 in the book of Hebrews. Let's begin reading together at verse one. I'll read to verse four, and we'll get into our study this evening. Hebrews chapter two, beginning at verse one, reading to verse four. The writer writes, Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard lest we drift away. For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard him? God also bearing witness, both with signs and wonders, with various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to his own will. Now as we begin, the writer has been establishing that Jesus Christ is better, and you know as I've been taking you through chapter one, and now that we're in chapter two, I've been pointing that out, that he uses the word better some 13 times through this epistle, and he wants to establish that Jesus is superior. In chapter one verses one through three, we noted now that Jesus is superior to the prophets. In chapter one verses four through 14, we noted that he stated that Jesus is superior to the angels, and the reason is because he has a superior name, he's the Son of God, he has a superior position because the angels worship him, he has a superior nature because he is God in the flesh, he has a superior existence because he created all things and predates angels, and he is superior because he has a greater destiny. Everything in creation ultimately bows to worship him, and that's what we saw in chapter one. In the following verses that we'll be looking at, the writer begins at this point to give us five exhortations, and it would be based on the simple fact that if Jesus Christ is superior, then we need to pay careful attention to the things that we're being taught. That's the point he makes as we begin our study this evening in verse one, that's the point he's making when he says we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard lest we drift away. In other words, it's not simply the hearing, it's the hearing and acting upon what we hear that really matters. We have to act upon the things that we hear because when I begin to act on the Word of God, it's going to demonstrate that I truly believe the things that I've been at least in word embracing. James in chapter one makes the same point in verses 21 and 22 when he says get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you which can save you. He goes on to say do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves, do what it says. Well that's what the writer here is saying. He says give the more earnest heed to the things that we have heard. So he begins to point that out. You see everywhere you turn when you look in the Bible, it very clearly states that when a person comes to a saving knowledge of God that their lives actually change to a degree that people will recognize that this person actually does believe. He's not just somebody who says oh I believe in God, this is a person who actually does. And what happens is when you turn to Christ you begin to progressively mature in the things of God. You begin to change incrementally over time. The changes aren't necessarily of such nature that they're always going to be dramatic. Sometimes they are. Some people have been living lives that are so far from God that when they get saved, I mean it's an immediate instant kind of recognizably different kind of life that they're living just because they're different. And you might not even notice that things are taking place that other people are noticing. I remember when I first got saved a friend of mine named Bill who was instrumental in me coming to a knowledge of Christ. After I'd been saved for about two, three weeks, Bill was speaking to me on one occasion and he said to me you know he goes I can tell that you're saved. And I said how can you tell that I'm saved? I'm a brand new Christian. He says you don't cuss like you used to and you know he was right. I mean I used to like to invent word combinations just to shock people. I mean I had a filthy, filthy mouth. I enjoyed swearing. It was a hobby of mine that I refined to a science. It was just something that I did and I did it to shock people and I did it quite often. And when I got saved I began to speak differently to the degree that even Bill noticed almost immediately. And that can happen. Your life can change in some ways dramatically. You may have one time been a drunk and now you're not drinking anymore. You might have been somebody who does drugs and you're not doing drugs anymore. It's kind of an instantaneous thing. God has set you free and there are many people, numerous people who have that kind of testimony that when they got saved they just ceased these activities and all. There are other things that the Lord takes time to work on over time. You know and you begin to progressively mature. You begin to become different. But that's all because you got saved. It's because you change. It's because you want to live a life that is worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ, even as Paul would teach us. It's because we want to live a life that is holy and a life that is blameless. We want to be the kind of people that have been obviously transformed by the power of the grace of God. In 1 Corinthians, in chapter 6, verses 9 through 11, you might want to turn there. As a matter of fact, let me get you busy turning your Bibles. 1 Corinthians chapter 6, somebody says, where's 1 Corinthians at? Just before 2 Corinthians. I know that'll help you. 