A Warning for Worship

Amen. You may be seated. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we come to you with a great gratitude for what you have accomplished in Jesus Christ. Our souls were in a desperate state due to the wrath that is to come for all those who are not in Jesus Christ, and you have provided a savior in him.

You have given us a great salvation in him, and you have given us your spirit whereby we might believe and might continue in the walk that you have prepared for us. God, we ask that you would allow us to continue in this way and to continue in this path, and that you would grant us perseverance, that you would keep us from temptation, that you would deliver us from evil, and that you would give us a sight toward your kingdom, that we would eagerly look for the day that Christ returns and that we dwell with him, and we pray that this would cloud out our sensibilities, that would lead us to desire temporary pleasures over those greater and eternal ones that you have prepared for us.

We thank you for your great mercy on this congregation and saving us and blessing us and giving us your word and all the many ways that you've provided for us, including just giving us our daily bread.

We ask that you would continue to do so. God, we pray for comfort in this world of loss and sickness and death. This is a reality that continues to exist, and blessed are those who mourn. Lord, as we mourn the loss of our sister Sue, we ask that you would grant us the comfort that can be only had in Jesus Christ, and that we would not grieve as others do who are without hope, but that we would grieve as ones who have a great hope in Jesus Christ, knowing that we will be reunited, not only with her, but with all the saints.

Lord, we thank you for this great provision that you have given in Jesus Christ, and we pray that though this reality is not seen with our physical eyes, that you would give us spiritual senses whereby we might know this truth more fully and embrace it completely, and that this would drive our action so that we might be faithful servants, and that on that final day you would tell us, well done, good and faithful servant.

We thank you for this excellent hope that we have, and we pray that you would give us everything necessary in order to endure in this life and to reach that final day. In Jesus' name, amen. Please turn your Bible to Leviticus 13.

In Leviticus 13, we will be reading about laws regarding leprosy as we continue through our reading of Leviticus. The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, when a person has on the skin of his body a swelling or an eruption or a spot, and it turns into a case of leprous disease on the skin of his body, then he shall be brought to Aaron the priest, or to one of his sons the priest, and the priest shall examine the diseased area on the skin of his body.

And if the hair in the diseased area has turned white, and the disease appears to be deeper than the skin of his body, it is a case of leprous disease. When the priest has examined him, he shall pronounce him unclean.

But if the spot is white in the skin of his body, it appears no deeper than the skin, and the hair in it has not turned white, the priest shall shut up the diseased person for seven days, and the priest shall examine him on the seventh day.

And if in his eyes the disease is checked, and the disease has not spread in the skin, then the priest shall shut him up for another seven days. And the priest shall examine him again on the seventh day.

And if the diseased area has faded, and the disease has not spread in the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him clean. It is only an eruption. And he shall wash his clothes and be clean. But if the eruption spreads in the skin after he has shown himself to the priest for his cleansing, he shall appear again before the priest, and the priest shall look.

And if the eruption has spread in the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean. It is a leprous disease. When a man is afflicted with a leprous disease, he shall be brought to the priest, and the priest shall look.

And if there is a white swelling in the skin that has turned the hair white, and there is raw flesh in the swelling, it is a chronic leprous disease in the skin of his body, and the priest shall pronounce him unclean.

He shall not shut him up, for he is unclean. And if the leprous disease breaks out in the skin so that the leprous disease covers all the skin of the diseased person from the head to the foot, so far as the priest can see, then the priest shall look.

And if the leprous disease has covered all his body, he shall pronounce him clean of the disease. It has turned white, and he is clean. But when raw flesh appears on him, he shall be unclean, and the priest shall examine the raw flesh and pronounce him unclean.

Raw flesh is unclean, for it is a leprous disease. But if the raw flesh recovers and turns white again, then he shall come to the priest, and the priest shall examine him. And if the disease has turned white, and the priest shall pronounce the diseased person clean,.

He is clean.

If there is in the skin of one's body a boil and it heals, and in the place of the boil there comes a white swelling or a reddish-white spot, then it shall be shown to the priest, and the priest shall look.

