Hebrews 3:7-19 – Exhortation #2: Make Every Effort – Warning Against Unbelief

Session 7 – August 11, 2020 – Men’s Morning Hebrews Haverim

Our Men’s Haverim group is reading through and discussing the book of Hebrews during the months of August and September. For more information, see this blog post.

12 See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.

Hebrews 3:12-13 New International Version

Summary:

• The Hebrews author makes his second exhortation to “see to it” or “make every effort” to keep each other from having a sinful and unbelieving heart.
• He builds on his point that Jesus is greater than Moses (last section) by quoting Psalm 95:7-11, which addresses Israel’s rebellion against Moses in the desert and how it caused God in his anger to declare that they would not enter his rest (next section).
• He tells them that “Today” they must listen to God’s voice and that they must hold firmly to their conviction until the very end.
• He then asks a series of rhetorical questions about their rebellion, God’s anger and the consequence of not entering God’s rest, which introduces the next section (Hebrews 4:1-11).

Other Thoughts:

• The author introduces the quote of Psalm 95 with “as the Holy Spirit says” (Hebrews 4:1, NIV). This is an interesting statement acknowledging that the Holy Spirit inspired the Old Testament writing, similar to 2 Peter 1:21 (NIV) which tells us the ” prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”
• The author quotes Psalm 95:7-11 with a few changes from what we find in the Old Testament verse, mainly referring to the “time of testing” (Hebrews 4:8) where the Old Testament mentions “as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah” (Psalm 97:8). This is what Moses names the place where, during wanderings in the desert, they quarreled (which is what the word “Meribah” means) and they tested the Lord (the word “Massah” means “tested”) when they complained against Moses (Exodus 17:1-7 NIV) because they lacked water. God tells Moses to strike the rock, with the staff he used to strike the Nile, so that water would come out. The passage says that Moses names the place Quarreling and Tested “because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the Lord saying, ‘Is the Lord among us or not?'” (Exodus 17:7). The Israelites continued in their unbelief, and later they refused to enter the promised land after the spies were sent (Numbers 13), rebelling against Moses which angered God, who listened to Moses and instead of wiping out the Israelites, he forgave them but because they disobeyed and tested Him, He told them “not one of them will ever see the land I promised on oath to their ancestors. No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see it.” Later on, they quarrel again with Moses about not having water and the Lord tells Moses to speak to the rock at Meribah. Instead, he strikes it twice with his staff, which brought water gushing out but also caused God to punish Moses and Aaron – because they did not trust God enough to honor him by obeying what he said – speaking to the rock, not striking it. Moses and Aaron then joined the rest of the people who would not enter the promised land, a difficult punishment for disobedience and unbelief.
• Hebrews 1:12 is the familiar call to make every effort to keep sin from leading anyone to turn away from God, to “see to it that no one has an unbelieving and deceitful heart. The scripture points out our responsibility to one another to have the kind of relationships where we deal with sin before it can lead our brothers and sisters to unbelief and turning away from God. We need to have relationships where we “exhort” one another. “Exhort” means both to warn and to encourage, in both cases ways we can show our love and concern, and in exhorting we can help one another avoid drifting into disobedience and unbelief.
• Moses had a temper problem, and his tendency to get angry led to killing a fellow Israelite in his anger at seeing him mistreat a brother Israelite, then later in his leadership of the Israelites in the desert. If we don’t deal with character issues, they can lead us to the pattern of sin, unbelief, and turning away.
• Are you tempted to complain and let your unbelief and disobedience lead you away from God?