Hebrews 3

CHAPTER 3THEME: Christ is superior to MosesWe have already seen that Christ is superior to the prophets, and we have just concluded the section which proves Him to be superior to the angels. Now we will see that He is superior to Moses.

Hebrews 3:1

This chapter begins with the word Wherefore, and this is another reason I feel that Paul is the author of this epistle. Paul used the words wherefore and therefore as sort of a hinge or cement to present that which is logical. Now in the verse before us, wherefore is even more than that. It is like a swinging door which goes back and forth both ways. Or it can be looked at as a marker when you come in on a freeway or come in on a main thoroughfare. The warning is, “Look both ways.” The word wherefore looks back at what the writer has already said, and it looks forward to what he will say. “Wherefore, holy brethren.” The word brethren means those who were Hebrews like Paul was. Paul after the flesh was a Hebrew. He called the Jews his brethren after the flesh. They are called “holy” brethren in this verse, not because of the things they did, but because the word holy means “separated"they were separated unto God. They belonged to Him. “Partakers of the heavenly calling.” The nation Israel had an earthly calling. All the promises of the Old Testament given to Israel had to do with this earth. He promised them rain from heaven; He promised them fertility of the soil and bountiful crops. These are physical blessings, although He promised them spiritual blessings as well. Today the idea that anything physical cannot be used in a spiritual way is wrong. That is one reason people don’t like to have money mentioned in church.

What is wrong with money? It can be used in a spiritual way; it is not very impressive to hear somebody pray for something and then not back it up with his pocketbook. For example, if you are going to pray for missions, I would suggest you give to missions if you want to make your prayer effective. Otherwise your prayer is just like a lot of wind escapingthat’s all. It is spiritual to give; that is one of the ministries a priest performs. He offers up spiritual sacrifices.

Giving is one of them, and the praise of our lips is another. The brethren who are partakers of the heavenly calling previously had an earthly calling, but now they have come up to date and they belong to the “now” generation of those of Israel who have turned to Christ. The writer to the Hebrews will be making it very clear that they have moved into a different age. In the past they offered animal sacrifices according to the Mosaic system, and it was right to do so. But now it is wrong because the sacrificial system has all been fulfilled in Christ, and they have a heavenly calling. The earthly calling hasn’t disappeared, but it has been changed for the heavenly callingso that they are partakers of the heavenly calling. Several missionaries in Israel try to make this clear to us in our day. When witnessing to a Jew we tend to give the impression that he will have to cease being a Jew. I don’t know why we do this. A man can still be a Jew and be a Christian. If we are German, English, or French, we are still that when we become a child of God. Nobody asks us to give up our nationality. And the Jew is still a Jew after he has come to Christ. He has moved along with the revelation of God, and he is a partaker now of the heavenly calling. This is important to see. The Epistle to the Hebrews becomes almost meaningless if you don’t consider to whom it was writtenand also when it was written. Someone sent me John Wycliffe’s Golden Rule of Interpretation. John Wycliffe lived from 1324 to 1380, and although that was a long time ago, I think his Golden Rule is still gold; it is not tarnished at all. Listen to his Golden Rule: It shall greatly help thee to understand Scripture if thou mark not only what is spoken or written, but of whom and to whom, with what words, at what time, where, and to what intent, under what circumstances, considering what goeth before and what followeth. My friend, you can’t improve on that. If we just take that rule of John Wycliffe’s and apply it to Hebrews, I don’t think we will have trouble understanding this epistle. The phrase “partakers of the heavenly calling” would be perfectly meaningless apart from applying it to these Hebrew Christians. “Consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus.” I would like to change the word profession to confession. And the word for “Christ” is not in the better manuscripts. Some of the newer translations have made that clear, and for that reason I would like to change the verse as follows: “Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession [that which we confess], Jesus.” “Consider” Him. The Greek word translated by our English word consider conveys the fact of faithful attention, giving of time, and perceiving thoroughly with the mind. It is a very significant word, and we need to recognize that it means we are to give careful and serious and prolonged thought to this One. “Consider the Apostle.” What does the writer mean? The Lord Jesus was an apostle in the very basic meaning of the word. I don’t think we need to read anything into this word. After all, what is an apostle? An apostle is one who is sent. Jesus was sent from God to this earth. “Consider the Apostle,” because He was sent from God to this world. He is a messenger; He is God’s messenger. He is the revelation of God. Consider Him. He comes from God as an Apostle, but notice also “Consider the Apostle and High Priest.” His priestly function will be the subject of this epistle. (The writer just mentions it at this point, but when he comes back to it, that is all he is going to talk about. We will have to wait until we get to chapter 5 to see that.) A high priest is going in the opposite direction from an apostle. An apostle, like a prophet, came from God to man with a message; he spoke for God to man. However, a high priest was going on the other side of the freeway in the opposite direction. He was going from man to God; he represented man before God. Now Jesus is our High Priest. Who is He? He is Jesusthe emphasis is upon His humanity. Again let me remind you that there is a Man in the glory today, and He represents us up there. My, I’m very happy that He is up there because we are told that He is an Advocate for us; He defends us; He is on our side. There are times when I feel that I am not quite making myself clear when I am talking to somebody. For example, some time ago I tried to explain to an audience the feeling I had when I was told that I had cancer. I felt that I wasn’t getting through, that they really didn’t understand. But I have the comfort of knowing that there is somebody who understandsJesus understands exactly how I felt. The Lord Jesus Christ understands how you feel today. My friend, we need to consider thisgive serious thought to it and our careful attention. We have an Apostle who came from God, and He is our High Priest who has gone back into God’s presence and is there for you and for me today. This is quite a wonderful verse, as you can see!

