Clough Hebrews Lesson 21

Second Warning Passage I – Hebrews 3:7-13

To get some background to this section of Hebrews we have to go back once again and understand the situation that these believers were in because many believers today are in exactly the same kind of situation. These particular believers, though we can’t pinpoint either location and we’re not too sure of the time, though this passage I’ve discovered also gives us a hint in that direction. We can make at least three statements about what these people were doing that shows very clearly they were in a depressed state. They were under pressure from physical persecution, they had been under that pressure for some length of time. In other words, they’re resistance to pressure was wearing thin and they were turning away, as it says in verse 12, they were “departing from the living God.”

We have three specific ways they were departing from the living God. One way, given in Hebrews 5:11 that we said was that they were turning away from the Word. So negative volition is showing up in certain specific concrete behavior, Hebrews 5:11 teaches this, that the Word of God was no longer central in their life; it was peripheral, it was always something else plus the Word of God. And please notice that this is always a sign of apostasy when you have a neglect minus the Word. No matter how good an activity is, if it doesn’t have the Word of God it’s the beginning of apostasy.

The second way in which these believers were showing their negative volition is given in Hebrews 10:25 and that was they were isolating themselves from each other. This is operation lone ranger, trying to dig out their own problems on their own, and this never works, it never has, never will, because God has provided us with spiritual gifts and every believer needs the other’s gifts. So lone ranger operations are also a sign of apostasy. And some of you are in organizations where you’ll have to watch it because out of, sometimes no fault of their own, they do not emphasize the authority of the local church and those organizations can set you up for a tremendous weakness the rest of your Christian life if you don’t correct, at least in your own soul, that doesn’t mean go tell some leader how to run his organization; that’s not your prerogative, but as far as you own business is concerned you’d better the authority structure right in the local church.

Then Hebrews 12:1 and actually through the whole end of the chapter, we have a third way in which they were departing from the living God and that was that they were rejecting the lessons of discipline. In other words, they were rejecting the possibility they could learn something. We’ll just put reject the learning of discipline. That’s the passage where “life up the weak hands” and so on. All that has to do with the pressure they were experiencing but they weren’t learning from it and they weren’t giving thanks for it. So this was departing from the living God.

Then we have the exhortation throughout the epistle, centering in chapter 3 thru chapter 7, this section of Hebrews stresses Jesus Christ as the ideal priest, being faithful, sympathetic, and everlasting, so that we must not slack. So that’s the content and that’s the emphasis of Hebrews 3-7; Jesus Christ is the ideal priest being faithful, sympathetic and everlasting.

Then Hebrews 3:1-6 deals with Jesus Christ as the faithful high priest. That was the section that we finished and it stopped at the phrase, “if we hold fast the confidence, and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.” Then in Hebrews 3:7 and going through 4:14 we have the second warning passage in Hebrews and this is a warning against neglecting God’s promises. And it’s a rather severe warning, it’s a warning that is just as severe in its own way as Hebrews 2:1-4. Hebrews 2:1-4 is the first warning, and this section is the second warning. If you line up these warning passage and understand each warning passage must be interpreted in linkage with all the other warning passages.

Now why is the author giving so many warnings in the middle of his exhortation? There’s a reason for this and you want to understand it. He is trying to give his people hope and in order to give hope… obviously they need hope, because hope plus grief enables you to take it. If you have grief without hope you’re lost and you have no stability and you won’t really be too successful in handling life’s pressures. So in order to give hope he does so three ways. One way, he gives us hope by emphasizing our calling. Now notice the calling, the position, this is Hebrews 3:1-6. That’s why he says in verse 1, “Consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession,” in other words, Jesus Christ is made our High Priest and since we have a High Priest, therefore, the argument goes, therefore we ought to behave a certain way. And the second way of exhortation is the reward/punishment type of exhortation. In other words, if it doesn’t get through one way you try another way. One way is to consider our priest, and that is an exhortation to behave properly.

Probably the best person in history, or one of the recent ones who realized how to get hope in a group of people by your calling was General Patton in World War II who stressed what seemed to many people to be nitpicky little things about uniforms, but Patton’s point was when he took over command after the Kasserine Pass incident was that if soldiers don’t dress like soldiers they’re not going to act like soldiers. And he’s right because there is a certain mentality that’s created by the details, that carries over to the specifics. And so his point was simply that you give hope to these men who had experienced defeat in the Kasserine Pass, you give hope to them by paying attention to these little things. You develop a certain mental attitude and that is the idea of calling.

Then the reward/punishment is very simple, it is if you continue to hack around you’re going to suffer the consequences. And if you get with it you’re going to be blessed, and there’s no middle ground; one way or the other way. So that’s the reward/punishment. Those of you in education, of course you’ll hear from education ivory tower people that you should only use the positive reinforcement, in other words only the reward but never the punishment. I want you to notice this passage explicitly is written by the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit here is using negative reinforcement. So the concept that you only give positive reinforcement is apostate, it doesn’t line up with the Word of God.

