SPEAKER_00: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_01: Good morning, and I'm excited to be here to preach my final sermon, my farewell sermon to you, who have just been our beloved people.
SPEAKER_01: We are gonna read uh from Hebrews chapter three, Hebrews chapter three.
SPEAKER_01: But before we read, I want to ask, who of you are involved in aviation or studying something in aviation?
SPEAKER_01: Just put up your hand.
SPEAKER_01: I just want to get an idea.
SPEAKER_01: Well, there's quite a bit of you uh there.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, if you've even if you fly on an airplane, I'm not here to scare you, okay?
SPEAKER_01: I'm not here to scare you, but Air France flight 447 flew from Rio de Negero, Janeiro, Brazil, to Paris, France, but it disappeared over the Atlantic in the early hours of June 1st, 2009, with the loss of all 228 passengers and its crew.
SPEAKER_01: You see, the pilots were cruising along, flying at 36,000 feet on full automation.
SPEAKER_01: The autopilot was flying the airplane.
SPEAKER_01: They were flying, they thought, but in fact, they were falling.
SPEAKER_01: They finally were able to salvage the airplane out of the Airbus 330 out of the Atlantic, and after a very lengthy investigation, the crash report read as follows.
SPEAKER_01: The pilots lacked situational awareness, and they overly relied on the autopilot.
SPEAKER_01: The pilots were in charge of flying the Airbus A330, one of the world's most advanced passenger jets.
SPEAKER_01: But here was the mistake.
SPEAKER_01: There was an over-reliance on the autopilot.
SPEAKER_01: And the autopilot actually crashed the airplane.
SPEAKER_01: We'll talk more about that.
SPEAKER_01: But Air France flight 447 was not flying, it was falling.
SPEAKER_01: And today's story from flight 447 is a cautionary lesson about a loss of situational awareness and over-reliance on autopiloting.
SPEAKER_01: In a similar way, Hebrews 3 speaks about an over-reliance on cruising on autopilot as a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: While professing Christians often feel that they are cruising at 30,000 feet, all things seem to indicate that they might be falling away from the living God.
SPEAKER_01: Let's read Hebrews 3, verses 12 to 15.
SPEAKER_01: Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.
SPEAKER_01: But exhort one another every day, as long as it's called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
SPEAKER_01: For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.
SPEAKER_01: As it is said today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart as in the rebellion.
SPEAKER_01: Three warning signs that the author is giving us here indicating that there could possibly be a falling away from the living God.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, trending doubt.
SPEAKER_01: Two, tolerating sin.
SPEAKER_01: Three, tuning out the voice of God.
SPEAKER_01: Let's unpack these.
SPEAKER_01: Something that was unfolding and all pointing to falling away from the living God.
SPEAKER_01: The trajectory of their religion seemed to indicate that while they thought they were cruising along at 30,000 feet on autopilot, many things seemed to indicate that they were entering a stall.
SPEAKER_01: Let me read Hebrews 5.12 for you.
SPEAKER_01: For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, the trajectory of their religion seemed to indicate that they were trending towards falling away from the living God, Hebrews 6, 6, and then have fallen away.
SPEAKER_01: Let me look, take you in, and take a look at these three warning signs.
SPEAKER_01: Let's first look at trending doubt.
SPEAKER_01: Let me tell you a story about a guy by the name of Charles Templeton.
SPEAKER_01: Who's heard of Charles Templeton?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: He was around in the 1940s and 50s.
SPEAKER_01: He was a televangist.
SPEAKER_01: And in fact, he shared a platform with Billy Graham.
SPEAKER_01: But uh Billy Graham back then was no match in a sense of popularity compared to Templeton.
SPEAKER_01: Templeton was very popular, passionate proclaimer of the gospel, but this passionate proclaimer of the gospel eventually became a self-proclaimed agnostic.
SPEAKER_01: Templeton's book is titled My Goodbyes to God, and therein he shares his struggle with incremental doubt, which led to his eventual departure from the Christian faith.
SPEAKER_01: Templeton, he was interviewed by Lee Strobel and Lee Strobel's documentary, and it never seemed to occur with Templeton that his doubt was not God's fault, but it was rooted in what?
