Let's take our Bibles and turn to Hebrews to chapter 3, where we learn tonight about the superior prophet. It's interesting that when we look at the New Testament, these different epistles break themselves down into various themes depending upon when they were written in the life of the early church. The earliest ones tend to be written about the gospel and what it means to be a Christian because that was obviously the concern of John and James. And Peter and others who were writing in the early days of the Christian movement as we get into the middle of their time, then they begin to address things about the church and about sanctification and about the family, about the Christian life. And as we come to the end of the New Testament and we look at Hebrews and we look at the pistols of Peter and John and Jude and book of Revelation, we start to talk about persecution and apostasy. Because that was the age in which in the New Testament church, the great Emperor Nero was beginning to persecute the church in the first of ten waves of persecution. And there were many people who were falling away from Christ and the church in the faith. And that is why the author of he was writing this longest of all of these persecution letters as they've been called by one commentator. He has a theme in them and that is the preeminence of Christ that Christ, he says at the very end, is the same yesterday and today and forever. This consistency and this constancy of Christ and his nature and his work remains the one rock of stability and encouragement for the church in times of trouble. He's writing we think to Jewish people who became Christians in Rome or in Central Italy and towards the end of the seventh decade of Christendom, they were beginning to think through whether or not that was a safe thing to do to remain faithful to Christ and risk another wave of persecution. Having we'll see next week already suffered two persecutions in Jews and now a third one is Christians. And so he gives us an outline. He says folks, here's what we want you to do. We don't want you to fall away from Jesus Christ because he is our superior prophet. And these last days God is speaking through him. He's greater than all of the angels who are messengers and he's greater than Moses and Joshua. He gives a greater revelation than law and he gives the gospel, such a great salvation. If we fall away from Jesus Christ we have no one to speak to us anymore, a revelation from God. He tells us that he's the superior priest, greater than Aaron and all of the limitical priest, greater than Melchizedek, this one who is called by God a priest forever. And he's the only one who can cleanse us from our sins and make a sacrifice for us that will propitiate God and reconcile us to heaven and cleanse us from dead works and he is a sovereign king. He brings to us not only a great confession of faith as a prophet and a new covenant as a priest but he brings us a new community, something he calls a lasting city, an unshakable kingdom and enduring community, this kingdom of God. And as it comes to the close of the first section in chapters 1 through 4, he now compares Jesus Christ to Moses. Moses was the greatest of all of the prophets. In fact Moses may have been the greatest of all of the men of Israel. They had a great affection for Abraham, the father of their faith and they reveled in the glory of David, they considered his kingdom and the kingdom of his son Solomon to be the golden age of Israel. But the one that they had the most respect for was Moses, the law giver because it was Moses who led them out of bondage in Egypt, took them to the mountain of Sinai or Horeb where they received a covenant from God. He formed their culture and their laws and their worship and their functioning community and that led them to the promised land where they would get what God had promised Abraham, a land and a seed and a blessing. And Moses is the beginning of the prophetic line. He's the first of the great prophets. In fact, if we were to look at the Old Testament, the way it's organized by the Hebrews, the law of Moses comes first, the law of the great prophet it's called, and then from Joshua onto the poetic books we call these men the former prophets. And then there was Elijah who had the spirit of prophecy and him who introduces us to the prophetic age and the classical prophets, sometimes called the latter prophets Isaiah through Malachi. And it was in Moses that a great promise was given to the people. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers. It is to him, you shall listen. Just Jesus died of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, let us not hear again the voice of the Lord my God or see this great fire anymore, let's die, die. And the Lord said to me, that is to Moses, they are right in what they say. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers and I will put my words in his mouth and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And do ever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. Of course Moses was prophesying there in Deuteronomy 18 of Jesus Christ. So the great prophecy of Moses, even back in Deuteronomy, was foretold to be eclipsed by an even greater prophecy who now the author of Hebrews tells us is of course the Lord Jesus Christ. He played a massive role of a great importance in the life of the Old Testament and even in the life of the New Testament. They are the spokesman who give us the oracles of God Peter says. And we have the prophets and their word more fully confirmed to which you will do well to pay attention as a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Knowing this first of all, the no prophecy of Scripture ever comes through someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. Paul would tell us that these prophets form along with their New Testament counterparts, the Apostles, the very foundation of the church. