Introduction

Introductions given to visiting preachers are, in my experience, uniformly warm and well-intentioned, and almost universally quite misleading.

You sometimes set off on your sermon wondering whether there’s been a mix-up in the mail and the congregation were actually expecting to receive ministry that day from the Angel Gabriel.

Now look, I am VERY honoured by your warm welcome, but I have to warn you that you have no idea what sort of ungrateful wretch you have received to your pulpit today.

Except in the most general terms (rest assured) I have no intention but to keep things as vague as possible because to do otherwise would certainly not be very edifying, but it is hard for me to accept the way I’ve been described.

Here’s the thing.

There seems to me to be an alarming tendency amongst those who DO theoretically hold the doctrines of grace to, in practice, contradict the effect of those doctrines by the fulsome praise we believe it gracious to heap upon one another.

This does not glorify God, and it does nothing to commend the eternal Gospel … which I am SURE is the opposite of all we actually want to stand for.

The good news about Jesus always begins with the bad news about humankind, and there is to be no sweetening of that bitter pill.

In the hope that you don’t already wish you’d never asked this terrible man to come and minister here, let me explain what I mean … because I am not, and you are not, the person that has been so kindly described to you.

Here’s what I know to be true about myself … don’t worry though, we’re going nowhere that you’d need to cover the children’s ears for, ok?

Let’s look at …

         1) The Doctrines of Grace

            a) Total depravity

My primary understanding of humanity, derived from the Christian Scriptures and from my experience as a minister of the Gospel and as both a sinner and a parent, is that we have got a fantastic ability to completely mess things up.

Have you noticed that?

Oh, for sure, humanity has got an in-built moral compass.

That seems almost undeniable whether you have either a Bible or a newspaper in your hand … the puritanicalism of our press is almost boundless at this point in our social history, a puritanicalism that would be absolutely howled down in the public sphere if it were coming from ‘the Church’ … but you can TELL humanity has a moral compass from the public debate in our times.

The thing is, there is also strong evidence of magnetic deviation in that compass which navigates us, oh so rapidly, not just off course but off the edge of the map.

Why IS it that we can know the right and not do it?

It’s because there is something built into human nature, running right through it like the red writing running through a stick of rock, that deviates us, drifts us, way off the track that we aspire to follow.

There’s a good old friend of mine, not that I’ve met him in person but I have a lot of friends online like that too.

He’s called John Calvin.

No stop there a minute.

He’s just like me and got a lot of things wrong too, which tend to get picked on to give him a bad rep.

But like me, John Calvin was a work in progress working back from his darker days. And let’s face this too … over the years we’ve managed to get on down the path he initially forged for us, to gain a better understanding of God’s Word and ways.

What John Calvin has to say, based on his experience and his understanding of God’s Word is that he and I are NOT as described when introduced to preach but we have this tendency that affects our personality and our choices both right across the board, and also right the way down through us which produces the ‘magnetic deviation’ of our moral compass … 

As the prophet Jeremiah put it in Jeremiah 17:9

“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”

Or as Moses wrote down under the inspiration of the Spirit in Genesis 6:5-6:

“The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 

The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.”

Now, if the revelations of (it’s usually) sexual peccadilloes of spiritual leaders, of well-respected television personalities and so on teach us anything, it’s got to be that their hearts are just like ours with this tendency to pull to the left when braking … or accelerating for that matter … and that human nature is damaged and distorted through and through.

And that raises the question as to how on earth human beings who have this consistent tendency to veer off can be redeemed, doesn’t it?

If we can’t consistently chose the good in any given situation, the outlook of  humanity really does appear irremediable and the future looks doomed, doesn’t it?

(PLEASE don’t get up and leave at this point, because there’s a way through this forest of real gloom, and here’s where it starts …)

            b) Unconditional election

If THAT is the true situation within ourselves, and I’ve shown you from observation of our own hearts and of our contemporary society that Scripture’s analysis is bang on the money, then humanity is not going to make good choices for itself.

What’s more, if this situation is going to be solved, then the solution is going to have to come from outside ourselves.

See it like this: when a child makes bad choices, it needs the choices made by someone wiser, more experienced, perhaps brighter but definitely better informed.

When I can’t be relied on to consistently or correctly choose the right path I really DO need someone else to make that choice for me!

