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you you you you you you you you you you you you you That's song number forty-three. That's song forty-three, we're marching design. Again, that's song number forty-three, we're marching design. Come with us, love the Lord, and let our joys be known. Join in a song with sweet accord, join in a song with sweet accord. And thus around the throne, and thus around the throne, we're marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion. We're marching upward to Zion, the beautiful city of God. Let those refuse to sing, who never knew our God. The children of the heavenly King, the children of the heavenly King, may speak their joys abroad, may speak their joys abroad. We're marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion. We're marching upward to Zion, the beautiful city of God. The hill of Zion yields a thousand sacred sweets, before we reach the heavenly fields, before we reach the heavenly fields, or walk the golden streets, or walk the golden streets. We're marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion. We're marching upward to Zion, the beautiful city of God. Then let our songs of power and every tear be tried. We're marching through Emmanuel's ground, we're marching through Emmanuel's ground. To fairer worlds of high, to fairer worlds of high, we're marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion. We're marching upward to Zion, the beautiful city of God. Alright, so a word of prayer. By the name of Dave Guinness, Lord, and thank you, let's all come here and gather together to sing praise and hear the word of God and praise. We pray that you bless the service, let everything be done. We honor you, Lord, and please help us be with the people that are sick, Lord, that right now will help us to get better, Lord. And church, we thank you very much for your praise. In Jesus' name, amen. Alright, next song we're singing is a song number 46. 46, my Savior, first of all. That's song number 46. When my life's work is ended and I cross a swelling tide, when the bright and glorious morning I shall see, I shall know my Redeemer when I reach the other side, and His mouth will be the curse to welcome me. I shall know Him, I shall know Him, and redeemed by His side I shall stand. I shall know Him, I shall know Him, by the grace of the nails in His hand. Oh, the soul-thrilling rapture when I cue His blessed face and the luster of His kindly beaming eye. How mindful the heartful praise and warm the mercy, loving grace that prepared for me a mention in the sky. I shall know Him, I shall know Him, and redeemed by His side I shall stand. I shall know Him, I shall know Him, by the grace of the nails in His hand. Oh, the dear ones in glory, how they beckon me to come, and are parting at the river I recall. To the sweet bales of Eden they will sing my welcome home, but I long to meet my Savior first of all. I shall know Him, I shall know Him, and redeemed by His side I shall stand. I shall know Him, I shall know Him, by the grace of the nails in His hand. Through the gates to the city in a robe of spotless white, He will lead me where no tears will ever fall. In the glad songs of ages I shall bego with the light, but I long to meet my Savior first of all. I shall know Him, I shall know Him, and redeemed by His side I shall stand. I shall know Him, I shall know Him, by the grace of the nails in His hand. Amen. All right, great singing this evening. A little acapella singing tonight. I need a bulletin. Someone get me a bulletin, please. If you don't have a bulletin, slip your hand up real high. I'll make sure that we get one out to you. It looks like I took one with me. I think I had a lot of stuff written down on it, so I just took it. Thank you for that. And if you open up to the first page, you will see our service times listed there. Sunday morning at 10.30, Sunday evening at 5 p.m. Wednesday night at 7 is our Bible study. We're in Hebrews chapter 3 tonight. We've got the soul-winning opportunities listed there as well as the salvation and the baptisms for the month of August as well as for the year. If you went out soul-winning and you have some numbers to report, just slip your hand up real quick. We'll get those counted. Yes, sir? Monday? Monday as well? Amen. All right, that's two for Monday. Anyone else? All right, very good. Very good. Going throughout the week and people are preaching the gospel. It's awesome. Keep up the good work. That's what it's all about. We've got the offering totals down there at the bottom of the page. Through the month of August and today is the last day to bring a visitor to church to get a prize. So still talk to people, try to get people, encourage people to come to church. I mean, I always say, you know, if you love this church, tell other people that you love this church, right? I mean, and I'm not going to tell you what to say. You say whatever you love about this church, right? If you're trying to convince someone to come here, why do you like coming here? To express that to the people when you're out preaching the gospel and say, hey, this is, you know, I think it's a great church because of whatever, right? Because all the people there are great, real friendly, whatever. There's so many reasons why. Let's see, offering totals down there at the bottom of the page through the month of August. Before I get into prayer requests, everything seems to be moving forward well with the building. I got the work back from the, I don't know if I'm interested on Sunday or not, from the architect, but I still have to submit the plan. I haven't done a final review on that. My work has been crazy. I've been super busy, so I need to sit down and go through and make sure all the plans are exactly what we had discussed and what we want and are accurate before we move forward. But now it's just a matter of me submitting those plans to the fire marshal, then getting the approval, and then start the process of getting work permits to, construction permits to get the stuff going. So, looking forward to that. Should be getting the keys tomorrow. I haven't heard anything to the contrary to that from our landlord, so we should be getting the keys to move in next door and get started. I'm going to start moving some extra supplies over there that we don't use very much here to help declutter while we're going to be doing the transition. So, we also have some clutter at my house. We were getting excited when we thought that we were going to be moving in and maybe in June. So, we got a bunch of extra chairs, more than enough to fill here, so we kept some things in my garage, and I'm really excited to get some of that stuff moved out of my garage. And tomorrow might be that day. But the good news is that we got some stuff that was cheap or free and we're going to be able to utilize it here. So, we'll figure out all of that. And I'll give you more updates as I get them, but that's where we are with all the building stuff. Pray requests. So, continue to pray for everyone here. We got ladies with child. Pray for everyone that is in need. I don't think there's any more updates. That chemo treatment was today, Vincent, for us today at some point. So, you'll find out maybe a little bit later how it's going. And then be in prayer, of course, also for the Alabama Soul Wounding Marathon that's coming up this Saturday. So, I'm really looking forward to this. Now, again, I've mentioned this before, and I apologize for not getting the emails out. Hotels are reserved for everyone in our church who requested to have a hotel. So, they are reserved. You have the room. Okay, I just need to send out an email just confirming that. But if you did ask for a room and you wrote your name on the list, okay, very important that you did that. If you did not write your name down on the list, but you just told me that you wanted a room, you don't have a room. Okay, and I don't know if there's anyone that did that, but I was always, you know, if anyone was asking about it, go and put your name on the list. So, if your name is on the list, you do have a room. I don't have reservation numbers or anything specifically to give out to anybody because it was kind of a big group that we got reservations through a block. So, you just show up and if you have a room, just give them your name. So, there are names associated with all of the rooms. So, that's all you have to do is give them your name if you have a room either in Alabama, Norcross, or both, okay. Also, the weather looks like it might rain. It looks like it will probably rain. So, we're trying to plan for that. We're planning to go to apartments. We're planning to go to places where, hopefully, there's going to be some areas with awnings and, you know, we're not going to get too soaked. Nonetheless, come prepared. Bring an umbrella. If you have a waterproof Bible, I recommend using those. They're great. They don't, they're not going to smear or smudge. I use mine when it rains. It's awesome. I can't, you know, I can't be happier with how well it works because who cares? You could be standing out giving the gospel in the rain and your Bible's not going to get trashed. So, just think about those things. And then, there's also an area, there's a few areas really, really close to where our hub's going to be. So, if you're