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with all the saints and members of the household of God built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone. Paul would go on in Ephesians to tell us that one of the great gifts to the church for building them up is the prophetic and apostolic office. And he gave the apostles and the prophets the evangelist and pastors and teachers to equip the saints for the work of the ministry for the building up of the body of Christ. So here we come to a full appreciation of what it is that Moses and other prophets did and we come to realize, according to this author of Hebrews, the stunning declaration that there is someone greater than Moses than all of the apostles and all of the prophets in the Lord Jesus Christ. Actually, this train of thought begins in chapter 3 verse 1 and goes all the way through chapter 4 verse 13 that Moses is greater than two of the early prophets, greater in chapter 3 than Moses, greater in chapter 4 than Joshua, greater than the one who forms a household of God, Moses, and greater than the one who leads them into the promised land, Joshua. And in this paragraph, we're going to divide this in half in these first two paragraphs of chapter 3 where Christ is compared to Moses, we're told two things about Jesus Christ. He is the superior head of God's house and he is the superior leader of God's people. Look at this first point that the author of Hebrews makes that Jesus Christ is superior even to Moses as the head of God's household, chapter 3 verses 1 through 6. Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to him, who appointed him just as Moses also was faithful in all God's house. For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, as much more glory as the builder of the house has, more honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone but the builder of all things is God. Now, Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God's house as a son. And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and are boasting in our hope. The author of Hebrews says that this hour of persecution that they are under, this distress that they are incurring, perhaps for these people a double distress because they were probably doubly held in contempt by the Romans by being both Jews and now Christians, has led them to an important exercise. And that is they are to consider Jesus Christ. He uses the little verb katanae, which means to meditate or to think deeply upon. They are to consider or to think or to meditate upon. It's used twice in Hebrews, here in chapter 3, therefore holy brothers who share in a heavenly calling consider or meditate Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, and over in chapter 10 it says, let us consider. Let us meditate upon how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting our own assembling together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near. As they were being persecuted, there was a tendency to draw away from the community of Christ, obviously not to be openly associated with it. Not to have a neighbor say, well, they're one of the Christians, they're one of that sect of Christus, to draw away from them and to go inward. I don't know about you, people react to pain differently, but I tend when I'm suffering to go inward. My wife has a very difficult time when I'm really in pain, pulling me out and engaging with me. Sometimes she'll literally get my ears and turn them, say now, let's focus here. Because I tend to just go inward, it's protective. I just start shutting down and putting layers between me and people because they're danger signs out there, feelings of being wounded. Other people are the opposite, okay? They move outward. But here are these people suffering persecution, tended to go inward, and the author of Hebrews is saying, you know, we don't want you to go inward and think about something that would be counterproductive. We want you to go inward and think about Jesus Christ. We want you to meditate upon this Jesus Christ. And here's what we want you to think about. He says, we want you to realize that Jesus Christ is superior to Moses when you compare the two. Look at the first two verses of chapter three again. Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in the heavenly calling consider Jesus the apostle and high priest of our confession who was faithful to him who appointed him just as Moses also was faithful in all God's house. Jesus Christ and Moses have a unique calling. There are only two people I can think of in the Bible who at the same time exercise the office of prophet and priest. Moses was the first prophet, the law giver. He was also a Levite. Even though Aaron was the formal priest, it was Moses's prerogative to go into the sanctuary and to hear from the Lord, revelation from God, the prophet, and to speak for God's people and to pray for them as an intermediary or intercessor is a priest. Jesus Christ is the same. He is the word made flesh and he is the great and faithful high priest. That's why even in the gospels the two are tied together. John says, for the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Both