If you can turn your Bibles with me to Hebrews chapter 12, we're going to be reading from verse 14 up to verse 17. Our focus will be on verse 16 and 17, but I want to read it in context. Hebrews chapter 12, verses 14 through 17. Reading out of the NASB.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray that you would guard this pulpit, Lord God, that only your word would go forth. I pray, Father God, that your word that you have ordained would convict our hearts, cause us to be sanctified in a greater and clearer vision of Christ, that we would live and invest in eternal things, Lord God, not for temporary.

So open our eyes, soften our hearts, our ears, that we may hear and understand and be convicted. May your word be honored this morning. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Alright, so the text that we were looking at is verse 14 and 15, the previous weeks. It was given to us in the context of encouraging and also warning us that no one missed the grace of God.

And so we looked at last week how the grace of God can be missed by people who are not believers who reject the truth. Grace of God can be missed by a nominal Christian who believes or at least accepted the cultural Christianity without really having faith. Or even for genuine Christians who are just fatigued and is thinking about quitting or taking a break to not miss the grace of God and to continue to strive after God.

And so we've been given examples in chapter 11 about what that perseverance looks like. The cloud of witnesses that have gone before us who lived a life of faith and because of their faith they lived courageously. Some of them who experienced great joy, great fruit, and some of them who were martyred for their faith.

And all of them as an example of what it means to persevere in their faith. This morning we're looking at verse 16 and 17 with all the examples that are given us, the positive examples that are given us in chapter 11. We're given one example in chapter 12 of what not to do.

Of Esau's example when he says that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau who sold his own birthright for a single meal. And that one particular act is highlighted above all the things that are mentioned in chapter 11 as what not to do. So I know that some of us, you know, we have people that we may have looked up to in the past or even currently.

It's like that's the kind of life that we want. Whether they are, you know, people in ministry or somebody who's really committed their life to you in small group or discipled you. My guess is that you also have people that have gone before you that you've told yourself at some point, it's like I'm not going to turn out like that.

They may have been people who actually said that they were going to go into full-time ministry at one point. Maybe they were your leaders at one point. But they are no longer walking with Christ. And so whether it is a positive example or a negative example, they are given to us in order that we may learn from.

And so Esau's example here, he says that his sin is something that we ought to learn from because in verse 17 he says, "For you know that even afterwards when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected. For he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears." So we want to look at this morning, what is it about Esau's sin that is so hideous that in verse 16 that it is called immoral and it's called godless?

And that even when he wanted to repent, he said God rejected it. What was it about what he did that above all the cloud of witnesses, his single act is highlighted for us saying that do not be like Esau, immoral, godless, who could not repent. Just in case that maybe we missed something in Genesis.

So let's go back and take a look in Genesis chapter 25, 28-34 because this particular event that is highlighted for us where he forsook his birthright is mentioned in these few verses. So I want you to take a look at it so that we'll know what we're talking about when we're expositing this text.

Verse 28 it says, "Now Isaac loved Esau because he had a taste for game, but Rebekah loved Jacob. Now when Jacob had cooked stew, Esau came in from the field and he was famished. And Esau said to Jacob, 'Please let me have a swallow of that red stuff there, for I am famished.' Therefore his name was called Edom." Up to that point it just sounds like any other family, right?

You had an older brother who likes to go out hunting, like manly man, right? He's the guy who likes to do guy stuff. And then Jacob stayed home and cooked. Nothing wrong with cooking, but it's just highlighting for us that that's a distinction. And then the father favored the son, right?

And then the mother favored Jacob, the other son. He comes back and so this is the event that caused the course of history for these two families. Verse 13, "But Jacob said, 'First sell me your birthright.'" Right? I mean, this guy's a schemer, right? He's like, "I'll give you some stew, but give me your inheritance." Right?

Now, if Esau was a smart guy, he would have responded by saying, "My whole inheritance for a bowl of soup?" But he says in verse 32, "Behold, I am about to die." A little drama. "I am about to die." So what use then is the birthright to me? That's it.