Hebrews 3:2

CHRIST IS SUPERIOR TO MOSESNow the writer is going to show that Christ is superior to Moses. You see, having shown the superiority of Christ over the prophets who spoke for God in the Old Testament, and having shown His superiority over the angels, now he must show that He is superior to Moses because Moses is very important to the Hebrews. Several years ago a group of rabbis held a debate in Denver, Colorado. The subject of the debate was: “Who was greater, Abraham or Moses?” It is my understanding that it was decided that Moses was greater than Abraham. If that is true, if Jesus is to be considered, He has to be superior to Moses. The writer to the Hebrews is going to show this. The Lord Jesus “was faithful to him that appointed him.” He was faithful as He came down to this earth to represent God to man, and He is faithful as He represents us to God. “Also Moses was faithful in all his house.” Whose house are we talking about here? The word house occurs seven times in the next few verses. It is very important to determine whose house this is. Is it Moses’ house? I don’t think so. It is God’s house. Moses was faithful in God’s house. He was called to do a certain thing, and he did it. He was found faithful. It is true that Moses made some mistakesin fact, he recorded them. He wrote the Pentateuch, but the mistakes are not in what he wrote because God told him what to write. The mistakes were in his actions. He had a temper, and one time when God told him to speak to the rock, he hit it instead. It was wrong because that rock pictured Christ, and Christ’s work for us. Many years earlier God had instructed Moses to smite the rock (see Exo_17:6), and once smitten it need not be smitten again.

Christ was smitten once for us; it was not necessary for Him to be smitten again. But Moses lost his temper. He did not know the implication of what he was doing when he smote the rock the second time. Although he made some mistakes, now that his life is past, it is wonderful indeed to note that the thing God remembers is his faithfulness. Faithfulness is the thing for which the Lord Jesus will commend His own”…Well done, thou good and faithful servant …" (Mat_25:21). Regardless of who we are or what work the Lord has given us to do, we are to be faithful. I once held meetings for a wonderful preacher. He did not play golf, but since his assistant did, his assistant took me out to play golf. While we were playing, he took the opportunity to let me know he was unfaithful to the pastor. He made little dirty digs about the man and said things he would not have said had he been faithful to the pastor for whom he was working. He was disloyal to him. The following day he said to me, “I have made arrangements for us to play at a certain golf course.” I said, “I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to go out today,” and I never played golf with that man again. The next time I went back to that church the assistant pastor was gone, and I asked the pastor about it. He told me, “That man got us in a lot of trouble. We found out he was very disloyal.” I wondered at the time if I should have told the pastor about his assistant. I have no use for a man who is not faithful to the man he is to serve. If you cannot be faithful to the man you are working under, you ought to leave your position. If you are not faithful to him, you are not faithful to God.