Let’s see the passage on the warning; we said last week, we worked with a little bit to get you used to the fact that Hebrews 3:7, the first part, skipped to Hebrews 3:12-13, that’s all one sentence, it begins, “Wherefore, as the Holy Spirit says, and actually if you have an Old King James you should see a parenthesis after “Wherefore,” and you should see that parenthesis close at the end of verse 11, so that whole block of material is a parenthesis. Now again going back to simple grammar; subject, verb, adverb. The phrase beginning in verse 7 down through 11 is acting adverbially to modify the verb. The verb here is “take heed,” or simply “look.” “Look,” but it’s not just a command that is given into the vacuum, so to give content to the command and to give something concrete, give you motivation, give you definition and clarity about what he wants and how he wants you to watch out, he relates an incident. Now tonight we’re going to take up this incident, the Meribah incident and its later after effects, but to do so we want to understand certain things about inspiration. And this is a peculiar feature to this epistle and you won’t find this as clear in the other epistles as you do here.

Notice he says, “Wherefore, as the Holy Spirit is saying,” those of you who have Greek, what is the verb, now I know you’ve had the present tense so let’s have a quiz; what’s the stem of this verb? lego, and can you give the form of this verb. Always bring your Greek text and use it, if you’re going to bang your head against the wall learning Greek enjoy the benefits. It’s present tense, third singular, present. By the way, if you want an acrostic when you’re parsing Greek verbs, sometimes in seminary we’d have a quiz and inevitably you’d forget, you’d know what the verb was but you wouldn’t put all the things down; a guy in my class came up with an acrostic that I’ve always used, point move, pntmv, “p” the person, “n” the number, “t” the tense, “m” the mood and “v” the voice. And if you remember that you have tags and you just mechanically, every time you parse a verb go through it in exactly that order and it’ll just come to you, over and over, and that way you make sure you have all the five points down every verb.

So this verb, then, is third person, singular number, present tense, the mood is indicative mood and it’s active voice. Now why is all that important? Because this is one of those passages that tells you that God’s Word is alive today. There’s been a denomination down through history that’s emphasized more than others the so-called doctrine of the animation of the Word of God and that was the early Lutherans, under Martin Luther’s influence, emphasized the fact that the Word of God itself is convicting. Now by this they meant that the Word of God verbally taught or read has a convicting power in and of itself as distinguished from the Holy Spirit Himself. That the Word of God, as truth, has the power residing within it, the reason because it was created in history by the Holy Spirit. And the doctrine of the animation of the Word of God focuses attention on the origin of Scripture.

Now we’re coming to a place, why, and again we have to go over and over this in this epistle, but this man, when he quotes Scripture, never gives you the human author. He only gives you God. Every one of these things, for example if you look ahead, Hebrews 4:4, “For he spoke in a certain place of the seventh day in this way,” now who’s the subject of that verb “speak” in verse 4? The subject of the verb, who’s “He” in verse 4? God. All right, do any of you recognize where that quote is taken from, the rest of verse 4. Genesis 2. Who wrote Genesis 2, at least traditionally who wrote it? Moses. And notice the quote, this is a very important one because the quote is about God. You see, the quote in verse 4 is not God actually speaking originally; if you had a red letter edition of the Old Testament that quote would not be in red. You see. And yet when this author quotes the black and he pulls it back over he says God is saying, and he puts it in red. In other words, the author of the epistle to the Hebrews would not like red letter editions of the Bible. Now if you have one, don’t worry about it, it’s not your fault, some dopey printer put that in there who didn’t have any doctrine. But there’s no such authorization for red letter editions of the Bible and they’re very dangerous in one sense because they tend to give you the impression that the black letters aren’t as authoritative as the red ones and that is false. All of the Word of God is equally authoritative.

Now we come back to this lege, “therefore as the Holy Spirit is saying,” and what he is going to do, he is going to do, he is going to quote Psalm 95:7-11 and he is saying though that Psalm was written ten centuries ago, today the Holy Spirit is still speaking through canonical Scripture. Now the loss of the doctrine of the animation of the Word of God has led to certain heresies that developed in the 19^th century; men like John Smith and others developed the idea that they would restore the Church. You had three or four restoration movements, you had Jehovah’s Witnesses, you had the Mormons, you had Christian Science, you had a number of these cults that broke out in the 19^th century. And all of them stressed that they were speaking for God in the latter time, that this was a restoration movement. Now where they failed is, apparently the people who started them never realized there was such a thing as the doctrine of the animation of the Word of God, that the Word of God never stopped speaking. The Holy Spirit has never stopped speaking, but where they were sloppy is that the Holy Spirit speaks is a place, just like in the Old Testament, He spoke in an authorized location and the authorized location is the canon of Scripture. So these people tried to add to the canon of Scripture, they said God is speaking through us today, apart from the canon of Scripture.

Now what is the true doctrine; God speaks to us, we use… all of us the expression God led us to do this, God speaks to us and that’s fine as long as you understand how you mean it. So let’s be nitpicky here, how God speaks to us today. God in Scripture gives us a framework, the divine viewpoint framework. Those basic doctrines He is still teaching us, but He is teaching us always through the canon of Scripture. There will never be a doctrine that has to be added to the canon of Scripture that isn’t already implicit in that canon of Scripture. What the Holy Spirit does and has done if you study 19 centuries of church history, is as ages go by He will emphasize certain areas of that doctrine and build them up.