thinking about coming and you have kids or you think it might be kind of difficult, there should be some very easy places to go sawing. Like, if you don't want to go maybe for very long, you've got kids, you think, you know, it's going to be kind of hard, there's going to be places really, really close to our home base that we should be able to hit easily and then you could just kind of go back to the park area even on foot when you want to call it quits if you want to be able to do a little bit of soul winning. So, just keep that in mind also. It looks like a really good setup this time for being able to accommodate a lot of different types of things. Pray that the weather will hold out, that we'll be able to have some good hours out there where the weather won't be preventative on people wanting to listen to us or whatever. This event is rain or shine. So, you know, you decide what you want to do, but as for me and my house, you know, we're going to serve the Lord, we're going to go out and if it's pouring, raining cats and dogs, we're bringing umbrellas and we're going to go preach the gospel. So, don't think, oh, I wonder if there's, yes, there is going to be a soul winning event going on. So, now if it's like tornadoes and hail, maybe we'll wait until that passes and then go out when the weather clears, but I'm not expecting that. So, anyhow, be prepared for that. I'm looking forward to that. All the details are here in the bulletin on the upcoming events, the times, the location and looking forward to seeing everybody there. I still have gotten even more emails just within the past week of people who plan on attending. So, very excited. We potentially could have upwards of like 100 people at this soul winning event, which would be fantastic. So, Brother Jesse, keep that in mind. We may have like upwards of 100 people at this event and I'm not even exaggerating that number. That's not a, I'm not just throwing that out there. It's kind of a, it seems like we very well could have a significant amount of people there like that. So, make sure, we got to make sure we're prepared to have enough places to go soul winning, but it seems like there are. It looks like it's going to be a great place. So, very excited about that. Be in prayer for that. September challenge is church attendance. So, starting this Sunday, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night to meet the challenge. Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, every week in September. That's our September challenge. Hopefully you can make it. If you live too far to come to church and it just, for any reason, and maybe you don't live too far, maybe something else holds you up and you can't make it here because it's still quite a commute. Try to get into a church somewhere to meet this goal so that you're making it a priority to yourself that no, we're going to be in church. We're going to make sure we don't miss church this month. So, that's a challenge for September. Homeschool field trips are listed there. As I mentioned previously, the Mitchum Farms is going to be relocated to a different facility, but it'll be something along the same lines in October. Bible memory passage, Hebrews chapter four. We're on week six of ten, so hopefully you're working on that. You'll get a prize if you could quote that passage, Ward Perfect. Still working on getting all the prizes together. It's probably not going to be this Sunday, by the way, with everything going on with the soloing event, just to give you a heads up. Don't plan on that. Although, you probably don't ever plan on getting the prizes. It's just a pleasant surprise when I do bring them. Birthdays and anniversaries are listed down there at the bottom of the page as well. That's about it for our announcements. So, I'm going to turn the service back over to Brother Jesse, and he is going to lead us in our next song. All right, everybody, go to song number 54. Oh, that will be glory. Song 54. Again, that's song number 54. When all my labors and trials are hoar, and I am safe on that beautiful shore, just to be near the dear Lord I adore, will through the ages be glory for me. Oh, that will be glory for me, glory for me, glory for me, when by His grace I shall look on His face. That will be glory, be glory for me, when by the gift of His infinite praise I am accorded in heaven a place just to be there and to look on His face will through the ages be glory for me. Oh, that will be glory for me, glory for me, glory for me, when by His grace I shall look on His face. That will be glory, be glory for me, friends will be there I have loved long ago, joy like a river around me will flow, yet just a smile from my Savior I know will through the ages be glory for me. Oh, that will be glory for me, glory for me, glory for me, when by His grace I shall look on His face. That will be glory, be glory for me. Alright, and at this time we will be passing around our offering for missions. And while the offering plate is being passed around, please turn to your Bibles through Hebrews chapter 3. Again, that's Hebrews chapter 3, we'll be reading the entire chapter. Hebrews 3, our brother John will be reading along while you can fall on side with me. Once again, that is Hebrews chapter 3. Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of our profession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to Him that appointed Him, as also Moses was faithful in all His house. For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honor than the house. For every house is builded by some man, but he that built all things is God. And Moses verily was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after. 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, as the Holy Ghost saith, today if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness, when your fathers tempted Me, proved Me, and saw My works forty years. Wherefore, I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do always err in their heart, and they have not known My ways. So I swear My wrath they shall not enter into My rest. Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end, while it is said, Today, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. For some, when they had heard, did provoke, howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses, but with whom was he grieved forty years? Was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness? And to whom swear he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believe not? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief." Let's have a word of prayer. Lord God, we thank you for this preaching hour, Lord. We ask, Lord, that we will give all diligence and take heed to your word, Lord. We ask that we will be brought up higher in our knowledge and understanding of this chapter and of your word in general. Let your Holy Spirit rest upon the pastor right now as he brings forth the word. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, now, in Hebrews, the book of Hebrews in general, and I'm noticing this more kind of as I've been studying for this chapter, especially in this chapter right here. Hebrews chapter 3 is, it has a lot, it's kind of this middle chapter between 2 and 4 where it's just covering a lot of the same material, and I'm going to need to go into chapter 4 just a little bit to help explain some of the things in chapter 3 because to me, there doesn't seem to be a very good stopping point in between the chapters. Like, it's kind of hard to discern the difference between chapter 3 and chapter 4, and this is actually kind of important, too, and this is an interesting point, and I want to make sure that we learn from this as well. Hebrews chapter 3 has multiple places, and I'm going to cover this, that it might appear to be worded in a way where you might think, like, wow, maybe you can lose your salvation, or maybe there's something like this concept of being able to endure all the way to the end and things like that where people might try to use some of the passages here to prove that point. Okay, now, obviously, we don't believe that to be true. We believe that, you know, once you're saved, you're always saved. It's eternal. It's forever. It's sealed. It's secure. It's sure. It's 100%. There's no doubt about it. I'm going to explain what these passages mean where people might try to interpret them a different way, but what you need to understand is that even, you know, I'm always stressing to read things in context. Of course, we need to do that, right? We need to make sure that if somebody is going to bring a doctrine to you, and this is why we have the sermon notes on the back of our bulletins to try to make it easy for you. We've got pens out in the foyer. You want a pen? We've got paper. Write down the notes. When I teach, when whoever is behind this pulpit is preaching and teaching, make the notes. Do your diligence to go home later. Study it out. Make sure things aren't taken out of context. Make sure that what's being taught is true because it is your responsibility to know that. Now, in general, when people are trying to present, maybe you're talking to somebody, right? You have a conversation, and oftentimes people like to just say, well, I know this isn't the Bible somewhere or whatever. It's like, well, let's go there, okay? And if