If you are like that, and I am especially thinking of pastors, then you are a man that cannot be trusted. I would never trust that man as an assistant pastor under any circumstances. That assistant pastor wrote to me later and wanted me to recommend him to a church. I did not recommend him. How can you recommend a man as a pastor when he was not faithful as an assistant? God says that Moses was faithful. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to hear God say of you, “He was faithful”? Now notice that the verse began by saying that Christ was faithful"who was faithful to him that appointed him." How, then, was He superior to Moses?

Hebrews 3:3

Moses was faithful in God’s house, but the Lord Jesus is the one who built the house. He is the Creator; Moses is a creature. There is the difference, my friend.

Hebrews 3:4

“Every house is builded by some man [someone].” You can’t have a house without a builderit can’t just grow! Every house is built by someone. “But he that built all things is God.” The Lord Jesus is God, and He is the Creator. Moses never made that claim for himself.

Hebrews 3:5

Not only is Christ superior to Moses in that He is the Creator and Moses is a creature, but also the best thing that could be said of Moses is that he was a servant of Godnever was he called a son of God. Christ is the Son of God. There is quite a difference between the son in the house and a servant in a house. So Christ is superior to Moses on two counts: Christ is the Creator and He is the Son. This is very important to see. “If we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.” Paul had a way of using “ifs,” not as a condition but as a method of argument and of logic. We would understand him better if he had said, “Since we hold fast the confidence.” In other words, if we are sons of God and if we are partakers of the heavenly calling, we will be faithful and we will hold fast. This is the proof that we are of God’s house. For example, 1Jn_2:19 puts it this way, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us” (Italics mine). I have always believed that God has permitted the cults to come along to draw out of the churches those who are not really believers. The cults serve as God’s strainer. The proof that you are a child of God is that you hold to the faith. That doesn’t make you a child of God, but it does prove that you are a child of God. If you are a believer, you will hold on, not because you are able but because He is able to make you stand. So the writer of this Hebrew epistle (who I believe to be the apostle Paul) is using the “if” of argument. “If we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end” means that you are a partaker of the heavenly calling; you are among the brethren. I have always used the Bible as a means of testing. If a person really is a child of God, he will hold to the Word of God, and he is going to love the Word of God because he wants to hear his Father talking to him. Now let’s pursue a little further the contrast between Moses and the Lord Jesus Christ. Both Moses and the Lord Jesus enunciated an ethical system. It is generally agreed, even among those outside the fold of Christ, that Moses gave the greatest legal system which ever has been given and that Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount enunciated a tremendous system of laws. However, there is a vast difference between the two. You see, the laws which came from God through Moses had to do with conduct. However, when the Lord Jesus gave what we call the Sermon on the Mount (beginning with those marvelous beatitudes: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”), we see that instead of dealing with conduct, they deal with character.

The ethical demands of Christ, apart from the saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ in His death and resurrection, present a hopelessly high system. The Sermon on the Mount, apart from the redemption we have in Christ, has made more hypocrites in the church than anything else. Folk today teach the ethic and say we are to keep the commandments of the Sermon on the Mount! My friend, only through the redemption in Christ can we even approach that standard. When God spoke through Moses yonder on top of Mount Sinai, there was thunder and lightning and earthquake and terror. God warned the people to stand afar off and not to let even the cattle touch the mount.

But in this age of grace God has not spoken in that manner; He has spoken from the top of a hill called Calvary. On that hill there was a cross and on that cross there was a broken, bruised, dying manwho was more than a man. He was God. And by His death upon that cross has flowed down to this world the grace of God. How I thank God that He does not save by law! If He did, Vernon McGee would have to admit that he had failed and would have to look for another route. Thank God, there is another routethe grace of God. “If [since] we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.” Since you are a child of God, you will be rejoicing in the hope firm unto the end. This is another reason it is difficult to tell if folk in our churches are really saved. Some of them look and act as if they had been weaned on a dill pickle! They are not rejoicing in Christ. Oh, my friend, Jesus is superior to the prophets. He is superior to angels, and He is superior to Moses. How wonderful He is! No wonder we are told to consider Him. In Heb_3:1 we are told to consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession [confession], Christ. In Heb_12:3 we are going to be admonished again: “For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.” A person would be very discouraged if all he had was the Sermon on the Mount. I feel sorry for you if you are attempting to make the Sermon on the Mount your religion. If you don’t have redemption in Christ, you are flying under false colors. We are to consider Himconsider Him in His person, consider Him in His performance, His work upon the cross. Someone has put it poetically: When the storm is raging high, When the tempest rends the sky, When my eyes with tears are dim, Then, my soul, consider Him. When my plans are in the dust, When my dearest hopes are crushed, When is passed each foolish whim, Then, my soul, consider Him. When with dearest friends I part, When deep sorrow fills my heart, When pain racks each weary limb, Then, my soul, consider Him. When I track my weary way, When fresh trials come each day, When my faith and hope are dim, Then, my soul, consider Him. Clouds or sunshine, dark or bright, Evening shades or morning light, When my cup flows o’er the brim, Then, my soul, consider Him. “Consider Him” Author Unknown My friend, we are to consider Him in thie epistle, and we will need the Spirit of God to make Him real to us.

