A Second Warning

Introduction

In our text today, the author of Hebrews begins his second warning in this letter. In it, the author will build of the themes of Christ’s place as a better Moses, not a servant but a Son over the household of God, and turn us to Psalm 95 with a simple and logical basis for this warning: if those who rejected God’s Word delivered by Moses were unable to enter God’s rest, how can someone who rejects Christ expect to participate in that eternal Sabbath?

Today, if you hear his voice

The first thing to notice in our text today is something of the nature of Scripture. The author Hebrews believes that written Scripture is the speech of the Holy Spirit (vs 7):

Hebrews 9:8 ESV

By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy places is not yet opened as long as the first section is still standing

Hebrews 10:15 ESV

And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,

With the Holy Spirit being the author, there is a timelessness to what he said through David in Psalm 95. It reminds us that, while all Scripture has its immediate context that we first need to pay attention to so that we do not misinterpret the Scriptures, but at the same time all of Scripture is recorded for our benefit and is the speech of the Holy Spirit to all mankind. Therefore, the author of Hebrews is able to take a text written by David in a specific time and place and apply it to his audience with the original context in mind. This is how we are to read the Scriptures too, first with the original context in mind, and then an application to us that is appropriate with that original context.

Now, what is the Scripture that the author quotes? What is it talking about and how does he apply it to his readers? How does it apply to us? This is what we will spend the rest of our time this morning exploring.

Background of Psalm 95

The passage referred to here is from Psalm 95. Psalm 95 is a unique Psalm, with some believing that it is actually two Psalms stitched together because of how sharply it changes its tone (although there is no evidence for this).

The first part of this Psalm is one of joyful praise and worship of God. In these first seven verses, the readers are told to “may a joyful noise”, to “come into (God’s) presence with thanksgiving”. The reason is that “the LORD is a great God and a great King above all gods”. So we are called to “worship and bow down...before the LORD, our Maker...for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture.”

Now, this is originally written to the nation Israel, the OT people of God. This is clear because the people living during the exodus are called “your fathers” to the readers in verse 9.

This Psalm is known for how quickly it shifts from being a Psalm of praise to being a poetic warning for its hearers. This begins with the words “Today, if you hear his voice” in verse seven and goes until the end of the Psalm, with an uncerimonious and grim ending where God says, “therefore I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest.” This seems a long way from the first verse, “oh come, let us sing to the LORD.” This doesn’t mean they are different Psalms put together, but rather that the same Psalm is showing to possible approaches for approaching God and the consequences of choosing the wrong approach. To the Israelites, God is both creator and their shepherd as their covenant Lord. It is right to worship him, to sing his praises, and to follow him in trust and humility. In contrast to this is hardness of heart, which is what the author of the Psalm and the author of Hebrews are warning their readers about.

To make this point, the author of the Psalm references events that happen in Exodus 17 and Numbers 14.

In Exodus 17, after God has provided bread from heaven, the Israelites continue to operate in unbelief that comes out in quarreling with Moses over water. Moses accuses them of grumbling and testing God because, rather than asking God for water in faith, they quarrel with their human leader to try to make him give them water. God provides water and the place is called Massah and Meribah (meaning testing and quarreling respectively).

The author of Hebrews quotes the Septuigint Greek translation of the text, which doesn’t bring the names over but rather the translation. So “as at Meribah,” and “the day at Massah” are translated as “in the rebellion” and “on the day of testing”.

Numbers 14 records the rebellion that happens when Israel is about to enter the promised land, but when hearing the report of the spies become frightened and refuse to enter it. As a result, the people are banished to wandering in the wilderness for 40 years so that no one from that generation would enter the promised land except for Joshua and Caleb.

These two passages showcase the continual attitude which the nation had towards God, and verse 10 of our text shows this, “they always go astray in their hearts”. When they didn’t know how God would provide, they would complain rather than ask. When they were afraid, they ran away rather than trusting God. As a result, they are sent into the wilderness to die over 40 years rather than enter the promised land. So when we read God searing in his wrath “they shall not enter my rest”, this rest originally referred to the promised land itself. This most likely refers to God’s words in Numbers 14:22-23

Numbers 14:22–23 ESV

none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it.