And if it appears deeper than the skin and its hair has turned white, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean. It is a case of leprous disease that has broken out in the boil. But if the priest examines it, and there is no white hair in it, and it is not deeper than the skin but has faded, then the priest shall shut him up seven days.

And if it spreads in the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean. It is a disease. But if the spot remains in the one place and does not spread, it is a scar of the boil. Then the priest shall pronounce him clean.

Or, when the body has a burn on its skin and the raw flesh of the burn becomes a spot, reddish-white or white, the priest shall examine it. And if the hair in the spot has turned white and it appears deeper than the skin, then it is a leprous disease.

It has broken out in the burn, and the priest shall pronounce him unclean. It is a case of leprous disease. But if the priest examines it, and there is no white hair in the spot, and it is not deeper than the skin but has faded, the priest shall shut him up seven days, and the priest shall examine him the seventh day.

If it is spreading in the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean. It is a case of leprous disease. But if the spot remains in one place and does not spread in the skin but has faded, it is a swelling from the burn, and the priest shall pronounce him clean, for it is the scar of the burn.

When a man or woman has a disease on the head or the beard, the priest shall examine the disease. And if it appears deeper than the skin, and the hair in it is yellow and thin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean.

It is an itch, a leprous disease of the head or the beard. And if the priest examines the itching disease, and it appears no deeper than the skin, and there is no black hair in it, then the priest shall shut up the person with the itching disease for seven days.

And on the seventh day, the priest shall examine the disease. If the itch has not spread, and there is in it no yellow hair, and the itch appears to be no deeper than the skin, then he shall shave himself.

But the itch he shall not shave, and the priest shall shut up the person with the itching disease for another seven days. And on the seventh day, the priest shall examine the itch. And if the itch has not spread in the skin, and it appears to be no deeper than the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him clean.

And he shall wash his clothes and be clean. But if the itch spreads in the skin after his cleansing, then the priest shall examine him. And if the itch has spread in the skin, the priest need not seek for the yellow hair, he is unclean.

But if in his eyes the itch is unchanged, and the black hair has grown in it, the itch is healed and he is clean, and the priest shall pronounce him clean. When a man or woman has spots in the skin of the body, white spots, the priest shall look.

And if the spots on the skin of the body are of dull white, it is leukoderma that has broken out in the skin, he is clean. If a man's hair falls out from his head, he is bald, he is clean. And if a man's hair falls out from his forehead, he has baldness of the forehead, he is clean.

But if there is on the bald head or on the bald forehead, a reddish white diseased area, it is leprous disease breaking out on his bald head or his bald forehead. Then the priest shall examine him, and if the diseased swelling is reddish white on his bald head or in his bald forehead, like the appearance of a leprous disease in the skin of the body, he is a leprous man, he is unclean.

The priest must pronounce him unclean, his disease is on his head. The leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, unclean, unclean.

He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease, he is unclean. He shall live alone, his dwelling shall be outside the camp. So there's much written here about this, about leprosy. And it's still uncertain to this day what exactly this disease is.

People have different theories and thoughts on what it is. But it seems very clear that the point in scripture of having these laws about cleanliness is to illustrate our moral duties, to illustrate things about sin.

And it sets us up later for in the New Testament where Jesus heals the leprous man, or you have the case of the man being healed from, from Naaman being healed from leprosy later in the ministry of Elijah.

And so what does this, what does this tell us? What should we take away from this? Should this tell us about quarantining and how to go about serious diseases? Perhaps there's things you could gather there.

But the reality is, this is speaking to, as the New Testament demonstrates by Jesus healing leprous people and speaking of the need for a cleansing from not just physical diseases, but sin is speaking to the danger of sin.

Sin is incredibly cancerous. It is incredibly viral. It is something that spreads. It is infectious. And so we should be eager to guard ourselves from sin and to cut off from us those who are engaged in serious sin.

