“Warning against unbelief”
Sermon 2
Hebrews 3:7-12
Recently I saw a video:
of a man standing on a busy street corner,
next to a jewelry store that buys gold and silver.
He was trying to give away something to people the who walked by
He approached people one at a time:
- and offered to give them either a $20 bill
- or a one ounce gold coin
- it was their choice
Everyone of them took the $20 bill:
- it was so strange
- I guess they didn’t think the gold was real
- he tried to get them to go to the gold store to confirm it was a real
The man was trying to:
give away a coin worth about $1,600
But no one wanted it
They were skeptical
The coin was real:
- but nobody believed him
- they wouldn’t trust him
- so they settled for something worth substantially less.
If only they would have believed…they would have gained so MUCH!!
That is actually the message we need to hear today:
- is we need to believe
- not that a coin is real and valuable
- but that God is real, powerful and loves us
WE need to put our full confidence in God
Today we will be in Hebrews 3:
- continuing in the series
- about the 5 warnings in the book of Hebrews
Todays warning in Hebrews is:
- a warning against unbelief
- a warning to obey
- a warning against hardening your heart
“So, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness, 9 where your ancestors tested and tried me, though for forty years they saw what I did.” Hebrews 3:8-9 (NIV)
Notice…
1. A warning against unbelief and an expectation of immediate action
The word TODAY catches my eye:
- it means immediately
- it means now
- it means don’t delay or put it off
Today MEANS NOW…
But many think they’ll trust God later
And this message is not only evangelistic
It is meant for those who call themselves Christians
In fact this book is written to Christians
WE all agree that belief:
- is essential for salvation
- but we are to continue in our belief
- throughout our lives…
THe text also references hardened hearts:
And specifically it says
Not to harden your heart
As others have done,
meaning they made a decision to harden their hearts
Hearts that are hardened:
Do not listen for God
And therefore they do not hear God, and:
their lives don’t reflect that they know God.
A physical heart:
that becomes hard,
indicates the body,
which owns the heart, is dead.
We must not become dead to God:
We must make the choice to
have hearts soft and pliable to God,
To understand these warnings and the situation:
We have to think back to the Old Testament
Which is looking back to the rebellion of the Hebrew people
in the Old Testament Exodus from Egypt.
Let’s look at the time and setting :
- We remember that the Israelites
- had spent 430 in Egyptian bondage
- that through miracles and Mose’s leadership
The nation:
- was delivered from Egyptian pain and slavery and
- into the promised land
O, wait a minute:
- they didn’t go directly into the promised land?
- they didn’t get to enter into this land of milk and honey
- because they were rebellious
Let’s take a minute:
- and remember that we and the Hebrew Christians
- have been delivered from the slavery and bondage to sin
- that we have been saved from something and saved for something
I see parallels between:
- us, the Hebrew Christians and
- those who just came out of Egyptian slavery
- each of us have been saved out of the fire so to speak
- but we haven’t reached our final destination
2. Belief and faithfulness are requirements to enter God’s rest
“That is why I was angry with that generation; I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.’ 11 So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ” Hebrews 3:10-11 (NIV)
We will see in the text and remember from our own studies:
- that this people and generation
- that Moses led out of Egypt
- Never made it to the promised land
They died in the dessert:
- specifically because of their lack of belief
- they did not trust God to deliver them into the promised land
- they were called rebels of God and caused God to be angry
Let’s remember what they saw God do FOR THEM…
They had just been rescued out of 400 years of slavery:
They had walked through the Red Sea and
had watched the Egyptian army drown.
They had been miraculously guided through the wilderness, and
Been brought to a land flowing milk and honey:
Miracle after miracle.
Blessings after blessings.
All they had to do was trust and obey God.
But they failed to do that…
Eleven days after:
God gave them His Law and His promises,
the children of Israel arrived at
the border of the Promised Land.
Moses and Aaron chose 12 men:
the top leaders out of hundreds of thousands
to explore the land and see if God was telling the truth.
After 40 days they returned with evidence
"We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit" Numbers 13:27
Of the 12 spies, 10 were bad and 2 were good:
- they all saw the same land
- they saw the good land
- and they saw the opposition
But they came to completely different conclusions:
- Joshua and Caleb leaned on their faith in God
- the other 10 spies fell to fear
- 2 trusted God, 10 did not
Joshua and Caleb:
saw scary things and trusted God,
encouraging the Israelites to believe God's promises:
"Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome" Numbers 13:30
The other 10 spies saw scary things and doubted God
Numbers 13:31-33:
"We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we." They said they saw giants "and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight"
That lack of faith:
spread like an infection through the entire congregation of Israelites,
who promptly forgot all the miracles they had seen and
doubted the nature of God
Belief in God means trusting in God:
- 10 saw a problem they could not solve
- 2 saw a problem God is able to solve.
The lesson in Hebrews 3 is simple:
- don’t be like those unbelievers
- have real faith
- really trust IN GOD
What good is belief, it folds when:
- the doctor says you have cancer
- you don’t have what you need, in the moment
- you are hopeless, depressed and anxious
Belief is knowing:
- God is good and faithful
- even when we face oppression and suffering
- even when the world is dark and the walls are closing in
- even when the worst thing that could happen, happens
Belief is saying like the Psalmist:
“My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.”
