Let's turn again to Hebrews chapter three. We're going to read, we're going to read from chapter four, fighting with his microphone again. But I need to get close enough to my notes. My eyesight is fading. My old age. I write a little larger, but I still have sometimes some problems if I get too far away. The word we have in mind that links these four insertions is found in verse one of chapter four. Let us therefore fear. You'll remember the first one began, Let us all we ought, we must give the more earnest heed. Therefore heed. And the exhortation was one of mourning, lest at any time we let them slip or we drift by them or we allow them to leak out as with a leaky vessel now this one is a progression in a sense upon that one notice will you verse six where we read whose house are we if we hold fast the confidence and rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end and then there's a complete change Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost said today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the day of provocation. Now, it seems to me that this insertion, which begins here, is prompted by the use of the phrase, hold fast. It seems as though the writer is immediately turning aside to warn... What's going to happen if we don't hold fast? I wonder how many of you own an alarm clock. Let me see. Very good. You never use it, because you always wake up early these days. How many of you have a snooze alarm? The others of you don't know what it is. Well, it's an alarm that if you don't answer the first time, it rings again. You've got one of those, too. That's a snooze around. And if you don't hand to the second time, it rings again. Now, I have one, but I don't need mine either, because I have a dog. And if you give an hour in the morning, I don't know where he gets his clock from, or she, she comes into the bedroom and pours the bed. If I turn over, she comes back a little later, very little later, and pours the bed again. and if I still insist on ignoring her, she comes back again. The reason being, I wasn't listening, or I was choosing to ignore. Now you'll see here that we have a second warning. God gave us a warning in the first insertion, and now he gives us another warning in the second. Let us therefore see it. Now holding fast, which is what is written of in verse six of chapter three, is the secret of real restings. If you and I are holding fast to the things that honor God, please God, and that we know are vital to our spiritual well-being, in spite of any of the circumstances, in spite of any of the problems or emergencies, we shall continue to know rest. Now there was a people to whom God longed to give rest, and they are spoken of in the end of this third chapter. And by the way, I found twelve different Greek words all translated rest. You know, the Greek is very rich in nuances. Now I say I'm going to take a rest. I'm only going to nap for fifteen minutes, but I say I'm going to take a rest. And when I go to bed, I say, it's time I got my rest. And so on. But we use the same word, but the Greek did not do that. They had a word which would mean a little rest, a word that would mean a longer rest, a word that would mean complete rest, a word that meant... a sabbatical rest, different kinds of rest. Now we have two or three of them here in our chapter. But I'm concerned with God's concern here when he says, first of all, harden not your hearts. That's verse eight. Incidentally, the portion begins with it and ends with it. For it says in verse seven at the end of the verse, harden not your heart. And just in case that was not sufficient, in the middle, in verse fifteen we read again, Pardon not your hearts. I want to point out to you three dangers and an antidote concerning the heart. Hardening the heart is the first thing, the danger of a hardened heart. Let's read on. When your fathers tempted or tested me, proved me and saw my works forty years, I was grieved with that generation and said, They do always err in their heart, and they have not known my ways. They tested me, they proved me, they saw my works, but they didn't know my ways. That's an erring heart, and the word er there does not mean to make a mistake. This again is one of our English words that we use. What's the word I want again? Here I am groping in a wide fence. But once again the Greek is particular. This means to go astray, to wonder. The airing heart. And then verse twelve says, Take heed, my brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. Now this is God's second ring of the bell, if you will. This is the repeat on God's snooze alarm. Well, this is God, if you please, again challenging your heart. The danger of a hardened heart. I pointed out to you, our portion, our insertion, begins with it, ends with it, and has it again in the middle. Now there's an example given to us of a hardened heart in the third chapter here. These people were a people who tested the love of God. They put into the test time and time and time again. I don't even have to remind you of these occasions. Many of them come very readily to your mind when the people of God tested the love of God. They never found it wanting. This people also, it says, they proved his power. And once again, I don't have to give you instances. You think about the pillar of cloud, the pillar of fire. You think about their deliverances. You think about the... the Israelites and their being drowned, the power of God constantly and continually manifested to the children of Israel. In the wilderness, forty years, and their shoes didn't wear out. In the wilderness for forty years, and God fed them with manna day in, day out, day in, day out. They proved his power. And they tell here they saw his works. And again, you think of their experience in Egypt even, or especially in the wilderness, when God himself worked in such a way that they knew this was God working. There was no mistake about it. But in spite of these things, their hearts were hardened. It's very hard to understand, isn't it? No, it's not, because we have human hearts like they had, and we know too that they can become very callous and very hardened. But here is the example in our insertion of the hardened heart. Now there follows the denunciation of it. In verse eight it says, it was provocation. the days of the provocation. Now