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[0:00] Well, this evening we're going to make every effort to cover seven very important verses of inspired scripture.

[0:23] ! These are crucial to our understanding of the great book of Hebrews. And our understanding of the new covenant. I know that several of you are rather new to the class and you didn't have benefit of the study last year.

[0:44] It was actually this year, but up till May. This church was somewhere outside of Israel made up of converts to Christianity out of Judaism.

[0:58] So we have all these references to the Hebrews and the author takes us back into the Old Testament and Numbers and Leviticus and Deuteronomy and things.

[1:09] It's a great, great book. Let's look at chapter 10. I'm going to read verses 19 to 25.

[1:20] Verse 19. Verse 19. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that He opened for us through the curtain, that is, through His flesh, and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.

[2:04] Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more, as you see the day drawing near.

[2:36] Your version may say, as you see the day approaching. I think an appropriate subtitle to this portion of Scripture would be drawing near.

[2:49] Once a person hears a clear presentation of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, they find themselves at a crossroads.

[3:05] Anyone who knows the gospel, or has at least a rudimentary understanding of the truth, of the good news, and by the way, that's what the word gospel means, good news, will eventually have to do something with that knowledge.

[3:26] Hence I employ the term crossroads. They may embrace the truth of the gospel unto salvation, which leads, of course, to eternal life with the triune God.

[3:48] The gospel is the narrow way spoken of in God's word that leads to salvation.

[4:00] Now sadly, many people who hear the gospel reject the same and they come up with a multitude of reasons. And in so rejecting, that person continues his or her journey on what the Bible describes as the broad way or the broad road.

[4:26] And that road leads to destruction. And the word destruction is figurative and if we're not careful, conjures up an image of annihilation.

[4:41] Meaning ceasing to exist. Nowhere does the Bible teach that about people in hell. That one day they'll just cease to exist.

[4:55] They'll be annihilated. Their atomic structure will disintegrate and they'll be gone. It's not taught in Scripture. They do live there, I believe.

[5:08] And I think all alone in utter darkness. And I've said many times before when they've been there a billion millennia as we measure time today, they will not have reduced by one second the amount of time they have to spend there.

[5:29] And actually with that explanation, annihilation sounds much better. But it's not going to happen based on our understanding of Scripture. So the Gospel leads us to two paths.

[5:43] Either that person will embrace the truth and the facts of the Gospel and believe them to be true, commit their lives to Christ, spend eternity with Him in Heaven, or that person having heard the Gospel will reject it, fall back into unbelief or a state of apostasy, and ultimately spend eternity in hell.

[6:18] there's no middle path. There's no middle road. Now the Church of Rome struggled to come up with a middle road. They came up with a system that makes them feel a whole lot better.

[6:38] The Roman Catholics speak of a place called Purgatory. And in their theology, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Purgatory is a belief that all who die in God's grace and friendship, this is their words, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation, but after death they undergo purification.

[7:11] salvation so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of Heaven.

[7:22] The Catholic Encyclopedia is also informative, teaching that it is a place or condition of temporal punishment for those who, departing this life in God's grace, are not yet free from faults or have not fully paid the satisfaction due to their transgression.

[7:49] But our Catholic friends have a very serious problem on their hands. The word Purgatory is nowhere to be found in the Holy Bible.

[8:04] It's not in there. The belief in a place called Purgatory is completely void of any doctrinal support and it did not come from God.

[8:16] where they will purge themselves of any remaining sin and finally achieve a level of holiness fitting them for Heaven after a time and maybe a lengthy time in Purgatory is a figment of human imagination.

[8:39] Only faith in the shed blood of Jesus and not time in a so-called Purgatory purifies us from sin.

[8:51] You may remember when Luther was alive except for Auster, none of you remember Luther personally, but you might remember that the Catholic Church was big on selling indulgences and that was a way to buy your relatives out of Purgatory.

[9:10] Make a sizable donation and you could purchase them. It became a cash cow. So to speak. In our passage today we will learn about the person that embraces truth as it pertains to the claims of the Lord Jesus Christ.

[9:31] The result of their faith is salvation provided by a God of grace and mercy and undeserved favor. prayer. Well, the first thing I want to talk about this evening is this draw near or draw near in faith.

[9:50] We are both commanded and privileged to draw near to God in faith. In fact, the only basis by which we can draw near to God is faith.

[10:06] But that, of course, begs a question, an important question. Faith in what? Well, we know it is faith in the finished work of Christ on Calvary.

