Take Heed Today: A Meditation on Hebrews 3 for the Season of Pentecost

Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you

an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.

But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today;

lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

For we are made partakers of Christ,

if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end;

While it is said, Today if ye will hear his voice,

harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.

For some, when they had heard, did provoke:

howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses.

But with whom was he grieved forty years?

was it not with them that had sinned,

whose carcasses fell in the wilderness?

And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest,

but to them that believed not?

So we see that they could not enter in

 because of unbelief.

 

The writer to the Hebrews made a strong point in chapter three of his epistle, that faith is the foundation of the covenant of God with His people in every age.  Just as those who believed the Word of God given by Moses lived through the Exodus from slavery in Egypt by grace through faith, so do those who believe the Word of God in Jesus Christ.  And since Jesus is God and not merely a servant of God as Moses was, Jesus could accomplish the greater Exodus of leading His people out of slavery to sin and death through His Cross and Resurrection.  What Moses foreshadowed Jesus fulfilled, knowing that while the tyranny of Pharoah in ancient Egypt was a terrible but passing enemy of God’s people in this world, the devil’s tyranny was so much worse, leading to misery and death in both this world and the world to come.  It was Jesus who led Moses through the waters of the Red Sea, to Mt. Sinai, and to the Promised Land so many centuries before, and it was Jesus who would lead His people through Baptism, Mt. Calvary, and the glories of Easter into His Eternal Kingdom.

 

And as God does not change from age to age, so the principles of His saving Covenant do not change.  The people of God sitting in bondage to their Egyptian slave drivers were not forced to leave their prison, but called by God unto their salvation by His Word.  He sent them Moses to affirm the even older Abrahamic covenant, one traced back through Noah and the great Flood to the Proto-evangel spoken to Adam and Eve after the Fall.  Those who sat in darkness and despair saw the Light of Christ come to them by His Word preached, with the miracles God’s Word performed through Moses attesting to His work of their salvation.  His Word called them out of darkness and into His saving fellowship, and while many believed and followed Him toward the Promised Land, many others lost their faith along the way, falling dead in the wilderness before they reached Canaan.  The faith by which they received grace to escape their Egyptian slavery was the same faith which secured the grace of their final destination, as Moses, Joshua, and the later Prophets would make clear.  What God worked out among the ancient Hebrews was an allegory written across centuries of human history awaiting its completion in Jesus Christ:  our salvation from sin, death, hell, and the power of the devil, both begins and ends by grace through faith in the Eternal Word of God.

 

Thus the writer to the Hebrews cautions his readers to beware an evil heart of unbelief.  There is no enemy of God’s people more devastating or debilitating than one’s own heart, tempted so easily toward riches, power, lust, and violence.  From within ourselves echo the devil’s oldest and most treacherous lies, the prideful desire to become our own gods, with the inescapable consequence that we become condemned slaves forever.  That evil heart is what Jesus came to renew by His Word and Spirit, to wash in Holy Baptism, and to feed with His Holy Supper.  Jesus knew that while the abominations of the ancient Egyptians, or the Philistines, or the Assyrians, or the Babylonians, or the Greeks, or the Romans, or any other wicked earthly power to come could do physical damage to His people in this world, the much greater threat was their own fallen hearts and minds which drew all people into the tyranny of the devil and the bondage of hell.  It was against this enemy that the Cross of Christ was fundamentally aimed, that His Word and Spirit might always pierce to the depths of our unbelief, and raise us up as new creations, forgiven and free in Him forever.

 

That walk for us through this world is no different than it was for the people who followed Moses 1500 years before Jesus, or the people who followed Jesus during the first century.  The walk of faith, trusting in God’s Word and being enlivened by His Spirit as we pass from death to eternal life, is a personal eternity composed of individual days.  Today, the Word calls to us just as it did in every day back to the beginning of time, offering us the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation by grace through faith in Him.  But the Word of yesterday, today, and eternity, rings for us only Today, because only Today—in the present moment—do we have the opportunity to respond in faith to Him.  Yesterday is written for our edification and our warning, and Tomorrow has not yet been fully revealed, but Today is the day the Lord has made and given to us that we might rejoice in it through faith in Him.  Today, the Word of God calls to us in whatever station and circumstance of life we might find ourselves, and Today He calls us to turn from our unbelief, to leave the evil echoes of a fallen world and fallen heart behind, and to cling by faith to His Promise that all who trust in Him receive His gracious gifts without end.

 

We cannot change Yesterday, nor can we know what has not been revealed about Tomorrow.  But by the wonderous and mysterious love of Almighty God, we have been given Today.  Today, hear Him call to you that your darkness might be enlightened and your sins washed away.  Today, hear Him call you out of hellish and destructive paths, that His Word might be a lamp unto your feet and light unto your way.  Today, hear Him call into your heart of unbelief, and be transformed by the renewing of your mind into the mind of Christ.  Do not fear either Yesterday nor Tomorrow, for the Lord God Almighty has come to you Today, and Today He called you to eternal life by grace through faith in Jesus.  Hear Him, and walk with Him, Today.  Amen.