In preaching, I endeavor earnestly
as I prepare to preach, as I seek God's message from his word for
you for tonight. As I have sought that, as I seek
God's grace to preach the message, I endeavor earnestly to come
here by God's spirit and so speak by God's word that you who do
not know our Redeemer may now come to Christ. I never presume that you know
Him. I never presume that all is well
with your soul. I want you now to trust the Son
of God. To that end, I endeavor to knock
out every false prop upon which you might rest your soul. to
destroy every false refuge in which you might attempt to hide
from God. And at the same time, to comfort your hearts, to reprove
our sin, to turn our hearts to our Redeemer, and to give comfort
by His Word. And I'm confident God's given
me just the message to accomplish those ends tonight. Turn with
me to Hebrews chapter 10. When reading the scriptures,
we sometimes, probably very often, just sort of glance over words
and phrases or statements of fact, historical fact or doctrinal
fact, simple statements, simple words, short words, words that
seem to mean so little, and we pass over them with little or
no thought. After the message Sunday evening,
several folks commented about the message and the text, and
I had to confess. I confessed to someone, I don't
remember who. I am far too often guilty of reading the Word of
God too quickly and too casually. I'm far too often guilty of reading
the scriptures and glancing by things without giving thought
and consideration to them. We ought never to treat the Word
of God so irreverently. We ought never to do it. Don't
read this book like you would speed read one of my books. If
you want to read one of my books and get most of what I've said,
you can read the first line and the last line of every paragraph
and get it pretty good. Don't read this book that way. Don't
read this book that way. Every word in this book is written
by divine inspiration and arranged in order by divine inspiration. to give us instruction and understanding
in the saving knowledge of Christ. Let me point you to two words. How many times have you read
the scriptures, particularly the book of Hebrews, and noticed
these two simple one-syllable words, let us, let us. In these 12 or 13 chapters, the
Holy Spirit uses those two words 12 times to call you and I as
believers to do something. Let us, let us, let us, over
and over again, the words are found. I recall a few good things
that I learned when I was in college. Our homiletics and pastoral
theology professor used to say to us at least once a week, preaching
boys in the school, he said, he said, now boys, where there's
no summons, there's no sermon. And I didn't pay much attention
to it then, but I've learned that's exactly right. Every time
a man preaches a message from God, he preaches calling for
you to make a decision, to come to a verdict, and to do something.
Let me show you how these words are used. Turn to Hebrews 4 first.
Hebrews chapter 4. One of you fellows who does some
preaching, you can take these sometime and run with them. But
here are these words, let us, as they're used in the scriptures.
Let us therefore fear. in the light of all those who
perished in the wilderness, who perished with a sacrifice, an
altar, a priest, and the word of God in their hands. Let us
fear. Lest a promise being left us
of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short
of it. Look at verse 11. Let us therefore labor, Let us
labor, therefore, to enter into Christ's rest, lest any man fall
after the same example of unbelief. Don't ever, ever, ever fail to hold to Christ with urgency. Don't ever fail to cling to Christ
with urgency. As when first you lay hold of
Him who is life, as one perishing in your sins, God help us ever
to lay hold of Him who is life with a death grip as one perishing
before God. Let us therefore fear. Let us labor that we may enter
into His rest, lest we fall like those Jews did. Verse 14. Seeing
then we have a great high priest that's passed into the heavens
Jesus the son of God let us hold fast our profession same thing
verse 16 Let us therefore hold into him In time of need because
we have such a great high priest let us therefore come boldly
Under the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find
grace to help in time of need turn to chapter 6 look at verse
1 Therefore, leaving the principles
of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection. It doesn't mean that we should
leave the ABCs of the gospel. Don't ever do that, my soul.
Continually build on those things. But don't be continually laying
again the foundations laid. And don't be continually wrangling
about things of no value and no significance. I get letters
every day, every day, people asking the most silly, insignificant
questions. They think they found some deep,
deep, deep, profound, profound matter of theological mystery. And they spend hours and hours
and hours and hours studying questions about which God has
given no answer. And best thing to do if God didn't
give an answer, if it's not in the book, forget the question.
