You know what keeps those things
from coming in and just laying hold on me
and carrying me away so that I make shipwreck?
It's the Word, brethren.
You get in the Word all the time.
And what does the Word do?
What is it that we do with one another
when we exhort one another from the Word?
There's a deceitfulness in sin,
and there's the truth here.
And what it does is it comes back,
it brings us back again,
today, every day, we come back,
we're in this Word,
and it helps us to see things right.
I see things right.
Brethren, we were having devotions the other day,
and my wife says, "you know what jumped out at me?"
"They spit on Him."
And brethren, I'll tell you what,
sometimes just a thought like that can come.
And they spit on Him.
You think about that.
Those wicked men, those sinful men,
and they spit on Christ.
And you know what that can make me do?
That can make me look at my bike and say,
I'll ride it to get exercise, so that my mind is clear
when I go to study the Scriptures,
but I'm not making an idol out of it.
Why?
Because they spit on Him.
You say, "I don't see the connection."
I'll tell you what, there is one.
And I feel it in my heart
when I go to Scripture and I see things like that.
They spit on Him.
They spit on Him. How then should I walk?
I need to walk worthy.
And it's not making an idol out of that thing.
And it's not doing this thing.
And I'm not going to get snared by that.
Because I love Him too much,
and He got spit on for me.
And I can see Him there with that spit
coming down His face.
No, I'm not going there.
And you see the warnings,
and you see, you come back to Christ.
And over and over, and I'm not being drawn away by
your things, why?
Because I see your lies.
When I look at Him, I find Him more beautiful.
And you're a lie.
And I see it and we come back.
Brethren, the day David's friend went off
and did whatever he did to leave church
and lose his family,
he was not in the Word that morning
seeing how precious Christ was.
And knowing the truth of God's Word.
Today. That's what he's saying to us.
Today. And he says, the Word of God,
it is that which pierces into the heart.
You can't reach your heart,
but this Word can.
And you get in it, and believe in it, brethren.
It's not just reading it flippantly,
it's not just doing your five minute little thing,
it's getting in this Word prayerfully,
it's getting in this Word so that you believe it,
so that when the promises come,
you believe it.
Brethren, how do you say, you know what?
I'm not sinking a bunch of money into some project here.
I'm giving it to the ladies' Grace House.
Because you were reading in Matthew 6
and it says, don't store up treasures
here, store it up there.
And you say, wow, there really is treasure,
and you get to meditating on it.
Hey, the Lord's return rate must be a whole lot
better than anything I can get in a mutual fund,
or anything I can get in something here.
And I'm going to give it there.
Brethren, what this book does, is it fuels faith.
And if you don't think that doesn't have anything to do
with what's going here,
brethren, you've got to remember,
what in the world's happening by the time we
get to Hebrews 11?
It's all about faith. It's about faith.
It's about people who endured.
And they pressed through.
Why? Because they had faith.
And faith comes by what?
Hearing. And hearing by what?
Brethren, today.
Today.
If you don't get anything else out of this message,
it is today, you have to be in this Word,
every day as long as it's called today,
you've got to be in this Word.
And then that day as well,
you've got to be taking what God shows you
out of that Word, and you've got to
be going and be exhorting others.
And as we do it, brethren,
our hearts don't get hardened
by the deceitfulness.
Because we keep shining the light on.
Brethren, go into this book.
Have your faith strengthened.
Believe what's there.
See the promises and above all,
see the Christ.
Your heart will have such things done to it
that you keep going.
It was Spurgeon that said some people
can write "damnation" in the dust
on their Bible.
Not God's children.
Man does not live by bread alone.
Brethren, this is where we've got to feast.
This is where we've got to live.
I trust you see it in these verses.
I trust you see it.
This is what the writer said.
He comes into this thing.
He says, "pay much closer attention
to what you have heard."
What does that mean?
Closer attention.
Brethren, I've heard, and I know this in my own life,
men who preach.
And they say, one of the things
that is a real help about preaching
is the time it puts me in the Word.
Because when I'm not preaching,
I'm not in the Word as much.
Brethren, I'll tell you what,
there may be some reality to that,
but that can't be an excuse.
You may not be a preacher,
but you've got to live in this Word just as much.
And if that's a reality, and men that preach realize it,
then how much we should be convinced,
all of us.
If it really helps us that much,
then we've got to get into it.
We've got to have discipline.
We heard it in the Sunday school.
Self control, brethren.
We've got to be self controlled.
We've got to buffet this body.
Brethren, be in the Word.
If there's discipline in any place in your life,
it's to be in this Word.
It's to see Christ.
You've got to live on Christ.
You've got to walk with Christ.
You've got to see Christ.
You've got to trust Christ.
You've got to believe on Him.
And brethren, not just some figment of your imagination.
You've got to believe on Him as He really is,
and this shows us Him - how He really is.
And when you see Him as He really is,
that keeps you from falling away.
Because when you go here,
you see Him for what He really is,
and you see the bike, or the investment,
or the lawn project, or the new car
for what they really are.
The money making endeavor,
the new t.v.,
Facebook,
cable t.v.,
Detroit Tigers,
you see them for what they really are.
And they're not much when you compare them to Christ.
But you don't think that way, brethren.
Your heart isn't geared that way
unless you're in here all the time.
You show me somebody that drifts
and falls away, and you'll see it right here,
in their interaction in the Word.
Guarantee it.
Brethren, that's the calling.
Today. Today.
Every day as long as it's called today.
Hear His voice.
Hear it.
That implies He's speaking.
Put yourself where you can hear Him.
God help us, brethren.
Amen.