For example, the first couple of centuries he emphasized the doctrine of Christology. Now it’s true that every believer all through history has had in his heart some sort of an approximation of orthodoxy concerning Christ, but the Church had to sweat it out and develop a doctrine of Jesus Christ. Those are the creeds, the Nicene Creed, the Apostle’s Creed, the Chalcedon Creed and so on. This was how the Holy Spirit acted, was the Holy Spirit adding to the canon? No He was not. He was illuminating the content of the canon which was already in existence. Therefore His work is known as illumination, not revelation. Revelation is out; illumination is in. And what has happened is that down through history this particular aspect of illumination, the animation of the Word of God, it was blurred out and never emphasized with the result that the Word of God became dull and uninteresting to most people.

So the present tense in verse 7 is very important, “the Holy Spirit is saying….” Application: this means that it is as authoritative as if Jesus Christ sat in the front of this congregation and was teaching us right here now. When you pick up the Word of God and you connect and lock in on the contents of the text, you are held responsible for what you see and for what you know, just as much as if Jesus Christ Himself were there. People would say oh, it would have been different if Jesus were here. NO it wouldn’t! Your response to the Word of God is identical to your response to Jesus Christ. There is no difference. So don’t think that if Jesus Christ were here they would be different, they wouldn’t be different because Jesus Christ is here, He’s teaching through His Word.

So the quotation is from Psalm 95:7-11. Now the quote is the same in Psalm 95 as it is here, we won’t stress too much Psalm 95 but I am going to have you turn to Numbers 12 to pick up the background for Psalm 95. Let’s get it on a time line for those of you who are poor in history and want to sort this out. We have four points on the time line: the cross of Christ; the writing of the epistle to the Hebrews, probably forty or so years later; 1000 BC, Psalm 95; around 1400 Numbers 12-20. That’s the time line and Numbers 12-20 teach us the content of the history, the historical revelation God gave. Now watch what’s going to happen here because you’re going to learn something about how the Bible is put together.

Numbers 12-20 depict the original revelation into history, that was the real live, breathing, smoking revelation in history. Psalm 95 also is revelation in history because when the Holy Spirit had David write Psalm 95 He had David put an interpretation on that past event and pull it into his own era, so therefore when Psalm 95 it is just as inspired as Numbers 12-20, the original incident. You have two things, then, the original incident and then you have Psalm 95, the commentary, the interpretation of that incident. And the author of this epistle asserts to us that the interpretation of the historical event is exactly equal in authority to the original historic event.

Now what about the original historical event, let’s go back, this is how we’re to move so you can set up your notes. We’re going to work with Numbers 12-20, then we’re going to Psalm 95, then we’re going to go to Hebrews 3; three steps. First we’re going to go to the event, Numbers 12-20, then we’re going to move to Psalm 95 which is the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of the event; then we’re going to come forward and apply it in the time of the Hebrews.

What is the event? Numbers 12:7 was originally quoted in chapter 3; remember the faithfulness of Christ, it was compared to the faithful of Moses and the quote of Numbers 12:7 was given in Hebrews. “My servant, Moses, is not so,” My servant Moses “is faithful in all mine house.” Now this pins us down to something we’ve got to be specific and everybody get clear on what’s going on here. In the early Church of the apostolic period they took Israel’s history and they didn’t allegorize it but they interpreted it typologically, so that you have the event, here’s Israel, and here’s the Church. You have Israel being delivered by the Exodus. So the Exodus deliverance was crucial in the Old Testament picture. The counterpart in the New Testament is the cross of Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament the deliverance was from Egypt. In the New Testament the deliverance was from Satan and the powers of darkness. So keep in mind there’s a real Exodus, a real deliverance.

The second analogy that is made is that after Israel was corporately delivered she was under the authority of Moses and Aaron. Moses and Aaron, the one a prophet, the other a priest. And they were the divinely authorized men and leaders. To rebel against Moses and Aaron would mean you were rebelling against God Himself. The people were put in authority underneath Moses and Aaron. Counterpoint in the New Testament that is made in Hebrews, we in the Church are put under the authority of the Apostle and High Priest, combining both of these offices in one person, the Lord Jesus Christ, emphasizing here His humanity, that Jesus Christ in His humanity is commander of the Church. Jesus Christ in His humanity stands relative to the Church as Moses and Aaron stood relative to Israel. Violation of Moses and Aaron’s authority was violation of God’s authority and violation of Jesus’ teaching is a violation of the Father’s authority.

The third parallel that you’ll see over and over again in this epistle is that Israel was headed for a rest; her destiny was a rest. She didn’t automatically get it at the Exodus. The rest was ultimately the eternal state. They didn’t realize it at the time, God didn’t see fit to reveal that to them, but nevertheless, Israel had a goal in mind, it was a literal rest in a literal land, nothing allegorical or spiritual about it. It was a literal thing that you could measure with a stick could measure off with a rod. That was the place of their rest; their rest was in time/space history. All right, that’s what they looked forward to. The Exodus did not automatically result in the rest. The rest was the goal but the goal wasn’t reached, it was always the carrot on the stick in front of them; it was the rest.

