From Shadow to Substance: Today’s Rest

Notes:

Negative Example of Faithlessness

Do not harden your hearts when you are being tested.

Consequence: “They shall not enter my rest.”

An Exhortation to Endure in Faith

Do not have an unbelieving heart.

v.13: Exhort One Another as long as it is called “TODAY”

What is meant by today? Long “Eternal Present”

v.14: Have firm faith to the end.

v. 15, a repeat of v. 7: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

IF THEY DIDN’T ENTER GOD’S REST, WHAT MAKES US THINK WE WILL WITHOUT ENDURING TO THE END?

A History Lesson

Theme Verse: 19 So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

Problem:

Restlessness

Fee: “For they too had experienced the redeeming power of God; they too had the promise of the homeland of the faithful to look forward to; but one thing could prevent them from realizing that promise, just as it had prevented the mass of the Israelites who left Egypt from entering Canaan—and that one thing was unbelief.” 69

UNBELIEF=REST! It’s a more restful road when you endure to the end.

Strive to enter rest!

History Lesson:

Learn from the Heretics!

Learn to avoid the pitfalls along the way.

Lesson here: Endure to the End:

Examples in Hebrews…

On a 40 year-journey…

What happened along the way?

Gotta finish the race!

Hebrews 3:6b: Hinge verse

Cockeril: “Steering people away from Kadesh-like unfaithfulness.”

Understanding Psalm 95 from Hebrews 3:6-11

A Repeated Condition

Be careful so you won’t be lead astray

Exhort One another to avoid hardening by the deceitfulness of sin

v. 7-11: Citing from Psalm 95:7-11

Cited from Septuagint.

Condition of verse 7 call back to verse 6:

Conditional statement:

Today… “DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS!”

v. 14: DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS…”

Hearing and believing!

Harden your heart: Stiffnecked. Stubborn. Disobedient.

An Old Testament Story

Day of Disobedience=Exodus 17:7 “7 And he called the name of the place Massah 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?””

“Massah” and “Meribah”= “Rebellion” and “testing”

Not original Hebrews. LXX transliterates:

Hebrews

Psalm 95:8 “Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness.”

Hebrews 3:8 “Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness.”

Emphasis on the whole 40 years of wondering.

Hebrews 3:10 “10 Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’”

THEREFORE is added. Connecting rebellion with God’s anger.

Psalm 95:10-11: LXX: “For forty years I was angry with that generation…”

Psalm 95:10-11: Hebrews 3:9-10: “where your fathers tested me with proving and saw my words for 40 years. Therefore, I was angry with this generation…”

40 year period of testing.

“Although the pastor appears to make few changes when quoting the OT text, he is not above minor interpretive paraphrases.” Gareth Cockeril

verse 11: A Vow of Sorts

Peter O’Brien: “The Greek wording, which preserves the Hebrew idiom, is an incomplete statement: (lit.) ‘If they will enter my rest.…’ A full oath includes a curse in the second half, spelling out the consequences when the condition stated in the first part (protasis) is met (see Ps. 7:4–5). It was believed that God would put the penalty for such breaches into effect. The oath preventing Israel from entering the promised land states only the condition (first clause), but not the penalty for violation (Num. 14:30; 32:11; Deut. 1:35; and Ps. 95:11). Apparently this form was common in biblical oaths (see Amos 8:7).”

They didn’t get rest!

Numbers 14:11 “11 And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them?”

Nature of Belief:

O’Brien: “The allusions to Numbers 14 show that ‘unbelief’ is not simply lack of trust or passive disbelief, but a positive refusal to believe, an active disobedience to God.”

Immediate! TODAY!

vv.12-14: An Exposition of Psalm 95:

A Command with a Stern Warning

Weaves words: “hear” “heart” “ “day” “Today” “rest”

DON’T REPEAT HISTORY!

Imperative: “Be careful”

As a Community

As an individual

Turning away from God, being led astray along the way…

Cockeril: “‘Unbelief’ encompasses disobedience, for it is both the refusal (or willing failure) to trust God and the consequent lack of faithfulness to God. The ‘unbelief’ of the wilderness generation reached breaking point when they refused to enter the land at Kadesh-Barnea.”

THEY NEVER MADE IT TO THE DESTINATION!! Like, that was the whole point!

Lack of trust that the Lord is going to bring you to the end! Lack of trust that the Lord will say to you “Good and faithful servant.”

“Lest you fall away”

A Command with a Stern Warning

v. 13: “Exhort one another every day…”

Exhort=Parakaleo

NIV: “Encourage one another…” Paraclesis:

As long as it is called “TODAY,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin…”

As long as you have the time on your hands, Don’t REPEAT HISTORY!

Do it now… Tomorrow is too late.

Warning: That none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

How OT folks hardened their hearts? They looked for hope in all the wrong places!

Final Point: vv. 14-19: A Positive Reality

v. 14: Pivotal Verse: For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.

“Come to share”=business partners profiting together

Stand firm to the end!

Hold firmly:

Go back to verse 6

O’Brien: “Genuine faith is tied to perseverance.”

Confidence=Conviction= “stand” “on.” Ground. “Stand my ground.”

Do this TODAY!

DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS…

Pastor: Interrogations Techniques:

v. 15: Do not harden your heart as in the rebellion

16 For who were those who heard and yet rebelled?

Answer: Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses?

17 And with whom was he provoked for forty years?

Answer: Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?

18 And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest…

Answer: but to those who were disobedient?

!!Rest comes in Christ!!