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verses 9 through 11. I want you to read this along with me, not out loud, but as I read, I want you to see this with your own eyes. We no longer are going to be identified with the way that we at one time lived our lives change. In 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 9 through 11, Paul asked the question, do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexual offenders, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. What you once were is not what you are now. You were once like that, but you are no longer like that because you've been changed. I've shared this with you before. Some of you have heard me say this. I was in a class in one of the colleges I attended and I forget what the class was all about now. It didn't really matter at that time either, I guess. But as I was in that class, it was a secular college. I was speaking to somebody, another student and I remember as we were speaking, he began to share with me that he had been an alcoholic and was going to AA and he said, and I've been sober now for so much, you know, so long a time and all of that. And as we were talking, I said, you know, I understand where you're coming from. I said, I had problems with alcohol myself for five years and he looked at me, he said, so you said, once a drunk, always a drunk, huh? And I said, no. I said, I'm not a drunk. He said, well, of course you are. He said, you at one time were an alcoholic and you still are, you're just on the wagon, you know, and you can fall off at any time. I said, no. I said, I am not a drunk. I said, I at one time was a drunk and I am no longer a drunk. I said, the Bible says that if any man be in Christ, he's a new creation. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. He says, oh, you've had a conversion experience. And I said, absolutely, I've had a conversion experience. I said, I came to Jesus Christ and he's transformed my life. You see, I once was, but I am no longer. I don't identify with that anymore because my life has been transformed. And I believe very strongly that you don't need a 10 or 12 step program. You need a one step, one step to Jesus Christ. And when you take that step, he transforms your life. And the right of Hebrews is making that very clear. That's what takes place. As you turn on back to Hebrews, those of you who took the time to find 1 Corinthians, that's what he's speaking about. And so he says in verse one again, therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard lest we drift away. Now, I want to touch on something first that's pretty obvious. Notice how it says here, therefore we must give the more earnest heed. The question has to be asked, is he afraid that he's going to drift away from the Lord Jesus Christ? Is the writer saying that it's possible that I'm going to do that? And the answer to that question is no, what he is doing is he is identifying to the reader. He's identifying with his reader. He's basically saying this is something that we together should be aware of. But no, he's not afraid he's going to drift away from the Lord at all. But the bottom line is, is we need to be very careful. We need to be very careful that we remain close to him. You see, if Jesus is superior to the prophets, and if Jesus is superior to the angels, then it makes sense to me that I listen to him. That's what he means when he says, let's give the more earnest heed to the things we've heard. E earnest heed simply means to turn your mind completely to something, to be fully attentive. It actually speaks of bringing a ship to the land. What he's saying here is we need to not just listen to the gospel. We need to completely embrace it. It's not simply hearing the gospel. It's not only hearing it alone. It's hearing it and owning the message. It's hearing it and it's reacting to it. It's hearing it and doing it. And that's the whole point. That's what he's calling us to do, is to hear and to obey. We are not saved if we just lukewarmly agree with what is being said. We are not going to be securely fastened to Jesus Christ if that's how we receive it. What we do is we hear it and we embrace it completely. In Deuteronomy 4 verse 9 it says, take heed to yourself. Keep your soul diligently, unless you forget the things which your eyes have seen, lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Teach them to your sons and your sons sons. Embrace them in a personal level. Act on them and make it so much of your life that you communicate these things to your children and your grandchildren. You see obviously not every professing Christian is actually saved. There are Christians in name only. They're called nominal Christians. And so nominal Christians need to be exhorted to actually come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ. Not all seeds sown by the sower is going to reach full maturity. And so we give the most earnest heed to the things we hear, lest we drift away. So he's saying anchor yourself. Anchor yourself to the Word of God in the promises of life in Jesus Christ. Because if you don't attach yourself to those promises, it's possible that you may drift away. You can be in a small ship right next to the, you know, anchored we'll say or tied up to the dock and that rope could slip. And as you're sleeping there on your little boat there, you can imperceptibly begin to drift away. And you can wake up eight hours later miles from the shoreline. You didn't even notice that you were drifting away. So you have to have an earnest concern for those things. Now, as I developed this, I have to ask the question at this point, who is he writing to and who is he exhorting? Well, one, he would be writing to Christians who are not anchored in the Lord. We would call that a lukewarm Christian or a back slider. Lukewarm believers are warned by Jesus Christ in the book of Revelation. He says, you're not cold and you're not hot. He said, you're lukewarm. He said, and you're in danger of me spewing you out of my mouth. A lukewarm believer is somebody that is not on fire anymore. It's somebody who isn't really red hot for Jesus Christ. Their passion for him has been lost. A back