Well, let's open our Bibles again
to Hebrews chapter two. I wish that I could properly stress
the importance of what we're getting ready to do. Hearing
the gospel be preached. I hope that we never take it
for granted Don't think that it's a glorious and splendid
thing just because we've had it preached to us for many years.
Hearing the gospel, hearing the gospel is so important because
faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the word of God. Our souls
will be saved by hearing the gospel. And when I talk about
hearing the gospel, I'm not just talking about being here. You know, when the doors were
open. I can remember being a little
guy and being able to be in the service and not hear anything
that's going on. I mean, nothing. Brother Henry
told a story about a little fella, Gary Vances. He's a pastor now,
Dingus. His grandson, Gary, was a little
fella and half was the pastor there. His grandmother asked
him, she said, Gary? Do you hear anything that happens
up there preaching? And he said, I try my best not
to, but sometimes I do anyway. I hope I don't hear the gospel
like that. Don't you? I'm talking about actively listening,
actively hearing the gospel, and actively applying the things
that I've heard to my heart. I'm sitting up here thinking,
I'm thankful that I can know as I preach to this congregation,
I already know before the service starts, there's certain people
I can look at during the preaching service and know they're actively
listening. You can tell that actively, it's
such an encouragement. That's the way we need to listen.
We're told take heed what we hear. We're also told take heed
how we hear. And I have a message for everybody
here this morning. I don't care who you are. This
message is for the unbeliever. Give heed to this gospel. And
to every believer from oldest to youngest, give heed to this
gospel. You notice the chapter does not
begin with the writer saying, therefore, you ought to give
the more earnest heed. He said, therefore, we ought
to give the more earnest heed. He includes himself in this,
doesn't he? Because no believer ever grows so much, we never
grow so much in grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ that
we quit needing to hear the gospel. No, we always need to hear the
gospel, to be fed by it, to be strengthened by it, to be encouraged
by it, to be comforted by it, to always be pointed to the Lord
Jesus Christ, to always be coming to Christ, as Peter said, because
we hear him preached. So the writer begins here in
verse one, Hebrews chapter two, Therefore, we ought to give the
more earnest heed to the things which we've heard, lest at any
time we should let them slip. That phrase, earnestly heed,
it means to super abundantly listen and to apply to ourselves. We need to listen to the gospel
much more earnestly than we think we do, much more than you think
you do. We need to give everything we've
got to hearing the gospel. Because we're warned that these
things that we've heard could easily slip away from us. So
that has two meanings. First, it means to run out, like
water runs out of a colander. You kids, this afternoon at home,
get your mom's colander out, put it in the sink, and turn
the faucet on. And watch how easily the water
runs out of it. But we're warned. Do you know
why we're warned about this? Because you and I are full of
holes. Our minds are full of holes. If anything of any value
is going to stick in our memories, we're going to have to put some
effort into remembering it. Without any effort, every one of us can
remember a dirty joke. We can remember trivia facts
that are truly trivial that don't have anything to do with anything.
But remembering the word of God is against our nature. So if
we're going to remember something, we're going to have to put some
effort into remembering it so it doesn't run away from us.
And second, the word means to drift away. It means to flow
by, to carelessly pass by and miss. That's what the Greek word
means. Now that's what happens when we don't earnestly heed
the things which we've heard. It just passes us by. And we
miss it because of carelessness. And if we start to drift because
of carelessness, I can promise you this, we will not drift toward
God. We'll drift away from Him. And it'll happen simply because
we put no effort into hearing the gospel. We put no effort
into seeking the Lord, into worshiping him. It's very easy to just go
with the flow. But now it's tough to row against
the current and press toward the mark for the prize of the
high calling of God in Christ Jesus. If through lack of effort,
earnestness, We drift along. We will make shipwreck of our
souls. And we won't even realize it. We won't realize how quickly
and how far away we've drifted. During the conference, Brother
Darwin Pruitt and I, Darwin and Kathy were married at, I don't
think it's a Nazarene church anymore, a place there in Russell.
