V. 12 – Take care brothers – he is still calling them brothers or saints. He is acknowledging them by their identity, not their struggle. But also hear the warning. This is not something to pass over lightly. This is not a moment to hear that story once again, acknowledge it, and ignore the truth encountered. This is not merely a children's Sunday School story – this is truth that should cause us to stop and fully contemplate our hearts and choices.

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An evil or wicked heart of unbelief. Notice, that the wickedness is actually the unbelief. It is the refusal to trust that what God has said he will accomplish. He promised them the land and they wailed in the wilderness because they didn’t think God would keep his promises. This is to lean on our own understanding instead of standing firm on the truth of what the living God has said.

This section is so important to interpret within the context of what the author is teaching. So, before we move on, I want you to answer one question for me. Did everyone from the generation that died in the wilderness go to hell? No, of course not! So, what was the "rest" that they missed? Entering the promised land. Did God throw metaphorical hands into the air and say, "Fine, I’ll send them back to Egypt?" No, he did everything in his unlimited power, including killing them, to keep them from returning to Egypt. A return to Egypt would have been a return to bondage. A believer can certainly make choices that entangle them in temptation and the power of sin. However, they can never return to their original state of unredeemed slavery to sin. The Holy Spirit lives within us and has freed us to walk in victory. In the next couple of chapters we are going to discuss different kinds of rest, but for now it is important to understand that this caution is actually not related to salvation at all. It certainly isn’t about the danger of losing your salvation as some have interpreted.

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The generation that God loathed in the wilderness did not all go to hell. They died in the wilderness, with the exception of Joshua and Caleb. However, they missed the blessings of God. They missed the miracles he had ordained. They missed the Canaan rest of inheriting the land. They missed the ability to set up an actual home or see the walls of cities fall. They missed getting to partake in the abundance of the Promised Land. They fell away from the truth of God’s commands and ordinances. They chose to believe their circumstances, their peers, and what they had heard (they hadn’t even personally seen the giants). That is what the author is actually highlighting. That generation physically died in the desert. These Hebrews living in Jerusalem were going to die in the upcoming Roman siege if they fell away from the truth that they had so firmly believed. They were going to experience the judgment of God that was meant to be the judgment of the generation that did not believe in Jesus, but it was not meant for believers.

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These Hebrew believers in Jerusalem were facing the giants of persecution, loneliness, and an approaching Roman army. They had a decision to make – believe that God can and will keep his promises and experience the blessing of his deliverance/power, or trust what their felt/seen circumstances were telling them. They could stay where they were and succumb to the pressure around them or they could move on and actually enter the rest that God had planned for them. The rest in his provision or Sabbath rest as we will discuss when we come back from break.

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V. 13 – Instead of wavering, what should you do? You should exhort one another. This has the idea of to encourage, comfort, and entreat to excellence. And how often should we do this? Daily – now this word, "daily," actually comes from a combination of three different Greek words. It has not only the idea of a day (i.e., time), but it also has the idea of to do it frequently or excessively and that everyone should do it. There is no escaping this injunction. The author was very thorough. You are struggling, and ultimately God is your source and deliverer, but how wonderful to know that unlike some people who were imprisoned on their own, these believers had fellow heirs surrounding them. They could encourage each other. When family denied them, they had the family of God, but it was essential that they exhort one another. They couldn’t be a silent support or commiserate in each other’s misery. No, they were meant to actively encourage and challenge one another. I’m not sure who originally said it, but God’s plan was never for lone-ranger or superstar Christians. It was and is for a collective body – the Bride of Christ to exhort one another. Flip over to Ephesians 4:15-16 for a minute. We are meant to work together. We grow up together and strengthen one another. That is why when there is arguing/division/bitterness/gossip it is so heartbreaking in the church. That was never the intention for the body of Christ. When we get things backwards and think the head is someone other than Christ and his revealed truth – that is when things go wrong. There are mouthpieces and ears and eyes, etc. But the leader, the will, the brain – that is Christ and He will grow his church – not our version of what we would like the church to be.

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While it is called “today” – Don’t delay. Don’t put it off. Do it now.

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Lest you be hardened – hardened or rendered stubborn because of the deceitfulness, allure – lies of sin. And sin is so deceitful. It looks so pretty, but it leaves you empty and barren if pursued to its ultimate end. Don’t buy into the lies that we can leave temporarily to avoid persecution and then return. This is also a really interesting idea because if the goal is to progress to spiritual maturity and experience rest, hardness is the opposite. You could almost think about this as a calcification. What happens if an object (or person) never moves? It get’s stuck (sometimes in the mud, sometimes it rusts, sometimes it corrodes) – it hardens and eventually weakens in many cases. If we are not moving forward to spiritual maturity, then we are being stubborn because we are refusing to believe God and we are being hardened/entrenched in our own goals/desires.

