The Danger in Not Believing, Part 2

If you have your Bible, turn to Hebrews chapter 3 Hebrews chapter 3 And as you're turning there, I just want to remind you that, you know, we're all perceived in different ways And yesterday, I was at one of my son's sporting events, and one of the fathers of his teammates came up to me and said, Hey, I just want to let you know I listened to one of your sermons online. I said, you did? He said, yeah, I know you're a pastor and I wanted to hear one of your sermons He goes, you know, I was surprised. I said, were you? He says, yeah, you know, you come off as very Soft and meek and gentle

And then I listened to one of your sermons And I realized you're not that way at all. I said, well, yeah, I would wish I was soft and meek and gentle. I said, but that's Actually, not me, but I appreciate the accolades anyway So, you know, sometimes they come off a little hard-nosed. I don't want to offend anybody, but You know, the truth is the truth, and you need to preach the truth And the book of Hebrews is all about the truth of the living God that we might understand who He is, the supremacy and sufficiency of the Christ And so we come to a section, which is a warning section

We told you last week that the first one was Hebrews 2:1 to 4 That was centered around this Regarding the salvation of God And this is a second warning, which deals with disbelieving the sufficiency God And this warning, as we told you last week, is stronger than the first And the third and the fourth are stronger than the second and the first They get stronger as you go Because the writer of Hebrews is pleading with the people to make a commitment to following Christ We told you last week that the Bible is filled with warnings

And that's a good thing because that's an example of the grace of God But you know, even in the midst of tragedy, even in the midst of adversity in people's lives, the Lord used that time not to console people But to warn people. I find that very interest Remember Luke chapter 13 And it says in verse number one: Now, on the same occasion, there were some present who reported to him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices In other words, these Jews had come to worship, and Pilate cut them up along with their sacrifices That's a tragedy

Now, you can't necessarily publicize that all throughout Israel like you can today. I mean, all you got to do is put that on, you know Your Twitter account, or some Instagram, or put it out on some kind of social media, and everybody knows about it But this was a powerful example of tragedy

And Jesus said to them, Do you suppose that these Galileans were greater sinners than all other Galileans because they suffered this fate? Do you really believe that there was a greater sin in their lives as to why this happened to them? No. I tell you, no, but unless you repent, You will all likewise perish Isn't that interest? There 's no consolation on the part of the Christ Toward those or those families of those who suffered a great loss Instead, he says, you better repent. or you likewise will perish

But this is this Or do you suppose that those eighteen on whom the Tower of Saloum fell and killed them were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem? So, not only was there a tragic event, there was a disaster that took place when this tower fell over and killed 18 people They were just walking by They were innocent people, and all of a sudden they died because there was a disaster that took place So Christ uses not just tragedy, but disasters to warn people, not to console people But to warn people This is what he says. I tell you, no

But unless you repent, you will all likewise per. A warning These are warning signs You're going to die You might die in some tragic Kind of way You might die because of a natural disaster You don't know how you're going to die or when you're going to die, but you are going to die And because you are, unless you repent, you will likewise per He warned them Why? Because the Lord takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, the book of Ezekiel tells us No pleasure in the death of the wicked He never does

That's why Peter tells us that he is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance He's concerned that people understand the truth and that they come to a place of repent So is the writer of Hebrews He is concerned And while there hasn't been a tragedy or a disaster in their lives, He's taking the opportunity as he writes to them to warn them about the impending judgment that will come Unless they repent And in this case, it is the hardening of the heart In this case, it's the hardening of the heart that is so call against the Christ that it's un ever to rep

And then be lost for all eternity See, we look at things from a temporal perspective instead of an eternal perspective We need to look at life from an eternal perspective Because Jesus is the eternal God That's how he looked at life Instead of the writer of Hebrews, that's how he looked At life And so he warns people of impending judgment that's going to come And so we learned last week that these people, oh, they were believers in God This is why it's called the danger of un or the danger of disbelief They believed, but will die in their unbelief