Hebrews 3:7

THE PERIL OF DOUBTINGNotice that we have another wherefore which opens this section. We had a wherefore in verse Heb_3:1, a wherefore here in verse Heb_3:7, and we are going to have wherefore again in verse Heb_3:10. It is a very important word. As I said, it is a swinging door that swings back into the past and swings out into the future. Also it is a danger signal as you come down the great highway that leads to heaven. In effect, it warns: Look both ways before you pull outsome crazy driver may be coming down the wrong side of the highway. Wherefore, that is, in view of what has already been said, since the word spoken by the prophets and the word spoken by angels and the word spoken by Moses was so important, what about the importance of the word spoken by Jesus? We need to be very careful about doubting Him. “To-day if ye will hear his voice” begins the quotation from Psa_95:7-11.

Hebrews 3:8

I believe that Christ is in every psalm, although I admit that I am not able to find Him in every psalm. However, here He is in Psalm 95: “For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation [testing] in the wilderness: when your fathers tempted [tested] me, proved me, and saw my work. Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways: unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest” (Psa_95:7-11). Heb_3:7-11 interprets this portion of Psalm 95, and Israel is given to us as an example. Let’s consider this for a moment. The generation of Israel that came out of Egypt doubted God, and because of their doubt they never entered the land of Canaan. “They shall not enter into my rest.” I have marked in my Bible that final word rest. There are at least a dozen references in this chapter and the next chapter to the word rest, but it does not always mean the same kind of rest. There is the rest of salvation. The Lord Jesus referred to this in Mat_11:28 when He said in effect, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will rest you; that is, I’ll lift the burden of sin from you.” Because He bore it for us upon the cross, our sins are forgiven, and we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins. Therefore, you don’t have to do anything so that God will forgive you; Christ has already done it when He died for you. All you have to do is believe and receive Christ. The people of Israel now know the rest of redemption. They are no longer slaves in Egypt. They came out by bloodblood on the doorposts. They came out by powerGod brought them across the Red Sea. God had delivered them. But then the Lord Jesus went on to say, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls” (Mat_11:29). That is a different kind of rest. It is not the rest of redemption; I would call it the rest of obedience, the rest of enjoying the Christian life. When the children of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, as they crossed over the Red Sea, they sang the song of Moses"…I will sing unto the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea!" (Exo_15:1). “God has delivered ushow great He is!” After they left Sinai, an eleven-day journey could have gotten them into the Promised Land. But no, they had to send spies in to search out the land. It wasn’t necessaryGod said He would take care of them, but they didn’t believe God. So God yielded to their wishes and let them send in spies. Although the spies did see the wonderful land, they were most impressed by the giants, and they saw themselves as grasshoppers. They didn’t see God.

They returned to the people with a false reportexcept Caleb and Joshua who insisted that God could handle the giants if they trusted Him. But the people accepted the majority report (this is my reason for believing that committees are not satisfactory for doing the Lord’s work), and they spent forty years on a journey that should have taken a few days. What was the reason? Unbelief. You see, they didn’t believe God enough to enter into the land. They believed Him enough to come out of Egypt, but not enough to enter Canaan. God said that that generation of unbelievers would die in the wilderness and He would bring their children into the Land of Promise. And we find later that Joshua did bring the next generation into the land. They had to cross another body of water, the river Jordan. How did they do it?

