Heb 3:7–4:2 — Today, If You Hear His Voice

Today, If You Hear His Voice

The title of the sermon today is, Today, If You Hear His Voice. Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, today, if you hear his voice. You may hear it externally, but do you hear it in your heart? Are you listening to that gospel call and trusting in Christ and Christ alone?

There are five warning passages in Hebrews. The author is developing his argument about the person and work of Christ, showing us how he is the mediator of the new covenant, showing us how he is the fulfillment of all of the types and shadows of the old covenant, And then he pauses five different times in the midst of his exhortation to give us these warnings, these five warnings, to warn us against the danger of falling away.

He says that fearful judgment awaits those who once professed faith in Christ and who were a part of the visible congregation of professing believers but then who fall away. He exhorts us to have a believing heart, to hold fast the confession of our faith to the very end. The first warning passage we have already looked at. It was back in chapter 2, verses 1 through 4. Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience, referring to under the Old Covenant, every transgression or high-handed rejection of the law received a just retribution, How shall we in the new covenant escape if we neglect, if we reject such a great salvation? That was the first warning.

And then after that warning, it is a brief little four verse paragraph, he then returned back to his main argument. The main line of his argument was telling us about Christ. Telling us about the deity of Christ, the humanity of Christ, the incarnation, how he went to the cross for us, how he was raised again from the dead and ascended into heaven. The author of Hebrews really emphasizes that last part, does he not? Yes, he does talk about the earthly work of Christ a bit. He does mention how he offered himself as the final sacrifice.

But he really wants to dwell upon that last point, that he ascended into heaven where he now sits as the exalted Son. Over all creation, who has entered into that rest for the people of God, bringing us. He is the captain of our salvation. He is the leader who is bringing us to glory. He is leading many sons to glory, to join Him in that heavenly place. The author of Hebrews loves to dwell upon the exaltation of Christ and His present work of interceding for the people of God. Bringing us to glory.

I talked about the three Ps last week. Purification, referring to his death on the cross. Presentation, referring to his intercession before God. It would be nice to use the word intercession, but it does not begin with P. So, presentation is what I chose to reflect that idea, because he presents us before God. Just as the high priest presents the people before God, and his acceptance in the Holy of Holies is our acceptance, so also Christ does for us. So purification, his death, presentation, his ascension into heaven where he presents us before God, and then perfection, which is the consummation of this whole plan, bringing us ultimately to glory, bringing us to the promised land, to heaven itself.

That is what Christ has done for us. And the author of Hebrews is focusing upon that. This whole letter is just a wonderful, detailed description of all of the ins and outs of who Christ is. His deity, His humanity, His work, His present work, His future fulfillment of that work at the second coming. All of these wonderful things. He just wants to show us the glory of it. He just says, I want you to just stand in awe of this amazing Christ that we have, this Son, and what He has done for us.

Consider Christ. He makes that exhortation last week. We looked at it in chapter three, verse one. Therefore, holy brothers who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus. Just stop and reflect and consider this glorious Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession.

The Wilderness Generation

He is like Moses, but greater than Moses. Just as Moses led the people out and brought them into the wilderness and was supposed to bring them into the land, but because of the people’s rebellion, as we are going to see in our text today, that did not happen. But it did happen under Joshua. But Christ is the greater Moses, the greater Joshua. He is the leader of the people of God, who brings us out of Egypt, who sustains us through the wilderness, and who brings us into the heavenly inheritance that he has secured for his people. So consider this glorious Jesus.

But, The author of Hebrews is not simply giving us seminary lectures on Christology. He is not simply saying, okay, let us talk about Christology and get all the ins and outs of the deity and humanity and the person and work of Christ and his humiliation and exaltation and all of that. He is saying, this is important for your spiritual life.