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 12 of Hebrews 3.
SPEAKER_01: Take care, brothers, let there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart.
SPEAKER_01: Everything in Templeton's life was pointing towards falling away, and it was not God's fault, it was his evil heart.
SPEAKER_01: Unbelieving, a doubting heart.
SPEAKER_01: And here's a first cautionary warning.
SPEAKER_01: If there is a trending in our lives towards doubting God, that is dangerous.
SPEAKER_01: Doubt is dangerous.
SPEAKER_01: Right to doubt.
SPEAKER_01: Doubt is not okay.
SPEAKER_01: Doubt left unaddressed will inevitably lead to falling away from the living God.
SPEAKER_01: Trending towards unbelief and doubt is dangerous because it indicates that there is a faulty compass and a faulty direction finder, which is an evil heart.
SPEAKER_01: It's going to point you not towards trusting God, but in fact, trusting self.
SPEAKER_01: You see, if we doubt God, we say, I trust self.
SPEAKER_01: The more we trend towards trusting self, the more we will doubt the living God.
SPEAKER_01: Each step, incrementally increasing doubt in God and increasing trust in self.
SPEAKER_01: We are warned here, dear brothers and sisters, not to underestimate the dangers of doubt.
SPEAKER_01: Doubt is rooted in an evil heart.
SPEAKER_01: If there's doubt in the heart, like any other sin, it needs to be met with what?
SPEAKER_01: Confession and repentance.
SPEAKER_01: Repent from doubt.
SPEAKER_01: Confess your sin of doubt, for he is faithful and righteous to forgive.
SPEAKER_01: Like any other sin, unbelief and doubt must be uprooted and as John Owen would say, mortified.
SPEAKER_01: If there is trending in your life towards doubting God, you must immediately deal with that, my friend.
SPEAKER_01: It is a precarious situation.
SPEAKER_01: You are not flying, you are falling.
SPEAKER_01: But like any other sin, if we confess it, we can go to Christ and ask him to help us.
SPEAKER_01: Mark 9, 24.
SPEAKER_01: Immediately the boy's father cried out and said, I do believe.
SPEAKER_01: Help my unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: You can say to God, I want to forsake.
SPEAKER_01: I want to trust.
SPEAKER_01: I want to forsake my doubt, but help my doubt.
SPEAKER_01: That great Puritan preacher, Thomas Watson, once said, weeds grow naturally, but flowers need to be planted.
SPEAKER_01: Just like weeds do not need to be planted, they will grow by themselves, so unbelief will grow by itself.
SPEAKER_01: It's a weed.
SPEAKER_01: You should therefore be most careful, my brothers, that there should not be in any of you that wickedness of heart which refuses to trust God.
SPEAKER_01: You see, naturally we will trend towards trusting self and refusing to trust God.
SPEAKER_01: The person who doubts will say, Yeah, I'm just dealing with doubts.
SPEAKER_01: No, you are not dealing with doubt.
SPEAKER_01: You are refusing to trust the living God.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, Proverbs says, do not tr if you are doubting God, then you are trusting yourself.
SPEAKER_01: And Proverbs 3.5 warns against this.
SPEAKER_01: He says there, trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.
SPEAKER_01: You see, we will naturally drift towards leaning on our own understanding.
SPEAKER_01: Did Adam and Eve not trend towards doubt when they began to distrust God's word and lean on their own understanding?
SPEAKER_01: Abraham trended towards doubt because he began to distrust the covenant promises of the living God and lean on his own understanding.
SPEAKER_01: He first deceived Pharaoh and then later he deceived King Abimelech about his relationship with Sarah, saying that she is his sister.
SPEAKER_01: Saul grew impatient in waiting for Samuel.
SPEAKER_01: Instead of trusting God, he leaned on his own understanding and made a sacrifice on his own accord.
SPEAKER_01: Saul's disobedience was a refusal to trust the living God.
SPEAKER_01: You see, my dear friends, whatever sin we be busy with, whether it's deception or impatience, impulsiveness or irreverence, it all originates from what?
