A. INTRODUCTION
1. The section of Hebrews which served as last week's text passage concluded with a declaration of the great faithfulness expressed in the lives of both Moses and Jesus Christ.
HEBREWS 3:1-6 [ NIV ]
Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess. He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God's house. Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. Moses was faithful as a servant in all God's house, testifying to what would be said in the future. But Christ is faithful as a son over God's house. And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boost.
2. His examination of such great lives of faith seems to have reminded the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews of the weak and wavering faith of those to whom his letter is addressed.
a. Remember, it appears that some of his letter's recipients have expressed an intention to abandon Christianity in favour of a return to the traditional Judaism of their families and friends. Their faith, it seems, was not strong enough to allow them to overcome the difficulties and disappointments of their lives.
b. Their faith had come under attack by two debilitating forces:
(1) the cultural traditions and familiar comfort of the Jewish faith they had abandoned for the cause of Christ, and
(2) the increasing pressures being set against the young church by the Roman-ruled world.
3. "Dr. E.M. Blaiklock, a longtime professor of classics at the University of New Zealand and a noted biblical historian, made the startling statement: 'Of all the centuries, the twentieth is most like the first.' If that is true, it is evident that twentieth-century Christians should thoroughly understand first-century Christianity. All the New Testament books help us in this regard, but perhaps none so practically as Acts and Hebrews. Preeminently in these two books appear flesh-and-blood believers struggling to overcome the stranglehold of past traditions and adjust to the fresh movements of God in their fast-changing world. Readers of Hebrews in the twentieth century will identify with the first recipients of this letter when they see how they struggled to hold on to their faith in Jesus in the midst of growing world chaos and powerful cultural pressures to return to a more comfortable past." - Ray C. Stedman: Hebrews ( Volume 15, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series )
4. It is our writer's desire in this morning's text passage to encourage all those disciples whose "soft spots" in their Christian walk are being exploited by the Evil One. He will do this by means of three commands.
a. "Do not h __ __ __ __ __ your hearts as in the rebellion, In the day of trial in the wilderness...." ( 3:8 );
b. Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of u __ __ __ __ __ __ __ in departing from the living God... ( 3:12 );
c. E __ __ __ __ __ one another daily, while it is called "T __ __ __ __," lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. ( 3:13 ).
B. TEXT: Hebrews 3:7 - 4:11
1. Hebrews 3:7b-11 is an extensive quotation from Psalm 95:7-11.
a. The words in v.8 rendered in some translations as "rebellion" and "day of trial" are in the original Greek text the two names given by Moses to the place in the wilderness where the ungrateful and short-sighted children of Israel first grumbled against Jehovah and Moses for taking them out of bondage in Egypt.
ref: Exodus 17:1-7
(1) The word translated as "rebellion" is Meribah, which means "rebellion" or "strife."
(2) The word translated as "trial" is Massah, which means "testing" or "proof."
b. It is believed by most scholars that the writer of Hebrews had in mind not only the specific event of the miracle of water gushing from a rock in the desert but the entire forty years of wandering in the wilderness which was God's punishment for His people in response to their refusal to take the Promised Land which He gave them.
ref: Numbers 13-14
c. He was not the first writer of Scripture to remind God's people of the consequences of hardening their heart toward Yahweh.
DEUTERONOMY 6:16-17 [ NLT ]
Do not test the Lord your God as you did when you complained at Massah. You must diligently obey the commands of the Lord your God -- all the stipulations and laws he has given you.
d. Heart-hardening in the people of God begins with the lack of f __ __ __ __ - response to the commands of God. Often it takes the form of "selective" or "creative" disobedience to what we know God would have us respond to a given situation.
e. Another expression of a "hardening" heart might be "u __ __ __ __ __ __ __" obedience. If we hesitate to obey God, if we "hem and haw," turning over and over in our minds the pros and cons of how explicit obedience to God might play out, the crucial moment might well pass; God might extend the command to another.
(1) "The warning is clear: without obedience, it is impossible to please God or to enter into the promise of His goodness. The timeliness of obedience is one of the great dynamic principles of Christian discipleship.