They believed in God, they believed in the existence of God They might have even believed in all the facts concerning Christ who came to earth and died and rose again the third day All that was pretty well known by this time They believed all that stuff because it was true But they never committed themselves to the Christ They never embraced the Christ They never denied themselves and took up the cross and followed the Christ And that's the desire of the right of Hebrews that somehow these people would know the truth and commit themselves to it, because they were in danger of apostasy

Apostasy is knowing the truth and will rejecting that truth amidst overwhelming evidence That's apostasy That's what he was concerned: that they would fall away and become apost, having known the truth But will rejected the truth Maybe because of a love of sin That's why someone will reject the truth, that they love their sin Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil, right? So they love their sin Or they loved the fact that people would still praise them They were talked about last week in John chapter 12 They feared being cast out of the synagogue

Losing their relationships, losing their friendships, losing their status, losing those things, they had a greater fear of man than they did of God So the writer of Hebrews is going to warn them So this is what he says: Hebrews chapter 3 Today, therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, today, if you hear his voice, stop right there Sorry Therefore, based on what? Based on the fact that Christ is greater than Moses That's Hebrews 3:1 and 6 He's superior to Moses because he is the supreme one

And therefore, based on that fact, Christ is more superior than Moses, and so he's going to use an illustration from the time of Moses Very unique way, very great way of communicating truth to people Therefore, he says, just as the Holy Spirit says Or just as the Holy Spirit is saying, present tense Now that's so important because what he does is he goes back Excuse me He goes back He's going to quote the Old Testament He's going to quote Psalm 95 Because the Holy Spirit inspired David to write Psalm 95 This is so important

Just as the Holy Spirit is saying, He's saying the same thing now that He said a thousand years ago And what he said a thousand years ago was spoken hundreds of years before that Through Moses to the people of Israel In other words, God is speaking today The writer of Hebrews says, as he did a thousand years ago He says the same thing And today, 2,000 years after the book of Hebrews, he's saying the same thing The Holy Spirit is still speaking And the unique thing about this is that God always says the same thing And we need to listen

It's an exhortation to listening to what the Spirit has to say And how many times over the years have we exhorted one another? To listen to what God says Your greatest f should be that you are here, but never here Make sense? That should be your greatest fear Your greatest fear should be that you are here, H-E-, and never hear, H-A-, what God has to say The Holy Spirit's speaking And therefore, we need to listen to what he has to say And that's the way it has always been, even in the days of Moses, book of Deuteronomy Moses said these words As God inspired him to write, Deuteronomy 11:2

See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse The blessing if you listen to the commandments of the Lord your God, which I am committ you today The curse, if you do not listen to the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way which I am commanding you today by following other gods which you have not known So here's the blessing The blessing comes in how you listen The curse comes in how you don't listen And how do you know you listened? You obey How do you know you didn't listen? You disobey It's as simple as that And the blessing comes with

Obedience and the cursing comes with disobedience because you didn't hear And so the Lord says in Deuteronomy 13 You shall follow the Lord your God and fear him You shall keep his commandments and listen to his voice Deuteronomy 13, verse number 4 You need to listen to his voice Serve him and cling to him How do you know you've listened? You serve him How do you know you listen? You cling to him How do you know you've listened? You keep the commands that He has given to you How do you know you haven't listened? You cling to something else

You serve someone else, and you disobey the commandments of the living God You see, it's always been the same It's never changed From the time of the book of Hebrews when it was written 2,000 years ago To 3,000 years ago when David wrote Psalm 95, which is what Hebrews 3 is all about And 500 years before that, when Moses exhorted the people of Israel So let's just say at the minimum, for 3,500 years, God has said the same thing You better listen You better hear Because if you don't, you miss the blessing You'll be cursed So make sure you listen to what the Spirit of God has to say

