An Error to Avoid

Hebrews 3:7-19, “An Error to Avoid”

Those learning to study the Bible for themselves, using the inductive method of Observation, Interpretation, Application, often ask several questions of the text when searching for the application of the text. Is there sin to confess? A promise to keep? A command to follow? An example to follow? Or, is there an error to avoid? Occasionally, we know precisely what to do when we carefully learn what not to do. When little Johnny sticks a paperclip in the power outlet and gets the shock of his life, we have a very clear picture of an error to avoid.

We see the same thing in the Bible. Sometimes, we have great examples to follow – such as the convictions of Paul, the faith of Peter, and of course everything about the life of the Lord Jesus. Other times, we have certain errors to avoid, whether it is the hypocritical lying of Ananias and Sapphira in the New Testament, or the initial doubting of God’s word in the Garden of Eden.

As the book of Hebrews continues, the author draws his readers’ attention to one example in the Old Testament (the Hebrew Bible), showing a very specific error to avoid – one that was committed by the ancestral forefathers of each of these Israelite readers: the sin of unbelief that kept their nation out of the Promised Land. If the then-current Hebrew Christian readers were not careful, they might just end up walking in those same footsteps.

Recall how we got here… As the book’s writer pointed his readers to the awesome person of Jesus as the Son of God supreme over all, he did so through comparative studies. First, Jesus was compared with the angels. Although He often appeared as the Angel of the Lord, Jesus is not an angel, and His primary mission involved being made a “little lower” than the angels (not in terms of worth, but in respect to His physical body). Jesus did not come to save angels, but to save men and women. Thus, Jesus came as a Man, becoming our perfect substitute. As a human, He was able to taste death on behalf of all humans, at the same time remaining God making Him able to provide an acceptable propitiatory sacrifice for all.

The second major comparison began in Chapter 3 as the author turned to Moses. Moses is rightly honored by all Hebrews everywhere (and should be honored by all Christians, too!). This was a prophet who proved faithful to God, serving God in many ways…not the least in how he gave God’s law to the people. But as great as Moses was, Jesus is better. Jesus is not only a Prophet, but also God’s own Apostle and High Priest. Jesus is more faithful to God and worthy of more honor than Moses because Jesus is God. Jesus not only served the Father, but He is the Son to the Father, having all rights and authority over God’s “house,” His people.

With that comparison made, the author introduced a warning. When speaking of Christ’s house, how do we know if we are part of it? The writer was convinced his readers were saved, being partakers of the same heavenly calling. But what about others who might be among them? What about other Hebrews who started to turn away from Jesus as Messiah/Christ? A warning was required, something that is explored through the rest of the chapter.

The warning comes through an example from Israel’s past, one with which the original readers would have been very familiar: the nation’s initial failure to enter the Promised Land. Their lack of faith kept them out of the promise of God, and the same thing might happen with the current generation.

It might happen with current Christians, too. Many people hear of the promises of Jesus in the gospel, even seeing the wonders of His work. What they lack is saving faith due to hardened hearts. Don’t harden your heart to the promise of salvation in Jesus! Look to Him in confident faith and be saved!

Hebrews 3:7–19

• What happened in the past (7-11). OT precedent.