This is something that you need to listen to in a believing way, with a heart that responds to this. Not simply letting it fall upon deaf ears as mere doctrine, but let it sink into your heart. And so that is why he weaves in these five warning passages to exhort the people of God, pay close attention to what I am telling you. Listen to it in the innermost being of your heart. Do not just listen to it with your intellect, but listen to it in your heart that you might trust in Christ, that you might rest in this glorious Christ. And believe in Him. Be careful that you do not harden your heart against the glorious gospel of Christ by allowing sin to get a foothold in your heart.

So, we looked at the first warning in chapter 2, verses 1 through 4, and today we come to the second warning, which is the text that we read. Actually, it continues on. This whole warning passage continues even down to chapter 4, verse 13. The part about, let us strive to enter His rest. The Word of God is living and active. This is all part of the exhortation section here, 3-7, down to 4-13.

But we are only going to look at the first half today, and we will look at the second half of the exhortation next week, focusing primarily next week on, what is the significance of this idea of rest? The author of Hebrews makes a big deal out of that, that there is a Sabbath rest for the people of God. And I am not going to explain that much today, because today we are going to look at the heart of the warning, which is to not harden your hearts as you hear this glorious gospel promise. Just so I am sure you are wondering what are the other three warning passages, because I mentioned five. The third one is in chapter 5, verse 11, down to 6, 12.

That is the one that contains the most controversial passage of all, the one that says that it is impossible to renew to repentance those who have once been enlightened. And we will talk about that when we get to it. The fourth warning is in chapter 10, verses 19 to 39, the last half of chapter 10, focusing on verse 29. How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God?

And then the fifth warning is near the end of the letter, not the very end, but near the end, in chapter 12, and verses 25 through 29. Now we need to be reminded, as we look at these warning passages, we need to be reminded of the situation that was the context for the writing of this letter.

Remember these are primarily Jewish People who have come to Christ. They are Jewish Christians. But they are struggling because being a Jewish Christian at this time was very difficult. They are being persecuted by their fellow unbelieving Jews, the non-Christian Jews. They are being persecuted by them and being pressured by them to return back to non-Messianic Judaism.

Furthermore, they are also attracted by the fact that Judaism at this time, we think that this letter was written before the destruction of the temple in AD 70, but Judaism at this time had a wonderful outward splendor of worship that was very attractive. And so some were on the verge of abandoning their faith in Christ. And contemplating going back to a Christless form of Judaism, being attracted to the visible worship that they had with the priesthood and the temple and the sacrificial system.

It all seemed very tangible and gave them a sense of assurance, they thought. That they could see the sacrifice right before their eyes. They could see the priest doing the work for them. And that gave them a sense of assurance that they were acceptable to God by doing these outward rituals and ceremonies. Now when God gave those ceremonies to the people of God in the Old Testament, He gave it to them with the thought and view that they would use those as sacraments pointing them ahead to Christ.

But now that Christ has come, now that the true sacrifice has been accomplished, to go back to that now would be to go back to something that is a lifeless external ritual that no longer is a means of grace for the people of God. That is why the author of Hebrews refers to dead works. I mentioned that in the Assurance of Pardon. I quoted from Hebrews 9 verses 13 and 14, where the author of Hebrews says that, if the blood of bulls and goats were able to purify the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ purify your conscience from dead works? That is the dead works of a Christless Judaism, and going through all the rituals and the ceremonies of the Old Covenant apart from Christ. The intention was that they would be a means to lead the people of God to Christ. But now that Christ has come, if you reject Christ and you go back to those things, you are going back to the empty husk, which is without Christ, and you are engaging in dead works and trying to appease your conscience by doing those dead rituals that no longer have the life-giving power of the Spirit working within them.

That is the context in which these warning passages are written. It is important to see that because the author of Hebrews will sometimes refer to this idea of disobedience. Like he will say, for example, in our text, in chapter 3, verse 18, to whom did he swear that they would not enter into his rest, but to those who were disobedient. Or again, later on in the fourth warning passage, in chapter 10, verse 26, it says, if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins. And so when those words, disobedience or sinning deliberately, you have to understand he is talking about a specific sin. He is not talking about the ordinary sins that all Christians struggle with. And that we repent of daily, and we repent of when we come to worship on Sunday and we hear the gospel promise renewed to us. He is talking about the specific sin of turning away from Christ, the sin of apostasy, the sin of falling away from Christ in their context of rejecting Christ and going back to Judaism. Now these passages, these warning passages, have to be interpreted correctly.