And his sister Evelyn used to live there. We were out taking
a walk through Russell. Darwin was seeing the sights,
you know. And it was hard for him to get his landmark of where
he was and what was because the bridge is gone. He always marked
where everything was by the bridge. And we were standing there along
by the river, just talking. And he said, look at that log
out there in the river. It's a huge log just in the river. And we stood there, what, talking,
seemed like a minute. I mean, it just seemed like no
time at all. And I said, Darwin, look at that log. I mean, just
in a matter of moments, it seemed like you could barely see it
anymore. And the log made no effort to get there. Just drifting
along. And that's what would happen
to us. We drift quickly away from the Savior. God help us
to not listen that way, but to put some effort into this thing. The work's done. The work of
redemption is done. But our Lord told us, strive
to enter in at the straight gate. Strive to. The kingdom of heaven
suffered violence and the violent take it by force, not by drifting
into it, but by force. So I want to give us four reasons
this morning to earnestly hear the gospel. Number one, give
heed to this gospel because of what we've heard, because of
the message that we've heard. What is it that we've heard?
We've heard the gospel of Christ, which is far better than the
law. Far better than any false religion. Verse one begins with,
therefore, therefore, because of everything we've heard in
chapter one, give ye to this. What did chapter one tell us?
God has spoken. Have we heard? Have we listened?
We should listen, shouldn't we? God almighty has condescended
to speak to the likes of us. I hope we listen. We've heard
that the Lord Jesus Christ is a better sacrifice. His sacrifice
purged the sins of his people. I hope we've listened and come
to him and rest in him. We've heard that the Lord Jesus
Christ is the successful, exalted savior. He died. He rose again. He ascended to the right hand
of the father, where right now he's sitting upon the throne
of glory, waiting to his enemies be made his footstool. He's there
ruling and reigning over everything. for the sole purpose of bringing
His people to Himself. I hope we've listened. I hope
we trust in Him, His sovereignty, His sovereign power to save.
We've heard that Christ is better than angels, and through the
rest of the study of the book of Hebrews, we're going to hear
that Christ is better than everything. Whatever it is you think of, Christ is
better than that. I hope we've listened and sought
out that best thing, don't you? We should give earnest heed to
the things that we've heard from the mouth of our Lord Jesus Christ. I went through and I thought,
well, I can't, I can't do all this, but I just went through
the New Testament. It started looking at some of the things
that our Lord said during his earthly ministry, not just the
rest of the world. I'm talking about just the things
that the man Jesus master said as he is on this earth. Let me
give you a summary of what he said. He told us this. that he is the only Savior. Eric
preached it Wednesday night. If you believe not that I am,
you shall die in your sins. He's the only Savior. He told
us that he is all that we need. John 6, 37, I am the bread of
life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. He's
all we need. He told us that salvation comes
from the sovereign will and purpose of God. John 5, 21. As the father raises up the dead
and quickeneth them, even so the son quickeneth whom he will. God's sovereign in salvation,
isn't he? Our Savior told us that he did not come to try to
save everyone. He came to save God's elect. He came to save
his sheep. The good shepherd giveth his
life for who? For the sheep. Not for everybody. for the sheep. As he prayed in
the garden, I pray not for the world, but for them which thou
hast given me. I'm praying for the elect, for
that's who I'm going to suffer and die for. Our Savior assured us all of
God's elect shall be saved. John 10, 27, my sheep hear my
voice. They know me. I know them and
they follow me and I give them eternal life. They should never
perish, neither should any man pluck them from my hand. They
shall be saved. He told us this, he told us about
our nature. People who do not believe Christ,
who do not believe the gospel, don't believe the gospel because
they don't want to believe it. It's not because they don't understand
it. The gospel is the simplest thing in this world to understand.
The problem is our nature does not want to believe it. You will
not come unto me. The Lord told the Pharisees that
you might have life. You will not. They don't believe
and they won't come to Christ because God did not choose them. He left them alone in their nature. John 10, 26, you believe not. because you're not of my sheep."