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V. 14 – We have come to share – we did not originally do so. However, our identity, our being was changed. We have been transformed and now, we are partakers. We are fellow-heirs. He is the pioneer, but he is bringing many sons to glory. Again, remember the context here. We aren’t holding on to salvation. Rather, much like we discussed earlier, this is the outcome of the truth of our identity. This faithfulness should be the fruit of our transformed nature. Demonstrate the truth of what he has already accomplished in our hearts. To verify this, the phrase, “we have come to share” is in the perfect tense. This means that it is a past, completed action with a resulted state of being. The sharing in Christ is a one-time action and permanent unchangeable consequences. We can never return to that original unredeemed place of bondage. 

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To the end – the conclusion. Only he knows when that is. Can you imagine? When we struggle or go through trials we want to know when it will end. We can almost endure better if we know there is an end date, but he didn’t tell these believers when the “end” was and he will not tell us either. He is God and his plan is not for us to endure misery until deliverance – it is to be obedient and made into the likeness of his Son. He wants our hope to be in him for strength. He wants our belief in his ability to work on our behalf to be the thing that prompts our obedience – not an end date to our trials. If we knew the end, we might grit our teeth and push through on our own strength (almost the attitude we have when we know there are only 15 seconds left on our plank). Instead, we do not know and must trust in the one who has unlimited strength and grace to give.

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V. 15 – Let’s talk about this term “today” a little bit. Obviously, this is an immediate call to obedience. These believers didn’t have an abundance of time to make their decision. Depending on when the book was written, we’re probably talking anywhere from 1-4 years. So, beyond the obvious, is there anything else that is special about “today.” When we think about today, we think about it in contrast with what? Yesterday, tomorrow, next week, etc. We think about today in terms of it’s relation to other points in time. However, God exists outside of time. There is no yesterday or tomorrow to him. This is why, when he forgives us and places us into his Son, he can see us as having always lived holy righteous lives and never sinning. Today, right when he calls – on his timeline. That is when you respond. Every moment is today for him. He sees it all at once. There is not a moment in which he has not already been. That should be so encouraging to us. We talk about uncertain tomorrows and not knowing what may come. However, there is no uncertainty with God. He is already there. He isn’t in the Eastern Time Zone – he isn’t on any time zone. He is the eternal one so obey on his timeline, not ours.

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V. 16 – Again, obviously not all of that generation was evil. However, as a collective whole, they did not exhort one another towards excellence. They did not believe God’s promises. The author is going to spend quite a lot of time contrasting these Hebrews in Jerusalem and those from Moses’ era and then Joshua’s era. God delivered them from Egypt. He delivered them from bondage and gave them a leader in Moses. Under no circumstances were they allowed to return to that land. He literally had the earth swallow up thousands of them instead of letting them return. If this is a spiritual analogy, that should be both challenging and encouraging. We cannot lose our salvation. However, we can lose out on the blessings that he has for us. There is no condemnation. We will not be at the Great White Throne Judgment. However, we will experience consequences in this life. Our works will be evaluated at the Judgment Seat of Christ to determine our motives and what kind of rewards we will receive. Don’t miss the blessings. Don’t complain in our hearts. We all want to see the walls fall. We want to see victory won, yet that requires us to believe that God will do what he promised. It requires us to believe his Word – that he is not only capable (which is often not what we question), but willing.

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V. 17-18 – He was provoked, as we discussed last week, he loathed that generation. Their collective unbelief led to their inability to enter the promised land. They didn’t obey the command to go up and take the land – they said, “We can’t do it!” And they were absolutely right – in their own strength, a nation of freed slaves with few weapons and no military training could not take on multiple nations with independent militaries and walled cities. However, God said he would do it. That was what they missed – or refused to acknowledge. He was the one who would deliver. Their lack of faith was not a reflection of the size of the task – it was a reflection of their perception of the size of their God.

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V. 19 – They were unable to enter – he prevented them from entering because of their unbelief. Just as he prevented them from going back to Egypt he prevented them from moving forward to spiritual maturity by their own effort.

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See, we admit that we are saved by grace and not of ourselves. However, we often have different ideas about how we will be sanctified once we are saved. We even sometimes have different ideas about our new identity. We know there is one way to salvation given among men, but what we often fail to acknowledge is that there is also only one path to true sanctification. Phil. 2:13 reminds us that “It is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” It is the fruit of the Spirit. It is the joy of the Lord that is our strength. As Paul reminded the Romans, “For from him and through him and to him are all things” Rom. 11:36. He gets the glory – for deliverance, for salvation, for sanctification, for glorification. Don’t be unbelieving – don’t miss out on the rest that he intended for us. Face the giants knowing the he promised to slay them – it was never about our strength to begin with.

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 Israel did not take him at his word and they missed his sufficiency/rest. We would all like rest, right? I would like rest! Yet all through Scripture, there are people who are running around trying to achieve their own plans/purposes. We find ourselves there as well. So, if you want to know what it takes to rest, come back in January. No, you can read it before then – but we will study that in a few weeks.