people know where it is in the Bible, don't just rely on either yours or their memory of what the Bible says. Turn there. Even if you have passages memorized, trust me, even if you have that passage memorized, you have it committed to memory, it's like, no, but I know this passage, still turn there. If you have a bad memory or if someone is trying, you know, kind of, you know, people plant thoughts just in general or might make a statement first and make you think that that's actually what that says, there's a lot of reasons to go there. And if nothing else, then for the benefit of the person that you're talking to, because there's no way they're going to know it probably as well as you do anyways, right? I mean, just rarely is that the case. Occasionally, but that's rarely the case where someone actually does know enough about the Bible to really know what they're talking about and be able to understand the context and stuff. But my whole point now in Hebrews chapter 3, though, is that the teachings in Hebrews, and specifically what we're going to see in Hebrews chapter 3, go beyond chapter 3. So if we're going to look at a document, we're going to look at some passages, we really need the context that goes beyond chapter 3. And you'll get this when I get to the end of the sermon because it's going to tie everything together and we're going to have to, like I said, we're going to have to dig into chapter 4 a little bit because that kind of sums up a lot of the things that we're going to see here that might be a little bit confusing, that might throw some people off, and it makes it all crystal clear. So when you are dealing with that, you may need to, if you're dealing with something, someone brings up some doctrine and you think, that doesn't really sound right, but I don't exactly know why, don't just get the context necessarily of immediate context. Go beyond that. If something just doesn't seem to fit right, start back much earlier and read much farther through because obviously these are letters, these are coherent teachings. It's not just a collection of verses. There's a whole thought process behind these letters that are being written. So getting that good, deep understanding is very helpful. Even understanding the Hebrews is written to the Hebrews and has certain topics that are coming up that are going to be more geared towards explaining things to people who were Hebrews. It doesn't mean it doesn't apply to everybody. It doesn't mean that no one else could learn from this, but understanding the audience helps us to know, okay, we see a certain trajectory of thoughts and ideas and explanations. Well, when we're trying to understand what this says, it should follow that same pattern. All of the most elementary surface meanings of these things, you keep that in mind of what's being said. As we get into this, you're going to see there's multiple ways of understanding passages, and this heavily is going to be talking about salvation, like your soul salvation, but there's also elements of other types of salvation, like just physical salvation and things like that. So these are the areas, especially when it has to do with salvation, that we are really understanding the full context of what's being expressed here so that we don't walk away with a misunderstanding, especially in regards to salvation, right, to eternal salvation, to your soul being saved, because that is the number one doctrine that you don't ever want to have screwed up. All right, all by way of introduction, let's look down now at verse number one. The Bible says, Now, I'm going to pause right here. We've done Hebrews chapter three. We've done chapter one, chapter two. This is an explanation of who Jesus Christ is, and really, the whole book of Hebrews centers around who Jesus is and proving to the Hebrew people that Jesus is the Christ. It's very important, so we're going to see the references. We're going to see a lot of references to Old Testament scriptures, and we're going to see these explanations of who He is, and even here, just explaining, consider the apostle and high priest of our profession. He's an apostle, right? He's a messenger, but He's also the high priest, because as we're going to see later in the book of Hebrews, that He is a priest under the order of Melchizedek, which is separate from the order of Aaron or of Levi. He's not a Levitical priest. He's of the house of Judah, and there's a change in the priesthood. As we'll see later, there's a change in law. So He's laying this foundation of who Christ is. Consider our apostle and high priest of our profession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to Him at that point. Now, who appointed Him? God did, the Father, right? The Father appointed the Son to this position, and Jesus Christ was faithful in all that He did. Jesus said He does always those things that please the Father. Jesus Christ was without sin. There was no guile found in His mouth. He was reviled and reviled not again, right? When He was threatened, He cursed not. He was faithful in absolutely everything, every piece of Scripture that needed to be fulfilled. He fulfilled all the good works that needed to be done. He did. He was faithful in all of His house, and now it brings up Moses, because you have this introduction here, this explanation of New Testament versus Old Testament. Jesus Christ is representative of New Testament, right? The New Testament is His death, burial, and resurrection. That's the blood that was shed sealing that New Testament. You know, a testament is not a force unless there be the death of the testator, right? Jesus was the testator, and His testament became force after His blood was shed, sealing that new covenant, that New Testament, Jesus Christ, whereas Moses used the blood of bulls and of goats to seal that old covenant of the law that was given to Him in the mount, right? In Mount Sinai, and He delivered that to the people. That's the old covenant. So Moses is representative as the figurehead of the old covenant, and Christ, of course, the figurehead of the new covenant. And He's explaining how, well, hey, Moses was found worthy. He was found faithful in His house. He was a man of God. He was actually a type of Christ. He was a Christ figure. He was very meek. He was very humble. There are many attributes and stories about Moses that you can look to as being Christ-like and kind of prophesying through Moses the Christ to come. And even the prophecies, Moses himself spake that there's going to come one after him, right? That you're going to obey His words, similar to John the Baptist who was saying a same type of thing. Obviously, John the Baptist had a much shorter amount of time to wait, but Moses prophesied of the Christ to come. And now we have this comparison between Moses and Jesus, and this comparison is also going to demonstrate the huge difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament, the old covenant and the new covenant, how much superior the new covenant is to the old covenant. The old covenant was impossible to keep. It's the law. The old covenant was you do all these things and you'll be blessed, and if you don't do these things, you'll be cursed. Well, the problem is that we've all broken the law and have been found guilty. So we're all cursed, right? That's the problem with the old covenant, is that we end up all being cursed. Now, the law is still good. The covenant is still good in itself, but the new covenant is so much better. It's far superior because Christ was able to fulfill that old covenant while simultaneously then being able to offer salvation and eternal life to those of us who fell and were not able to keep the old covenant. And on every level, the new covenant is better. It's free. It's a gift. It exalts the love of God. You know, I mean, there's so many aspects. I could go on and on and on about how much superior it is, but even down to the figureheads themselves, right? The new covenant is better than the old covenant. The Bible says here in verse 3, for this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses. Now, Moses was one that everybody looked up to. I mean, the Pharisees, Moses, Moses, Moses, right? Well, Jesus was counted more, had more glory than Moses in as much as he who hath builded the house hath more honor than the house. For every house is builded by some man, but he that built all things is God. And there's another testament to the fact that Jesus Christ is God, explaining that, look, the guy who builds a house, builds a building, builds something, that house may have a glory, right? Wow, that looks great. Some brand new fancy building. Doesn't that look great? Well, the guy who built that gets more credit, more respect because he created that beautiful thing, right? The thing's just an object in and of itself, but the creator of that object, of course, gets so much more recognition and glory and credit to be able to produce such a beautiful thing. Well, that's the same thing with God and his servants and his people, right? Like, we're just, Moses is just a man. Moses was created by God. Moses was created by Christ. Christ is so much better, whatever glory or credit or honor that Moses gets, well, he got that credit and glory through Christ anyways, through the power of God, and so much more glory is on Christ. Every