It is important that the New Testament describes Jesus as faithful. He is called a merciful and faithful High Priest. He fulfills that role, finally and ultimately, in the service of God to make expiation for the sins of the people, as Hebrews 2:17 tells us. Jesus Christ is faithful in Moses' role. He surpasses and fulfills the faithfulness and loyalty of Moses in building and ruling the house of God - the household of God, the church of God.
The children of Israel continually tested God's faithfulness and loyalty, and always God was faithful to His covenant; and He was loyal to those who were loyal to Him. But they suffered from a human trait that comes out of rebellion, and that human trait is unbelief. Unbelief is faithlessness, and part of faith is loyalty. Therefore, disloyalty equates to unbelief.
Regarding Hebrews 3:6, the servant owns nothing, is heir to nothing, has no authority and no right to control anything; and he is himself wholly at the will of another. A son, however, is the heir of all, has a prospective right to all, and is looked up to by all with respect. The idea here is not merely that Christ is a Son. It is that, as a Son, He is placed over the whole arrangement of the household and is One to whom all is entrusted - as if it were His own.
We are part of God the Father and Jesus Christ's Family. That is where we belong. We belong to the Family over which Christ is placed, under God the Father. Jesus Christ is the consummation of God's determined loyalty to His gracious covenant-relationship with His people. Christ is faithful and loyal to the Father, and the Father to Him. We have the wonderful opportunity to be part of this faithful and loyal Family. The training grounds for it is here and now - in our own households, and in the household of God.
Loyalty means enduring commitment to a person over a long period of time - often with the implication of the commitment persisting in the face of obstacles. We certainly see the obstacles in members of God's church - in sickness, from principalities, from others, and from our own human nature. Loyalty means enduring commitment to a person over a long period of time - often with the implication of the commitment persisting in the face of obstacles that threaten the lasting commitment.
Let me ask you this question, and let it ring in your ears as I let it ring in mind: How loyal are you? (How loyal am I?)
Let us go to Hebrews the third chapter and see how the author there describes what happened. Notice the context here. He had just been talking about how Moses was faithful in all his house. But Jesus was the Son and He did everything that God told Him to do.
All of these things are connected together - hearing and rebelling if they fail to hear. And of course, as we see in verse 17 after their rebellion and their sin, they died. But it all started with a lack of hearing. They did not listen. Their bodies, then, were strewn all through the wilderness. And if we are correct about how many people there were, you know, let us say 2-3, 4 million people who were following Moses in the wilderness. There were scores of burials every day for all of the Israelites who came out of Egypt to perish before they came to the River Jordan.
Do the math. It is astounding! Take however many people, divided by the time of 40 years, and how many people would have to be buried during that time. It is incredible to think of. Maybe each tribe had a team of rotating grave diggers. But they would have to, I think it is like 70 or 80 burials a day that they would have to do. So literally, their bodies were strewn across the wilderness. You wanted to find out where the Israelites had been, just look for the graves.
But think, if they had truly listened, if they would have taken in what God had given them, if they really would have heard and understood what God said they should do, they would have lived. They would have lived well because they would be fulfilling their part in the covenant and God would have blessed them. He always comes through. Hey, if you do your part, God is always going to come through and give you the blessings that you need. But they did not get that far, they did not fulfill the terms of the covenant, even in the simple thing of listening, and so they died. They did not get the blessings, they got the curses.
Now, Deuteronomy 4 reveals some of the benefits of listening to God. They are scattered throughout the chapter, the part that we read, and we will go through these one by one. I have three. Three benefits of listening to God.
Jesus Christ is the epitome of loyalty and faithfulness. It is important that the New Testament describes Jesus as faithful. He is called a merciful high priest and He fulfills the role finally and ultimately in the service of God to make expiation for the sins of the people, as Hebrews 2: 17 tells us. Jesus Christ is faithful in Moses role. He surpasses and fulfills the faithfulness and loyalty of Moses in building and ruling the Household of God and the Church of God. Here in Hebrews 3:1-13 we will read.
We are in danger of being depersonalized, of having our hearts hardened - that is what depersonalization is.
Unbelief is faithlessness, and part of faith is loyalty therefore disloyalty equates to unbelief, to faithlessness. Of course it is loyalty to God and Jesus Christ first, and then to our brethren, as long we are following God and doing what He says in His inspired holy written word.
