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Hebrews 4:2

Hebrews 4:2 True faith = obedience It seems that it is possible to take the “good news” too lightly and to fail to recognise its significance and its dramatic and life-changing implications. Certainly, a large number of Israelites did this and were foolish enough to rebel and disobey the Lord’s commands. As a consequence, they were unable to enter the Land of Promise and to enjoy the prospect of being at rest. The good news they heard and experienced was deliverance from slavery in Egypt and that their wilderness wanderings would eventually bring them to the boundaries of Canaan, the land promised to their ancestors and that was waiting to be claimed. The Lord God had promised them this inheritance, it was theirs! Forever! What extraordinary and exciting news, this was the stuff of dreams, this was the Lord at His most bountiful, this was what the patriarchs had longed for, and the Egyptian slaves had died for. But, as this verse tells us, the message of hope was lost on these people, ...
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Hebrews 4:1

Hebrews 4:1 The promise of entering His rest still stands. We haven’t finished with the subject of God’s rest and how we, as His people, enter in and benefit from it. Moses had a tent that was pitched outside the camp of the Israelites and there he would go, with Joshua, to meet face to face with the Lord. On one occasion the Lord said to Moses, “ My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”  Exodus 33:14. On another occasion, whilst preparing Moses and the people for their crossing into Canaan, the Lord instructed him that all able-bodied men must be armed and ready to go and fight but their wives and children should remain behind in the fortified towns that the Lord had given to them. This arrangement was to stay in place until the Lord gave His people “rest.” Deut 3:18-20. God also promised King David “ rest from all his enemies.”  2 Samuel 7:11. It is clear from these passages that the troubled, battling nation of Israel would experience times of great upheaval...
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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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