He didn't say, you're not my sheep because you don't believe
me. He said, you don't believe because you're not my sheep,
because I did not choose you, because I did not die for you,
because I did not choose to have mercy upon your sinful soul.
He told us that salvation is fully and completely accomplished
by the Lord Jesus Christ and men cannot contribute anything
to it. What was his last word from the cross? It is finished. Now, you know what that means.
It's finished. There's nothing left to do. It's
complete. Oh, I pray we give earnest heed
to what we've heard, what good news. We should give earnest
heed to all the things that we've heard from the word of God. Man is ruined in Adam, and we
need a second Adam to make us righteous, to make us whole.
Man is defiled. He's polluted in sin, and we
desperately need the blood of Christ to cleanse us from all
of our sin. Nothing else is going to get
the job done. Man is born dead in sin, and we need Christ to
die for us, that he might give us life or we'll remain dead
in our sins. See, the only place that we'll
find, this is why we need to listen to this so closely, so
earnestly. The only place we will find out who and what we
are, really are, how sinful and rotten and ruined and depraved
and dead and far away from God, the only place we're going to
learn that is in the gospel. Let's listen, earnestly listen
and apply that to ourselves. Don't just listen and know all
men out there are ruined and sinning. earnestly listen, apply
this to ourself, so I know I'm lost, I'm ruined in sin, and
I need Christ or I'm going to perish. The way we know who man
is, from what we've heard. The way we know who God is, is
from what God's told us, who he is in his word. The only way
we know the character of God, the only way we know what God's
like, is through the gospel. God is not who we think He is. God's not who we want Him to
be. God is who He says He is in His word. God give us ears to listen, a
heart to earnestly listen. We've heard this. This is who
God is. God's sovereign. God's sovereign. Now that means
that we can't do something to get God to save us. We can't
just up and decide, I'm going to be saved today. I'm just going
to decide to accept Jesus as my personal savior and everything's
all right from now on. We can't decide to do that. Because
remember who man is. Don't forget who man is. Now
see, if we earnestly listen to these things, we'll be less likely
to forget them. We're dead in sin. We're ruined in sin. We cannot decide to accept Jesus. God's got to save us according
to his will, not ours. We need God to choose us or we'll
never choose Him. We need God to call us and draw
us to Christ or we'll never come. Now, that doesn't make me fatalistic. If someone asked me recently,
well, if God's just going to save His elect and only His elect,
why bother? It seems like you're wasting
your time. This truth about who God is and
who I am does not make me fatalistic. It makes me cry. Lord, save me. Lord, call me. Lord, draw me. Lord, if you will, you can make
me whole. Lord, would you, you have mercy
on whom you will have mercy. Lord, would you be, would you
be merciful to me? I need mercy. Would you be merciful
to me? God's sovereign. That makes me
beg Him for mercy. That's what makes me come to
Him. If God's not sovereign, if He cannot save whom He will,
when He will, that it somehow is up to somebody else, I wouldn't
bother going to Him, would you? But if He can save whom He will,
and nothing can stop His will, then I'm going to come to Him
begging for mercy. We've heard this about God. God's holy. God
cannot, he will not accept us as we are or ignore our sin.
So we need God to do something for himself so he can accept
me. I need God to make me holy. I
need God to do something and make me what he can accept, what
he loves. We've heard that God is gracious.
God is gracious to sinners. God is merciful to sinners. Salvation is not by merit. Salvation
is not because we're moral. Salvation is not because we're
religious. Salvation comes because God is gracious to sinners who
do not deserve it. Don't try to deserve God's mercy.
