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Today, Harden Not Your Hearts!

January 18, 2009
Morning Service

Hebrews 3

Review:

  1. Hebrews, a letter to the Christian descendants of Abraham.  We know nothing for certain concerning this letter, except that it is a warning not to fall away from your faith in Jesus Christ.
  2. In chapter one the writer tells how that Christ is superior to the Prophets, and also because of His deity.
  3. In chapter two the writer gives us our first warning.  THE DANGER OF NEGLECT.
  4. He also tells us that Jesus is superior to the old way because of His humanity.

 

Today we are ready for chapter three.  Let’s begin.

 

Heb 3:1-19  Therefore, holy brothers, called to be partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus,  (2)  who was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was faithful in all his house.  (3)  For He was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, because he who has built the house has more honor than the house.  (4)  For every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God. 

  • Called to be partakers of the heavenly calling;  How were we called?  Paul said in , “2Th 2:13-14  But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brothers beloved of the Lord, because God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth,  (14)  to which He called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
  • Consider the Apostle, and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus.  
  1. An Apostle;  One who has been sent.
  2. High Priest;  Someone who makes intercession for others.
  3. Of our profession?   Yes, we believe Jesus to be the very Son of God, born of a virgin, suffered under Pontius Pilate, crucified, died, buried, and arose the third day, and forever sits at the right hand of God to make intercession for His people, and is one day coming back for a people that have made themselves ready for His coming.   St.Jn. 14:1-3 
  • Who was faithful to Him who appointed Him.   Or sent Him?  Joh 4:34  Jesus said to them, My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work.
  • Almighty God, whom Jesus called His Father, is the One Who sent Him.  And as we find out from I Cor. 15;  after the last enemy is placed under Jesus’ feet, then Jesus will turn the Kingdom back over to the Father.  “1Co 15:24  then is the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God, even the Father; when He makes to cease all rule and all authority and power.

(3)  For He was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, because he who has built the house has more honor than the house.  (4)  For every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God.

  • We saw this last week when Paul said “Col 1:16  For all things were created in Him, the things in the heavens, and the things on the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created through Him and for Him.

(5)  And Moses truly was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken afterward. 

  • The testimony, was all the prophecies that referred to the Messiah, in which Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled.
  • Such as:  Deu 18:15  Jehovah your God will raise up to you a Prophet from the midst of you, of your brothers, One like me. To Him you shall listen,
  • Jesus said, Luk 24:44  And He said to them, These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and in the Prophets and in the Psalms about Me;  and Joh 5:39  You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life. And they are the ones witnessing of Me,  THERE IS YOUR TESTIMONY.     YES, MOSES WAS FAITHFUL IN ALL HIS HOUSE,   BUT!

 

 

 

(6)  But Christ was faithful as a Son over his own house; whose house we are, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.

·         NOTICE:  CHRIST A SON, THIS IS OUR PROFESSION;   IF!  We hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.  IF!!  We hold on, and do not neglect.

·         It is statements like this that makes Pam say that each time she reads this letter there a element of fear that comes over her.  It should all of us.

(7)  Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, PSA. 95:7-11 "Today if you will hear His voice,  (8)  do not harden your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness,  (9)  when your fathers tempted Me, proved Me, and saw My works forty years.  (10)  Therefore I was grieved with that generation and said, They always err in their heart, and they have not known My ways.  (11)  So I swore in My wrath, They shall not enter into My rest." 

  • You all know the story, how that spies were sent out, and that the report they gave upon returning scared the people, and because they did not trust God to deliver them, He would not let all the men of a certain age enter into the promised land, only Joshua, and Caleb were allowed to enter, and that because they wanted to go in at the beginning.

SECOND WARNING:

(12)  Take heed, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. 

  • So how is it that I will not allow unbelief to enter into my life? 

1.       I will read my Bible.

2.      I will assemble with the saints.

3.      I will pray.

4.      I will do the good works that God would have me to do.

5.      I will make every effort to draw closer to God each day of my life.

Put these things in a bowl, and mix it all up, and this is what comes out;  “I will be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, and I know that my labor shall not be in vain.”  Icor. 15:58.

GOD ADDS TO MY LIST:

(13)  But exhort one another daily, while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. 

  • Encourage, lift up, one another daily.
  • Do not allow sin to get the better of you.  Remember the Scripture, “greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world.”  Christ in us makes us “more than conquerors through Him that loves us.”

(14)  For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, 

  • There’s that big little word again, IF.   WE MUST HOLD, AND BE STEADFAST UNTO THE END.

(15)  while it is said, "Today if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation."  (16)  For some, when they had heard, did provoke; however, not all who came out of Egypt by Moses.  (17)  But with whom was He grieved forty years? Was it not with those who had sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness?  (18)  And to whom did He swear that they should not enter into His rest, but to those who did not believe?  (19)  So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.

 

THE ADMONITION TO YOU AND I IS “TODAY IS THE DAY OF SALVATION, DO NOT PUT IT OFF.”

 

LET ME ASSURE YOU, THAT UNLESS YOU ACCEPT JESUS CHRIST AS YOUR SAVIOR, YOU TOO WILL BE LOST IN THE WILDERNESS, AND YOU WILL NOT ENTER INTO HIS GLORIOUS REST.

 

NOAH PREACHED TO A LOST WORLD FOR A 120 YEARS, AND ONLY EIGHT PEOPLE HEEDED HIS WARININGS, AND WERE SAVED.  THE GOSPEL MESSAGE HAS BEEN PREACHED FOR 2000 YEARS, AND THOUGH THERE HAVE BEEN MANY SAVED, THERE WILL BE MANY LOST.

 

YOU HAVE A CHOICE TO MAKE TODAY, WHICH WILL IT BE?   ACCEPTANCE, OR REJECTION?

 

OUR PRAYER:

GOD ALMIGHTY, I PRAY FOR A STIRRING OF YOUR HOLY SPIRIT IN OUR HEARTS AND LIVES, HELP US TO RECOGNIZE THE URGENCY OF THE HOUR.