[10:19] And I said above it is faith in the shed blood of Christ on the tree in Calvary. And that speaks of His atoning sacrifice.

[10:34] In our passage, we again come face to face with the holy place. And I'll remind you that this was a place where the earthly high priest functioned.

[10:48] And he operated in there one day a year to atone for the sins of the Hebrew people in the Hebrew nation.

[11:01] The earthly high priest would enter into the holy place once a year on the day of atonement called Yom Kippur.

[11:12] There he offered sacrifices, first for himself, because he had to be cleansed. Then for his family, they had to be cleansed.

[11:26] And then for the Hebrew nation. But on the basis of Christ and His atoning work on the cross, we can enter into the holy place with confidence or with boldness.

[11:43] Same Greek word. We studied that last time. We can enter in with confidence, full confidence. And there we come into the presence of our holy, heavenly Father.

[11:58] One of the great verses also found in the book of Hebrews, which we've already covered months ago, is found in chapter 4, verse 16. Let us then with confidence or boldness draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and grace that we may receive mercy and grace to help us in time of need.

[12:26] The Greek word confidence used there in the original text is parhisia. The word translates confidence, boldness, and with assurance. True believers may approach God on the throne in this manner.

[12:43] We can approach Him in this manner. In our passage, we see the word brethren. Usually that refers to Christian brothers and sisters.

[12:57] We still use that word. In context, I believe it is referring in this book here to the Jewish members of the church. To the Jewish members of this congregation, some of whom were saved and some not.

[13:11] They were under conviction. They were hanging around. They were hearing the gospel. The writer continues to urge his brethren to come to Christ where they will find the peace of salvation and the boldness to enter into God's presence.

[13:30] Now, I'm sure the Jews had to get some getting used to that because you didn't do that in the Jewish nation. They had a few examples of guys that did that like Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, who were consumed.

[13:43] Was it Uzziah that reached out to study the ark? I get those two confused. But the ark was going to fall in the mud and he reached out and touched it and died instantly.

[13:58] So they had a little history with that and it wasn't a pretty one. But the concept in the Jewish mind of coming into the presence of God was revolutionary.

[14:13] Absolutely revolutionary. But through Jesus, we now have a new and living way of access to God.

[14:29] We enter through, the ESV puts it, the curtain, other versions, the veil. Now, what is the curtain?

[14:41] Well, it is literally, as used here, the torn flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the veil spoken of.

[14:53] It's His torn flesh. And we remember something, don't we? When Christ's flesh was torn on the cross, God also tore the veil or the curtain in the temple just up the hill or down the hill, I guess we should say.

[15:17] And this was the veil used in the temple that separated the people from the Holy of Holies. And we know that it was torn by God because it was torn from top to bottom.

[15:33] And it opened up the way with full access to God. And no doubt scared the people that were in there working to death because now they're looking into the very Holy of Holies, into the Ark of the Covenant.

[15:51] That was the place where God lived. They had to assume they were all going to be dead within a matter of moments. Now the curtain was used for centuries to protect people from entering into the presence of God in an unholy manner and being instantly killed.

[16:16] Well, what a change when Christ came. Now, men have direct access to God the Father through Christ the Son by which they can enter in and receive mercy and grace in their time of need.

[16:38] And when do we not have a time of need for mercy and grace? If you ever come up with a time, please let me, clue me in on that. We're in need of continual mercy and grace.

[16:50] Always. We not only enter based upon the needs of the moment, we enter in permanently.

[17:03] True believers walk around with the Holy of Holies inside them, the indwelling Holy Spirit. So we have the Holy of Holies in the form of the Holy Spirit in us.

[17:19] I've said this many times that the Greek language was much more expressive than English or for that matter in the other human languages. The word new here is used only this one time in the New Testament.

[17:34] And it's very interesting. It means freshly slaughtered. What an interesting word. How expressive is that?

[17:46] Jesus is the new way, the freshly slaughtered sacrifice by which we can enter into the presence of God.

[17:58] It seems contradictory that the only living way that exists is through something that had been slaughtered.

[18:10] Nevertheless, that's true. That's reality. But His death is the only access we have to life. And not just life, but everlasting life.

[18:25] You gain eternal life through the death of the perfect Savior. And it is true that Jesus opened the way for men and women.

[18:39] Sinful men and women. That's all He had to work with. Still is. And through Jesus they gain access to the Father.

[18:52] But the Scriptures teach that Jesus now serves as our great high priest over the house of God. He's seated at the right hand of the Father serving there as the great priest over the house of God.