Just go on to what God's revealed and grow up in maturity. You
can spend your life stumbling over stumbling stones and stumble
right into hell with a Bible in your hand imagining that you're
studying things in a spiritual manner or you can simply believe
the Word of God and go about your life serving Him. All right,
look at chapter 12, verse 1. Wherefore seeing we also are
compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses. All these
have gone before us. They've gone before us. Oh, man. What trials brother Noah endured,
what difficulties our father Abraham endured, what hardships
Jacob went through, what trials and adversities and falls and
risings again all of those men who've gone before us went through.
what hardship Samson and David and others like them went through.
And now they're seated yonder at heaven's right hand with God
Almighty sitting on His throne, sitting with Christ in His throne,
heirs of God enjoying the blessedness of heavenly glory with Him. And
they are glad of witnessing, urging us to run with patience. That's it. seeing we're compassed
about with this great cloud of faithful men and women who've
gone before us. Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which
doth so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race
that's set before us. Other men just like Bob Duff
and Don Fortner have gone through the hell we call this world and
are sitting with Christ in glory. Other folks just like you and
I, going through the same things we've gone through, same heartaches,
same trials, same burdens, are sitting with Him now, having
persevered to the end. Let's follow their example. Look
at verse 28. Wherefore we receiving a kingdom
which cannot be moved, let us have grace whereby we may serve
God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. Look at verse
13 of chapter 13. Let us go forth therefore unto
him without the camp, bearing his reproach. Hold on to Christ. Follow Christ no matter who you
have to leave behind. Follow Christ no matter who will
not go with you. Old John Bunyan in Pilgrim's
Progress described Pilgrim, his family, trying to urge him not
to do such a radical thing, not to walk in such a radical way,
trying to persuade him he must not, must not act so silly. And
he said, I stuck my fingers in my hands and I pursued him, crying,
eternal life, eternal life! Nothing else matters. Go forth
unto him, bearing his reproach. Verse 15, by him, the Lord Jesus
Christ, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God
continually. That is the fruit of our lips
giving thanks to his name. But tonight I want us to look
at three places where these two words are used in chapter 10. Verse 22, this will be my outline. Let us draw near to God. You see that? Verse 23, let us hold fast the
profession of our faith. Verse 24, let us consider one
another. to provoke unto love and to good
works. Now in these verses, God the
Holy Spirit, by the pen of this inspired writer, is urging us
as believers to persevere in the faith, in the face of trials
and temptations, in the face of difficulties and dangers.
In the teeth of heretics and hecklers, we must persevere in
the faith. It is written, he that endureth
to the end shall be saved. It is not the person who begins
the race, but the person who ends and wins the race that wins
the prize. If we would continue steadfast
in the faith, then there are some things we simply must do.
So preacher, we believe salvation is by God's grace. Yes, sir.
You learned it from me. We believe man's saved by grace,
he's saved forever. Yes, sir. I've been teaching
to you for 21 years. We believe that man's saved by
grace, there's no danger of him perishing. You're exactly right.
Man's saved by grace, no danger of him perishing. But you must
do something. Harry and Chris, there's something
you must do if you continue in the faith. Let me show you what
they are. First, we're told here that we must do something personally.
Let us, each of us, individually, continually, constantly, daily,
hourly, moment by moment, draw near to God. Let us draw near
with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled
from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
Let me show you what that means. I'm going to move rather quickly
until I get to where I want to camp a little bit. Believing
on the Lord Jesus Christ, believing sinners have free access to God
Almighty who sits upon His glorious throne by Christ's precious blood. through the merit, the blood
and righteousness of Jesus Christ, by faith in him who loved us
and gave himself for us. You and I now can approach God
himself, who's described like this. Now listen, this is how
he's described in 1 Timothy 6. The blessed and only potentate,
king of kings, the Lord of lords. who only hath immortality dwelling
in light. Look at this now, which no man
can approach unto. God Almighty in His ineffable
glory, no man can approach to Him. He is a consuming fire.