Now, this is the case of both with the kind of friends that you might make, as the Bible says, bad company corrupts good morals. Or it is also the case within the church that the church is supposed to be free from those who have a disease that might spread to others.

And by disease, I'm not referring to physical disease, but to a spiritual disease. And so this is very, the reason why Scripture gives this to us in such extreme detail, I believe, is to communicate the kind of care, the kind of special attention that needs to be given to assessing spiritual conditions, to assessing the danger that is involved with sin.

And that we should not be too eager to identify something that needs to be seriously cut off, but at the same time, we should be eager when it is the case that it has been discerned that it needs to be cut off.

And we should, as the priests are doing, be able to say whether something is clean or unclean. And so let this be a warning as you are facing temptations this upcoming week, that you resist those temptations and you keep yourself away from that which is leprous, that which is unclean.

Please turn in your Bible to Mark 12, verses one through 12. Mark 12, and he began to speak to them in parables. A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the wine press and built a tower and leased it to tenants and went into another country.

When the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. And he sent to them another servant and they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully.

And he sent another and they killed him, and him they killed. And so with many others, some they beat and some they killed. He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally, he sent him to them saying, they will respect my son.

But those tenants said to one another, this is the heir, come let us kill him and the inheritance will be ours. And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. What will the owner of the vineyard do?

He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read the scripture? The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes.

And they were seeking to arrest him, but feared the people, for they perceived that he had told this parable against them. So they left him and went away. So Jesus tells us this parable of these tenants who owned this land or rather cultivate it for the owner.

And they rejected the man when he came to get the harvest. They rejected his servants, rejected his son. And then he quotes this scripture. The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

This was the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes. And so it's clear that this speaks of Jesus, that Jesus is the son who was loved by the father and he was sent to the people. And the people have rejected him and killed him.

And this is precisely what happened to Jesus Christ. And so those who reject the son, what will the owner do? The owner will come and destroy them. Those who receive his son, those the owner will reward.

So here is the way to think about these things together. You know, this danger of sin, this danger of a leprous disease, it leads one to be not right with their maker. It leads one to be at odds with their God, such that when he comes and he asks for his harvest and there is no harvest ready, what would we do?

We would reject him. We would reject him and reject his son. But by the mercy of Jesus Christ, he cleanses people from leprosy. And he can cleanse your soul from whatever sickness that ails it, such that you would be ready for that harvest and you would not be a tenant who, if you were put in a place of leadership over the harvest, you would reject him, wanting it for yourself, but rather you would receive him knowing that he is the merciful and kind one who saves.

So today, no matter what your situation is, call out to Jesus Christ that you might be cleansed from sin and that you might be ready for that day when he returns. Because Jesus has come once and he was rejected, but then he rose from the dead and he is coming again.

And there will be people on that day who are not ready for him, who will be ready to reject him rather, but those who are ready to receive him will be put in a seat of honor. Let us continue singing with hymn number 220, Blessed Jesus at Thy Word.

Blessed Jesus at Thy Word

We are all to hearts and souls be stirred Let sense and sigh

Please turn your Bible to Hebrews 3. When you have Hebrews 3, please stand for the reading of God's word. We'll begin in verse seven. Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts in the rebellion.

On the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for 40 years, therefore, I was provoked with that generation and said, they always go astray in their heart.

They have not known my ways. As I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.

But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called the day, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.

As it is said, the day, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion. For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for 40 years?

Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And with whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest? But those who were disobedient, so we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for this warning. We ask that you would open our ears, open our hearts, that we might receive your word, and that you would give us an understanding that as we gather for worship on a regular basis, that our ears would be open and our hearts as well.

In Jesus' name, amen. In this passage here, in this book, the author has been repeatedly telling us that the importance of hearing the voice of Christ begins by speaking of the voice of Christ. It says, long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.

But in these last days, he's spoken to us by his son. And then it says in chapter two, if the message declared by angels was reliable and every transgression or disobedience receives a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?