Now the counterpart in the Church is our union with Christ, union as a bride with Jesus Christ. That is the final rest of the Church. Now understand something; the rest doesn’t happen until the goal is reached. Now whereas it is true the faith technique means that you can rest things in the Lord for now, that is an application of this truth. But the interpretation of the passage is talking about a final goal, the final end.

All right, now that roughly reviews the parallel, now we’re going to go to the incident that this author brings up. They are between the Exodus and their goal of rest. They are under the authority of Moses and Aaron, and they have pressure. Numbers 13:31, this is the story when they went to survey the Promised Land, sent spies for forty days to check it out. And when the spies came back they were divided in their opinion, and as usual the majority ruled, and the majority were wrong, because in verse 31, “But the men that went up with him,” see, Caleb and Joshua came back and they said let’s go, God promised us, that’s our rest, we have that as our right, that’s our right; freedom from our enemies, freedom to worship the Lord as made known under the Old Testament dispensation. “But,” in verse 31, “the men that went up with him said, We are not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we. [32] And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eats up the inhabitants thereof; all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature. [33] We saw the giants, the sons of Anak, and we were in out own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.”

Now here you have sin, negative volition in operation. If you’ve taken the divine viewpoint framework in, use it, what are some of those things that come up with sin always: cover-up and blame-shifting. Now look what they do. First of all, in verse 31 they deny God’s Word. What had God just got through telling them? That the rest was theirs. And so then they say “we are not able to go up against the people.” Now they are if they do it the Lord’s way, but they are on negative volition, that is an absolute denial of the Word of God.

Now the second thing they do, verse 32, is they exaggerate the enemy. Now they were not as grasshoppers, they had giants, the Anakim, they were literal giants, but they weren’t all the inhabitants, and they were 9 or 10 feet tall but they weren’t as tall as to make the people look like they were grasshoppers. And also in verse 32 the land did not eat up the inhabitants thereof. So this is a sinful exaggeration of difficulty. Now you watch this because this always comes up when we have a person, a Christian that’s out of it or something, they will exaggerate their problem to avoid taking responsibility for it. Oh, it’s beyond me. No it isn’t, 1 Corinthians 10:13 says it’s not beyond you. I don’t care what it is, it is not beyond you, and yet these people because the have first denied the Word of God, claimed their problem is bigger than they are.

So notice what happens with their attitude. Now in Numbers 14:2-3, here is the net result of that operation. Verse 1, “And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night.” Now if you can imagine two or three million people falling apart, there you have it. [2] “And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron:” now keep these specifics in mind because I’m going to pull you back and show you the application the author of Hebrews is going to make and you won’t catch it if you don’t hold on to these details. Watch the details, what’s the first thing that’s happening? Verse 31, denying the Word of God. Second thing, exaggerate the opposition so you can get part of the blame off your back. And then finally verse 1, absolute despair, chaos, people running all over the place. “And all the children of Israel murmured,” that’s blame-shifting see, it’s Moses’ fault, it’s Aaron’s fault for leading them there, “and the whole congregation” now look what they say, watch the pitch in verses 2 and following, “Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt!”

See, in other words we’d have been better off if we hadn’t even started this idiot thing, how did we ever get Moses to talk us into going out like this, this is ridiculous. “Or would God that we had died in this wilderness. [3] And wherefore has the LORD brought us to this land,” now look at this, look at this in verse 3 and look what they are attributing to God. And if it shocks you, don’t be, because all of us in our carnal moments do exactly the same thing. This should strike a familiar tune, and why has God done this to me, “to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey?” In other words, they are saying that God is so cruel that He would deliberately put them in a position where they are going to lose their loved ones, that God is a cruel God. Now when you are in despair and when you are in depression you watch the image you have in your mind of God and see if it doesn’t fit this one. It’s exactly the image, it’s a satanic image of God Himself, that God Himself is a meany. Now God, fortunately has a great sense of humor and you watch how He’s going to handle this; He’s going to pick it right up.

In Numbers 14:9, this is the exhortation given to that generation, “Don’t rebel against the Lord, [Only rebel not ye against the LORD,] neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us; their defense is departed from them, and the LORD is with us; fear them not.” Now look at the contrast. Do you know the contrast between the mental attitude up to verse 5 and the mental attitude after verse 5 is strictly determined by their attitude toward the Word of God. Nothing more, just that. Has the objective enemy changed? No. Well what’s changed? The subjective analysis of the problem and it’s changed radically because verse 9 looks at the problem in the light of the Word of God.