“Rest” in the OT does not refer to idleness or a lack of action or work. Instead, it means peace. If you read my article in the Barnabas magazine, I explain how God resting on the seventh day of creation does not mean that God stopped doing things. Instead, it refers to the creation of a peaceful and stable state in the world because of his presence. In other words, it is God bringing his presence into the temple of creation, bringing peace and security in his presence. This same peace and rest is represented by the promised land, where Israel would be given victory and rest from their enemies and wanderings, so that they may peacefully live in the land God has given them. So instead of ending their life in peace and prosperity in the land God had promised them, they will end it wandering around in the wilderness only for their children to inherit God’s promised rest.

All of this will be important for the rest of chapter 3 and chapter 4; the theme of God’s rest will be further developed in future sermons.

So, the author of Hebrews brings up their warning from Psalm 95 as a summary of God’s judgement towards the Israelites who did not believe God in the wilderness, and in that unbelief actively rebelled against God. As a result, they were unable to enter God’s promised rest in the land God was going to give them. This theme of those who turn away from God in rebellion being unable to recieve God’s promises is what the author here is going to apply to his readers, and which we must apply to ourselves.

Take Care...Exhort

Starting in verse 12, the writer is going to apply this passage to his readers with two commands: to “Take care” and to “exhort one another”.

“Take care” or behold, see, look out, means to hold an awareness, to keep your eyes open for something. It is a call for awareness against a very possible danger.

What is the danger for which we are called to “look out” for? The answer is clear as you continue to read verse 12: “lest there by in any of you an evil, unbelieving heard, leading you to fall away from the living God.”

The heart described here is the essense of those rebellious “fathers” in the wilderness who did not inherit God’s promises. The word “evil” here refers to corrupt intentions and desires. It doesn’t refer to actions themselves here, for good things may be done with evil intentions. It is a state of heart that is corrupted by sin and evil intentions. “Unbelieving” refers to a heart attitude towards God that approaches him with suspecion and avoidance rather than trust and submission. An evil heart is unbelieving by necessity since it is impossible to love, trust, and submit to an incorruptible God when your heart values and desires corruption and evil, which is by defintion the opposite of God’s intentions and actions.

So the next part of the verse comes pretty naturally. A corrupt and unbelieving heart leads one to fall away from the living God. Fall away here means to forsake or abandon a previous commitment or relationship and refers to an abaondonment of the one, true God. By parallel, this is what the Israelites in the wildereness were doing. Not that they openly abandoned the worship of YHWH, but that they hearts were overtaken by rebellion and evil and so true worship and faith were impossible for them, cutting them off from God’s covenant promises and thus causing them to fall away.

We are reminded that this passage is not talking to individual Christians, but to the community of faith; the church. So it is the duty of all members to watch out for each other. We are not a collection of individual souls who happen to be in the same building. Look at the wording: lest there be in any of you. The worry should not be just in you, but in any of us. We are responsible for looking after each others’ spiritual state, not only our own (although we must look after our own first, getting the log out of our eye before dealing with the speck in our brother’s eye).

The next application for the readers to keep themselves from falling away because of an evil and unbelieving heart is to watch out for each other and to warn each other when the signs of an evil heart begin to appear, and even before they do. We are not only to watch out and then do nothing when the signs appear, we are intead to be exhorting. The word here is parakaleo, and is related to parakletos, which is Jesus’ name for the Holy Spirit as our Comforter or Helper. Exhortation doesn’t mean condemnation, it means healthy, loving, constructively critical, and gentle-yet-firm encouragement and correction. It means being cheerleaders for each other as well as instructors. It means correcting each other as fellow travelers in this journey to glory. It means speaking gently, with an ever-present understanding of our own danger to temptation and fall. It means being firm, not allowing the excuses of the flesh to take hold, and yet it means patience and forgiveness. It means descretion, and not gossip or slander. It means being the voice of the Spirit of Christ to each other in the community of God.