slider is an individual who is beginning to drift away from the things of God. And the Bible tells us very clearly that's a difficult life. Proverbs 14, 14 says, the back slider in heart shall be filled with his own ways. And so he's writing first and foremost to lukewarm Christians, to people who are just kind of there but not really on fire for him and those who are beginning to actually step away. Believers are challenged to consider whether they are genuine in their faith. You find this in the scriptures. This is one of those challenges. That's why he says, we give earnest heed to the things we have heard last we drift away. It's a challenge that he's giving. Paul asked the same kind of question. As a matter of fact, when he was writing to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 13.5, he actually gave them a challenge. To the Corinthians church, he said, examine yourselves to see whether you're in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you unless of course you fail the test? Look within yourself and see whether or not you are drifting away. And that's a challenge to every believer beginning with me and for all of us who read the book of Hebrews. Now how can I test myself to see whether or not I am the saved person? Well one, I can ask myself a simple question. Do I love the Lord? Am I in love with Jesus Christ or am I ashamed of him? Am I willing to stand up and say, look it, I believe in Christ and I follow him? Or am I the kind of person who's only open with my faith when I'm around people who are also Christians? You know, I can tell you how deeply I love the Lord simply by whether I'm willing or not to speak his name in front of people who are not necessarily in love with him. I can tell whether I know the Lord or not when I'm in school and the professor is speaking against the gospel and I raise my hand and I defend my faith. I can tell that I'm on fire for the Lord when I have friends or family members who don't appreciate my faith in Jesus Christ and rather than me backing down from them or being afraid that they're going to reject me, I stand up and I make a defense of what I believe. You know, when I first got saved I learned to do that. I had an aunt who was a very, very strong Catholic woman, my aunt Julia, and I hadn't been saved more than two weeks when my aunt came to visit and she was a very, very strong Catholic lady and all of that. And I can still remember her coming over and sitting down in the couch there and she was the older sister and you know, she's very devout. We used to call her the nun and she was very, very devout. And she said, so what's going on, David, in your life now? And I looked at her and I said, I'm a Christian now, Aunt Julia. And boy, she was not happy about that. You know, we're all Christians, she goes. And I started to, I was going to argue with my aunt, you know, and my mom walked in right when that beautiful experience was about to happen and mama gave me that look like, don't do it, please don't do it. You know, she's an old woman, she'll have a heart attack or something, please don't do it. But you know, I just, when I got saved, I figured that, well listen, if the message is that important and if it really transformed my life, then how selfish am I if I don't tell other people about it? You see, the most selfish person in the world is the one who goes to heaven alone. So God has called us to have a relationship with him and to express that to others. So I asked you the question, you want to test yourself if Christ is in you or not? Do you love him? Do you love him? Are you willing to be identified with him? Are you willing to speak about him? Are you open to that? Or are you hiding? That'll help you to understand something about yourself. Are you in love with Jesus Christ? Is there a growing longing within yourself to be like him? Do you desire him more than anything else? The Psalmist in Psalm 42 verses 1 and 2 said it this way, as the dear pants for the waterbrooks. So pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before him? Paul said it like this in Philippians 1-21, for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. In Colossians chapter 3 verse 4, when Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. As a dear lungs for water, I have come to recognize that my soul is longing for God. Is that part of your life? Is that where you're moving towards? I'm not saying that you're actually there or that you'll arrive on this side of heaven, you won't. But is that part of your life? Is that how you are? Do you wake up in the morning and pray and say, God, this is the day you've made. I'm going to rejoice and be glad in it. I'm going to serve you today. I know I'm going to have difficulties. I know that there's going to be opposition. I know the world's coming against me. I know my flesh is going to come against me. I know there's a variety of things I'm going to deal with. So I want to begin this day first and foremost by committing it to you. That basically is what I do and that's the truth every morning as I wake up. And I'm going to groggy kind of fog and all of that. But I'll lay there and the first thing that comes to my mind is normally a song and then a prayer. And that's what I do. And the first thing I do in the morning is I pick up a devotional, very first thing and I read the devotion for the day. And that's how I begin because I know the enemy's after me. I know that beyond a shadow of a doubt. And I want to be faithful to God. And so I begin my day like that every day that the Lord might work within me. Then I climb in the car and I drive to work and I'll come here to the church. And as I drive here I'll turn on my radio. I listen to Christian music so I can saturate my spirit with the joy of the Lord and the songs that edify and build me up. And