Then in verse 10 we have a threatened revolt by arms, and verse 11 is God’s reaction. Now I want you to notice how angry God gets in verse 11 for those of you specially who like to dwell on certain moral sins and you think the violation of these certain moral categories are the worst thing under the sun, yet look at verse 11 and God’s reaction, no moral categories have been violated here, only one category, lack of belief in the Word of God, and look at how angry God is. He is furious, “How long will this people provoke Me? And how long will it be before they believe Me, for all the signs which I have shown among them? [12] I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they.” Moses in grace has a tremendous prayer at this point.

Numbers 14:20, this is a passage I want to show you because I want you to see the quote as it comes over in Hebrews, “And the LORD said, I have pardoned according to thy word, [21] But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with My glory [the glory of the LORD].” In other words, My master plan is going to go on and I’m not going to stop for believers who will not believe My Word. [22] “Because all those men will see My glory, and My miracles, which I did in Egypt, and in the wilderness, and have tempted [put Me to the test] Me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to My voice. [23] Surely they shall not see the land…” and so on and so on. Now notice that he had that authenticating miracles which we have in the New Testament, they had in Egypt and for the wilderness period and still they did not accept these.

Then if you read further on in the chapter, Numbers 14:31, here’s the joke God pulls on them. That God, He’s going to let our children die, and God says no, I’m going to demonstrate My love to you, “But your little ones, who you said would be a prey I’m going to bring them, and they shall know the land which you have despised. [32] But as for you, your carcasses will fall in this wilderness.” In other words God is going to do exactly reverse of what they said. They said their wives and their children would perish. God says no, you’re going to perish. Your wives and your children are going to make it. So He took their complaint, turned it around 180 degrees and let them have it.

Numbers 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19 all repeat the same thing over and over until you get to chapter 20. This is forty years later, same place. Here you would expect that after forty years they would have learned to trust God’s promises. So they came, and Numbers 20:2 “there was no water,” here’s a situation where they are deprived of necessities of life. Keep in mind the readers of Hebrews; they are deprived of the necessities of life, “and they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron,” see, blame-shifting again, the pastor’s fault, leader’s fault, always somebody’s fault. I had a recent incident of that, somebody said the people are confused about my teaching. Well, the people that are confused about my teaching are never here on Wednesday night, that’s why they’re confused about my teaching. Nobody’s confused about my teaching, my teaching is quite easy to understand, I’ve been here long enough and so if you hear of somebody who’s not clear on what I believe you just refer them to the Bible classes.

Numbers 20:3, “And the people chode with Moses, and said, Would God that we had died when our brethren died [before the LORD!]” Now doesn’t that sound like a theme song from somewhere. Do you see, the people were the same then as they are now, as we are today, exactly the same. [4] And why have you brought up the congregation…” look at this! Look at this, “you brought the congregation of the LORD into the wilderness, that we and out cattle should die there?” They haven’t tried the wife trick yet, or the kids because, you know, they got blown out of that one once, so now they’re worried about the cattle. [5] Wherefore have ye made us to come up out of Egypt, to bring us in unto this evil place? It is no place of seed, no figs, no vines, no pomegranates; neither is there water to drink.” See, complaining, complaining, complaining, complaining. Now that’s the situation of the original historic event.

Now turn to Psalm 95 and here you have a divine commentary 400 years later in David’s time. Psalm 95 very important Psalm both for us and for previous believers down through history. Psalm 95 is used in the Jewish prayer book today; the orthodox Jewish prayer book, to open Sabbath. Psalm 95 is used in the book of common prayer of the Church of England to open the morning prayer service, the morning worship service. Psalm 95 has been used for nearly 30 centuries in synagogue and church worship service. So Psalm 95 obviously must have struck a familiar note in the hearts of many, many, many millions of believers down through history. Why?

Psalm 95 can be divided roughly, we’re not going to do a detailed exegesis, we’re just going to point out to you some points about it. It’s divided into two parts; verse 1-7a; 7b-11. You can see it, there’s a very distinct break in verse 7. From verse 1-7a, what would you say is the theme of that section? Can you describe the theme. [someone answers descriptive praise] All right, descriptive praise and it’s an invitation to worship, you see verse 1, “Oh, come, let us sing unto the LORD,” it’s descriptive praise, and as praise always is, an invitation to join in. Please remember what praise is, it’s not going around saying praise the Lord, it is praising the Lord and you praise the Lord by describing His historic revelation. “Oh come, let us sing unto the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. [2] Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto Him with psalms.” Do you see why for 30 centuries Psalm 95 has been used? It’s an invitation to praise; this is why the synagogue used it, the Anglican Church used it and so forth.

But then, right in the middle of the invitation it stops, verse 7, now what is the stopping point. Of all the things, this sounds like a wet towel dropped in your face; here’s the invitation, you look forward with pleasure and then boom, [7b]“Today, if you will hear His voice, [8] Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, as in the day of temptation in the wilderness, [9] When your fathers tempted Me, [tested 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 swore in My wrath that they should not enter into My rest.]”