SPEAKER_01: A doubting heart, an unbelieving heart, a heart that refuses to trust God, rather trust oneself.
SPEAKER_01: There's a Baptist preacher and contemporary of uh Charles Spurgeon and J.C.
SPEAKER_01: Rowell, Octavius Winslow.
SPEAKER_01: It's a wonderful name if you've wanting to have a name for a newborn son, Octavius.
SPEAKER_01: Octavius Winslow says, the sin of unbelief is the fruitful cause of all other sin.
SPEAKER_01: For as faith is the parent of all holiness, so is unbelief the parent of all unholiness.
SPEAKER_01: I love how he states it.
SPEAKER_01: You see, doubt in the heart really indicates pride in self.
SPEAKER_01: There's a trust in self, there's pride in the heart, and we may very well say then pride is the grandparent to all unholiness.
SPEAKER_01: My dear friends, our natural disposition trends towards trusting self, not the living God.
SPEAKER_01: Isaiah 53, 6.
SPEAKER_01: All of us, like sheep, have gone astray.
SPEAKER_01: Each of us has turned to his own way.
SPEAKER_01: Think Chad prayed about that this morning.
SPEAKER_01: We trend towards doing things our own way.
SPEAKER_01: That great hymn, trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus than to trust and obey.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, we are sheep who have gone astray and we say the only way to be happy is to do it our own way.
SPEAKER_01: Notice there at the end of verse 12 it says, there, the unbelieving heart that what eventually falls away from the living God.
SPEAKER_01: That word there falling away is where we get the English word apostasy from.
SPEAKER_01: Apostasy.
SPEAKER_01: And the late Dr.
SPEAKER_01: Donald Gray Barnhouse once said about this phrase, falling away from the living God.
SPEAKER_01: He says it's very much like the trees in the fall.
SPEAKER_01: He says, first, there is withering is a slow process.
SPEAKER_01: It's barely perceptible at first, either to the one who is being withered or those who look onto it.
SPEAKER_01: He says at first there is a slight and barely perceptible change in the color of the leaves, but then comes some withering of the leaves, and then ultimately the falling from the tree.
SPEAKER_01: People don't just walk away from the loving God.
SPEAKER_01: It's a barely perceptible process.
SPEAKER_01: Slow, barely perceptible to either those who look onto the person or the person to which it's happening.
SPEAKER_01: So remember this doubt is dangerous.
SPEAKER_01: Unbelief is barely perceptible.
SPEAKER_01: But ultimately will come the falling away.
SPEAKER_01: Like any other sin, doubt cannot be tolerated.
SPEAKER_01: And that brings me to the next warning here, and that is tolerating sin.
SPEAKER_01: Tolerating sin.
SPEAKER_01: Let's read verse 13.
SPEAKER_01: It says there, but exhort one another every day as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
SPEAKER_01: Tolerating sin is dangerous.
SPEAKER_01: While the deceitfulness of, well, while deceitfulness is sin, sin is also deceitful.
SPEAKER_01: Sin is a bit of a charmer.
SPEAKER_01: It is deceptively hypnotic.
SPEAKER_01: And the heart is prone towards deception, right?
SPEAKER_01: Jeremiah 17, verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick.
SPEAKER_01: Who can understand it?
SPEAKER_01: William Hendrickson in his commentary says, sin enters deceptively by enticing the believer to exchange the truth of God for a lie.
SPEAKER_01: Sin presents itself as something attractive and desirable.
SPEAKER_01: People sin and they get caught in their sins and they get affirmed in their sins and their sins become habit because it is attractive.
SPEAKER_01: It's desirable, but it's so deceptive.
SPEAKER_01: Either we control sin or sin will control us.
SPEAKER_01: I think it was John Owen who said, either we kill sin or sin will kill us.
SPEAKER_01: The pilots of Air France were supposed to fly the airplane, but it seems like the airplane was flying them.
SPEAKER_01: Sin, likewise, is so dangerous and deadly deceptive.
SPEAKER_01: Sin is very much like the cosmetic use of arsenic by women during the Victorian era.
