The Tragedy of Unbelief
What is the most heinous sin a human being can commit? Is it brutal, premeditated murder? Is it some grossly perverted immoral act? Is it the abuse of an innocent child? Is it the attempted annihilation of an entire race? What is the most heinous sin a human being can commit?
Well, I think we can answer that question if we ask and answer another one: What is the only sin that will send a person to Hell, the only one that God refuses to pardon? I believe a careful study of the Scripture reveals the answer to be, “the sin of unbelief in the face of clear evidence.” Nothing is more illogical or unreasonable than unbelief. It refuses to accept the most overwhelming evidence. As Jesus made clear in the story of the rich man and Lazarus, no evidence is sufficient for the person who does not want to believe, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”
Our text today, which I have entitled, “The Tragedy of Unbelief,” is the second major warning in the book of Hebrews. The first, in chapter 2, dealt with drifting or spiritual apathy concerning the great salvation we have been offered. This one warns against unbelief and the resultant hardening of the spiritual arteries.
Last week we studied from the first 6 verses of chapter 3 about Moses, that hero of heroes among the Jewish people. He was a leader marked by great faithfulness, great character, great suffering, great accomplishments, and a great position in the house of God. But Jesus Christ, the author tells us, is greater even than Moses. He is completely faithful, perfect in character, his suffering was to the ultimate degree, He accomplished all that God sent Him to do, and He has a greater position as a Son over God’s house. Verse 6 concluded with the point that we are part of God’s house, i.e. God’s family, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast.
That conditional statement, “we are God’s house if,” leads directly into today’s text, for the author saw many in the early church who thought they were part of God’s house but he feared they were not. So he warns them. We’ve all heard the proverbial evangelist’s warning that standing in a garage doesn’t make you a car. Well, the same point is being made here, only in a more sophisticated way, namely “being in the church doesn’t make you part of God’s family.” Some professing Christians today are like the ancient Israelites whose disbelief resulted in disinheritance. Let’s read Hebrews 3:7‑4:13.
So, as the Holy Spirit says:
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion,
during the time of testing in the desert,
where your fathers tested and tried me
and for forty years saw what I did.
That is why I was angry with that generation,
and I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray,
and they have not known my ways.’
So I declared on oath in my anger,
‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ”
See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. As has just been said:
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion.”
Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert? And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed ? So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.
Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith. Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said,
“So I declared on oath in my anger,
‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ”
And yet his work has been finished since the creation of the world. For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: “And on the seventh day God rested from all his work.” And again in the passage above he says, “They shall never enter my rest.”
It still remains that some will enter that rest, and those who formerly had the gospel preached to them did not go in, because of their disobedience. Therefore God again set a certain day, calling it Today, when a long time later he spoke through David, as was said before:
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts.”
For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.
For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
One of the best ways to begin a sermon is to give an illustration. And that’s how the author of Hebrews begins our text today.
An illustration from history
I would summarize the illustration this way: Moses was a great and faithful leader, but few who left Egypt with him followed his example, and their unbelief led to tragedy. Jesus Christ is far superior to Moses, but many who profess Him as their leader are likewise guilty of unbelief and are in danger of an even worse tragedy.
Israel’s unique privileges. Verse 7 quotes the 95th Psalm, the first part of which is a call to worship God and the second, quoted here, is a warning against disobeying Him, reinforced by a reminder of what happened to Israel in an earlier day when they disobeyed Moses as he led them from Egypt toward the Promised Land. God had promised the people that He would protect them, provide for them, and lead them to a land that flowed with milk and honey, which land he would give to them as their eternal inheritance. Though they had been slaves in Egypt, they would find “rest” in Canaan.
To stimulate their faith that He could and would accomplish this, God offered to Israel some unique privileges. He first performed some great miracles‑‑unique displays of divine power, such as the plagues he brought upon Egypt to encourage Pharaoh to let the people go. Not only that, He offered to them daily displays of His divine providence, such as the pillar of fire by night and the great cloud by day which guided them during their travels and protected them from the extreme heat and cold of the desert. In addition, God provided experiences for them that had a certain parallel to the ordinances of the church. There was a baptism into Moses and a kind of Lord’s Supper, consisting of supernatural food from heaven (manna) and supernatural drink from the rock. These parallels are all elaborated by Paul in the first few verses of 1 Corinthians 10.
