(silence) By now, my guess is that many of you, if not most of you, have heard about what happened to a very famous pastor that wrote a book when he was young, became an international bestseller, and he's been a very influential pastor since he was in his early 20s, and he's publicly come out and denounced his faith.

And he says that he's separating from his wife, and he's no longer a Christian. He's walking away from his faith. Now, if you are a young Christian, you may have never seen that before. And say, "What? Somebody at that level, who was that influential, could just walk away from his faith?

And so, if that can happen to him, could that not happen to me? Could that not happen to you?" And that is a natural question that we should be asking. And the warning that we are given in the Scripture, in Hebrews, is that exact warning. No one is exempt from that.

The next question that may come from that is, if somebody like him can fall, and just come out and just publicly denounce his faith, can a Christian who seemed like he was a genuine Christian just walk away from his faith? So, is he really saved? Can a Christian lose his salvation?

And let me make that absolutely crystal clear. The Scripture is not ambiguous about that. It is not ambiguous about that. I don't care who tells you what book you've read. The Scripture is absolutely crystal clear about that. We did not earn our salvation, so you cannot lose your salvation.

That is clear. Now, if you hear that, some non-Christians, and maybe very, very young Christians may hear that, "Well, then I don't need to really hold fast. I don't need to work hard. What's the point of being diligent? What's the point of fearing if the point of the Gospel message is, 'You didn't do anything, so you don't have to do anything, and you're going to persevere.'" That is not what the Scripture says.

In fact, the text that we're looking at is warning us not to drift. It says that we ought to fear so we do not fall short of the rest that is promised in Christ. That we need to be diligent to enter this rest. And today it says we need to hold fast to the promises that we've been giving.

And then next week we'll be talking about, "Let us therefore draw near." So, the command not to drift is coupled with, "Let us." This is what we ought to do, and to do it with all our might. Then how do we reconcile this with the question of, if you're genuinely saved, that you can never truly lose your salvation?

You can be stretched. You can walk away. You may, for a period, be dry in your faith, but you can never lose your salvation. The reason why you can never lose your salvation is because you can't have your eyes opened and then have it shut by your will. Meaning, I can't look at the truth and then, because of my struggles, and all of a sudden say, "You know, I'm just going to close my eyes to this truth." If you are a genuine believer, and God opened your eyes, and you saw and experienced the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ, you can't one day, just because it's hard, say, "You know what?

I'm going to pretend like I never saw that. I'm going to pretend that I never heard that. I'm going to pretend that I don't believe this." If an individual is capable of losing his salvation, you would have lost it already. Let me make that very clear. If you are capable of losing your salvation, you would have lost it already.

Think about how many times, if you've been a Christian for more than a few years, that you've drifted away from God. You may have been discouraged, something tragic may have happened, or you just kind of drifted so far away that you could have seen yourself, if you kept on going down that path, to have just said, "You know what?

Maybe I don't believe." If you've been a Christian for any period of time, you could probably think of one, two, or maybe several times in your life. If you've been a Christian for more than 5, 10 years, several times in your life, you say, "You know what? I didn't live like a Christian at that time.

I could have easily seen myself drift out and just fall away." So my question is, what caused you to stay? What caused you to stay? What caused you to say, "This is not the right path, that I need to get back on the right path." Was it sheer will?

Was it because you were more moral than other people? Was it stronger discipline? No, in the end, God opened your eyes, and you couldn't deny what you believe. If you're not a believer, and you begin to drift away from God, you feel perfectly fine going that direction. You feel perfectly fine.

In fact, you're drifting toward where you feel the most comfortable. So there is no fear. So when you hear this warning today, if you hear His voice, "Do not harden your heart," because there's no faith in you, it doesn't incite any kind of fear or warning. I'm just headed down that path, and I feel comfortable.

So you just kind of grab on to any loose theology, "One saved, always saved," and that's enough. It's not because you genuinely believe it. Christianity, all it is, is a security blanket, and that's all you need. Because it's not real. It's not about the truth. It's not about glorifying God.

It's just, "I just want to make sure that I just want to have insurance." If you're not a believer, you will drift. And the warnings that you hear in the book of Hebrews, you'll hear it, you'll remember it, but it's not going to cause you to turn. Because you feel very comfortable where you're drifting to.