There are two main approaches to them. There is actually several others, but there is two main ones. There is the Arminian view and the Reformed view. The Arminian view is that the warnings are addressed to those who are regenerate. And the Arminians appeal to Hebrews 6 in verses four through six, the third warning passage, where it says, it is impossible to renew to repentance those who were once enlightened. And they say, ah, see that word enlightened there means regenerated. We do not interpret it that way, but that is how they take it. And so the Armenians believe that these warnings imply that genuine believers who are truly converted and have the Holy Spirit and have been regenerated can fall away and lose their salvation.

We will deal with Hebrews 6 when we get to it, but just to give you a basic understanding, the Reformed view is that the warnings are addressed to the covenant community, not to the regenerate per se. They are addressed to the covenant community, which is a visible congregation of professing believers, not the elect only. Because the elect cannot fall away. This is a mixed congregation. Some are genuine believers, others have made a profession of faith and are there in the congregation, but they do not truly believe.

The Deceitfulness of Sin

The warnings though are addressed to the regenerate in this sense that although they cannot fall away, it is one of the means that God uses to help the regenerate to persevere and to spur them on to greater faithfulness. God uses the warnings even for the elect to help them, to encourage them, to call them to be careful not to be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. There is a key verse in our text that is the key, it is the interpretive key that unlocks all five of the warning passages. All five of the warning passages make sense once you understand our key verse here in verse 14.

Hebrews chapter three, verse 14 says, for we have come to share in Christ if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. Did you catch that? It does not say we will share in Christ if we persevere to the end. It says we know that we have come to share in Christ if we persevere to the end.

That is an interesting statement. It is a very nuanced theological statement, but it is very deliberate. And you can tell by looking at the Greek because it uses a special tense form, the perfect tense here, and it uses it in this context of a conditional statement.

It is saying that a person who does not persevere in faith to the end never had a true share in Christ to begin with. That is what the text is saying. True saving faith that is wrought in the heart by the Spirit through effectual calling is faith that perseveres. And if it does not persevere, it is not saving faith. That is what our text is saying.

So this is how the warning passages can all be understood to be consistent with the five points of Calvinism. The fifth point being Pete, the perseverance of the saints. Tulip. Total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace. We are going through all this in the evening service, .

If you want to come and learn more about the canons of Dort and the five points of Calvinism, we are still in the first point. Although in Dort, the first point is unconditional election. But the five points of Calvinism culminate in that fifth point of P, the perseverance of the saints.

And 3.14, our text here, 3.14 is the interpretive key that unlocks all of the five warning passages in Hebrews so that we can understand them in a Reformed way and not in an Arminian way.

God’s unchangeable election, His sovereignty in applying salvation to the elect, and granting them a new heart, and granting them faith to believe in Christ, assures us that the elect will persevere to the end. Therefore, when someone who professes faith turns away from the Lord, and remains in that state of apostasy to the point of death, This demonstrates that their faith was never genuine saving faith in the first place. We have to always add that last point. That if they persevere in that state of apostasy to the very end of their lives, because it is always possible for someone to repent and to be restored. And so we must always hold out that hope that even the person that seems at this point to be in the most hardened rejection of Christ, Even if they once professed faith in Christ, but they turned away from the Lord, it is always possible for them to repent and to be restored. God can do a miracle of saving grace.

