Hebrews 3:7-19 Stay Faithful to the End

Intro

How do you know you are really saved?

I was saved at a very young age. It was February 23, 1997, and I was around 7 years old.

I had trusted in Christ for forgiveness of my sins, but as a young child, I was absolutely terrified that I wasn’t actually saved.

This fear dominated my life. I was afraid to go to sleep because I was scared that I would stop breathing in my sleep and not wake up.

I was terrified to get in the car because I was convinced that we would get into a car crash and I wouldn’t make it.

It sounds ridiculous but there were even toys I wouldn’t play with because I was convinced that the paint on them was poisoned and would kill me.

And if you were to go back in time and ask young, sweet, not so innocent little me why I was so scared, I would’ve told you that I was afraid of dying and going to hell.

I know this is a dark way to start a sermon. You didn’t come to church this morning expecting to hear about a little kid who was terrified of eternal damnation, but that was my life.

I was petrified that I would not get to go to heaven and be with Jesus and my family but would instead be shut out because I knew God is holy and my sin made me unholy.

My fear was that I wasn’t actually saved. I just wanted to know somehow, someway that I was loved by God and safe in Christ.

And that’s an understandable fear. Every single one of us have wondered in a moment of brutal honesty, Am I really saved? How do I know I won’t be shut out of heaven?

That is the subject of our passage this morning in .

And we are going to focus on one specific way that we can know we are saved, and that is perseverance.

I wonder what kind of heartache, anxiety, and fear it would’ve saved me if someone had come alongside me as a boy and said, “One of the ways you can know you are saved is if you keep following Jesus.

So follow him everyday, step by step, today, tomorrow, the next day, and the next day and the next day and the next day and if you keep following Jesus you will be in heaven with him.”

Our perseverance, our relentless commitment to follow Jesus no matter the cost, is how we know we have been truly saved.

The Big Idea from this passage that I want you to take to heart today is The faith that saves is the faith that perseveres in following Christ to the end.

The Author’s greatest concern for the Hebrews is that they stay faithful to Christ. The Hebrews were facing intense persecution from Jews and Gentiles alike and it seemed like it was only getting worse.

So in the beginning of chapter 3, the Author, the author moves from celebrating Christ as the only substitute who can save people from their sins to showing the Hebrews why it would be so foolish to abandon their faith in Christ to return to Judaism.

In chapter 1, the Author shined a spotlight on the supremacy of Christ. He is the King of kings who alone is able to save people from their sin.

In verses 1-6, the Author says that Jesus is the Greater Moses who ushers in the New Covenant for God’s people.

Then in chapter 2, the Author gave his first point of application in his sermonic letter. Because Christ is the King of kings and only way of salvation, we cannot neglect his gospel.

The Law was given to point God’s people to their need for a Savior because it shows us how we could never obey God in perfect holiness

This is why it would be so foolish to go back to the Old Mosaic covenant and abandon Christ. In doing so, the Hebrews would be going back to the very thing that was meant to point them right back to Jesus.

We must tie our lives to it, living all of our life according to the gospel. meaning we place our faith in Christ for salvation and live out that salvation in obedience to him.

So if the Hebrews wanted to be God’s people and enjoy the blessings of God’s salvation, then verse 6 says they needed to hold fast to Christ and continue following him.

That Moses was only a servant to the people of God where Christ himself builds the people of God by building his church through the proclamation of his life, death and resurrection.

And the only way the Hebrews can be a part of God’s people now that the Messiah has come, was not by going back to Judaism to look forward to the Messiah, but to follow Christ

And then in verses 7-19, the Author moves to encourage the Hebrews to persevere in their faith, to hold fast to Christ, by reminding them what happened to Israel when they failed to have faith, but gave into unbelief.

Then in the beginning of chapter 3, the Author showed the Hebrews why it would be so foolish to abandon their faith in Christ to return to Judaism, because Christ is greater than Moses.

Because

In the OT, God gave Israel the Law through Moses to show Israel their sinfulness in contrast to God’s holiness.

The Old Covenant said that because God is holy, then his people must also be holy by obeying his commands. There was just one problem so that they would see their need forThe Old Covenant was given to point Israel to their need for a New Covenant. One that would give them new hearts with new desires to love God and obey his Word, and Christ is the greater Moses who made this covenant a reality through his life death and resurrection.

I. A Warning from Israel’s Unbelief

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, 8  do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, 9  where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. 10  Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’ 11  As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’ ”

they have not known my ways.’

11  As I swore in my wrath,

The author starts by saying “Therefore,” and that “therefore” is connected to verse 6 to essentially say, because we are only the people of God if we hold fast to Christ and his gospel, listen to these words.

