IT TOOK THEM FORTY YEARS TO MAKE A JOURNEY OF ONLY ELEVEN DAYS, AND THEIR CARCASSES FELL IN THE WILDERNESS.
“Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: ‘Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tested Me, proved Me, and saw My works forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, and said, ‘they always go astray in their heart, and they have not known My ways.’ So I swore in My wrath, ‘they shall not enter My rest.’”
The Christian life begins with a new birth from above. We are said to be born of God and as such as children of God the moment we are saved. As in the natural, so in the spiritual—we are born “infants.” We are not to remain “babes” forever, we are to grow up and develop into mature, spiritual manhood. However, sad though it be, many of God’s children seem to be stunted and suffering from arrested development. They are children in the family of God, but make little progress—remaining perpetual infants. In most cases it is a feeding problem, failure to feed upon the sincere milk of the word. We would say it kindly yet firmly, that the average believer knows tragically little about the Bible. Ignorance of the Scriptures is appalled among many Christians who have been saved for years. As a result they are weak and anemic and fall easy prey to temptation, false doctrine and error, in both faith and practice. This was the situation among the Hebrew Christians to whom the Book of Hebrews was addressed. They had stopped short in their spiritual development and growth, and whereas they should have been teachers they had need that they be taught again the very ABC’s of the oracles of God, and were able to take only milk, baby food, and not solid food (Hebrews 5:12).
The cause lay in the fact that they had neglected the word of this great salvation (Hebrews 2:3) first spoken by the Lord, and then recorded by them that heard Him (Hebrews 1:1). It is safe to say that all those who stumble and creep along in their perpetual infancy and underdevelopment do so from one primary cause—neglect of Bible study. This is why Christians do not grow. You tell me how much time you spend with your Bible, and I will accurately mark your report card of Christian progress. It was to correct this neglect that Hebrews was written. The message is: Go on, go on till the crown is won, go on to maturity. Neglect to do so will not go unpunished. Failure to obey Christ will result in the chastening of the Lord, and loss of reward at the end of the journey.
In the case of the history of the children of Israel—this is familiar ground for these Hebrew Christians who were fully acquainted with their nation’s history, as recorded in the Old Testament. So they are pointed to the experience of the nation, as a warning against halting short of the abundant life. God always keeps His word. See Hebrews 3:7-11 again.
We see that the message is to God’s people, saved and redeemed and delivered, and because of this they are warned in the words quoted in Hebrews three,
…today if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts … (Hebrews 3:7,8).
Are you a “hardened” Christian? If so you must deal with sin and not harden your heart—refuse to go down that road. It is evidently possible, yes; it is an ever-present danger, that believers, born-again children of God, can harden their hearts against God. We talk about hardened sinners, but here we have hardened saints. Living in disobedience to God’s will, and continuing to ignore God’s warnings and pleadings results in a benumbing of their sensitivity toward Him. They become callous to His tender pleadings until at last it brings them to a place where “it is impossible to renew them again to repentance” and God can only deal with them in chastening and judgment at the Judgment Seat of Christ where it will be burned out, and they shall be saved, yet so as by fire.
Do you remember how convicted you were when, after you were saved, you were faced with the need of giving up some sin or habit? You knew that things had no place in your new-found life, and you were miserable in your defeat and disobedience? But as time went on, the conviction seemed to become stifled, you began to find excuses, and today the very thing which once causes you such a feeling of guilt and conviction is condoned and excused without a twinge of conscience. Do you know what has happened? You have hardened your heart, and right there is the reason why you have not grown spiritually, and you know nothing of victory. Yes, I believe you are saved, but you are losing out terribly in forfeited blessing and reward.
Do not make Israel’s mistake and follow down the road of disobedience. If you know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior ask Him to give you a hunger for His Word and then move forward and begin to grow toward maturity in the matters of the Lord. Become partakers of the full blessing and victory which God has in store for every believer who will be obedient to His will. Don’t just be saved and never reach spiritual maturity. Go on to victory! Be steadfast unto the end or your race.
How far, Christian friend, have you walked since the day of your conversion? Some of you have been saved for twenty, thirty, forty years and are no nearer to Canaan and victory than you were then. Make the test for yourself. Ask yourself, have I the joy I first knew at the beginning? Do I love the study of God’s Word more today than a year ago? Do I pray as much as I used to, and have I had any recent answers to prayer? Do I witness as I did when I was in my first love? If your honest answer must be “No, I can see little progress in my Christian,” then you cannot come to the place of victory, and the possession of the abundant life. Have you become cold, critical, cynical and sour, instead of mellowing and sweetening with the passage of the years of your Christian experience? Then you are wandering in the wilderness and will come to the end without ever knowing the full peace of God, and will stand ashamed and empty-handed before Him in that day.
Remember, due to sin and disobedience, it took the children of Israel forty years to make a journey of only eleven days, and their carcasses fell in the wilderness. What a terrible shame! To make sure you show up at the Judgment Seat of Christ with victory to find rest and peace you never knew before—honestly judge everything in your life which cannot bear the examination of your Savior, confess it and forsake it.