The course of these two families' history changes because of this particular event. He came in, he was hungry, his younger brother was scheming with his mom so that he can have the birthright. The birthright basically at that time was the oldest son would get two-thirds of the inheritance and then the other parts of it would be divided among the other siblings.

That was it. And all it was was a change of birthright where Jacob would get the two-thirds and Esau would get the other. And it was simply because of this. He was so hungry, he said he was about to die and what good is my birthright? In other words, you can have my birthright.

What good is that to me? That's coming down the road. And Jacob said, "First swear to me." So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. So I want you to understand culturally that in our culture, unless it's signed on paper and you have a witness and then it's filed somewhere and the money is transferred and the bank says it's in, it's not complete.

If you're buying a house, unless the money is wired in and everything is complete, it's not done. Right? Escrow is not finished. At this particular time in the oral tradition, the promise in and of itself, the oath in and of itself was like a completed contract. This wasn't unique to Israelites.

This is how they functioned. And so Jacob knew and Esau knew that the moment that he said, "Okay, I swear to you," that was legally binding contract. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew and he ate and drank and rose and went on his way. And Esau despised his birthright.

That's it. Everything that he's warning us about, verse 16 and 17, is based upon this particular event. He was hungry. "I'm about to die. What good is my birthright? Swear to me. I swear to you." The end. And then course of history has changed because of that. That was immoral.

That's how it's described here. Do not be like Esau, who is immoral and godless. That was immoral and godless. What is it that we're missing here? Because we can look at this event and say, "Oh, I could see any one of us doing that." What good is my birthright?

What good is my future inheritance? And at that moment, you're famished and maybe say, "Oh, I'm about to die." Maybe that's exaggerated. But how often do we say, "Well, what good is this? What good is commitment to church? What good is the covenant? I got to feed my kids.

I got a deadline. I'm too busy. What about my retirement? What about this?" How often do we say ... We don't say no, but it's just not that important right now. It will be important. I know it's important, but as of right now, it's not that important. How often do we postpone or reject God's promises in our lives simply because of the things that are urgent at that moment?

And yet, God looks at this event and he says, "This was an immoral act. It was a godless act." First of all, in order to understand what's going on, we have to understand the context of this. That in a typical family, the firstborn, we get two-thirds of the inheritance, but this is no typical family.

You have to remember, Abraham was already a rich man when God called him out of the Ur of Chaldeans. He risked everything because God made a promise to him in Genesis that if you come out and follow me and trust me and go out into this wilderness, I will bless you.

Your descendants are going to outnumber the sands and the stars. I'm going to give you this land and I'm going to bless you so that you may be a blessing to all the other nations. Now, that is described in Genesis chapter 12, verses 1, 2, and 3. And if you continue to read the book of Genesis, you'll see that revelation, that covenant is clarified even further that God's intention wasn't simply for Israel.

That that promise is really a promise for mankind, that God was going to establish what he was going to establish through them for the salvation of mankind itself. So the covenant promise, this birthright that he is talking about, is that promise that he gave to Abraham. And it's that promise that he held onto, that he was even willing to sacrifice Abraham's son Isaac, and then God stops him at the very end and says, "Do not do that, for God will provide." All pointing to how God was going to fulfill this promise in Christ.

And so now, this birthright he's referring to is that covenant promise that's being passed down from generation to generation to generation. So when he says, "What good is this birthright to me when I'm about to die because I'm so hungry," he's not simply rejecting money. He's rejecting God's covenant promise that his whole generational family was based on.

If wealth was what they were pursuing, they could have packed up and just went back home. They could have just went back home because they were already wealthy. Why risk being out in the wilderness marching where there's fortified cities, where there's Egypt and the Canaanites, who's much stronger than them, can easily crush them if that was their pursuit.

They risked everything simply because God promised them that through them, that through their blessing, that it was going to overflow to the nations. Now do you think that Esau and Jacob knew about that? I can almost guarantee that this was probably talked about in that family constantly. Every time they misbehaved, it was like, "Do you not know the covenant promise?" I think this was passed on every family gathering, every Bible study, every festival.