Now is the first part of this psalm written as God speaking? Look at it, the first seven verses. Is God speaking there? No. What part of the psalm is God speaking? The last part, isn’t He. Now if this was ever produced, we can only use our imagination but musically if this one had ever been produced I would imagine they would have to have had a clear distinction here between this first part and the second part because the first part is everybody gathering together to worship, coming together. And then after they assemble, they get ready to begin worship, boom, God hits them with this. Now why does God hit them with this point? Remember the Meribah? Because, before worship can occur there has to be belief, and you cannot go through the motions without having faith. And it sickens God to just sit and take it. So this is a warning for phonies in verses 7-11. In other words God is saying I’m not impressed because you’re here, now you’ve come and if you’ve come with the proper motive to worship Me, fine, but if you’ve come to show off to somebody, to show how spiritual you are or something else, I’m not impressed. This is the way God works in Psalm 95. All right, so much for this application.

Now coming closer to Hebrews let’s turn to our favorite little passage, 1 Corinthians 10:13 and now we’re in for a little surprise if you’re not familiar with the context of 1 Corinthians 10:13. Those of you who may not have been clued in, 1 Corinthians 10:13 is the gun that shoots down the balloons, the balloons being the excuses. 1 Corinthians 10:13 is a pin that pricks all of them. As you repeat this verse to yourself, sometimes you can hear the balloons pop. 1 Corinthians 10:13 says that there will never come a testing that is designed to overpower you, for which God has not provided ample resources.

Now look at the wonder of it all and turn to the first twelve verses in the same chapter. What is the subject? The parallel we’ve just got through talking about. 1 Corinthians 10:1, “Moreover, brethren, I would not that you should be ignorant,” see, Paul goes back to the same incident, “that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. [2] And were all baptized unto Moses,” that’s the baptism of Moses, that’s one you can throw out to your friends that preach out of Acts 2:38, there’s a dry baptism. The only people that were wet in Moses’ baptism were unbelievers and they died. This is a dry baptism, deliberately so. “…all were baptized unto Moses… [3] And all did eat the same spiritual food, [4] And all did drink the spiritual drink, [for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ]” and the Rock that followed them, the Rock was Jesus Christ. There is the divine interpretation of the Exodus and wilderness experience.

But now look at verse 5, “But with many of them God was not well-pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. [6] Now these things were our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things, as they lusted. [7] Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them … [8] Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them that committed…. [9] Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed by serpents. [10] Neither murmur you, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer. [11] Now all these things happened unto them for examples, and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. [12] Wherefore, let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.”

Then verse 13 shows up, but what preceded verse 13? The same incident, so at least we conclude that Paul and the author of Hebrews both attached tremendous importance to that Meribah incident and to the wilderness wanderings for forty years, gripe, gripe, gripe, gripe, gripe, one big long gripe group for forty years in duration.

Now let’s turn to Hebrews and see the application. Remember the situation, the Hebrews are in the same situation. They’ve been exited, so to speak, and they’re out in the wilderness. They faced trials, they faced pressures, and they’ve got to decide what they’re going to do. So he says, and remember what we’ve said, verses 7-11 is an adverbial clause that modifies the action of verse 12 and 13. So the adverbial clause:

Hebrews 3:7, “Wherefore, as the Holy Spirit saith, Today, if you will hear His voice,” the Holy Spirit, lege, is now saying, see, it’s 70 AD now, so we’ve had the event around 1400 BC, we’ve had Psalm 95, 1000 BC, and now we have Hebrews 70 AD and the Holy Spirit still is saying, “If you will hear his voice,” it’s a third class condition and the way this translates out is “oh, I wish you would.” This is an idiom in the Hebrew that says if you would only hear His voice, that’s the mood behind this kind of a statement. “Hearing” is in the aorist tense and refers to perceiving the Word of God all the way to the time of application. See, the aorist looks like this, it’s a point and it goes from the time that you hear the Word all the way to the time that you obey it and it wraps it up all at one point and when the Jews said do you hear me, he meant you heard and obeyed. So it says here, “if you will obey His voice,” is the way it means, even though it uses the verb “hear.”

“If you will hear His voice,” now hearing His voice means you’ve read the Old Testament, see, how else would you hear His voice? You’d have had to have read in this day Numbers 12-20 to hear His voice; you would have had to have known Psalm 95. Since Psalm 95 was already used to start the Sabbath worship the author of Hebrews could use that and say you all know Psalm 95, every time you walk on the Sabbath day into the synagogue you say it, so I can quote Psalm 95 to you and I know that you must know that text of Scripture because you’ve said it enough times.

Then in Hebrews 3:8, “Stop hardening your heart,” it’s present imperative, negative form. And this is a warning that when you hear the Word of God you are going positive of you are going negative. The mind is here, the conscience is here; you take it into your mind, you have to digest it, the Holy Spirit never asks you to believe the incredible. The Holy Spirit gives you evidences, Acts, Luke, John, 1 Corinthians. But there comes a time when the evidences are considered sufficient and when those evidences are considered sufficient you either obey or you disobey. And there’s no middle ground and you either have your heart softened and enlarged or it hardens up, one or the other. So he’s saying “Stop hardening your heart.”

Now by the way, look at verse 8, “harden,” and look at verse 13, “harden.” What do you notice about the two verbs? This is always a question, who does what? What, those of you who are the language geniuses, which one’s the active voice? Verse 8 is active, the subject does the action. Verse 13, however, same verb, passive, subject receives the action. Notice the difference and they are both used of the same event.