house is built by some man, but he that built all things is God, which we already read earlier, Christ made all things. God, you know, the Father made the world through his son, through Christ. Verse 5, and Moses verily was faithful in all his house as a servant for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after. Like I said, he is a figurehead or a type of Christ. How many times did Moses intercede for the people in the Old Testament, right? In the Book of Acts especially, when you see the children of Israel going through the wilderness, and he's always entreating, and, you know, they're sinning, they're doing wrong. He's like, man, I gotta make a sacrifice for these people. God's upset, God's angry, he's gonna destroy these people. I'm gonna intercede. God, you know, if you could please just, you know, forgive the people. And he even gets a point where he's like, and if not, you know, basically like, let me be blotted out of your book. Right, like forgive them and let me take the punishment, which is the heart of Christ. Because that's exactly what Christ did for us. So Moses was faithful in all of his house. He was faithful to the word of God. He was faithful to the Lord, but he was faithful as a servant. And the key difference between Moses and Christ is that Moses was a servant, but Christ is the son. Moses is a servant in the house, and Moses is serving faithful, he's doing what he's supposed to be, but it's not his house, it's the son's house. Right, it ultimately all belongs to the son. The servant is there, he could be doing a great job, doing a good work, everything's good, but you know what, there's a huge difference between a servant and a son. Moses verily, verse 5, was faithful in all his house as a servant for a testimony of those things that we've spoken after. So his life was a testimony of that which was to come. His faithfulness as a servant was the testimony showing and foreshadowing the Christ to come. But look at this, verse 6, 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. Now there's a couple things we're going to look at here. The first one being Christ as a son over his own house, whose house are we? So it's saying that we are Christ's house. We are that result. Right, he just got done talking about the glory of the house versus that who, the person who builded the house. Right, so Moses was a glory. Think about his house, his person, who he was. It was a testimony unto the Lord. The good works, the way that he lived, the righteousness that he had, had its glory. He was a great man of God. But you know, the person who built that house of Moses gets way more credit than Moses. Just like we, if we live righteously and we can have a good testimony unto the Lord through our building of this house with the good works that we do, you know, there is a glory associated with that but it's nothing compared to the glory of Christ in you that allows you to do those things. Now, turn, if you keep your place here, if you go to 1 Corinthians chapter 3, we're going to get the same concept being taught again in the New Testament of being this house of God and how we are, our bodies are the temple, our bodies are a house. And what we do here does matter and there is a building of this house, a building of who you are in this life. And it does matter. 1 Corinthians chapter 3, look at verse number 9. The Bible says, For we are laborers together with God. Ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building. So there's two types of things he illustrates to help us understand this concept. We're laborers together with God. It means we're working with God. Not just working for God, we're working with God. And he says, you're God's husbandry. And with husbandry, think about animals on a farm. That would be husbandry. Oxen plowing a field. The oxen don't go out and plow the field by themselves. There's going to be someone driving the oxen and guiding them and making them go in the way that the master wants them to go. But the oxen are important to do that work. And it's the same thing with serving the Lord. For us, it's a similar example. God will empower us. God will lead us. God will direct us. God will point us in the right path. God will tell us where to go, where to work, what he wants us to do. But we need to be the ones doing the work. I mean, we're the workhorses. We're the oxen. We're the husbandry. But that's how we work together with God. When you think about we work together with God, I'm not saying God says something and we're like, you know what, God? I think I got a better way. How about we do it this way? That's not the way this relationship works of working together with God. It's he's in charge, and you're doing the labor, right? You're doing the work. He's the boss. He guides you, gives you everything that you need, and says, OK, this is the way we're going. Now, the cool thing about Jesus is he's also a brother. And we saw that a little bit last week, and we're going to continue to see some more of that too as we continue in this book, that he gets in the yoke with us. So not only does God direct us, but he also will work with us. Ye are God's husbandry, but then it says ye are God's building. And this is the part we're going to focus on more that applies more to this chapter. Verse 10, according to the grace of God, which is given unto me as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. So this is Apostle Paul saying, hey, look, I laid the foundation when he led people to Christ, because the foundation is Christ. So we see in the next verse, verse 11, for other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. So you have to start with the solid rock foundation. Any other foundation is going to be sinking sand. It's going to be unstable. It's not going to support any building. You could try building on any other foundation. It's all going to crumble. It's all going to fall. It's not going to survive. It's not going to last. You need to have this foundation of Jesus Christ, and then you build upon that. And you say, look, take heed how you build thereon. You're saved, then you've got to set the foundation. You've got Christ. Amen. You've got a great start. You've got a great base. But having a foundation, if you're supposed to be a house, if you're supposed to be a building, a building is not just a foundation. You need to build on that. So it's not just enough to just be saved. Like, oh, well, I'm saved, great. Now I'm just going to live the rest of my life. Hey, everything that you do, you're building thereon. No matter what you do, you're building on that foundation. Pay attention and be careful how you build on that foundation. Make it worthwhile. Don't cut corners. Don't make it a garbage house. Think about the three little pigs. You don't want to have the straw house. You don't want to have the house of sticks because that's going to burn up. It's going to be gone. It's going to be toast. You want to have the solid rock, obviously the foundation, but then the gold, the silver, the precious stones. Look at verse number 12 here. It says, now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, every man's work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. God knows what type of work that you do. Everything that you do ultimately will be tried one day, and there's going to be a value associated with it. A lot of things that you do are just going to be gone. Look, a lot of things that I do and have done are going to be burned up. It doesn't mean they're bad things, but they're really not valuable, okay? There's a lot of things I've done. I've spent my time. Hey, maybe I've done some cool things, for example, at my house. I can't think of anything right now, but maybe I've done some work where I've built something up nice. You know, I've made some things for the kids or something. I hammered some monkey bars across some trees and drilled some things in, and that took some effort, and that took some work and whatever, right? Did some home improvement stuff. There's nothing wrong about that. There's nothing sinful. It's fine. It's great. But you know what? Do you really think God's going to give me some great eternal rewards because I drove some screw into a tree and, you know, like... No. No. That's not what's going to get me those rewards. So when all the whole total sum of the work that I've done... Now, look, everyone's going to have some of that. But we want to make sure that we're taking heat while we build there on it. That doesn't just become our life. Right? That everything that we're building is all just this wood, hay, and subble because then at the end of the day you're going to go, well, but I made this and this and this. It's kind of like, well, who cares? It's all gone. It's all gone. It didn't really do anything. Every man's work is going to be made manifest. It's going to be made known. It's going to be declared, what did you really do for Christ? And you want to be careful not to have this attitude where you think you're just doing everything for Christ. There's a lot of people out there who just think, man, I am just an awesome Christian and I'm doing so much for the Lord that, in fact, aren't really doing much of anything. It's the same type of person I brought up on Sunday that thinks, like, they're preaching the gospel when