formed God's household, the church, in a unique way. Moses gave to the Old Testament church Israel, the mosaic law and the vertical worship and their social and civic structure so that he formed the community of the saints known as the Old Testament church and Jesus Christ through his great commission and his gospel forms the New Testament wing of this church that we call the New Testament church. The FF Bruce says the combining of the two roles of divine and void and holy priest in one person is not common in the Old Testament. It appears only in a few outstanding characters among whom Moses occupies a primary place. Moses was an apostle of God to his people, does not call for demonstration. It is equally true that he was the people's most effective intercessor with God. It was his brother Aaron, not he who was high priest of Israel so far as the title and investiture were concerned, but it was Moses and not Aaron who was Israel's true advocate with God. When Moses' unique position as a spokesperson of God was challenged even by members of his own family, his faithfulness was vindicated by God himself. Other spokesmen of God might receive communications from him by visions and dreams, but Moses enjoyed a most direct revelation from God. Moses was acknowledged by God as a chief steward over his household, and if it required of stewards that they be found faithful, then Moses certainly met this requirement. The house which Moses served so faithfully is not the tent of meeting, but the people of Israel, the family of God which we know as the church. When the author of Hebrew says in these opening verses that Moses was faithful over the house of God, he is referring to Numbers 12, a point in time where even his own brother and sister and others challenged his authority. Numbers 12, Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, and they said as the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses, has he not always spoken through us? And the Lord heard this, now the man Moses was very humble, more than all the people who were on the face of the earth, and suddenly the Lord said to Moses, enter Aaron and to Miriam, come out here at you three, come out to the tent of meeting, and the three of them went out to the Lord. And the Lord came down in the pillar of cloud and stood in the entrance of the tent, and called Aaron and Miriam to a step forward, and they both came forward trembling, and he said, hear my words, if there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in visions. I speak with him in a dream, but not so with my servant Moses, he is faithful in all my house. With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly and not in riddles, and behold he is able to see the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against them, and then he departed. That's an impressive thing. The Bible says that Moses spoke to God as a man speaks to his friend face to face. Literally the Hebrew reads this way, that Moses was the friend of God who spoke to him mouth to ear. It says, if God leaned forward and Moses leaned into God's face and God whispered into Moses ear, what he wanted him to know and to say. And yet Jesus Christ is superior to Moses. Look at verse 3 and 4. For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone but the builder of all things is God. Of course, Jesus is God. He's God the Son, and thus he's both the owner and the builder of the house which is the church. That's what Paul called the church, the household of the living God. Moses, according to this text, is a household servant. Jesus Christ is the son of the house. Now Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant to testify to the things that were to be spoken later but Christ is faithful over God's house as a son. And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope. Moses was a man. He was a creature made and called by God to serve him in the church and he served well. He was a faithful servant over the household of God but Jesus Christ is God in the flesh and not a creature. He is the redeemer and ruler of the church of Jesus Christ and as the son of the house he is the heir of all things so that the very church that Moses built in the Old Testament and that Christ has reformed and do belong to Jesus Christ like they never belong to Moses. So consider this he says that you belong to Jesus Christ and a possible and faithful high priest. He uses three titles for Jesus Christ, all of which I think are important to these people who are suffering persecution. He calls him Jesus. He uses Christ's personal and human name, Joshua or Yeshua, to show that he is just as much a human being as they are and just as personal as Moses was, one among them. He is also the apostle, literally a sent one as we learn this morning. Jesus said God sent me to preach and to work miracles and he is a faithful high priest. Christ is the one who will make the final satisfaction for sin with his own sacrifice, something that Moses and Aaron did thousands of times with the blood of sheep and goat and lamb and beef but no one could die once for all the just for the unjust and bring them to God. That is why he would say at the end of chapter 2 this author of Hebrews, therefore he that is Christ had to be made like his brothers and all things so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people. In considering this truth, these people are urged by Moses several or by the author of Hebrews several times to move deeper into Jesus Christ. In fact, this