Get near Him and you'll die. No man can approach unto Him.
dwelling in light, which no man can approach unto, whom no man
has ever seen, or ever can see, in whom, or to whom be honor
and power everlasting. And yet now in Christ, Bob, such
worms of the dust as we are, can come to God, who is in His
holiness, a consuming fire to every particle of darkness, and
every particle of evil, we can come to Him and have no reason
to fear. How's that? By the blood of Christ. By the blood of Christ. Look
at verse 19. Having therefore, brethren, boldness
to enter in to the holiest by the blood of Jesus. What a word,
brethren, brethren. I'm talking to you who are my
brethren. That's a term used to talk about
family members. I remember growing up as a boy. I was raised right in the heart
of the Kingster's Union when it was becoming a very strong
union. My dad was active, my uncle was active. I spent every
Saturday in the union hall toting coffee back and forth to the
fellas. And they referred to each other as brother this and
brother that. But I saw some of those brothers didn't act
real brotherly. There wasn't the least bit of brotherhood
among them. They just had a fraternity of flesh. That's not brethren.
This is a family term. This is a term of tenderness,
of oneness, of unity, of affection, of care. Brethren. Brethren are
people who have a common hope, a common Savior, a common inheritance. We have one Savior, one Lord,
one Father, one Holy Spirit, one hope, one faith, one baptism. We stand here together as sinners,
bowing to and worshiping God, received only in Jesus Christ.
We're brethren. Our hearts are knit together
by a common need and a common possession. The common need is
mercy. The common possession is mercy. Our hearts are knit together.
The place where we may enter with boldness is heaven itself,
the holiest. This refers to the holy of holies
in the tabernacle and in the temple, which was a type of heavenly
glory. Enter into the holiest. Try to
picture in your mind. back behind that veil, where
the Ark of the Covenant was, where the Mercy Seat was, where
the High Priest alone could go, and He only once a year, and
then only with blood. There where God's glory was manifest
in the acceptance of sinners by blood atonement. That's what's
described here. Brethren, come on and enter into
where God is in His dazzling, brilliant glory. Folks, I had
a fellow write last week, a preacher, theologian, smart, smart fellow.
I've known him, read some of his stuff, he's a smart fellow.
He said, he said, wouldn't you agree that the Ten Commandments
are proper for us to set forth before men as the revelation
of God's righteousness? And I wrote him back with some
thoughtful care, and I said, no, no sir. The Ten Commandments
are a revelation of God's righteousness, sort of like hell is. A revelation
of God's glory, sort of like hell is. A revelation of God's
glory, like all judgment and condemnation is. But we enter
in to the holiest where yonder sits Jesus Christ the God-man,
crucified for sinners, having obtained redemption with His
blood, and yonder, oh, here is the revelation of God Almighty
in all the glory of His being. Heaven was symbolically shut
when Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden, and the way was blocked
up, It was typically opened when Aaron every year would go in
with the blood of a sacrifice, the paschal lamb, and there would
make atonement on the mercy seat. But it was really opened when
Jesus Christ entered in once with His own blood and took possession
of eternal redemption for us by right. Yonder behold a door
open in heaven, and Jesus Christ is the door. Here we come. and present our prayers and praises
to God by the blood. Buddy Darty, we've never even
had an imagination of a thought acceptable to God, but by the
blood. Our prayers, our worship, our
gifts, our sacrifices, our praises, our songs are nothing but sin
accepted only by the blood, by the blood of Christ. The way
of entrance is His blood. The blood which has purged our
sins from the record book of heaven. The blood which has put
our sins out of the sight of God. The blood which has purged
our consciences from dead work so that now we can come to God
boldly, freely by the blood. Alright, read verse 20. By a
new and living way, Christ which He hath consecrated for us through
the veil, that is to say His flesh. The veil representing
that way by which sinners were blocked off from God was also
the only way to God and that was through the flesh, the incarnation
of Jesus Christ in the totality of His being as the God-man. Now, by His incarnation, by His
obedience to God, by His death at Calvary, by the sacrifice
of Himself, we enter in through the veil, through Christ Jesus
the Lord. Read on. Through the veil, that
is to say, His flesh, and having a high priest over the house
of God. Now this is what it means. We
now approach God Himself with boldness, with confidence, with
peace, with assurance, drawing near to Him by faith, because
we have a great high priest in heaven, Jesus Christ the Lord,
seated with Him on His throne, perpetually and forever completely
accepted of God as our representative. Therefore, the Apostle John writes
and says, my little children, these things write I unto you
that you sin not. And if any man sin, we have an
advocate. Oh, what a word. Christ is an
advocate for sinners like you and me. We have an advocate with
the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he's the propitiation
for our sins. Therefore, let us draw near. Look at this, verse 22, with
a true heart. True heart. A single, sincere, honest heart. You remember the parable of the
sower? That good ground hearer? Jimmy Ray, he's the fellow who
receives the word in an honest heart. Now I want to tell you something.
