Now consider these people. They saw a multitude of things - miracles - done by God through His servant Moses and on occasion, through Aaron. They experienced the water in Egypt turning to blood. They experienced the hopping frogs all over the place. They experienced that eerie, penetrating, darkness that pervaded all of the land. They experienced then the division between Goshen and Egypt; and they were spared from the plagues that came upon Egypt. They knew that there was something working in their lives, did they not? Did they not see it occurring when the bugs were all over Egypt; but the bugs were not in the land of Goshen? Did they not experience it when the hail fell and it burned on the ground, burning up all the wood in Egypt - yet it did not happen in Goshen? Did they not experience on the Passover night when the firstborn of Egypt were killed, but the firstborn of Israel, because the blood was on the doorposts and the lintel, were not killed? Did they not see that?
Did they not spoil the Egyptians? Did they not go out? Did not God part the Red Sea right before their eyes; and all the Egyptian army died there? Did not they spend 40 years when God day after day gave them manna from heaven? Did they not see the water coming like a river out of solid rock? Did they not see quail being blown toward them - practically hip-high on the ground - so that they had all the meat that they could possibly eat?
They saw the glory of God descending on Mt. Sinai. They felt the earth shake under their feet. They saw the mountain of fire. They saw the glory of God come down on the tabernacle after it was built. Yet every single one of them, except for two men and their families, perished.
Is seeing believing?
Now, what about you? You are here. You are associating with God's true church. Are you a part of it? Do you really see it? Do you see what is happening in the life of this work? Can you examine things of the past and project that out to our future?
Is seeing believing? These people never saw God in those works. What they physically saw did not produce spiritual faith which enables one to see God, because (as these two verses show) there has to be a voluntary response by the one given the ability to see.
The Christian has the responsibility of responding to God's calling by acts of faith. The apostle is reminding these people of the deadly seriousness of their situation. God's calling is not indiscriminately mimeographed for all who might chance to see or read. Your calling is a personal invitation. It has been addressed to you! The warning is that, since ancient Israel did not enter into God's rest, someone else will, because God will carry through with His purpose. The Christian, therefore, ought not to think that there is automatic acceptance.
Living by Faith
We need to very seriously consider Israel in the wilderness. They heard the message; but they did not respond. If you read the preceding chapters in the book of Hebrews, you will find that their failure to respond is variously called hardness of heart, unbelief, or disobedience. Even though each one of these is distinctively different, they are all in this context synonyms of one another.
Now, why did this occur? Because Israel kept wanting to go back to Egypt. They were looking at all of the events through Egyptian-trained eyes - minds.
We see what we want to see. We see what we expect to see. We see what we are educated to see.
Brethren, we have to live on the basis of the words of promise. Hebrews 11:13 says these all died in faith. The heroes of faith all died in faith not having received the promises but having seen them afar off. And they rejoiced in them. You see, they believed what they saw. They identified themselves and God with it. It was this ability to see that gave them direction to their lives and set them apart from the rest of mankind.
. . .
I think that lays it out pretty clearly here.
We have Christ as our example of being faithful; and then we have the man Moses who is also faithful. We can look at both examples. They are wonderful examples. But Moses led the people into the wilderness to bring them into the Promised Land, a type of our journey to the Kingdom of God. And these people heard the gospel, as we see in chapter 4, verses 1 and 2 there. They heard the gospel, but they did not mix it with faith. They did not believe the gospel that was preached to them. They did not believe the truth of what God was doing with them.
And so what did they do? They rebelled, they disobeyed. And God said, Ok, if this is the way you're going to be, you're all going to die in the wilderness. So He destroyed them and they did not enter His rest. Paul tells us, let us take a look at this example and learn something from it. And the thing we need to learn from it is that we have heard the gospel, we have to mix it with faith, that is, we have to take what we have heard, be faithful, and obey God. Do the things that He wants us to do, in fear that we will not make it, so that we will make it. And be diligent about it! Have some zeal!
That is what He wants us to do. Take what we have learned, and what we continue to learn, mix it with faith, that is, trust and confidence in God that He can get you where He needs you to be and where you want to be, which is the Kingdom of God. Trust Him that the instructions that He gives you in the Bible are apt for your situation. What you need to do, how you need to be, what your attitude needs to be, and do it, obey it, follow it.
And you know what that is going to do? That is going to land you in His rest. The Promised Land is yours. God will not destroy you in the wilderness. The Kingdom is open to you. Hear the gospel, add some faith, follow the instructions, enter His rest. Sounds easy, does it not? We know it is not. But that is the formula. Hear, faith, follow, firstfruits. Simple to say; hard to do. But that is the general formula.
Let us finish in Hebrews 4 and get the conclusion that Paul came up with when he made these statements about the ones dying in the wilderness and their bones being strewn about the desert. And so he has a conclusion for us.
We could do it. We can enter that rest. We can go forward without falling into that same example because God is with us.