My guess is this was repeated constantly. So it wasn't like Esau was not aware. So when he says, "What good is this birthright," he's saying, "What good is God's covenant promise to me? What good is God to me when I'm hungry now?" Think about how often we compromise because of our immediate need, the tyranny of the urgent, because there's something urgent in my life right now, that this promise of following Christ, the promise of eternity, it just doesn't seem practical at this moment.

So much of our compromise doesn't happen because we say, "No, I don't believe you, God. God is not important to me." We simply compromise and we just postponed obedience because I have something urgent now that I need to take care of. From our perspective, we can look at that and say, "Well, I can easily see myself in that situation." And I'm sure many of you can see that.

But from God's perspective, He describes at the end of verse 34, "Thus Esau despised his birthright." He didn't simply chose to eat. He said he despised it. He didn't recognize the weightiness of what it is that he had. And he just threw it away. He didn't say, "I don't believe you, God." He didn't take God's covenant and say, "I don't believe you.

I don't trust this. I'm going to choose to love the world." He didn't say that. He just simply said, "Right now, what good is it? Right now?" Yeah, in eternity, yes, but right now, this is what's urgent. Drifting in apostasy doesn't happen because we hate God. Drifting in apostasy happens simply because we value something more urgent today than the promises God has made for us in eternity.

So it's not something that, for most people, they consciously choose. It's out of neglect. It's out of just drifting. That's why it may seem like it's something innocent, but from God's perspective, He didn't just reject anything. He rejected God Himself. And so the warning that we are given through Esau's example is probably one of the most practical advice that we can get.

How often we talk about, "I want to be a better Christian." What does that mean? We talk about if somebody came and put a gun to your head and said, "If you don't deny Jesus, you're going to get shot," and then we fantasize about what we would do in that situation, I'm not sure.

And we think about a scenario that probably isn't going to happen to 99.99999% of us. And somehow we hang our hats on these big picture things like, "If we're persecuted, if they came in with the guns and said, 'If you don't deny Jesus, we're going to kill you,' I wonder what I would do in that situation," which is probably never going to happen.

We might get made fun of, maybe lose our tactics and status, the way that things are going right now. I mean, there are a lot of crazy things that are happening in our country right now. But the practical stuff, where the rubber meets the road, is the example of Esau.

It's not the guns, it's not the military, it's not the militants, it's not the terrorists, it's the day-to-day constant temptation of choosing what satisfies our flesh versus the promises of God. The tyranny of what is urgent. Let me show you this chart, which I've shown before, but I think this is one of the most helpful things that I learned when I was younger about different categories of priority.

Everything in our life falls into one of these categories. The first category is important and urgent. Important and urgent things are kind of like work, pay bills, school. If you're not good at this stuff, you're going to fail in life. You're going to get fired. You're not going to be able to graduate school.

This is what makes you an adult. Somewhere between high school and out of college, you realize, "Oh, shoot, I better get this right." There's some of you who are in that category right now, where you're not good at that, but you better be because if you're not good at this, you're homeless, basically.

Yeah. The only reason you're not homeless is because your parents are covering you for that period. But once you get out of that period, if you become an adult, this is important and urgent. You have to pay your bills. You have to go to work. You don't just wake up one day and say, "I don't feel like going to work." Then you're fired.

There's nothing in between. The second category is not important, but urgent. These are things that you made urgent. You're in a softball tournament and you chose to be the captain of the team. You have to organize. You have to collect the money. You have to call them. You have to make sure everybody's together.

You have to go to practice. It became urgent because you took on that responsibility for yourself, but it's not important. If you fail in that category, you're just a flake. If you're not good in the first category, you're a bum. If you fail in the second category, you're a flake.

But it's not going to ruin your life. You're just going to have a bad reputation if you're not good at it. If you are a responsible human being, you'll be good at that too. Don't volunteer for things that you're not going to carry out. Then you have the not important, not urgent.