Not one of us has got one by nature. If you've got an honest
heart before God, an honest heart. I'm talking about a heart acknowledging
what you are. A heart seeking God's glory. A heart truly trusting Jesus
Christ alone. A heart not double-minded. A heart without guile. A heart
sincere before God. God gave that to you. That's
called a new heart. It's called a new birth. In full
assurance. Full assurance of faith. I'm going to work on this before
I get done with this study in Hebrew, but the full assurance
of faith is faith from a sincere heart, a true heart. It's true
faith. It's true faith. Here I stand,
my God, With filthy hands I dare not
lift to you. With corrupt feet. With nothing but corruption from
the sole of my feet to the crown of my head. Without one shred
of goodness. Without one thing worthy of you. With nothing but sin. trusting Christ alone. And with that I'm ready to meet
God right now. Right now. Right now. Having our hearts sprinkled from
an evil conscience. Our consciences by nature are
evil. Our consciences by nature are self-righteous. That's what
that means. Our consciences by nature presume that somehow we
can, by something we do, by some exercise of our own, present
ourselves at last holy to God. The first word from every man
by nature when he's all convinced and confronted with his sin and
eternal judgment is, what shall I do? Give me something to do
and I'll do it. I'll do it. And I'll guarantee
you, if somehow I could persuade men, if I had the eloquence and
the desire, if I had the deception and the determination, if I could
persuade men in this town right here, the brilliant, educated,
highly refined, philosophical, Smart, smart men and women of
Danville, Kentucky. If I could convince them that
you could get to God just if you'd strip naked and crawl on
your butt across burning glass. Folks would strip naked and start
crawling right now. He said, well, how can you say
that? Go look at the churches around town. You talked to me
the other night about folks being slain in the spirit. Boy, I'll
never get a crown. Sure will. Just give me something
to do. folks sacrifice and go spend years, going to be missionaries
for Jesus and pass out tracts, badger everybody to death in
town, get shoving tracts in their face. Give me something to do,
give me something to do. Go do penance, say your Hail
Marys, rub your rosary beads, What's the difference? There's
no difference. It's called works. It's called works. That's an
evil conscience. But now, we come to God, acknowledging
we haven't got anything. And we confess to God the guilt
of our sins, and the guilt of our righteousness, and we trust
Jesus Christ alone. And our consciences, being sprinkled
with his blood, hear God Almighty speak peace. He says that's enough. And our bodies washed with pure
water. Now that's not talking about baptismal regeneration
or anything contributing to regeneration. It's not even talking about the
waters of baptism. It's talking about the grace of the Holy Spirit
by the Word, the washing of regeneration by the Word as it is frequently
spoken of in Scripture. so that not only is the man or
woman born of God, one whose heart has been made right with
God, he's given an honest new heart, one whose conscience has
been sprinkled from guilt so that he has full assurance of
faith before God. But that grace that's in him
works outwardly in him and cleanses him as well in his life. It's
represented Here is an allusion to the practice of the Jews and
the requirements of God when men and women in the Old Testament
would come to pray and offer sacrifice and worship God. They
were required ceremonially to wash themselves. And so it is
that the believer by grace is sanctified by God's Spirit. Now
look at verse 23. Let us hold fast the profession
of our faith. Without wavering. Without wavering. If a man or a woman has faith. Now listen to me. If David Burge
has faith that God has given. Faith that God has given. He
has confident faith. Now folks would look at him and
say, well, either he's just arrogant or he's so simple minded he won't
listen to anything else. So what? Who cares? I don't care whether folks who
have no idea who God is accuse me of being arrogant or whether
they accuse me of being simple minded. One's just as much a
compliment or a slander as the other. It doesn't matter. It
doesn't matter. Because faith, you see, is confident. Now, if
the faith you have, you have by my persuasion, by my logic,
by the power of rhetoric, by some emotional stirring of your
conscience, by some psychological maneuvering of your mind, which
is the faith most all religious people have, if that's what you
have, then you're forever questioning this or that. And somebody comes
along and they say, you know, We found this thing here, we
found that. You know something new has been
discovered? Nobody ever heard of this before? And you, oh,
well maybe they're right. Oh, maybe that fellow was right. Tossed to and fro by the cunning
and slight of men with every wind of doctrine because their
faith is a faith they found in a man and from a man and that's
all they got. That's all they got. The believer
has faith that God's given. God's given. And somebody comes
along with some new idea. Now I may in private for the
sake of being able to help folks understand things, I may possibly
spend a little time, and I promise you not much, I may spend a little
time reading, studying, trying to find out what the trends in
modern thinking are, just to be prepared myself as a preacher.