[19:11] Now beyond just showing us the way to God or opening the way to God, Jesus takes us with Him into the very presence of God.

[19:24] That's amazing. And again, the Jews in this congregation are probably sitting on the edge of their seat with their mouths hanging open. I don't know if some of them just got up and left about that time. They said they didn't want any part of this.

[19:37] Again, verse 22, let us draw near water with a true heart with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

[19:50] heart. The ESV uses that word true heart. Other translations use the word sincere heart. It really means something that's genuine.

[20:04] It is devoid of hypocrisy. It has no ulterior motives. beliefs. We can have full assurance of our faith if we've met the condition of a true and sincere heart.

[20:19] heart. And there are many examples in the Bible of people who came to God without such a heart. We all remember Simon the magician.

[20:34] He wasn't a very good man. I don't think he was a very good magician. I mean, he wasn't David Blaine. Anyway, I'd like to talk to David someday. We remember Simon the magician who made a profession of faith in Christ, but with a corrupt motive and a corrupt heart.

[20:54] He wanted the power of the Holy Spirit because he thought he could make a bunch of money. He wanted to use Christ's name to attain power and financial gain for his own selfishness.

[21:10] And I'm glad we don't have any of that in our day with some of the more outlandish people we see on television. Peter had this to say to Simon the magician in the book of Acts.

[21:24] Peter was never at a loss to speak out. You have no part or portion in this matter for your heart is not right before God.

[21:37] I've always appreciated Peter like it is. every human operates under a certain type of faith. When we take food into our mouths and we've done a lot of that tonight we have a certain amount of faith that it's not going to kill us.

[21:57] We have faith that those chairs are going to hold you up. But faith in Christ is from another dimension. we like to say I've decided to follow Jesus.

[22:12] Well, there's a small kernel of truth in that statement. But that decision to follow Jesus proceeded, maybe I could use the word preceded, from God who equipped us to follow His Son.

[22:33] In John's Gospel chapter 6 the Lord said this, to a big crowd, I mean a large crowd, and a crowd that really liked Jesus because He fed them.

[22:44] They were hungry and He created food basically out of nothing. And they're hanging around because they're getting hungry again. And He says to this big crowd, no one can come to Me unless it is granted him by My Father.

[23:04] No one can come to Me unless the Father allows you. Well, they didn't like that at all. In fact, they said it's a hard saying.

[23:17] And then perhaps the saddest verse in Scripture, John 6 verse 66, after this, after Jesus said those words, many of His disciples turned back and no longer walked with Him.

[23:40] They left. They walked away from eternal life. And they left. That word many there means a whole bunch.

[23:54] Probably the vast majority because He then turns to His real disciples with the exception of Judas who was fake. And He basically says, are you going to leave too?

[24:09] And they said, no, you have the words of eternal life. We're not about to leave. So where does salvation come from? Here's what Paul says.

[24:21] It comes from faith. The great apostle. Paul said this, for grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God.

[24:37] It's not of works lest anyone should boast. Can you imagine if it was works, our works? People would be bragging. I did a greater work than you did.

[24:50] Well, maybe so, but my father and mother did a greater work than you ever thought of. You know, that's, I just can't even imagine. Salvation is the gift of God down to the faith that it takes for us to believe.

[25:08] God gives a great gift to those who are dead in trespasses and sins. He gives us the desire to believe, the ability to believe, and the grace to receive the gift of salvation.

[25:31] When all of this happens, Hebrews 10 22 tells us that we are sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

[25:45] And this language would have been very clear to the Hebrew audience that this book is directed at. It is taken from the Old Testament sacrificial system.

[26:01] They may have been washing themselves or sacred vessels. If you read basically the first five books of the Old Testament, the Jewish people were always washing something.

[26:13] They spent their whole life washing things. But only Jesus can cleanse a man's heart. No one else. Jesus operates on the internal by cleaning our hearts inside us, our consciousness down to our thoughts, our desires, and even our subconscious.

[26:45] You might be sitting there saying, yeah, but you don't know me. No, maybe I don't, but I know me. And I need cleansing every moment of every day. John MacArthur tells us that in Christ we have both positional satisfaction and practical sanctification.

[27:06] Now, what are those? Well, the first thing I'll tackle is positional satisfaction. in our passage tonight in Hebrews, it has been revealed that our hearts are sprinkled clean from an evil conscience.