Quite often in day-to-day life I call that someone else ‘my wife’ … but even she’s not able to make these choices consistently and correctly for me!

So God’s Word teaches us the solution.

This is going to blow your mind … I can’t help but read this for you, because it is ASTONISHING good news.

Paul addresses the Ephesian church the start of his letter to them like this:

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. 

In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—

to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace  

that he lavished on us. 

With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 

to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.”

COMPLETE solution!

What I have desperately needed to solve the problem of my moral accountability and of my human nature that predisposes me to an inability to step away from what is wrong to consistently and correctly chose what is right … GOD HAS DONE, by stepping in for me in his great mercy and grace!

Stepping in for ME … He chose ME!

But who is ‘me’?

You see, it is not just the people having their scandals highlighted in the newspapers that need Him to step in for them, but every man jack of us human beings that encumber the face of the planet.

NONE of us deserves this free and contrary to our just deserts favour from God.

But who gets it?

I hope you’ll agree that in the face of our universal moral failure, this becomes a really urgent question!

What about those people out there living their lives in absolute denial and defiance of God, continuing to wilfully perpetuate the damage caused in creation by their continued refusal of God’s mercy and grace?

Ah. Now then …

c) (Limited atonement) Particular Redemption

‘Heather is outside, but she won’t come in’, said the steward approaching me before church one Sunday morning as the second church we were privileged to pioneer gathered that day.

I wasn’t going to leave her there to ensure we started on time, so outside I went.

Heather and Matthew were a couple I’d been privileged to visit and share Christ with on quite a few occasions before I realised that he was her pimp and that she made her living (and his) mainly in a horizontal position.

She was frail.

She was fragile … not at all the typical caricature … she was a TENDER soul.

The problem was that she longed to be with God and His people but she (in her words) didn’t feel clean enough to come in.

It took a long chat before she realised she could come in.

She came in, helped by a couple of Christian ladies, tentatively, cautiously, deeply convicted of her sin but overjoyed to be entering the place of worship.

And it became a JOY to see her often sitting in the months and years that followed beside her new friend, the newly converted ex-nun … both in the same pew.

But what of her husband/ partner?

I never quite got to the bottom of that.

He did come to church with her for a while, but I don’t know what happened to him.

What I have great confidence in is that Heather’s now in Glory.

But … here’s the question in this story, who do you imagine ended up being someone for whom Christ’s blood was shed and has secured the redemption of their equally lost humanity?

We don’t have 20-20 spiritual vision for sure, but one of those two personalities gave every indication that they repudiated their sin from the heart and turned to Christ and one of them quite possibly remained in rebellion against the Redeemer … and therefore His redemption.

We have evidence to suggest Christ’s death was of benefit to Heather because she trusted Him and it CHANGED her.

You see, a gift only becomes of benefit if you grasp it.

Oh yes, it is provided, put in your grasp, but it’s only received and of benefit to the one whose fist closes over it … and Christ’s work is perfect, never fails to save anyone who is the focus of it.

Christ’s atoning death must surely be freely offered to all by His parting command to His disciples … but the person FOR whom Christ died is the one that turns to him in repentance and faith.

THAT is the person for whom Christ’s death atones.

This becomes desperately important for our prospects so let’s talk about how that grip is given and exercised …

d) Efficacious Calling

I’d like to introduce you to Bob … but that will have to wait until Heaven because I have a high degree of confidence that Bob is now rejoicing in Glory.

Bob was a London bus driver.

He worked out of the Peckham bus garage back in the day, was around and about my age, and his wife had started coming to a Bible study led by my wife in the first church we were privileged to pioneer.

Bob was a bit perplexed that his wife reckoned she’d come to faith.

In fact, she really had and was turning up every Sunday with a couple of delightful young girls, washed and groomed and dressed, and she delighted in the Good News about Jesus that she’d heard and (by now) put her trust in.

But Bob, bless him, was concerned about the whole business and bothered about where he now stood.

He was hostile but we hit it off when I went to visit and very soon he and I were really enjoying opening the Bible together, just so he could get a grasp of what it was his wife was going on about, y’see … but lo and behold (funny that) it obviously all soon started to make sense to him.

It seemed to him that almost against his will, but he was LIKING it, that Bob was getting drawn to the Lord.

And it was obvious what was going on.

