Bodies In The Wilderness: An Object Lesson For The Church (part 3) - [Hebrews 3:7ff]

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i've received much criticism over the last twenty years being your pastor and much of it was well -deserved but a few times it wasn't i remember one time a person said to me pastor mike i've got a bone to pick with you and i said how can i help you and they said when we come in for counseling you just tell us what the bible says and that's all that one i was guilty as charged with another time i heard a knock on the door and someone came to the door and they said i live in the carolinas and i've come up here to talk to you i've heard one of your radio shows down there and i disagree with it and i'd like to correct you about your radio show i said welcome to west boylston and my favorite one maybe was during awana awana is our children's program awana approved workmen are not ashamed from second timothy and we had an irate parent and so i said please come into my study i'd like to talk with you and they said we cannot believe what's going on at this church my little daughter's in sparky's and uh...

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they've had to memorize an acronym for sparky and the s stands for sinner and she's supposed to say that she's a sinner and needs a savior said sir see that sign out there bethlehem bible church i said you know you don't have to bring your daughter to sparky if you don't want to but we're here to teach the bible and so if you would like to learn what the bible teaches we want to tell you and your daughter about that because at the center of the bible is the lord jesus christ whose righteousness is greater than anyone's sins we want to teach your daughter and you how you can be forgiven in christ jesus so if you are here today it's called bethlehem bible church take your bibles and turn to hebrews chapter three we're in the book of hebrews this morning i have lots of goals when i preach one is to exalt jesus one is to give you the authorial intent of the bible and today i want you to keep your bibles open so you can understand the bible for yourself this tuesday i preach at the master seminary chapel and we have a professor who just went home to glory two months ago or a month ago his name's robert thomas and he was a southern gentleman and he would sit and listen to the people preach in the chapel and if the person went off on a tangent and talked about philosophy or something that wasn't according to the bible he would just slowly close his bible saying to himself i don't need this anymore and so when i preach there on tuesday i'm gonna preach for lots of reasons but i'm gonna preach under the goal that if dr thomas were sitting there he'd have to have his bible open you don't want my opinions you don't want my politics you don't want my economics what does the bible say and god has given us his word it's authoritative it is sufficient and so we want to expose you to it right expository preaching verse by verse exposing you the opposite of exposition is what imposition where i just impose my thoughts on this text now last week when we were in hebrews chapter three we were asking the question do you have real faith or a fake faith there's a saving faith that's a trusting in christ jesus with knowledge assent and trust it's a saving faith that will bring you to heaven god uses that as an instrument to bring you to heaven and then there's a fake faith lots of people say they're christians but they're not it's a spurious faith it's a faith that under examination won't get you to heaven and of course what we want and what the writer of hebrews wants even in this epistle this exhortation hebrews is a sermon essentially written down he knew people in the congregation were going to be both believers and unbelievers and so he encourages the believers and he says to them here's who jesus is i know the temple is over there and it's calling you like a siren song with this marble with its gold with its trumpets with its incense all the tactile all the sensual things that go along with it and it was fabulous but the veil has been torn and you have access now you don't need the temple you have jesus christ and jesus is enough don't go back but there were some people who weren't real believers and we talked about that last week there's a fake faith a false faith a plastic faith so my question this morning is this how do you know your faith is real if spurious faith is so awful if a false faith condemns i'd like to know if my faith is real would you not like to know it's hard to know if your faith is real in the sense you can't see jesus he's invisible right he's at the right hand of the father you can't see him it's not empirical how do you know if your faith in christ jesus is real in this particular section here's what's going to happen god is going to use trials in your life to prove the validity of your faith he's going to test the genuineness of your faith by a trial and giving you this trial so that at the end of the trial you can say yes in fact i know my redeemer lives though he slay me yet i will trust in him you probably asked yourself the question before why would god send a trial paul was troubled on every side jesus had trials we have all kinds of trials even as charlie said the last six months in our church it's easy to believe when everything's going well and even that first song we sang as long as you're glorified it's easy to say praise the lord when things are going well but what's your response when things aren't going so well the bottom falls out and there's a miscarriage or a grandfather dies you've got that little gown in the doctor's office and the man with the white coat comes in and says i have some bad news for you on the day of testing does your faith hold up and when those tests come option one is false faith will be revealed option two real faith will be revealed chapter three verse seven follow along with me this is our section today hebrews three verses seven through nineteen the second warning in these thirteen chapters therefore hebrews three seven as the holy spirit says today if you hear his voice do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion on the day of testing in the wilderness where your father's put me to the test and saw my works for forty years therefore i was provoked with that generation and said they always go astray in their heart they have not known my ways as i swore in my wrath they shall not enter my rest 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 that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin for you've come to share in christ if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end as it is said today if you hear his voice do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion for who were those who heard and yet rebelled was it not all those who left egypt led by moses and with whom was he provoked for forty years was it not with those who sinned whose bodies fell in the wilderness and