[27:21] That draws a beautiful picture of deliverance. Conscience condemns us. God gave us a conscience for that reason, to convict us.

[27:35] it reminds us of our guilt before a holy God. The only way the guilt can be removed is if the sin is removed.

[27:52] Well, how can I remove the sins? That's what the blood of Christ does. Jesus did that through His atoning sacrifice on the cross.

[28:02] The cleansing noted here satisfies completely God's justice and it satisfies His wrath toward us as sinners.

[28:17] God sees the blood of His dear Son and is completely satisfied with the sacrifice that has been offered one time forever.

[28:30] forever. And that's what Christ offered. And we also know from reading the Scriptures that God was never satisfied with the blood of bulls and goats as a permanent sin offering.

[28:49] But God is completely satisfied with the blood of His dear Son. That is positional satisfaction being spoken of.

[29:04] But positional satisfaction is just part of the story. That leads to practical sanctification. Once we are saved by justification and some of you remember we studied all that for months, for two years, called Salvation God's Way and we still have those copies up there in the file cabinet.

[29:25] once we are saved by justification we enter into a life of sanctification. Okay, what's that? That is a process directed by the triune God whereby!

[29:40] He recreates us into the image of His dear Son. It's a process of recreation into the image of His Son. The other part of the cleansing spoken here is having our bodies washed with pure water.

[29:55] Now that is not water baptism. Although there are a bunch of denominations including one I grew up in that tried to make claims that that was baptism and their whole bent was just get them in the water.

[30:09] Get them in the water. Dip them. Just dip them. This is actually a reference to Holy Spirit led, energized living.

[30:22] Paul mentions this at least twice in His writings. Titus 3 5, He saved us not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.

[30:48] Spirit. And then Paul also wrote in Ephesians chapter 5 verses 25 and 26, he kind of meddles here, Husband, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word.

[31:18] When I was a newlywed and new believer, and Diane was a new believer and a newlywed with me, we were reading our Bible one night laying in bed, and I said, wow, listen to this, wives obey your husbands.

[31:34] And she said, that's not in there. I said, yeah, it is, I just read it. She said, give me that book. I said, no. She said, give me that. She grabbed it out of my hand. And it said that, of course.

[31:46] And she said, oh my goodness. And then she says, wait a minute, look at these next two verses. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church. She said, I'll make you a deal.

[31:59] When you're like Christ, I'll obey you. We're still striving for that. We haven't arrived yet. Two things happened at true conversion.

[32:14] The atoning sacrifice pays the penalty of sin that each one of us brothers owes to God. We owe a debt we can't pay.

[32:30] We can't pay that debt. But the atoning sacrifice pays that debt, the penalty of sin. at conversion, the work of the Holy Spirit begins to change us on the inside.

[32:47] And again, the Father is satisfied. Neither God's justice nor His righteousness are violated when Christ atones for one of His own.

[32:59] And that is why a true believer can come into God's holy presence boldly and with confidence. The motivating factor in all this is faith.

[33:10] And it's just not any faith. It's the faith that God desires and the faith that God honors. are there requirements for obtaining and living a life of acceptable faith?

[33:22] Yes. Talk about three of them. First of all, we need to recognize our need.

[33:35] We all need this kind of faith. Faith will never come to a man or a woman unless they recognize, I have a need for salvation.

[33:45] salvation. I need to be saved. I remember the Baptist church up north that bragged about a method, and I read about this, but don't worry, they were an independent Baptist church, not Southern Baptist.

[33:59] A big one, though, one of the biggest independent Baptist churches. And the pastor was bragging about it. He'd come up with a method of presenting the gospel by which he could trick a person into receiving Christ.

[34:19] He actually was, I'm reading his words. And I'll tell you how he did it. I don't have that in my notes. He always had a lunch for downtown businessmen.

[34:30] Their church was located downtown. They had a big, huge lunch for them. And then once they ate, you know, they were lethargic.

[34:43] I mean, after I ate a big, I'm surprised I'm not taking a nap now. I mean, I take naps. And these guys would get kind of just, you know, they started zoning out and he would get them into praying the sinner's prayer.

[35:00] And they wouldn't even know what they were doing. Mark this down, my brothers. That method will only produce false converts.

[35:12] who will one day go down in hell thinking, but I got saved. I remember right after that big lunch, Saul, we'll call him Paul in heaven, was on the road to Damascus, and he had a great need of salvation, didn't he?

[35:36] he'd even participated in the killing of brothers in Christ. Probably a bunch, but certainly one we know of, Stephen.

