Keeping an Open Mind and Heart Hebrews 3:7-19
What’s the dumbest thing you’ve done? You knew before doing it that there were risks involved, but you went ahead and did it anyway. You pushed down all your reason and logic and went ahead and did it anyway. I think boys growing up, especially in Australia, are born with the reason and logic gene removed from birth. I was 9 (again at Blackheath that got a mention last week) and we had a huge hill; went for about maybe 80 meters, quite steep; and on a skateboard, you could get some serious speed. No helmet or knee/elbow pads, I went down, got speed wobbles on my dodgy penny board, fell and landed on my left elbow. I loved it – not safe, fairly dumb, but I did it anyway. I am sure you have some similar stories.
We can make some dumb decisions in sport and pastimes, but what about making dumb moral and spiritual choices. Those also have consequences; you just can’t always see them outwardly.
The writer to the Hebrews – likely the Apostle Paul, was writing to Christians, but they were also Jewish. They had come out of Judaism and accepted Jesus as the fulfillment. So, the writer of Hebrews could write to them knowing that they already had an understanding of the Scriptures. You see where we are going with this? They had knowledge – they knew stuff…but they were dropping the ball and making some really bad decisions. He said to them, “Today, if you hear His voice,…..” (verse 7)
The Holy Spirit says – soften up. We often say harden up, but when it comes to your heart and the state of your soul, softening is required. He says “Do not harden yourselves as in the wilderness.” You might remember the story: the Israelites had just left Egypt and had seen the incredible deliverance of God, He parted the Red Sea and drowned the Egyptian army. God is clearly in the blue corner – blessing Israel.
3 days later, the Israelites were grumbling about water. They started hardening themselves. The place is called Meribah – bitter water was there – but also their cries were bitter. They got to a large rock in the wilderness – this is likely to be it, still standing today: The rock at Mt Horeb in Saudi Arabia.
He says Hebrews 3:8-10, “do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, 'They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.” This generation, the generation that left Egypt – all those who were 20 years old and over, were not going to make it into the promised land. Only 2, Joshua and Caleb, made it of the adults who left Egypt from the original likely 600 thousand men. (Exodus 12:37) All the others died in the wilderness. Even though they saw miracles every day – the writer to the Hebrews was saying: water was coming from a rock in the desert where it hadn’t before, they were provided with manna – something that tasted like coriander and honey, their sandals/footwear did not wear out for 40 years. Yet in all of this they did not repent. did not seek after God, did not turn towards the God who had saved them out of Egypt.
I’ve been to Israel twice and on the second visit I saw a hardness of heart in the Jewish people towards their Saviour that remains to this day. This is spiritual in the Jewish people. They say we don’t worship the Christian God – we don’t accept Jesus as the Christ. I asked, but you accept the God who led you out of the wilderness, yes! You accept the God who provided you with manna, yes! You accept the God who provided you with water from the Rock in Horeb – yes! But you don’t accept Jesus as the Christ? No! Yet Jesus said to the Jews in His day that He was the Rock in the wilderness; he was the One who provided the Water. He is the water of Life. He said your fathers ate manna in the wilderness. Don’t you know that I am the manna that came down from heaven? By eating what I gave, your ancestors survived, then He said I am the Bread of Life. I am the Manna that came down from heaven. (John 6)
That was when many of the Jews left Jesus. But you know what? Even though they followed Jesus, they were never with Him. They were merely infatuated with Him, like groupies follow a rock star, those Jews weren’t truly converted. That’s how they could lay down palm branches and welcome Jesus into Jerusalem and then shout, “crucify, crucify,” days later. Just religious people. I’ll let you in on a secret, I find religious people the most obnoxious, proud, stubborn, hard-hearted people I have ever met. These lukewarm hypocrites – God hates. More than those in the world. That’s why Jesus said, “Be either hot or cold – not lukewarm.” He spews such people out of His mouth, they make Him physically sick. I agree, they make me sick as well…and I hope you’re the same. Please don’t confuse genuine holiness with religious self-righteousness - there is an eternal difference. That’s why Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 7:15, “Be not overly righteous,. Why should you die before your time? It is good that you should take hold of this, and from that withhold not your hand, for the one who fears God shall come out from both of them.”
He was addressing religious Jewish Christians who should know better. He even said to them a bit later in Hebrews 5:12, “For though by this time you ought to be teachers.”
So, he reminded these Jewish Christians, as part of his history lesson (verse 11), “'They shall not enter my rest.' This not just the rest in Canaan – the promised land – but they wouldn’t enter heaven – the eternal rest. That’s why he said to us these words (verse 12, 13), “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”
Notice that he said exhort one another daily – daily bible reading, daily encouragement, text or ring someone – pray with them. Encourage, read, study, pray.
It’s one thing to make dumb decisions (ride a skateboard or a horse without protection for your head and body), but what kind of fool, especially someone who knows the truth (Christians like these ancient Hebrews who are receiving this letter, but also like us today), to make foolish spiritual choices by hardening our minds and our hearts to truth?
Can I encourage you again, like I do most weeks, to read your bibles, or hear the bible on an app – on your way to work or school, or back home. To say you don’t have time, is simply not true; you don’t have the will.
But more than this - get to church – some of you are just once a month coming here, maybe once every 2 weeks, it’s pathetic really. Christ rose from the grave and you can’t rise out of bed on a Sunday morning – get up!! Thirdly – join a cell group – during the week: just a place where you can check in with others, where you gain some loving accountability and share your heart on where you are at, others can pray with you etc.
We all reap what we sow, and the choices we make now affect us into the future.