So whether that happens in a single day when you publicly denounce and say, "I don't believe this," or whether that happens in years and years and years of just drifting, and your heart has become so cold that none of the word of God makes any sense. But if you are a believer, no matter how far you have drifted, when the word of God is taught and is warned, it causes you to say, "Oh, shoot, this is not who I am.

This is not where I belong." And it causes a fear, a sense of reverence toward the things that you hear. A sense of urgency is incited in us when the word of God is taught because it judges the thoughts and intentions of our heart, and then it challenges us in the previous passage.

So if you hear His voice and you do not harden your heart, let us be diligent. And that's the next step. That we need to be diligent. It's not enough for us to be convicted. It is not enough for us to say, "You know what? I believe this truth, and I'm headed down the wrong path." And then go Monday through Saturday, do the exact same thing.

Right? You've probably heard that cliche that insanity is doing the same thing all the time and expecting a different outcome. That's proof of unbelief, that you feel guilty and I ought to do this, but there is absolutely no change, there is no diligence that the word of God incites.

The text that we're looking at today challenges us in the third "Let Us" statement. If you hear the word of God and you've been drifting, it says, "Let us fear." And if you have this reverence and there's a sense of urgency that is sparked in you, then let us be diligent.

And if you are committed to be diligent, he says, "Let us then hold fast to the confession that we have heard." There is a difference between somebody who is just confessing versus somebody who is holding fast. We see that difference in Revelation 3, 1-3, this rebuke to the church of Sardis.

"He who has seven spirits of God and the seven stars says this, 'I know your deeds, but that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. Wake up and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die, for I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of my God.

So remember what you have received and heard and keep it and repent. Therefore, if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief and you will not know at what hour I will come to you." If you're not a believer, there is nothing to keep. There is nothing to hold fast.

If all that we have is a facade, if all we've been doing is jumping through the hoops so that we can feel like we are part of this community, you can only keep and you can only hold fast if something was already given to you. And so, therefore, he's talking to the church.

He says, "Remember, if you have received this confession and you genuinely believe it," he says, "to hold fast." Why do we need to hold fast? Why is this so urgent? Well, he says in the previous passages, in Hebrews 3.6, "Christ was faithful as a son over his house, whose house we are." In other words, we are his children, "if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end." If we hold fast.

It is not enough to have confessed it 10 years ago, five years ago, or a year ago, to publicly confess it in our baptism and say, "This is what Christ did to me. That was my confession." But he says, "Perseverance in our faith is the proof that you have genuine salvation." That's why he says to hold fast.

If God opened your eyes and you've genuinely seen the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ, you met the risen Savior, he says to hold fast. Hebrews 3.14, "For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end." In case anybody is sitting here thinking, "One saved, always saved, so therefore I just need to relax and just kind of coast along," right?

That's a mindset of an unbeliever. That's a mindset of somebody who hears this truth and is just drifting, and they're perfectly fine with this drifting because I got this ticket. So no matter how far I go, as long as I have this ticket, I'm fine. That's not the language of the New Testament.

New Testament constantly warns us and challenges us. If you know Christ, you must hold fast. 1 Corinthians 15.1-2, "Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preach to you, which also you received and which you also stand, by which you also are saved. If you hold fast the word which I preach to you, unless you believed in vain." There's a difference between somebody who confesses and somebody who holds fast.

That's a difference that is made in the book of James, of a confession of a demon. You say that you believe that there's one God. Great. Even the demons believe that, and they shudder, and they are in fear. Demons have greater faith than most people because they believe that he's one God, but it is not saving faith because there's no fruit that comes out of that.

They don't hold fast, and that's the distinction he's making here. If you have confessed it, you must hold fast. But there's a second reason why he says to hold fast, not simply because it is the proof of our genuine salvation, but because he has already made it possible. In verse 14, it says, "Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast." So the reason why we need to hold fast is because Jesus has gone through the heavens.

One of the questions that I asked, right, if you were on Facebook, and I gave a question last night in preparation for today, why is it, "Therefore, therefore," right, in verse 14? So, "Therefore," in verse 14, obviously connects us to what he was saying in verse 13. So in verse 12, he says, "You know that famous passage, 'The Word of God is living and active,' and then at the end, 'Judge the thoughts and intentions of our heart,'" and then it ends in verse 13.

