Jesus: The Steadfast Promise
Greater Than: A Study in Hebrews • Sermon • Submitted
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· 30 viewsIn Moses, the people of God found the conditional covenant of promise built on their obedience and steadfastness to the law. In this promise, their hearts became hardened by their continual rebellion against the very One who had delivered them. Their sight, limited by their finite perspective on their immediate circumstances, deceived their hearts to rebellion. In Christ, we find an unconditional covenant built on the completed work of Christ. In this promise, we find the steadfast promise of Christ sustaining our hearts even in times of rebellion and sealing us to the Lord by Christ’s perfect work. In spite of our immediate circumstances and our subsequent obedience or failure, our hearts are continually softened by the Lord’s unconditional love and restored relationship as a result of Christ’s atonement.
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The Israelite Hope of Rest
The Israelite Hope of Rest
So, as the Holy Spirit says:
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion,
during the time of testing in the wilderness,
where your ancestors tested and tried me,
though for forty years they saw what I did.
That is why I was angry with that generation;
I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray,
and they have not known my ways.’
So I declared on oath in my anger,
‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ”
Before we jump into the text as a whole, I want to pause and begin by examining the implications of the first six words. The writer of Hebrews is about to quote from . This psalm is attributed to be penned by the hand of David, but do you see who the writer of Hebrews attributes the writing to? The Holy Spirit is the author of these words. This is the Bible once again testifying to the divine authority of its authorship. We can trust in these words for they are not merely good words written by human hands but divine speech recorded for the good of all mankind. We also see here the testimony of the timelessness of the Word of God. The writer of Hebrews recognized that this passage not only spoke of Israel in the time of David, but spoke of the heart of the nation and the newly born church of his day and my friends, it speaks of our church today.
But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory.
It is with this condition in mind that the writer begins to plead with our hearts to not become hardened or lose faith. So with this in mind, the writer draws our hearts to flashback to the great hope of the nation of Israel as the Lord delivered them from Egypt. He reminds the hearts of these Hebrew believers to guard themselves from falling into the same disobedience as their ancestors.
The nation of Israel had been delivered with great shows of power and authority from the hands of the greatest power of the day. Ina fashioned that can only be explained by the wonder and power of God, Israel begins their journey to the land of promise, the land of rest. The displays of the Lord were not limited to the Israelites deliverance from Egypt. Throughout their journey in the wilderness, the hand of God was evident daily, from the pillar of cloud that led them by day to the pillar of fire that led them each night. Manna fell for their nourishment anew each morning. Then there were the supernatural moments of deliverance that occurred through their journey as well. Up against the Red Sea, being pursued by the Egyptian army, God parted the waters and led the people across on dry land. God gave to the people physical proof to place their faith in, but yet Israel lost heart.
Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went into the Desert of Shur. For three days they traveled in the desert without finding water. When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. (That is why the place is called Marah.) So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What are we to drink?”
Then Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became fit to drink.
There the Lord issued a ruling and instruction for them and put them to the test.
Three days after they crossed the Red Sea, they lost faith in the Lord.
David in his day and the writer of Hebrews in his writing pleads with the hearer, Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart. The emphasis in this passage is on the word today. The emphasis should be heard like, Today if you would only hear his voice. It is an emphatic plea that is being made. Today their is hope and opportunity to hear his voice. Grace is available today, but if you do not hear, there will come a day when that grace will be lost. God was patient with the Israelites as they wandered in the wilderness. All through the book of Exodus, the people grumbled, complained and turned their hearts from God and yet the Lord continued to lead them and seek to fulfill his promise with them. It is not until as the people rebel against God because of the reports of the spies that the Lord takes away their hope for rest.
The Hope of the Church
The Hope of the Church
As has just been said:
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion.”
Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies perished in the wilderness? And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.
Hebrews 3:16-
Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies perished in the wilderness? And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.
Hebrews 3:15-1
The writer makes clear to the hearer who it was that rebelled and was found in sin. The nation of Israel, God’s chosen people, the very people that the Lord had awesomely delivered from captivity were the very people who rebelled and were caught in sin. The very people of promise were the ones who quickly lost sight of God and whose hearts grew hard.
The writer of Hebrews has latched on to the first lines of his quotation of . Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart. If we go back to Exodus and look at the story of God’s deliverance, this phrase of hardening your heart is attributed to another. As Moses goes before Pharaoh and tells Pharaoh to let God’s people go, Pharaoh refuses. To show Pharaoh the might and authority of the One who is speaking, the Lord pours out ten plagues upon Egypt. In the face of each display of power, it states that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened.
It would have been easy for the nation of Israel to attribute the condition of a hardened heart to the heathen, the unbeliever, but David attributes it to God’s chosen people. Israel’s hearts became hard just like Pharaoh’s.
The writer of Hebrews then states the same about the church. Today if you hear the voice fo the Lord, do not let your heart become hardened. We are just as susceptible to the hardening of our hearts as the nation of Israel was, as Pharaoh was. Our attendance, family upbringing, tithe, service, and fill int he blank does not make us immune to the hardening of our hearts. If we hear the voice of the Lord and do not respond in faith to Him, our hearts are on the road to being hardened.
Guard Your Heart
Guard Your Heart
See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end. As has just been said:
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion.”
While the door to grace and rest is still open, we must encourage one another to walk through it. The defense of man against the hardening of our hearts is the intentional encouragement of one another.