they're building a house as a missionary. That's the type of person I'm talking about. Man, I have sacrificed so much. I took my summer off to go to a tropical place, right? This great vacation spot. I made this great sacrifice to go over there and build a school. And I preached the gospel. Oh, so you, like, talked to people if they knew for sure that Christ is their savior and what he did for them? No, man, I preached the gospel, you know? Like, I built this school where they're going to be taught about Christ. So I'm, like, instrumental in the gospel going forward. Look, you built a building. You could have paid all the unsaved people there to do that same building and then maybe they'd be happy because they made a bunch of money and then they'd listen to you and then you could have preached them the gospel, right? That would have been better than you just hammering some nails and thinking you're preaching the gospel. Look, that's not the gospel, right? But I'm not going to re-preach all that. My point is there's going to be a lot of people who kind of think that, well, I've done so much, I've sacrificed so much, I've done all these great things for God, but you didn't really do anything, right? At the end of the day, God's going to look at it and be like, yeah, here's that school you built. Wow, that one went up big. You put a lot of work into that. I mean, that was a big straw hut. It was, like, three stories, but it's gone now. It didn't last. Or you're like, wait, no, I think there's something here. Yes! You find some little nugget, like there was a little bit of value to that, but how much did you invest? How much did you spend on that, right? Being referred to as a house, right? We're Christ's house. We're his servants. We need to be careful how we're building up our house, how we build up our life and the things that we do. Verse 15 says, if any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so is by fire. And this is key. This is critical. Understand this. Remember this as we continue through this passage. We have a very clear reference in Hebrews chapter 3 about us being Christ's house. And then this other teaching that matches perfectly with what we're talking about in Hebrews 3 specifically explaining that even if you did nothing of value and everything that you did gets burnt up, you're still saved. You're still saved. You suffer loss because all the things you did got burnt up. That's your loss. It didn't amount to anything that's going to carry over into the afterlife, right? But you're still saved. So the person that wastes their life or even lives a life of sin, right, and they're looking at getting a reward from God, everything might get burned up, but they're still saved because you can't lose that salvation because it's not based on your works, which this is exactly based on your works. We're talking about building. We're talking about working, building up a house on the foundation. The foundation's already been laid, though, so you still have that foundation. If everything burns up on that house, the foundation ain't burning up. The foundation's still there. So you're still going to walk up and be like, okay, well, you still got to set up a foundation. We can still work with this. Now, the time for getting rewarded for it is gone, but you still got the foundation, and we're going to continue to work into the afterlife. That's just the way it's going to be, so get used to it now. If you think that heaven is going to be sitting on a cloud and doing nothing and whatever your weird ideas might be about heaven, get ready to work. But your body's not going to hurt. You're not going to be weary. You're not going to grow tired. There's not going to be those types of problems, which is great. With this physical body that we have now, we're going to get a new body, new flesh. Anyways, I don't want to get too far off into that. Let's keep reading here. He himself shall be saved, yet so is by fire. Verse 16, know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are. So let's go back to Hebrews chapter 3. We're his building, and we're actually the temple of the Holy Ghost because the Holy Ghost resides within us. Now, to get back in the context of Hebrews 3, I'll just reread verse number 5. And Moses verily was faithful in all his house as a servant for a testimony of those things, which would be spoken after. Oh, man. You know what? There is a good breaking point here, and I forgot to bring up one other point, and I don't want to miss this point. This is actually really important because this is a very important point, and I don't want to miss this point. This is actually really important because this is going to tie in with this next point anyways. Actually, here. Let's read this next point, and then I'll go back. Okay. Hebrews 3, verse 5. And Moses verily was faithful in all his house as a servant for a testimony of those things, which would be spoken after. But Christ has 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. And I'll get into this a little bit in a little bit because it adds a condition. If we hold fast the confidence and rejoicing of the hope, firm unto the end. Now, I believe this will be true just as it's written. I'm not going to try to give you any weird, well, what this really means. Look, it means what it says, okay? But this still doesn't mean you can lose your salvation, but we'll get into that in a minute. That's why it's important that when we saw the building reference, hey, look, you're still saved, even if everything burns up. Very important. But let's keep reading here. Verse 7. Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost saith, today, if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness, when your fathers tempted Me, proved Me, and saw My works forty years. Wherefore, I was grieved with that generation and said, They do always err in their heart, and they have not known My ways. So I swear in My wrath, they shall not enter into My rest. Now, this is where we have a lot of things going on in one sense. The book of Hebrews, in general, I would say is written to believing Hebrews, right? But there's also aspects of Hebrews where I think it's more broadly, there's writings more broadly written to the whole nation of Israel, like all of God's people, physically speaking, because they're obviously being talked about here. Now, we have the references of Christ saying, well, hey, if you were Abraham's seed, you'd do the works of Abraham, right, making a distinction between the fact that they're physically Abraham's seed, but spiritually, they're not, right? Similarly, we're seeing here, when He says, when your fathers tempted Me, proved Me, and saw My works forty years, and He's saying, I was grieved with that generation, they didn't have any faith, I swear on my wrath, they wouldn't enter into My rest, they didn't make it into the Promised Land, which figuratively is an illustration of, hey, if you don't believe, you're not going to make it into heaven, you're not going to be saved, right? Those that don't believe, don't make it into the Promised Land. Those that don't believe, don't enter into rest. But when He says, your fathers tempted Me, He's not referring to the people He's talking to right now spiritually just being spiritually dead like your fathers that killed the prophets, right, like Jesus was talking to the Pharisees, but He is referring to the people as a whole and making reference to that time. Why am I taking so much time talking about this so that we don't misunderstand and misapply Scripture? I hope you're following what I'm trying to drive at here. There's a truth being expressed that references things that happened during this time in the wilderness here, the day of provocation and not hardening your heart. Hardening your heart is something that can be done by a believer as well as an unbeliever. So there's kind of a lot to understand about this because there's multiple applications you could make, but we need to be careful in how we make the applications that we're doing it correctly. So you don't want to make the application, for example, that someone who's born again, someone who's saved, could harden their heart to the point of like Pharaoh where there's just some reprobate because they're already saved versus someone who's unsaved that may harden their heart and may end up just being too late for that person and say, well now, like where God says in verse 11, so I swear in my wrath they shall not enter into my rest. Now that statement is made. God got angry with the people who weren't believing. It says here, they heard, today if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts as in the provocation in the day of the temptation of wilderness, when your fathers tempted me, that means tested, proved me and saw my works 40 years. They kept testing God, not believing God, and they saw his works. They were witness to this stuff, yet they still didn't believe. They hardened their hearts. God was grieved with that generation. He's like, they're always in error, not just because they're sinners, but in their heart. They have a wicked heart. They're just always in error in their heart, and they have not known my ways. So as a result of this, he says, I swear in my wrath they shall not enter into my rest. This is while they're still alive. This