I will never forget the day we sat down at their dining table to open the big book together and he said, ‘Look Simon there’s something going on here. The biggest evidence I’ve got that there’s a God is that I’ve just stopped swearing … and everyone in the Garage is noticing and asking me if I’m alright, because I’ve always been a man to swear a LOT’.

Can you discern what was happening in that man’s heart?

Now, I hadn’t spoken to him about his language at all and what he said me that day was quite a big surprise to me in his case, but Bob knew God was changing him, making a new man of him, and I knew IMMEDIATELY the spiritual phenomenon being evidenced there.

This was a clear example of where our theology must inform our practice.

I explained immediately to Him what my old mate Calvin’s friends have described in their explanation of the doctrine of irresistible calling.

(They’ve called it other things too … but I and many others have learned to call it like this.)

It’s the idea behind a really well-known old Welsh hymn that I came to love early in my Christian life and have loved ever since … actually it’s about the response people God is actively calling to the redemption of their broken humanity always make to the God Who calls them, but you’ll get the idea … here’s that hymn:

“I hear Thy welcome voice,

That calls me, Lord, to Thee

For cleansing in Thy precious blood

That flowed on Calvary.

Refrain:

I am coming, Lord!

Coming now to Thee!

Wash me, cleanse me in the blood

That flowed on Calvary.

2 Though coming weak and vile,

Thou dost my strength assure;

Thou dost my vileness fully cleanse,

Till spotless all and pure. (Refrain)

3 'Tis Jesus calls me on

To perfect faith and love,

To perfect hope, and peace, and trust,

For earth and heaven above. (Refrain)

Now is that YOUR experience, and is that YOUR response?

This is warming up, isn’t it?

But are you gaining confidence that this sermon might have a text in it somewhere, yet?

Hang in there, my friends, that station has been announced and the train of thought we’re on here is going to be arriving there shortly!

It really is coming close, but there’s just one more necessary element in God’s redemption of this humanity we’re suffering from.

Given that our humanity has got such a remarkable talent to lose it’s way, this last thing here is absolutely necessary to have put in place before we quite arrive at the text today …

e) Perseverance of the Saints

You see, the thing is that while John Calvin was a work in progress, followers of Jesus still are too … and we need to keep going back to check the map and to triangulate our current position to make sure we’re still on course because we STILL have the tendency common to our fallen and broken humanity that will veer us off course and over the precipice if the Master map-maker doesn’t hold onto us, giving us constant heads-ups about the deviations of our route to correct us and keep us on course.

Here’s the thing.

Jesus says that his path of grace is sufficient for those who’ve heard his voice ‘from first to last’.

Now, it isn’t by EFFORT from first to last, Paul writes very clearly about this to the Roman church in his very first chapter there:

(Romans 1:16-17) “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.””

But if you’ve stepped out with Him you’ll know faith don’t always come easy!

So the Lord, knowing the persistent human weakness that continues to plague His followers while on earth, speaks directly about this issue to His first followers - the disciples:

(John 10:27-30) “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one.”

You see, salvation is by FAITH from first to last, and so it is diagnostic of those who’ve really heard His voice calling them to Him.

THESE are those that He keeps in saving faith from first to last, until their faith is transformed to sight in His Glorious presence.

And without that, our deviating moral compass would cause us shipwreck.

Is ANY of this making any sense to you?

Is ANY of this ringing bells for you as it did with Heather or for Bob?

If it is then my friend please don’t just sit there.

Something’s quite possibly happening here that could change your outlook and your prospects for ever more.

It is quite possible that God is dealing with your heart to bring you ETERNALLY to saving trust in Himself.

So HERE’s where we arrive at our sermon’s text for today (quite honestly, it’s been lurking in the background all along).

         2) Do not harden your hearts, Hebrews 3:7-15

Here’s our text for today

Hebrews 3:7—15

“ So, as the Holy Spirit says:

“Today, if you hear his voice,
8     do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion,
    during the time of testing in the wilderness,
9 where your ancestors tested and tried me,
    though for forty years they saw what I did.
10 That is why I was angry with that generation;
    I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray,
    and they have not known my ways.’
11 So I declared on oath in my anger,
    ‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ” 

12 See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. 14 We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end. 15 As has just been said:

“Today, if you hear his voice,
    do not harden your hearts
    as you did in the rebellion.”