In other words, so great a message delivered by someone greater, Jesus Christ. And in chapter three, it began by saying, therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus the apostle and high priest of our confession comparing him to Moses, speaking of him as an apostle, pointing to the fact that he has been sent with a message that we are to hear his voice and here in this passage, the author cites Psalm 95 in order to state the importance of hearing the voice of Christ as it is read, as it is given to us.

And so it is important that as we gather for worship, that this is what we are doing. We are gathering to hear the voice of Christ and it is important that we do hear the voice of Christ, that we do not harden our hearts to the voice of Christ.

And this whole passage is a warning against that, a warning against the hardening of the heart. And so there are many ways that we should consider how this voice is being given to us, how God is speaking to us through scripture.

If you'll please turn to Psalm 95, we will look to this occasionally since this passage is a quotation of Psalm 95. I want to explain to you the importance of this psalm. You might recognize the first two verses here.

O come, let us sing to the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving. Let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise. These were the first two verses that were read this morning in this worship service.

They were also verses that were modified in order to rhyme and make the first hymn that we sang here. This passage, this psalm, is a call to worship. It is a passage that would have been read in synagogues, it is a passage that would have been read in the context of worship to call the people to worship.

It is why we opened up our own service with it as a call to worship. And so when the author of Hebrews cites this psalm, it is not just to go through some aspects of history that he could have gone through himself without citing the psalm.

Rather, it is to bring to mind the importance of what this is saying in the context of worship, that as we worship God, as we are called to hear his voice, that we should not reject his word, that we should not grumble against him, that we should not harden our hearts.

Continues on in verse three, it says, "'For the Lord is a great God, "'and a great king above all gods.'". You might also recognize these words from the hymn that we sang. "'In his hand are the depths of the earth.

"'The heights of the mountains are also his. "'The sea is his, for he made it. "'In his hands formed the dry land.'". So why should we worship him? He is the creator of all things, and all things are in his hand.

If you are to go about and enjoy life, what are you enjoying? You are enjoying the things of this created world. And so, can you truly enjoy them apart from being right with the one who created them, the one who controls them all?

It is impossible to do so. You might have some temporary pleasures, but ultimately, you will be dismayed if you think that you can continue enjoying these things apart from a right relationship with this creator.

And then another call to worship, in verses six and seven. It says, "'O come, let us worship and bow down. "'Let us kneel before the Lord our maker, "'for he,' and why, what is the reason? "'For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, "'the sheep of his hand.'".

The sheep of his hand. So, not only should we praise him because he created all things, we should praise him because he created us. He created all things, and he created us. We are his sheep. We depend upon him.

All things come from his hand. What is the duty of a sheep? The duty of the sheep is to hear the voice of the shepherd. And we would be very full of sheep if we did not hear the voice of the shepherd.

We would go to places where there are not green pastures. We would end up in a desert, end up in a ditch, end up in some flood where we are not safe and rather destroyed. It continues on, and it says what we read of in Hebrews 3.

"'Today, if you hear his voice, "'do not harden your hearts as at Meribah. "'As on the day at Massa in the wilderness "'when your fathers put me to the test "'and put me to the proof, "'though they had seen my work, "'for 40 years I loathed that generation "'and said, they are a people who go astray in their heart, "'and they have not known my ways.

"'Therefore, I swore my wrath. "'They shall not enter my rest.'". And you'll notice that in Hebrews here, this psalm is not quoted just once, but it is repeatedly cited throughout the chapter and throughout the next chapter even that the author repeatedly goes to it to make this point that as we come to worship, we should hear the voice of Christ.

And so how does he introduce this passage in Hebrews 3? He says, therefore, as the Holy Spirit says. He does not credit this to the human author, but rather credits it to the divine author. And the author of Hebrews here has a pattern of doing this.

Later on, he'll say, as it is somewhere written, right? This is the kind of way that the author of Hebrews speaks, not to actually express ignorance about who wrote this. In fact, in the very next chapter, he says in verse seven, saying through David.