is before they're even going to come close to entering into the promised land. He says, not going to happen. This is a point of no return that's being expressed here that God had with the children of Israel in the wilderness. So they're in the wilderness with God just like, you know what, I've had enough of it. You guys are not entering into my rest now. But they still continued physically to live for a while for about 40 years. Until their carcasses died in the wilderness. This is an illustration of a greater truth that we have come to know as the reprobate doctrine, where people can get to this point of hardening their heart. They harden their heart against God. They harden their heart to the point where it doesn't matter what they've heard. It doesn't matter what they've seen. It doesn't matter what they've witnessed, but they're done. They're rejecting God. They harden their heart, and God says, I've had enough. And His long suffering is done. And He swears in His wrath, you're not entering into my rest. And God doesn't just fly off the handle and say flippin' things. You know, human beings, us as human beings, we all could probably testify to at least some point in our life where we're like, you've gotten mad, you ended up doing something or saying something and you didn't really mean it. And you kind of just went, okay, you know what, I lost it, I lost my cool, I lost control, you know, I didn't really mean what I said, so I'm going to backtrack and I'm not going to, you know, whatever it is I said, I'm not going to do that. Right? Where you're just like, maybe I just went overboard. God's not like that. We are sinful. If a word goes out of our mouth, we may try to take it back and say we didn't really mean that. We do do that. Because we're not perfect. But here's the thing, it's not right. Our word is not perfect. We're not God. But God is perfect, His word is perfect, His word is faithful and true. So when the word goes forth, I mean, this is how you know that a word is from God, when the word goes forth, you know, if it comes to pass, if it doesn't come to pass, it's not of God. So if God's not going to say something, swear in His wrath, oh, He was just angry then, they actually will enter in His rest. No, they won't. No, if God swears in His wrath tonight during His rest, it's not happening. It's done. It's done. These people, their fate was sealed before they died. And that's what the reprobate doctrine is. There's some people out there whose fate is sealed before they actually physically die. This concept of it's never too late for anyone, there's always a chance, you could always get saved, is not true. It wasn't true for the people back in Egypt, which obviously you could say, oh, but that was physically going in. Yeah, I know, but why did it even say it? Why did it even happen? Because the greater truth is the spiritual application of that physical event that happened. Does it really matter that much that they died in one geographical location versus another if it's all just about the physical? Who cares, right? That's not that big of a deal. The big deal is what it's representing. The big deal is what the teaching is. The big deal is what it all means. This also fits in at the beginning of this chapter, which I kind of skipped over this. Verse 3 says, for this man was kind of worthy of more glory than Moses. And as much as he who hath builded the house hath more honor than the house. And the problem with people who get hardened in their hearts when they're given over to the reprobate mind, they worship and serve the creature more than the creator who is blessed forever, amen, which is what Romans 1 says. Romans 1 talks about the reprobate, and these are the people who instead of recognizing and honoring the creator of all things, God, they end up worshiping the creation. They would take the man instead of God that made the man. They would worship the building instead of who made the building. Right? They've got that backwards. They worship these animals and stones and trees and figures and whatever instead of God. Any other thing, any other creation other than the creator. And, you know, they're wise in their own conceits. Their foolish heart is darkened. They think they're smart, but they're really fools. They worship and serve the creature more than the creator. That's where it starts, and then their heart gets hardened. Or, you know, in that process, their heart is hardening towards God, right, to where they're just, then it gets to the point where it doesn't matter and they're done, and then God says, okay, I'm swearing in my wrath. You're never going to enter into my rest. Now, I'm not going to turn there. If you want to, you can go back and look at Psalm 95. This section where it says, starting in verse 7 of Hebrews 3, today if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts as in the day of provocation, is found, it's a direct quote from Psalm 95, verses 6 through 11. And I didn't see anything to add from going back to this reference. It's pretty verbatim of what it says in Psalm 95. You could just basically read the same exact thing. It's just another account. Hebrews 3 is quoting that Psalm 95 and using it more in context here or giving us an extra teaching on it to help us understand what Psalm 95 is all about. Verse 12, take heed therefore, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. Now, here you could say, well, why would He say that? Because I thought that you can't be reprobate. Well, you can't be reprobate, but you can still cross lines with God. You could still, as a believer, harden your heart towards God, not in the sense of being of like a Christ rejecter, right? But you could definitely deny God before man and then God will deny you, okay? You could definitely do things that will make God angry even to the point of maybe taking your life from you on this earth, just extinguishing your life. There's a lot of things that you can do by, in a sense, rejecting the Lord where He is going to then come down on you. We don't want to have an evil heart of unbelief. And I would say this much too. I bet you some of the people that died in the wilderness were saved spiritually, but they didn't have the faith when they needed to have it in order to make it into the promised land because of the picture that that was representing. It was painting a different, a very important illustration, and it had to be done correctly. And I forget, I preached on this quite a while ago where sometimes you may not understand why. Some things may seem extreme in the Bible, like someone losing their life or something. You say, well, why would God do it for that? And the reason why, oftentimes, or what you can see in some cases at least, is because what is being expressed in that story has a greater meaning and a greater truth to it, that has to be exactly right. And if it's not, then in order to show what God's trying to illustrate, well, it's faith without works or else you're dead. It's faith, you know, excuse me, what? It's faith in Christ, right, for yourself as your Savior, and it has nothing to do with works to earn your way into heaven because if you think that has anything to do with it, then you don't have eternal life, right? In this case, it's, well, they didn't have the faith. They didn't trust that God was going to defeat their enemies for them. They didn't trust that God was going to give them the victory. Well, we need to trust that Christ has given us the victory over death and hell, right, in order to be saved. So if they're not trusted, but you could say, yeah, but this is, I mean, they're just talking about Vietnamese giants, right? Yes, they are. And that's why I say they could have spiritually been saved and then had a moment of weakness and heard all these other people talking about them and got talked out and going like, man, I don't know, I mean, maybe we shouldn't do this. Because they made that decision, they're going to suffer the consequences for it in this earth. It doesn't mean they didn't go to heaven. But because God's trying to teach us a greater example, they couldn't have gone into the promised land now. They sealed their fate early and just said, okay, well, that's it. So for us, there are instances we could get into where physically we may end up in a situation where we're just not going to be able to get out of it. Here. It doesn't make you unsaved. It doesn't mean you've lost your salvation. It just means, you know, if you've done things where it wasn't of faith, then it's of sin, and the wages of sin is death anyways. So you end up reaping what you sow here. Now, let's... There's a few more verses that come up because I said we're going to get back to if we hold fast to confidence and rejoicing of the hope of firmments at the end, and I'll just say right now, as I said before, I believe this to be true. There are some things that I believe that as a result of you being saved, you will never do certain things. And it's not because God is like, now all of a sudden we're Calvinists and God's just controlling you, but because of the new life, and this is where you want to be, you know, again, you want to be careful because some people will take this too far and run with it too far, and they'll start saying, well, see, I mean, if you do this sin or this sin or this