We’re nearly finished … this really won’t take long … but there are just three things to swiftly unpack here.

a)    Hearing his voice

The Lord made this issue very clear during the course of His earthly ministry:

“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one.”

The key to it all is NOT working life out for yourself … you’ll struggle there.

The key is working well at HEARING the voice of life’s original Architect and paying solid attention to what He says.

b)    Meribah

Meribah and Massah are place names that crop up in Psalm 95:7-11 as places where God’s voice was rejected …

“Today, if only you would hear his voice,
8 “Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,
    as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness,
9 where your ancestors tested me;
    they tried me, though they had seen what I did.
10 For forty years I was angry with that generation;
    I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray,
    and they have not known my ways.’
11 So I declared on oath in my anger,
    ‘They shall never enter my rest.’”

The people had been enslaved in Egypt.

God paved the way out of there for them, but the way out was a narrow-looking way with things they’d been familiar with clearly no longer available to them and they didn’t like the look of the way the Lord was leading them.

That place name ‘Meribah’ means quarrelling, and the other name for that same place there was ‘Massah’ which means ‘testing’.

The evidence for God was right there in front of them, as it was for Bob, but they hardened their hearts indicating there was no hope for them … that is really the litmus test for the soul … as Hebrews 3:12 puts it 

“ See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.”

Well, you might say, I can see the point there … I can see that it was their NOT listening to God that actually limited the Israelites’ options, rather than listening up and paying attention … after all, the generation that rebelled there spent their whole lives after that wandering around in a desert eating thin wafery stuff with only a little bit of poultry to brighten it up.

You wouldn’t want that!

Clearly hearing god’s voice is very important for your prospects, so how do you set about listening to the gracious voice?

There’s an immediate and a lifelong answer to that question here …

Clearly, if He’s effectively calling you to follow Him you need to smarten up and come to Him now.

No point hesitating or delaying because, you know, life is short … right?

The window of opportunity is not always open.

But in an ongoing way the answer is two-thirds corporate and one part personal in the way the book of Hebrews puts it here.

c)    How to achieve this … the headlines

Look here … 2/3 of this takes place in community, in togetherness in the supportive fellowship of God’s people.

If this is ‘gelling’ for you today we need to have a chat to get you started on this with new friends to support you, as Bob and Heather found to their surprise and joy.

But the thing you’ll need from the off is to be amongst these folks working their faith out together:

i)               Surveillance - watch out for one another

v. 12: “See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God”.

ii)             Encouragement - the way to avoid sin’s deceitfulness

v. 13 “encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”

Now here comes the bit we need to take some measure of responsibility for ourselves, because here’s the touchstone of the authenticity of faith … we can identify those who God preserves because, obviously, those people are the ones whose faith is supported and fed as they give themselves to the means of God’s grace and as a direct result they are upheld by Him and by His Church and they persevere.

iii)           Perseverance for preservation

v. 14 “We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end”.

Conclusion

If any of this has begun to ring true to you for the first time today … do NOT delay in listening to His voice … not my voice, you understand?

His voice.

But if this rang true to you a while back, you are no stranger to the doctrines of grace and, knowing their value, you wish to share them with others …

Would you go back over what I’ve done here today and ask yourself: ‘what was he doing there’?

The thing is, I have a profound and passionate love for the doctrines of grace when they are living and applied consistently – graciously - and where people can reach them (where people can reach them because their very point is that people should be reached by our God on this basis).

But please notice this too.

What we do when we share our faith is that we put out feelers for those that the Lord is already graciously at working by His Holy Spirit, as we communicate the extent and the wonder of His mercy and grace, and the practical way His gospel address the needs human beings know they have.

Needs that compass deviated humans struggle – uniformly fail unaided, in fact – to resolve.

Humanity needs redemption and feels it, but hasn’t learned or been shown effectively the resolution of the effects encountered at the waters of Meribah … condemned to eke out life through the remaining wilderness years, fading away in lifelong wandering in the wilderness.

And you and I, if we are indeed believers, will be PASSIONATE about putting the truth where the pained and suffering wanderers can find it.

Where they can recognise the voice of God and feel their hearts soften as they respond by His grace. Learning to love and to cherish the welcome voice, that calls them – to keep them - now to Him.