Full Transcript

Welcome to Share the Word podcast. Well, if you’ve been following Share the Word over the years, we want to thank you for being part of the success in this Great Commission project. We continue to bring the big ideas of the New Testament chapter by chapter, and today, Pastor Paul Nitz continues with the book of Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 3. Today. For me, the most difficult issue with being sure I understand the Epistle of Hebrews correctly, the way the author intended it, and apply its truths correctly, and I definitely want to do that, is the question of who he is addressing.

Is it written to Jewish people in the first century? We know that for sure. But were they Jews who had already accepted Jesus as their Messiah, or Jews who were considering that decision, or also meant for Jews in general who may not ever yet have heard of Jesus and the gospel story? The more I’ve tried to figure that out, the more I feel like the answer is, if the shoe fits. By that I mean, parts of it could be aimed at all three of those groups, other parts to two of them, and some parts to probably only one of them. But any Jewish person alive in, say, 67 A.D. would certainly feel like some parts of this epistle were directly aimed at them.

I’m a Gentile, although my DNA from Ancestry.com says I have maybe 1% Jewish ancestry, but many parts of this letter definitely seem aimed at me too. Up until now, the author has been extolling Jesus in comparison to others the Jews revered. In chapter 3, now he turns attention to Moses. It’d be hard to overstate the admiration and reverence the Jewish people in the first century had for Moses. He was both the political and spiritual father of their nation. You may not be very familiar with Moses, like, wasn’t he the one that built the big boat for the animals?

Actually, no. But believe me, those who read this epistle first were very familiar with Moses. This was someone who became a great man of God, although born into slavery in Egypt about 1,500 years before the time of Christ. Through extraordinary and providentially guided circumstances, Moses became an adopted prince of Egypt. Even his name was Egyptian, with the same root as Ramesses or Thutmose, names of familiar pharaohs from Egyptian dynasties near the time Moses lived. He grew up in the royal court as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, although his own Hebrew mother was his nursemaid when he was young.

He didn’t realize it then, but God was preparing him to be the deliverer of the Hebrew people who had been enslaved in Egypt for 400 years. One day, now an adult, he saw an Egyptian overseer severely beating a Hebrew worker. Moses became so enraged he killed the man with his bare hands, and as a result, he felt he had to flee Egypt for a time. Living in the desert area to the northeast called Midian, a place where nobody knew who he was, Moses was earning his keep by tending an important man’s flocks. He had earlier met and eventually married that man’s daughter. It was during that period of his life, living in obscurity, that he first became aware of Yahweh, the God of his forefathers, at the famous burning bush encounter.

As he was out tending the animals one day, he saw a bush in the distance that was afire. But as he watched it, it was never consumed, just kept burning and burning. So soon he approached to investigate. And here’s how he described that life-changing experience in Exodus chapter 3. Yahweh saw that he turned aside to look, so God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, I’m here.

And then he said, Don’t come near me. Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. And Yahweh said, I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and I have heard their cries because of their taskmasters, for I know their sufferings. So I have come down now to deliver them from the hand of the Egyptians and bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey.

The cry of the sons of Israel has come to me, and I have seen their oppression with the Egyptians. So now come, and I will send you to Pharaoh, and so you shall bring my people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt. Me? You want to send me back to Egypt to try to accomplish that? That was Moses’ response. You can read the whole account in Exodus chapter 3 and following.

It took some coaxing, but Moses finally accepted that scary and challenging call of God on his life. He did return to Egypt, now a very changed man, with a simple message from Yahweh for Egypt’s king: Let my people go. Pharaoh was not about to do that, release his massive free labor force. But after a series of worsening plagues got unleashed on his land and finally on his own family, the Pharaoh finally relented, and Moses was able to lead the Jewish people out of Egypt, miraculously through the Red Sea and into the Sinai region as they headed for Canaan, the land God promised them, the land God had promised to Abraham and his descendants long, long before. And it was there in the wilderness that Israel became a nation, where God gave them their laws and established a covenant with them.

Moses was so integral to all of this that we still to this day refer to these as the laws of Moses or the Mosaic Covenant. So as you might imagine, for the Jewish people, Moses was kind of their George Washington figure, but George Washington times ten, really. Moses was their first and greatest prophet. He was the founder and initial leader of their nation. He led them for forty years, in fact. He authored the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament, which included their history and laws, and most importantly, he was their mediator with Yahweh, their God.