This teaching of the author of Hebrews here in 3.14 is exactly what Jesus taught in the parable of the sower and the seed. Remember he talked about the different soils? He talked about the first three soils that had a temporary response, an immediate response of joy and response to the gospel, but then something happened and they fell away. Either the devil came and plucked the seed of the gospel out of their heart or the cares of this life and riches, caused them to fall away from the Lord. He says, it is only the last soil, the one that brings forth much fruit, is the one that is genuine. Jesus taught this very thing, that there can be, there is such a thing, as an initial, seemingly positive response to the gospel, but it is a response that has no root.

It is a response that is not coming from a heart that has been transformed by grace. And therefore, when opposition or persecution or difficulty arises, that response withers away and the person falls away from the Lord. But they are falling away from a profession of faith. They are not falling away from Christ in the saving sense of being savingly joined to Christ.

The Promise Still Stands

We have come to share in Christ, the author of Hebrews says, if we hold our original confidence firm to the end. Now there is something else important about this whole passage here that we need to reflect upon. Did you notice that in our passage, the assumption is that the gospel offer is not restricted to what we think of as evangelism, of going out into the street and handing out tracts, or the initial moment when someone first hears the gospel and they pray with you to receive Christ. The gospel offer in our text here is something that is a continuous proclamation, a continuous offer that is made to the whole covenant community. And it is made all the time. It is made repeatedly and continuously. We see this, for example, in chapter 4 verse 1. Chapter 4, verse 1 says, therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear, lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.

United with the Word by Faith

For good news came to us just as to them, referring to the wilderness generation of Israel. Good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them because they were not united by faith with those who listened. The phrase there, the good news came, the good news came, is literally in Greek, it is literally the gospel was preached. You could even translate it as, we were evangelized just as they were. The word to evangelize is the same as the word to preach the gospel. The word for gospel is evangelion, and so to evangelize is to preach the evangelion, to preach the gospel, the good news of the gospel.

So the point here is that the author of Hebrews is thinking about the gospel offer and the need for the people of God to respond to that gospel offer, not in the sense of hearing the gospel for the first time and being converted. We talk about getting saved. That is what we, in our evangelical subculture, we talk about, I was saved on this date. And I remember the day when I first heard the gospel and I prayed to receive Christ. And we could say that is when I was evangelized or when I was converted.

The author of Hebrews is not focusing upon that. That is a true reality, right, that many people have that experience of being converted and hearing the gospel for the first time. But what about those that grew up within the church? So this passage here is telling us that the gospel is continually coming to the covenant community, which is a mixed community that includes those that do truly believe and those that do not. Although it is not yet obvious or evident.

We as the people of God are continuously hearing God’s gospel offer through the preaching of the word. How is the gospel preached to the wilderness generation? Verse 9 tells us. Verse 9 says that, do not harden your hearts because do not be like your fathers who put me to the test and saw my works for 40 years. Hebrews 3 verse 9, they saw my works for 40 years.

They witnessed, the people of Israel witnessed God’s mighty works of salvation and judgment. Even of salvation through judgment. The judgment of the 10 plagues upon the Egyptians, the death of the firstborn, the Passover blood that protected them.

They passed through the Red Sea, through death into resurrection. They were led by Moses, who was a type of Christ, as the deliverer of God’s people. God provided water from the rock for them, miraculously. He provided manna from heaven, miraculously, for them. Their clothes did not wear out, their sandals did not fail.

There were even times when they did sin, but Moses did what? Acted like a Christ figure and he interceded on behalf of the people. And God had compassion and relented. He was going to destroy them all. Say, I am done with Israel. Moses, I will take you to be my people and I will bring you into the land. But no, Moses interceded and says, Lord, remember your promises. Remember the promises you made to Abraham. All of these different things that they saw. They saw the plagues of Egypt. They saw the mighty deliverance through the Red Sea. They saw God providing for them. Through the water from the rock and so on. Even the glory cloud, that was the signified God’s own presence among them.

A holy God dwelling in the midst of a sinful people. That is the gospel, is it not? And so they had the gospel preached to them day after day. The gospel was continuously being preached to them. They saw it with their own eyes. It is even better than us. We hear about what Jesus did on the cross by reading the Bible and reading the Gospels and hearing it preached in church. They were there. They saw it face to face.