to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest but to those who were disobedient so we see that they were unable to enter because of on belief this whole section is very simple if you just step back here's the section if you're a christian keep believing and if you're not a christian you have no other hope except to believe in the lord jesus christ there's no other way to heaven there's no other way for forgiveness there are not many roads that go to god there's one and only it's the lord jesus christ last week we looked at the first question to help us understand the section and that question was is there anything more important in your life than your relationship with god remember the verse in verse seven therefore as the holy spirit says today if you hear his voice there was a an urgency a seriousness to believe this is not game playing today we come to question number two to help understand this warning section are you tempted to doubt god's goodness when things are going poorly are you tempted to doubt god's goodness when things are going poorly now so far in hebrews jesus has been set forth as a faithful high priest moses even was faithful and now we come to this section where the writer is going to use israel's bad example of faithlessness so you don't follow that same path keeping your finger at hebrews let's go to numbers fourteen please as a backdrop as an illustration of what was going on those in the wilderness those israelites this is the backdrop the background for hebrews chapter three verses eight to ten and the hardening of the heart and the rebellion and the testing in the wilderness numbers fourteen remember what ron allen said here years ago when he did a conference what's the theme of numbers in the desert there's a lot of sand and god has a lot of time that's the book of numbers what old testament narrative was the writer of hebrews referring to here's the chapter i'll make a couple comments as i read it but you really need to see it in its flow because it's crazy these people should be believing they've seen god do his mighty works and they're in the wilderness and they're not trusting in him they've been rescued out of slavery out of egypt's clutches through the red sea remember mountain on one side mountain on the other side the red sea in front of you and behind you pharaoh's army and here god saves them through the red sea and now they're in the desert and this is the attitude of unbelief chapter fourteen verse one then all the congregation raised a loud cry and the people wept that night can you imagine two million people loud and crying all the people of israel grumbled against moses and aaron the whole congregation said to them would that we had died in the land of egypt or would that we had died in this wilderness why is the lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword our wives and our little ones will become prey would it not be better for us to go back to egypt and you can really sense or you should sense the mob mentality when everybody gets together pushing and shoving and screaming and they said to one another let us choose a leader and go back to egypt then moses and aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly the congregation of the people of israel can you imagine six hundred thousand men and these two just drop down and begin to pray joshua the son of nun and caleb the son of jefuna who were among those who had spied out the land tore their clothes they said to all the congregation of the people of israel the land which we passed through to spy it out it's an exceedingly good land we're right there on the cusp of this if Yahweh delights in us he will bring us into this land and give it to us a land that flows with milk and honey only do not rebel against the lord and do not fear the people of the land for they are bred for us their protection is removed from them and the lord is with us do not fear them chapter thirteen the it ends hey we can't go in there the people are big they're goliaths they're giants we're gonna get massacred verse ten then all the congregation said to stone them with stones but the glory of the lord appeared at the tenth of meeting to all the people of israel god's gonna save their life and the lord said to moses how long will this people despise me and how long will they not here's the key believe in me it's all about faith it's all about trust it's all about believing in spite of all the signs that i've done among them i will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them and i will make of you a great a nation greater and mightier than they i'm gonna wipe out everybody and start over from scratch just like i did back in noah's day but moses said to the lord then the egyptians will hear of it for you brought up this people in your might from among them and they will tell the inhabitants of this land that they have heard you oh lord are in the midst of this people for you oh lord are seen face to face in your cloud stands over them and you go before them in the pillar of cloud by day and in the pillar of fire by night now if you kill this people as one man then the nations who have heard your fame will say it's because the lord was unable to bring the people into the land that he swore to give to them that he has killed them in the wilderness and now please let the power of the lord be great as you have promised same just like when moses saw the lord back in exodus chapter thirty four the lord is slow to anger abounding in steadfast love forgiving iniquity and transgression but he will by no means clear the guilty visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation please pardon the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your steadfast love just as you have forgiven this people from egypt until now then the lord said i have pardoned according to your word but truly as i live verse twenty one and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the lord none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that i did in egypt and in the wilderness and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice shall see the land that i swore to give to their fathers and none of those who despise me shall see it but my servant caleb because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully i will bring into the land in which he went and his descendants shall possess it now the amalekites and the canaanites dwell in the valleys turn tomorrow and set out for the wilderness by the way to the red sea and the lord spoke to moses and aaron saying how long shall this wicked congregation grumble against me i've heard the grumblings of the people of israel which they grumbled against me saying to them as i live declares the lord what you have said in my hearing i will do to you your dead body shall fall in this wilderness and of all your number listed in the census from twenty years old and upward who have grumbled against me not one shall come into the land which i swore that i would make you dwell except caleb the son of jefuna