7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: …

1. Before we get to the quotation of Psalm 95 (which sets up the argument through the rest of Chapter 3 and into Chapter 4), we first get a glimpse into the doctrine of Biblical inspiration. (Can’t pass this up!) Inspiration referring to the idea that the text of Scripture is divinely given, that it is breathed out by God into the Biblical writers, who wrote the words they were supernaturally given, while maintaining their own intellects and personalities. The words that Paul wrote in his epistles were truly his words, written with a Pauline style that is consistent through Romans, 1-2 Corinthians, etc. Likewise, with Luke with his gospel and the book of Acts – with John and his gospel, epistles, and Revelation, etc. Each of their writings have commonalities because of their respective authorships, Paul sounding like Paul, John sounding like John, etc. At the same time, all their words were divinely intended to be there, being perfectly inerrant and without contradiction, because the source of those words is ultimately God the Holy Spirit. The classic prooftexts are 2 Timothy 3:16-17 which specifically speaks about the Spirit breathing out the words of Scripture, and 2 Peter 1:21 as it describes holy men of God speaking as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. While those are the two main Biblical support verses, the general idea of inspiration is found throughout the Scripture, including here in the book of Hebrews. Who was it that said the words of the psalm that follows in vv7-11? “The Holy Spirit.” The original text of Psalm 95 does not explicitly state an author, although the writer of Hebrews later asserts that Psalm 95 was penned by David (4:7 ~ which is certainly plausible, considering how many other psalms David wrote). Does the writer of Hebrews contradict himself on this point? Not at all. David did indeed write many psalms preserved in our Bibles (not all of which have a superscription identifying him), but the Holy Spirit inspired David to write each and every one of them. All Scripture is fundamentally prophetic, for all Scripture is given by God. More than the prophecies recorded by Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and others could be described as words spoken by God; quite literally all the Bible is God’s word. From Genesis to Revelation, the Holy Spirit spoke it all.
   1. That doesn’t mean that every quotation pulled from the Bible is a command to be obeyed or a commendable practice. After all, parts of the Bible speak about Satan, even recording some of his words and the devil is known to be a liar (and the father of them). Parts of the Bible record the bad advice of the so-called friends of Job. Did the Holy Spirit inspire these words too? Yes…the Holy Spirit inspired the accurate recording of these words, even if the words recorded are contemptible. The responsibility falls upon us to ensure that we read the Bible rightly, interpreting each passage appropriately within its own context (grammatical, historical, and literary).
   2. The bottom line is simple: all the Bible is God’s word. All of it is something said by the Holy Spirit. Sometimes, people look last certain Scriptures, only paying attention (or at least special attention) to the ‘red letters,’ i.e., the words of Jesus. Are Jesus’ words important? Certainly…but His words include all 66 books of the Old and New Testaments.
2. As for Hebrews 3, the Holy Spirit’s authorship of Scripture is mentioned just as background for the lengthy quote that follows from Psalm 95. The song itself is relatively short, being only 11 verses, the writer of Hebrews quoting the final third (or so). For as much as the end of the psalm both chastises and warns the people of God, the opening is an invitation to sing joyfully to the Lord, praising the Rock of their salvation. YHWH God is declared to be the great God and King over all the earth, being the Creator of the earth. In light of this, a call goes out to God’s people to come worship and bow down, to kneel before the Lord their Maker. They are His sheep, and He is their Shepherd.

It is after that declaration of faith in Psalm 95:7, that YHWH is their God and they are His sheep and the people of His pasture, that the appeal and warning comes…

… “Today, if you will hear His voice, 8 Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, In the day of trial in the wilderness, 9 Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, And saw My works forty years.