He knows this was written by David. He's affirming this is written by David. But in ignoring that, he is giving primary credit to the divine author that you need to listen to this, not because David said it, but rather because it is coming from the Holy Spirit.

It is scripture, it is the word of God, and it is coming from the Spirit. Now, not only is it coming from the Spirit, but it is also the voice of Christ. It says, therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, today, if you hear his voice.

Now, whose voice is he speaking of here? He has decided to quote this psalm at this particular point in the chapter because he wants to apply this, not to the voice of God generically considered, but rather to speak of the voice of Christ, the very theme that this book is about.

Remember, this is how the book started. Long ago, at many times, in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son. He's not left that theme behind.

It's the theme throughout the whole book. And so, who is the voice that we are supposed to be hearing when we come to worship the Lord? Who is the voice? This is the voice of Christ that we are to be hearing, the voice of Christ through his apostles, the voice of Christ through his prophets.

We are to be hearing his voice because it comes with that authority. It's not the authority of David. It's the authority of the Spirit. It's the authority of the Son. And it is even the authority of the Father because how does the Father communicate?

The Father communicates through the Son. And even as it says in John that the Son does not... Jesus says in John 5, 19, so Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only that what he sees the Father doing.

For whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. And this includes what he says. The Son, the Father has spoken, and the Son is the Word of God. Why does John 1, 1 call the Son the Word of God? Because the Father is speaking through the Son.

And so this is the voice of Jesus. This is the voice of the Spirit. This is the voice of the Father. This is the whole trinity speaking to us, calling us to worship, saying today if you hear his voice.

Now what is the significance of the word today? Today, as you might imagine, speaks of today. It speaks of this very day that we are living right now. In fact, later on in verse 13, it will say, but exhort one another every day as long as it is called today.

Speaking, alluding to the psalm that was just quoted. As long as it is called today, a modern way of saying that would be every day that ends in Y. Every day that ends in Y, you should be exhorting one another.

Every day that ends in Y, you should be hearing his voice. But now there is a special way that it also applies to us because as this is a call to worship, this today refers even more particularly to the day on which we are gathered for worship.

And you see that in the next chapter when it speaks of this day continuing on. It says today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. For if Joshua would have given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on, so then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.

So there is a special way that this today speaks of this continued experience that we have in coming before our maker and worshiping him. So this day applies today, not applies only to us because it is a day that ends in Y, but also because it is the Lord's day.

It is the day that we are gathered together for worship. And then beyond that, there's a special way that it applies to us because this day also refers to something greater than it did in the time of the Psalms.

It refers to this day that has happened in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And just to illustrate that, beyond clearly the author of Hebrews is applying this to a New Testament congregation, but similarly, you may be familiar with this.

Psalm 2 7 says, I will tell of the decree the Lord said to me, you are my son, today I have begotten you. Psalm 2, also a Psalm of David, speaks of the son being begotten today, on this day. Now, many questions come up here, is what is this referring to?

Is this referring to, you know, is it referring to Jesus being begotten in time? And many have made the error of failing to recognize him as being eternally begotten because of this passage and they think that, oh, he was begotten at some point in time.

That's not the case,.

But he is declared to be the son of God at some point in time. He's always the son of God, he's always of God, but he is declared to be the son of God when at the resurrection. Romans 1 4 says, he was declared to be the son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.

And so, this today that is spoken of prophetically in the Psalms, just as it is in Psalm 2 when David says today, prophetically speaking of the day of resurrection. So, it prophetically speaks of the day of, so this one in Psalm 95 is prophetically according to the pattern of the writer of Hebrews here applied to that day of resurrection, that day of resurrection that we celebrate now on a weekly basis.

And so, there are three counts on which we are especially need to sense the urgency here. It is today because it's every day that ends in Y. It's today because it is the day that we are gathered for worship, and it's today because this is the day on which Jesus is raised from the dead, and we live in a post-resurrection era.

And so, this especially applies to us. People read this Psalm and they think, well, this especially applies to the Hebrews because they were the ones who went through Massa, they were the ones who went through Meribah, they were the ones who saw all the signs and wonders.