And how you receive verse 13 really depends on where you are in your walk with God right now. In verse 13, it says, "And there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do." In other words, God is completely sovereign.

You can't hide things from God. You can hide things from your wife, from your children, from your pastors, from your neighbors, but in the presence of God, we're completely bare. There's no thought that you have. There's nowhere that you can go. No matter how long it's been, there is no depth that you can hide in where God does not already know.

We could even fool ourselves, but God cannot be fooled. Now, when you hear that, and you are an unbeliever who has been drifting away from God, and you don't want to hear it, I like where I am, and I don't want to be disturbed. I just want encouragement to know that God sees through all the outside facade, all the presentations of our goodness, all the religiousness that we present to everybody else every single Sunday.

If that's where we are, what a suffocating passage, to know that there is no escape. See, but verse 13 is connected to verse 14 because he says, "Though the word of God finds us and convicts us, and we cannot hide." It doesn't matter what you say. It doesn't matter what your wife says.

God knows. He cuts through all of that, and there's nowhere you can hide. But to an individual who is convicted, who's trying to be diligent, who's trying to get back on the right track, this passage is a source of great encouragement. Because this passage reminds us that no matter where you go, no matter what you have done, God is able to reach you.

Even when you try to run from God, there is no height, there's no depth that you can go where God is not already there. There is no thought. There's nothing that you could have said. There's nothing that you could have done that God was not already there. So if you're a man or a woman running from God, this is a suffocating passage.

But if you're an individual who's struggling, and you can easily see yourself, I could have done it. If we were able to run from God, you would have done this already. And if you've been a Christian for any number of years, you know. You don't need to listen to me.

You know yourself. You know your sins better than anybody else. If God left that up to you, and it was simply of your own will, we would have all denied Him already and walked away. See, the way that verse 13 is connected to verse 14, after telling us this suffocating passage, he says, "Therefore, since God is everywhere, since you can't run from God, since you can't hide from God, therefore, since we have this great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, this great high priest, let us hold fast our confession." God is not telling us to do anything that God has not already done to us.

In Philippians 3, 12 through 14, "Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold by Christ Jesus." I'm striving after the very thing that He already gave me.

Do you notice that? "Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." I am straining toward the call which He already gave me.

So, a believer is someone who is living out and pursuing what God has already given him. That's a genuine believer because our eyes have become open. You have tasted the goodness of God, and there's no other taste that can replace it. So, if your eyes have been genuinely open, you can't run from God.

You can't just one day choose to say, "You know what? I'm just going to close my eyes and pretend like I never saw that. Pretend like I never met God, and I'm just going to live like an unbeliever." Only an unbeliever can continue to live like an unbeliever. Once your eyes have been open, you can't shed it.

That's what he's saying. But this is not just somebody who's confessing, but is an individual who continues to seek after God. We love because He loved us. He says to be holy because He is holy. We are able to suffer because He suffered on our behalf. And he said, "This God," he says, "Jesus Christ, He came down.

The great high priest came down, and He went to the heavens for us." You know, we've been studying through the book of Leviticus, and in the book of Leviticus, it makes it very clear, right? You have the office of the priest, and you can't be a priest, you can't serve at the temple and the tabernacle unless you were perfect.

You couldn't be blind, you couldn't be lame, you couldn't be disfigured in your face, you couldn't be deformed in the limb, you couldn't have broken foot or hand, you couldn't be a hunchback or a dwarf, and it goes on and on. If you have eczema or any kind of skin disease, and it may, on the surface, it may sound harsh, but the purpose of all of this wasn't simply trying to be cruel to people who are already having a hard time in life.

Everything that he taught at the tabernacle was an example, was a foreshadow of what was happening up in heaven. And so, that was an example, it was a shadow of the reality of what Christ was going to do on our behalf. So, when he taught that the priest had to be without defect, it was to be embed into the culture of Israel that a sinner could not approach a holy God.

He had to be without defect. So, the physical defect represented sin. And so, no sin of any kind can enter into his presence. And that was taught for any priest. But Jesus was not just any priest. The Bible says that he was a high priest. A high priest was an individual, one individual.