1. The appeal begins with the urgency of “today,” (something that will be repeatedly referenced in Ch 3-4) the present-nature of this day (to-day!) implying a limited window of opportunity to act. “Today, if…” the “if” introducing a true hypothetical condition. Not everyone who was visibly among the nation of God would actually hear the “voice” of God. Not everyone who was in the pasture of the Lord was a sheep belonging to the Lord, attuned to hear the voice of his/her Shepherd. But some were, and some did. Those who heard the voice of the Lord, who experienced the prompting of God were to respond. They could not ignore the voice of God that called to them. If they heard His calling, they were both hear and heed (listen and obey). And what were they to do? Better yet, what were they not to do? “Do not harden your hearts.” If they stopped their ears to the voice of their God who called them, they would be hardening their hearts against Him. They would callous themselves to the call of God, thus denying God His rightful place as their Shepherd, King, Maker, and God.
2. For us, the idiom of “hardening our hearts” against God perhaps makes literary sense. It isn’t difficult to figure out. The harder a callous is on your feet, the less you feel the sharp edges of the rocks upon which you step. The better callouses a guitar player has on his/her fingers, the less the strings will hurt when playing. Of course, that is us listening to the phrase from a Gentile perspective. Yet to a Hebrew, the idea of a hardened heart calls to mind a very specific person: the Egyptian Pharaoh. Although the figure of speech is used sporadically throughout the Old Testament (sometimes referring to Israel itself), it is used 13x alone in Exodus, speaking of Pharaoh’s response to the miracles of God. When Moses initially showed up in Egypt, Pharaoh hardened his heard against the Lord. Nearly midway through the plagues, the Bible says that the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart. God confirmed what Pharaoh chose for himself, giving the Egyptian king over to his own sin and judgment. – To the point, the Hebrews had become like Pharaoh. They did what he did, hardening their hearts against the Lord God, even after witnessing the amazing power and miracles of God. The Hebrews had become their own worst enemy.
   1. Isn’t that what we sometimes do? The very things we decry, we end up imitating. There is a reason why children of alcoholics often become alcoholics, or those who have been abused often abuse others. (Or, name any other sin…it so often follows us cyclically!) Sin is its own slave-master, and though we might break free for a season, unless we replace it with a better Lord, we will end up bound once again.
3. Sadly, the people of God had a track record of doing just this. They routinely hardened their hearts against the Lord, closing their ears to the voice of their God. The psalmist picked one clear example (although he could have picked many): “the rebellion…the day of trial in the wilderness.” Any number of days from Israel’s past might have easily been labeled as days of rebellion and trial, but no Israelite needed to be told which one was in mind: it was the day Israel refused to enter the Promised Land, when they stood in Kadesh Barnea accusing God of bringing them to that place to die. – The account is recorded in Numbers 13-14, how while encamped in the wilderness of Paran, Moses sent certain men as representatives from each tribe in Israel to spy/scout out the land that God promised the nation. After 40 days, the men returned, bringing back examples of the fruit of the land, testifying how indeed it did flow with milk and honey just as the Lord had said. Of course, they also spoke of how it was inhabited by mighty people (something which the Lord had also repeatedly told them!). These people looked like giants, while the Israelites seemed like grasshoppers. According to the report of the spies (excepting Caleb and Joshua), entering the land was a suicide mission…it was hopeless. Numbers 14:1–3, “(1) So all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night. (2) And all the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness! (3) Why has the LORD brought us to this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and children should become victims? Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?”” Is it any wonder that the Lord God remembered this as a day of rebellion? There they were, on the edge of a land flowing with milk and honey – the land for which they had waited for 400 years, which God promised to give them even though it was inhabited by the Canaanites, Amorites, and the rest. They had seen proof of the land’s fruitfulness, and better than that, they had seen proof of God’s power. They had personally witnessed God’s work in the plagues, the Passover, and the Red Sea. They had seen God produce bread in the desert and water from the rocks. Surely, giving them possession of the Promised Land was a small thing in His eyes! Yet there in Kadesh Barnea, the faith of Israel failed. They wept as if they were already dead. They wailed that it would have been better if they were dead, that it would be better to return to Egyptian slavery than to receive the gift that God offered them. And of course, their attitude wouldn’t be any better over the next 40 years. They not only lacked the faith to walk in obedience, but they acted as if they hadn’t known God at all, defaming His character as well as His promise. “Has God brought us here to die? To be victimized?” They attributed to God the worst motives, although He had demonstrated to them amazing grace.

10 Therefore I was angry with that generation, And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, And they have not known My ways.’ 11 So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’ ”