whole epistle kind of comes to climax in chapter 12. Therefore since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every way to sin which clings so easily to us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Looking to Jesus the author and perfect of our faith. In your struggle against sin, you have not resisted yet to the point of shedding of your blood but Jesus had. This is a great encouragement to people in times of difficulty because the number one reason people turn away from God is suffering. Tim Keller in his book called Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering talks about how he discovered this early on as a young pastor in the ministry. He says as I took up the life of a minister, I tried to understand why so many people resisted and rejected God. I soon realized that perhaps the main reason was affliction and suffering. How could a good God, a just God, a loving God, allow such misery and depravity and pain and anguish? Douts in the mind can grow along with pain in the heart and when I would sit down with such sufferers, I often found myself fielding white hot objections to God's existence and to the truth of the Christian faith. When people suffer, they do one of two things. Like I said, they go inward and the further they go inward, the more they focus on this self and their pain. Or they can move outward. They can be drawn to Jesus Christ is the only one who can relieve them of their pain. Tim Keller acknowledges this. But at the same time, I learned also that just as many people find God through affliction and suffering, they find that adversity moves them towards Christ rather than away. Trouble times awaken out of their haunted sleep a spiritual yearning that overcomes their self-sufficiency and they begin to search for the divine. Suffering plants the flag of truth within the fortress of a rebel soul. It is an exaggeration to say that no one finds God unless suffering comes into lives, but it's not a very big one. When pain and suffering come to us, we finally see not only that we are not in control of our lives, but that we never were. And we look for the one who may be. And that is what the author of Hebrews is telling these people. You are going to share in the sufferings of Jesus Christ with Paul said that we know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings. And when it comes, there is a tendency to draw away from people, draw away from the church. That's why in Hebrews chapter 10 he says, you ought to encourage one another and not to fall away from the church as has become the habit of some, but all the more to encourage each other as you see the day drawing near as this persecution grew. And their imminent martyrdom came. They were not to run away and hide in the self and certainly not to fall away from Christ and say to the Roman friends and authorities, so I don't know him. I'm not a Christian. I'm not of Christus, but they were to draw near to Christ. First in their thoughts about him and then in the community where he was alive, this household over which Moses and he were great servants and of which Christ is the owner having purchased the church with his blood. And therefore these saints needed to be careful to turn towards God instead of turning away from him. Now here's where we have to make a quantum leap because we don't think this way, but in the very next paragraph he will begin to refer to Psalm 95. He'll do it five times between chapter 3, verse 7 and chapter 4, verse 13, and he will warn the people that one of the marks of beginning to fall away from Jesus Christ is the criticism of those who speak for Christ. Look what he says as he talks about Jesus Christ being a superior leader than Moses over God's house. Verse 7, Therefore as the Holy Spirit says today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart says in rebellion on the day of testing in the wilderness when your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for 40 years. Therefore I was provoked with that generation and I 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 less, 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 today 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 today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion. For who were those who heard and yet rebelled wasn't 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 into wilderness and to whom did he swear that they should not enter his rest but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. It is here and the development is thought that the author of Hebrews turns to Psalm 95. I'm going to ask you to turn there for a minute. It's a great Psalm written we think by David because he refers to it as the Psalm of David over in chapter 4 where David sings about the Lord and warns the people not to be like the children who grumbled against Moses when they could not find water in the wilderness. Psalm 95 which we just sang a few moments ago in a metric version. 