Hebrews 3:7-19
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7 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.’ ” 12 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. 15 As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” 16 For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? 17 And with whom was he provoked for forty years? 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, but to those who were disobedient? 19 So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.
Warning Against Unbelief
Warning Against Unbelief
The author starts this passage with the word therefore. What is it there for.
We are reminded previously that we have a savior who is superior to moses, a faithful high priest who has walked the temptations that we have walked and is able to minister to us, a savior who is higher than angels, who is both fully God and fully man and worthy of more glory.
He is the apostle of our confession => The one sent by God to represent God to us and tell us of him.
He is the high priest of our confession => the one representing us back to God.
Therefore follows vv 6
6 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.
The author affirms the divine inspiration of scripture with this first statement ‘the holy spirit says’, and the role of the holy spirit in the authoring of Scripture.
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 as the Holy Spirit ‘says’ also indicates that when the scripture speaks God’s speaks. He is using the word says in the present tense indicating that the Holy Spirit and God are speaking today.
So in a very real sense, As we begin this study - in the very next statement “Today if you hear his voice”, we say as we hear this read, that we are hearing the voice of God right now, and this applies any time we read the scripture, but for now, especially here.
God’s word is living, as we will read in the next chapter and every time we read scripture, the Holy Spirit speaks.
Verses 7 - 11 here are a direct quote from Psalm 95
Although this passage is timeless, being that is it for “today”, it points us back to specific events in the history of Israel.
The events here in question, according to the timing of Exodus 17:1-7 and Numbers 20:10-13, occur right after the Exodus. Psalm 95 refers to these events as having taken place at Meribah (Strife or Quarreling), and Massah ( testing) where the Israelites tested the Lord.
So, here is the story.
God had worked the mighty miracles of the plagues, the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, and the passover. He led them out of Egypt, and out of slavery, setting them free from Egypt and to the Red Sea. As they were trapped between the Red Sea and Pharaoh’s pursuing army, God opened the Red Sea, and allowed the Israelites to pass through unharmed. And then making a spectacle of the mightiest army of the day, destroyed Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and army.
Miriam Sang a Song for them:
21 And Miriam sang to them: “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.”
Then they set out across the wilderness and arrived at the Wilderness of Shur and having no water so God gave them sweet water after they complained
Then they set out and came to the wilderness of sin, and having no food, God provided Manna from heaven after they complained.
And now they came to Rephidim. the place referred to Psalm 95.
1 All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. 2 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?” 4 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. 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?”
So after having been set free from their slavery and and witnessed all of the miracles thus far they complained, no they did more than complain, and tested the Lord by saying “Is the LORD really here”, in other words, making God to prove himself (his mercy, love, power, presence, truth) to them in their disbelief.
And the final event that is mentioned in this passage is from Numbers 14.
God sent one spy from each of the 12 tribes into the land. They were to spy out the land for 40 days in preparation for Israel entering the land.
They came back and gave the report
27 And they told him, “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. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. 29 The Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negeb. The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country. And the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and along the Jordan.”
32 So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. 33 And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”
The people wept, and cried aloud, and they grumbled and complained. Joshua and Caleb fell on their faces and confronted them & the people wanted to stone them and choose new leaders, saying it would be better for us to go back to Egypt.
But it was at that moment that the glory of the LORD appeared at the tent of meeting, and what followed was one of the most sobering events.
The LORD asked ‘how long with this people despise me? and how long will they not believe in me in spite of all the signs that I have done.’ Moses pleaded with the LORD for him to forgive them.
The Lord did, but he punished them for their unbelief - He swore in his wrath that they would not enter his rest. He would not destroy the people but neither would any from the unbelieving, untrusting generation enter the land.
So, how does this relate to the audience, or to us?
the author is here comparing our present life of faith with the exodus of Israel from Egypt. Like the Israelites, every person who has put their faith in Christ for salvation, has been delivered by God from the house of bondage, our bondage was to sin. We, like Israel are headed to the promised land, the rest. We cross over the Jordan into our inheritance. And we, like the Israelites are enduring a passage of testing in the desert, our present life of testing.
This answers the question for us; why is life so hard? Why do so many things seem to go wrong in my life? Today is the day of testing, our rest is not here yet.
Joshua and Caleb’s testimony differed from that of the nation; they alone truly had faith. Our trials will prove or disprove our confession of faith.
This is central to the exhortation “Do not harden your hearts”. We have struggles, things go wrong, you are tempted to be afraid and retreat, to blame God, to complain, to doubt God’s love power and care. Don’t be like the Israelites here; rather remember how God has saved you, remember how he has seen you through previously.
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
We need to make it our goal to glorify God no matter what especially in the face of trials we face. a Complaining spirit is always an indicator of unbelief, even as we see from the Israelites here. our grumbling at our circumstances always indicates our doubting of God’s wisdom, compassion, his power to lead and protect us.
Ultimately for the Israelites, their complaining spirit was unchecked and led them further down the road until that final point where they lost the opportunity to enter the rest that God provided.