The special privileges of Israel are summed up in Hebrews 3:9 where it says that “for 40 years your fathers saw what I did.” In other words, God didn’t hide from them; He wasn’t an absentee landlord. He constantly showed His power and gave them incredible reasons to trust Him. But sadly, despite Israel’s unique privileges their response was ungodly.
Israel’s ungodly response. Two incidents are specifically mentioned in verse 8, one called “the rebellion” and the other, “the time of testing.” The first refers to the time very soon after the Exodus when the Israelites threatened revolt against Moses at Rephidim because there was no water there. The second refers to their arrival on the doorstep of the Promised Land when Moses sent in twelve men to spy out the land. The majority report was extremely negative and pessimistic, viewing the enemy as giants and themselves as grasshoppers. Only Caleb and Joshua were optimistic, not because they underestimated the power of the enemy but because they knew the power of God to be greater. But the people accepted the majority report and began to grumble against Moses and against God.
These two attitudes—rebellion and testing the Lord—characterized Israel during their entire wilderness experience. God Himself says in verse 10, “Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.” In fact, Numbers 14:22 records that ten times they disobeyed and tested God.
Israel’s tragic consequences. Listen to Num. 14, beginning in verse 26:
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron: “How long will this wicked community grumble against me? I have heard the complaints of these grumbling Israelites. So tell them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Lord, I will do to you the very things I heard you say: In this desert your bodies will fall‑‑every one of you twenty years old or more who was counted in the census and who has grumbled against me. Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun. As for your children that you said would be taken as plunder, I will bring them in to enjoy the land you have rejected. But you‑‑your bodies will fall in this desert. Your children will be shepherds here for forty years, suffering for your unfaithfulness, until the last of your bodies lies in the desert. For forty years‑‑one year for each of the forty days you explored the land‑‑you will suffer for your sins and know what it is like to have me against you.'”
Deut. 2:1 says it was just an 11‑day journey from Sinai to Kadesh Barnea, which lay at the very threshold of the Promised Land. But because of their unbelief the trip was going to last a generation, with only two grown men out of a nation of over 2 million counted as men of faith who deserved to enter the rest God had provided.
So far we have looked at Israel’s unique privileges, her ungodly response, and her tragic consequences. I would summarize our text this way:
Summary: God promised Israel a great “rest,” which wasn’t realized because of unbelief (3:19). The land of Canaan was all that God promised it to be. It literally flowed with milk and honey. The fruit gathered by the spies was so large and luscious that it took two men to carry a single cluster of grapes on a pole. What a change from their days of slavery in Egypt! What a glorious rest from their labors and sorrows! But that generation never realized the “rest” God offered.
The problem was not that the people weren’t religious, for they were. They were very religious about circumcision, the tabernacle, the feasts, the Levitic functions, etc. The ultimate problem wasn’t even their sinful behavior, though they were guilty enough of that. Rather it was unbelief; 3:19 says clearly, “So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.”
Now I want us to think about this matter of unbelief for a moment, for we too readily equate “unbelief” with the atheism and agnosticism we find in our culture. But is there is plenty of unbelief even in the church. In fact, a person can believe virtually every doctrine of the Christian church and still be guilty of unbelief, for the issue is not the intellectual acceptance of facts but the commitment of heart and life to those facts.
Look at 4:2: “For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith.” They heard the Gospel. They listened to the truth, and my suspicion is that many of them responded by saying, “I’ll buy that. I don’t have any argument with the existence of God, the fact of creation, or the Ten Commandments. It’s obviously a better set of beliefs than that of the polytheistic Egyptians we left behind or the pagan Canaanites who are now our neighbors.”
But the problem was that the message heard was of no value because those who listened did not combine it with faith. That is, they were unwilling to act upon the truth and entrust their lives to it. Ray Stedman has written,
“Truth known never does anything; it is truth done which sets us free. Truth known simply puffs us up in pride of knowledge. We can quote the Scriptures by the yard, can memorize it, can know the message of every book and know the whole Book from cover to cover, but truth known will never do anything for us. It is truth done, truth acted upon, that moves and delivers and changes.”[i]
In fact, when truth is known but is not combined with faith it inevitably leads to the hardening of the spiritual arteries.