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 a song of praise for the Lord is a great God and a great king above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth, the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his for he made it in his hands formed the dry land. O come let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our maker for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. Now here David is celebrating the fact that God is proven to Israel to be exactly what he says here. The great king above all gods are reference to Pharaoh who considered himself a God who as control over the seas he parted the red sea and took them through the dry land. He is a God whom we can worship and bow down to as they did in the wilderness. He is the shepherd of his people he was leading them out of bonding into the promised land but things change in verse 7 today. Today if you hear his voice do not harden your hearts as at Meribah as on the day of Masa in the wilderness when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof though they had seen my work for forty years I lo of that generation. And I said they are people who go astray in their heart they have not known my ways therefore I swore in my wrath they shall not enter my rest. What is David talking about would you flip back to the book of Exodus to chapter 17 here Moses had done stupendous things he worked these ten miraculous judgments on Pharaoh in Egypt. He led we think somewhere between three to five million people out in this massive Exodus. He parted the waters of the red sea he led the people through he destroyed Pharaoh's army and then they came to a place called Revedh Adam. They were in the wilderness in the desert and they were thirsty and there was no water Exodus 17. All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of sin by stages according to the commandments of the Lord and camped at Refidim but there is no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said give us water to drink and Moses said to them why do you quarrel with me why do you test the Lord but the people thirsted there for water and the people grumbled against the water. And the people grumbled against Moses and said why do you bring us out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst. So Moses cried to the Lord what shall I do with his people they are almost ready to stone me. And the Lord sent to Moses pass on before the people taking with you some of the elders of Israel and taking your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile and go. The old I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb. You shall strike the rock and water shall come out of it and the people will drink. Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel and he called the name of that place Masa and Meribah because of the quarreling of the people of Israel and because they tested the Lord by saying is the Lord among us or not. That means testing and Meribah means quarreling or grumbling. They were testing God by grumbling and quarreling with God's leader Moses. Here's another spiritual fact of life. When difficulties come into people it's going to either bring out the worst or the best in them. Hayley Barber was the governor of Mississippi when Hurricane Katrina struck the coast and he said you know great disasters like this bring out the best in people or the worst in people. And I've experienced that myself. Jane and I were living in Myrtle Beach in 1989 when Hurricane Hugo came through and tore up our house and put a tree down in a roof and knocked on all these trees and I was standing out there after we were allowed to go back in the city. After we had been ordered to evacuate and thinking how in the world am I going to clean this up. And all of a sudden this red old beat up pickup truck with an Indian license plate pulled up in front and the guy got out and he said we need me to take down these trees for you. So I called him over and I said what's your price he said three. I said there's nine trees here and one of them in the house he said I'll take all ten of them, cut them up, boom to the street clean it all up. He told me a dime. I said what's the catch he said there's no catch he said I'm from Indiana and he said last summer we had a great drought in Indiana and the people of South Carolina set feed and grain and hey up to us to keep our lives talk alive and the people of South Carolina saved my farm my family. I'm off to come down here left my son in charge of the farm and I'm going to be down here helping people from South Carolina because the Lord told me to pay you people back. Isn't that amazing. I also met a woman down in golf port Mississippi in Katrina and that tragedy brought the worst out of her. She went around while people weren't there living in their houses squatting taking their merchandise. I loaned her a generator that I got from somebody else and she lost it fact I think she sold it. She was just a thief and the fact that no one was there to guard these houses brought out the worst in her and she took advantage of people. And that's what this author of Hebrews is telling us. In these three little paragraphs here he tells us that first of all the Holy Spirit warns us against grumbling and quarreling in Psalm 97 because he says it comes from a heart of unbelief. And secondly that such grumbling and quarreling is an act of rebellion against God and it leads to a hardened heart that becomes unable to be penitent. And thirdly that such grumbling and quarreling reveals an unregenerate spirit which caused Israel's death in the wilderness and could cause God to send us to hell for the same thing. A sign of unbelief and disobedience is grumbling and quarreling with God by grumbling and quarreling with His servants. I know that sounds self-serving. I'm sure it sounded self-serving for the author of Hebrews to say it or for Moses to tell the people that but it is true. African-American pastors have an expression for this. They tell people your arms are too short to box with God and so you punch the preacher who represents Him and