Those are the time wasters. Those are when you become the local champion of some video game. You know everything about Lakers. What shoe size that all the players play. You joined fantasy football and you're dedicated 30 hours of your week to win whatever that is. Those are not important.

Maybe it's urgent, but not it. Those are time wasters. You play video games and your wife is always complaining and they have the right to complain because you're wasting time. You're not a good father. You're not a good husband if you spend too much time on this. It's not sinful, but usually when you're tired and you're busy, you end up doing that to kind of kill time.

These are time killers, time wasters. You don't have to feel guilty. It's like, "Oh, I watched a movie. I'm such a sinner." It's not sin. But those are things that really don't matter. There's nothing in that category at the end of your life you're going to regret. "Oh, I wish I could have gone to the next level.

One more year. I didn't get to finish season seven of The Office. One more year. I could have done it." Those are things that wouldn't matter. The things that you're going to look back and wish you had more time or to reprioritize are all in the last category, important but not urgent.

These are the things at the end of the year when you evaluate and say, "I'm going to have my New Year's resolution," it's usually in that category. Usually it's in that order. If you ask most Christians, "What's the most important thing?" Whether you genuinely believe it or just know the right answer, you'll say, "God," because you've been taught that.

Or maybe that's actually what you believe. And then you'll say, "Family." Family is second. And then maybe you'll say, "Church," if you have your right theology. And then after that, you'll say, "Friends." Then after that, you'll say, "Myself," or "Health," or whatever that may be. But these are all things that are not urgent.

You don't see immediate consequence if you neglect this stuff. Not immediately. But the greatest consequences come from this area when you neglect it. Greatest consequences. But because it's not urgent, what ends up happening is we live by whatever is urgent. And so what's urgent is in the first category.

What's urgent is in the second category. And then we feel guilty about the third category. And then by the time we get to the fourth category, we don't have time. Sad to say, so many people live in this manner, and then a year, 10 years, 30 years go by, and they say, looking back at their life, "I wish I spent more time investing in this." And it is almost always in that category.

Important but not urgent. Now why do I share this? Because that's where the rubber meets the road. When we talk about following Christ, and I want to be a great Christian, what does that mean? If persecution comes, like what am I going to do? These are all hypotheticals. But the reality is, in the way you spend your time, in the way you spend your money, does it reflect your priorities?

Does it reflect the things that you say are the most important in your life? Or does that always end up being like if the situation is perfect, if I have all the time in the world? The reason why Esau's example is so practical is because this is what we struggle with on a day-to-day basis.

We don't struggle with militants. We don't struggle with terrorists. Even with all the crazy things that's going on with the government, and on July 4th, we have the freedom to be able to make choices and vote and participate in civil things. All of these things are the privileges that we have living in this country.

But the thing that where the rubber meets the road, where you struggle today, is what Esau struggles with. What good is God's promises when I have to pay my bills? What good is eternity when right now I have to find a job? What good is giving glory to God if right now I have struggles with relationships?

And so this tyranny of the urgent is what causes people to drift, neglect, and then wake up one day realizing that they don't believe anymore. Their hearts have become so hardened away from God that they no longer feel anything. And they're not even sure about their faith. And it didn't happen overnight.

It was day after day, week after week, month after month of choosing what satisfies our flesh today versus living for eternity. There's a reason why this act is called immoral. You know what's interesting is immoral in Greek is pornea, where we get the word pornography. And it literally means sexual immorality.

So in the ESV, in the NIV, it actually says, "Do not be like Esau who committed sexual immorality." Which is strange because there's nothing sexual about what happened. It's between two brothers. And it's about this stew. How is that called sexual immorality? Well the word for pornea here, although it encompasses sexual immorality, literally it means to prostitute yourself for something else.

So it is used in the context of prostituting, whether you're watching pornography or you're engaged in something sexual or immoral, you're using your body and giving it to something that you shouldn't give it to. That's what that word literally means. So it includes sex. But the broader understanding is to sell yourself to something that you should not.

