DON'T REPEAT THE MISTAKES OF THE PAST

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

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 wilderness, where your ancestors tested and tried Me, though for forty years they saw what I did. That is why I was angry with that generation; 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 and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.

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 perished in the wilderness? 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.

Hebrews 3:7-12

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

When Jesus walked the earth, bringing God’s salvation plan to life, He knew He wasn’t going to be with His disciples long. His Father knew this as well and in His infinite wisdom and perfect planning, He had devised a way for His Son to communicate with His followers, long after He ascended into Heaven to assume His place of supremacy and authority over all creation. This devised way was through the amazing nature of the divine Holy Spirit, the Counselor Jesus spoke of in the Gospel of John:

“All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” John 14:25-27

From the moment He called each of the disciples to follow Him, they had been dependent and reliant on their Master. They went where He went, did as He instructed, and bore witness to His remarkable, amazing power. So you can see where they how could have been in a total state of anxiety and fear, knowing that soon He would be leaving them.

This is why Jesus worked to speak peace into their lives, just as He does to ours today. Yes, He was departing earth until that day His Father would appoint for Him to return but He wasn’t leaving His followers like sheep without a Shepherd. He was still very much going to be present in their lives, dictating what He wanted them to do but it would be by way of the Holy Spirit rather than being with them in person.

Later in this same Gospel, Jesus had more to say on this matter.

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take what is Mine and declare it to you.” John 16:12-14

Here we find Jesus shedding more clarity on the role of the coming Holy Spirit, the Spirit the disciples would receive on the day of Pentecost. Note that the Spirit didn’t have autonomy on how it communicated with Christians. Rather, He would only repeat the things that Jesus spoke to Him. In doing so, the Holy Spirit would glorify Jesus, taking His words and declaring them to His believers.

Now, given all this, we need to remember that the Holy Spirit is always seeking to speak to us because Jesus never stops communicating with His followers. The problem is that we, His followers, aren’t always great at listening to what Jesus is saying through the Spirit.

I think I am on perfect ground to say we all can (and need) to do better in this area, refusing to lean on our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5-6).

As we see in today’s passage and our continued study of Hebrews 3, the writer sees the matter of acknowledging and hearing the Holy Spirit as a problem in first century A.D. Look again at his words again here as he writes to the Jewish Christians:

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 wilderness, where your ancestors tested and tried Me, though for forty years they saw what I did. That is why I was angry with that generation; 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 and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.  Vv. 7-12

The gist of this message is crystal clear as it comes from Jesus who speaks through the Holy Spirit, who in turn passes it to the author of this letter to share:

“Don’t repeat the mistakes of the past!”

The past Jesus is referring to here is the prior actions of the readers’ ancestors, the ancient Israelite people. Rescued by God from the clutches of Pharaoh and Egypt and set on a path to a wonderful land set aside for them to inhabit, the Israelites looked past the promises God had made and instead rebelled against Him during the time of their testing in the wilderness. Instead of accepting the testing of God and seeking to pass through faith and trust in Him, they instead tested and tried the Almighty Maker and Master of all things, first for forty days and then for forty more years as they endured God’s punishment for their disobedience and lack of faith displayed when He tried to bring them into Canaan the first time.

This story would have been fresh in the hearts and minds of the Jewish Christians and so Jesus implored them to respond to His voice with acceptance and trust, refusing to allow their hearts to be hardened to a place where they turn away and reject “the living God”.

Today, Jesus speaks to our hearts as well and asks us to reflect on how well we receive His words of guidance and direction, spoken through the Holy Spirit.

Are we always seeking to listen so to hear His voice, gladly receiving it when it comes and responding in obedience to His instruction and direction?

Or are we like the Old Testament Israelites, only trusting in the Lord as long as everything is going the way we want it to go but rebelling against Him when we are tested within the trials sure to come in this life?

Only you can answer these questions in regard to what you are doing but I pray that you are honoring the only One who could bring you salvation, Jesus who sits in utter authority over all things in Heaven and on earth, with your fullest attention and willingness to receive His words and act upon them accordingly.

To do otherwise would simply be repeating the mistakes of the past that we see ranged all the way back to Old Testament times

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.