One final item in this first part - God’s accusation that they have not known my ways. The Israelites had plenty of opportunity to see and know God because of how he dealt with them up to this final point. He provided for them, protected them.
jesus said in John 17:3 - this is eternal life, that they should know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
The Goal is not to just know God’s blessings, but God himself. To be students of God’s character, grow in appreciation of his ways. Grow in our knowledge of him.. This is eternal life. How much time are you spending in God’s word? Of that time, how much is spent just trying to know God better rather than trying to find a solution to your problem? At the beginning, of this chapter, the the author told us to consider Jesus - to contemplate who he is, to consider something will be to fix your thoughts on it. Remember, Jesus was tested and tried in the wilderness, he was tested in the same ways as the Israelites: When he was hungry, for his protection, and whether he would seek the things of this world or seek to worship and obey God. Consider him, fix your thoughts on him, learn of him.
Salvation Lost
Salvation Lost
Practical advice
Practical advice
It is clear from how this next section (vv12-14) follows vv7-11, that the author intends for us to see that the Hebrew believer ought to see the parallels between the Israelites issue and their own. He says that we are like them and need to be warned lest we follow the same path. Paul says it like this in 1 Cor
1 For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. 6 Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.
They, the Israelites are the example for us in this. The issue is not that we don’t have enough information or that we would believe better if we had the same experience as them. The issue is a moral issue rather than one where if God had given us a different set of circumstances that we would be different or could believe better than we do today. We can see this, maybe in part, in just how many prayer requests we have forgotten that God has answered. The issue with the Israelites is unbelief, and it is our fight today and it is the fight in the world around us. It is not that there is not enough information about God, but the issue is hardness of heart towards what has been revealed to us already, and what has been given to us.
So the author of Hebrews has a remedy for us.
Before I get to that, I’d like to address one question that might come to your mind as you read these couple of verses, “Can I lose my salvation by allowing my heart to become hard before God, falling away from him?”
We can see in this passage that the author generously refers to his audience as brothers, giving all the benefit of the doubt to start with. He believes the best about them. V14, I believes help we need to understand this statement - For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed, we hold our original confidence to the end. In other words, the proof of whether you have relationship with Christ or not or not, is in the pudding. If we retain our original confidence, i.e. your hope in the gospel, the power of Jesus to save, your trust in God for his salvation; till the end; then we are saved.
The unbelieving heart will reveal itself over the course of a life and they will fall away..
So what is our response:
The author in vv12-14 offers a 2 pronged remedy for the unbelieving heart; one that relates to ourselves, and one that relates to others.
First, take care: watch out, see to it, beware are alternate translations for this first word. Watch out, lest their be an evil unbelieving heart. The unbelieving heart is the issue. We are to exert a watchful guard over our own hearts.
Second, we are to come alongside others in the church to exhort them to do likewise - We must be close enough to one another so that we know the nature of one another’s struggles; if we don’t share our struggles with one another, we cannot follow through on this command.
it seems from this passage that you and I for one another are part of the guard that God puts to keep us in the faith over the long haul. Much like the Gospel; God does the work but we are faithful in the process to be used by him; here it appears to be the same; God preserves; but uses us in this process. The result, if we don’t is that some of us will fall prey to sin, and hearts will harden.
We are walking in a time of testing like the Israelites, and need to watch out in this present age of testing with its opportunities and dangers.
So what are we to watch out for? We must watch for the deceitfulness of sin. This label is attached to several things within the new testament.
We must watch for it in the false teachers who deceive the hearts of the naive
18 For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive.
6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
8 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.
We must watch for enticing but misleading teachings that deceive our minds.
Second, we must watch our hearts -
Paul in Eph 4:22 says
22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires,
So we cannot even trust our heart, our our desires, apart from God’s saving work. Sometimes the things we seek and long for are foolish, vain, or even idolatrous. Therefore we need our brothers and sisters in our lives to both be able to see as well as exhort us.
And sin is deceitful as and our hearts, apart from Christ, are so willing to be deceived and pursue it.
How many do we know that have justified actions that are clearly contrary to what the word of God says.
I have been told before => Our divorce has been the greatest thing and was best for us, they were deceived; or they won’t turn from their path, therefore there is no need for me to pursue reconciliation with someone who has sinned against me.
We must exhort one another, lest we fall prey to sin’s deception event to the hardening of our hearts towards God.
final warning
final warning
vv15-19
In the final section, There are 3 penetrating question answer pairs, each question answered with a question. They are intended to raise questions among the hearers in this church and drive home and raise the urgency within this church.
Q: Who were those who heard and rebelled?
A: Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses
P: They began well, in all hope and joy. But soon their faith was tested, and they rebelled. They began well, but ended in rebellion
Q: With whom was he provoked for forty years?
A: Was it not with those who had sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness
P: The people who angered God were those who did not believe that God could provide for them. There must not just be ‘high hopes’ but also believe resulting in trust and obedience.
Q: To whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest?
A: Was it not to those we were disobedient?
P: unbelief leads to action… it always does and will manifest itself
Conclusion of the author: so we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. There were many sins of the people, during the exodus, but the only one that kept them out is the fatal error of unbelief. We need to persevere in faith, without faith we will not enter the promised land, that rest that God has for us in the future. The faithful will hold firmly to the end.
6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
Prayer
Prayer
Communion
Communion
Come get the elements, file along the outside and pick up the elements and head back to your seats through the middle aisle.
23 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
Prayer
Prayer
Blessing
Blessing
24 Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, 25 to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.
6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.