And yet, Some of them did not respond in faith. Some of them did not believe. They were disobedient in that ultimate sense of rejecting the gospel that was proclaimed to them. The key episode that the author of Hebrews has in mind, there are many different episodes where the people of God rebelled.

Remember the one where they complained about the bitter water? And that is called the Massa and Meribah, the water of testing and the water of quarreling. So there are many of these episodes where at different times they complained and quarreled and so on. But there is one key episode in Numbers chapter 13 and 14 where the author of Hebrews is really focusing in upon that.

Because in that story, God appointed 12 men One from each tribe to go and to spy out the land. To do reconnaissance. To see what is this land that God is promising to give us. This glorious inheritance. The land flowing with milk and honey that He promised to Abraham. What is this land like? And also to prepare themselves because they have to take their army and go in and take possession of it. The 12 men came back, 10 of them with a discouraging report and two with a good report. The 10 who came with the discouraging report said, look, the inhabitants of the land are too powerful for us. The cities they dwell in are fortified. They are warriors or giants and we look like grasshoppers in their eyes.

So the 10 men from the 10 tribes, they turned the people away from trusting in God, from trusting in God’s promise that he had made to Abraham. He had made that promise to Abraham that I will give your offspring this land. And yet they had an unbelieving heart of not believing in that promise and not trusting that God would bring them in. The same God that they saw destroy the army of Pharaoh should surely be able to give them victory in battle against these Canaanites. And yet, the 10 who brought back a negative report, they led the people away from trusting in God, despite everything that they had seen him do, even though they had seen God’s works so clearly and magnificently displayed before them. Only two men, Caleb and Joshua, brought back a good report, and they said, no, the Lord has made His promise.

We have seen how the Lord dealt with Pharaoh. He is going to do the same again for us if we go into the land and trust Him. They brought back a good report, and they encouraged the people to trust in God, to trust that He would do what He had promised and give them the inheritance in the land.

What is interesting is that the author of Hebrews, he brings to mind this story from Numbers. He brings it to mind indirectly, not by directly quoting from Numbers, although he does, his language that is used throughout here is actually echoing many of the phrases from Numbers. But he primarily quotes from Psalm 95. That is an interesting thing. He quotes from Psalm 95 to bring up this story, and to do so in a way that brings it to life.

It brings it to life so that we, as the people of God, see that we are just like Israel in the wilderness, constantly hearing the gospel, and we need to be careful that we do not harden ourselves against that gospel. The author of Hebrews loves Psalm 95 because it is a re- a re-proclamation of that same gospel offered to the wilderness generation, but many, many years later.

Hundreds of years later. We are now in the land. We have already had the Davidic covenant. Psalm 95 is in that section of the Psalms, the 90s, that are all songs of praise. They are calls to worship for the covenant people of God, for Israel. To come into the presence of God, to come into the temple and worship God. And the author of Hebrews is saying, notice how that call to the original wilderness generation is being continuously updated and brought about even for later generations.

Even though they are now in the land, which is interesting. I thought the whole point was they had to believe God to get into the land, but now they are still in the land. They are already in the land. Joshua has already brought them in, and yet they are still struggling with unbelief.

They still need to hear this gospel call today if you hear his voice. Do not harden your hearts as they did back hundreds of years ago in the wilderness generation. Today, you the people of God now, I want you to hear the gospel. I want you to believe in it and to receive that gospel. Do not harden your heart against it. And then the author of Hebrews also makes a big point of this last statement here in, it is the last verse of Psalm 95, but in our text it is verse 11.

As I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. Even though they are in the rest, in the land, yet they still need to believe in God to enter into God’s rest. Again, we will talk about the whole idea of rest and Sabbath rest more next week as we look at the second half of the exhortation here. But the point is that the fact that he makes this statement, they shall not enter my rest, indicates that they need to listen. They need to hear God’s offer of the gospel to hear and believe.