Untimely obedience is no substitute for timely or immediate obedience. Getting to the right place too late does not fix the situation." - Louis B. Evans: Hebrews ( Volume 10, The Communicator's Commentary )
(2) A perfect example of the fruits of untimely obedience can be seen in the familiar story of the report of the twelve spies in Numbers 13:26 - 14:42. The children of Israel were so terrified of the report brought by ten of the spies that they refused to invade Canaan. At first God considered striking them all dead but, after prayerful intercession by Moses, decided instead to now refuse to let them into the land until all the unfaithful adults ( except for Joshua, Caleb and Moses ) had died in the desert during forty years of wandering. When Moses informed the people of God's judgment, they changed their minds and promised to obey Him. But it was too late. The opportunity for timely, faithful obedience had passed. God's judgment was now set in place, and not one of those who failed to respond in faith to God's command lived to get the second chance to trust Him in that specific way. They never got to experience the "r __ __ __" which God had promised them.
(3) "The description of the recalcitrant Israelites is twofold: their habitual straying from God and their ignorance ( 'They always go astray in their hearts; they have not known my ways.' ). The one plays on the other. Ignorance of God's ways will naturally lead to people straying away from them. But the writer of the psalm mentions them in reverse order, as if the habitual attitude of straying had contributed to their ignorance. A hardened state of mind becomes impervious to God's voice and leads to increasing ignorance of his ways, not because God does not make them known, but because the hardened mind has no disposition to listen. What was true of the Israelites is a commentary on all who resist the claims of God." - Donald Guthrie: Hebrews ( Volume 15, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries )
(4) Carpe diem coram Deo! ( "Seize the day in the presence of God!" )
2. The second command is: Be careful then, dear friends. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God.
a. It is only a short step from incomplete or untimely obedience to God to brazen unbelief in what God says and deliberate disobedience to His commands.
(1) A hardening heart is stimulated less and less by the desires of God. Gradually, we no longer even consider the counsel of His word or the commandments of Christ.
(2) Shying away from what sometimes seems to be the "leanness" of God, the discipline of the Christian walk, and the selfless life of unselfish love and service, we stop being merely hesitant to obey Him; we abjectly disobey Him, making choices and pursuing lifestyles that not only compromise our Christian beliefs but blatantly reject them, even holding them up to public scorn.
b. According to v.12 an "evil heart of unbelief" is characterized by "d __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ from the living God." The Greek verb translated as "departing" here means literally "to place one's self apart from." It is the root from which the English word "apostasy" comes. It involves a pointed derivation from the truth. What the writer of Hebrews is describing here is not the result of circumstances beyond one's control, of being driven away by some external force. This departure is purely voluntary, a deliberate, pre-meditated act of self- separation from God.
(1) "The rebellion [the author] warns against consists of departing from a living, dynamic person, not from some dead doctrine. Jews might retort that they served the same God as the Christians so that they would not be departing from God if they went back to Judaism. But to reject God's highest revelation is to depart from God, no matter how many preliminary revelations are retained. A true faith is impossible with such a rejection." - Leon Morris: "Hebrews" ( Section 1, Volume 12, The Expositor's Bible Commentary )
(2) "We think of the heart as the seat of the emotions, but the Hebrews thought of it as the core of a person -- emotions, intellect, and will. The heart is the wellspring of motivation. When the author speaks of the heart believing something, he is talking about deep convictions held in the core of one's being, the beliefs that really determine what one does. Likewise, to harden one's heart is to make one's will, intellect, and emotions all insensitive to God's presence and truth." - Ron Rhodes: NavPress Bible Study on the Book of Hebrews
c. V.16 reveals that the author is not talking about hard-hearted non-believers who disobey God. The ones in the wilderness who murmured against God and then openly disobeyed Him were the very same people who experienced the exodus from Egypt and watched as God performed incredible miracles on their behalf. It was not that these people did not believe in God; it was that they no longer wanted what He wished to give them!
The immediate results of such actions are spelled out in v.17-19:
(1) God became p __ __ __ __ __ __ __ with them.
(2) He withdrew His p __ __ __ __ __ __ from them.
(3) Because of their unbelief, they could not enter God's r __ __ __.
3. The author goes to great lengths in 4:1-10 to discuss all the various understandings of the "rest" of which he spoke in 3:18.