Come to Him because you don't deserve it. That's the only way
you're a candidate for God's mercy. What good news! God's gracious to sinners. And
I think about the gospel. This congregation has erred all
these many years. What a blessing. What a blessing. Brethren, let's not let such a wonderful
gift drift away because we're careless and we missed How can I let this gospel slip
away? Number one, by not acting on
it when I hear it right then and there. You young people, I know you. And even us old people,
older people, we're guilty of this. Thinking we got plenty
of time. God, we got plenty of time. Janet
showed me A while ago, these grandchildren came to their grandfather's
nursing home. He's 99 years old. They're having
a birthday party, 99 years old. 99! And he said, am I really? He said, how about that? Next
year, I'll be 100. Got plenty of time, don't we? No, we don't. No, we don't. My brother's in Michigan, coming
home from Michigan today. Because he went up there yesterday
to preach a funeral for a man in his early 60s. If I missed it, if I've been
in this place, hearing the gospel, and I let it drift away, it's
because I did not act on it right then and there. Because I've
got a cold, stony heart. That's a stony ground here. The
seed just lay there, didn't it? It was easy for Satan to come
and pluck it away because I didn't act on it quickly. Right then
and there. Brethren, today is the day of salvation. Right where
you sit, right at this moment, come to Christ. Cast your soul
on him right now. Number two, I let the gospel
slip away by getting taken up with the things of this life. Now we've got to do things. You
all, every one of us got responsibilities in this life, but I let the gospel
slip away from me. When I start thinking on those
things, more than I do on the word of God, more than I do on
the gospel, I let it slip away by doing something else rather
than coming to the worship service. The something else is just more
important. Well, that's the seed that fell among the thorns and
it carries this world choked in a way. So it became unfruitful. And thirdly, we let the gospel
slip away by being too stubborn to accept the Word of God as
it is, as its priest, and try to change God's Word to fit me.
I hear all men are lost in sin, and I think, no, man's not completely
lost in sin. He does things wrong, but he's
not completely lost in sin. And the real rub is not on me
and everywhere. The real rub is with me. Well, I still got
some goodness. I mean, you know, I'm better
than that fellow or that fellow, you know. I got some things I can
do to make God happy with me. I mean, I'm not as bad as a thief,
for goodness sakes, or a murderer or adulterer. I'm not as bad
as that publican over there. You know, I just can't see this.
Salvation can't be by God's electing love. God's got to give all my
family, everybody that I care about, a chance to be saved.
See, we can let the gospel slip away. We can push it away with
belief, too, can't we? It'll be gone before we know
it. God forbid that we let these
glorious things that we've heard slip away from us because of
what we've heard, the message of the gospel, salvation in Christ.
Number two, give earnest heed to what we've heard, because
we've heard from better messengers Verse 2 says, for if the word
spoken by angels was steadfast and every transgression and disobedience
received a just recompense of reward, how shall we escape? Now these angels, I don't think
he's not talking here about the created beings. He's talking
here about the prophets in the Old Testament who were God's
messengers. Christ is better than Moses. Just like the builder
of the house has more glory than the house. Christ is a better
prophet than Moses. Oh, Moses was a prophet. He's
a prophet of God. But Christ isn't that prophet.
To him, the people will listen. They'll hear him. Christ is a
better high priest than Aaron. We had to have someone better
to better represent Christ's priesthood. Christ is not a high
priest after the order of Aaron. He's a high priest after the
order of Melchizedek. We'll get to him in a little
while. Christ gives us a better shelter. and a better righteousness
than Noah, who was the art builder, a preacher of righteousness.
Christ is a better king than David and a better kinsman than
Boaz. Christ is the better messenger
because he's the last messenger. The last word from God we'll
ever hear is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the word of God. We've
heard something better from someone better. We've heard the gospel
from Christ himself. I'd a whole lot rather live today
in 2018 than I would when Moses was part in the Red Sea, wouldn't
you? We've heard a better messenger. Christ is better than the New
Testament messengers too. The angels or the apostles and
everybody since then. Verse three, how shall we escape? If we neglect so great salvation,
which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed
unto us by them that heard him. God also bring them witness both
with signs and wonders and diverse miracles and gifts of the Holy
Ghost according to his own will. Christ is better than the apostles.
The apostles were messengers, weren't they? Taught the gospel
straight from the Lord himself. But Christ is the message. The apostles brought a message
of salvation, but Christ is our salvation. The apostles brought
a message of righteousness, how a sinner can be righteous with
God. The apostles brought the message that answered Job's age-old
question, how can a man who's born of a woman ever be just
with God? The apostles brought that message.