Psalm 121:2
The short version of this warning against unbelief:
- is that there are 2 choices
- the blessing of God’s rest, Jesus as our savior and heaven, or
- we can choose punishment that follows unbelief and rebellion
I believe God is drawing a line:
- between those who call themselves His people
- and those who actually put their hope and trust in Him
Unbelief is a threat to our salvation:
- for all of us, I mean,
- NOTICE what these OT people had been through
- How God miraculously blessed them over and over
- they still managed to be disobedient and UNBELIEVING
God’s people are always to:
- Trust in Him with all their hearts
- to not lean on their own understandings
- to stand out from the crowd, not to blend with the masses
That connects to Matthew 7:13:
“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.”
The warning here is clear:
- and it goes against the grain of society
- not everyone is going to be SAVED
- not because God can’t save them, but
- because some won’t believe IN HIM
Notice the…
3. Consequences of an unbelieving heart that rejects God.
“See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 19 So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.” Hebrews 3:12,19 (NIV)
In the desert:
- an entire Hebrew generation did not enter into the Promised Land.
A whole generation died in the wilderness,
because they did not believe God could
conquer their enemy living in the Promised Land.
Only Caleb and Joshua believed:
and only they entered the promised land.
The rest died over a period of 40 years,
never entering the promised “rest” of the Promised Land.
The rebellion in the desert:
came with a harsh punishment
that was firmly remembered in the minds of the people.
The lesson to be learned:
from the Exodus is to trust God,
to believe in God.
Hebrews 3 is quoting Psalm 95:
“Today, if only you would hear his voice, “Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness, where your ancestors tested me; they tried me, though they had seen what I did. For forty years I was angry with that generation; I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known my ways.’ So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’”
Psalm 95:7b-11
Psalm 95:7b-11 is a text:
that would resonate with the Jewish Christians.
As Jews the Hebrews knew well the history of their nation.
The Hebrew people were warned:
not to fall into unbelief or
they will suffer the loss of the promised rest.
This should be a warning for us today
The Hebrew Christians were:
headed down the same wrong path:
With the same error of unbelief…
comes the same loss of promised “rest”.
Jesus is our rest:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28 (NIV)
The “rest” for the Christian has to be Jesus and heaven:
What other rest is the Christian promised?
What rest can be taken away if not the promised rest of heaven?
The greatest danger:
We Christians face
is they forsaking our faith in God
Last week we talked about:
drifting away from our faith unintentionally,
this week is similar but different,
this is a warning against intentional rebellion and unbelief
There difference between:
believing God is real and
putting our TRUST in the real God
The difference is where you spend eternity
The Bible says even the demons believe God is real:
“You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.” James 2:19
The kind of belief that God is looking for is trust:
- and it’s a difficult thing to do
- it is kind of like believing a parachute will open is one thing
- but jumping out of a plane with it on your back is another.
Turning away from God:
is the same danger each Christian faces.
It is the danger of trusting ourselves and what we can do
The danger is in trusting our own understanding and
Forgetting to trust:
in God’s wisdom, and
forgetting that
God’s foolishness is still greater than mankind's wisdom
We have to see belief from God’s perspective
- belief is not and cannot be a one time event
- Belief is a continuous and ongoing thing
What good is belief, it folds when:
- the doctor says you have cancer
- you don’t have what you need, in the moment
- you are hopeless, depressed and anxious
Belief is knowing:
- God is good and faithful
- even when we face oppression and suffering
- even when the world is dark and the walls are closing in
Belief is saying like the Psalmist:
“My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.”
Psalm 121:2
Belief is:
- accepting that mean, cruel, awful things happen
- that we will have trouble
- but that God will right all the wrongs one day
- that He is in charge, even when things go awry.
Belief in God means trusting in God:
- Remember the 12 spies?
- 10 saw a problem they could not solve
- 2 saw a problem God would solve.
BELIEF is a requirement for SALVATION
“Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” John 3:18
Mark 16:16
“Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”
The good news is:
- that there is still time to put your belief in God
- to TRUST Him for your salvation TODAY…
- the offer is open, but comes with a deadline
Jesus is coming BACK soon:
- on a day we don’t expect or know
- He’s coming to reward those who are His
- and punish those who have rejected Him
“And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,” Hebrews 9:27 (ESV)
One thing I know for certain:
- we are close to the second coming of Jesus
- we need to get ready to meet Him
It is so strange that Christians are living like:
- Jesus won’t come back for 1,000 years or more
- when He could come back RIGHT NOW
Will you TRUST JESUS TODAY?
- that might mean you release something to God
- that you have tried to control
- and you realize that you NEED God to take the lead
It could mean that you need to give your life to Jesus:
- to confess Him as Lord
- to repent of your sins
- and to be immersed for the
- forgiveness of your sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit
The Bible says:
- that we are all sinners
- we’ve all gone astray
- that we are all guilty and deserve to die and go to Hell
But Jesus made a better way:
- Jesus loved us and paid our debt
- He died on the cross so He could
- save you from your own sins…
What is your choice:
- the decision is yours alone,,
- the decision is yours and so are the consequence
- one way leads to heaven, one leads to hell
I don’t think anyone wants to go to Hell:
- and the good news is that no one has to
- Jesus died once for all
- He died for you…will you believe in Him?
