"Greater Than Moses: Do Not Rebel!" Sermon: Hebrews 3:15-19

“Greater Than Moses:  Do Not Rebel!”

[Hebrews 3:15-19]

June 17, 2012 Second Reformed Church

            We ended last week as we considered that we share in Christ – that is, we share with Christ in doctrine – in teaching, and we share in Christ in the fact that He has flesh and blood just as we do.  We saw that we are united in Christ in the fact that we believe the Gospel – that Jesus is the Only Savior, and we believe that God took on a real human Person – flesh and blood in becoming Jesus – so He would be able to take our place under the Wrath of God for our sin and give us the Gift of His Righteousness – so God now sees us as forgiven and holy.

            And we saw last week that we will continue to share in Christ – we will continue to believe what historically happened to Him – and He will be our Substitute before the Father so we can be saved, if we hold our original confidence till the end – if we do not apostatize – if we do not deny Christ and His Gospel.

            We noted that a person who has truly believed cannot deny Christ – if Christ has saved us, nothing and no one can take us out of His Hands.  However, it is possible for people to fool others and to even fool themselves into believing that they are Christians.  They may say all the right things and do all the right things, but, in the end, they walk away – and that is really the only way to know.

            John wrote, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us” (1 John 2:19, ESV).

The author of Hebrews again quotes from the Psalm:  “As it is said, ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.’”

Do we remember how we got to the rebellion?

Joseph was one of the sons of Jacob.  Joseph’s brothers became tired of his father’s attention to him and his bragging about the visions that God gave him, so they sold him to travelers, who sold him into slavery in Egypt.

While Joseph was in slavery in Egypt, he was falsely accused and imprisoned, and while he was in prison, he interpreted the dreams of two of Pharaoh’s servants.  After the one had been set free, according to the vision that Joseph had, the man remembered Joseph when Pharaoh was having bad dreams that he couldn’t understand.  So Pharaoh called him out of prison and asked him to explain the dreams.  God gave Joseph the interpretation which was that there would be a world-wide famine for which Pharaoh ought to prepare.  In thanks, Pharaoh appointed Joseph as second in power over all of Egypt.

When the famine came, Joseph’s brothers came down to Egypt to buy grain.  Eventually, they brought their father, Jacob, down to Egypt as well, with Joseph’s younger brother, Benjamin – they and their wives and children and all their possessions came into Egypt where they were taken care of by Pharaoh and God.

            After Jacob’s death, Joseph’s brothers feared that Joseph would now take vengeance on them for selling him into slavery, “[b]ut Joseph said to them, ‘Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.’ Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them” (Genesis 50:19-21, ESV).

            And Joseph kept his promise to care for all of Israel – all of his family.  “So Joseph died, being 110 years old. They embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt” (Genesis 50:26, ESV). 

            Pharaoh also kept his promise and cared for the people of Israel:  “But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.  Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph” (Exodus 1:7-8, ESV).

            After some years and by the blessing of God upon them, the people of Israel had grown to be a very large part of the inhabitants of Egypt, and though they were slaves, the new Pharaoh was afraid of them and what might happen if they chose to revolt and overthrow the government.  So, he decided the best thing to do would be to kill all the male babies born to Israel and slowly bring their population down to a more controllable size.

            However, God kept some of the male children from being killed.  One of these was a baby whose mother put him in a basket in the Nile River, and as he floated down the river, the daughter of Pharaoh saw him and took him to be her son.  But she asked if there was anyone who could wean him, and his mother stepped forward and brought him of age.  “When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, ‘Because,’ she said, ‘I drew him out of the water’ (Exodus 2:10, ESV).

            Moses was raised as the son of Pharaoh until he was forty years old – at which point he stopped an Egyptian from beating an Israelite by killing him.  So, to avoid the wrath of Pharaoh, he ran into the wilderness and tended sheep until he was eighty.

            When Moses was eighty years old, God came to him in the burning bush and said, “Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt” (Exodus 3:10, ESV).