SPEAKER_01: There was this advertisement in the newspapers in England where they advertised uh arsenic wafers, and they could be crushed and applied to the skin, or they could be eaten.
SPEAKER_01: Guess what?
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: To lighten a woman's complexion.
SPEAKER_01: Now it's the exact opposite.
SPEAKER_01: We want a tad, right?
SPEAKER_01: But back in the Victorian era, they ate arsenic wafers, and they thought that was actually good for them.
SPEAKER_01: Arsenic in small doses, I'll let you know, I'm no chemist and I'm open for correction, but small doses have no immediate side effects.
SPEAKER_01: You don't feel it.
SPEAKER_01: But incrementally it builds up to a lethal dose, killing vital organs.
SPEAKER_01: You see, arsenic damages the vital organs, yet at the same time, it dulls the sensation of pain.
SPEAKER_01: And so by the time somebody is cramping and bent over in pain, it's usually too late.
SPEAKER_01: They can't do anything for you.
SPEAKER_01: Sin is like arsenic.
SPEAKER_01: Incremental doses seem not to have any detrimental effects.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, it seems like it could be beneficial.
SPEAKER_01: But remember, it numbs the conscience.
SPEAKER_01: Tolerating sin eventually sears the conscience and makes the pain of sin more tolerable.
SPEAKER_01: People will greatly go through.
SPEAKER_01: Great lengths to have their sin.
SPEAKER_01: They will sacrifice so many things and they will have so much pain, but at some point they say it is all worth it.
SPEAKER_01: And all this doesn't happen overnight.
SPEAKER_01: Let me give you a few pointers.
SPEAKER_01: Your sinning without remorse is sinning against one's conscience.
SPEAKER_01: Each sick successive dose of sin sears the conscience incrementally.
SPEAKER_01: All the while sin deceives, it also hardens the heart.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 13.
SPEAKER_01: So that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
SPEAKER_01: That Greek word for harden is scleros.
SPEAKER_01: Scleros.
SPEAKER_01: And if you in the medical field throw sclerosis, right?
SPEAKER_01: Debbie was a nurse teaching in the hospital, and she gives me a thumbs up there, or not at least.
SPEAKER_01: In the old days, they would say, doctors would say, grandpa's arteries are calcified.
SPEAKER_01: Calcified or the hardening of the arteries.
SPEAKER_01: What sin does, it doesn't harden the arteries, it hardens the heart.
SPEAKER_01: A softening of sin will mean hardening of heart.
SPEAKER_01: Going soft on sin means the heart will get hardened.
SPEAKER_01: Being hard on sin means the heart is soft.
SPEAKER_01: We lived in an area in California where the water was hard as bricks.
SPEAKER_01: What typically would happen there is if you left a faucet running for some time, especially on the farmsteads where they would get well water, that faucet would drip, okay?
SPEAKER_01: But as it drips, it builds up calcium and eventually it closes off the dripping.
SPEAKER_01: You see, that's what happens when we sin.
SPEAKER_01: Eventually it closes us off to the things of God.
SPEAKER_01: If a person is soft on sin, that person becomes hard-hearted.
SPEAKER_01: Eventually, he becomes closed off to the prompting of the conscience.
SPEAKER_01: A person who is soft on sin will usually become closed off to the good things of God.
SPEAKER_01: This one author says, as a sly, deceptive agent of Satan, sin enters the heart of man and there causes the growth and development of unbelief, which becomes evident in the hardening of the spiritual arteries.
SPEAKER_01: Sin will harden your spiritual arteries.
SPEAKER_01: And what happens if the arteries gets hardened and ossified?
SPEAKER_01: You get a heart attack and you die.
SPEAKER_01: And that's where the author is very hard on them because he knows if he's not hard on sin, it will harden the heart.
SPEAKER_01: And for this very reason, the sentence begins there with a command.
SPEAKER_01: But encourage one another day after day.
SPEAKER_01: As long as it is still called today.
SPEAKER_01: Exhort, encourage comes from a Greek word that literally means to come alongside a person, to call someone aside.
SPEAKER_01: And this verb, this command, is intensified by the word usage of the words today.