that's what I do. And then I come in here, then I have an opportunity to study the Word of God all day long. And then I go home and backslide because I've got a carnal wife. And that's just the way it is. I'm just kidding, of course. Of course, it's the joy of my heart. But I realize that my flesh is always ready to have ascendancy. I know that. I know it's easy. Backsliding is just a guy cutting you off in traffic away. It's just that close. It is there. Your flesh is always ready to be given vent. And so I know that. And so I'm constantly saying, God, I just want to be with you and like you. And so that's a key. Do you have an appreciation for the Word of God? Do you have a hunger for the things of God? Do you read the Bible? Do you desire to obey what it says? Are these things that matter to you? Because Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments. He asked the question, why do you call me a Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? And so from my perspective, Lord, I want to read and I want to obey. I want to know your Word by putting it into practice. And so he's writing first and foremost to Lukewarm Christians or perhaps even backsliders. And he's saying, you need to be careful. You need to take heed, an earnest heed to the things you've heard, lest you drift away. And then secondly, and this is interesting, he's writing to those who have yet to fully embrace the Gospel. In every church service, services just like this. In every church service, you will have somebody who is in church who has not yet fully committed themselves to Jesus Christ. Sometimes they're called pre-Christian, sometimes they're called pagans, but they're people who have not embraced the Lord. They're just not Christians. They'll go to the church and they'll listen, but they're not yet saved. And they do come to church. In our fellowship, we have numerous individuals who come here and are not saved. And over the years, I've seen it more than once where somebody actually has been in church for weeks into the months. And then they answer an invitation and get saved even though they've been a member in the sense of being part of the fellowship and appearing here on Sunday mornings and sometimes in evening services. And then they come forward. And then later on I'll speak to them. I remember one individual who said to me that, he said exactly that. He goes, I was in the church for a year until I gave my heart to Jesus Christ. And I thought, anybody who can put up with me for a year has got to be saved. You're exercising great patience in doing that. That is a Christian virtue. How can you be there for a year and not know the Lord? But he said, listen, I was there for a year until I finally realized that I had never embraced Christ. I have a very strong belief that people will go to church sometimes, hear a message, but never embrace it. There are people who are raised in church and even in this church, and they apathetically agree in principle to the things that they're hearing. But they've never really thought too deeply about their faith and what it's supposed to be. They consider themselves Christian because that's all they really have ever known. They believe themselves to be saved because they think they believe what they believe. You know, the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter 7 verse 21 said something. We looked at it recently, but let me read it to you. In Matthew 7 21, Jesus said, not everyone who says to me, Lord, the Lord shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. There are numerous people who have listened to partial gospel messages or messages that didn't really contain a need for a repentance and conversion who might have come forward at an invitation, at that invitation thinking themselves to become Christian when in reality what they did is they heard something that really didn't convince them that they needed to turn away from their sin and embrace Christ. They heard something that made them feel that they needed to change in their life and they'd give God a try. There are numerous people like that. I've seen them over the years. In reality, we ultimately consistently do what we actually believe because our beliefs will always be expressed through our behavior. So I can say that I believe certain things and I can say it all day long. That's called a head faith or a said faith. But what God wants me to have is a heart faith, something that has transformed me from within. And so when he's writing here, he can be one, writing to a lukewarm Christian, a Christian who is backslidden and two, he can be writing to people who are reading this and hearing this read in a church service who have yet to commit themselves to Jesus Christ. You see, what you believe is what you do. And so people can tell you all day long that they're Christians, but if their lives do not demonstrate a transformed life, if they're not moving towards the things of God, for a consistent period of time, then it very well may be that they don't know the Lord. Now, I can speak for myself as a testimony and I think the rest of you have something that you could probably say that may be similar. There have been periods of my life when if you'd have seen me, you wouldn't have thought I was a Christian because I was backslidden, you know, because I was doing things I shouldn't do. And you could have seen me in that condition and undoubtedly could have thought I better witness to this guy because he doesn't know God. And that's the truth, but within me I had a faith in Christ. I was not living at that time and I had people witness to me before and I tried to convince them that I am a Christian. Unfortunately, I was drunk at the time and so I wasn't able to convince them that I was a Christian. In reality, I was, but I was backslidden