that's a very interesting word. I hope I don't bore you by making reference to these words, but it's always very important to me to know exactly what the writer said. Now there's a word here, Picranio, which actually means bitter, bitter. And God says that these people were a bitter disappointment to him. Can you imagine that? the tragedy of a people to whom God had demonstrated his love and his power and his works, because their hearts became callous. God was bitterly disappointed. He never failed to love them, but he became bitterly disappointed in them. That's what the word provocation means. It's also revealed as ignorance. It says, they err in their heart, and they have not known my ways. That's how God denounces the hardened heart. And then there's the result of it, and it's twofold. They have no rest. Verse eleven, they shall not enter into my rest. And verse seventeen, their carcasses fell in the wilderness. There was for them no deliverance. they did not enter in to the promised land. Now the cause of it is given to us here, and this is the challenge to our hearts, verse thirteen. Lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. That's what caused the hardness of heart for the children of Israel. And that's what will cause hardness of heart. And the calloused heart and attitude, the deceitfulness of sin. Nobody needs to explain what sin is. We all know. And we all know, too, how deceitful a thing sin is. So much it promises and never delivers. So God warns us about the danger of a hardened heart. The example of it. the denunciation of it, the result of it, and the reason for it, or the cause of it. They were deceived by sin. Now it's possible for us, even after all our Christian experience, to be deceived by sin. It's possible for us to follow the intranetions and dictates of our own hearts because they're attracted by this or attracted by that. We'll never get over that until we're in the glory, because our hearts are always liable to go after these attractive things. I don't expect any one of you to be found dabbling in the things that are gross and evil. Though God knows, in these days we have some tragic shocks. When we hear of people who have gone all of their lives piously and deeply spiritually about their living, and then suddenly they get tripped up and end sadly. I tremble when I think about them because the Bible says, Let he that thinketh he standeth, take heed. lest you fall. Sin is just as deceitful, and it has its own ways of alluring. And what is more, the devil knows our weak points, and those are what he exploits. What may be a temptation for you may be no temptation for me, but what may be a temptation for me may not even touch your life. We are so different. But we are all of us capable of yielding to the deceitfulness of sin, and that causes hardness of heart. The danger of an airing heart, and I just made mention of this, it's not just making a mistake. It is actually going astray. And it says, God is grieved. God is grieved. Look at verse ten. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation. Look at verse seventeen. But with whom was he grieved forty years? Was it not with them that sinned whose carcasses fell in the wilderness? Now here we come again. That word grieved is not the usual thing that we think about when we use the word grieve. We associate it with mourning. We associate it with sorrow. But you know what basically this word means? I'm going to shock you now. God was disgusted. That's what the word means. And it's not surprising when God had supplied so much to the children of Israel, had done so much for them, lavished so much upon them, delivered them, and then sustained them. that when they turned aside and went astray and did it deliberately, God was grieved in the sense of being sad. But he was disgusted. It's another shocking thing to think that there may be things that we allow to come into our lives with which God is disgusted. We don't think of disgust as associated with God. And I suppose there are not many instances where we are told this. These may be the only two. I don't know. I didn't examine that. But to think about God being disgusted and the possibility of God being disgusted with me, that's a sort of almost a shattering thing, isn't it? Because of all the people that you wouldn't want to be disgusted with you. God stands the top. of the list. It's going astray, does it? It grieves God, it disgusts him, because no believer can find any excuse for ever going astray. There's all that he needs in Christ to keep him on the straight and narrow path. And when I say that, the devil says, I've got my eye on you. He isn't going to let us get away with reminding you about this, because he says, you're just as vulnerable as they are, and you'd better look out. I don't want God to be disgusted with me. And yet, if I do what they did, I can expect the same reaction on his part. I'm glad that even with his grief and his disgust, He never ceases to care. He never ceases to love. He never ceases to have compassion. He never takes his hand away for a second. That's the kind of wonderful, loving, precious God that we have. The danger of an airing heart. Then we come to the danger of an unbelieving heart. Take heed, brethren, let there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. Departing from the living God? You know, if we allow our hearts to become callous, and if our hearts go astray, it may well be unless we are suddenly, suddenly, by the Spirit of God's power, haul ourselves back. we could be found departing from the living God, doubting him, and that after years and years and years of having proved his love and his power and his works, as we've done, to depart from the living God. No believer dare ever say, but it won't happen to me. I love the Lord Jesus too much. I love God too much. My Christian life means so much to me. The word of God means so much to me. It'll never happen to me. Don't ever say that. Because, you know, the devil has a tool that he can use to open up the door just to open it a tiny little bit. An allegory is told about the devil going out of business. I've told some of you this before. And he put all the tools of his trade up for sale. And there was intricate machinery. There were some very surprising devices. But the most expensive tool on sale lay on a