sin or this sin or this sin, you wouldn't do that That's not what I'm saying. But there are a few points to be made, and there's actually specific examples in the Bible where we know a saved person won't do certain things. One of those things is found in Matthew 24 of taking the mark of the beast, worshipping the beast and his image when the antichrist comes. Hey, first of all, a believer isn't going to be deceived by the antichrist because the Bible says that he's going to do these great lying signs and wonders that if it were possible, he'd deceive the very elect. But if it were possible, it's there for a reason because it means it's not possible. So it's not possible to deceive the elect, the saved. Not possible. Well, I believe simultaneously it's not possible for a person to stop believing in Jesus Christ as their savior. The Spirit of God bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. That is always there. You can't get rid of that. The Spirit of God, you are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. That's a seal, and it's not just a seal that's, you know, it's a living seal. It's not some piece of tape, right? It's the Holy Spirit is the seal that's inside of you that lives and works inside of you that you know you are a child of God. And once you are a child of God, there is no denying. Now, people have, when you're trying to explain salvation to them, may come up with a question of going, well, what if a person stops believing? Because as you're trying to teach them, all you have to do is believe. It makes sense, and the question is a great question. It's not a bad question because they say, okay, well, if all I have to do is believe, then what if I stop believing, right? Now, the Bible still answers that. One, just logically, because if you have eternal life or everlasting life, that can't end or else it's not really eternal, right? That's one understanding. But another one is just, you know, in 1 Timothy, the Bible says, you know, if we believe not, yet he abideth faithful, he cannot deny himself, right? So if you're a born-again child of God, God made a promise to save you the moment you believe. Jesus Christ made the promise, verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation but is passed from death unto life, okay? Once you do that, Christ's promise can't fail. There's no caveat in there, well, what if I stop believing? He already made the promise, you shall not come into condemnation, but you've already passed from death unto life. It's already done, it's already sealed, it's already taken care of. It's done, it's done. So those promises can't fail. Since that's true, then how can you have someone that's gonna stop believing anyways? You know, it can't happen. If it were theoretically possible, you're still saved, but I don't believe that's possible. Once you've made the choice to put your faith in Christ and then you're born again, you're born in that family, it's just as silly as a person, like a human being who's born into the family, not under weird circumstances, you're born into a family, you've been raised in this family, like one of my kids, you've got siblings, you all look alike, you kind of sound alike, you have all the traits and characteristics, but then one day it's just like, you know what, you're not my dad. Like, that's ridiculous, right? That would be silly. And they're never gonna do that. Like, this is not gonna happen. So we don't have to worry, because this is still a true statement, whose house are we if we hold fast the confidence of rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end, that confidence of that savior, we are gonna hold that firm unto the end. I believe every person who has put their trust in Christ with their heart and didn't say empty words and didn't just go through some motions or didn't really understand it and thought they were doing something, that's not the people we're talking about, because those who actually put their trust in Christ will have that hope firm unto the end. Even when they have lapses and they walk in the flesh instead of in the spirit, they're still not going to just have this hard heart against Christ as their savior or something. Does that make sense? Like, it's just not gonna happen. So that's the explanation. We're gonna see a few more verses that are similar to this, but nowhere, and I wanna point this out too, nowhere does this say that a person can lose their salvation. It doesn't say that. And if someone tries to say, well, I mean, if you don't hold it fast, then you won't be saved or you're not his house. Well, you were never his house, because you are his house if you hold it fast in the end, but then you were never his house to begin with if you don't. Let's look at verse number 12, I think is where we left off. Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from living God. Now, also, this is a wide audience too. There can be people that are gonna hear, I mean, just as church is. In general, we're assuming that everybody's saved, but maybe there's someone out there that isn't. Maybe there's someone out there that needs to hear this. Maybe there's some Hebrew that appears to be saved or whatever and they're in the church, but then it's like, but they didn't really understand this, so you're gonna get this warning, hey, beware, lest there be some evil, because he doesn't say in any of us, he says in any of you. There's other statements he makes where he says we and includes himself, but this statement he says in any of you. There's not a doubt in his mind, but there may be among you someone who doesn't fully understand the gospel. There's someone who hasn't accepted. You better beware. You know the story of what happened in the wilderness. They didn't make it in. They had an evil heart of unbelief and departing from the living God. Verse 13 says, but exhort one another daily while it is called today. So when's the time to exhort people? Today. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Not, oh, I'm going to comfort and exhort this person. No, it's today. Exhort one another daily. So, yeah, while it's called today. Daily is every day. Lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, again, another warning that sin is deceitful and we need to be encouraging and exhorting one another because sin can be deceitful and we don't want to see any brethren slipping into sin and then what happens when people start getting really deep into sin anyways? Their heart becomes hardened against different things. I'm not saying, again, I'm not saying to the point of a reprobate hardening, but people who start getting into sin become hardened to the things of God. It's a fact. The more you walk in the flesh, the less you're going to want to think about the things of the Spirit because you have that conviction, because you're saved, you're going to have that Holy Ghost. I know this from experience. When I was living in, you know, there's a lot, I didn't really want to think about church. It was brought up, I tried to avoid the subject. I didn't really want to talk about it. I didn't want to be confronted with my own sin. My heart was becoming hardened. Now, it's not hardened to, like I said, to the point of like a pharaoh or something or to the point of just where God's hardened your heart. It's just, yeah, I don't really want to think about those things. I'm trying to quench the Spirit. I don't want to hear the Spirit. I'm trying to quench the Spirit. The deceitfulness of sin will do that to people who are saved. And that's why we need to exhort one another to try and encourage each other. Hey, don't go down that path. Don't do that. You know, that's not good for you. And be helpful. Sin's very deceitful. It's never what you think it's going to be, ever. It's never what it's, whatever is in your mind, oh, man, I really want to do this. I really want to watch that. I really, you know, it's never, ever going to satisfy the way that you think it will. Because sin is just a deceit and a lie. Verse 14, let's keep reading here. For we are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end. So there's another statement like that. The beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end. Which I already mentioned, I don't believe that it's possible for someone to not know or understand they're saved. This is the example of someone who would be like, well, I was a born again, Baptist, fundamental Baptist, but then I became Catholic. Like, no. That doesn't, you were never saved to begin with if that happens. There's so many verses in the Bible we could look to. You know, Jesus said, my sheep know my voice. They hear me. You know, like another shepherd they're not going to hear. You're not just going to be led astray by some other word of God, by some other, like some false prophet, just completely. Now, there are false prophets who can deceive and kind of shift you one way or the other. But even the Apostle Paul, when he's talking to the Galatians, he's like, look, what word does he use? I'm afraid of you. I'm afraid of you. Like, have I bestowed my labor on you in vain? Like, did you even really get saved? He's calling into question their salvation because they've been steered astray by a false prophet who's trying to add works to salvation, trying to add circumcision to salvation, trying to