Well, God sent the ark of the covenant (symbolic of God’s presence) ahead on the shoulders of the priests. When their feet touched the brink of the river, the waters of Jordan were cut off. “And the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean over Jordan” (Jos_3:17). Then they took twelve stones out of the middle of the river, where the priests still stood with the ark, and placed them as a memorial on the shore. Then they replaced them with twelve stones from the Land of Promise. When the waters of Jordan returned and covered those twelve stones, it was symbolic of the death of Christ. The twelve stones which were taken out of the river and placed as a monument on the other side speak of the resurrection of Christ. Paul talks about this in Rom_6:4, where he says, “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” We are now joined to a living Christ, and that is the only way we will enjoy Canaan. Canaan is not heaven. We are going to find out that there is an eternal rest, and Jesus gives that rest, but the question today is, “Have you entered into the rest that believers are to have as they sojourn on earth?” Are you a rejoicing Christian today? You will find out that the only way to do it is to study and believe the Word of God. How many Christians today, how many church members really study the Word of God? The Book of Hebrews is going to tell us that the Word of God is quick and powerful.

Now that refers to the Lord Jesus Christ, but it also refers to the written Word. Therefore, the only way you and I can stay close to Him is to stay close to the Word of God. And the only way you and I can enjoy the grapes and fruits of the land, and the beauty and enjoyment of it, is by studying God’s Word. Without a personal acquaintance with the Word of God, being a church member is like wearing a yoke, being browbeaten to give money, and having to do certain things. Everything is a duty instead of a drawing to the wonderful person of Christ. The writer of this Hebrew epistle is speaking to those who are already saved but have not entered into the blessings of the Christian life. They doubt God, and as a result they are having a wilderness experience. “Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways.” Notice where they erred. In their minds? No, in their hearts. Now hold that thought in your mind for a moment. The generation of Israel who came out of Egypt were cited to the Hebrew believers in the apostolic days as a warning not to repeat their sin. There was a danger of their doing that. And, my friend, we have the same danger, the danger of erring in our hearts. “So I sware in my wrath"it was not necessary for God to take an oath, but He did. “They shall not enter into my rest.” God said that, because of unbelief, the generation of Israelites would not enter into the Land of Promise. And, my friend, until you not only accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, but walk with Him by faith, committing your life to Him, you are not going to know anything about the joys of Canaan. Unfortunately, we have a great many wilderness Christians in our churches. The wilderness is a place of death; it is a place of unrest; it is a place of aimlessness; and it is a place of dissatisfaction. To those Israelites out there in the wilderness God said, “You are not going to know what rest is.” And there are many believers today who just don’t know what rest really means. They have never entered into it because they must enter by faith.

Hebrews 3:12

You may ask, “Could that be true of a believer?” It certainly could. It is very important to realize that God was angry with their sin. What was their sin? It was not murder; it was not stealing; it was not lying. What was it? My friend, they didn’t believe God. That was their great sin.

Hebrews 3:13

“Exhort one another"we ought to do this, my friend, exhort and encourage one another. “Lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” Although this is primarily a warning to believers not to miss their blessings because of the deceitfulness of sin, it has application to the unsaved person also. Unbelief in the heart is what is robbing folk of salvation. When someone tells me that he has an intellectual problem that hinders him from receiving Christ, I simply do not believe it. Let me illustrate this from an experience I had when teaching a weekly Bible class in downtown Los Angeles. One evening a broker noticed the great crowd going into the church. They all had Bibles, and they looked as if they were interested in where they were going, so he was curious as to what could attract so many people to church in the middle of the week. Now this broker was a fine man in many ways. If you had met him, you would have said he was a fine man. Well, he followed the crowd into church and stayed through the service.