            Moses went with his brother, Aaron, and they performed miracles by the Hand of God and brought ten plagues down on the people of Egypt before Pharaoh was willing to let them go.  But after the first born male of every person and creature died, “[t]he Egyptians were urgent with the people to send them out of the land in haste. For they said, ‘We shall all be dead.’ So the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading bowls being bound up in their cloaks on their shoulders. The people of Israel had also done as Moses told them, for they had asked the Egyptians for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing. And the LORD had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. Thus they plundered the Egyptians” (Exodus 12:33-36, ESV).  Some two million men, women, and children got up and left Egypt during the night.

            God warned Moses that Pharaoh would come after them, so they ran until they hit the coast of the Red Sea.  And God told Moses what to do: 

            “Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the LORD drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left” (Exodus 14:21-22, ESV).

            After Israel made it to the other side, God closed the waters and drown all the Egyptians who had pursued them into the Red Sea.

            But the people complained:  they grew hungry, and God provided them with the perfect food, “manna” (Exodus 16).  And then they cried out for water, and God gave them water (Exodus 17).  This was known as the time of the rebellion, because they questioned whether God was with them or not.

            The author of Hebrews wrote that we share in Christ – through confession of what we understand the Gospel to be – a historical set of facts – that God came to earth in the Person of Jesus, that He lived under His Own Law, that He died for the sins of everyone who would ever believe, that He physically rose from the dead and ascended back to the Father.  And we share in flesh and blood, because the only way He could save us was to be a human for humans – by really being a real flesh and blood human.  And if we hold on to this – if we believe it until the end – we will share with Him forever.

“As it is said, ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.’”

The author of Hebrews was warning his readers – and us – that it is possible to hear the Word of God, even understand the Word of God explained – and to reject it – to rebel against God and the Only Savior He has sent.  It is possible to apostatize.  Apostasy is the act of revolting.  Apostasy (apostasia) literally means “to go away from where you stand.”    We have the English expression that “we stand for something” or “we stand for this or that.”  Apostasy is going away from where you stood – from the stand you took – and going against it – in another direction.

The readers of the book of Hebrews were wondering if they should return to Judaism – if they should again embrace the ceremonies and sacrifices of the Old Testament – and the author of Hebrews it telling them – “Don’t do it!”  Don’t go back.  Don’t turn away from where you stand.  If you do, you will be denying the Only Savior God will ever send.

The author of Hebrews wanted his readers to remember the history of Israel and how they came to the point of rebellion.  He wanted them to remember the pronouncement of God:  “And the LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, ‘How long shall this wicked congregation grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against me. Say to them, “As I live, declares the LORD, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you: your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected. But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.” I, the LORD, have spoken. Surely this will I do to all this wicked congregation who are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die’” (Numbers 14:26-35, ESV).

We might consider for a moment who died in the wilderness:  about two million people came out into the wilderness.  These people included the thirteen tribes; twelve tribes including Levi and the two half-tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh.  God said that everyone who was over the age of twenty when the census was taken would fall dead in the wilderness and that only Caleb and Joshua would be spared.

So, how many people died?  It’s difficult to say.  How many people were there under the age of twenty?  The tribe of Levi was not numbered in the census – does that mean none of them died?  Perhaps the best we can say is that most of the people God brought out of Egypt died in the wilderness.

And then, in this context of their remembering their history, he asked them these questions:

            “For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses?”

            The author of Hebrews reminds them that the people that God punished and allowed to die in the wilderness were people who had heard the Word of God preached to them for at least forty years.  These were the people that God freed from slavery by His Might Right Arm – the God Who had showed Himself time and again to be their Provider and Protector.

            How could they see God at work in their midst and hear the Word of God preached for forty years and still apostatize?  How could they go away from their stand?

            They did – and it was a warning to the Hebrew Christians that all the knowledge and experience of God through the Law and the Sacrifices was not enough to save them from apostasy.  Knowing all the facts is not enough to save you from apostasy.  It is possible for a person to rightly state the Gospel and know that the Bible is historically true and still walk away.  

“And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?”