And that's how the word is used, the idea is used in the book of Hosea. When God describes Hosea's rebellion against God, he uses basically an adulterous gomer. And Hosea is called to love her and continue to chase after her while she prostitutes herself, while she gives herself to other idols.

And so that's what he's saying here is that Esau prostituted himself for a bowl of soup. He gave this birthright that God gave to his family in order for the salvation of mankind. But his answer was, "What good is it when today I need this soup?" Today. You know what's also interesting is the next word that he uses is godless, immoral and godless.

In some translations it'll say profane or unholy. You know what that word literally means? That word literally means to be outside the temple. It's a very visual word. To be outside the temple means that in his act, in his immorality, in choosing what is urgent now versus the promises of eternity, he placed himself outside of the temple.

So the temple represented God's blessing. Temple represented where people would come to meet God, give sacrifices, to give worship, to pray. And so when he chose his flesh over the promise, he physically removed himself from God's blessing. That's what this means. And that's why he said they use the word unholy or profane or godless because that which is holy was meant to be in the temple.

And he removed himself from there from the blessing of God. The safest and the happiest place for every Christian is to be at the center of the will of God. Because God is the author of life. And so his imperatives in the New Testament aren't simply to test us to see so that we can be better soldiers for the kingdom.

All the commandments of God that is given to us is because that's exactly where the greatest joy is. When he tells us to be faithful, it is in faithfulness where we find the greatest satisfaction, greatest joy. It is in sacrifice. That's why when he says to pick up our cross if we want to follow him, he's not saying suffer and die and have hardship in life if you want to follow me.

He says no, because through this path is where you're going to find your life. And the greatest hindrance to true life is our own flesh, where we convince ourselves that if our pride, if our flesh is satisfied, if we can have some of the stuff that the world gives.

And so we try to lift ourselves up. Everything about the secular life is to improve ourselves to be better. Isn't it? Even in the church. If it's a small church, we have to have a bigger church. If we have a bigger church, we need to have a bigger platform.

If we wrote one book, we have to write many books. And so we apply the same temptation outside the world and we bring it into the church and it is our own flesh that we feed if we're not careful. And so what God's calling, said if you do not deny yourself, the thing that's going to stumble you the rest of your life is yourself.

Before the government, before what's happening out there, it's our own desire to satisfy our own flesh that is the greatest hindrance to God's greatest blessing. So the first and greatest thing that he calls us to do is to die to ourself, to die to ourself. He who finds his life will lose it and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.

Such a simple statement, but so profound. I don't know how many times I've done quiet time and go through passages going back to that, but that's what he meant when he said that. Oh, that's what he meant when he said that, to die to ourselves. That's what he means when he says Esau, when he chose his flesh over God's covenant promise, he removed himself from God's blessing.

That's why in James chapter four, verse four, it says, "You adulterous, do you not know friendship with the world is hostility toward God?" You notice the extreme words that he uses here? He said friendship with the world. He didn't say it's not recommended. He didn't say friendship with the world is probably not good for you.

He said it's hostility. Hostility. Can you imagine? He said if you are trying hard to function in this world and be somebody in this world, you say you end up being hostile toward God. He goes on further, he said, "Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God." Think about where you and I are today.

In our generation, with again, and I'm going to say this again, with the seeker-friendly, market-driven type of ministry, where the primary thing is how can we get non-Christians to feel comfortable and welcomed in the church? Desire to win non-believers to Christ is noble. Desire to make the gospel clear is noble.

But to think that somehow we're going to be in friendly terms with the world, he says, it is you become an enemy of God. The world and its passions are passing away. The God of this age is Satan, who is directly in contradiction to what God desires. So how can we mix Satan's desires and God's desires, and somehow we think that we're going to somehow live in the middle?

He says, no. Even the desire to be friends of the world makes himself an enemy of God. First John 2.16, it says, "For all that is in the world, lust of the flesh." You notice that the first thing that he mentions is lust of the flesh? It's not by accident that Jesus' first temptation in the wilderness is to turn the stone into bread, because Jesus was hungry.