‘They shall not enter my rest.’ ”

And he says as the Holy Spirit says. immediately before he quotes Psalm 95.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

We need to stop for a moment here. The Scriptures, both Old and New Testament are written by God himself. This verse is an affirmation of the doctrine of inspiration that says the Bible, while written by human beings, is ultimately given to us by God himself.

Speaking to this, the Apostle Peter said that we would do well to pay attention to God’s Word...

Knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. 21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. 21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

So here Peter says that when men wrote the Bible, they did not write under their own authority, but the Holy Spirit actually wrote God’s Word through them.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

When Scripture speaks, God speaks.

It is also important that the Author of Hebrews wrote, the Holy Spirit says.

Notice he did not use the past tense. He did not say, the Holy Spirit said.

The Scriptures are living and active. Every time we open the Bible, the Holy Spirit continues to speak to us today about Christ, his salvation, and how we should live as Christians.

And the Spirit was speaking to the Hebrews through .

“Today, if you hear his voice, 8  do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, 9  where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. 10  Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’ 11  As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’ ”

So what is going on here? The Author is quoting a Psalm that is looking back to a crucial point in Israel’s history.

When the Psalmist originally wrote the Psalm, It was to encourage the people of God in his own day to remain faithful to the Lord. A thousand years later, the Author of Hebrews quotes the Psalm to make the same point for the Hebrews. And today, nearly 2,000 years later, the warning is still valid.

The Psalm begins with, Today if you hear his voice.

That “Today” is a call for urgency. It is a call for a decision right here, right now.

And the call that God’s people are urged to obey today, right now, at this present moment to not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, 9  where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years.

Now what exactly is this referring to? Well it starts in .

This was shortly after Israel walked through the Red Sea where God delivered them from slavery in Egypt.

And they were on their way to the Promised Land where God promised to bless them and be their God, and they would be his people.

But on the way, they God thirsty. says that they camped at a place called Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink there. So here’s what Israel did.

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?” 3 But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?”

The people basically look at Moses and say, “Can’t you see we are dying? And look God is nowhere to be found!

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

At least in Egypt we had water. God is not nearly as good to us as our slave masters were!

And so what did Moses do?

So Moses cried to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” 5 And the Lord said to Moses, “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6 Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel.

So Moses cried to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” 5 And the Lord said to Moses, “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6 Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel.

So in response to Israel’s testing, God gave them a miracle. He made water flow from a rock to quench everyone’s thirst.

And then Moses...

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?”

Even though God had already performed several miracles for Israel that should have proved to them God was going to provide and care for them, they people still doubted God and his salvation.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

They rebelled against God and quarreled with him because they believed that even though God had parted the Red sea and brought them through on dry ground no less, that God wasn’t with them and he wasn’t faithful enough to care for their most basic needs.

This is why Moses renamed Rephidim Massah and Meribah.

Massah means testing and Meribah means quarreling or rebellion which is what the Psalmist and the Author of Hebrews are referring to saying as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness.

Then the Author continues quoting the Psalm in verses 10 and 11 saying

Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’ 11  As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’ ”

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Now this is peculiar by the Psalmist, because God did not punish Israel in by saying, They shall not enter my rest. That is a reference to a much later event in .

At this point the Israelites have made it to the Promise Land, and they sent spies into the Land to start making plans for how they might go to war and take the Land God had promised them.

So the spies go in and 40 days later they returned and said,

; We came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. 28 However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large...We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.

This sent the people of Israel into a panic.

Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. 2 And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! 3 Why is the Lord bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” 4 And they said to one another, “Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”

Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. 2 And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! 3 Why is the Lord bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” 4 And they said to one another, “Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”

Here again, the people doubted God. They even went so far to say, “We should’ve never followed God here. Let’s get rid of Moses, and find someone who will take us back to Egypt!

And then two of the spies, named Joshua and Caleb, tried to reassure the people to have faith in the Lord. They told them to have faith that God would do as he promised. That he would bring them into the Promise Land and that the people of the land would be destroyed before them just like God destroyed Egypt on their behalf.

And then one of the spies, named Caleb, tried to reassure the people to have faith in the Lord.

But the People refused to listen and picked up stones to kill them. They made their choice. They weren’t going to follow God any longer.

And this rebellion was the last straw. Because of their hard hearted refusal to trust the Lord, God swore that that generation would never enter his rest.

Instead, God punished them by sending them to the wilderness for 40 years, one year for each day the spies were in the land.

And during that 40 years, every single person who had seen God’s faithfulness time and time again when he delivered them from Egypt died in the wilderness all because they had hardened their hearts against the Lord.

