You may be seated. One of the most pleasant memories that I have of my childhood is that I grew up going to church. When I was in the 3rd or 4th grade, a little girl who lived across the street asked me if I wanted to go to church with her. She told me that every Sunday morning a red and white bus from the church would drive through the neighborhood and pick up children at various designated corners. I asked my mom and dad and they said okay and so the next Sunday morning I got on the bus and I went to Sunday school. I went to church and from the very beginning. I thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever experienced. The people were friendly and the singing was fun and I enjoyed the Sunday school lessons and so I kept going back Sunday after Sunday and before long it was Sunday night. After Sunday night and then Wednesday night after Wednesday night, by and by I established friendships with the group of other kids my age that were the last 10 or 12 years. We all grew up together. We had all professed faith in Christ in one form or another over that time. We had all watched each other baptized. We were in sunny school classes together. We went on church outings together. Every summer we went to camp together. Every fall we would get promoted into the next grade together I will never forget those years. About the time I turned 18 however the dynamic within that group of friends began to change. Some of us went off to college, some took on full-time jobs, others entered the military, a few even got married. And overnight it seemed this inseparable band of friends became a memory. Our involvement in the life of the body grew less and less steady. I myself became consumed with pursuing a career in classical music and months would then begin to pass between my visits to church. Finally I just stopped going all together. I was to find out later that such was the common story among most of those with whom I had grown up. This is that time about 20 years has transpired. Rarely has my paths crossed with any of those long-time friends but one by one beloved the stories have come back much to the sadness of our own heart. Very few of that tightly knit group seemed to be serving Jesus Christ in any kind of significant way today. There are some who attend church on a fairly consistent basis but frankly the enthusiasm that most of them have for the gospel anymore could probably be poured into a thimble. Some have actually turned their backs on all things Christian. How does that kind of thing happen? How does that happen? I mean, you've seen this as I've seen it, but someone makes a bold public stand for Christ in some great profession of faith and today they're nowhere to be found. You know people like this, people who start out so excited and finish up so poorly that some of the most outspoken and dynamic Christians from our past are among those today who spiritually speaking are neutralized at best and antagonistic at worst. How does this kind of thing happen? Could this kind of thing happen at Christ community church? Oh yes, it has happened and none of us are exempt from it happening. Well beloved you see the early signs of this very thing we're beginning to show themselves among these Hebrew Christians, a group of second generation believers who had heard the gospel directly from those who had been eyewitnesses of Jesus Christ. I mean they were about as close to the original source as anybody could ever get and yet as a consequence of the mounting pressures around them, alternatives to full blown Christianity were starting to look more and more appealing to them. I don't be mistaken, it's not that they were on the verge of renouncing Jesus altogether but they were beginning to think to themselves, you know, a preoccupation with Jesus Christ maybe after all has grown a little bit out of balance. Maybe we've just become a little bit too excessive. I mean after all there are other things in life, other pursuits, other concerns, other people. Maybe if we just back off a little bit the tension will slacken, but the writer of this letter beloved will have none of that. Now you know that this letter of Hebrews has come to us anonymously. We don't know who the author is. Many suggestions have been offered throughout the years but what is very clearly to anyone who reads this letter with a discerning eye is that the love this author has for the people who will receive this letter is enormous. He knows that the greater persecution for these believers is just around the corner. And so at the very end of this book he says, pray that God would make it possible for me to be restored to you. In other words, if you're going to be going through persecution, I want to be right there with you. I want to be right at your side. He loves these believers. But there's also a second way he displays his love for them. See woven into the fabric of this letter are five strategically placed warnings, five pastoral appeals that grows out of the theology that he sets forth. And the thing I love about this writer, whoever he may be, is that he's not some kind of ivory tower theologian. He's a pastoral theologian who on the one hand dearly loves the people that God has given to him. But on the other hand is now filled with great fear in the face of their possible compromise with the gospel. And so what is the approach of this pastor? He begins by teaching theology, theology of the richest sword. I mean, you finish reading chapter one and the superiority of Jesus Christ is ringing in your ears. If it's not ringing, then you have not got ears to hear. He is greater than everything. He is greater than every one. He is greater even than the angels. But you see, theology is not an end