1. The “therefore” makes much sense! God’s anger and judgment of that generation was truly justified. Why shouldn’t He be “angry” with such people? Why shouldn’t He have much “wrath” towards them? After everything He had already done for them – after everything He freely offered them, they still despised Him. God had every reason in the world to be angry with them, even to wipe them from the face of the earth if He so chose.
   1. People sometimes have a problem with the idea of God’s angry wrath, using that as an excuse not to believe in Him. “I can’t believe in a God of wrath and vengeance! Surely God is loving and forgiving…that’s a God I can get behind.” God is indeed loving and forgiving…more than we can possibly express through words. But He has anger towards sin. He will judge the wicked in His righteous wrath. How could He not? When we think of all the murders, rapes, kidnappings, and abuse that have gone unanswered by the courtrooms of this world – when we think of all the evil that has taken place under the guise of government…how could we not desire God to judge in righteousness? A good God must judge these things, otherwise He would not be good at all.
      1. Of course, if God being perfect judges those major crimes, then certainly a God who is perfect will also judge ‘minor’ ones. A good and just God will also judge us for all our sins. He has every right to be angry with us, just like He had every right to be angry with Israel. That is exactly why He sent Jesus! At the cross, Jesus satisfied the anger of God on our behalf, taking our judgment in our place. Now, we can experience the love and forgiveness of our good God because Jesus placated our good God’s anger and wrath.
   2. More fundamentally, how do we know that God loves and forgives? Through the Bible. There is absolutely no basis to assume through our intuition that God is a loving, merciful, and forgiving God. That might be what someone wants God to be, but there is no reasonable and objective standard to assume it, any more than we can assume the dark side of the moon is green and made out of cheese simply because we like the idea. The only way we know anything definitive about God (apart from general revelation) is through the Bible. It is the Bible that tells us God is love (1 Jn 4:8). It is the Bible that tells us God is merciful (Dt 7:9). Guess what? It is also the Bible that tells us God is angry with the wicked every day (Ps 7:11). It tells us that the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience (Col 3:6). The Bible tells us both…we cannot pick and choose which Scriptures to believe and which to discard. If we receive the Bible as God’s own revelation (which we should!) we need to receive all of it.
2. God’s anger towards Israel was justified, not only because of Israel’s then-current rebellion at Kadesh Barnea, but also their past history of rebellion. The psalmist wrote “they always go astray.” Always is a big word! Is this poetic exaggeration? Was God (through the psalmist) using literary hyperbole to describe Israel? Surely they did not “always” sin, any more than we “always” do something or the other. As when teenager tell their parents, “You never let me do anything fun!” In this case, however, the description is accurate. While there were certain times Israel actually did obey the Lord, those times were the exceptions that proved the rule. Yes, they did put the blood of the Passover lambs on their doorposts. Yes, they did cross the Red Sea, gather manna on a daily basis, and agree to the covenant at Mt Sinai. Those were times of sweet obedience. But even here, they tested the Lord’s patience the entire time. They complained when Moses first arrived in Egypt asking for their freedom. They complained at the edge of the Red Sea. They complained in the wilderness prior to receiving manna – they complained after receiving manna – they complained about the manna. At Mt Sinai, they begged Moses to speak to God on their behalf, then complained that Moses was speaking with God too long. They engaged in a form of Egyptian idolatry at the base of Mt Sinai, basically spitting in the face of God despite all the powerful miracles they personally witnessed. And all of this was well prior to them rebelling against God at the edge of the Promised Land. The description of “they always go astray” was not hyperbole; it was downright accurate!
   1. Let us be careful pointing fingers. If it could be said of Israel, surely it can be said of us. We always go astray. Obviously, some days are better than others. But what day has there ever been when you have been sinless? As a born-again Christian, what day has gone by where you could claim, “I guess I didn’t need Jesus’ forgiveness today. I’m good to go…” It doesn’t happen! Regardless our level of maturity and growth (and hopefully, we are always growing), we still require daily forgiveness.
3. What was Israel’s judgment for their constant “always” rebellion? The oath of God that “they shall not enter My rest.” What does the “rest” of God entail? That is the primary issue in Chapter 4. For now, it is enough to see that in the Promised Land, God gave Israel an offer of rest. Interestingly, the word is not the term used for Sabbath, although the ideas overlap. This is a resting place, somewhere that the people could be comforted and cease from their work or activity. Contextually for Israel, they had been ‘busy’ wandering from place to place, but God offered them a place to settle down. (Chapter 4 will argue that God’s true rest is something far more than the Promised Land or even the Sabbath day…the writer of Hebrews will build that argument in time.) It was offered to Israel, but that offer was no more. “They shall not enter My rest.” The decree of the Holy God was that His people would not receive His rest, due to their terrible persistent rebellion. This was God’s oath, and it would not be broken. His judgment cannot be overruled.

• Warning for the present (12-15). NT warning.

12 Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; 13 but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

