“Four-Part History”
[Hebrews 3:7-11]
May 13, 2012 Second Reformed Church
This morning’s Scripture occurs at
least four places in history, and we do well to recognize when a Scripture
points to more than one time period. We
do this most often during the Advent season and Christmas when we look at
prophecies about Jesus’ Coming. Yet we
have not fully understood these Scriptures if we only look at them and
understand them in the light of Jesus fulfilling them in His Coming. We also need to ask what these texts meant to
the people in the time in which they were written – because they surely meant
something.
In our text this morning, the author
of Hebrews wrote something to his readers in the first century. It meant something to them – and we
understand that it should mean something to us.
Yet, he quotes a Psalm, which was written a thousand or more years earlier,
which meant something in its day. And
the Psalm recounts a history which occurred, perhaps, some five hundred years
earlier, which meant something in its day – to the people to whom it
occurred. So, let us think about this
four-part history.
One:
“All
the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by
stages, according to the commandment of the LORD, and camped at Rephidim, but
there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people quarreled with
Moses and said, ‘Give us water to drink.’ And Moses said to them, ‘Why do you
quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?’ But the people thirsted there for
water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, ‘Why did you bring us up
out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?’ So
Moses cried to the LORD, ‘What shall I do with this people? They are almost
ready to stone me.’ And the LORD said to Moses, ‘Pass on before the people,
taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff
with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there
on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out
of it, and the people will drink.’ And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders
of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of
the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the LORD by
saying, ‘Is the LORD among us or not?’” (Exodus 17:1-7, ESV).
After
four hundred years of Egyptian slavery, God heard the cry of His people and
sent Moses to lead them out of Egypt, and God delivered them by His Mighty
Right Arm – preforming ten great miracles which caused Pharaoh to finally let
them go and cause the people to give them gold and silver, clothes and animals,
and send them on their way.
When
they reached the Red Sea and the Egyptian army chased after them, God opened
the Red Sea, so walls of water stood on either side of them as almost two
million people crossed the sea on dry land and then turned to watch as God
closed the sea over the Egyptians and drown them all.
In
the Sinai desert, God led them by cloud and by fire, providing them with manna
– a perfect, heavenly food that God sent them, as well as meat, and water. And God even sustained their clothes so they
did not wear out during their forty-year journey.
God
met with Moses and gave His people the Law, and the people knew by the radiance
of God’s Glory on Moses’ face that he had met with God and these were God’s
instructions for them as His people.
They
had seen God work in many and miraculous ways, delivering them and providing
for them, but still, the people didn’t trust God.
When
they got thirsty, they began to cry out to Moses, “We’re thirsty!”
And
Moses asked them “Why are you asking me for water? Is there something I can do about it? Can I control the weather? Can I cause water to appear? Why are you testing God?”
What
does that mean? Hear this
definition: “To distrust God, to
disbelieve his promises, whilst a way of duty lies before us, after we have had
experiences of his goodness, power, and wisdom, in dealing with us, is a
tempting of God, and a greatly provoking sin” (John Owen, Hebrews, vol. 4, 68).
To
test God means to distrust Him – especially after one has been given ample
reason to trust Him. To test God means
to know in one’s own life that God keeps His Promises and to hear God’s
Promises and not believe God will keep them.
How
did Israel respond? “Trust God? We don’t know if God is among us or not. You’ve brought us out here to kill us and our
children and our sheep!”
They
were untrusting and hysterical. They
didn’t know if God was among them or not?
Really? After the miracles God
had performed, after freeing them from slavery, after miraculously providing
for them in the wilderness, appearing before them in fire and cloud, and giving
them His Law – do we think they might have had a clue that God was with them?
And
they turned against the man of God – “This is a trap – you led us out of Egypt
so you could watch us all die in the desert!”
The
people of Israel had hardened their hearts against God and did not trust Him, despite
everything God had done. Yet, God was
patient and told Moses to take his staff and hit a rock and water would flow
from it. Notice: there is no record that they gave thanks –
only that the place was named “testing” and “quarreling.”
In
1500 B.C., what might the readers of this text have understood?
They
would have understood that their fathers sinned in not trusting God – especially
after all the evidence of God being trustworthy. So, they would have understood that God is to
be trusted based on the overwhelming evidence and experience of the nation.
They
also would have understood that when God makes a promise, He keeps it. God cannot lie or deceive or come up short in
all that He says. If God has said it, it
is so, and nothing will ever change what God has said.