That's why Christ said in Luke 8, be aware, be careful how you hear Be careful how you hear because how you hear determines your destiny You don't hear it right You don't listen properly If you listen superficially, kind of going in one ear or out the other, you're in danger If you listen emotionally, that is, you want to listen based on how you feel, you're in danger You need to listen in a way that truly honors the Lord You want to listen very carefully to all that he has to say So, the write of Hebrews

Begins by saying, Because Christ is greater than Moses, you need to listen to what the Holy Spirit says because He's speaking Because what he's saying now is the same thing he said through David when David warned his people About what happened in Israel 500 years earlier So turn back to me as Psalm 95 Psalm 95, because this is the Psalm that the writer of Hebrews quotes Let's begin in verse number six, because this is a song that many of us sing Come and let us worship and bow down Let us kneel before the Lord our God, our Maker

For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand You ever sung that song? Oh, come, let us worship and bow down Let us kneel before the Lord our God, our Maker Right? It's an invitation David is offering an invitation Listen To the people of God, the Jewish people He's offering them an invitation to come and bow down before the Lord their God, their Maker That they might understand the beauty of who he is, bowing in submission to him He gives the invitation And then he gives the warning He gives the illustration

The invitation to worship, and then the illustration Of warning He says, Today, if you would hear his voice Okay, same thing the right of Hebrews says Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah As in the day of Mas in the wilderness, when your fathers tested me, they tried me, though they had seen my work for 40 years. I loathed that gener And said, They are a people who err in their heart They do not know my ways Therefore, I swore in my anger Truly, they shall not enter into my rest Now, go back to Hebrews chapter 3 Hebrews chapter 3 The writer of Hebrews is going to quote Psalm 95

The Holy Spirit is saying, he says, today, if you hear his v, it's all about res to the voice of the Lord Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as when they provoked me That's merib As in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tested me by or tried me by testing me Saw my works for forty years, therefore I was angry with this generation You see, the right of Hebrews is using the same thing that David used a thousand years ago to get the people of God, the Jewish people To truly commit themselves to bowing before the King, Christ, in submission to His Lordship

Fear his voice Do not harden your heart Isn't that interesting? Don't harden your heart Isn't it interesting that it was Pharaoh who hardened his heart? Remember that? Pharaoh hardened his heart because he would not respond to what God said And he would not respond to what he saw God do And Moses and Aaron came to Pharaoh, let my people go They were the spokespeople for God, and Pharaoh mocked them He would not respond to what was said So the plagues of Egypt came upon Pharaoh one at a time And as they came, So would follow Moses and Aaron Let my people go, but he would not

And so another plague would come Let my people go, but he would not And every time he would not respond to the voice of the Lord, every time he would not respond to what he saw God do, a layer Of hardness, of callous came over his heart And as he hardened his heart toward God, God then hardened Pharaoh's heart, and it would be impossible for him to ever repent Ever And that's the warning The warning comes to the Jewish people who are believers in the true and living God Pharaoh wasn't

But isn it interesting that he uses a description of what happened to Pharaoh with the people of God? That they did not harden their hearts In the midst of overwhelming evidence to who God is and what God's done Now we know that Psalm 95, Hebrews 3, is Is from the scriptures It's from what took place in the Exodus or after the Exodus with the people of God It's in Exodus chapter 17 So if you get your Bible, turn to Exodus 17 Exodus chapter 17 This is Merib quarreling This is the day of provocation This is the day of temptation in the wilderness

The day in which the people of God provoked the Lord to anger The day in which the people of God tested God In which the Bible says in Matthew, verse number 7: Thou shalt not test the Lord thy God But they did Exodus 17 takes place after Exodus chapter 15 Exodus 15 is a great song, the song of Moses, about the deliverance of the people of Israel As they passed through the Red Sea Remember that story? We all know the story How they were Exiting out of Egypt, and they were on their way to the land of Canaan They came to the edge of the Red Sea, and Pharaoh's army was beating down on them