It wasn't an office of many, one individual who had to be a descendant of Aaron, and this individual was set apart in his clothing. So, every priest had to wear a special clothing while he was administering the sacrifices. But a high priest had a special garment. And so, as soon as you entered the tabernacle, you could see who the priests are, and you can identify if a high priest walks in, you could immediately, by his clothing, know that that's the high priest.

He wore a very colorful outfit, and they had a special name called Thumim and Umin, and he had to wear that at all times to separate him from other priests. But because the high priest was also a man, he had to constantly go through a ritual of cleansing. To the nation of Israel, a high priest was connected with more than just a temple.

In the nation of Israel, the high priests were known to be an office where it represented refuge for them. So, you may have heard of the cities of refuge. There are six different cities that were set apart in the nation of Israel. All of them were spread apart, all of them were uplifted high, and those cities were specifically created so that just in case somebody killed by accident, not murder, but by accident, a relative of the person that was killed, who's called the Avenger of Blood, would want vengeance because he killed a relative, a brother, a sister, or whoever.

And so, out of anger, he would chase that man. And so, that man who kills by accident would run to one of these cities. And when he gets to the city, he would be interviewed as to, "Why are you running?" And finds out that he killed somebody by accident, they would open the door, he would be allowed in for protection under the high priest.

The high priest basically was the owner of these cities. And every city in the nation of Israel, every cities of refuge were... The roads that led to these cities were the best roads. So, when you see the language in the New Testament, the valleys are made low and... Or the mountains are laid low and the valleys are made high, it's in the language of preparing the roads to go to these cities of refuge.

And as long as the high priest was alive, they found refuge under his protection. So, for the Israelites, the high priest was not just somebody who served at the temple, but they equated refuge with high priest. So, every time you see the language of high priest, an Israelite would have immediately thought of the city of refuge.

This is where we go. He is the one we run to when we get into trouble. And so, Jesus is called the high priest. Not just the priest, but a high priest. But if you look at the passage carefully here, he's not just the high priest. What is he called?

He is the great high priest. Meaning, he is not like any other priest. Not only did he represent us to God, not only was he the place of refuge that people ran to, he is distinguished than any other because everything that God did through the tabernacle, through the cities of refuge, all of it pointed to him.

All of it was pointed to him, to Jesus. So, when the scripture says that you are able to hold fast because Jesus is the great high priest, meaning that all the things that were embedded into the culture and the life of the nation of Israel, Jesus came and he fulfilled it.

Of all the things that Jesus did, the greatest activity of the high priest was at the Day of Atonement. Let me, if you can put up the picture. Okay, so that's the picture of the Ark of the Covenant, and on the top of it is the seat of mercy.

If you can see just to the right, you'll see Harrison Ford. All right, so I could have given you a better picture of the Ark of the Covenant, but I chose this one because this is the movie, Ark of the Covenant. This is my wife's favorite movie. But anyway, if you remember watching this movie, this is where it's from.

That's actually a pretty good picture of the Ark of the Covenant. It's crooked, but the point that I'm trying to make was in the holiest of holies, it is a chamber where only the high priest can go in once a year at the Day of Atonement. And because he was a man, he had to go through a ritual cleansing himself.

And once you got in there, you have to hurry up and do your business. So you have to take the blood of the bulls, and basically, you sprinkle it on the curtain, and you sprinkle it on the ark, and you sprinkle it on the seat. And then after you've done your work, you have to hurry up and get out.

And only the high priest was able to enter this room once a year. There's no seat of rest. You can't go in there and just kind of hang out. In fact, every year, there was a fear that once a high priest entered into this place, that when he confronted this holy God, that he would not live.

So he actually had to wear a bell. That once he went in there, and as long as the bell was ringing, he was safe. But if the bell stopped ringing, he did something wrong. Maybe he touched something he wasn't supposed to touch. Maybe he stayed there too long. And all of this was to tell the nation of Israel that once you get into the inner chamber of where God's glory is magnified, if you do not cover yourself by the blood, you shall surely die.