in itself. It is a means to an end. And so after setting forth this fabulous theology about the greatness of Jesus, he then turns the corner and he says this, if Jesus is better, then everything else and every one else, then for you to play fast and loose with your commitment to him, is to imperil your own soul. It is to jeopardize your spiritual well-being. This is an issue of the greatest possible seriousness and you see, beloved, that is the burden now of these four verses in chapter two. In fact, for the sake of ease of understanding this morning, two statements summarize the emphasis of this first pastoral warning. Hear the heart, beloved of this man of God, and his love and concern for these people. Here is the first. The process of drifting away from the gospel is imperceptible but real. The process of drifting away from the gospel is imperceptible but real. Look at verse one. We must pay more careful attention, therefore, on the basis of all that I have just told you about the greatness and superiority of Jesus, we must pay more careful attention to what we have heard, why, so that we do not drift away, so that we don't drift away. Well friends, that is a really interesting metaphor to drift away. He doesn't pick that word just because he is kind of a creative writer. That word is very well suited to the situation at hand. Now let me see if I can explain and of course as we are going to see in just a moment it is incredibly pertinent to us in our own time. The word itself is a nautical term. That is to say it was used to speak of a ship whose anchor had broken loose from the ocean floor and was now dangerously drifting away from a safe harbor. The problem is you see this drifting tends to be so gradual that it isn't recognized while it's happening. It is imperceptible. Let us to say it is so slight. This drifting is so subtle, so gradual that its occurrence is not playing to the senses. That's what makes it so dangerous, you see. That's what makes this thing so insidious. By way of illustration, this past week I was reading about Admiral William Perry of the English explorer who led a crew of men to the Arctic Ocean and in an attempt to move even further north to continue their chartings, their map making, they calculated their location by the stars and began what was to be a very difficult and treacherous march north. They walked hour after hour in this bone-chilling cold. Finally exhausted, they stopped. Again they attempted to take their bearing from the stars, but when they did this a second time they discovered that they were even further south than when they had begun. And then suddenly Perry realized the problem. They had been walking on an ice flow that was moving south faster than they had been walking north. This drift was imperceptible, not playing to the senses, but real. And this you see is the same phenomena that concerns the writer of the Hebrews. When our anchor is dislodged from the bedrock of Jesus Christ then we become exceedingly susceptible to the unholy undertoes that seek to pull us away from him. Undertoes beloved that are so subtle, so slight, so gradual that they are beyond recognition, not identifiable to our playing senses until such a time that our spiritual condition is in a perilous state. May I tell you something, after sixteen years of ministry, and I recognize beloved sixteen years of ministry does not make me infallible, but sixteen years of pastoral ministry does teach you certain things about patterns that are repeated over and again. I can tell you, beloved, after sixteen years of ministry, I have never known of one professing Christian who woke up one day and suddenly out of nowhere said today, I will knowingly, willingly forsake Jesus Christ. This is the day that I will turn my back on the gospel once and for all. So the anchor dislodges and a subtle imperceptible drift begins. And then one day, sometime in the future, you find yourself sitting in the back of a police car. Or you look down and see your own hand wrapped around the neck of an empty whiskey bottle. Or you notice a used syringe on your nightstand. Or you wake up the next morning next to someone who isn't your spouse. And suddenly dawns on you, I've drifted far from the safe harbor of Jesus Christ. You say, well, art, come on. We around here know that no true Christian can be lost eternally. Yes, that is a statement theologically to which I would lend my ascent, the problem is it summarizes only half the issue. And beloved, you've heard me say it a dozen times, whenever you make a half truth, the whole truth, you end up with a complete untruth. It is true that no authentic Christian could ever sin himself into eternal lossness. Praise be to our God this morning, that he not only saves his children, he keeps his children. But what is equally true beloved is that no authentic Christian would ever sin himself into eternal lossness. Jesus himself says in Matthew chapter 10, he who stands firm to the end will be saved. He who continues to the end will be saved. On the one hand God keeps his people, he keeps them to the end. On the other hand, God's people with God's grace persevere to the end. Those are two sides of the same coin. We need both, not only one or the other, to get one out of the other is to imperil your own spiritual condition. You need to understand both, and the writer of this letter you see is encouraging his readers at this very point of necessary perseverance. Of course you and I know no true Christian can ever be lost eternally, but that's not his concern at this point. It's to address the other side of the issue, of the very real issue, the issue of perseverance without which no true Christian will ever see heaven. I've heard you of