And the people said, Oh, what are we going to do? Did you bring us out of here to die in the wilderness? And Moses said, God, what do I do? He, take your staff, put it in the water And the water parted That's a pretty significant miracle. I don't care what book you're reading, that's pretty incredible And they went through on dry land It wasn't even muddy That's powerful And two million Jews went through on dry land And Pharaoh thought, well, they can do it. I can do it So he took off after them Ah, not the case

And the horse and rider are thrown into the sea, and thus goes the song led by Miriam, the sister of Moses, as they sang the song of Moses, Exodus chapter 15 Oh, how quickly, how quickly we forget the things that God does So now we're in Exodus 17 Then, all the congregation of the sons of Israel journeyed by stages from the wilderness of sin Isn that interesting? The wilderness of sin They would sin in the wilderness of sin According to the command of the Lord, encamped at Rephidim, and there was no water for the people to drink

There the people quarreled with Moses, and said, Give us water, that we may drink And Moses said to them, Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord? But the people thirsted, therefore water, and they grumbled against Moses They said, Why now have you brought us up from Egypt to kill us and our children? And they're a livestock with thirst Seriously, Moses? We're out here, and now we're going to die in the wilderness We're going to die of thirst What is wrong with you, Moses? So Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, What shall I do to this people? A little more, and they will stone me

That's how angry they were Lord, you wait any longer. I'm a dead man Yet I'm the deliverer, and I'm a dead man Then the Lord said to Moses, Pass before the people Take with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand your staff which you struck the Nile and go Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock of Horeb You shall strike the rock, and the water will come out of it And the people may drink Moses did so In the sight of all the elders of Israel Can you imagine this? He takes his staff, he strikes a rock, and water just gushes out

Again, that's a pretty significant miracle No matter how you cut it, people drink Now listen to the next verse He named the place Messiah, trial, the day of temptation And Merib striving, quarreling, grumbling, groaning, moaning Because of the quarrel of the sons of Israel, and because he tested the Lord, saying, Is the Lord am us? Or not Now think about this They, in the day of provocation in the wilderness, Exodus chapter seventeen They didn't trust God's provision or his pres Now the question comes, how could that possibly be? He would lead them By a cloud during the day

He would lead them by fire at night They had witnessed the ten plagues of Egypt, they had witnessed the death of the firstborn son, they had witnessed the separation of the water that they might walk through on dry land in the death of Pharaoh and his army It witnessed all that, and yet they had the audacity to question the provision of God And the presence of God Is the Lord really among us? Seriously? These were believers living in unbelief They were believers in their God, but truly, the advers demonstrated the reality of their identity That's what adversity does

Adversity reveals the true identity of the person And they were truly unbelieving belie They were superficial belie They were emotional listeners They were superficial listeners They were not the kind of people that truly wanted to commit themselves to God And so that was the day of provocation in the wilderness Exodus chapter 17 Where they tested God, they tried God, they quarreled against God amidst over ev That he was their God Do you see that? That's very important to understand and very important to see Because, like always, the day of adversity will reveal your true identity

Adversity doesn't develop character, it reveals character It reveals the trueness of who you are and what you believe That's why in Luke's account, Luke 8, Matthew's account, Matthew 13, the parable of the sow in the soils and the rocky soil, when they hear the word of God and they respond with joy, and yet when trial comes, when temptation comes, Comes, they fall away because advers reveals the identity, the character of the person like nothing else And they fall away even though they Professed to believe, even though they acted like they believed, when ad came

They could not stand because there was no root Jesus tells us in Luke 8 and Matthew 13: there was no solid root Because they were superficial believers, not supernatural believers See that? And so the warning comes To the people that the right of Hebrews was writing to, the Jewish people, the same warning that David gave his people Based on what took place in Rephidim in Exodus chapter 17 The day of Provocation in the wilderness, the day of temptation in the wilderness It was the fact that they would not trust