Later he came up to me and said, “All you did was teach the Bible! Is that what brings people in?” I told him that I thought it was since that’s all we did on Thursday nights. Well, the man continued to come on Thursday nights, and then he started coming on Sundays, and soon he was under conviction. One day he came to my study and said, “I thought I was a Christian. Now I know I am not. I am only a member of a church. But, I have a few intellectual problems with some of the things you have said. One of them is the story of Jonah. It is impossible for me to believe that a man could live inside a fish for three days and nights.” I asked him, “Who told you that Jonah lived three days and three nights inside a fish?” “I have heard preachers say it. Isn’t it in the Bible?” “Not in my Bible.” So I turned to the Book of Jonah and showed him what it did say, then turned to the New Testament and read what Jesus had said about it: “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Mat_12:40). I said to this broker, “If you are going to have trouble with the resurrection of Jonah, then you will have trouble with the resurrection of Jesus.” “Well,” he said, “I didn’t know it was that way. That is no problem for me at all now.” “Do you have another intellectual problem?” “Maybe I don’t.” I looked him straight in the eye and asked, “What sin do you have in your life that is keeping you from Christ?” He turned red and asked, “Has somebody been telling you about me?” “No, I just know that your intellectual problem is really a heart problem. There is something in your life that is keeping you from Christ.” He broke down. In fact, he wept and confessed that he had been paying the rent for his secretary’s apartment and was spending a great deal of time there. I asked if his wife knew about it. He said that he had kept it a secret. Then I asked him, “Then that’s your trouble, isn’t ityou wouldn’t want to give up your secretary for Christ?” He looked at me and said, “Yes.” Then he said, “I’ll stop the rent and I’ll talk to her tomorrow.” Well, he not only talked to her, but he fired her. She threatened to expose him, but she didn’t. He got down on his knees that very day in my office and accepted Christ as his Savior. My friend, I have been a preacher for a long time, and I have learned that people don’t really have intellectual problems which keep them from Christ, but they sure do have sin problems. There is another passage of Scripture (in 2 Corinthians 3, beginning with verse 2Co_3:6) that deals with Moses, which I would like to call to your attention. “Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament [covenant]; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.” The Law condemns us, you know, but only the Holy Spirit can give us life. “But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones [this is the Ten Commandments], was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away.” Paul is not saying that the Law wasn’t glorious; it was, but that glory was to disappear. Now let’s drop down to verse 2Co_3:11: “For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.” He is making a contrast between the glory of the Law, which actually made Moses’ face shine, and the greater glory that we have in Christ. “Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech: and not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished” (2Co_3:12-13). You see, Moses didn’t put a veil over his face as a dimmer, to dim the glory (which is the general interpretation) but the glory was disappearing and he put a veil over his face so that folk wouldn’t know about its disappearance. But there is another glory now, the glory which is in Christ. “But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which veil is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart” (2Co_3:14-15). You see, unbelief is not an intellectual problem; it is a heart problem.

Perhaps you, my friend, are one who has not come to Christ because there is sin in your life and you do not want to give it up. The minute your heart is ready to give it up, at that moment your “intellectual” problems will dissolve. He will take the veil away from your mind, and you can come to Christ and be saved. Now notice verse 2Co_3:16: “Nevertheless when it [the heart] shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away.” The veil will be removed from your mind when your heart turns to Christ. And the next verse: “Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” The Holy Spirit will move into your life and make Christ real to you, as He is doing for multitudes of folk in our day. Then when we come to Him”…we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2Co_3:17-18).

If you turn to Himoh, my friend, the future that will await you as you grow in grace and in the knowledge of Him! Now let’s return to verse Heb_3:13 where we are reminded, “But exhort one another daily, while it is called To-day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” We as believers need to beware of the deceitfulness of sin. We can actually come to the place where we feel our lives are satisfactory to God although we are leading a wilderness life. For example, a believer can be dishonest and yet say that his conscience does not condemn him! Then he should condemn his conscience, because it has become hardened through continuance in sin. I know men in the ministry who have been totally dishonest; they have been found to be liars, yet they can get down on their knees and pray the most pious prayers I’ve ever heard. And their conscience does not condemn them. Of course it doesn’t condemn them, because it has become hardened; they are permitting sin in their lives. This writer of the Hebrew epistle goes back to the wilderness experience of Israel, applies it to the Hebrew believers of the first century, and steps on our toes also. It is the Holy Spirit who applies these truths to our own hearts.

Hebrews 3:14

“We are made partakers of Christ.” Just think of that! We are in Christ. He belongs to us. “If we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end” is the same argument he used in verse Heb_3:6. We prove that we are members of Christ’s house, that we belong to Him, “if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.” Now in this section the emphasis is upon the rest which is ours if we trust Christ. Scripture presents a fivefold rest: (1) creation rest; (2) entrance into Canaan; (3) the rest of salvation; (4) the rest of consecration; and (5) heaven. Here the writer is talking about the rest of fully trusting God, not only for salvation but for daily living.