the hostilities that were heating up around them, the Hebrews, you see, were toying with the idea of letting go of Jesus if only ever so slightly, not repudiating him, not renouncing him, not rejecting him, just loosening their grip on him a little bit. I mean, after all doing so would make the circumstances of their life so much easier to cope with in the eyes of this pastor, however, such a thing is gravely serious. See for him, drifting is no small concern because he understands as a pastor beloved that wholesale apostasy begins with an imperceptible drift. Now listen, listen to the words of Kent Hughes. The church's experience two thousand years ago, speaking of the Hebrews, intersects our lives in this way. Drifting is the besetting sin of our day. And as the metaphor suggests, it's not so much intentional as from unconcerned. Christians neglect their anchor, Christ, and begin to quickly drift away. There is no friction, no dramatic sense of departure, but when the winds of trouble come, the things of Christ are left far behind, even out of sight. The writer of Revelation uses different language, but refers to the same thing when he says to the ostensibly healthy Ephesian church, yet I hold this against you. You have forsaken your first love. You've not abandoned Christ. He's no longer the apple of your eye. How do you know, beloved, in the most practical of terms? How do you know if this imperceptible, but real drift is taking place in your life? How can you tell this very morning, if your grip on the Savior has slackened just a little bit, allow me to make a couple of suggestions for your consideration? I've just jotted these down, if you had listened to them and ponder them. You can know that this imperceptible drift away from Jesus Christ is already in motion when speaking to him ceases to be a vital part of your life. When the quest to be like him no longer dominates your thinking, when gathering together to worship him has lost its delight. You can know that this imperceptible drift away from Jesus Christ is already in motion when pointed spiritual conversations are an embarrassment to you. When the acquisition of material possessions becomes the driving force in your life, when you can mouth songs in public worship without engaging the heart. When the pursuit of recreation and leisure takes on a predominant role, when the slightest excuse keeps you from your spiritual responsibilities, you can know that this imperceptible drift away from Jesus Christ is already in motion when you can read morally degrading literature and watch morally degrading movies without an uproar in your conscience. You can engage in compromising business practices with no apparent ill effects when you can cheat on a test and revel in your ability to avoid getting caught. You can know that this imperceptible drift away from Jesus Christ is already in motion when you are dulled by the preaching of the gospel, when you lack desire for the salvation of the unbelieving, when as a young boy or a young girl you can sit here Sunday after Sunday under the preaching of the gospel and say to yourself, someday in the future I'll make things right with God. The drift has already begun. Are any of those things true of you this morning? We must pay more careful attention therefore to what we have heard so that we do not drift away. The process of drifting away from the gospel is imperceptible but real. Second, the consequence of ignoring the gospel is severe but sure. The consequence of ignoring the gospel is severe but sure. Now, beloved the writer at this point moves ahead to explain the seriousness of this issue, to help us see how utterly significant this issue is and he does so you see by reasoning from the lesser to the greater. Look at it. For if the message spoken by angels, now here we make our connection to what we talked about in the previous chapter, for if the message spoken by angels was binding and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? Now beloved do you hear the legal emphasis of these words? Right here the author heaps one judicial expression on top of another. He says, for if the message spoken by angels was binding it's a term that carries with it the idea of being legally binding, legally authoritative and every violation it means to break the law and disobedience received its just punishment. All of these legal kinds of terms, this very legal kind of emphasis, what in the world is he talking about here? He's talking about law, God's law. The law that God gave the Moses on Mount Sinai, it was there that God gave his law to his covenant people, the people of Israel and friends if you want to take all of the Old Testament law you can summarize it under these two phrases, obey and live disobey and die. That's the spirit of the new covenant, obey and live disobey and die. You see the word right here, violation, for if the message spoken by angels was binding and every violation it speaks of a defiant overstepping, it's not a mistake it's not oh my goodness I didn't know it speaks of I know what is right but I willfully do what is wrong. You see the word disobedience every violation and disobedience it speaks of a refusal to listen, a refusal to hear, a refusal to heed, it speaks of a defiant covering over of the ears, an unwillingness to hear and obey. Why do I bother you with these two words? So you understand that both of them reflect not an accident, not something that takes place unintentional, not something that occurs unknowingly, they refer to a deliberate rejection of God's revealed will. And now let me ask you the key question. What was God's prescribed punishment for clear outright blatant defiance of his law, or what the Old Testament called