[35:49] But he neither recognized nor felt that need. And then he comes into direct contact with Christ, who dramatically confronted Paul, and he realized he was a lost man, and had a great need that he couldn't fulfill, and that was salvation God's way.

[36:18] He didn't have a complete understanding of his need, but he knew on that road, even though now he's temporarily blind, that his answer was God found only in a relationship in and with the Lord Jesus Christ.

[36:40] Now recognizing our need and acting on it does not require a deep grasp of theological knowledge. You don't have to run out here and get a master's degree, it wouldn't hurt, but you don't have to.

[36:55] That's why we see children come. We see children come. I've got a little granddaughter in Branson that's five years old. That's pretty young.

[37:07] And Diana and I, nor her parents are encouraging her, but she knows more about the Bible than we do. And she wants to sit, she doesn't want to play with dolls, she wants to sit and talk about the Lord, about Jesus.

[37:21] It's amazing. But a child can come. One reason a child can come, it takes a sincere heart. who's got a heart more sincere than a child.

[37:36] A person can have a perfect theological grasp of things, but unless he recognizes his need, he will be forever lost. Second, content.

[37:49] No one, when they are saved, has a full comprehension of God's salvation. In fact, I'll carry it a step further.

[38:03] No one ever has a full comprehension of God's salvation in this life. I have to wonder if we're going to have in the next life, full.

[38:15] We'll see. But you do not need to be a theological giant to receive Christ. you do need to understand, like we all do, that we're lost sinners, that the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners.

[38:36] You must also understand that apart from Christ there is no salvation. I've heard many try and claim that there are many paths to God of which Christ is but one.

[38:48] Then they go forward by justifying a Christless cult or one of the many false religions that are spread out throughout the world. And this is all damning. There is no other name under heaven by which we can be saved but the Lord Jesus Christ.

[39:09] God does provide the information necessary for His children to be saved. In our study of the book of Hebrews, we have seen truth piled on top of truth.

[39:23] The writer has presented Jesus as the long awaited Messiah. That would mean something to that Hebrew congregation. He has explained the superiority of the new covenant over the old covenant.

[39:39] He has told his congregation that the Old Testament sacrifices were temporary and ineffective to bring one to God. With a lot of friends back in those days, if you told the Jews, hey, all these animal sacrifices are ineffective.

[39:57] In fact, you'd probably get stoned to death. These were but pictures, snapshots or shadows of the great and eternal sacrifice found only in Christ Jesus.

[40:11] my late uncle Bruce, Mike knew him, was one of my heroes. He was a combat marine in World War II. He served for decades as a member of the Gideons.

[40:25] These are the guys that put the Bibles in hotel rooms. He was, for several years, the president of Gideons in Arizona, which means he was a vice president on the national level.

[40:37] and they had wonderful stories of men and women getting saved in a hotel room by reading a Gideon Bible that had been placed there by the Gideons and bought by churches through donations to the Gideons.

[40:57] They got in that hotel room and they felt a need. They picked up the Bible, read it, looked at the truth, and the evidence gave their hearts to Jesus.

[41:11] And the Gideons have on file lots of notes about people getting saved through the Gideon Bible in a hotel room and many of them were so desperate they went there and were planning their own suicide.

[41:28] They didn't plan on walking out of that room alive. And then commitment. The very climax of faith is commitment. Many have professed Christ without making a commitment to Him.

[41:46] These are the ones whose seed fell on the rocks or the bad soil. Remember those? They did not spring forth unto salvation. The very word believe in the Greek language, pastuo, means to trust and commit your life.

[42:06] That's a higher standard, isn't it? Believe in the English language is a little watered down. I mean, it just is. John Patton, the great missionary to the South Sea cannibals, and I've read his biography, it's tremendous.

[42:25] He was translating the Bible. He'd gone to the South Sea islands where there were cannibals. His wife and son, his wife died during childbirth, and the child died.

[42:39] I'll tell you how bad it was. Patton had to bury them, and he had to sleep on their graves for 30 days to keep those guys from digging them up and making stew out of them.

[42:51] After 30 days, they wouldn't touch a body, but he slept on his wife and son's grave. Now he's busy translating the Bible into the tribal language of that area.

[43:07] And he discovered he didn't have a word for faith that he could plug into a translation. And one day, a man in that island culture that had befriended him walked in, and flopped down in a chair.

[43:25] Patton asked him, why did you do that? And in his native tongue, he said, the man said, I did that because I trusted the chair. He used that language, and that's the word Patton used in his translation.