In God's provision or His pres, based on overwhelming evidence. that He would already, and had already provided manna for them, provided an escape route for them, had demonstrated His presence among them through the cloud by day and the fire by night They still doubted in the midst of overwhelming evidence These people Had known about Jesus They had known about the miracles because the miracles were overwhelming Because he had pretty much banished all disease from Israel during his three-year ministry And they had heard about the death of this Jesus

They had also heard of the resurrection of this Jesus And the right of Hebrews says, This Jesus is greater than Moses This Jesus is supreme and sufficient You need to believe him You need to commit yourself to him You need to go all the way to a supernatural belief And walk away from your superficial belief, the fact that you are professing belief in Christ, to actually possessing the true Christ as Lord and Savior Big difference, as we saw last week in John's Gospel, about the number of people who believed, quote, in him

But he was not entrusting himself to them because he knew what was in man He knew the heart of every man But the day of provocation and the day of temptation did not end in Exodus chapter 17 Go to Numbers chapter 14 with me, if you would, please Numbers chapter 14 Verse number one: This is the incident after the twelve spies went into the land of Israel Remember that story? And they went in and they came back out And they said, it's the land flowing to milk and honey, just like the Lord said It's everything the Lord said it was Amazing Isn't that true? It's everything the Lord said it was

But there were giants in the land And they feared the giants And they came back with these bundles of grapes that men had to carry on a stick because they were so luscious and so big and so over And they came back with them They said, man, the land is great, but the giants of the land, they're huge And Joshua Cam said, that's okay The Lord's given us the land If the Lord's given us the land, no matter what obstacles are in the land, we can overcome them God gave us the land But the ten spies, the other ten, nobody knows their name, nobody cares, okay? Because they're all negative

Nobody likes to remember the negative people, right? Don't be negative Be positive And so they all said, no, we can't go in So the two million Jews believed the ten and not the two So Numbers 14, verse number 1 says, That all of the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night They wept All the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, Would that we had died in the land of Egypt? Or would that we had died in this wilderness? Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Did God say that? No

That's what they assume based on what's in the land, the land of Canaan But the Lord never said that The Lord gave him the land He promised them the land Our wives and our little ones will become plunder Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt? Really? They want to go back to bondage? So they said to one another, let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt You know, that's what people do If they don't like the leader they have, they switch him out for the leader they like Okay, churches do that with pastors all the time

Not this one, but not this church, but there are churches that do that They don't like the pastors What are gonna do They're gonna get rid of them We're gonna put a guy in there that you like See? Well, Moses, the greatest leader in Israel's history, we don't like him anymore He led us to doom We're going to die So let's appoint a leader that will take us back to bondage so we can die in bondage Let's do that That's the mind of the way the mind of the unbeliever thinks Doesn think ration, but irrationally

And then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces in the presence of the assembly of the congregation of the sons of Israel, Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jep Of those who had spied out the land, they tore their clothes They spoke to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, saying, The land which we pass through to spy out is an exceedingly good land If the Lord is pleased with us, that He will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land which flows with milk and honey Only do not rebel against the Lord And do not fear the people of the land, for they will be our prey

Their protection has been removed from them, and the Lord is with us Do not fear them The Lord's with us But all the congregation said to stone them with stones. I hate to laugh at that, but it just seems so humorous to me That, in the midst of overwhelming evidence of what God had done, they still want to kill them That's just amazing Then the glory of the Lord appeared in the tent of meeting to all the sons of Israel Whoa Now you got problems God's coming down The Lord said to Moses, How long will this people spurn me? See, when you spurn the man of God, you spurn God Himself

And how long will they not believe in me? Whoa, wait a minute. I thought these were believers Don't they believe in God? Yes Don't they believe in the existence of God? Yes Aren't they Jewish people? Yes Aren't they the chosen people of God? Yes All that's true So, what does God say? How long will they not believe in me? They really don't believe in God, even though they say they believe in God Despite all the signs which I performed in their midst