That’s your answer to what about these passages where God hardens Pharaoh’s heart; the Bible looks at it from one point of view, yeah, Pharaoh’s getting his heart hardened, but yet from the other point of view Pharaoh’s hardening his heart. The Bible doesn’t seem to thread it out, you can sit there and look at Exodus, one passage Pharaoh’s hardening his heart, the next chapter God’s hardening his heart; the next chapter, he’s hardening his heart. It flip-flop, flip-flop, flip-flops back and forth, and you see the same thing here. We are warned not to harden our heart and yet we’re warned that our hearts can be hardened.

Now why are these two opposite voices used? To emphasize God’s sovereignty. God is a sovereign God; we are responsible creatures. God has set up history so that we are responsible for our choices. But being responsible for our choices does not mean that the outcome of history hangs on our design. The outcome of history hangs on God’s decree. History will move the way God has decreed it to move. So it will move along the lines of legitimate, responsible choices. So when in verse 8 it says don’t harden your heart, that teaches you can do something. You can choose not to harden your heart. Now how in the context can you choose not to harden your heart. What’s the nearest verb to this one, that you’ve got there in the text to tell you practically how can you stop hardening your heart? “Hear,” which I said was obey what you know of the Word of God. So how do you stop hardening your heart? Obeying what you know of the Word, that’s how.

Hebrews 3:8, “Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness, [9] Where” verse 9 should read, not when, “Where,” because verse 9 is a great one, verse 9 is going to be a source of encouragement to Hebrews, to the readers of this epistle. Two things are said: “Where your fathers tempted me,” that space, “for forty years,” time. This means that these were real trials in time/space history; the same kind of trials you face and I face in time/space history, no difference. That’s why Paul is going to draw 1 Corinthians 10:13 off the same experience, he says look, “no testing is taken you but such as is common to man,” what does he mean by that? He means there’s not one of us sitting here tonight that has a problem that basically is not the same as other problems in the Word of God that have been successfully dealt with innumerable times. There’s no such thing as an unsolvable problem.

So he says “they say My works forty years.” Now that’s a hint of the urgency behind this epistle. This man says now look, Jesus Christ died in 30 AD, it’s nearing 70 AD and you Jews have had forty years to decide what to do with Messiah. Now are you going to take Him or are you going to leave Him, but your time of choice is drawing to a rapid close. That’s the meaning of the word “today” in verse 7. “Today, if you will hear his voice,” in other words, today is forty years; if for those forty years you hear His voice you can do something, but there’s going to come a time when today isn’t here and the grace opening is out.

Hebrews 3:10, “Wherefore, I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do always err in their hearts, and they have not known My ways,” and that teaches the fact that if these people were believers they were so far out of it that they would never recover, as far as God is concerned, or it could also teach that they had acquired some unbelievers in the process. Verse 11, “So I swore in My wrath,” some of you with the King James, “if they shall not enter My rest,” and that is simply a Hebrew oath. It’s the same kind of thing as… it’s an incomplete statement, if something happens and it breaks, what it means is it’s an undeclared oath here. If they enter My rest, then I’ll be damned, it’s that kind of a statement. See, and so that’s the way they gave an oath and that’s God’s oath in verse 11, they will never get into My rest, I’m going to cut them out.

So application, verses 12-13, these are to believers, the congregation that received this epistle that were downhearted. “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.” Now you know what they were doing in this epistle. You know the problem because we started with that tonight. But now think back to what the people did in the wilderness. What were they faced with out in that wilderness originally? Minus water, they were minus various other things that were legitimate, were needful, and instead of knuckling under and trusting the Lord they said no, I’m not going to believe the Word. So therefore they got stuck out there and that’s what he is saying these people are going to have, the same experience all over again. But then he gives a positive, not only just “take heed” because you could say that’s great, I take heed, but now verse 13 specifies how to do this so there’d be not a doubt in anyone’s mind as to how to cope with this kind of situation.

He says, [13] “Exhort one another daily, while it is called Today,” that means encourage one another, mutual encouragement, one Hebrew Christian to another when under pressure, “while it is called Today, lest any of you become hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” This is mutual exhortation. Now this has certain various applications. This means that if we do not meet together or at least it means if our hearts are hardened, to be tightly logical about it, if we have a hardening process that sets into us spiritually it is because we are not exhorting one another. You see, if it’s true that exhortation will remove it, that’s one truth, but you can make it go backwards, if you have the problem you can tell by deduction that the exhortation hasn’t been there. So if you have a large group of believers in a congregation or an organization that are dispirited you can now dogmatically… you don’t have to know anything else about them, you don’t have to conduct a survey, you don’t have to pray for illumination, you don’t have to pray about anything because God the Holy Spirit says right here what one of the problems has been, there has been no mutual exhortation going on.