But Christ is our righteousness. Christ is our justification.
And the apostles were something else. I mean, the things that
they did, what they experienced, because God the Holy Spirit gave
those men gifts. signs and wonders that they could
perform so that people would know God sent them. It's not
so they could do party tricks and people be impressed with
them. God gave them those gifts so people would know no man can
do that except God be with them. I better earnestly listen to
what he's got to say. He's got a message from God. Both the
Father and the Spirit made this plain. Listen to Christ. hear him. The father spoke from
heaven, said, this is my beloved son and whom I'm well pleased.
You hear him earnestly listened to him. The apostles had those
gifts. They healed the sick. They cast
out demons. They raised the dead. Paul was
bitten by a venomous snake and just shucked off his aim. So
people would know God's with you. I'm going to listen to him
preach. And if those people truly heard the message of the apostles,
they left amazed at Christ. They left amazed at
God's mercy and grace and salvation in Christ, and they didn't much
care about the miracle anymore. See, don't get taken up with
the gifts. Be taken up with the giver of the gift, because he's
better. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter
14. Here's another real good reason. Don't get taken up with
these miracles and signs and wonders. Believers don't need
outward signs from the preacher to be able to recognize the power
of God in the gospel. These gifts, so-called gifts
and miracles, who are they for? They're not for you who believe.
They're for unbelievers. 1 Corinthians 14, verse 21. In
the law, it's written. with men of other tongues and
other lips, will I speak unto this people? Yet for all that,
will they not hear me, saith the Lord? Wherefore, tongues,
miracles, gifts, they're for a sign, not to them that believe,
but to them that believe not. But prophesying, preaching, serves
not for them that believe not, but for them which believe. See,
these so-called miracles never saved anybody. They saw him.
They heard him. They heard these men speaking
in tongues. And what did the Lord say? They didn't hear, did
they? Remember the parable of Lazarus
and the rich man? That rich man told Abraham, he
said, send Lazarus back from the dead to talk to my brother,
my family, that they don't come to this place. What did Abraham
tell him? Though one rose from the dead,
they will not They got something better. Let them go hear God's
preacher. He said they won't hear it. Poor
God backed it up, didn't he? God's people, they don't need
miracles. They hear God speak. They hear
when the gospel is preached. They don't need miracles because
they have faith. Look at Mark chapter 2. Purging
sin. God purging the sin of his people.
through the sacrifice of His Son, is a far greater miracle
than any healing, than any tongues, anything that this flesh could,
anything that could happen to this flesh. And that's what we
should be the most interested in. Mark chapter 2, verse 4. You know the story here of this
man who was so sick of the palsy. In verse 3 it said, they came
unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was born of
four. And when they could not come nigh him, they couldn't
get near to the Lord for the press. They uncovered the roof
where he was, and when they'd broken it up, they let down to
bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay. And this verse just fascinated
me. When Jesus saw their faith, he
said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. Now, why'd they lower their friend?
Why'd they bust up the roof and lower their friend down on the
floor in front of the Lord? They wanted him healed of the
palsy. That's why they did that. And the Savior looked at him.
There he lay, helpless, so sick, so just in utter misery. And the Savior said, Son, thy
sin is forgiven thee. The Lord didn't heal him. The Lord took care of his greatest
need. Now, the Jews thought that was
blasphemy. And our Lord dealt with them.
Look, verse nine. He asked them, which is easier to say to the
sick of the palsy? Is it easier to say thy sins
be forgiven thee, or to say, arise, take up thy bed and walk?
But you may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to
forgive sin. He said to the sick of the palsy,
I say unto thee, arise, take up thy bed, and go thy way into
thine house. And immediately he arose, took
up the bed, and went forth before them all, in so much that they
were all amazed And glorified God saying, we've never seen
anything like this. Now, which is easier? Which was
the greatest miracle? The Lord forgave his sin. And
because he forgave his sin, he could tell that man, go your
way. Go do whatever you want to do.
