CARCASES IN THE WILDERNESS
Hebrews 5:11-14
Hebrews 3:7-19
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Hebrews 3:7-19
7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, "Today, when 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 hearts; they have not known my ways.’ 11 As I swore in my wrath, ’They shall never enter my rest.’" 12 Take care, brethren, 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 share in Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end, 15 while it is said, "Today, when you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion." 16 Who were they that heard and yet were rebellious? Was it not all those who left Egypt under the leadership of Moses? 17 And with whom was he provoked forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did he swear that they should never enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? 19 So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.
Hebrews 5:11-14
11 About this we have much to say which is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need some one to teach you again the first principles of God’s word. You need milk, not solid food; 13 for every one who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a child. 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.
INTRODUCTION:
• The Christian life begins with a new birth through Jesus.
• We are born infants but should not remain babes in the Lord.
• We are to grow into mature spiritual adults
• Many of God’s children suffer from a stunted growth.
• In most cases it is simply a lack of feeding on the milk of the word
• This results in week anemic Christians who fall easy prey to temptation, false doctrine and error, in both faith and practice
I. The Case of Israel (Paul to Hebrew Christians)
1) Danger of stopping short of God’s best.
2) This history would be familiar to the Hebrew Christian.
3) They are pointed to the experience of the nation, as a warning against halting short of abundant life
4) This whole scripture is all in perenthesis, to serve as a warning in view of what had preceded it.
II. Hardened Christians
Psalms 95:8-11
8 Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness: 9 When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work. 10 Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways: 11 Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.
1) Christians can harden their hearts by:
a. Living in disobedience to Gods will.
b. Continuing to ignore God’s warning and pleadings
2) This numbs our sensitivity toward God and we become callous to his pleadings until at last it brings us to a place where it is impossible to renew ourselves to repentance.
3) Do you remember how convicted you were when after you were first saved
and you were faced with the need of giving up some sin or habit.
a. You new that sin or habit had no place in your new found life, and you were miserable in your defeat and disobedience.
b. As time went on, the conviction seemed to become stifled, you began
to find excuses, and today the very thing which once caused you
such a feeling of guilt and convictions are condoned and excused
without a twinge of conscience.
4) WHAT HAPPENED???
a. You have hardened your heart.
b. This is the reason you have not grown spiritually, and you know nothing of victory.
c. You may be saved but are losing out terribly in forfeited blessing and reward.
III. SHORT OF CANAAN
Hebrews 3:10,11
10 Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways: 11 Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.
1) Look at the results:
Only two Israelites over twenty years old who left Egypt ever reached Canaan.
The rest of them dissatisfied with God’s provision, lusted for the old diet, and while they were out of Egypt, they still had the old Egypt in them.
They would not enter into the rest of Canaan, their promised land, the land of
milk and honey, corn and wine.
These were redeemed from Egypt, but fell short of Canaan and died in the
Wilderness.
The sin which prevented them from entering Canaan was disobedience to Go
failure to trust and obey Him. It was disbelief on their part.
IV. ONLY ELEVEN DAYS
Duet. 1:2
2 (There are eleven days’ journey from Horeb by the way of mount Seir unto Kadeshbarnea.)
1) The illustration of Israel whose carcasses fell in the wilderness leave no
excuse for us to repeat their experience.
2) Moses had led Israel out of Egypt and brought them to the very edge of
Canaan at Kadesh-barnea, and then, because they were afraid of the battle for
Canaan, turned back, way back to Horeb.
3) Only eleven days journey form Horeb to the gateway of the promised land Kadesh-baarnea.
Duet. 1 6-8
6 The LORD our God spake unto us in Horeb, saying, Ye have dwelt long enough in this mount:
7 Turn you, and take your journey, and go to the mount of the Amorites, and unto all the places nigh thereunto, in the plain, in the hills, and in the vale, and in the south, and by the sea side, to the land of the Canaanites, and unto Lebanon, unto the great river, the river Euphrates.
8 Behold, I have set the land before you: go in and possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give unto them and to their seed after them.
1) God spoke to them by Moses and yet instead of going forward and possess
their inheritance they rebelled and wandered for another thirty-eight years in
the wilderness in defeat.
2) It took them forty years to make a journey of only eleven days, and their
carcasses fell in the wilderness.
Conclusion:
Hebrews 4
1 Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.
***How far have you walked since the day you received Christ in your life? Some of you have been saved 20, 30, 40 years and are no nearer to Canaan and victory than you were then.
Ask yourself these 5 questions
1) Have I the joy I first knew at the beginning?
2) Do I love the study of God’s word more than a year ago?
3) Do I pray as much as I used to, and have I had recent answers to prayer?
4) Do I witness as I did when I was in my first love?
5) Have you become cold, critical, cynical and sour, instead of mellowing and
becoming sweeter with the passage of the years of your Christian experience
*** If the answer is no then you probably can see little progress in your spiritual life.
*** Then you are wondering in the wilderness and will come to the end without
knowing the full PEACE OF GOD and could become a DEAD CARCASS IN
THE WILDERNESS.