it's true. When we are disappointed, when we're under pressure, when we're in pain, one of two things will come out of us. We will draw nearer to God and nearer to the minister or the teacher or a father or husband. Someone who is a leader appointed by God and will go to that person for encouragement help or we will become embittered against God and take it out on those people. Psalm 95 is a sober Psalm because it tells us that the people exhibited their unbelief by the way they treated Moses and as a result, this is God's word, I swore in my wrath, they will not enter my rest. I want you to notice a key little word in this exaggeration. It's the word today. Today, if you hear His voice, that today of course was written originally by David for something that His people were going through. He was taking Exodus 17 as an example and saying to his people, now look back in there today, they faltered in unbelief and rebelled against God and quarreled with the word and were disobedient and difficult for the man that God led them to follow. He had just worked all these marvelous miracles but they get thirsty and they're ready to kill him and go back to Egypt. So we said to His own people today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts. That same word is now transported into the Hebrew experience. Today, this day that we are suffering persecution, do not harden your hearts because it could indicate that you have what He calls here an unbelieving heart. So we see verse 19 that they were unable to enter into God's rest because of unbelief. This confidence that they have that He refers to here holding fast to the confidence is not just an existential experience, it's not some subjective thing, it's the confidence of what they have seen God do. What was the confidence of the people of Israel for crying out loud folks? Look at all that Moses had done in a matter of a few months and now things got rough and they forgot all that. At one point, they would grumble against Him and they would decide that they were going to replace Him. God saw that problem by just having the earth open up and swallow all the people who were against Him. Another time, they said, let us kill Moses and return to Egypt. They displayed a lack of confidence in God when everything became difficult. And the author of Hebrews is saying, you know, we could struggle with the same thing if we are not careful. But if we consider Jesus, then we take our eyes off of our leaders, off of our husband and father, off of our pastor and elders, off of our principal and teachers, our coaches, our employers, our president, the ones whom God sends into our lives please. We take our eyes off of them and we see the greater person behind them and we realize that Moses, who I don't think made many mistakes, but when he did, was overshadowed by and overruled by one greater than himself. The whole theme of this book let alone this section here. Moses was faithful, despite all the grumbling and quarreling, to get to people from where they were and bondaged, to where they needed to be on the shores of the Promised Land ready for freedom and a new future. He brought them out of slavery into the freedom of salvation and he was a faithful minister. And so was Jesus Christ, they were going to suffer, perhaps greatly in this persecution and tribulation, but greater was Jesus Christ with them than Moses who had been with their ancestors thousands of years before. You know, folks, whenever we look at the Bible, we need to look for some application. People are always saying to me, Pastor, we want practical applications, so let me give you one. It's going to take us about five minutes over time, but I want to give it to you. And I'd like you to turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 10, 1 Corinthians chapter 10, where the author, Paul, takes us back to the same events that the author of Hebrews is talking about and says that these things are common to mankind. 1 Corinthians chapter 10, beginning in verse 1. For I do not want you to be unaware of brothers that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea and were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food and all drank from the same spiritual drink for the drink from the spiritual rock that followed them and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not pleased for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now, these things took place as an example for us that we might not desire evil things as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were, as it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. We must not indulge in sexual morality as some of them did and 23,000 fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now, he mentions five things all from the life of the Israeli people, all from Exodus and the Book of Numbers. He mentions that they desired evil things. They wanted to go back to the dantes of Egypt rather than go through the difficult things that led them to the Promised Land. They were guilty of idolatry with the golden calf. They sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. They were guilty of sexual immorality and that they married the Moabite women and God judged them for that. They tested the Lord repeatedly and they grumbled against Moses when they were thirsty. Now, these things happen to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heedless to fall. That's an important exhortation. Things may be going well in your life. You may be happy with the church and your elders