Because now he's got a new one too. Look at Mark chapter 10. One more scripture on this, Mark
10, verse 17. Well, I typed out the wrong. Anyway, you get the point. I
typed out the wrong reference there. It's what I was. What I was referring to is when
the Lord sent out the 70 and told them to go preach, and when
they came back, oh, they were amazed. They said, we've cast
out demons and devils. We've worked all these miracles,
and demons are subject to us. Our Lord told them, don't rejoice
in that. Rejoice that your names are written in heaven. Here's
a bigger miracle, and you cast out demons. Almighty God elected
you into salvation. Rejoice in that. Rejoice that
Christ has revealed Himself to you. That's a bigger miracle,
isn't it? That's what we need. And we still have men today that
God has equipped to send out to preach His gospel. And they
don't need to do miracles so you know that they're sin of
God. Because now, you have something that those Jews didn't have.
In the Old Testament, you've got something those Jews didn't
have as Peter preached to them. You've got the completed Word
of God. You've got in your lap, anytime
you want one, you go down to the dollar store and buy one
for $1, you've got the complete revelation of God. He's given
it to me. This is all God will ever say
to me right here. This is it. You've got it. You want to know
if a man's preaching the gospel or not? You want to know if a
man is sin of God or not? Easy to tell. Does his message
match that book? Is his message Christ alone?
This book, the message of this book on every page is Christ. Is his message Christ alone?
Is his message salvation in Christ alone? Is his message Christ
our righteousness? Christ our sacrifice? If it is,
he's sin of God. And you know it because you've
got to complete the word of God. He's saying the same thing God
says. Then we ought to give the more
earnest to each another. to things that we've heard, because
we've heard from better messengers. We've heard from Christ himself. All right, thirdly, give our
earnest heed to the things which we've heard, because we've heard
of so great salvation. Verse three, how shall we escape
if we neglect so great salvation? Salvation in Christ is so great
salvation. It's so great because who's the
author of it? Christ is the author of it. Look
over at Hebrews 5 verse 8. Though he were a son, yet learned
he obedience by the things which he suffered, and be made perfect,
he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that
obey him. This is so great salvation because
Christ is the author of it. He's the author and finisher
of it. This is so great salvation because of the wisdom of it.
No other message has the wisdom of the gospel. God found a way. He showed us the way where God
can be both just and justifier, where God can put away sin and
still be God, still be holy. Every other religion somehow
finds a way to ignore sin because nobody yet has found the answer
to how to put it away. But God in his wisdom has. This salvation is so great because
of the cost of it. It was bought with the precious
blood of Christ. Christ gave himself. He gave everything that he is
to redeem his people from their sin. There's never been anyone
as precious as our Lord Jesus Christ. And he gave himself to
pay the ransom cost. for the souls of his people.
This is so great salvation because of the power of it, the untold
power of it. The gospel is the power of God
unto salvation. This gospel has power to give
life to the dead, to make a rebel a son. This is so great salvation because
of the difficulty of it. In order to save his people from
their sin, Almighty God, the eternal God, had to be made a
man. He had to be made a baby in the womb of the Virgin Mary.
And then that perfect, precious man, holy, without sin, spotless,
had to be made sin for his people. Because sin could only be put
away. Justice could only be satisfied
through the death of God. Through the death of God in human
flesh. What difficulty to make God a man. What difficulty to
make the Holy Son of God sin. What difficulty for the God man
to die. But he accomplished it. It's
great salvation because of the difficulty of it. It's so great
salvation because of the freeness of it. All that cost Christ everything,
but it's free to his people. There is nothing greater than
free grace to sinners. And then it's so great salvation,
because it saves great sinners. It saves the chief of sinners.
You can be too good to be saved, but you can't be too rotten.