1. The application comes in the form of a warning. To his Hebrew Christian brethren, he told them to watch out for their own potential hardened hearts, the attitudes that would result in unbelief. Importantly, the writer does call his readers, “” Once again, he affirms that he believes the best about his readers. He believed they were each “partakers of the heavenly calling,” his own “holy brethren,” (3:1). To the best of his understanding, his readers believed that Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the Christ (the Messiah), the Son of the living God who died for them on the cross and rose from the grave. He believed that they were his saved brothers and sisters in Jesus. But even “brethren” need warnings. Brethren especially need warnings! For instance, I don’t want to see anyone get involved in an automobile accident, and my heart goes out to those involved whenever I see a car wreck. I would do what I could to warn any potential traveler about a bridge out ahead (or whatever). But my warnings and pleadings would become far more vehement with my bride or my daughter. I know them more – I love them more – thus, if I knew of imminent danger, I would warn them more. Likewise, when it comes to warnings of potential departure (and even apostasy) from Jesus, those who are brothers and sisters in Jesus (born-again believers) are who need it most. More than anyone, we need these warnings.
   1. This is what God does with us in His word, and what we see throughout the book of Hebrews. As we get further into the book, we will find several explicit warnings to Christians not to fall away from Jesus (Heb 6), to sin willfully and draw back to perdition (Heb 10). People tend to get scared as we read the warnings, and due to that fear (and the controversy surrounding them), simply write them off as being unnecessary. Do we as God’s children need to fear our heavenly Father ripping His promise of salvation away from us? No, not in the slightest. We are brought into a new covenant with God, sealed with the blood of Jesus Christ. The covenants God makes, God keeps! Even so, these warnings matter…they are meant for us. Because He loves us, He warns us.
2. With that in mind, the issue being addressed in Chapter 3 is not whether a born-again Christian can lose his/her salvation. There is nothing in this chapter about God casting someone away from His covenant or removing His seal of salvation. As hard as we might look for that language, it is not there. In Chapter 3, the issue is “departing from the living God.” Although some might want to rebrand this as ‘total spiritual apostasy,’ or ‘losing salvation,’ that is simply not the language used. The language is that of departure, of someone who once walked (or seemed to walk) with Jesus, who now no longer walks with Jesus. – If we’re being honest, that perhaps makes the topic a bit tougher. As long as we’re debating eternal security, we can stay in the realm of the theoretical, the hypothetical. We ask questions like, “Is it possible…? Might this actually happen…?” It removes a bit of the sting from the argument, keeping our debates academic (if not still passionate). Yet when we look at the language used by the writer, it isn’t ‘ivory tower,’ but down to earth. This isn’t a theoretical apostasy; this is actual relational departure…and it is something that happens every day.
   1. Probably every person in this room knows of at least one person (if not several) who once seemingly walked with Jesus, yet later departed from Him. An increasingly prevalent trend among Millennials and Gen Z involves so-called ‘ex-vangelicals’ who desire to deconstruct their faith. These are (mostly) young men and women who grew up in church environments and once claimed to be Christian, who now repudiate nearly everything they believe to be representative of evangelical Christianity. (Whether who ideas are actually Biblical, rather than merely cultural or purely legalistic, is another question altogether.) But the issue remains: these people have departed from the living God. This is not theoretical to them; it is their lived experience, witnessed by the rest of us.
3. What is at the root of these departures? “Unbelief.” The word might be translated “no faith.” Gk: apistia (ἀπιστία), the alpha-privative which negates the word + pistia, related to faith/belief. Like “atheist” is “not-theist / un-theist,” so “apistia” is not-belief / unbelief. In the past, the hardened hearts of the Israelites demonstrated their unbelief, as they refused to have faith that God could/would give them the land as He promised. They did not believe rightly about the living God, defaming His character through their accusations against Him. This, wrote the author to his readers, is the “evil heart” of which they needed to beware. As long as they believed, having softened hearts toward the Lord, everything was okay. Yet if there were some among them who harbored unbelief, then that person’s lack of faith would become known when he/she departed from the living God. When writing of small “a” antichrists (those who are opposed to Jesus Christ), John wrote: 1 John 2:19, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.” When it came to false teachers or others who were flatly opposed to Christ, yet sometimes mingling among the church, how would they become known? Through their departure. Someone who truly believes in Jesus Christ as Lord doesn’t give Him up. Born-again believers might have days (or seasons) of disobedience, of laziness, of apathy, etc., even days of doubt…but they don’t give up Jesus entirely. They don’t chuck Jesus along with the church, becoming altogether pagan. In some way, shape, or form, they continue with Christ. Why? Because true born-again believers know that Jesus is our only hope! We cannot be saved, unless Jesus saves us. We cannot be forgiven, unless Jesus forgives us. If we ever hope to be reconciled to God and go to heaven when we die, it must be through the work of Jesus…or it doesn’t happen. That kind of fundamental faith isn’t given up. When that baseline isn’t there, then ‘belief’ isn’t there. All that is left is unbelief, and departure from the living God isn’t far behind.
4. With that in mind, a modicum of unbelief might take place among true born-again believers. Even if we haven’t totally given up on Jesus, we might get enticed by the things of this world – we might allow ourselves to be attracted to the “deceitfulness of sins,” resulting in our hearts becoming hardened over time. How can we combat that? This is one area in which being part of a local church is so helpful! We can “exhort one another daily,” as we walk with Jesus. I can encourage you, and you can encourage me. We can pray for one another, send Scriptures to each other, and generally bear one another’s burdens to help us each ‘keep on keeping on.’
   1. Who are you exhorting? Often, we’ll come to verses like this in the Bible and start grumbling, “No one has been exhorting me, lately!” Sadly, that might be true. (And where I’ve personally failed in this, forgive me!) But let’s not forget that Christianity is not a spectator sport. The idea that a born-again Christian can just show up among a church congregation and do nothing except watch and receive is flatly unbiblical. Tragically, it was encouraged throughout much of church history with the division between the clergy and the laity, with congregants showing up to watch as the priests did all the ‘work.’ That might be a traditional understanding, but it is not a Biblical one. In the New Testament, men and women came together in one accord as they continued in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers (Acts 2:42). They came offering themselves, serving and loving one another, participating in their joint worship of Christ. They came not to watch, but to participate. So…who have you exhorted/encouraged lately? You might have just the word (or hug or smile) to help someone else who’s been struggling. You might be just the person God intends to use with someone who is getting distracted by the deceitfulness of sin. 