and it brought me to great grief in my heart and I repented and turned back to the Lord and my life was changed. So there are periods of your life and times in your life that you may not be walking solidly with him, but there's something within you that just can't find pleasure and joy outside of the grace of God. And you sense the reality of that and you return to him. That's a person who's been born again, but there are others who sin without a single thought of conscience. It doesn't matter to them whatsoever that they're doing things that are wrong. They may go to church, but it doesn't really bother them what they're doing and all of that because in reality they don't have a relationship with Jesus Christ and consistently over time it's demonstrated by the way that they live. Proverbs 20 verse 11 says even a child is known by his deeds whether what he does is pure and right and so your behavior over time demonstrates what you believe. So we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard lest we drift away. Let's rush to verse two. Four, if the word spoken through angels proves steadfast and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by those who heard him? And so remember as he's speaking that he's speaking to a group of people who knew that the law had been somehow communicated through angels and was binding. Notice verse two how he says if the word spoken through angels proves steadfast and so Jews believed that the law was communicated through angels and was binding in their life. Deuteronomy 33 verse two says the Lord came from Sinai and dawned over them from Seir. He shone forth from Mount Peron. He came with myriads of holy ones from the south from his mountain slopes and they believed that that was the giving of the law. Stephen just before he was martyred made reference to that belief when he said in Acts 753 you who have received the law that was put into effect through angels but have not obeyed it and Paul in Galatians 319 speaking of that also said the law was put into effect through angels by a mediator and so he's speaking concerning the law that was given and he says every transgression and disobedience received a just reward. The law was so strict that it would tolerate no offense and it prescribed punishment for every transgression. In the Old Testament if you break a law you're held guilty of breaking that law but not just that law but all the law. If you break the law in one point you are guilty of the whole law because the law calls for in the Old Testament the law of Moses calls for complete faithful obedience and so if I am not perfect if I don't live according to every jot and tittle of the law if I break it and I do then it's not just the one law that I break it's the whole thing because the law is spiritual and I'm carnal sold into sin. Jesus made it very clear that adultery was not simply the physical act it was the act of the heart he said that murder isn't simply going out and killing somebody physically it's it's murdering them within it's from within it all begins from the inside and so the point he was making is that the law is not simply me outwardly appearing like I'm keeping it when my heart is far from him in obedience to the law my life is actually transformed because I'm holding fast to that law bottom line is is I can't do that perfectly therefore I need help and that's how it's pointed out and so if I break the law there was a just punishment for it if I did a minor offense there's going to be an offering made but if I did a major offense like like murder there is a capital offense and therefore there's a just punishment for it and so he's pointing that out he's saying listen the law was given and transgressions had punishments that actually fit the crime so if that's under the law verse three then how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation which was at first begun to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by those who heard him if the law is that severe then what's going to happen if I reject Jesus Christ if the law is so severe that there was a just punishment for every infraction then what's going to happen if I reject the Lord Jesus himself how can I how can I escape if I neglect so great a salvation and so if I neglect this to neglect speaks of reducing or making light of it not regarding it for what it is if I neglect the word of God if I say it's no big deal there's no salvation for me and that's what the writer is saying here you know I think sometimes over the years and I've heard this more than once when I've spoken to people on a personal level and I've said to them do you want to pray and receive Christ and they say well I'll hear you some other time it really grieves my heart because they're having an opportunity at that moment to receive the gift of eternal life and I've discovered something the longer you put it off the more difficult it is later on to open yourself up it's not difficult to raise a child up to believe in certain things about God at all I discovered that to be true with my own children we poured into them the word of God and prayer from the time they were small yes there were seasons in their life that they rejected the things that we tried to teach them and there were times when I wasn't quite sure whether or not they had a saving knowledge of God at all by the way that they would act sometimes that's the truth but I knew that by pouring into them I was giving to them a conscience I was establishing a moral compass within them I knew that that that if I if I train up a child in the way he should go when he is old he will not depart from it and I did that from the time my children were small when they were babies and they would be inside of their you know as we were feeding them they're sitting inside of their whatever that