SPEAKER_01: Today, there is an expediency and an urgency of calling someone aside and saying, brother or sister, you are hardening your heart towards the living God, and you don't even know it.
SPEAKER_01: It's barely perceptible.
SPEAKER_01: You may say, why, well, well, I can do it tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01: We can talk tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01: But Matthew Henry says the following: he says, the deceitfulness of sin is of a hardening nature to the soul.
SPEAKER_01: One sin allowed today prepares the way for another.
SPEAKER_01: Every act of sin confirms the habit.
SPEAKER_01: Sinning against the conscience is a sure way to steer the conscience.
SPEAKER_01: And therefore, it should be of great concern to everyone to exhort himself and others to beware of sin.
SPEAKER_01: What's the gist of what Matthew Henry is saying here?
SPEAKER_01: He says, don't put it off.
SPEAKER_01: If you see something in your life, either exhort yourself.
SPEAKER_01: If you see something in someone else's life, exhort them when, not tomorrow, not next week.
SPEAKER_01: Well, because the conscience is seared, being seared.
SPEAKER_01: And the habit is being established.
SPEAKER_01: Today we must call our sinning brother or sinning sister aside before the sin is confirmed in the heart, and the conscience is numbed and the heart is hardened.
SPEAKER_01: But dear brother and sister, the aim here is to help, to assist, to restore.
SPEAKER_01: The aim is not to shame the aim is not to condemn, but as Galatians 6 1 says, restore such a person in a spirit of gentleness.
SPEAKER_01: We are to come alongside our brothers and sisters, not like executioners or judges, but more like nurses.
SPEAKER_01: We need to be gracious, gentle, tender, compassionate.
SPEAKER_01: And as Galatians 6, 1 and 2 says, Brethren, if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness.
SPEAKER_01: And then it says, You don't go in there as a judge to zap that person.
SPEAKER_01: You come alongside that person like a field medic on a battlefield, bear one another's burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: If you truly love somebody, you walk alongside them.
SPEAKER_01: You don't just call them aside.
SPEAKER_01: Charles Spurgeon says it lovely.
SPEAKER_01: He says, we ought to be able to take a loving exhortation from our brethren and sisters.
SPEAKER_01: We must do so if we are to be preserved from the deceitfulness of sin.
SPEAKER_01: Another eye may see for me what I cannot see for myself.
SPEAKER_01: Reproof should be given with great tenderness.
SPEAKER_01: But even if they wound us, we must bear them.
SPEAKER_01: When somebody comes alongside to you and says, hey, buddy, we just gotta talk here.
SPEAKER_01: I'm seeing a pattern in your life developing here.
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna hurt.
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna wound us, but it's because they love us.
SPEAKER_01: Nurses, right?
SPEAKER_01: They often need to hurt us in order to love us.
SPEAKER_01: And Davy says, yes.
SPEAKER_01: She's got many years of jabbing people with things and poking.
SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
SPEAKER_01: That's how we care for the sick.
SPEAKER_01: He says there in verse 14, if indeed we have become partakers of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, that's speaking of salvation, but it's also speaking of holding fast to the righteousness that we receive from Christ and to treasure the sanctity and the purity of our fellowship with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 14.
SPEAKER_01: For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end.
SPEAKER_01: What does it mean to hold fast?
SPEAKER_01: It simply means to continue to believe.
SPEAKER_01: Don't stop believing in Jesus, but it goes further.
SPEAKER_01: While it deals primarily with an issue of one's faith, it also speaks of the very same faith that saved us initially, continues to enable us in our daily walk.
SPEAKER_01: And our daily walk is progressive sanctification.
SPEAKER_01: So he's speaking about look, hang on to your salvation.
SPEAKER_01: But if your salvation is real, hold on to it.
SPEAKER_01: And as you hold on to it, you will be able to be progressively sanctified.
SPEAKER_01: And that will happen until we breathe our final breath.
SPEAKER_01: The flowers of salvation and the fruit of sanctification cannot be cultivated in a field of thorns and thistles.
SPEAKER_01: I know, because I see you farmers, you go in a field and you rip out the weeds.
SPEAKER_01: You spray stuff, right, Ben?