I don't recommend that you do. Folks come to me, some fellow
comes with a new idea, sometimes I'll get on a planner and go
to these conferences Somebody reads something I've written
and they got a new twist on things. And I just tell them, I'm not
interested. Well, how can you not be interested?
I'm just not interested. Well, aren't you interested in
new light? Oh, no, that's the last thing
I'm interested in. Aren't you interested in a deeper,
deeper theology, a deeper doctrine, a deeper religion? No, no. Well, how can you be so confident?
Because I found the truth. And the fact is, I didn't find
it. It found me. And things I preach to you, Wes
Roseboom, have been inscribed on my heart by the blazing finger
of God Almighty, and hell's not going to make them go away. Not
going to happen. Well, how can you be sure that
you're not going to change your opinion tomorrow? Because I'm not looking
for anything changed, too. We have this confidence of faith
that is whole without wavering the gospel we believe. The Savior
we trust, because God's faithful. It's been mentioned several times
already tonight. This I recall to my mind, therefore
have I hope, the prophet said. It is of the Lord's mercies that
we're not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They're
new every morning. is thy faithfulness. When I was a young man, I recall
preaching on that statement, Lamentations 3, and I did best
I could. I got the theology books out
and read them. Mr. Gill's got great, great stuff
on God's faithfulness, and I preached it to you a lot. It's good stuff. But all I did Or just talk words
about something I didn't know a thing on this earth about.
And I want to tell you something. You who preach, that's not preaching.
That's not preaching. Word to God, I could get every
young preacher. Don't ever, don't ever, don't
ever attempt to preach something until you've experienced it.
Nothing. If you haven't experienced it,
it's not worth talking about. Nothing. Now, I'm going to tell you something.
I'm going to tell you something. And you may never believe it,
but every one of you who hear my voice know as sure as you're
hearing my voice, I believe it. God's faithful. He's proved it. Faithful. Faithful. What He promised He'll
do. Now then, look at verse 24 and
25. Let us consider one another. Let us consider one another to
provoke unto love and to good works. Let's consider each other. O brethren, let us always be
thoughtful and considerate of one another. Let me put some shoe leather
on this. Buddy Darty, every time you think
about Don Fortner or Harold Allen, every time, think of us this
way. We're just men like you, weak,
frail, God remembers we're just dust. Let's remember that about
each other. Just dust. And when dust looks like dust, you ought not
be too surprised. There shouldn't be anything to
talk about. If you went out there and you saw me standing by the
garden, and I said, well, that's dirt. That's dirt. Boy, did you see that dirt? Boy,
did you ever see dirt like that? That's dirt. Wow, that's dirt. How did you see that dirt look
like dirt? That check cut fell into the
funny farm. He's lost it. But when you see Don Fortner
or Harold Allen act like men, weak, frail, sinful, fickle men, nothing to talk about. and consider us as men in Christ. Now that's something to talk
about. That's something to talk about. Oh, look at this. Did you see that dust transformed
into a fountain of water and at the same time into a diamond
worth more than anything on this earth? Oh, let me tell you how that
happened. Let me tell you what God did
to that pile of dirt. That's something to talk about.