thing their height share and and I would take him by the hand and I'd say let's pray and thank God for our food I mean from the very beginning when they were little kids four years old three years and two years old I can still remember having family devotions with them where they would sit in the front room and and I'd have them seated in front of me and Marie would be seated next to me and we'd open up a book and I'd read to them and I'd pray with them the whole devotion only took five minutes they couldn't listen much longer than that and I'd take an offering and then send them to bed I can I can remember that how many of you want to get saved oh I see that little hand you know I I can remember doing that very often you know and they'd crawl up to the altar and get saved every week but I can remember doing that with the babies you know pouring into them the things of God so that as they grew older they would be sinning against the light as they grew older they would know this is not right for me to do because my father has taught me otherwise and the bible says section so I knew that and so I poured my life into my children in that way because I knew that I was preparing them for life a life that they would be living ultimately outside of of my oversight and so I wanted them to know that beyond a shadow without there is a message they must embrace in order to be saved I am not a lukewarm believer and I certainly wasn't one in my home I wanted them to know that Jesus Christ is everything to them and needs to be that they need to pursue him because I want them to be able to take the things that their father and mother gave to them and give it to their own children that's what I wanted and I knew that it was going to break a chain if I wasn't there strongly holding fast to those things and pouring into them I did not want to disregard or neglect the things of God I didn't want to do that I still don't and I didn't want them to either so if we neglect so great a salvation how can we do that how how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation you see in acts chapter 4 verse 12 we read neither is there salvation in any other for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved our first Timothy 115 where Paul says this is a faithful saint worthy of all exceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief or Titus chapter 2 verse 11 the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared unto all men that's what we do we do not neglect it we do not neglect the message of the salvation we have in Jesus Christ we embrace it and we live it and we live it faithfully now he goes on to say in verse 3 that it was at first it at first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by those who heard him and so when it says this this message of salvation it's in reference to the gospel the message that Jesus Christ gave and so when you read the four gospels Matthew Mark Luke and John and you read what Jesus taught that's what he's referring to he's saying this message that has been recorded the message of Jesus Christ that has been recorded was given faithfully for the three years that he ministered and then he ultimately died now as he was ministering for these three years he began to pour into his apostles those 12 men whom he had designated apostles he poured into them all that God had poured into him and he gave to them this message and so when Jesus Christ mentored these men and it must have been an incredible experience by the way to have been mentored by Jesus himself can you imagine what that would have been like to be able to be there at a campfire next to a lake eating fish and listening to the Lord Jesus Christ as he would speak to them concerning the wonders of heaven can you imagine what that would have been like as you were there with him asking him questions what kind of questions do you have now well could you imagine if you had those questions and you would speak to him face to face that there you are next to him or if you had such a close relationship like the apostle john that you could actually lean against him and you could hear the heartbeat of god and you could look up at him and you could say master i've been wondering about this can you explain this to me and help me with it what an incredible experience that must have been and for the Lord Jesus Christ to say listen i have poured into everything i know and i'm giving you the spirit and i want you to go out and i want you to take this message to the four corners of the world and i want you to proclaim it to every living creature now you're not going to be able to do that in of your own strength because well peter as i consider what you have been like you have you have made some strong statements in the past of that you would even die for me and all but ultimately you you you weakened in that resolve and and you deny that you knew me and and i had to restore you so so peter you remember how your heart was so greatly turned towards me and you desired so much to be faithful but you weren't able to be well peter i want to do something to help you in this i'm going to give to you the power of my holy spirit and i'm going to pour the spirit upon you and you're going to be a witness of me in Jerusalem Judea Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth and so this man peter and the others who foresook him and fled denied basically that they knew him became the carriers of a message throughout the world as they knew it how did that happen through god god's power i have discovered something well let me read verse four god also bearing witness both with signs and wonders with various miracles gifts of the holy spirit according to his own will i have discovered something god can take even the most shy individual and transform them into a courageous