SPEAKER_01: And what do you guys spray all that good stuff?
SPEAKER_01: To get rid of the thorns and thistles.
SPEAKER_01: But sometimes people think they could they want to hold on to their faith and they think they want to hold on to sanctification, but all you could see is a field of thorns and thistles.
SPEAKER_01: Unless sin is first uprooted and the flowers of faith and the flowers and the fruits of righteousness be planted, it cannot be sustained to the end.
SPEAKER_01: And Hebrews helps us here again in Hebrews 10 23.
SPEAKER_01: Let me turn there, Hebrews 10, 23.
SPEAKER_01: He uses the same phrase, hold fast.
SPEAKER_01: Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering.
SPEAKER_01: For he who promised is faithful.
SPEAKER_01: So here again, God is hanging on.
SPEAKER_01: If somebody's not hanging on, it's us.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 24.
SPEAKER_01: And let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds.
SPEAKER_01: That's our purpose, dear brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we gather.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we in a body.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we have fellowship with each other.
SPEAKER_01: To stimulate one another to love and good deeds.
SPEAKER_01: And my question to you is how can we really encourage each other and stimulate each other to love and good deeds if we are not fellowshipping with the saints?
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's just really hard if somebody's not here to stimulate them to love and good deeds.
SPEAKER_01: And we only have fellowship in Christ if we are committed to love and good deeds.
SPEAKER_01: If your goal is not to live a life of love and good deeds, not to be saved, but because you are saved, something is off.
SPEAKER_01: Something is indicating that you're not flying but falling.
SPEAKER_01: In one sense or another, it's our responsibility, but also the entire body of Christ's duty to stimulate one another to love and good deeds.
SPEAKER_01: So now that we've covered this second warning of falling, that is tolerating sin, let's move on to the third and final warning, which is no less severe, and that is tuning out God's voice.
SPEAKER_01: Tuning out God's voice.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 15.
SPEAKER_01: While it is said, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as when they provoked me.
SPEAKER_01: And you can put there in parentheses the desert.
SPEAKER_01: The author is taking us back to Deuteronomy and to Numbers, the rebellion in the wilderness.
SPEAKER_01: And he's also quoting from Psalm 95.
SPEAKER_01: One author says, to remind us once more of the daily necessity to listen attentively and obediently to the voice of God.
SPEAKER_01: The author quotes now the familiar statement from Psalm 95.
SPEAKER_01: Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.
SPEAKER_01: Constantly, God addresses us by means of his word, and he expects us who live by faith to give him our undivided attention.
SPEAKER_01: And indicative of whether we are in fact giving God our undivided attention is our willingness to obey this or not.
SPEAKER_01: If you're not willing to obey what God's voice is saying in his word, you are distracted.
SPEAKER_01: Hebrews 4 12 reminds us how powerful the word of God is.
SPEAKER_01: The word of God is a living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword.
SPEAKER_01: And piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and the intentions of the heart.
SPEAKER_01: The word of God is very, very powerful.
SPEAKER_01: And guess what?
SPEAKER_01: It's not your or my job to judge the thoughts and the intentions of somebody's heart.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because you're not God.
SPEAKER_01: The word of God will do that for us.
SPEAKER_01: And when it does that, we need to pay careful attention.
SPEAKER_01: We need to give God our undivided attention.
SPEAKER_01: Now, often, my friends, we are engaged in much reading of God's word, the studying of God's word, and even teaching God's word to other people, but we are not paying attention as to whether we are obediently applying God's word ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: Tuning out God, when we hear his word, his voice, that could be gradual, that could be barely perceptible, as Barnhouse said.
SPEAKER_01: But tuning out God's word is not just drifting away from doctrinal orthodoxy, which often happens one verse at a time, but also delayed obedience is indicative that we are becoming incrementally tuned out from God's voice.
SPEAKER_01: We used to say to our kids when they were little, and I'm not sure if I've ever shared this with them, but slow obedience is no obedience.
SPEAKER_01: Slow obedience is no obedience.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, that's not only good for kids, it's good for us.