14 For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, 15 while it is said: “Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

1. How can someone know if they’ve partaken of Christ? Simple: through believing in Him. The writer speaks of holding fast one’s confidence in Christ, which is another way of speaking of faith. Remember, the danger of which he warned was “unbelief.” What is the antidote to unbelief? Instead of departing from the living God, we hold fast to the living God. We’ve already grabbed hold of Jesus; now we don’t let go. This is the urgency implied from the earlier quotation in Psalm 95. If you’ve heard God’s voice (if you’ve heard Christ’s call and believed on Him), don’t harden your heart against Him. If you’ve felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit calling you to be saved, don’t proverbially plug your ears to Him. If you’ve felt the stirring of faith, don’t walk away with a hardened heart. Believe! [Maybe you’re hearing the call today!]
2. And once you believe, keep on believing. Keep on walking with Jesus, keep on trusting Him to save. In this, be careful not to get the wrong idea. The author of Hebrews is not saying, “Jesus has saved you by His grace, but now you need to keep yourself saved by your works.” How do we know he isn’t saying this? (1) We have to read that conclusion into the Bible, for it certainly doesn’t arise from the text itself. (2) If the author was saying that, he would be contradicting many other places in the Bible where it says the opposite, and the Bible never contradicts. – So, what is he saying? Merely that our faith in Jesus is active. Does He give us the faith we need to trust His grace? Sure (Eph 2:8-9), but the faith He gives is faith that we exercise. Faith doesn’t work any other way. The story has often been told of acrobat Charles Blondin, who crossed Niagra Falls on tightrope some 300 times in the late 1800’s. Sometimes, he would cross with a wheelbarrow, with the crowd being amazed. One day, he reportedly asked the crowd if they believed he could do it with someone in the wheelbarrow and everyone cheered “yes,” but the moment he asked for a volunteer, no one raised his hand. Real faith is not only believing that Jesus can save, but using the grace Jesus gives you, getting into His own wheelbarrow and trusting Him to That is an active faith. And it is one we are called to hold steadfastly to the end.
   1. Don’t give it up for anything! Don’t let the deceitfulness of sin rob you of the joy that is rightfully yours in your salvation. Don’t let the trials of this world harden your heart to the Jesus you know has saved you. You can’t do much about those trials; you can hold fast to Jesus. Do it!

• Exegetical conclusion (16-19). Questions and answers.

16 For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? 17 Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey?

1. The questions are rapid-fire in their issuance, as well as their answers. It should have been quickly obvious to all his original readers with their Hebrew background. Who was it that rebelled against the Lord? It was the very people that God had brought out of Egyptian slavery. Who experienced the Lord’s anger for 40 years? Those same people who sinned, God’s anger evident in their death. Who would not enter God’s rest? All those who disobeyed and thus died in the wilderness. – It is the first question that sets the tone for all the rest. The ones who rebelled – the ones who sinned by disbelieving in the Lord – the ones who refused to obey God…every single one of them was someone who personally witnessed the Lord’s work in delivering them out of Egypt. Every one of them had gone through the Passover and the Red Sea. They experienced these things first-hand, and should have had more faith than any other generation of Hebrews before or since. They didn’t. They had evil hearts of unbelief and rebelled.
2. Takeaway: it is possible to hear God’s promise of rest, to see and intellectually understand His power to save…yet still fail to believe. This generation of Israelites had all the evidence in front of them. They had all the instruction that was required. They could not have been more led by the hand if Jesus had come incarnate among them. After all, it was the Angel of the Lord who led them by the pillar of cloud and fire…Jesus was among them! Yet at the end of it all, when it was time for the rubber to meet the road, they refused to believe. What followed was 40 years of death, with the Promised Land given to the next generation.