warrior i have discovered that that god can take people who are exceptionally quiet who really have little to say normally and transform them into eloquent communicators of his message i have seen that happen i have seen god take people who who really are unqualified in many ways i mean i i think of my friends to be honest with you i think of people like like my friend bob grenier who celebrated 28 years of pastoring his church and by sale you recently and and and bob got saved in in florida back in 1973 and it was in an airport in miami as a matter of fact he and i have been in the airport in the spot that he got saved in and he shared his testimony with me right there he said this is where i was when somebody walked up to me gave me a track and shared with me the gospel of jesus christ and three days later he said i was on my way into north carolina to join a ministry to be part of that ministry i never walked away from the lord and been serving him ever since but you meet bob if you see bob here in my pulpit he is a sweet man love him he's one of my very dearest and closest friends bob used to carry a 45 he used to run drugs he was a pilot he used to in south america and he used to pick up cocaine and bring it back and sell it on the streets you wouldn't know that if you looked at bob you wouldn't know that at all i mean i can start talking about a lot of guys that you know very well guys like steve mays who got shot and had a bullet wound in in his body laying in a gutter and and and coming to christ because some little weasley guy walked up and said you look like you need god you pray and you get saved right now and he did you know violent men we all know the testimony of pastoral and and men like mike macintosh who who thought that half of his head was blown off and there was just an accident accident of nature that he could still continue to to function in any way because he knew that half of his head had been blown off through somebody placed in a revolver next to his head and blowing his head off and now he's pastoring a magnificent work and has been for many years there in san diego and you can go on and on and on and you can talk about guys who at one time were anything but pastoral material anything but that you know i you know i i graduated from high school with a d-minus average the only books that i ever read were comic books you know and and here i am you know opening a bible and studying i mean the two things i hated more than anything was studying and speaking in front of people that's what i do you know it amazes me and a lot of people like myself are extremely shy some of you know that through experience i mean you'll see me someplace and and you'll walk up to me and you'll discover that what i am behind the pulpit may be alive but when i am just out there in public i'm i'm kind of quiet you know and god has been very gracious because he gave to me marie who who will become your best friend in about three minutes you know and so god has been very gracious to me i've told you this about her she's such a blessing in my life but that's how she is and god placed us together because he took a shy person and then somebody who's very open and warm places together so that i could become a better person i mean i've been with my wife in so many places let me share one thing with you about her just to show you how what i'm trying to to say here we were on a plane and as we're on a plane flying back from israel she's seated next to a woman she always sits next to the passengers in the seats with us and this is a stranger i'd never seen this woman before so we're just seated next to her and as as i'm sitting there and marie's here and then the lady is next to marie over here on her left as we're sitting there i'm asking myself a question this happened a few years several years ago now but i'm asking myself a question this is the truth i'm asking myself i wonder how long it's going to be until marie and she are talking and crying i mean she's good the lady is going to tell her her whole life story uh when when is this going to happen i wonder how long i almost want to time it because i know within within a couple minutes she's going to be visiting so marie turns and and speaks to the woman true story turns and speaks to the woman and the woman speaks in hebrew back to marie and in broken english says i i i i do not speak english and i thought oh great mega challenge let's see let's see because i know marie cannot travel for hours next to a person without oh she's going to die and i thought how is this going to happen that she's going to be able to talk i know she's going to talk to this woman i know she'll find a way and i watch my wife and her a little her forehead kind of furrows for a minute and i know she's she speaks spanish to the woman the woman speaks spanish because she's from spain for the next nine hours they're talking for the whole trip marie helps her through the airport gets her to los angeles in los angeles true story in los angeles the woman is crying marie is crying the woman's kissing me on the face kissing all of my children she became my grandmother overnight an amazing thing but god has a way of taking us with his gifts and transforming us and by his holy spirit now you may be a very shy person you know join the club you may be a very quiet to yourself person but i've discovered something i've discovered that when god's holy spirit works in you when god begins to transform you and when god begins to gift you then that that that quietness that you have and that shyness is lost in the moment of opportunity that god gives to you to share about jesus christ and for me i discovered my call a long time ago by going to secular college and i would be seated in the class and i'd be waiting for somebody to say something because the