SPEAKER_01: I remember in California, lived in this agricultural area, and this one family uh invited farmers and pastors from the area that had a uh somewhat of a harvest party at the end of the harvest.
SPEAKER_01: Um there was this guy who was uh in church, he started off a very passionate Christian, very passionate Christian, always studying and so on.
SPEAKER_01: But every year when I meet him, he well, he makes a beeline for me, in fact.
SPEAKER_01: I uh at times I'm like, dude, I hope I'm not seeing him.
SPEAKER_01: And then he comes and he's like, Pastor, how are you doing?
SPEAKER_01: I just want to tell you, you know, that that that Genesis, I I I just can't believe in that.
SPEAKER_01: I I just can't believe in that.
SPEAKER_01: The next year comes, Pastor, so excited to see you.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, what are you what are you doubting now?
SPEAKER_01: That story of Noah, that that's just a fable.
SPEAKER_01: I've I've done some research.
SPEAKER_01: It's absolutely absolutely impossible.
SPEAKER_01: We left by the time he got to Jonah.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how much of scripture he believes, but every season it seems there's less of scripture that man believed.
SPEAKER_01: The more we fail to live out scripture, the more delayed our obedience, the more hardened our hearts become.
SPEAKER_01: Hebrews 5 speaks about it.
SPEAKER_01: Hebrews 5 11.
SPEAKER_01: He says there concerning him, we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.
SPEAKER_01: You see, when the heart becomes hardened, the ears become dull of hearing.
SPEAKER_01: You can preach, you can teach, you can educate, you can instruct, it's got no effect.
SPEAKER_01: This is one author, he says, such is also the danger when you stifle the Holy Spirit's gentle voice.
SPEAKER_01: He nudges you to avoid gossip and grumbling.
SPEAKER_01: You listen, but you fail to obey.
SPEAKER_01: He brings scripture to your mind repeatedly, you are convicted, but gradually lapses into your habit.
SPEAKER_01: Over time, your spiritual sensitivity is dulled.
SPEAKER_01: The word of God no longer penetrates your soul, much less brings the pangs of conscience to you.
SPEAKER_01: That's powerfully said.
SPEAKER_01: Powerfully stated.
SPEAKER_01: You see, when the soil of our hearts drawn to question, this very word of God, barely perceptible at that point, a falling away is starting to happen.
SPEAKER_01: You see, this is rain, the rain of God's word that softens the soil of the heart.
SPEAKER_01: But when the soil becomes sin-baked, harbored, hardened, and stubborn, eventually it will be unable to drink the rain that softens the soil.
SPEAKER_01: In California, in the orchards, the soil becomes so hardened that even when they do flood irrigation there in the orchards, most of them, the water just runs off.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't go into the ground because the ground is so hard.
SPEAKER_01: And they mix gypsum into the soil to make it actually absorb the soil.
SPEAKER_01: And my friends, if we tune out the word of God and we delay our obedience of the word of God, it becomes like the soil in those orchids, orchards in California.
SPEAKER_01: It can no longer soak up the rain and the water.
SPEAKER_01: And we need the rain and the water to what?
SPEAKER_01: Soften the soil and nourish the heart.
SPEAKER_01: The roots need water.
SPEAKER_01: But if we resist, Hebrews 6.8 says, but if it yields thorns and thistles, which it will, it is worthless and close to being cursed and ends up being burnt.
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of a cat's 22 situation.
SPEAKER_01: If the heart is not soft, it cannot drink in the water, and if it cannot drink in the water, it cannot nourish the roots of our faith.
SPEAKER_01: Soon the heart will become a crusty and sinbaked patch of clay that will only yield thorns and thistles.
SPEAKER_01: Let me close here.
SPEAKER_01: Charles Spurgeon once says, How does a lake freeze over heart?
SPEAKER_01: You know, I one thing living here, I was amazed on how hard the ice can become.
SPEAKER_01: And then you know guys are driving on it.
SPEAKER_01: I mean they put it like a camper thing.
SPEAKER_01: And they go, what do they call them?
SPEAKER_01: Uh fish boxes?
SPEAKER_01: Ice house.
SPEAKER_01: That thank you, Davey.