Lest the Hebrews Christians try to justify themselves and say that the witness of God to Jesus was not enough – just as the witness to Israel in the wilderness was not enough – and this is one reason why we did a quick recap of the history – for forty years, God was with them in the wilderness, sending preachers of the Word and showing Himself to be the One True God through His Works among them.

How did Israel respond?  By provoking God – by making Him angry.  By again and again accusing Moses and others of leading them to their death, and accusing God of never being there for them – of abandoning them – of not providing.

Israel was the one who sinned – for forty years she shook her fist at God and said, “Not enough!  Not enough!  Not enough!”  So God left them in their sin to die in the wilderness.  God did not merely kill them for their sin, but allowed them do die of natural causes and fall to the ground to rot.

And we wonder, “What exactly is God’s breaking point?  How long will God be patient with sin?  Is there a point where God will write us off as an apostate and no longer receive our confession and repentance?”  

No, it can’t be – otherwise, he could not write, “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:14-16, ESV).

Here, the author of Hebrews assures his readers that Jesus – God the Savior – understands what it is to be human – to be tempted – because God, indeed, took on human flesh and became one of us.  He was tempted in every way – just like us – and if you are thinking, “He couldn’t have been tempted like I am tempted” – your wrong – the Holy Word of God says that Jesus was tempted in every way – with sex and money and power – anything that you are tempted by, He was tempted with, but because He was not merely human, but also, Holy God, He did not sin.

But now, He sympathizes with us, and bids us to come with confidence to the Throne of Grace.  If you are a Christian, Jesus says, “Come before the Throne, receive the grace you need to flee temptation, and if you have fallen into sin, come to confess your sin to Me and repent of it, because I have already paid the debt” – Jesus has paid the debt for every sin of the Christian.  As we saw last week, we are still to strive and fight and mature towards holiness.  God is indwelling us now leading us to lives of holiness, but when we sin – and we will sin until Jesus returns – He invites – calls – all of us who are Christians to come and be forgiven through His Life, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension.

So, what happened to so many of the people in Israel in the wilderness?

The answer is found is the concluding sentences of this section: 

“And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.”

Rebellion – apostasy – is not any sin – it is one particular sin – the sin of unbelief.

Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— (Mark 3:28-29, ESV).

What is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit?

“Blasphemy” is “speaking evil about,” “slandering,” “reviling” (Bible Windows).

So what is it to speak evil about or slander or revile the Holy Spirit?

What is the job of the Holy Spirit? 

Jesus said, “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:25-26, ESV).

The primary job of the Holy Spirit is to point to Jesus – to make Jesus and His Gospel clear.  So, blaspheming the Holy Spirit is speaking evil about or slandering or reviling the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Apostasy – going away from where you stand – is not believing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The author of Hebrews was warning his readers that if they turned away from the Gospel of Jesus Christ and went back to the ceremonies and sacrifices of the Old Testament – trying to find salvation through them, then they were denying the Gospel, and they would go to Hell.

The author of Hebrews is telling us that unbelief is the only damning sin.  Anything can and will be forgiven a Christian through Jesus Christ if we believe.  If we believe the Gospel, we share in Jesus’ Teaching and in His flesh and blood and in His Salvation.

If you believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ, you cannot apostatize.  If you truly believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ, you cannot go away from where you stand.  If you truly believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, you cannot stop believing.  And that is because salvation is God’s Work, and if we believe, we have been saved by God, not by ourselves or in cooperation with God – but God has done a good work in us, and He will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

But if you don’t believe, you will not be able to enter God’s rest because of that unbelief.

Let us pray:

Almighty God, we come to You confessing and repenting of our sins, which are many.  We despise our sin against You, and we ask that You would forgive us for the Sake and by the Work of Jesus Alone.  Comfort us and assure us that we are forgiven if we have believed the Gospel.  And if any here are believing in anything other than the Gospel, we ask that You would trouble them and not let them rest.  Help us to be witnesses to Your Gospel, and may You be glorified in the salvation of Your people.  For it is in Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.