So far we have seen a lesson in sacred history. But the biblical writer is never interested in history for history’s sake. There is a point in this recitation of Israel’s mistakes, and it is that we in the church must be careful not to make the same mistakes they made. So let’s look secondly at the author’s application.
An application to the Church
Christians enjoy even greater privileges than did ancient Israel. After all, we have a greater leader and we have a greater rest. Last Sunday we examined specific ways in which Jesus is greater than Moses. But our “rest” is greater too. The “rest” offered Israel was an earthly rest from Egypt and from their wanderings in a desert. They blew it, but even had they believed and entered that rest, it still wouldn’t have fulfilled the promise of a rest for the people of God. The rest offered them in the Promised Land was only a foreshadowing of an eternal rest offered to God’s people in the real Promised Land, Heaven.
That seems to be the point of chapter 4. Look at verse 1: “The promise of entering his rest still stands.” Well, there’s no Canaan for us to enter today, but there is God’s rest. Look at verse 3: “Now we who have believed enter that rest.” Verse 6: “It still remains that some will enter that rest.” And most importantly, verse 8: “For if Joshua had given them rest (and I have written in my Bible the words, “the real rest”), God would not have spoken later about another day.” Joshua did lead the Israelites into the Promised Land and into the rest that God had intended to give them 40 years earlier. But there remains another rest for the people of God.
This rest is compared to the rest that God took when he finished his creative work. If you think about that for a moment you realize that the key characteristic of God’s rest is that it was final. He didn’t rest on the seventh day and start working again on the 8th. He completed His work and then He rested. Likewise when we enter God’s rest we will rest from our own work, just as God did from His (4:10).
Actually there are two possible interpretations here. One is that the Sabbath‑rest will be enjoyed when we die, when our work is done and we enter God’s presence in Heaven. The other is that the Sabbath‑rest is enjoyed when we quit trying to work our way to heaven. In other words, the rest can be obtained now, but only if we are willing to completely rest in the finished work of Jesus Christ. Frankly, I’m inclined toward the latter in view of the frequent exhortations here to “enter that rest.”
An ungodly response is a danger for us too. Look at verse 12 of chapter 3: “See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.” I don’t think too much should be made of the fact that the recipients are addressed as “brothers.” The author of Hebrews is writing to a group that professes faith in Jesus Christ. Some of them are true Christians; others are mere professors; there may even be some wolves in sheep’s clothing. Just as I might address you this morning as “brothers and sisters in Christ,” while acknowledging that some may not be born again by faith in Jesus Christ, so also the author here, not knowing the heart of each person in the church, addresses them all and warns them all against the danger of an unbelieving heart.
Why should this be a problem in a church where the Gospel has been preached and virtually everyone has made a profession of faith? Because of the utter deceitfulness of sin. Look at that phrase in verse 13: “But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.” Sin is incredibly deceitful in that it causes us to rationalize our behavior; it causes us to minimize our guilt; it causes us to underestimate the consequences of our sin; it causes us to see God as our Enemy; it makes sin look attractive; and it makes commitment to Christ seem too costly, too demanding, too restrictive. You’ve heard the well‑known expression, “The same sun that melts the wax hardens the clay.” If your heart is not melted in faith, the deceitfulness of sin will harden it in unbelief.
We enjoy greater privileges than the ancient Israelites; an ungodly response is possible for us too. And third, if that is the path we take, . . .
An even more tragic consequence awaits us. Just as Christ is greater in glory than Moses, so the loss incurred in rejecting Christ is greater even than that incurred in rejecting Moses. The rebels in Moses’ day missed the promised blessing of entry into an earthly Canaan, but rebellion against Christ forfeits the greater blessings of eternal salvation. It’s bad enough to lose an earthly prize; to lose the heavenly prize is tragic beyond words.
The people to whom the author is writing were facing this possibility, for due to persecution and discouragement some were considering returning from Christianity to Judaism. That would be comparable to the action of the Israelites when they “turned back in their hearts unto Egypt.” But it would not be a mere return to a position previously occupied, but would constitute a break with God, for they would be sinning against the light.
May I offer a summary, then, of the author’s application to the church?
