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Hebrews 3:19

Hebrews 3:19 Unbelief keeps us out! We’ve tried in recent verses, to understand the purposes of God behind the central teaching of these chapters, that it is possible to be delivered from bondage but to still live outside of God’s rest. We have seen that the three reasons why a generation of Israelites “missed out” is because of rebellion, sin and unbelief. It seems a travesty that these ex-slaves, who cried out for God’s mercy were unable to benefit from the fulness of His provision. They never made it to the Promised Land. We’ve also drawn parallels with our own spiritual status, for the author of Hebrews is clear that we too may be in danger of missing out on the delights of the Promised Land! All sorts of “salvation theologies” have been proffered over the centuries, from those who adamantly insist that it is possible for believers to lose their salvation, to those who are equally adamant that “once saved, always saved.” What can we add to this debate? Firstly, it is not up to us t...
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Hebrews 3:18

Hebrews 3:18 Disobedience cannot be rewarded We are still trying to understand what was exactly in the author’s mind as he penned these unique words at the opening of his epistle. What is the “rest” he talks about? Who exactly is it who misses out on that promised rest? As we have seen, all the Hebrew slaves were delivered from Egypt and entered miraculously into the wilderness under the leadership of Moses and Aaron. But, only a very small number actually made it to the Promised Land, the rest wandered for 40 years, or for a lifetime, until they had all passed away.  The Promised Land was never a place of restful ease, it was a land that had to be conquered. Enemies had to be driven out. Giants had to be killed. A desert wasteland had to be tamed and made fertile. Towns, villages and cities had to be built. We might argue that Canaan was anything but a land of rest! However eventually, a large area was tamed, and the people gradually entered a place and time of peace and prosperit...
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Hebrews 3:17

Hebrews 3:17 Who is God angry with? The argument that we can never lose our salvation seems to be under close scrutiny here in these verses. There is no question that the Lord God saved a vast number of Hebrew slaves from the tyranny of Egypt and that He led them through the Red Sea into the wilderness. The entire company, all its families, tribes and people assembled at Mount Sinai where they clearly saw God’s presence and received the Law in all its detail. Those same people then came within spitting distance of the Promised Land, but they never entered in! The reasons are multiple; from the human point of view, they rebelled (v16), they sinned (v17) and they disobeyed the Lord (v18). From God’s point of view, they prompted divine anger (v17) and caused Him to swear that these people would never enter His rest. A whole generation died before access was granted to Canaan and only Caleb and Joshua survived the 40 years of wilderness wandering. The majority of these people died as free ...
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Hebrews 3:16

Hebrews 3:16 Wh has heard and rebelled? Let’s just review the background to this verse. The Israelites had been slaves in Egypt ,and they cried out to the Lord for deliverance. Their dilemma seemed to be impossible to resolve, there was no way that the Egyptians were going to allow this expanding meal ticket to leave their land! God sent Moses to negotiate with Pharaoh, and the negotiating tools were 10 plagues, some of which did not affect the area of Goshen where the Hebrew slaves dwelt. After a catastrophic night when the firstborn of the Egyptians were slayed, the slaves hustled their way out of Egypt towards the Red Sea. Now they faced another dilemma, with the clouds of dust from the Egyptian chariots on the horizon, the people found themselves trapped on the shore of the Sea until the Lord miraculously heaped up the waters for a night and allowed the fleeing Israelites to pass through. The waters returned as soon as the Egyptian army attempted to follow, and they were drowned! T...
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Hebrews 3:15

Hebrews 3:15 Do not harden your hearts  This statement must be important; it is a word for word repeat of what has already been clearly set out in verses 7-8. The same words are also used in Psalm 95:7-8 which were obviously fresh in the Hebrews writer’s mind. In Psalm 95 the warning is not related to Israel’s refusal to believe that God would make it possible to claim the Promised Land, rather it refers to separate rebellions whilst the people were on their wilderness journey. Two places are mentioned; Meribah and Massah where they grumbled and complained because there was no water, and Moses was commanded to strike a rock. Meribah means rebellion or quarrelling and Massah means testing. (Exodus 17:7) There appears to be a separate incident at another Meribah, 40 years later, which is described in Numbers 20. On this occasion, after a wonderful experience of the Lord’s glory, Moses was instructed to speak to the rock, however, in frustration and anger he disobeyed and struck it ag...
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Hebrews 3:14

Hebrews 3:14 Our original conviction Jesus Christ is so gracious and generous in His willingness to share Himself with all those who accept him and believe in Him. He is open and available to all of us, He makes Himself fully accessible no matter who we are; every true follower has immediate and complete access to His wisdom, His comfort and His power. One of the exciting things about travelling is to meet other believers and to instinctively form a bond with them, it is as if we had known them all our lives! We share the same hopes, similar experiences and we love the same Lord and even though they are strangers, these people quickly become our friends. No other religions can make these claims! Now we need to ask ourselves some important questions: - What was our original conviction? What drove us to faith? What changed, the day we surrendered to Christ? What did we see about ourselves that led us to believe that Jesus Christ was the only solution and the one who could save us? Think ...
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Hebrews 3:13

Hebrews 3:13 Today! There will come a date in history, when the Lord God will judge this world and all who have ever lived in it. There are grounds to believe that all true followers of Messiah will face His judgement in the sense that we will be made accountable for our lives and at that time various rewards will be handed out. The catastrophic Judgement Day that the whole unbelieving world will have to face is described in Revelation 20 where it is referred to as “the great white throne.” On that day the dead will be judged and those whose names are not found in the Book of Life will be thrown into the lake of fire. That terminal moment in Scripture is often referred to as “the Day “or “Judgement Day” or the “Day of the Lord.” The period of time leading up to this is called collectively, “the last days”.  It follows that when the expression “Today” is used it is not speaking of the end times but the present day, the day when we all still have the opportunity to hear God’s voice a...
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