Now that has certain specific applications. It means that you ought to meet with other believers. You cannot afford to be a lone ranger Christian. God hasn’t designed the body to work that way. You have to depend on other believers. It also means, by way of a specific application, that when you are with other believers you will have to consciously try to encourage on the basis of the Word and not turn it into a self-pity session or a gripe group.

Now we’ve had gripe groups in this congregation; they’ve met in certain homes and tried to plot how to get rid of me as pastor and done all sorts of things. I’ve known about them and I know some of the people that went there to these groups. You’d be surprised, I have pretty sensitive ears and I know where these meetings have occurred and I know pretty much whose attended, and as far as I’m concerned I’m not going to do anything about it, I just let the Lord take care of it and He’s already done an excellent job of taking care of the people, He just shipped them right on out of here and that’s the way I like it; nice clean job. But we’ve had those sessions and they all got together originally, they were going to pray for the pastor. This was going to be a time when… it’s none of their business what I do, what the particular problem was, it was none of their business whatever, it’s my business and the board’s business. But instead of following the directions of the prayer petitions, that’s why we have a prayer list, this particular group got together and started praying for the pastor and it wasn’t praying for the pastor it was a gripe group trying to undermine the pastor. And of course, as the Lord protected, they’re the ones that got undermined.

But the point of this whole thing is that the exhortation in verse 13 is not that kind of a group; it’s not a pity party or a gripe group. That’s not what is commanded here. This is commanded to stick to your own business and exhort the people. Notice verse 13 has nothing to say about people who are not there. It has only to say about the people who are there, so if you have three believers and they get together, they are to stay on the topic of their three, not some fourth believer that’s not in the group. “Exhort one another,” that’s face to face, not behind the back. That’s the proper mode of exhortation.

Now the threat that is being made, to sum it up tonight, to see this threat that he’s using to exhort these believers, remember, there’s many different ways of encouragement and he’s using the reward/punishment type of encouragement. In other words, if you don’t get with it, you’re going to suffer, you’re going to suffer badly, and one of the threats that is being made here is based on a verse that occurs before the threat and a verse that occurs after the threat. Look at the last part of verse 6 and at the same time look down to verse 14. Notice in verse 6, “If we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing [of the hope] firm unto the end,” then we’re Christ’s. Notice verse 14, “We are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end.” Do you see the undertone to that threat? He’s saying when you start seeing people flake off, you’d better be very, very concerned because flaking off is one sign that there was never conversion there in the first place.

Let me show you two other passages of Scripture. We’ll conclude with these two, 1 John 2:19, put your hand there if you have trouble doing this just feel relaxed about it because in the first century they had to use a roll that was 35 feet long, and if someone said turn to Isaiah and somebody else said to Numbers you’d have to sit there and spin your roll. 1 John 2:19 to John 15:6. Now this is John’s way, same truth, different vocabulary, please notice that too, different teachers sometimes use different vocabulary. John 15:6, “If a man abide not in Me,” that means continue, “he is cast forth as a branch, is withered, men gather them and cast them into a fire and they’re burned.” “If a man abide not in me,” you say what does that mean, is that referring to a believer loosing his salvation? Or is that referring to an unbeliever, or what is it. All right, it’s John and you interpret John’s vocabulary the way John uses his vocabulary. Those of you with Greek will notice that the word “abide” is the word meno, and if you’ll check with 1 John 2:19 he gives you how he uses meno. 1 John 2:19 specifies how this apostle uses the verb meno. “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued,” there’s your Greek verb meno, “but they went out that they might be made clear that they were not all of us.” Now what does that teach? Believers or unbelievers? Unbelievers.

Now there’s something important about this and that is that you can have a group of people trotting along under the name Christian, as these people were, and as happened many times during the early church and they were not born again; they were just hangers-on. Now this does not deny another doctrine that has to be set, remember, keep doctrine in balance. There’s another doctrine called the testimonium. The testimonium is also taught in the Scripture that if you are saved, Romans 8 teaches this, then the Holy Spirit bears witness with your spirit that you are a child of God. But the trick is that the testimonium only occurs inside the heart of the true believers. The true believer knows he’s one, he has the assurance that he’s one, but the people who are professors, since the testimonium doesn’t occur in their heart, have only externals to go on, and therefore they are warned, you don’t have the proper externals. Notice it’s not a subjective argument, the argument that is given in 1 John 2:19 is they went out from us. Why, under false teaching they went out from us, they didn’t stay with us.

And what does it mean to abide then, meno, to stay with the apostles? It goes back to the same epistle, 1 John 1:3. “ That which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us,” that is apostolic teaching. So abiding in the context isn’t talking about some sweet little feeling in the heart, though there may be subjective emotional responses. But you’ll read devotional literature and they’ll say oh, I’m abiding in Christ and I have this…. That may be true but let’s be nitpicky on the label, that’s not what this word “abide” means. “Abide” in 1 John means to abide in the doctrine of the apostles, and he’s talking about heretics that are leaving the apostolic dogma, and the proof of their lack of salvation is this departure from orthodoxy. It’s not that they were screwed up and never well taught, they were perfectly taught and then left the teaching, and that can be a sign of lack of salvation.

Father, we thank Thee