and joshua the son of none but your little ones who you said would become prey i will bring in and they shall know the land that you have rejected but as for you your dead body shall fall in this wilderness now back to hebrews the backdrop for all this is remember hundred and thirty seven people dying a day for forty years in the wilderness that adds up to be two million people they're dying because they don't believe and now the preacher the new testament preacher he's saying to the congregation let that be an example of unbelief so you don't go that same path i don't know if this is true or not but could it be these forty years in the wilderness of unbelief don't let that be similar to jesus dies around thirty eighty thirty three eighty and we're almost forty years after the crucifixion of jesus don't you be unbelievers now and what does he say in verse eight of hebrews three do not harden your hearts harden your hearts in the new testament means this i'm gonna do what i want to do ever seen that in a kid i know my kids didn't do it when i was babysitting yours though that came over by the way when i first got here everybody wanted to babysit our kids and i found something out they would say to the kids like in the back seat so what's your mom and dad really like you guys are so awful i would never do that to you i'm gonna do what i want to do that's hardening your heart arterial sclerosis hardened sclerosis that's the greek word right here one time i was in the operating room and i said to the doctor he was doing a carotid endarterectomy and so this carotid artery gets filled up with all kinds of hardening plaque and so i'm not allowed to touch the sterile field and i was looking like this i said what's that feel like as he was cutting it out and he said put a glove on so i put a glove on him he said put your hand out and he dropped that piece of hardened plaque goop it was firm i said how do you get that and he goes genetics and fritos it's hard except this is now hard calluses on your heart you tell me to do something god and as the created being i am i will just say sure i will follow you i will trust you if a child is supposed to do that to a parent how much more are we to god but these people out in the wilderness even though they saw the signs for forty years provision manna water sandals not wearing out they're like well we will do what we will do don't you tell us and it all stems from lack of faith remember the big picture is believe are not believe we will not take you at your word and it's not just a a fancy what's it say in the text verse eight do not harden your hearts now we tend to think in evangelicalism things like this we have head knowledge and heart knowledge that's not the way to think either in the hebrew language or in the greek heart has in the hebrew and the greek it has mind yes it has will yes it has emotions yes it's talking about you as a person a totality of you who wants to say you know what i am not going to take god at his word that's what was going on back there forty years of testing lack of faith they're just getting hardened verse nine where your father's put me to the test that's fascinating lane translates that through their distrust they're putting god to the test we don't take you at your word do something else we don't take you at your word we're never going to be delivered we don't take you at your word we're not going to believe and they saw verse nine my works for forty years that's a long time to see the faithfulness of god and then say no i don't care now you know that the preacher in the book of hebrews he's going to be bringing all kinds of his arsenal his preaching arsenal to be saying to these people look how god has been faithful thus far look at your life i know you're in a trial now remember these people in the book of hebrews they were persecuted they were losing their homes they're on the run and this trial is either going to bring out their genuine faith or their fake faith keep believing verse ten therefore i was provoked with that generation said they always go astray in their heart it's not a one -time thing and they have not known my ways they stopped trusting in me they say they're unfamiliar with me what's happening here in the book of hebrews the trial is coming for these listeners and he's saying remember you've got two options keep believing or this trial will reveal your unbelief and it's going to be just like those in israel i'd like to say something about preaching and evangelism for a second maybe more than a second if you tell people come to jesus your life will be fixed number one some people's lives don't need fixing i know people who are believers and they have a great marriage a great life great health great trips great this great job great 401k what can you possibly give them especially if your marriage or my marriage isn't even as good as theirs jesus this fixer come to jesus he'll fix everything because jesus when he broaches salvation you better count the cost because sometimes when you come to jesus he splits up marriages he splits up people things get worse but what jesus does do when he saves you he gives you the most important thing that you need and that is standing right before a holy god forgiveness say all the other things pale in comparison i know god is holy i know god is just and righteous how can i stand before him when he requires holiness and righteousness and perfection and i am spotted with sin i cannot earn his favor because that's perfection but i'm trusting in jesus the one who did earn his favor and what would you tell these people here hey you listeners in the book of hebrews come to jesus everything will be fine and now they're on their run they're on the uh...

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on the firing line losing their homes getting thrown into prison how do you know your faith is real when you're in a trial after the trial and during the trial you say i still believe turn to hebrews chapter thirteen today as you know i typically try to stay in one passage and not jump around a lot when i hear a preacher and the only thing he does is jump from verse to verse to verse to verse to verse without context i call him an audible preacher four twenty three sixteen eighty one nine fourteen and off he goes i just can't keep track but this is important to see not only hebrews context but the background and then also what does jesus say in matthew chapter thirteen something very similar what hebrews author is after is the same thing jesus was talking about matthew chapter thirteen the parable of the sower and let's just go right down to the explanation and see if you can notice the similarities between the book of hebrews and matthew thirteen verse eighteen please matthew thirteen eighteen here then the parable of the sower verse nineteen of matthew thirteen when anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart this is what was sown along the path so the evil one the devil satan comes along people have heard the word and uh...