It was said of Moses, The Lord spoke to him face to face as a man speaks to his own friend. But even with all that on Moses’ very impressive resume, the author of Hebrews insists, yes, Moses was a faithful servant of God, but Jesus was more than a servant of God. He was God’s Son. And like a son is greater in a household than any servant, so Jesus is that much greater than even Moses. It’s while drawing that comparison, the author makes an interesting statement here in chapter three that I want to explore a little bit. It’s at verse five, and it says, Moses was certainly faithful in God’s house as a servant.

His work was an illustration of the truths God would reveal later. His work was an illustration of the truths God would reveal later. The literal Legacy Standard Version renders that line, Moses was faithful in his house as a servant for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken about later. Great as Moses was, that is, important as Israel’s deliverer from Egyptian slavery, indispensable as the young nation’s first leader, valuable as their prophet who spoke directly with God and brought Israel its law and covenant, still, he was just a servant. In comparison, Jesus was God’s own Son. Moses was a man.

Jesus was much more. Jesus didn’t deliver a nation from bondage to another nation. He delivered all who would ever believe in Him from slavery to sin and death. Jesus didn’t bring us more and even better laws. He brought us grace and truth, which frees us from the condemnation of the law. And Jesus does not lead us to some earthly inheritance, a better life with more comforts and more opportunities.

No. Through His powerful resurrection, He leads His people to eternal life, to heaven, to our ultimate home. This is the comparison the author wants his Jewish readers to see and understand. All that Moses did was great, but what Jesus has done is far greater. Moses and all of his accomplishments, in fact, were illustrations. Another place referred to them as shadows of Jesus’ far more valuable and lasting accomplishments, which would come later in God’s plan.

But not everything that happened in Moses’ generation was positive. Far from it. And the negative things were illustrations too. Starting in verse 7, the author turns to a big one when he writes, Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, today if you hear His voice, that is God’s voice, do not harden your hearts as when they provoked Me, as in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tried Me and tested Me, and saw My works for forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation and said, They always go astray in their hearts, and they did not know My ways. I have sworn in My wrath, they shall never enter into My rest.

Here’s an important aside for those of us who take the inspiration and the authority of the Bible seriously. And if you don’t, here’s a good thought for you. Those verses I just read are from Psalm 95 in the Old Testament and are attributed to the human author King David. Yet the author of Hebrews here, when quoting them, writes, Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says. Those of us who believe in a high view of Scripture accept its claims, like this one, that the Bible was written down by human authors, yeah, but authors under the influence of the Holy Spirit so that what they wrote were not just their words, but God’s very word. So what did the Holy Spirit say through King David to Israel long before?

He said, Today if you hear My voice do not harden your hearts as your forefathers did who tested Me in the wilderness. Once delivered from slavery in Egypt, safely through the Red Sea and into the wilderness of Sinai, it was not long before the Hebrew people started complaining, even rebelling against Moses’ leadership. And they started doubting God’s promises. In fact, some wanted to return to slavery, which they felt was better than the unknowns ahead of them. Moses was leading them to their promised land called then Canaan, which is today the land of Israel. You know, a journey from where they had crossed the Red Sea to the border of Canaan should have taken them a few weeks.

When they reached the borderlands of Canaan, according to Numbers chapters 13 and 14, Numbers is one of those first five books of the Old Testament Moses wrote. At that point, spies were sent into Canaan, a representative from each of the twelve tribes. They were to reconnoiter about and bring back a report so an effective plan could be made to take the land. But ten of the spies came back with a very negative report, which spread throughout Israel’s camp. They said the land was inhabited with well-fortified cities and people they said were like giants they could never conquer. Only two of the spies, upon return, urged the people to believe God’s promises.

One of them was Joshua, and those two spies said, Let’s go up now and take this good land that the Lord has given us. But the people, after hearing the negative majority report, were crestfallen, and fear and negativity spread like wildfire through the Hebrews’ encampments until the consensus was they should go no further. They turned back into the wilderness south of Canaan. In what should have been a few weeks between Egypt and their promised land turned into forty years. They wandered around for decades, camping here and there, complaining and griping all the while, even though God, in His goodness, continued to protect and provide for them. By the way, the fourth Old Testament book is called Numbers because it begins with God commanding Moses to take a census of the people who came out of Egypt with him.

This was no small clan of wanderers; it was a mass migration. Based on the numbers in that book, there were more than two million Jews with Moses at that time. But that generation tested and angered God over and over until he had had enough and finally declared that none of those who were adults when they came out of Egypt, none of those who refused to follow Moses and Joshua into the Promised Land would ever set foot in it. As the writer of Hebrews states here plainly, they were not able to enter in because of unbelief. They didn’t trust God. They didn’t believe his promise.