SPEAKER_01: Um I'm like, dude, that that ice is hard.
SPEAKER_01: But how does it begin?
SPEAKER_01: It begins with a barely perceptible layer of ice.
SPEAKER_01: Just a thin layer of ice.
SPEAKER_01: Those of you who are in aviation, how much ice does it take over the wing of an airplane to bring it down?
SPEAKER_01: You don't know until you fall out of the sky.
SPEAKER_01: It takes one layer of ice, barely perceptible, to then form into another layer of ice, and each successive sheet of ice strengthens the former, and that was the case.
SPEAKER_01: The problem with Air France Flight 447.
SPEAKER_01: The real problem, the root of the problem was a thing called the pedotube.
SPEAKER_01: The pedotube is a little instrument on the outside of the airplane, and it measures airspeed.
SPEAKER_01: That thing had a thin layer of ice forming over it, and it was giving an incorrect airspeed.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, it was reading an over speed.
SPEAKER_01: And what the autopilot did was pull up the nose of the airplane to slow it and then throttle back.
SPEAKER_01: You were doing aviation, right, David?
SPEAKER_01: What happens if you slow the airplane and push the nose up?
SPEAKER_01: You get closer to a stall.
SPEAKER_01: That's not something you want to do in a commercial jet.
SPEAKER_01: Eventually, the pilots looking at this and allowing the autopilot to just do its thing.
SPEAKER_01: Eventually, the airplane entered the aerodynamic stall and was no longer flying but falling.
SPEAKER_01: That airplane literally belly-flopped in the Atlantic.
SPEAKER_01: My dear friends, we cannot just go on autopilot.
SPEAKER_01: We cannot say, well, I received Christ when I was five and just autopilot.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot autopilot if you see a trend towards doubt in your life, a trend towards tolerating sin, and a trend towards tuning out God's voice.
SPEAKER_01: That's problematic.
SPEAKER_01: You're no longer flying, you're stalling, and you're gonna fall, and you're gonna fall away from the living God.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, we must be, unlike the pilots of Air France Flight 447, situationally aware.
SPEAKER_01: We need to be aware of what's going on in our lives spiritually.
SPEAKER_01: If you see a trending unbelief, the solution is repent and then trust in the complete and perfect work of Jesus Christ on the cross and quit trusting yourself.
SPEAKER_01: If you see a pattern in your life of tolerating sin, no matter how small it is, you just wink at it, you must address it.
SPEAKER_01: You must uproot it through the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And you must remind yourself every sin you have committed and still committing and still tolerating is a sin that Christ died for.
SPEAKER_01: My pastor in South Africa used to say, stop enjoying the things that put Jesus on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: And then lastly, turning, tuning out the voice of God.
SPEAKER_01: If there's a tendency that you're like, yeah, I'll put this off, I need to do more study or whatever the case might be, you must then stop and come to the Bible not only as the inerrant and infallible word of our sovereign savior, you must come to it as an authoritative word of God.
SPEAKER_01: And if it's authoritative, it means you submit to it.
SPEAKER_01: If you do these things and we need to do it regularly, we all are prone to wonder.
SPEAKER_01: God is faithful, he's righteous, he's willing to forgive, and he will give us the grace to succeed.
SPEAKER_01: Let me close us in the words of Thomas Watson.
SPEAKER_01: He says, There is no standing still in religion.
SPEAKER_01: Either we go forward or we go backward.
SPEAKER_01: If faith does not grow, unbelief will.
SPEAKER_01: If heavenly mindedness does not grow, worldliness will.
SPEAKER_01: If faith does not grow, unbelief will.
SPEAKER_01: If heavenly mindedness does not grow, worldliness will.
SPEAKER_01: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_01: Heavenly Father, thank you for your love, your goodness, your grace, your tender care for us.
SPEAKER_01: We know you care for your sheep, but we are prone to wonder.
SPEAKER_01: We are prone to go our own way.
SPEAKER_01: Help us not to lean on our own understanding, but turn our hearts towards you.
SPEAKER_01: We pray this independence on your grace and leaning not on our own strength, but on the strength that you give us through your Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.