Hebrews 3:15

The quotation concludes with a quotation from Psalms 95, which we have already seen in verses Heb_3:7 and Heb_3:8. Obviously he repeats it to remind the reader that these truths are not for yesterday only, but for us today. If you would ask me, “Preacher, what is the great sin in your life, what is it that has held you back more than anything else?” I would have to admit that it is unbelief. As I look back upon my years of ministry, I realize that I did not believe God as I should have. And today there is one thing I want above everything else, and that is to believe God. I want to commit my life to Him completely, turn everything over to Him. Flying from London to Los Angeles not long ago, we had a cloud cover until we got over Greenland. Then I could see the icebergs. They may be pretty in pictures, but when I looked at them from a height of thirty-eight thousand feet, they didn’t look so pretty. They looked cold and foreboding. I saw a glacier coming down between two mountains to the water’s edge. I prayed right there.

I said, “Lord, You know I trust You when I am on the ground, but I have difficulty trusting You when I am flying. I am in a place right now where I need to trust You. Help me to put all of my weight down in Your arms and rest in You.” For the first time in my life I went to sleep on an airplane! I have never done that before. I always had to stay awake so I could help the captain of the ship. But this time I went to sleep and left it all to the Captain of my salvation.

When the plane landed in Los Angeles, I said, “Thank You, Lord, for the little victories. Maybe it wasn’t much for You, but it was a whole lot for me.” My friend, this is the “rest” the writer of this Hebrew epistle is talking about, the rest of fully trusting Godnot only for salvation but for daily living, for the help and the wisdom and the strength we need to live the Christian life. The people of Israel wandered in the wilderness because they did not have faith to enter the Promised Land. As we have seen, Canaan does not represent heaven; it represents the place of spiritual blessing and victory. The apostle Paul was, I believe, speaking of his own experience when he cried, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom_7:24). That is not the cry of an unsaved man, it is the cry of a saved man who is a defeated Christian, who finds no satisfaction in Christ because he is not trusting. The problem was lack of faith.

Hebrews 3:16

In the word provoke is the thought of God’s being highly displeased with them because they had heard but did not believe. They had had faith enough to come out of Egypt, but that was as far as it went.

Hebrews 3:17

Again, what was their sin that so grieved God? It was unbelief. We do not recognizeand I am sure they did not recognizethat doubting God’s Word is such a serious sin. It is one of the worst because it leads to other sins. For these Israelites in the wilderness it led to calf worship; it led to fornication; and it led to an absolute denial and rejection of God, as they turned their backs upon Him and even wanted to go back to Egypt. They decided that slavery in Egypt was better than walking by faith into the Promised Land! Unfortunately, there are many Christians who still walk after the world. They do not know what it is to really trust Christ and walk in complete faith and trust in Him. Now notice the question: “With whom was he grieved forty years?” He was grieved with that crowd that came out of Egypt. They had sinned, and their carcases fell in the wilderness. Only two men out of that crowd had faith to believe God, and they were Joshua and Caleb. They were the only two who made it into the land. Even Moses did not make it into the Promised Land, although his problem was not so much a lack of faith, as it was actual disobedience when he struck the rock in anger rather than speaking to it as God had commanded.

Hebrews 3:18

“And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest"that is, the rest of Canaan; he is not speaking of heaven. Because of their unbelief they knew nothing about walking in Canaan, enjoying its fruits, and finding satisfaction in simply trusting God. God said that they would not enter into His rest. And He took an oath on that. Believe me, God doesn’t have to take an oath, but when He does, you know He really means business. Again, about whom is He talking? Those who did not believe. Their worship of the calf and their fornication were not the sins that kept them from God’s blessing. It was the sin of unbelief. Oh, my friend, unbelief not only robs us of blessing, but it leads to other sins as well. The other day a man said to me, “Here I am a Christian and I did this stupid thing.” Well, the thing that he did was actually dishonest. But the point is that he was deeply concerned about his dishonesty but was ignoring the root of ithe hadn’t believed God. That did not disturb him at all.

Hebrews 3:19

I suggest that you underline this verse in your Bible. This is what is robbing you and me of many blessingsunbelief.