When? Not just when sin is obvious, not only when things are getting bad, not even just when we see problems, but every day. This exhortation is meant to be a continual practice between each other. We understand the danger of an evil and unbelieving heart, how insidiously it grows and, like a cancer, only show itself when it is almost beyond help of healing. So this exhortation is not portrayed here as a cure to an evil heart, but rather a preventative measure to make sure our hearts don’t go there in the first place.

The content of these exhortations is to keep us soft and sensitive towards sin, so that we feel it and do not normalize it. Without exhortation, sin becomes normalized, it becomes routine and the alarm bells of our conscience grow softer and softer each time. Soon, sin’s deceptive nature takes hold and we begin to believe that it is no big deal. Regular exhortation from our fellow members is the daily vaccine against sins’ insidious creep into our lives. We need to be involved in peoples lives, not to control or judge them, but to submit ourselves to being Christ to them. We are prone to fall victim to the lies of sin, and we need each other to watch out for us as we watch out for them.

The goal of this exhortation is a steadfast community of faith that is strong together against sin. The end is a confidence in the Gospel that is free from the hardness of sin that leads us to fall away from God and into a wicked and unbelieving heart.

Conclusion: Share in Christ

Verse 14 concludes by repeating a similar sentiment to what was given in verse 6. Come to share in Christ is paralleled with we are his house. Holding fast our confidence is repeated as holding our original confidence firm to the end. The repetition is clear in its message: ultimately only those who persevere to the end of their Christian life will be saved and can truly be considered part of the family of Christ. That is why this warning must be taken so seriously.

The precident is clear from the OT account of Israel in the wilderness. It is also clear to the author that the God who turned an entire generation out into a desert for 40 years to die rather than enjoy the land of promise because of their unbelief is the same God who leads his people through Christ Jesus today. The Scriptures are full of examples, both good and bad, for us to gain wisdom and warning from. It wasn’t just a few individuals who turned away from God the day the spies returned, it was every single one of them except for Joshua and Caleb. This isn’t just about the individuals in our church, it is about the longevity of Faith Baptist Church, of Reformed Baptists, of the FEB, of Evangelicalism, of Protestantism, and of Christianity at large in this world that we take this warning seriously.

When the church stops performing the duty of exhorting each other, sins which were once universally condemned become normal. Our view of the Bible shrinks as our view of what the world has to say increases. Things like marriage and unborn life become redefined in order to avoid confronting those who have already allowed their hearts to become evil and faithless. Teachings which were once clear heresy become a new, interesting perspective. This is how a church falls away from being a true church and from inheriting the promises the church is meant to recieve.

But the answer is not legalism. It isn’t to become Pharisaical and add rules which we impose on each other. It isn’t to look at one another with suspecion or to go sin-hunting. Such actions will usually lead to a reaction to the contrary and have a church go down the same path of hardness of heart. Instead, it is to gently, lovingly, patiently, undertandingly, and persistently being at war with sin in our church. You fellow Christian is not the enemy. Even if they are falling into sin and are beginning to slide down the sloap into an evil, unbelieving heart they are not your enemy. Your goal is to win them, to warn them, to show them the danger of their wandering for their sake, Christ’s sake, and the sake of the church. They are not the enemy, sin is the enemy. The devil is the enemy. Our rebellious hearts, so easily led astray, are the enemies.

So let us first watch ourselves, then watch one another, and always with encouragement and exhortation to keep going. All the chips are on the Table. We either win everything or loose all for eternity. We are either in Christ’s household and have a share in Christ, or we will die in the wilderness of unbelief because we didn’t hold that conviction firm to the end. We must decide what kind of church we will be. Will this be a place where sin is treated with such judgement that no one ever feels comfortable opening up about their struggles or confessing to someone? Will this be a place where sin is ignored or excused? Or will this be a place where love abounds and expresses itself in a watchfulness and exhortation against the hardness and deceitfulness of sin? We must love each other too much to let our dear brothers and sisters fall into evil, unbelieving hearts and away from God’s blessed promises in Christ Jesus.