Hebrews 3:1-18

Hebrews 3:1. Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus.

Would God we considered him more! He is supremely worthy of our perpetual consideration from all points of view. And the more you consider him the more you may, for there is a depth and breadth about his wondrous personality, his work, and his offices well worthy of our deepest thought and admiring worship. Holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, we may well consider him.

Hebrews 3:2. Who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house. For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Mossses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honour than the house. For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God.

The translators were obliged to supply the word man, and yet it is not correct. It is only half the matter; for behold Christ is God and man in one ever blessed person, and, therefore, was he counted worthy of more glory than Moses.

Hebrews 3:5. And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after; but Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.

We are the house in which he dwells with delight in which he finds comfort and rest. We are the household over which he rules, and in which he is the delight of us all. Oh! may our church ever be such a house, so well ordered, that when the Lord cometh into it nay, when he ever dwelleth in it he may not be grieved in his own house. Whatever trouble a man has, he hopes to find solace at home. And so let the house of God be the house of Jesus the place where there is peace, obedience, love, holiness.

Hebrews 3:7. Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, today if ye will hear his voice. Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years.

That was a house in which it was hard to dwell. It had been Moses' prayer, «if thy presence go not with us, carry us not up hence»; and the curtains had been spread for God's abode, and there was the holy place. But, oh! their provocations made it an uneasy house for the Lord of the house, which ultimately he left, rending its veil from the top to the bottom as he left it, for it was finished, and he had done with it.

Hebrews 3:10. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do always err in their heart; and they have not known my ways.

They do err; they did always err in their heart. God is very tender to errors of judgment errors of the head. But to err in the heart this is the heart of erring, and very provoking to the Most High; and for it always to be so after having tasted the bitter fruit of erring after having known God's angers on account of previous errors oh! this was sad! «They do always err in their heart.» The foundation of sin often lies, however, in ignorance «They have not known my ways.» Ignorance can never be of any benefit to us. «That the soul be without knowledge is not good.» But ignorance of God is the constant course of the errors of the heart. «All thy children shall be taught of the Lord,» is a very gracious promise, and where it is carried out, there the errors are rectified by the grace of God.

Hebrews 3:11. So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.)

What a dreadful warning this is to us! If God has had forty years' patience with you, take heed, sinner, take heed, lest he swear in his wrath that ye shall not enter into his rest, for your entrance into that rest depends upon his good will and pleasure. He will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and he will have compassion on whom he will have compassion. If, then, you provoke him to swear that you shall not enter into his rest, into that rest you never can enter, for then the gates of hell are barred upon you, and the gates of heaven fast locked against you. Beware, then, lest ye provoke him.

Hebrews 3:12. Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.

That is the thing that provokes God unbelief; not so much the unbelief of the head, as the unbelief of the heart, when the heart will not yield to the plan of salvation, when men want to be saved by their own works, or else are indifferent altogether about whether they are saved or not. It is heart-unbelief that damns men. It is heart-faith that is the means of salvation. With the heart man believeth unto righteousness; but heart-unbelief leadeth to, and seals his, ruin.

Hebrews 3:13. But exhort one another daily.

In opposition to their always erring, do you be always exhorting, and you cannot do that with any face unless you are always watching that you do not err yourselves; but when, walking yourselves near with God, you exhort one another, it is well. «Exhort one another daily.»

Hebrews 3:13. While it is called Today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

If sin were to come to us labeled as sin, I trust we should reject it; but there is a deceitfulness of sin. It sometimes comes as a necessary action. We think that wisdom demands that we should sin a little sometimes to avoid some great evil; and in this way the soul gets hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Oh! if the devil would come in the shape of a devil, he would do little mischief, but he assumes the fashion of an angel of light, and there it is that he causes us so much sin and sorrow.

Hebrews 3:14. For we are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end.

It is not true that one act of faith is all that is required; except you will consider that one act to be continuous throughout life. If a man were a believer once, and if that were possible to cease to be so, then, of course, he is ruined; but the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints speaketh not on that wise, but it saith that he who is a believer shall continue so that he who is right with God shall abide so even to the end; and unless it be so we are not partakers of Christ at all. We are made partakers of Christ if we «hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end.»

Hebrews 3:15. While it is said, Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. For some, when they had heard, did provoke:

There are many such, and there are no sinners who provoke God so much as there who hear the gospel. A man who never hears the gospel at all may provoke God, but the man that sins after he has heard it again and again, and again, and has the sound of it ringing in his ears, provokes God with a sevenfold degree of provocation.

Hebrews 3:16. Howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses.

No, but all but two. Yes, but the Lord will not forget two. There were only a mere handful in Sodom, but the Lord would not consume them with the wicked. They were brought out of it; and so here, if there be only two, the Holy Spirit takes care to be very accurate in the counting of God's elect ones; and he says, «Howbeit, not all that come out of Egypt by Moses.» If you are one of a family, and two of a city, he will take you and bring you into Zion. You may be in so great a minority that in all your acquaintance there may not be one godly person; yet the Holy Ghost will not take the matter in the lump, but he will choose you out, and mark you out, and distinguish you. Do you not notice how careful he was when he spoke about Judas the good Judas? He says, «Not Iscariot.» No, no; he will not have him mistaken for that traitor. He guards the names of his people, each one of them, if there be but one and two, if there be but two. «Howbeit not all that come out of Egypt by Moses.» God has an election according to grace. Doubtless there are some here now who will no longer provoke God, but who, constrained by sovereign love, will throw down all the weapons of their rebellion, and yield themselves up to him. May it be your case; may it be your case sinner, even at this moment.

Hebrews 3:17. But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness?

How he speaks of them, and calls them «carcases»! He never speaks of his children so; and you remember that in the Old Testament the unredeemed man is comparable to the ass. «Thou shall not redeem him; thou shalt break his neck»; but the redeemed man is comparable to the sheep. Valuable property is in him, and God esteems him. «Whose carcases fell in the wilderness.»

Hebrews 3:18. And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.

It is those who believe not who have God's curse. If you do not rest upon Christ as your salvation, you, too, shall hear God swear that you shall not enter into his rest.

This exposition consisted of readings from Hebrews 3:1; Hebrews 4:1.