high-handed sin? The punishment was death. He said, Lord, what about all those sacrifices, I mean the whole priestly system, I mean every morning, every evening they would offer a sacrifice and on the day of atonement the high priest would go into the Holy of Holies and offer a sacrifice. Do you realize, beloved, that all the Old Testament sacrifices were to be offered for sins that had been committed inadvertently, accidentally in ignorance, a violation of God's law done ignorantly? We're going to get to this, beloved, in Hebrews chapter 9, but the writer says this, but only the high priest entered the inner room and that only once a year and never without blood, which he offered for himself and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance. Those offerings were never made for defiant sin, only sin that had been committed in ignorance inadvertently, accidentally, unknowingly. Maybe this is surprising to some of you. Keep your finger here and turn to numbers chapter 15, would you? Genesis Exodus Leviticus numbers, numbers chapter 15, the better part of this chapter takes up this issue, we'll only look at one slice of it beginning in verse 27, chapter 15, verse 27, but if just one person, in other words the idea is whether this is one person or a group, but if just one person sins, notice the next word unintentionally. You must bring a year old female goat for a sin offering. The priest is to make atonement before the Lord for the one who aired by sinning unintentionally. And when atonement has been made for him, he will be forgiven. One in the same law applies to everyone who sins unintentionally whether he is a native born Israelite or an alien on the contrast, verse 30, anyone who sins defiantly whether a native born Arabian blasphemes the Lord. And that person must be cut off from his people. And you know what that phrase cut off from his people means? Sometimes rarely, occasionally it means excommunicated. More often than not, almost always it means he needs to be killed. Because he has despised the Lord's word and broken his commands, that person must be cut off his guilt remains on him. Here's the plan. In Advertains sin, unintentional sin, sin performed in ignorance, go off for a sacrifice, defiant sin, high handed sin, willful sin, your life is to be taken away, illustration. Next passage, verse 32, when the Israelites were in the desert, a man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day, picking up sticks for his family fire, it's not opened up his business and figured, hey, while everybody else is shut down, I'm going to make a killing on the Sabbath, not that carnal, need some sticks for the family hearth. A man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day, those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron in a whole assembly and they kept him in custody because it was not clear what should be done to him. Then the Lord said to Moses, the man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp, so the assembly took him outside the camp and stone him to death as the Lord commanded Moses in Advertains sin, accidental sin, sin performed in ignorance, offer a sacrifice, sin committed in defiance of God's law, no sacrifice can be offered, you lose your life. Now go back to Hebrews 2. Was this excessive? Was this somehow unrighteous on the part of the Almighty God who is the moral governor of the universe? Now the writer says, every violation and disobedience received its just punishment. It was right, oh it was right, moreover before we press into the application, please notice who the mediators of this law are. For if the message spoken by angels, angels, we've heard a little bit about angels already in this book. In chapter 1 verses 5 through 14 angels, angels, angels all over the place, but angels in fury already to Jesus Christ. And so he says, so for if the message spoken by angels was binding, did you know that angels were involved in the giving of the law on Mount Sinai? Did you know that when God showed up at that place, when God came down on that mountain that he wasn't alone, but surrounding him were myriads and myriads and myriads of angels, Deuteronomy 33, moreover did you know that when God spoke his law, he actually spoke it through the voice of an angel to Moses in Acts chapter 7. When Stephen is preaching, he says Moses was in the assembly in the desert with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai and with our fathers and he received the living words to pass on to us. It was through an angel that that binding law came. Now beloved here is the point, don't let me lose you. If the word spoken through mere angels proved binding and rejecting that word through angels carried with it devastating consequences, then my dear friends, what are we to think about the word that has come to us from God's own son, infinitely greater than the angels? This son who has now not brought us law, but who has brought us gospel, who has brought us salvation. You see, beloved, the sin against the law is one thing to sin against the love is another thing altogether, ignoring that word from that greater revealer will prove catastrophic. So he says in verse 3, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? What does he mean when he says escape? You take that word and you chase it through the new testament, you trace it through the New Testament. You know what you'll find? That it's almost exclusively used in contexts where the judgment of God is being spoken about. You'll never escape. If the anchor dislodges and the imperceptible drift continues unchecked, then a person will bring down upon him or herself a far greater judgment than mere physical death. Beloved, it's just as simple. If a person ignores God's own son, he can expect a judgment commensurate to that sin that in the eyes of God is far more despicable than any other sin that could ever be committed. The greater the vision of Jesus, the more severe the eternal punishment if he remains ignored. You do know, right, that are varying degrees of judgment for all of eternity. You understand this. And that the greater degree of judgment is directly in proportion to the amount of light given to you and rejected. Remember when Jesus went preaching to the towns of Galilee, they persisted in their unbelief, preaching and teaching and even performing miracles? Listen to what he says. Woe to you, Corazan. Woe to you, Betheseda. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago and sat cough and ashes, but I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. You've seen more, you've heard more, you've seen God come in the flesh and you persist in rejecting God on the day of judgment, it's going to be much worse for you. And you cappurnium, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. The idea is there is a hotter hell. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day, but I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you. Now, beloved, we all here understand what was taking place in Sodom. And yet do you recognize that in the eyes of the living God, the sin of rejecting Jesus Christ is infinitely far greater, infinitely far greater? The writer of Hebrew says how much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished, who has trampled the son of God ignoring a underfoot? It is the peril of ignoring the gospel. It is the peril of ignoring God's greatest word. If you hear it all and see it all and you can turn and walk away, then it is no longer possible for you to be saved. There is nothing that can save you.
Now, boys and girls, I want you to look at me for a minute. I want you to look at me right in the eye. Over the last few weeks, I've been thinking about you so often and praying for you. Because I knew this passage was coming up. And I know that several of you as children have heard the gospel over and over and over again. You've heard it for years. You know who Jesus Christ is. You understand the gospel if your parents woke you up in the middle of the night out of a dead of sleep. You could tell them what the message of the gospel is. Do you see the danger here of not responding to Jesus Christ? The message of the Bible children is very, very clear. It'll be better for you on the day of judgment if you had never even heard of the name of Jesus than to hear of it. And walk away from it. You have heard of that name, haven't you? You've heard it a thousand times. And God has been pleased to bring the gospel to you over and over and over and over again. And you know, I'm absolutely convinced this morning that the reason why He has done that is because He does want to save you. Have you trusted in His Son Jesus Christ? Do you believe, not do you understand, but do you believe that God crucified His own Son and raised Him from the dead? If you believe that this morning confess your sins and make Jesus Christ the object of your faith, if you believe in Him, you will be saved. You do that today. Don't begin to drift from what God has been pleased to give to you. And what about those of you who are here as adults? Have you ignored this great salvation? I mean, you've never actively opposed Jesus Christ. You just said to yourself, well, you know, that's nice for some people. It provides some moral boundaries for their children. It provides them strength and time of crisis, isn't that neat? How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? The point is, you won't escape. You won't escape. There is no escape out of eternal condemnation. You will not elude your guilt. You will not be able to bribe the judge. You will not be able to break down those prison doors. No longer will a sacrifice for sin be made available to you. No door of mercy will be left open. You will be irrecoverably lost. How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? Beloved, the consequences of ignoring the gospel is severe, but sure. The fact is, no person will perish more justly than the person who rejects God's offer of salvation in Jesus Christ, because you have heard all that there is left to hear. You have no excuse. And do you know why? Look at the often-authentication of this message. Look at that which establishes its reliability. Look at it. Look at verse 3, this salvation which was first announced by the Lord. This salvation was announced by Jesus Christ. That tells you that the origin of this message is unquestionably pure. It didn't originate with angels. It didn't originate with mere servants who might model the message if they get their gruddy little fingers on it. It originated with one who possesses unerring and infallible wisdom. The one who possesses unchangeable veracity and faithfulness it originated with Jesus Christ himself. Secondly, it was passed on to us by apostolic witnesses. This salvation which was first announced by the Lord was confirmed to us by those who heard him, the apostles. Well, you know, there are some people beloved who are always skeptical, always skeptical of people in religious leadership. What's he in this thing for? What's his intention to get out of this whole proposition? What about these guys? What was needed for them? First everyone of them lost their lives for preaching the gospel. Preaching this message that Jesus Christ had been raised from the dead. At the very least, whether you agree with him or not, this is something about their integrity. Because while a good man might give up his life for something that he erroneously believes