red velvet cushion bearing the highest price of all of the impedimenta. and someone charged the devil with being an extortioner. All that money for that little thing. He said, that little thing is the most useful tool I have in my workshop. They said, what do you call it? He said, discouragement. Now once the devil... begins to get you discouraged, he's already got the thin end of the wedge in the door, and only God knows how wide it will open. It is possible to depart from the living God, not to be lost from his grasp, but to be totally shut up from him because of your sin. Believers can get to that place. An evil heart of unbelief. Now you know what it is, don't you? Verse sixteen says, Some when they had heard did provoke. The reason why was because they heard and they refused. That's what it is. It's hearing and refusing. Whether you're a sinner and you hear the gospel and you turn it down, or whether you are a Christian and God speaks to you and you hear his voice, And you know that he's speaking, but you still turn away. That's an evil heart of unbelief. What does he do? Verse nineteen says, we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. That evil heart of unbelief kept Israelites out of the promised land. It isn't going to keep the believer out of heaven. If he becomes a backslider and departs from God, he'll get to heaven, but saved as by the skin of the teeth, with nothing to offer the Lord Jesus when he arrives there, no crown to cast at his feet. No well done to fall upon his ears, saved so as by fire. Now how is it to be avoided? Verse thirteen says, exhort one another daily while it is called today. It's going to be avoided by exhortation, an exhortation of one by the other. As the people of God, we ought to constantly encourage one another. And particularly it says today. Why? Tomorrow it might be too late. We've got to constantly encourage one another and exhort one another and revel with one another in the things of God every day. That's the way to avoid the problem that we are talking about, departing from God because of an evil heart of unbelief. Now we haven't yet come to our letter sphere. That's all background. There is an antidote for these three things, the hardened heart, the airing heart, and the unbelieving heart, and it's found right here in these next seven verses. Let us therefore, and that links us you'll remember with what's gone before, here is the history of Israel's failures and sin, and we read them and because of them We are to fear. Here it comes again. That word fear. There are several words that are translated fear. But you know what this one means? It means terror. Be terrified. Can you imagine that? Let us therefore be terrified. Lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. God has given to us a promise, as he gave to Israel. They failed of that promise, and their carcasses fell in the wilderness. That promise has been uttered to us. Be terrified, lest you fall short of it, the writer says. Lest you lose the opportunity of peace and rest. of the kind that causes you to walk moment by moment and hour by hour with God. Rest that comes of an intimacy with God. Rest that comes of a pleasing God constantly. Be terrified lest you come short of that rest. It's the word phobos. Now you've heard of... clostrophobia, haven't you? Now, I understand that those who suffer from claustrophobia, when they find themselves in a confined space, are absolutely panicked. They are terrified. And that's the thought here. We ought to so prize the rest of God that brings all of God's blessing into our lives with it. We ought to be terrified in that fashion of missing it. It's rather a challenging thought, isn't it? Because we have an idea, well, you know, if something comes into my life that isn't quite right, I ought to be upset about it. We speak about being convicted about these things. We speak about being unhappy and disturbed and conscience-stricken. The Bible says you should be terrified. Let us, therefore, fear, lest that promise which has been left to us any other should seem to come short of it. It goes on to say, we have the message. We must mix it with faith, and we must enjoy His rest. Now, in verse three, His rest is a word... Now where am I here? Well, you have his rest in verse one, and that means a complete rest. Not the kind of rest that you have when you've got something on your mind, and you lie in bed sleeping, and you toss this way, and you toss the other way, and then you toss back again, and anybody who's scientifically examining your sleep sees that your eyeballs roll around and Certain things happen to you, and although you're sleeping, you're not resting. Now this means his rest is a complete rest. And then when you come down into verse eight, which is actually not in the insertion, but it follows upon it, that is a, that is also a complete rest, another word. But then when we come to verse nine, where it speaks about a rest to the people of God, That is a sabbatical rest. And that, of course, is where we pick up from verse six. If we hold fast the confidence and rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end, there remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. This then is the bracket. This then is the parenthesis. This is the insertion. Let us fear. And it means... Let us be terrified. You know, we have to be very, very sensitive if we're going to be terrified. We have to be very, very much abandoned to these things if the thought of losing them brings terror to our hearts. And we ought not to be content until our hold upon these things is just that kind of hold. that would make us terrified, lest we lose any of it. Shall we pray? Our Father, we thank thee again for these two exhortations that belong so closely together. Therefore he, lest we let things slip. Therefore fear. lest we fail fall short of the promise. We want to hear this second ringing of the bell, Lord Jesus. We want to hear and to heed these warnings. We admit to thee in some small sense, we do recognize that it doesn't always happen just to somebody else. The devil is very, very anxious to rub us of the things that are our precious. And he is very, very anxious to bring sorrow to thy heart by our straying. Forbid that it should happen. We pray, seeking thy glory, Lord Jesus, and praying in thy name. Amen.