That was the duty of all the duties of the high priest. That was the greatest of all the duties. Now, why is this important for us to understand? Because in Hebrews 9, verse 1, it says, "Now, even the first covenant had regulations of divine worship and earthly sanctuary." And then verse 11, it says, "But when Christ appeared as high priest of the good things to come," in other words, the heavenly things, "that all of that which was preparation to point to what he was going to do, he entered to the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands." So when he says Jesus went into the heavenly, he's talking about this.

That is to say, not to this creation, not through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, he entered the holy place once for all, having attained eternal redemption. So in other words, he didn't go in there and sprinkle the goat's blood or the bull's blood.

He says, "By his own blood, the most powerful life-giving blood, he sprinkled it in the heavenly places for the blood of goats and bulls and ashes of hypher, sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctified for cleansing of the flesh. How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" Why did Jesus have to be perfect?

Because the sacrifice had to be perfect. Everything that he embedded into the nation of Israel. For this reason, he's the mediae of a new covenant so that since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgression that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance.

I'm not going to go and dissect this passage because we're going to get to chapter 9 eventually, right? Give me about eight more months. We'll probably be there, right? And we'll dive into this. But today, the point of this is to just kind of point to you that this is what he's talking about in verse 14, that we are able to hold fast because of what Jesus has done.

Okay? And let me go a little bit further of what this seat, this mercy seat represents. In Exodus 25, 21 through 22, God says, "You shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark, and in the ark, you shall put the testimony which I will give to you.

There, I will meet with you." Did you get that? "And from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak to you about all that I will give you in the commandment for the sons of Israel." In other words, the mercy seat, right?

The Holy of Holies was considered God's inner chamber. The ark of the covenant was his footstool, and the mercy seat on top of that was where God was going to come and the high priest who represents Israel, that was their meeting place. And God said, "I will speak to you there." And that's why he had to go and sprinkle the curtain and sprinkle the seats and sprinkle with blood to cover so that he would not die from encountering this God.

But here's where all of this comes together. Hebrews 10, 10 through 12, "By this will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices. We can never take away sins, but he, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God." Did you catch that?

That mercy seat was his throne. It was Jesus' throne. He said, "All the priests came and they just did their work and they heard and then they would leave because that wasn't their place. When Jesus came, sprinkled it with his blood, after all the sacrifices were made, the seat where God comes and man comes to connect with this holy God, that was his throne.

And he sits down forever. In Hebrews 12, 2, again, it says, "Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." The whole drama of the Day of Atonement, of the Ark of the Covenant, of the priesthood, and of that mercy seat in particular was about Jesus.

And Jesus was sent by his own blood so that he can sit at that mercy seat so that mankind can come to Christ in his throne. And that's where God speaks. God speaks to us through his son, Jesus Christ. And we speak to the Father through the Son. That's why he says, "When we pray, to pray in what?

Jesus' name." So no man can come to God until we come and bow down to his throne first. He is the mediator. He became the perfect mediator for eternity. And that's why he says, "To hold on to your confession." And the reason why you are able to hold on to your confession is because Jesus has already paid the price.

He went into the inner chamber of God, sprinkled it with his blood, and then he sat down. And then what does he say in the next passage? "Therefore, let us draw near to the throne of grace." That's the next passage. The cross, the cross to an unbeliever is a fixture of torture, of suffering, a burden, which ultimately leads to humiliation and death.

And you can't fake that. If you're an unbeliever, as I said a few weeks ago, if Christ is not your rest, he will eventually become your burden. You cannot carry the burden of the cross unless you really know Christ. You cannot. You can fake it for a while. You can jump through the hoops and play the church game for a while.

But only an individual whose eyes have been opened, this object of torture and suffering, and ultimately death became a place where we find life and joy. And the distinction between the two is darkness and light, and you can't fake that. Only a person whose eyes have been opened can come to the cross and find life.

In 1 Corinthians 1:18, it says, "For the word of cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God." The pastor who walked away from his faith. An individual can go that far in pretending. An individual can go so far as to write commentaries and books and speak nationally and have mega churches and have every church wanting to come and speak and become a mega superstar, and you can go that far and still fake it.

And his public confession is, "Now, I feel free." He felt bound. Christ was a burden to him all these years. And now he says, "I'm free. Don't worry about me. I'm going where I belong." That was his confession, if you guys read his confession. But a child of God whose eyes have been opened, it will be a burden when you drift.