Consider one another as members, one of another. That'll take care of business
for me. That'll take care of everything. I have never heard
of, I've never seen a problem, not one time, arise in any family
or in any congregation that could not have been settled just by
this. We're one. We're one. These are my brothers. These
are my brothers. And I'm going to tell you something. You folks hear me brag a little
bit on that little blonde-headed girl over in Lexington. But you
know what? That's kind of what you expect
a fellow to do who's got one of those little blonde-headed
babies. You just kind of expect him to. And if he doesn't, you
think, what's wrong with that fellow? What's wrong with him? What's wrong with that child?
What's wrong with that relationship? What's wrong? Some of you travel with me and
you can bear me witness, travel with me a good bit. I brag on
you. If I've got some scolding to
do, you're the only ones going to hear it. I brag on you everywhere
I go. How come? Well, that's just to
be expected. This is my family. This is my
family. These are my brethren. And if
it didn't, there's something wrong. Something wrong. Consider
one another to provoke unto love. God give us grace to provoke
one another's love for one another and for Christ. Bright on my tongue and bright
on my heart that it may be used to promote the love of God's
people for one another. By this, you read it, shall all
men know that you're my disciples. A profession of faith without
this kind of love is as useless as a bucket without a bottle.
That's just all there is to it. So I just don't believe that's
necessary. Well, read this book again. If
you have faith so that you can say to this mountain, be removed
into the sea. If you have such faith and dedication
that you give your body to be burned and have not love, it'll
profit you nothing. That's just what the book says.
And to good works. I wonder what on earth that's
talking about. Read it in context, you wouldn't have to wonder.
Good works are works of love. Consider one another to provoke
one another to works of kindness, charity, faithfulness, patience,
forgiveness, forbearance, forgiveness, forbearance, forgiveness, forbearance. Well, boy, that's asking a lot.
Not for brethren. Not for brethren. My soul, my
sisters, they've had to put up with a
lot. They've had to overlook a lot. They had to forgive a lot. And
thank God they have. Because we're family. We're family. How she puts up what she puts
up with, so much of the time I can't imagine. Except for one
thing. Just one thing. I'm dead sure convinced of it.
She loves me. And I've been married to her
for 32 years. And I'm going to tell you something
nobody's ever heard. I guarantee you nobody's ever heard it. I
guarantee it. Nobody. Not one of you. Not one
of you. Not one single human being this
side of God's earth has ever heard that woman say one bad
thing about me. Not going to happen. How come? She loves me. That's how brethren behave. Provoke
unto love and good works. Well, how on earth are we going
to do that? Read the context. Not forsaking the assembling
of yourselves together as the manner of some is. Oh, we need each other. We need
each other. I got to have you. I guess I come here a little
more weary of mind and body than any of you do most of the time.
But I tell you what, I look forward to it. I get up on Sunday morning,
about time folks start coming. Let's get the house. Go over
and see who's there today. Ah. Get to rub shoulders with
you again. First person that always hears
you. First person to speak to. Hey, walks in the door. Rub shoulders
a little. You know, in the building of
the temple, I'm told, they never cut those stones to fit exactly. You know, we have our bricks.
They're shaped and put mortar in there and you fiddle me and
pack them down. Not so in the building of the temple. They'd
cut a stone, big stone, put it there, and cut another one, and
put it there. And then they'd cut one a little
too big to fit in the middle, just a little, just a little.
And they'd just rub, rub, rub, rub, rub,
till she just set right in place. And the apostle tells us by inspiration,
we're living stones fitted together. We learn how to fit by rubbing
all the time. Rubbing all the time. Let us
therefore, God's dear children, come to Him constantly. Let us hold fast our Lord Jesus
Christ and let us consider one another for Christ's sake. Amen. All right, Linda, you come
listen to him. Now, the Lord willing, I'll pick
up there in two weeks and talk to you a little bit more about
that.