? Finished. There's nothing left
to do. There was no new creation or
more things to be created. God was finished with it because
it was very good. And all the host of them, and
on the seventh day, God ended. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believeth. Ended his work
which he had made and he rested on the seventh day from all his
work which he had made. Now this is the glorious thing
about God's rest. God didn't rest because he's tired. God
rested because the work was completed and finished and there was nothing
else to do. And God blessed the seventh day
and sanctified it because that in it, he had rested from all
his work, which God created and made. Now go back to Hebrews
chapter four. There remaineth a Sabbath keeping
to the people of God, the rest of the Sabbath. For he that is
entered into his rest, here's the evidence, he also hath ceased
from his own works. God ceased from his works because
there was nothing else to do. He was pleased. Have I ever ceased,
completely ceased from my own works and rested in His? Now that's faith. Ceasing from
your own works, they're no good anyway. Ceasing from your own
works. As God did from His, let us labor
therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after
the same example of unbelief. I think that's interesting, labor
to enter into a rest. Do you know the hardest thing
that you and I are called to do is rest and do nothing? Rest in what he did, his finished
work. Back to Hebrews three. Verse 14, for we are made partakers of
Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto
the end, while it said today. Now, would to God that I could
forget yesterday, I love what Paul said when he said, forgetting
those things that are behind. And reaching forth into those
things that are before, I press toward the mark of the prize
of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Forget yesterday. Don't even think about tomorrow.
Right now, today, today is the time for me and you to believe
on Christ. Now let me say this. Don't try
to figure out if you're one of the elect. Don't try to figure
out if Christ died for you. That's an exercise in futility.
The only evidence that you're elect is if you believe the gospel
today, right now. Today, if you will hear his voice. Don't try to figure out anything
but this. God commands me to believe. I'm
called upon to believe. Well, what if you don't want
to elect? I'm still commanded to believe. We hurt ourselves when we start
trying to figure out things. You believe the gospel, you'll
know. You'll know. Now, I love what he says in verse
14. We're made partakers of Christ
if we hold the beginning of our confidence Steadfast to the end. Now, if I hold the beginning
of my confidence steadfast to the end, it means I get stuck
there. And what I was hoping in yesterday is this precise
same thing I'm hoping in right now in the present. And my great
desire is to die looking to Christ alone. persevering all the way
to the end. Now, the beginning of my confidence. Colossians chapter two, verse
six, makes this statement. As you received Christ Jesus,
the Lord, so walk ye in him. How did you receive him? Nothing
in my hands I bring. Simply to thy cross I cling. Naked look to thee for grace. Foul I to the fountain fly. Wash me, Savior, or I die. That is the beginning of my confidence. Right now, All I have is Jesus Christ. But you know what? I don't want
anything else. Let me close with this thought. Wherefore, verse 10, I was grieved
with that generation and said, they do always err in their heart
and they have not known my ways. Christ said, I am the way. I love that. He's the way of
righteousness. His righteousness is the only
righteousness. He's the way of salvation. He is salvation. Excuse me. He's the way of peace. Christ our peace. Christ is the
way that excludes all other ways. Excuse me. And I love the way he's called.
And this is so helpful to me. He's called the straight and
narrow way. Let me tell you how narrow he is. If you have anything other than
him, you can't get through the gate. And if you have anything
other than him, you can't walk along the way. That's how straight,
that's how narrow he is. Now that's the beginning of my
confidence. May I right now, right now. When's the time to believe? Right
now. Let not conscience make you linger.
nor a fitness fondly dreamed. The only fitness he requires
is to have the need of him. I got that. The time to believe. Everybody in here, don't wait
for something to happen. Don't wait for some kind of feeling.
Don't wait till you get your life straightened out. The time
for you to believe the gospel, to call upon the name of the
Lord is today. right now. May God give us all
the grace to do this. Amen.