After 40 days of fasting, he said, "Give that up. Turn it into bread." He was trying to tempt him with his flesh, just like Esau. And then he says, "The lust of the eyes." If you remember, Satan takes him up to the temple, and then he shows the world, and he says, "If you would bow down to me, I will give you all of this," which is a ridiculous proposition since he knows that Jesus Christ is his creator.

But for the very first time, Jesus took on humanity, and he looked frail. The God who created the universe took on frail humanity, and so if there was any time that Satan thought that he may have a chance to usurp his glory was probably at that time, and he says, "Well, I'll give you all of this, lust of the eyes." And then the boastful pride of life.

He says, "Jump off this temple." The Bible says that the angels are going to catch you. If you really are the Son of God, they're going to catch you. These three things, lust of the flesh, what's immediate now, lust of the eyes, the things that you see, right? And this usually happens when you're younger.

You look at the world and you think that every single person in this room who are under the age of 60 are potential millionaires. People go through a midlife crisis because they realize that potential is probably dead. It's just like, "Well, if I didn't become a millionaire by now, the odds are you're not going to be a millionaire." But when you're 20, how often, even in the church, you say, "My goal is by the time I'm 30, I'm going to become a millionaire." Some of you are probably thinking that now.

By the time I'm 30, I'm going to buy some cryptocurrency. This is going to go to a million dollars. And you're just investing, you're watching, and you're doing all of this stuff because my goal is, of course, for God's glory. I'm going to feed the poor. Don't worry about it.

When I become a billionaire, I'll tithe. Don't worry about it. Lust of the eyes, we're coveting things that the world has and not knowing that your heart is where your treasure is, your mind and your heart, your time, your energy, your money, all being spent because of the lust of the eyes, because of things that are coming.

And then when you get a little bit older and you're somewhat successful, you kind of pass the midlife crisis age and boastful pride of life where your reputation is everything, your experience, your age, what you've accomplished, and then pride creeps in. And so you work hard to maintain your status.

When you're young, the temptation is that you might miss out if you're too serious. If I make these decisions, if I do this and don't do this, I might not get this. But when we're older, the temptation is actually the opposite. If we do this, if we do that, I might lose this, whether it's money or our reputation or whatever it is that we have established.

Boastful pride of life, these are all hooks that Satan uses to draw us away from him. So it is not this big picture like if the world came in, if the terrorists came in and forced us, like, "What am I going to do?" I mean, that's entertaining to think about, but it's probably not going to happen.

But where the rubber meets the road is today, tomorrow, next week. Is Christ more important than your job? Do you trust Christ with your children? Is Christ's covenant relationship, the promises that he made, more important than your bills, more important than your job? That's where the rubber meets the road.

The saddest people in the church are the people who are the closest to God's covenant grace and to just miss it. This is why where you and I are is so, so, so dangerous. Because out in India, where there is real persecution, Christians and non-Christians are not difficult to see, because there are serious consequences for following Christ.

There are certain parts of the world that you literally risk your life to get to church and enjoy fellowship. In North Korea, you can get executed by just owning a Bible. But the danger that you and I live in is we live in a post-Christian culture where it is difficult for us to determine who is and is not a Christian, even in the church, even in leadership, even from the pulpit.

Because of that, the deception is if we look like everybody else and we're jumping through the hoops like everybody else in our culture, we just assume that we're in the grace of God. We need to test our faith by the plumb line of the word of God, not by our culture, not by people that you respect, not by people with great reputation, not by people who have big churches and wrote a lot of books.

We need to test with the plumb line of God's word. You need to test it, and I need to test it, to make sure that you and I are not compromised, that we did not walk outside the temple, that we did not give ourselves to something. But because we're in a post-Christian culture, there's no consequence.

So it is that he is warning against. All the positive examples that are given in chapter 11, one example that is given in Esau is that is the example, is the greatest example, because the greatest number of people fall away from Christ for that. More than a gun to our head, more than the government, more than anything else, it's just a simple temptation to satisfy our flesh over the promises of God.