How would they not believe amidst everything that I have done in their midst? How can they not believe? How can they not believe? Well, Moses would plead for the people because God had said he was going to kill them, and Moses would plead with them And the Lord answered He said at verse 2, Surely all the men who have seen my glory and my signs, which I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, which are many signs, right? He performed them in Egypt and all throughout the wilderness, leading into the edge of the land of Canaan

Yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not, what's the next phrase, listened to my voice If you listen to the voice of God, you obey God If you listen and don't obey, you really didn't hear what God said Or you refuse to obey him because you love your sin more than God, or you fear others more than God They would not listen to my voice Shall by no means see the land which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who spurn me see it, but my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully Those who listen follow fully

Those who don't listen don't follow at all. I will bring into the land which he entered, and his descendants shall take possession of it Then the Lord, verse 26, spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, How long shall I bear with this evil congregation who are grumbling against me? I have heard the complaints of the sons of Israel, which they are making against me Say to them, As I live, says the Lord, just as you have spoken in my hearing, so I will surely do this

Your corpses will fall in this wilderness. even all your numbered men, according to your complete number from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me Surely you shall not come into the land in which I swore to settle you, except Caleb the son of Jephunah, and Joshua the son of Nun Your children, however, whom you said would become a prey, I will bring them in, and they will know the land which you have rejected But as for you Your corpses will fall in this wilderness

Your sons shall be shepherds for 40 years in the wilderness, and they will suffer for your unfaithfulness until your corpses lie in the wilderness, according to the number of days which you spied out land Days, for every day you shall bear your guilt a year, even forty years, and you will know my opposition. I the Lord have spoken, sure this I will do to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against me In this wilderness, they shall be destroyed, and there they will die

As for the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, and those who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing out a bad report concerning the land, even those men who brought out The very bad report of the land died by a plague before the Lord But Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephun remained alive out of those m who went to spy out the land The Lord says, in the day of provocation, in the day of temptation, the wilderness, this is the illustration Of not listening to the Lord God of Israel They did not trust in his provision

They did not trust in his presence And they did not trust in his promises That is the sign of the unbeliever Joshua, the son of Nun, Caleb, the son of Jephuna, they trusted in the Lord God of Israel They believed what he said They trusted his promises They believed in his provision that he would take care of them They belie In His presence, the Lord is among us We have nothing to fear But the rest of those who profess to believe, that was not the case And so the illustration is given

The question comes: how is it they ended up this way? How is it they learned not to trust in the provision, in the presence, in the promise of the living God? Well, that's also in the text That's also what you need to see Because that's what causes people like People in the church who profess Christianity, but they begin to harden their hearts Against the truth That's why the wife says, Today, if you hear his voice, respond Because if you don't respond, You're in danger of becoming callous, insens to the things of God

And the more you hear the warning and the more you don't respond, the harder you become That's why the Bible says today is the day of salvation Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the day of provocation in the wilderness, as in the day of temptation In the wilderness, do not do like your forefathers did Am all the evidence, people say, Well, yeah, but we don't have that kind of evidence today We don't have those kind of miracles today If we did, I'd believe No, you wouldn't Jesus said that Luke 16:3

When the rich man said, If you send someone back for the dead, my family will believe And the Lord said, They have Moses And the other prophets If they don't believe what Moses and the prophets said, they will not believe though one be raised from the dead There is no miracle that will convince anybody to be saved Only the message of the gospel does that The truth of the living gospel And that's why having heard the word and you're here today and have not committed your life to Christ, don't walk away If you walk away, you are in danger of hardening your heart even all the more

And once we harden our hearts to the Lord, There comes a day where the Lord hardens your heart and it will be impossible for you to ever repent But how did it get there? What happened? Next week Let's pray Lord, thank you for today Your word is so clear, so concise, so true Help us, Lord, to respond There's someone here today who's never embraced the eternal God of the universe May today be that day May they come and deny themselves, put themselves aside, take up the cross and follow the Christ, the Lord of glory May they give their lives to you Pray in Jesus' name Amen.