Two:
“Oh come, let us sing to the LORD; let
us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with
thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! For the LORD is a great God, and a great King
above all gods. In his hand are the
depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands
formed the dry land. Oh come, let us
worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of
his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today,
if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day
at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test and put me to
the proof, though they had seen my work.
For forty years I loathed that generation and said, ‘They are a people
who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways.’ Therefore I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall
not enter my rest’” (Psalm 95, ESV).
Five hundred years later, one of the
Psalmists put this historical event into one of his Psalms.
The Psalmist began by calling the
people to praise and glorify God in song.
In song, he teaches;
God is worthy of being praised for
salvation comes from God, and God’s salvation is immovable: if God has saved, one cannot lose
salvation. The security of salvation is
based on God’s Character, not on the person being saved.
God is worthy of all thanksgiving
and praise because there is no greater God or King than God: God is the ultimate God and King. And one of the ways we know that is through
the Creation: the depths of the earth
and the heights of the mountains are in the Hand of God, because God is the
Creator of the sea and the dry land.
There cannot be a greater god than the God Who created everything that
is. And there is no greater god to be
thanked than the God Who created and set humans in dominion over the earth –
that humans would care for and steward and love the Creation with a love like
God’s.
God is worthy of all worship – no
other god is worthy of worship, but God, because God has chosen a people for
Himself. And God shepherds His people as
a shepherd shepherds His sheep.
Shepherds were called on to provide for all of the needs of the flock –
to guide them and lead them to food and safe places to eat and rest. He sought to protect them from other animals
and robbers. He even was willing to lay
down his life for the sake of his sheep, if necessary. And so, God cares for His people and leads
them and protects them and lays down His Life for them, because it was
necessary. No one is of greater worth.
Then the Psalmist turns to the
people of his day and addresses them in the light of these doctrines about God:
The Psalmist calls them to
repentance – to hearing the Voice of God – and he warns his readers – and those
singing the Psalm – not to harden their hearts as their fathers did in the
wilderness – in the place that was called “quarrelling” and “testing.” The Psalmist warns the people not to test God
as their fathers had – not to doubt God – not to distrust God and His Promises
after all they had seen and experienced.
No, but to follow God, to obey God, to believe God, because of all they
had seen – and experienced – of Him.
And then the Psalmist brings to mind
what happened at the end of the forty years in the wilderness, when God
revealed His disgust for the people that He had brought out of the land of
Egypt – excepting Caleb and Joshua – because for forty years, they had turned
their backs on God and told Him it was never enough – no matter what God did –
it was never enough for them to trust God and follow after Him with all their
heart.
So, in God’s Wrath, He did not allow
anyone – except for Caleb and Joshua – out of all the people that God freed
from slavery in Egypt – to enter the Promised Land. God kept all of the people in the Sinai desert
for forty years – until every one of the two million people He brought out of
Egypt was dead – except for Caleb and Joshua.
Hearing and singing this Psalm since
1000 B.C., God’s people would be reminded of God’s Character – especially His
Faithfulness and Trustworthiness. And
the people would hear the call not to sin against God by distrusting Him and
doubting whether or not God will keep His Promises, because God takes sin very
seriously – and if a person persists in sin against God, God may stop him by
killing him or keeping him from receiving God’s Promise by holding it back
until after he dies.
Three:
“Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,
‘Today, if you hear his voice, 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.” As
I swore in my wrath, “They shall not enter my rest.”’”
About
a thousand years after the Psalmist wrote his Psalm, the author of Hebrews
quoted his words to the people he was writing to – for Jewish Christians who
were considering turning their backs on Jesus and returning to Judaism.
And we find ourselves at another
conclusion – “therefore.” Since the
author of Hebrews had shown that Jesus is the Author of the Gospel and greater
than Moses and the Law by both bring the Son of God and the Creator of
everything that is – Jesus is the Son; Moses was a servant. Jesus is the Creator; Moses was a
creature. Since Jesus is greater than
anyone and everything that ever was or is or will ever be.
And then the author of Hebrews draws
our attention to the fact that we do not merely have history before us. We do not merely have a Psalm before us. We do not merely have moral instruction
before us. But the Psalm that he quotes
from is the Very Word of God. “The Holy
Spirit said.”
Now, we understand that most of the
Scripture is not merely God dictating what to write, but humans wrote, guided
by God, that they would write everything God wanted us to know for life and
salvation, and everything they wrote would be true and without error – and so,
the Word of God.
What the author of Hebrews has done
is identify the words quoted as being the Word of God, so he is telling his
readers to hear what God says to them – not in the days of the Moses, or in the
days of the Psalmist, but in their day – in the first century A.D.
