Hebrews 3:7-11 The Message
The Centerpiece of All We Believe
3 1-6 So, my dear Christian friends, companions in following this call to the heights, take a good hard look at Jesus. He’s the centerpiece of everything we believe, faithful in everything God gave him to do. Moses was also faithful, but Jesus gets far more honor. A builder is more valuable than a building any day. Every house has a builder, but the Builder behind them all is God. Moses did a good job in God’s house, but it was all servant work, getting things ready for what was to come. Christ as Son is in charge of the house.
6-11 Now, if we can only keep a firm grip on this bold confidence, we’re the house! That’s why the Holy Spirit says,
Today, please listen;
don’t turn a deaf ear as in “the bitter uprising,”
that time of wilderness testing!
Even though they watched me at work for forty years,
your ancestors refused to let me do it my way;
over and over they tried my patience.
And I was provoked, oh, so provoked!
I said, “They’ll never keep their minds on God;
they refuse to walk down my road.”
Exasperated, I vowed,
“They’ll never get where they’re going,
never be able to sit down and rest.”
The Word of God for the Children of God.
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
The Holy Spirit says (and keeps on eternally saying)
Today, please listen;
don’t turn a deaf ear as in “the bitter uprising,”
that time of wilderness testing!
For an untold number of years, the Holy Spirit has been repeating the exact same requests over and over again; “Please Listen!” “Don’t turn a deaf ear!”
Yet, after all the uncountable accumulated requests over the same accumulation of uncountable years who is it who has actually heard the requests and listened?
Who is it who has actually heard the requests, listened and actually changed?
God has spoken to the hearts of his children over the centuries inviting them back into relationship with him. These Spirit-inspired messages came in many and various forms, but the clearest came through Jesus (Hebrews 1:1-3).
Through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, God eternally speaks to us and to those around us, inviting us to come home to him. We must respond, or our hearts will surely harden, and we lose any possible sensitivity to the message of grace.
The message from the Holy Spirit, uttered over and over through the centuries, now comes to you and me in today’s verses: “Hear God’s voice! Do not harden your hearts as in the days of the rebellion!” How will we respond today 2024?
How Well Do We Guard Ourselves Against Unbelief?
Hebrews 3:7-9 Christian Standard Bible
Warning against Unbelief
7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says:
Today, if 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 ancestors tested me, tried me,
and saw my works
Before the Israelites entered the promised land, God had them send twelve spies into Canaan on a reconnaissance mission.
Two of those spies, Joshua and Caleb, are famous for their “minority report,” which concluded that the land was ripe for the taking.
The people, though, would not listen to them, demonstrating their distrust of God. Despite all the very visible evidence they had had of God’s reliability, the Israelites hardened, quickly reverted to trusting only in their own judgment.
In a moment of unbelief, the people feared they would die if, as Caleb and Joshua were urging them to, they chose to rely on God’s power to overcome a great enemy (Numbers 13:25 – 14:4). God responded with judgment: instead of enjoying the promised land, an entire generation spent the remainder of their lives in the wilderness, never experiencing the joy God offered them (14:21-23).
Like the Israelites, you and I have a propensity for hardened hardcore unbelief.
The writer of Hebrews warns us, “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God” (Hebrews 3:12).
Such an exhortation wouldn’t be necessary if it weren’t possible for us to have hardcore sinful, hardened unbelieving hearts! We do want to sin. We do want to go our own way. We do not wish to trust. Do not want any will other than ours.
Unbelief hardens us so that when the Bible is preached and taught and prayed, instead of God’s word coming into our hearts and minds like seeds sown in the ready earth, our hearts and minds become like old rusted corrugated tin roofs.
The more the Bible is read, taught, and prayed, the more its truths effects on us becomes like a hard rain storm hitting against that which it cannot permeate.
Matthew 6:19-21 Amplified Bible
19 “Do not store up for yourselves [material] treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal; 21 for where your treasure is, there your heart [your wishes, your desires; that on which your life centers] will be also.
So be on guard, lest your heart become impervious to the truth of Scripture.
Be hyper cautious, hyper vigilant, hyper wary that you don’t become someone who defends the Bible, tells other people about it, and quotes from it, but all the while hardening your heart against what hard truths God is saying to you in it.
How do we protect ourselves against such unbelief?