If you're a child of God and when you hear his voice, today if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart and you fear. You fear that you've been drifting and you've been drifting away from where you find life. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart and it causes you to wake up.

It causes you to see that this is not where you are headed. This is not who you are. And then he says, "As a result of that, you are diligent." What do I need to do? What do I need to do? I need to carefully consider the way I'm having fellowship.

I know there's a lot of Christian gatherings, but are you really having fellowship? When was the last time you guys got together and really prayed for each other, prayed for this lost world? Let us be diligent that we may not have found ourselves fall short. And then if we are being diligent or if we're committed to being diligent, he says to hold fast, to not to just loosely hold on to this confession.

Let it drift week to week. And whether that happens instantaneously or whether it happens eventually in time, not to wake up one day and realize that you never really had faith. But to those who are being saved, it is the power of God. In 2 Corinthians 2, 15 to 16, "For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life.

And who is adequate for these things?" You know, whenever we hear stories of persecution, and I'm sure you've been reading it as much as I have, persecution meter is not just in India, in China, in the Middle East, North Korea, everywhere. And even in the United States, there is this hostility growing around the world toward Christians.

We shouldn't be surprised by that because the Bible says, "To me, persecution is a precursor to revival." Because what persecution happens, what persecution does is it reveals genuine faith. And those who do not have genuine faith will drift because if you want to stay safe, you have to stay in the middle ground.

You have to make some compromises. You have to say certain things and do certain things so that you can fit in, you don't stand out. But those who have met Christ is not able to do that. He is suffocated. A genuine Christian is suffocated when he's not walking right with God.

And the hostility of the world will grow when the light becomes brighter. So to me, the fact that persecution is rising around the world, it means the light is turning on brighter. And God is distinguishing between those who are just going through the motion versus those who are truly saved.

My encouragement to us again as we, week after week, we're expositing this text, if you want to drift, do nothing. Do nothing. Keep doing what you're doing. Do what you did last Monday, do it again tomorrow. What you did last Tuesday, do it again Tuesday. What you did last month, do it again this month.

What you did last year, do it again. You don't have to do anything. Just hear the word of God and say, "I liked your message. That was convicting, the end." And you will continue to drift, and you will continue to drift, continue to drift, and there will be no sense of urgency.

And one day, you're going to find that this was all fake. But that is not you. If you've seen Jesus, if you really met Jesus, whether that was last year, yesterday, or 10 years ago, if you genuinely know this Jesus, nothing in our life, not even raising children, not even our retirement plan, not even getting ahead in life, nothing matters as much as this.

Because it affects your relationship with your children. It affects what you do. It affects your income. It affects your retirement. It affects your whole life. If you are drifting and you understand what I am saying, today, today, not when your children are older, not when you have enough in the bank account, not when you got your job, not when things are settled, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart.

And I want to, again, encourage you with something practical. Whenever we make applications, you know, like, we have a tendency to make really big applications of, like, I want to be a better Christian, or I want to sacrifice and do this, and I want my life to count, and all these things may be sincere, but it's not applicable, right?

So it's just good intention with no application. What I want to encourage you today is if you've been drifting, think of one thing that you really need to be diligent. Think of one thing that you really need to be diligent in doing and ask God to help you to do that.

Take the step, take the actual step of being diligent and holding fast, and to be reminded of who he is so that we may draw near. So, again, as I ask the worship team to come back up, as I ask the worship team to come back up, and as they lead us in time of worship, I want to ask you, if you hear his voice, if you've been hearing his voice in the warning, he said, "Let us fear, let us be diligent, let us hold fast, let us draw near," what is one thing that you can do today to get back on track?

What is one thing that you need to get rid of? What is one thing that you need to apply today? And begin to take the proper steps to get to the place where you need to go. And so, come to the Lord in prayer. And again, we can do this because God has already done it for us.

God's not saying, "Prove yourself so that I may open the door." He says, "No, the door has been opened. You've been covered by the blood of Christ. You're my adopted child. Now live up to the calling that's been given to you." So, as we come before the Lord in prayer, let's make our prayers practical.

"Lord, this is something that I need to do. I need to get rid of this and I need to do this. Lord, give me help." Okay? So, let's take some time to pray again as our worship team leads us.