More people will stand in the judgment seat who thought that they were Christians because they simply followed the culture of the church. What does 17 mean? For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it for tears.

Why couldn't he repent? Is that a particular sin that God has pointed out and said, "If you reject this covenant, then you can't repent." Why couldn't he repent? Is he saying that all other sins you can repent of, but this particular sin you can't? If you look at it, he says, what did he desire?

What was his repentance about? He desired to inherit the blessing. That's what he was repenting. He regretted what he did. He wasn't saying that God says, God's not telling him, "Oh, you can't be my child. I'll never hear your praises." No, what he was repenting of was that particular act because what he regretted was, "I can't believe I let go of that and I wanted the inheritance back," and he couldn't get the inheritance back.

That's what he means. Because at that particular time, he knew exactly what he was doing. And he swore. It wasn't a mistake. He wasn't deceived. We just think, "Oh, he was just an innocent guy who just went out hunting and came out tired and he got deceived. He had all the best intentions." No, he knew exactly what he was doing.

But at that moment, the stew was more important than his birthright. And as a result, he couldn't reverse that. What does this teach us? If you look at the book of Hebrews, we are told over and over again today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart.

Hebrews chapter 3, 7-8, "Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, 'Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart, as when they provoked me.'" Again, verse 13 and 15, chapter 3, "But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is called today, so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sins, for we have become partakers of Christ.

If we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end, while it is said, 'Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart, as when they provoked me.'" Again in chapter 4, verse 7, "He again fixes a certain day, 'Today,' saying through David, 'After so long a time, just as he has been said before, 'Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart.'" Over and over again, today, today, today.

Most people who drift away from Christ never say no. They understand enough to say no means to reject God. I'm not rejecting God. It's just not today. Not today. I know it's important, but not today. I know I need to give my life to Christ, but not today. Not realizing it is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance.

When you hear the voice of God, through the revelation of Christ, it is the kindness of God that causes you to understand. It is the kindness of God that illumines us, that at that particular moment, he leads you to repentance. But if you harden your heart at that moment, you may understand the revelation tomorrow, but there may be no illumination.

It says that the conviction of our sins come from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes, he said, he convicts the world of sin. The Holy Spirit may be convicting today, but tomorrow when you hear your voice, you hear the revelation and the information, but you no longer have the illumination and the power of the Holy Spirit drawing you to Christ.

God is not somebody who you can just shelve and say, "When I'm ready, I will come." And that's why he says, "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart." Today. Because God's kindness is today. God's mercy is today. There's an urgency when you hear the voice today, not to postpone it until tomorrow.

There's so many people who walked away from their faith, not because they rejected Christ, but because they said, "Tomorrow, when I'm ready, when I'm out of college, when my kids are a little bit older, when I get a job, when my bills are paid, when I'm a little bit healthier, tomorrow." And then they wake up tomorrow realizing the Holy Spirit is no longer convicting them.

The kindness of God that leads us to repentance is today. There is a time appointed for all things under heaven, Ecclesiastes chapter 3, 1-4. There is an appointed time for everything, and there is a time for every event under heaven. A time to give birth, a time to die, a time to plant, and a time to uproot what is planted.

A time to kill, a time to heal, a time to tear down, a time to build up, a time to weep, and a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a time to dance. And it goes on and on. So there's a time. There's God's appointed time. God's appointed time to commit.

You know, there's a period when you're young, it's time to study. If you miss that period, it's hard to go back. There's a time God has appointed for us to rest at night, and if you don't sleep during that time, it's hard to rest during the day. There's a time that God has appointed.

And that's why he says, "When you hear his voice today, do not harden your heart." You know, this particular section of Scripture in Ecclesiastes was put into song back in the '60s. The birds. You have no idea what I'm talking about. This is even before my era, because it came out in the '60s.