Oh, it's so great salvation. It's so great. Brethren, how
could we neglect it? Now, really, how could we possibly
neglect something so great, so wonderful? We're told If this
doesn't tell you something about our nature, so great salvation,
but now don't neglect it. How do we neglect? What is neglect? It's to be indifferent. How can
we be indifferent to so great salvation? Now you know what
happens when you neglect something. If I neglect the needs of my
spouse, what do I got? I got a bad marriage. If we neglect,
we parents, if we neglect disciplining our children, we try to be their
friend, what do we got? Quickly, you're going to have
a rebel in your hands. What happens if we neglect our car, neglect
routine maintenance, neglect changing the oil? The engine's
going to blow up. You're going to have a mess Chip
Holbrook can't fix. What happens when we neglect our garden? Quickly. It gets overrun with weeds, you're
not getting no tomatoes. Well, we neglect the gospel by
not coming to the surface to listen to God's message for me. Does God have a word
for me today? I hope so. God, if God's given
his servant a message, he's given him a message for me. I need
to go hear it. I'm anxious to hear it. We neglect
the gospel. We don't hear the gospel as a
sinner who's in need. We neglect the gospel and we
think, yeah, I've heard that before. I got that. We neglect the gospel. When we seek the motions of religion,
I'm coming to go to church on Sunday because that's what we've
always done. I don't go seeking Christ. I'm seeking, looking
for something other than Christ. And when we neglect the gospel
like that, We're going to have a bad spiritual marriage. We're
going to be a child not living in the will of his father. Our
spiritual engine is going to get blown up and we'll keep drifting.
And our spiritual garden is going to be overcome with weeds and
we won't be fruitful in God's kingdom. And then lastly, give
earnest heed to what we've heard. Because of the untold cost of
missing Christ, how shall we escape if we neglect so great
salvation? How will we escape God's wrath
against sin if we neglect so great salvation, the gospel of
Christ? Well, I can tell you we can't.
There's no escape because there's no other gospel. There's no other
message. There's no other sacrifice. Israel didn't escape when they
rebelled against Moses and Joshua. But we neglect so great salvation. We neglect the gospel. We have
rebelled against a much higher power, Moses. We neglected the
gospel and rebelled against God himself. The Jews under Moses
and Joshua, they had a picture, didn't they? We've got the person. He'd been
declared unto us. Look at Hebrews chapter 10. If
they didn't escape, we can rest assured we won't escape either
because we've sinned against a far greater revelation. Hebrews
10 verse 28. He that despised Moses' law died
without mercy under two or three witnesses. With how much sore
punishment, suppose ye, should he be thought worthy to have
trodden underfoot the Son of God, and counted the blood of
the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified in unholy thing, and
hath done despite under the Spirit of grace? How shall we escape? We won't. God help us. Oh, I pray God help us. not to
let this gospel slip away, not to slowly allow ourselves to
drift away from God, and not to allow this place to slowly
drift away from a place of worship, where sinners can come and hear
the remedy, where God's people can come and be fed the bread
of life, where their hearts can be comforted, where they can
be strengthened and encouraged to go back out Monday morning
with some hope. And they want me to live on Monday
like I believe what I say I believe on Sunday. How shall we escape? Oh, God help us. Let's bow together. Our God, how can we ever thank you for
your untold depth of mercy and grace that you've reserved for
your people? and your son, our Lord Jesus Christ, how can we
ever thank you for putting your gospel here in this place? You
passed by so many towns, so many places, but you put the gospel
here. And by your power, mercy, and
grace, you've kept it here all these many years. Father, how
we thank you. Father, I beg of you. that you
give us a heart of love, of faith, that believes the Lord Jesus
Christ, that believes his gospel, that give us a heart that constantly,
not just one time years ago, but constantly hungers and thirsts
after righteousness. Give us a heart that constantly
seeks our Lord Jesus Christ, that constantly seeks to worship
him, to be an encouragement to our brethren. Father, help us. Help us, Father, for your great
namesake. Don't let us, through our stubborn
obstinance, bring shame upon your great name. Give us a heart that will follow
you all the days of our life. For it's in the precious name
of our Lord Jesus Christ, for his glory, we pray and give thanks.