That’s why the Psalm the Author quotes in Hebrews says They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’ 11  As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’ ”

The Author’s point to the Hebrews was Remember Israel! Remember how they were on the verge of entering the Promised Land, but they grew fearful and gave into unbelief even desiring to return to Egypt!

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

They stopped having faith in the Lord to fulfill his promises and because of that, God swore that they would never get to enter his rest.

The Author saw the Hebrews as in the same situation as their Jewish forefathers.

Christ had come. He had lived a sinless life, died on the cross and rose again three days later to save all people who put their faith in him.

And the Author’s concern is that like the Israelites of the Exodus generation, the Hebrews would give up just short of victory. That they would turn away from following Jesus and as a result be shut out of God’s heavenly rest to suffer eternal death in Hell.

And what led the Exodus generation to turn away from the Lord was the same thing that threatened the Hebrews in their day, hardness of heart.

; Today, if you hear his voice, 8  do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion…I was provoked with that generation, and said, “They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.”

“Today, if you hear his voice,

8  do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,

A hard heart is one that has no love for the Lord and refuses to walk in his ways. It was a heart that is all too happy to go astray from the Lord, and choose sin and rebellion instead of trusting faith.

And the danger of a hard heart is that it doesn’t happen all at once. It happens progressively as day by day, we ignore the Lord a little bit more, and a little bit more and a little bit more until one day we aren’t walking with the Lord but instead find it completely natural to walk in outright rebellion to him.

That’s why its significant for to Psalmist start his warning with the story of Israel’s rebellion at Massah and Meribah just a short time after God delivered them from Egypt, only to end it with the story of the Exodus’ generation ultimate failure to trust God and inherit the Promised Land.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

It wasn’t that the Psalmist got his Bible stories confused. He was trying to show that Israel’s hard heart didn’t just happen all of a sudden.

It was the culmination of every time Israel chose unbelief instead of faith.

They doubted God to give them food and water.

They made an idol of a golden calf and worshiped it as God.

They complained that the Manna God provided for them to eat was not good enough and demanded God give them meat.

Israel’s hard heart which prevented them from entering the Promised Land didn’t just happen.

Because in , the Psalmist does something really interesting. He admonishes the people of his day not to harden their hearts like their fathers did at Meribah and Massah in the wilderness.

This is described in and was early on in Israel’s history not very long after God delivered them from Egypt in the Exodus.

But then he closed the Psalm with the punishment God placed on Israel when they were afraid to go into the Promised Land because they did not trust the Lord to help them take it from people who were stronger then them.

At that time they grumbled against God and said that it would’ve been better for t

mentions both of these events because they bookend two crucial moments of disobedience of the Exodus generation.

The first one in happens just after God parts the Red Sea and delivers them from Egypt, and the second one in happens just before God was about to lead them into the Promised Land.

The reason that the Psalmist references both of these is to show that Israel’s hard heart which prevented them from entering the Promised Land didn’t just happen.

It was the culmination of

The first is . When the Psalmist wrote the Psalm, he reminded Israel of the time when

And ultimately all of their unbelief, step by step, made their hearts so hard that when they came to the promised Land, they had no faith in the Lord and his salvation.

It’s like he is saying, “Remember how God kept Israel from entering his rest in the Promised Land because they gave into unbelief.

You Hebrews are in the same situation right now. Christ has come and you are on the verge of entering Heaven, the eternal Promised Land. Are you really going to give into unbelief like they did and be shut out of salvation?

That’s why the Psalmist said Today if you hear his voice. Don’t waste another day. Another moment.

The Author of Hebrews is wanting to press on his readers that each step of unbelief they take, is only making the callous on their heart grow thicker and thicker until their heart is as hard as stone to Christ and his gospel and they abandon their faith completely.

The danger of course is apostasy, or turning away from the faith, and this is the Author’s fear for the Hebrews.

His concern is that they will give into the pressure of temptation, let their hearts grow hard in the face of strife and difficulty, and abandon Christ and fail to enter God’s heavenly promise land by holding onto their faith in Jesus.

And so after giving them a historical warning of what could happen to them if they do not hold fast to the gospel, the Author starts to apply this Psalm directly to them by giving them...

The danger here is apostasy. That the Hebrews would turn back from following Christ and reject his salvation only to return to a life of unbelief.

II. Instructions for a Soft Heart

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 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. 14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.

The author says, do you want to enter God’s rest? Do you want to hold on to your faith and not allow your heart to grow hard through unbelief, then here’s what you need to do.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

First, you need to watch your heart.

Watch Your Heart

grow complacent in our faith

Watch Each Other

III. The Danger of Unbelief

IV. Our Sure Hope for Perseverance

Conclusion

Let’s Pray

Scripture Reading