So I remember it being sung in the '70s, the birds. And it says, "And Bob Dylan was a part of this band before he broke off. To everything," you don't know who Bob Dylan is either, so, "To everything, turn, turn, turn. There is a season, turn, turn, turn, and a time to every purpose under heaven." So that part is not Ecclesiastes, but the next part is, "A time to be born, time to die, time to plant, time to reap." And so basically, it's the exact verbatim of Ecclesiastes 3.

You know, what's interesting was I wanted to, I wanted to say, "What does he mean by 'turn, turn, turn'?" So I actually Googled it. I Googled it to see, like, what did they mean? Well, if you know anything about Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan actually became a Christian for a short period of time in the '70s.

And so there's a lot of songs being, that was written during the '70s that kind of had a mixture of Christian theme and secular theme kind of mixing together because a lot of celebrities and musicians, rock stars, were turning to Christ during the '70s, the Jesus movement. Bob Dylan was one of them.

He didn't write the song, but the interpretation was very interesting because, like, what is the meaning of the "turn, turn, turn"? He said that, they said that the first turn is to turn from the world, to repent. And this is coming from the band, right? To turn. If you hear God's voice and you are convicted, the first turn is turn.

There's an appointed season for everything. And if you hear God's voice, turn, repent. The second turn is the turning of the world. Turning of the world meaning there are seasons. There's summer, fall, winter, and spring. I don't know why I couldn't remember that in the first service. I only remembered three.

So there's seasons, things turn. There's day, there's night. So physically there is a turning of the earth. And then just the times of, there's a period in the earth, right? There's seasons of war, seasons of peace, seasons of prosperity, seasons of poverty, seasons of turmoil. There's a world age, right?

Where there's, it's turning. So purpose of that is in the, in different seasons as the world turns, there's period when you are young, period when you are old, period when your marriage is great, period when your marriage is difficult. And there's seasons. And so the point of that, to turn, is to recognize that God is sovereign in all of this.

That it will turn. Sometimes it's like this, sometimes it's like that. But there's nothing new under the sun. The third turn is reference to your turn will come. It's much more personal. This is coming from the band, describing this, what these three turns mean. There's a season for everything under heaven.

So turn from your sins, recognize that the seasons will change and God is sovereign, and your turn will come. Whatever God has ordained for you to have, it will come if God has ordained it. Wait your turn. But so much of our trouble gets, is we look at the world and we want our turn to be today.

And we're afraid that we're going to miss if we don't do these things, if we don't make these decisions, if we don't go here and do that. And as a result of that, instead of patiently waiting for what God gives, we are going to go and get it. And as a result, we forfeit or we drift away from God.

Isn't that amazing? This is in a secular song, right? Compared to today's song in the club. What they do in the club, but everything's in the club, right? They don't make songs like this anymore, right? Ironically, Bob Dylan fell away from his faith, right? He faithfully followed Christ in the seventies and then he just said, oh, that was a phase in my life.

And he drifted away. And his very warning from this song, he did not heed himself. The warning that are given to us as an example of Esau is probably the one of the most practical warnings that every Christian should heed. Make sure that no one falls short of the grace of God by doing what Esau did.

That we value eternity, even though we don't see it, even though it seems far away, that his promises that he has given us in eternity, that when we say we have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer we who live, that we believe that and we practice that.

The life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. So today is no longer about me. It's no longer about my fulfillment, my pride, my pursuit. It is him. And when he comes in glory, we will be glorified with him.

So we live by faith and not by sight. I pray that the word of God would penetrate our hearts beyond just theory, that we would apply the warning that God has given us, that we would live for eternity and not for the temporal. Let's pray. Again, take some time to pray and allow the word of God to bear fruit in our hearts.

How should I be applying this? What areas of my life is God warning me and encouraging me that this needs to be applied? Take some time to meditate and ask the Lord to open our eyes. Lord search me and know me, see if there's any hurtful ways in me.

Is there a desire in my heart to befriend with the world? Or have I already been compromised that I need to turn and recognize that now is the time today? As our worship team leads us, let's take some time to pray.