teacher was saying something nonsensical and nobody would would address it nobody would say anything and i'd take a deep breath and i'd raise my hand and i'd say you know there's another way to look at that and i would share my my faith with the class i did it often and i discovered that when god is for you who can be against you and i discovered that by the power of the holy spirit you can do things because he always gives to you the victory a continuous conquering through christ you discover that though by opening your mouth because the lord says open your mouth and i will fill it and there are times when it's the spirit of of your father jesus said who will speak through you and so you just say lord i want to be used by you and i want you to somehow use me in this capacity so the gospel began to be spoken by jesus christ it was continued through his apostles and continues even to this day and god was working along with them god was confirming by signs and wonders and various miracles and gifts his word so as the message was presented god often validated that message by working in in mark 16 20 it says they went out and preached everywhere the lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs that's what god does so you have peter and you have john it's the hour of prayer they're at the beautiful gate they're about to walk in a man who was crippled is there at the gate as peter walks by him he looks down at this man undoubtedly this man had been there for a long time undoubtedly he had been there during the ministry of jesus and jesus would have walked past him several times because he was he was basically stationed there that was a place that he would beg and and receive help from the the pilgrims and and the religious people would enter into the temple and on here comes peter and here comes john it's the hour of prayer and peter looking down at the man says look at us and the man looks up at him expecting to receive something the scripture says and then peter says to him silver and gold have i none but such as i have give i thee in the name of jesus christ of nazareth i say into you rise to your feet and walk and the bible says that peter reaching down took him by the hand and lifted him up and as he began to lift this man to his feet that he received strength in his ankles and his legs he got an immediate healing he had equilibrium equilibrium he was able to walk he was able to leap he began to praise god he began to hold on to the apostles and he said did so the people began to crowd around this amazing miracle that had taken place and and peter who had not that long before denied knowing the lord a man who had denied jesus three times stands there and begins to preach man of israel why do you look so intently at us as if through our own goodness we made this man capable of walking he says i want you to know something it's in the name of jesus a man whom you by the way took and crucified well it's through his name and faith in his name that this man has been made every whithole before you today how'd that happen a man who denied the lord jesus christ to a young woman who said he was also with him a man who three times said i don't know him even cursed himself brought curses upon himself how did that happen it happens through god working through you that's how it happens why can't god use you why can't he what kind of list have you made in your mind that disqualifies you why can't speak well moses said that but god said who made your mouth god has an ability to use you if you're open i wonder sometimes how many people in this church are called by god to be used magnificently who just simply never take them up on his promises i wonder i wonder how many churches can be birthed from this one church by men who knew god's calling their life and took a chance and just stepped out in faith to see what god wanted to do today i wonder how many of your friends and and relatives are are are waiting just to just hear the truth and looking to you because they know you're a believer and are wondering when you can tell me what you believe i was in a church service the invitation was given the holy spirit prompted my heart my cousin was seated next to me and the spirit of the lord spoke to my heart and said tell him you'll go forward with him at this invitation i want to save him i remember that very well and i remember as i was seated there arguing with his inner voice and saying no no i'm not and i'm not going to do that because if i go forward with him the people are going to think i'm getting saved and i've already been saved for three years so no i'm not going to do that anyway i think that's just my imagination i'm not going to do that and i heard the prompting of the spirit he didn't stop he said ask him to go with you i want to save him today and i said no and so we went home after church and my cousin is seated across the dinner table from me and we're eating lunch and you know what he tells me my cousin ray he looks at me and he says you know david when that invitation came today i thought you were going to ask me to go forward because i wanted to get saved today he did get saved we prayed but i i've never forgotten that obviously that was 32 33 years ago i still haven't forgotten that i wonder how many opportunities we quench the spirit in where god has divinely opened an opportunity to us but we're saying i don't know so ask yourself that question just ask him this question this is a question i asked myself and i'll ask you to ask yourself the same thing why not me why not me why can't god use me why and ask yourself that because the answer is he can if you're saved he will if you're saved so why not today why not leave today and say god here am i use me what do you want to do life can be a tremendous adventure when you're serving the lord