make them think, well, you know you need to add this to salvation. He's going, like, I don't even know if you guys are saved. If you're going to follow this guy, I don't even know if you're saved. Why? Because the saved person is like, you're not going to just go off into some damnable heresy. It makes me question, like, did you even get it to begin with if you're going down that path? Why? There are certain things when you're a believer, it just, it doesn't mean you live a perfect life, it doesn't mean you get rid of all of your sin, it just means, like, hey, you've made that choice, you're born again. There's no going back on that. And once it's happened, it's happened anyways, but there's no way to undo what's done. Verse 15, while it's said, today if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts as into provocation. For some, when they had heard, did provoke, howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses. So when you hear the word of God, don't harden your heart. There are many unsaved people out there that hear the word of God, but they harden their heart and don't accept it. Verse 17 says, but with whom was he grieved forty years? Was it not with them that had sinned whose carcasses fell in the wilderness? And to whom swear he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believe not. So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. Now, someone might try to take that and say, well, see, they did believe, but then they stopped believing, so they didn't enter into their rest because of that. Not true. Like I mentioned, this is an example showing a greater picture. And let's go into Hebrews chapter 4 because I want to make sure you understand this because this is where it all kind of culminates, the first two verses. Let us therefore fear lest the promise being left of us entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. So he's going to kind of answer this question, well, if any of you seem to come short of this promise of entering into his rest. For unto us was the gospel preached as well as unto them, which in itself is an interesting passage verse saying that the gospel is preached unto them. I thought they were in the Old Testament. Yeah, they were. It's the everlasting gospel. But the word preached did not profit them not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. So the word gets preached, but you have to have the faith. Once you have that faith, Promised Land is your home. This explains the people who they couldn't enter in because of unbelief. It's an illustration of, hey, the word was preached. The gospel was preached. They heard the gospel. And this also is why it applies to salvation because he's talking about the gospel. He's talking about people being saved. But this illustration is showing you that if you don't believe, it doesn't matter how much you're around it, doesn't matter how much you hear it, if you don't believe, you're not going into the Promised Land. You're not saved. But that's all it takes is the faith. They didn't have to do anything else. They didn't have to fight any battles to be saved. They didn't have to go and fight against Pharaoh and Pharaoh's armies. God took care of all that. Now, they were going to go in and conquer and drive out the Amalekites and stuff and all the other Canaanites. But that wasn't the requirement to being able to be given that land. That was the Christian fight after they're saved. And we all have a Christian fight to fight after we're saved. And there's enemies to go up against. But the inheritance from that moment forward, that belief is theirs to move into. So, I don't know. Hopefully that was, you learned something from this passage. It's important to get the whole context here. There's definitely some things where I could see where people might say, well, look, if you don't hold your confidence in rejoicing and hope for them under the end, then you're not at his house. I get it. It's true. But I don't see a saved person not having that. Now, what does that mean exactly? How does it play out? People want to nitpick on the details, going like, well, what if I, you know. And I'm not preaching this to try to cause doubts also in your heart. I hope you don't get that from this sermon because I do also believe, I'm going to close on this. People can have a question or some kind of doubts, especially when you're living a sinful life. I experienced similar doubts. Now, the doubts that I had, I would question myself, how can I say that I believe this when I'm doing so many things against what this book says? And that's a reasonable doubt to have. And my question wasn't, do I need to do works to be saved? It was, did I believe? Because I'm not, because I did believe, right? So I do believe, and I did believe, even when I was in sin, I still believed. But I was questioning myself because I could just see, like, why are so many of my actions contrary to this book if it's something I claim to believe? Like, I'll kind of internal debate with myself, going like, how could you say you believe this, Dave? You know, you're not really listening to it. But deep down, I knew I was saved. Like, it happened. I was born again. And that's the, we're his building. You know, I still held that hope. I didn't reject that hope of salvation in Christ. I didn't reject and just be like, well, you know what? Now I'm just going to be an atheist. It was, the doubtfulness had to do with just my own actions of doing these things. This type of language in Hebrews 3 should not make you doubt if you've got some sin in your life going like, well, I don't even know if I'm saved now. If your trust is in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, you're saved. Now see, even not getting good teaching, even being out of church, even not really reading my Bible, because I was saved, I knew that. At the end of the day, I knew that. Through all the doubts, through all the questions, through everything else, there was one thing that stood firm. I knew I was saved. Because that's something that no one could take away. It's something that's personal between you and God, that you know you're saved because you put all your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. And praise God for that. And nothing could ever change that. That hope will always be there. The person who's truly born again will never go and just completely reject the Lord and go off the deep end. And we're going to get into this, especially as we get into the next few chapters. This concept of reprobate is going to come up again. So just keep that in mind as we go forward. Let's borrow this word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you for this teaching. We thank you for all the truth that you give us in this book. God, I pray that you would please help us to learn and to grow more and more. I pray that you would please help us to learn from all the stories, especially in the Old Testament. We thank you for giving us a better covenant. I pray that you would please help us to make the proper applications of the truths and of the symbolism that is found in the Bible. And I pray that you would please help us to not harden our hearts that we'd be able to exhort each other and encourage one another to live righteously and to not indulge in sin, because sin is just deceitful anyways, dear Lord, and it's just going to drive us away from you and drive a wedge in between us. Lord, we love you. We want to serve you. Please bless this church, and please keep us all safe as we go our separate ways this evening. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, we're going to sing one last song before we're dismissed. Brother Jesse, please lead us in our last song. We're singing a song for 328. I want that mountain. This is 328. 328. I saw the giant of righteousness upon the mountain high. He laughed so hard at my unbended knee. No longer in the wilderness I'll stay, and so I'll cry. I want that mountain. It belongs to me. I want that mountain. I want that mountain. Where the milk and honey flow, where the grapes of vegetables grow. I want that mountain. I want that mountain. The mountain that my Lord has given me. There was a giant of laziness who said I wouldn't go, and quickness for the one who set me free. How come from not the wilderness I'll witness, though I know, I want that mountain. It belongs to me. I want that mountain. I want that mountain. Where the milk and honey flow, where the grapes of vegetables grow. I want that mountain. I want that mountain. The mountain that my Lord has given me. One faithless giant upon the crest of Hebron's lofty hide has vowed that he's the one to make me flee. How come from not the wilderness and trust Jehovah's might I want that mountain. It belongs to me. I want that mountain. I want that mountain. Where the milk and honey flow, where the grapes of vegetables grow. I want that mountain. I want that mountain. The mountain that my Lord has given me. Let every giant of distress and unbelief and sin get ready now to vacate for you see. How come from not the wilderness I know I don't do it. I want that mountain. It belongs to me. I want that mountain. I want that mountain. Where the milk and honey flow, where the grapes of vegetables grow. I want that mountain. I want that mountain. The mountain that my Lord has given me.