19 So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.

1. Unbelief kept them from entering God’s rest. Don’t gloss over the wording. The writer says of those ancient Hebrews that “they could not enter.” Not would not; could The Israelites of the time were not able to enter the Promised Land. They had been brought to its edge – they knew the fruit that lay within it. They had their covenant with the Lord God promising His protection and provision as well as the prophet of God leading them. Yet “they could not enter in.” Why? What did they lack? Faith. The writer specifically tells us: “they could not enter in because of unbelief.” A lack of faith kept them from the promise of God. A distrust of God robbed them of the ability to receive what God freely offered them. They had a marvelous opportunity before them. Their unbelief made it impossible for them to use it.
2. That word is intentional. It was not unlikely; it was impossible. Their unbelief did not make things more difficult, as if all the Israelites needed to do was to try harder. They did not require more will; they required better faith. Apart from faith, it is impossible to receive any of the promises of God. We this in ancient Israel itself. Once they rebelled at Kadesh Barnea, refusing to enter the land, they heard the judgment of God proclaimed upon them through Moses. God decreed that their dead bodies would fall in the wilderness, that they would proceed on a 40-year death march. After hearing that, all of a sudden the people of Israel found the will to obey! (Which at this point, was continued disobedience.) They rose early the next day to enter the land, even while Moses ped with them not to try. They had lost their opportunity, and this was God’s judgment upon them. Further disobedience would lead to further death…which was exactly what happened. The Amalekites and Canaanites drove back the Hebrews who tried to enter (Num 14:45). These were nations who were originally supposed to flee before Israel when Israel followed the Lord. In Israel’s faithless disobedience, those nations now caused Israel to flee. – The bottom line is clear. They could not enter the land. Their opportunity was lost through their unbelief. And their continued unbelief only made things worse. They didn’t believe God enough to enter when He told them to enter, nor did they believe God enough to turn around when He told them to go. Their lack of faith made it impossible to please God and experience His blessings and His rest.
3. Without jumping too far ahead, this is exactly what the writer of Hebrews will clearly tell his readers in Chapter 11. Hebrews 11:6, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” We cannot please God apart from faith. It is impossible to do so. Faith allows us to take hold of His offers of grace. Grace is appropriated by no other means. It doesn’t come through rituals – it doesn’t come through baptism (though baptism is commanded!) – it doesn’t come through acts of service or giving (though we are to serve and to give). Nothing takes hold of God’s grace in Jesus other than faith. Without faith, we have no share in Jesus. Without Jesus, we have no share in the rest offered by God.

Conclusion:

The writer of Hebrews pointed out to his readers a very important error to avoid: unbelief. This was something that plagued their fathers, for despite all the wonders of God that they witnessed, they still failed to enter the Promised Land when brought to its borders. They failed to believe God, which evidenced their hardened rebellious hearts.

The author wanted his readers to beware the same danger. While he believed they were his brothers and sisters in Jesus, he understood how easily we can become beset by sin, with our own hearts becoming calloused to Jesus. His desire was to warn them of the danger, so that they would hold fast to Christ.

I wonder sometimes how many people have passed through our doors over the years professing faith, who later ended up departing from the living God? It’s impossible to know as people come and go all the time. When it comes to true, abiding faith in Jesus, that is a question each Christian must answer individually. No one can look at another person’s life and determine the difference between a false profession of faith and a temporary backslidden state. What you can do is look at your own life. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, you can (and should!) “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves,” (2 Cor 13:5). Is your abiding faith in Jesus? Is He your one hope for salvation, knowing you have zero hope apart from Him? (Are you in His wheelbarrow?) The Bible is clear on this point: Romans 10:9, “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” If Jesus is your confession, knowing that He is Lord and God – if you believe that He died for your sins and rose from the dead, then the promise from the Bible (God’s own inspired word!) is that you will be saved.

Hold fast to Him as your confession! Hold fast to Him as your confidence and your joy! Don’t be one of those who heard the promise of good news, who sat on the edge of God’s forever rest, but still hardened your heart against Him. Take hold of Jesus and rest in the promise of His salvation!