Exhort One Another

So the exhortation is continuous and renewed for every generation. And the author of Hebrews is saying that same call, that same reminder that we need to hear the gospel and believe it and not have an unbelieving heart comes to us even today. And so he says there in verse 12, Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day as long as it is called today. He has that word today in quote marks because he is picking up on that language from Psalm 95, today if you hear his voice. It is still called today even now.

So let none of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. What can begin with a small seed of unbelief can lead to, if we are not careful, falling away from the living God. We must be aware of the deceitfulness of sin. Sin is deceitful. It is deceptive, is it not? Even seemingly small sins, if they are tolerated and nursed and not repented of, can subtly begin to choke out that faith in the Lord, that trust in the Lord.

Have you ever observed this? For example, the most common case that today is someone who struggles with same-sex attraction. They profess to be a Christian, maybe they were raised in the church, but they struggle with that. And then they start to… Tolerate that sin. They know that it is wrong, but they start to subtly tolerate it, and maybe they try repenting of it repeatedly, but they tolerate it, and pretty soon they start to question the Bible.

They say, well, there is only seven verses in the Bible that explicitly condemn that sin. You maybe even heard of the statement that Jesus did not say anything about that sin. That is not true, . He did address it implicitly when he appealed to the creation standard for marriage between a man and a woman. The basis for marriage. But they make, in their own minds, these little excuses like, well, maybe the Bible does not really condemn that sin.

Maybe it is okay. And pretty soon, as the sin is tolerated, the conscience becomes deadened. And pretty soon, you start going down this path. It is like you are on a on a conveyor belt, you are like on one of those people movers at the airport. Once you step on it, you just start moving, ? And you do not even have to do anything. But before it, you have moved a long way away from the Lord.

And pretty soon doubts begin to arise. If those verses are not necessarily true, then maybe the whole Bible is not true. And maybe Christianity is not even true. And so once sin has been allowed to fester, those intellectual doubts begin to follow. And in this way, sin, if it is tolerated, strangles faith.

Of course, we know, theologically, that in the end, if such a person’s faith is extinguished, and they die unrepentant, that reveals that their faith was never a saving faith to begin with, going back to our basic Reformed theological understanding of this whole doctrine. But the warning is still there for all of the people of God, even those of us within the congregation that are born again and that do have true saving faith. We need to be aware of this. We need to be aware of this reality that sin, if it is tolerated, if we make peace with it, if we start to accept it and live in it without repentance, this is where it can lead.

It can lead us down this path. And what is the antidote to this? The author of Hebrews says the antidote is exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today. Verse 13, we exhort one another. That is what we do when we gather together for worship on Sunday, is we are exhorting one another.

We are hearing sermons that remind us again of who Christ is, remind us again of the truths of the gospel, that call us to continue to trust in Him and to have our hearts not be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. We need to hear sermons, not merely lectures on doctrine. We need to hear sermons that are exhorting us and calling us to continue in the faith, to press on in serving the Lord, to press on in repenting of our sin, even when we are tired of repenting of it. Calling us to love the Lord with our heart and to hear His voice, to not become complacent.

But to hear that voice, to hear Him calling us to continue to trust in Him every day, every Lord’s day, the voice of God coming to us through His exalted Son, the greater Moses over the household of God, is continually calling us to faith in Christ and to love Him and to serve Him and to resist that hardening that comes from persistent unbelief.

We are very much like Israel in the wilderness. We are still pilgrims, and there is lots of trials and difficulties and things that can cause us, if we are not careful, to wander away from the Lord. We have not yet arrived at our final destination of that eternal Sabbath rest. The wonderful good news, though, is that we have a great high priest.

The author of Hebrews is going to mention that after his exhortation, which is very strong. It is kind of a little bit scary. He is really exhorting the people and really calling them to repentance and faith. But then what does he do at the end of that exhortation?

In chapter four, he says, we have a high priest who is able to sympathize with us in all of our temptations and weakness. So let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace to help in time of need.