We haven't seen those things. No, this especially applies to us. This especially applies to us even more than it applied to them, that we must hear the voice of Christ. We have far less excuse than they do.

We have far more revelation that we have been given, and so we must hear the voice of Christ, and we must not harden our hearts as in the rebellion. And so, he says that. He says, today, if you hear his voice, you are hearing his voice now as we read the Scriptures, as it's being preached to you, which is the means by which God's word is supposed to be declared, is through preaching, is through explanation, that even the preached word is the word of Christ, that you are supposed to be hearing this voice.

It says, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion. Now, what is a hardening of heart? It is a dullness of heart, it is a beginning to lack sensitivity to the word of God, whereby one might receive it and benefit from it.

Now, this is not to suggest that people begin with soft hearts that are eager to receive the word of God, and then, by some activity, then become hardened. Rather, the Bible says that, by nature, we have stony hearts.

Yet, God, through his Spirit, makes us able to hear, should he be gracious to us, that we would. And so, the command is that, as we hear, we are not to harden our hearts further, becoming further and further away from the truth, because though the natural man has a stony heart, he may become hardened and more hardened, to the point where he cannot receive it anymore.

In fact, that is the, a good analogy here is clay, right? You have clay, and it can get harder, then you can add water, and it can get softer. But if you allow it to get hardened enough, if you bake it in an oven and turn it into a mug or some kind of piece of ceramic, there's no way of making that soft again.

You can't take a coffee mug and make that clay softer anymore. It is done, and this is the danger that Hebrews repeatedly points to. So, if you harden yourself, there is a point of no return. There is a point in which God will restore one, that God will soften the heart, and even though they are born, by nature, stony, but there is a point of no return.

And we must be, we must fear God, in order that we would not reach that point. And this is a surprising, this is a surprising thing that he would say, too, to speak of, hardening your hearts on the day of the rebellion.

Because if you read, you know, the first five books of the Bible, the books of Moses, and you look at the people, sure, you can see that they sinned, sure, God gets angry at them, but when you think of the word hardened heart, what figure do you think of in the first five books of the Bible, in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy?

You're not thinking of the Israelites. The Israelites are not the one who it repeatedly says is hardening his heart. Who is it?

It is Pharaoh.

Pharaoh is the one who is repeatedly hardening his heart against God, rejecting God, and the people are saved. And you think of hardening his heart, oh, that's the enemy of God, that's the other nation, that's a people that doesn't apply to us.

No, the danger here in Psalm 95 and Hebrews 3 is not of Pharaoh, it's not of some outsider hardening his heart, but you, you who are hearing the word of God, you who identify among the people of God of hardening your heart.

And so, do not harden your heart. Receive the word of God. Now, we are called to be Bereans, where we test the scriptures, but being a Berean is something very different than being a skeptic, right? If you're familiar with the Bereans, they were in Acts, they were certain Jews who were very receptive to the word of God, and yet, at the same time, they were testing the things that Paul said to see whether they were true.

Now, that is a good activity. That is an example of someone who is receiving the word of God. But some people think that that warrants all kinds of skepticism, where they just kind of scoff at the word as it's given and are eager to reject everything that comes to them.

No, you must be eager to receive the word of God, and you must be eager to receive it now. People don't realize the kind of danger that they're in as they hear the word of God. You have a responsibility in this moment.

There's no neutrality, you can't just sit through this. You either receive the word of God, or you do not receive it, you reject it. And every moment that you reject it, that is not good for your heart.

It is something that hardens the heart when you reject the word. So you must come to worship realizing the danger that you are in as you worship. Worship is a wonderful thing. We draw closer to our maker.

We receive great blessings from worship. It is there for our good, and yet there is a great, great danger in worshiping God, because there are more and more opportunities to reject his word and to fail to hear it.

So you should be thinking about how you can be eager to receive the word of God. You know, what can you do? Do you come to church without enough rest the night before in order to be able to receive it and respond to it well?