So they wandered in the wilderness of Sinai for forty years until that whole generation passed away, including Moses. And it was their children who finally followed Joshua into Canaan and conquered and possessed the land that we call the land of Israel. Remember the line, Moses’ work was an illustration of the truths God would reveal later. Moses could not get them into the Promised Land. The old generation eventually passed away. Then Joshua led the new generation, their children, into the land of Canaan.

Joshua, by the way, is the Hebrew form of the name Jesus. It’s the same name, meaning Yahweh is our salvation. It was Joshua who brought the people into the Promised Land of Canaan, just like Jesus will lead his people into our eternal inheritance, our Promised Land, our eternal rest, as it’s called in Hebrews. That means heaven. It’s fascinating when you delve into how many things in the Old Testament, things that really happened, in God’s overarching plan also illustrate greater things God was going to do later through Christ. Once, when Jesus was in one of his many back and forths with the religious leaders in Jerusalem, this from John chapter 5, he said, Don’t think it will be me who will accuse you before my Father.

He was talking about the judgment at the end of time. Moses will accuse you. Yes, Moses in whom you put your hopes. If you really believed Moses, you would believe me because he wrote about me. But since you don’t believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say? Why would Jesus say that?

Well, because a lot of the things that Moses and that generation were going through were illustrative of what were later fulfilled by Christ. A lot of the physical things Moses was involved in, the deliverance from bondage, the building of the tabernacle, the regulations about sacrifices for people’s sins, and so on, all had a spiritual and greater fulfillment in Jesus Christ. But most of the people in Moses’ generation did not believe in him, and most in Jesus’ generation did not believe in him either. And that brings us to the repeated warning in chapter 3. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts like those people in the wilderness who would not believe God’s promises and enter the land.

Moses’ generation missed out on the blessings of the promised land, and as the author graphically puts it at verses 17 and 18, those who were disobedient, their corpses fell in the wilderness. Yet, sad as that is to read, Canaan was only a temporal place and earthly country. In Christ, God is offering us much, much more. The author is stressing to the Jews in his generation who were hesitating in believing in and following Jesus, don’t miss out on what God has promised us in Christ, he’s saying. It’s far, far greater than anything your hero Moses ever offered your forefathers. That’s an application of the Old Testament account that still hits home today, doesn’t it?

Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts. When we hear God’s call to us, since the Holy Spirit’s internal pull on us to believe God’s Word, to follow His ways, but turn away because we don’t want to leave our sin or we don’t want to leave what’s comfortable, we harden our hearts. Each time we hear the call, since the Holy Spirit saying, Jesus is the way and the truth and the life. Receive Him, follow Him, and then we turn away, we harden our hearts a little bit more. How long can we get away with that? How long can we put God to the test?

At a certain point in the wilderness, Israel pushed God’s grace and patience too far. How many opportunities we have, how many reasons we have to believe likely determines how long God’s patience with us will last. But this much I know for sure: does not last forever. The corpses of that generation buried in the wilderness attest to that. I was following the story of Scott Adams, who is probably best known for a long-running comic strip he wrote called Dilbert. I had read about his struggle with prostate cancer that metastasized to his bones about a year ago.

In one interview, he told about Christian friends of his that often witnessed to him about his need of Jesus, his need of a Savior. He said, That didn’t bother me because, hey, if they didn’t try to convert me to their faith, I wouldn’t take them seriously. As the months were on, though, he wrote about his own internal struggles to find faith at 68 years old. Something he had never had in his life. Literally, on his deathbed in hospice care, he wrote a last will and testament of sorts, part of which said, I’m not a believer, but I have to admit the risk-reward calculation for doing so looks attractive right now. So here I go.

I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and look forward to spending eternity with Him. That part about being an unbeliever, he added, should be quickly resolved if I wake up in heaven now. I won’t need any more convincing then. That message was passed on by a relative on social media just after his death about a month ago. When I read that, I wondered whether he could be being serious or if, for that cartoonist, he saw this as his final joke. If he was serious, my, how foolish to test God right up till the day he died.

Today is the time to firm up your relationship with Christ and turn your life in earnest toward following Him. That’s what the author is telling us here, and this is certainly the big idea of this chapter when he writes, Be careful then, brothers and sisters. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning away from the living God. You must warn each other every day while it is still today, so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God. Remember what it says: Today when you hear His voice, don’t harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled in the wilderness. This is Paul for Share the Word.

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