to be true, no man would ever give up his life for something that he knows for sure to be a lie, to speak this testimony for Jesus Christ meant the loss of all that was dear to them in this life. Of course, the facts still remain, they are ordinary men. Sure, the origination of this message with Jesus Christ, that was pure, but these fallible men got their hands on this word, and perhaps they polluted it or contaminated it just a little bit. Well, take a look. This salvation which was first announced by the Lord was confirmed to us by those who heard him, God also testified to it and beloved the way that word reads in the Greek. It's almost impossible to translate into English. The idea is God also testified to it with them by signs, wonders, and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will. In other words, God himself has gone on record. He verified the testimony of the apostles to Jesus Christ. He linked his testimony to theirs. And how did he do it? When they came on the scene preaching this message, he does what he always does when he reveals a fresh word from heaven. He confirms it by his miraculous power. And so when that gospel came, what did we see? Signs and wonders and miracles and the gift of tongues and prophesying and all of those things that were saying to the people, listen now because God is speaking. It came from Jesus, confirmed by the apostles who had added to their testimony the very power of God himself. I say it again, no person will perish more justly than the man who rejects God's offer of salvation in Jesus Christ.
Beloved, have you ever wondered why so few Christians finish well? Why so few Christians finish the race with great strength and great zeal? Why is it that so few senior Christians are filled with great conviction and great passion and great devotion to Jesus? Why are so many professing Christians dominated by lukewarmness and compromise? Why does it seem that so few even finish the race? Oh, they were never saved to begin with. Perhaps that is true from the perspective of eternity, but from our perspective in time it is much simpler than that. The anchor gave way and the imperceptible drift away from Jesus Christ began sometime in the future, if not ignored, if not arrested he will be ignored altogether. A man who has been a Christian for many many years wrote this prayer near the end of his life. It's worth hearing as he considers his own promise for drifting. I fear the dark specter may come too soon or do I mean too late that I should end before I finish or finish but not well, that I should stain your honor, shame your name, grieve your loving heart, few they tell me finish well, Lord, let me get home before dark. Are you drifting this morning? Don't look down, look at me as the process of drift begun. Have you come to the place where you prepared to ignore this great salvation? Are the signs there? These are not concerns about which you ought to be indifferent beloved. These are of the greatest possible seriousness. And so what should you do about it? He tells us the very first line of verse 1. We must pay more careful attention therefore to what we have heard. The idea in the original is even stronger than it appears in English. You must give the greatest attention to what you've heard. My dear friends, if the drift is begun, you need to give yourself to the gospel today more seriously than you have ever given yourself to the gospel before. You need to make sure at this very moment that Jesus Christ will occupy the place of greatest allegiance, greatest attention, greatest affection. Sink the anchor deep into Jesus Christ today. Jesus is an infinitely great salvation. He is an infinitely great savior. Stop the drift, stop the drift. If you have heard God's voice this morning, beloved, stop the drift because there may come a time when you won't be able to stop the drift. Would you bow your heads with me, please? You know what God has been saying to your own life this morning. I can only guess and I'd probably be wrong, but you know. Would you take a moment and respond to God as His word demands from you? Would you take a moment and say to Him whatever needs to be said, that you need to trust Him more, that you need a repentive drifting, that you need to stop fooling around with this message of salvation and today trust Christ? Would you say to Him whatever needs to be said, our Father, if we have heard your voice this morning through the broken words of a man, then it stands to reason that we can stop the drift by your grace. For some here, perhaps the drift is not even noticeable to anybody else in this room, even our most intimate companions, for others, oh God, perhaps the drift has become severe. Are there those among us, oh God, who've ignored the gospel, that they've heard it time and again, oh Lord, I pray that your spirit would not allow us to rest until we bow our need to you again and give ourselves to the gospel more deeply than we have ever given ourselves to the gospel before, our God. Perhaps for some today, this must be the moment of salvation. For others of us who belong to you, Father, perhaps we've been flirting with compromise, what a frightful, frightful thing it would be to wake up in eternity and discover that we had diluted ourselves, that we were never really yours to begin with, oh God, with each boy and with each girl, with each young man, each young woman, each adult who is here this morning, please, oh God. Please, please, don't let them rest until they deal with this most important issue. Our Father, thank you for coming and speaking to us. We do love you and we thank you that you love us enough to warn us when necessary in Jesus name. Amen. God be with you, you're dismissed.