Exhort others to remember what God has done in and through Christ, and ask them to do the same for you (Colossians 3:16). And ask the same Holy Spirit who authored Scripture to work in your whole heart as you hear His voice.
The Never Ending Hardcore Challenge to Change
2 Corinthians 3:1-8 Amplified Bible
Ministers of a New Covenant
3 Are we starting to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some [false teachers], letters of recommendation to you or from you? [No!] 2 You are our letter [of recommendation], written in our hearts, recognized and read by everyone. 3 You show that you are a letter from Christ, delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
4 Such is the confidence and steadfast reliance and absolute trust that we have through Christ toward God. 5 Not that we are sufficiently qualified in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency and qualifications come from God. 6 He has qualified us [making us sufficient] as ministers of a new covenant [of salvation through Christ], not of the letter [of a written code] but of the Spirit; for the letter [of the Law] kills [by revealing sin and demanding obedience], but the Spirit gives life.
7 Now if the ministry of death, engraved in letters on stones [the covenant of the Law which led to death because of sin], came with such glory and splendor that the Israelites were not able to look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, [a brilliance] that was fading, 8 how will the ministry of the Spirit [the new covenant which allows us to be Spirit-filled] fail to be even more glorious and splendid?
Times are tough, spiritually tough.
In many parts of the world it’s harder to live as a Christian than it was years ago. I find that hard, fast and true for myself. The Christian virtues of humility and contentment are out of step with the culture I live in. But thankfully there are those other parts of the world where it is now easier to live as a Christian.
Whether our culture makes it easier or harder to be a Christian, we are all yet challenged to soften our hearts so the Spirit may shape us to become like Jesus.
That was the challenge for God’s ancient people (Psalm 95), and our verses for today quotes those same words so that none of us misses the point personally.
But how soft is my heart? How soft is your heart? How open am I to the Spirit’s work? How easily do I accept the place God has for me in his world? How do I react when I am spiritually tested and I hardily fail by giving in to temptation?
If we are honest, we’ll admit we are often like the Israelites who grumbled against God. After all, we are yet today as primitive and as human as they.
We need to continually take stock of our openness to God’s Holy Spirit.
The spiritual disciplines of fasting, reading, studying prayer and meditation on the whole of Scripture will help prepare the soil of our hearts for God’s leading.
As you are reminded of God’s power and care and as the Holy Spirit goes to work in you, your hard heart will be softened to receive the seeds of His word.
In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
Let us Pray,
O Father, I want to have a tender heart that responds to the Holy Spirit’s invitation to hear your voice and respond to your grace. I ask that the Holy Spirit convict me of my sins, help me take notice of and avoid my vulnerabilities, overcome my weaknesses, and empower me to be like Jesus, in whose name I pray. O Holy Spirit, make my heart warm, soft, and pliable; open to your work. Heal my spiritual hard-heartedness for my Savior Jesus’ sake. Amen. Amen.
Psalm 95 Amplified Bible
Praise to the Lord, and Warning against Unbelief.
95 O come, let us sing joyfully to the Lord;
Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation.
2
Let us come before His presence with a song of thanksgiving;
Let us shout joyfully to Him with songs.
3
For the Lord is a great God
And a great King above all gods,
4
In whose hand are the depths of the earth;
The peaks of the mountains are His also.
5
The sea is His, for He made it [by His command];
And His hands formed the dry land.
6
O come, let us worship and bow down,
Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker [in reverent praise and prayer].
7
For He is our God
And we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.
Today, if you will hear His voice,
8
Do not harden your hearts and become spiritually dull as at Meribah [the place of strife],
And as at Massah [the place of testing] in the wilderness,
9
“When your fathers tested Me,
They tried Me, even though they had seen My work [of miracles].
10
“For forty years I was grieved and disgusted with that generation,
And I said, ‘They are a people who err in their heart,
And they do not acknowledge or regard My ways.’
11
“Therefore I swore [an oath] in My wrath,
‘They absolutely shall not enter My rest [the land of promise].’”
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
Loving God, Living God, Loving Hope, Living Hope, Loving Living Life His Way! "Many things are possible for the person who has hope. Even more is possible for the person who has faith. And still more is possible for the person who knows how to love. But everything is possible for the person who practices all three virtues." - Brother Lawrence (1605-1691), Practicing the Presence of God (1692). 