and your pastors, and you may think I would never be like that. But take heed that if difficulty came into your life, it could bring out the worst in you as well as the best. Therefore, let anyone who thinks he stands take heedless to fall because no temptation has overtaken you but such as this common to mankind. And God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it. It's a common thing, folks, especially for Americans to complain against their leaders. That's why we can't find good men to run for office. That's why husbands are leaving their wives and record numbers and deserting their family or becoming passive at home. That's why we can't find men to go into the ministry and more and more of them desert the ministry. Perhaps as high as 70% of the men ordained when I was ordained will not finish in the ministry. That's why because things are going well and everybody loves them and then difficulty comes into their life. Their arms are too short to box with God and they strike out at the minister. Obviously, I say this with a mixed motive. I don't like getting punched for the Lord. I didn't make up these things. I didn't bring the suffering into your life although long sermons may be part of that misery. But there's also something else, more important, and that could be the indication, listen carefully to me, that you are beginning to drift away from Christ. If when trouble comes into your life, if when the church does something you don't like, if as Paul says, have I become your enemy by telling you the truth? If it embarrasses you, upset your children, anger your loved ones and friends. You have a choice to make. Will you fix your eyes on Jesus Christ, the author and perfector of your faith? Will you realize that he's really the one speaking through his word? He doesn't really need Moses? He doesn't really need me. My wife has reminded me many times that he's used a jackass before. It's our unbelief in him that is the real danger when we grumble and complain and turn inward and away from him. The solution will be simply to do the opposite. To not forsake your assembling together is the habit of some, but gathering together and encouraging one another, getting perspective from other people. What did the pastor really say? What did you really mean? Look at his track record. Look how he's led us all these years. What is God doing in our life? Well God did the same thing to me. What is the president after? Is he always an evil man? Or is there a greater picture that we need to see that Mr. Obama is dealing with? Why does my husband ask this way? Ask other women? They're married to other husbands? Get perspective from other people. But to go inward and to focus on disappointment turns to anger which takes a festering and could end up in unbelief. In saying to Christ, I'm not going any further with you. I'm not going to follow you. And the author of Peter says today, if you hear his voice and you do every time you read the Bible, every time you go to Bible study, every time you go to Sunday school, every time you hear his sermon, you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts in unbelief. The trust that even greater than Moses is Jesus Christ who is leading you through a wilderness of difficulty at times because he's taking you home. We'll find out in the next chapter to a promised land and eternal rest. And he is faithful over his house because he is the son of the household, the house that he owns and is purchased with his own blood. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you know our human frame well as the Psalmist said, you know our inward life, you know how we think, you know how we respond under times of difficulty and pressure and disappointment at times. It brings out the best in us which is faith. At other times it brings out the worst in us which is doubt and perhaps even unbelief. And yet what we need to do in these times is not to go inward and focus on the circumstances, the reality of our suffering, the unanswerable questions about why you let this happen. But to consider Jesus Christ a faithful, sent one an apostle and high priest over the house that is his own family purchased with his own flesh and blood. And know that Jesus Christ is faithful in all things the same yesterday when he led the people out of Egypt through Moses. Today as he's speaking to the people in Hebrews through this little author and tomorrow which is the day in which we live doing all these wonderful things because of his great affection for his house, his great love for his people. And his absolute determination to be a greater Moses, a greater prophet, a greater leader, to take us by his truth from sins bondage and slavery through the wilderness of this world into the promised rest of the city of God and he will not fail. Help us to concentrate our hopes and dreams and our prayers and even our questions on the Lord Jesus Christ knowing that he will speak to us. And when he does today, help us not to harden our hearts but to give us soft and believing hearts to receive what he has given us, to treat our leaders and our husbands and parents and those you send over us well. And to show that we have confidence in Christ by the comfort we take in the word and by the obedience of our following Jesus Christ in his church through our most difficult hours. And this we know and ask to be true. It's a good prayer for us because it is from your word and because it involves our eternal salvation which is in the hands of Jesus Christ in whose name we pray. Amen.