[43:40] And the cannibals understood that in their language. And then we must hold fast in hope. And now we're moving on in tonight's study even deeper into Hebrews chapter 10 verse 23.

[43:57] Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promises faithful. Hope is the word used in the New Testament to describe a true believer.

[44:12] But let me tell you something, guys. The hope spoken of here is settled. it's a settled hope when you see it in the Bible.

[44:23] It's going to happen. It's not something we're wishing on a star. It is based upon the confidence we have in the promises of God.

[44:37] A person who generally trusts in Christ cannot help but be hopeful. A hopeless Christian is a contradiction in terms.

[44:48] We are commanded to hold fast to this hope because it is based upon the atoning sacrifice of Christ. Hope is the evidence that we've been saved.

[45:01] We take God at His word. I have a wonderful hope about the future because I've read the end of the book. I know how it's going to come out. Allow me to insert a caution here.

[45:12] We believe and the Bible teaches we are eternally secure in Christ. The Reformers called that the perseverance of the saints. But eternal security does not mean you can go out, live any way you want to, commit any sin you want to, that your heart so desires.

[45:31] That's called antinomianism, meaning against the moral law of God. When we are committed to hold fast, our confession, we come face to face with the human side of eternal security.

[45:47] The very strongest reform or Calvinistic believer will tell you that nothing in God's sovereignty, including in our salvation, negates or excludes human responsibility.

[46:01] Spurgeon preached a great sermon on that. You can look it up. Let me use a human story here to explain God's sovereignty. humanity. The story is told of a father who placed his son on a bench in a downtown area.

[46:17] We wouldn't do that today, but he did back then, and said, wait right here, I'll be back in 30 minutes. Well, his car broke down, and it took him five hours to work his way back to his son.

[46:34] When he got there, he ran up and hugged his son and apologized, and he asked the boy, were you afraid? And the boy said, Dad, I wasn't afraid for one second. The father said, why?

[46:48] He said, because I knew you were going to return to get me, because you said you would. He said, I had, probably didn't use the word confidence, but he said, I had every confidence you would.

[46:59] You promised me you would. The boy had full faith that his father would keep his promise, and come back for him. The reason we hold fast to our hope is because he who has given us great promises is faithful.

[47:16] He's going to keep every promise. And by the way, one of those is that Jesus is coming back for us one day. Now, don't just sit on a bench and wait. Get out and work.

[47:30] And we need to encourage and love and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near.

[47:51] The third mark of a positive response to the gospel is love. The love mentioned here is fellowship love that is found in the church. love of the brethren is much stronger than love for rituals and sacrifices.

[48:09] And that is why joining a Bible believing, Bible teaching church is so important. There is no better place to build your faith than in the Lord's church, which is His body and Christ is the head.

[48:25] So Christ has opened the door of access to the Father. it is open to people who have faith, hope, and love and want to enjoy the presence of God forever.

[48:37] But we are commanded to build one another up in love and in good deeds and in the practice of assembling together and especially of encouraging one another.

[48:47] Be an encourager. The passage tells us to do all that all the more as we see the day drawing near.

[48:59] What day is that? I think we have to conclude that's the day of the return of Christ. As we see that day drawing near, and I don't know, brothers, I see it drawing near.

[49:13] I mean, I'm being serious. We may be fortunate if we get to meet next Monday. Or actually unfortunate. It would be better to be with the Lord. Lord. Lord. there's only one place to remain steadfast as we await the return of Christ for His church, and that's to be among His people, which are found in the church.

[49:43] In our day, we need each other because we have entered into very difficult days. When you look at the church globally, and when you look at the church across America, these are difficult days.

[50:02] Apostasy is sweeping across the American church and the American landscape. That means they have a church that has basically rejected Christ as the only way to God.

[50:19] Now, interesting something here, not by my design, but that's where we're going to study in our Hebrew study next week. Apostasy that is sweeping our nation.

[50:34] It just worked out that way. It just worked out that way. Let's pray, brothers. Thank you, Father, for your grace, your mercy, the peace we have with the Lord Jesus Christ, and the hope we have in Him, the settled hope that is going to happen.

[50:53] Jesus said it. That settles it. We look forward, Lord, one day sitting at your feet in glory and hearing these words.

[51:09] Thank you, Lord, for what you're doing in this church with these men, with their families. we ask you, Lord, to continue to bless us.

[51:20]  In the blessed name of Jesus, Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.