"This way of using a word in two or three different ways, of teasing at it until the last drop of meaning was extracted from it, was typical of cultured, academic thought in the days when the writer of Hebrews wrote his letter." - William Barclay: The Letter to the Hebrews
a. There is reference to this "rest" as the rest of God after the sixth day of creation, when all God's work was completed. The original Greek term should is most accurately translated as "Sabbath-rest," and appears only here in all the New Testament. That God instituted this rest at the very dawn of creation is an indicator of its eternal availability to those who trust Him.
b. There is reference to the "rest" from the wanderings of the children of Israel which settling the Promised Land might accomplish for them. But the writer also reminds us that Joshua did not provide for them the "rest" he is talking about. If that had been the case, why did God speak in the future tense of this "rest" to David many generations after Joshua?
"The promise is not fulfilled, because in Psalm 95:7-11 David hears God's voice saying to the people that if they do not harden their hearts they can enter into his rest. That is to say, hundreds of years after Joshua had led the people into the rest of the Promised Land God is still appealing to them to enter into his rest. There is more to this rest than merely entry into the Promised Land."
- William Barclay: Op. cit.
c. Yes, there remains....a rest for the people of God ( 4:9 ). But what, exactly, is it? Is this rest the final ceasing from our earthly labours which occurs when we Christians finally enter into heaven? Is the promise, after all, purely eschatological -- relegated to the "last times?" I believe the answer is: absolutely not!
C. APPLICATION
1. There is a "rest" for the people of God. We do not have to die in order to receive it; it is made available to us in this life. That rest has a name: it is the p __ __ __ __ of God.
a. Isaiah 26:3-4 [ KJV ]
Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee. Trust ye in the Lord forever; for in the Lord God is everlasting strength.
b. John 14:27 [ KJV ]
{Jesus said:} "My peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."
c. Philippians 4:4-7 [ KJV ]
Rejoice in the Lord always; and again I say, Rejoice. Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
d. I Peter 3:10-12 [ KJV ]
For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile. Let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayers; but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.
2. It is within the power of every believer to refuse God's rest -- His very best for them.
a. The children of Israel, relegated by God's judgment to spend forty years wandering in the wilderness, were not abandoned by God. He still worked mightily in their midst. Yet it must be said that they lived their lives having missed God's intended best for them. And the writer of Hebrews knew how many of his readers were settling for less than God's best for them, too.
b. "We who read [Hebrews] may not be battling with pressures to return to a previously held faith, but many church members today are content to live lives that are essentially no different than the lives of non-Christians around them. They easily forget Paul's plea, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" ( Romans 12:2 ). Also, "So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking" ( Ephesians 4:17 ). All who ignore these words today are in great danger of repeating the ancient error of Israel." - Ray Stedman: Op. cit
3. The third command provided by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews in our text passage is found in 3:13.
...but exhort one another daily, while it is called "Today," lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
a. THERE IS POWER IN CORPORATE FAITH! Two vitally important ministries in the local church:
(1) e __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ ( "the giving of courage, hope or confidence" )
(2) e __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ ( "urging earnestly; entreating" )
b. But there is often a TIME LIMIT involved, one set according to God's unknown timetable. The opportunity to obey God in a specific way may pass from a hesitant believer, just as the opportunity to encourage and exhort a specific person may pass from a local church body or another individual Christian.
4. In summary:
1. God's promises requires a r __ __ __ __ __ __ __. We read in 4:2 that, for modern-day believers, God's promises are contained in the g __ __ __ __ __. We also read that the proper response to these promises comes only from those whose hearing of it is mixed with f __ __ __ __. Even the most eloquent, truthful message is of no effect unless it is both h __ __ __ __ and r __ __ __ __ __ __ __ by those to whom it is given!
2. The time for the response is T __ __ __ __.
3. F __ __ __ __ enables us to enter into the promised rest of God; u __ __ __ __ __ __ __ and d __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ prevent us from entering into it.
D I S C U S S I O N G U I D E
1. Read Romans 5:1-2 and Philippians 4:4-7. What is the difference between "peace with God" and "the peace of God?"
2. Read Romans 10:17, Ephesians 2:8-9, Galatians 2:19-20, and Galatians5:1-6.
a. Explain the difference between the work of faith in one's salvation and the work of faith in one's Christian walk.
b. When do you tend to be anxious and uncertain in your faith?
c. Is any and all unbelief condemned by God? ______________ Explain.
3. Read Hebrews 4:1-2. Explain how the preached gospel can be "mixed with faith."
4. Write down your response to this statement: "Hard spots in a believer's heart produce soft spots in a believer's discipleship."
5. Read Psalm 62:1-2. List three practical steps you might take to develop the discipline to rest in God alone.