Summary: God has promised us a greater “rest,” but it can only be realized by obedient faith. Again and again in our text there are exhortations, both positive and negative, to avoid unbelief and to be obedient, for that is the only way we can enjoy the greater rest God has provided.
The urgency of the issue
There is an urgent tone to our text today. Have you noticed it?
Diligence is required. Several times the author makes statements like, “Take heed,” and “let us be careful,” but I’m particularly fascinated by verse 11 of chapter 4: “Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.” In view of the glory that is accessible to faith and the tragedy that follows upon unbelief, we are urged to make it our earnest endeavor to attain the eternal home of the people of God.
What is most interesting to me is that the exhortation to “make every effort” comes immediately after the observation that the one who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work. We observed that to enter God’s rest we must realize that our own works are worthless and that Jesus Christ has accomplished everything that needs to be done. Why then does he turn right around and exhort us to “make every effort” to enter that rest?
I believe we have here a paradox that appears frequently in Scripture, and it must be understood if we are to be balanced in our thinking. Rest is not equivalent to laziness. Faith is not exclusive of works. Our efforts will never save us, but diligent effort and care should be expended to make sure we are in the faith. As we saw last week, while God’s desire for the true believer is that he have both security and assurance, there is a grave danger of presumption and pretending. To begin well is good, but it is not enough; it is only those who stay the course and finish the race that have any hope of gaining the prize. There is no such thing as Christian cruise control.
The author goes on in verse 12 to tell us that the principal reason why such diligence is mandatory is that God is not to be trifled with; His word cannot be ignored with impunity. For God’s word, which fell on disobedient ears in the wilderness, is not like the word of man; it is like a surgical instrument diagnosing the condition of the human heart. Listen to verses 12 & 13:
“The word of God is living and active, sharper than any double‑edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”
The principal application of this text today, I believe, is to the written word of God. It is because I believe these verses that I have devoted by life to the study and preaching of God’s word. The reason I do not preach on the lives of great missionaries or pontificate on social issues or do book reviews or lecture on politics is that I believe the Word of God to be unique among all words. It is living, though written 2,000 years ago. It is active in that it shall never return empty but will accomplish that which God desires and achieve the purpose for which He sent it. It is sharper than the sharpest sword.
Just how sharp and effective is the Word of God? Sharp enough to divide entities that we cannot divide, like soul and spirit. It would be precarious to draw any conclusions from the author’s words about his views on human psychology or physiology. What he means is that the word of God probes the innermost recesses of our spiritual being and brings the subconscious motives to light.
We may conceal our inner being from our neighbors; we can hide our thoughts at church; we can even deceive ourselves. But nothing escapes the scrutiny of God; before Him everything lies exposed and powerless. And it is with Him, not with our fellow‑man or even our own conscience, that our final reckoning has to be made.
Finally, the second way in which our text indicates the urgency of the issue is through the repeated use of the word “today.”
The time is NOW. At least five times in our brief passage the word “today” is highlighted. God does not repeat himself without good reason, and I would like to suggest that now is the time to make sure that our trust is not in religion or works or self or anyone or anything else, but in Jesus. Someone has said that while Satan convinces some that there is no Heaven and others that there is no Hell, his greatest success is in convincing men that there is NO HURRY.
In 2 Cor. 6:2 the apostle Paul says, “I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.” There’s no time like now to get right with God; there’s no time like now to get serious about your relationship with Him. You may not have another chance. In his earlier ministry D. L. Moody often would end his message with, “Go home and think about what I’ve said.” One night in Chicago he told the people to do this and to come back the next night ready to make a decision. That night the Chicago fire broke out, and some who had been in his congregation died. That was the last time he told anyone to think over the claims of Christ and make a decision later. No one knows if he will have a tomorrow in which to decide.
I am not a high‑pressure salesman (I could never be because I despise high pressure so much myself). But the Word of God has a way of applying its own pressure and the Spirit of God has a way of bringing conviction that is overwhelming. You can resist it; if you wait it will probably pass, and it may never come again. To your own eternal loss.
Prayer: “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of Me. For I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls.”
Tags:
Unbelief
Consequences
Rest
Word of God
[i] Ray Stedman sermon, citation lost.