The servant owns nothing, is heir to nothing, has no authority and no right to control anything and is Himself holy at the will of another. A son, however, is the heir of all, has a perspective right to all and is looked up to by all with respect - that is if he is a good son, or righteous son.
The idea is not merely that Christ is a son; it is that as a son, He is placed over the whole arrangements of the household and is one to whom all is entrusted as if it were His own. We are part of God the Father and Jesus Christ's family. It is where we belong. We belong to the family over which Christ has been placed as the Firstborn Son.
Jesus Christ is the consummation of God's determined loyalty to His gracious covenant relationship with His people, and Christ is faithful and loyal to the Father and the Father to Him, and we have the wonderful opportunity to be part of this faithful and loyal family. The training ground for it is here and now, in our own households, and in the household of God.
We, of course, cannot literally hear the sound of His voice, but we can hear what He says and does in quite a number of ways.
A beautiful example that I think that we can all relate to is one that David used in Psalm 19 where he said that the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handiwork. He goes on to say that each day and each night utters speech and knowledge of God, and its sound is heard throughout the world. This is a poetic way of saying that the creation voices the knowledge of God to us.
We sing the hymn, God Speaks to Us and, by His great power we're led. We hear His voice speaking to us in the written word, in the preaching of His truth by His ministers, in the events of His providence, and sometimes in our own conscience.
In each of these aspects, when His truth is involved, His word is personally speaking to us. And He expects His children to hear - to listen with understanding - and to apply it today, RIGHT NOW, in the present! Don't put it off until tomorrow! That's the kind of attitude that He wants in His children.
Now here in Hebrews 3, this context is written in much the same sense of Psalm 19 of the creation. And even as the creation continuously witnesses for God each day across the face of the whole earth, Christ's voice speaks to His church throughout the ages wherever they happen to be. He does not want His children to put off repentance until tomorrow! How do we even know that we will be around tomorrow? We will act with alacrity if we appreciate the power. And I don't mean cringing terror, but in reverence, in appreciation of the fact that God intended us to use it - His word, His voice - to enhance and give life.
But there is still yet something else missing! Let's reread verses 12 and 13 in Hebrews 3:
The author of Hebrews here (Paul, in my estimation) does a masterful job in summarizing the wilderness experience of the children of Israel - all those who came out of Egypt. He has nothing positive to say about them. Not one word. His description of them - the whole generation - is about rebellion, testing and provoking God, going astray, doing evil, being unbelieving, having hard hearts, being deceitful, sinful, disobedient.
In what is essentially an epitaph on an entire generation of Israelites, Paul concludes that they were denied entrance into the Promised Land because they never believed God and that led to their disobedience. They simply did not take His Word as anything of value. So they did not believe it, did not put any stock into it, and did their own thing.
What we see, the end of it all was, as it says here in the New King James, their corpses fell in the wilderness. This is a particularly effective and picturesque illustration, that their corpses fell in the wilderness.
The King James makes it a little bit more macabre. It says it is their carcasses [that] fell in the wilderness. The Phillips version reads that they left their bones in the desert.
The Amplified Bible reads, whose dead bodies were scattered in the wilderness. The Good News Bible (we are getting a little bit more into paraphrases here) reads, who fell down dead in the desert. And, finally, the Message says that they ended up corpses in the wilderness.
The result of all their sin and their rebellion and their provoking God is that they left their rotting carcasses from one end of the wilderness to the other. Every single one of them died. Paul says, Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? All! Every. Single. One.
The children of Israel continually tested God's faithfulness and loyalty. And God was always faithful to His covenant and He was loyal to those who were loyal to Him. But they suffered from the human trait that comes out of rebellion. That is, unbelief. Unbelief is faithlessness, which prevents loyalty.
There are two main categories of biblical descriptions of loyalty - human and godly. On a human level, loyalty is a prime virtue without which human relationships become undependable and the fabric of society loses its stability, which is what we are seeing today in our nation and around the world.
When Abimelech wished to reach an agreement with Abraham, he appealed to their mutual loyalty as the basis for their agreement. Abraham's servant, in the quest to find a wife for Isaac, made a similar appeal for loyal dealing with Rebecca's family. And then Jacob, in his request to Joseph that he be buried in Canaan rather than Egypt, also made an appeal for loyal dealing.
In all of these instances, loyalty is regarded as the ultimate court of appeal for people to act with integrity and personal dealings. Ruth is a shining example of loyalty, and her relationship with her mother-in-law combines friendship and family ties. Her loyalty is unforgettably expressed in,