So, we could preface the text by
saying, “If you are considering walking away from Jesus and returning to
Judaism, hear the Word of God to you today:”
The author of Hebrews would have
them read the text this way:
“Today, if you hear his voice, 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.”
“Today is the day of salvation –
don’t think you’ll have another chance to change your mind and to turn back
from your sin. Hear the Voice of God –
understand that turning away from Jesus and going back to Judaism after you
have seen and experienced everything you have seen and experienced is no
different from the hardening of hearts that your fathers had when after forty
years of proof of God being with them, they did not trust God or believe in His
Promises.”
“Therefore
I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their
heart; they have not known my ways.’”
“Do
not let it be said of you that you persisted in sin – that you persisted in turning
away from God and denying God’s Word and denying God’s Promises and saying that
God cannot be trusted. Do not prove that
you have never known God.”
“As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter
my rest.’”
“Remember,
God was enraged with your fathers and caused them to die in the wilderness, so
that none of them – except Caleb and Joshua – enter the Promised Land. For you, it is even more serious, because I’m
not talking about entering into the rest of a mere piece of property you will
inherit, but I am talking about your very salvation: if you persist in your sin and in your denial
of Who Jesus is and all the evidence that is proving Jesus to be God the
Savior, who is Superior to anyone and everything – then you will not enter the
rest of the Kingdom of God promised to all those who believe, but you will
enter eternal damnation, which is what God promises for all those who never
believe.”
The
author of Hebrews wants his readers to understand that it is insanity to put
off faith in Jesus Alone. Today is the
day – you may not have tomorrow.
And
he wants them to understand that God is Holy and will not stand for His people
to persist in denying God and His Word.
And
let us understand, we cannot assume that everyone except Caleb and Joshua were
unbelievers who died in the wilderness.
It is possible to believe and – for a time – to go very far from God in
sinning against Him. So, there are
times, for the good of the believer and for the good of the Church that God
will take a person’s life to save them from doing further harm to themselves
and others. Even though Jesus has paid
the debt of every sin a believer ever sins, God may allow us to suffer the
consequences of our sin – even death – for our ultimate good.
Four:
And today – some nineteen hundred
years after the author of the book of Hebrews wrote – how do we hear this
history today? If this is the Word of
God and not merely human writing, it must have meaning and power for us today.
So, we might begin by asking if we
have received evidence of the Trustworthiness of God. Have we seen God’s Promises fulfilled before
us? Do we have evidence of Who God is
and His keeping His Word?
If you are a Christian, listen to
one Scripture:
“What then shall we say to these
things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own
Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give
us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who
justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that,
who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for
us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or
distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it
is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded
as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than
conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life,
nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor
height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate
us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:31-39, ESV).
There is more historical evidence
that Jesus lived, died, and physically rose from the dead than there is
historical evidence that any other figure in history ever existed. And if you are a Christian, you have the
witness of God the Holy Spirit living in you as well.
What are the promises that God gives
the Christian in the passage I just read?
God is for the Christian – no one
can ever turn God away from those who believe in His Son.
God
has given His Son for us – the greatest gift imaginable – so God will also give
us everything we ever need.
God
has justified us – He has legally ruled us as “not guilty” in His Sight because
Jesus stands in our place before Him.
King
Jesus is our Judge, and He stands to intercede for us before the Father.
Nothing,
nothing, nothing, nothing, will ever separate a Christian from the Love of
Jesus. If you have truly believed in
Jesus, there is nothing you can do to ever make Him stop loving you – or to cause
Him to forsake you.
Do
you believe those promises? Is there
enough evidence in the Bible and throughout the annals of history that God came
to earth in the Person of Jesus, lived, died for the sins of everyone who would
ever believe, and then physically rose from the dead – what is that? That’s the Gospel.
Don’t
let this day go by without being sure – you may not have tomorrow. Today is the day. God has done all the work – believe what He
has done – and you will enter into His rest.
When Jesus returns, He will bring all those who truly believed into His
Eternal Kingdom on earth.
Let
us pray:
Almighty
God of History, all our times are in Your Hands. You planned the moment of the Creation and
there is not one maverick molecule or moment in all of history, but You have
planned it all, and everything is coming to pass as You have willed. We thank You for sending Your Son for the Salvation
of everyone who will ever believe and for giving us Your Word that we could
have the evidence – and the history – of Your Promises and Your fulfilling Your
Promises before us that we might believe and be encouraged. Help each one here this morning not to doubt
or to turn away, but to hear Your Voice and to follow after You in faith and obedient
holiness until that day when You welcome us into Your rest. For it is in joy we pray in Jesus’ Name,
Amen.
