Hebrews 3:1-19

Knowledge and revelation that come to us from God is a blessed but dangerous thing.  It truly is a blessing to know what God requires of us and the fact that He has revealed Himself to us through His Word is a blessing for which we should be forever grateful.  However, it is also a very dangerous thing in that our failure to respond properly to His revelation brings upon us severe judgment.  Privileges always come with responsibilities.  The children of Israel were give revelation and experiences with God that were far superior to any of the other nations of that day.  However, their unfaithfulness resulted in suffering that, to this day, continues to exceed that of other nations.  Here are a few tips from the author of Hebrews that should help us be faithful to revelation with which we have been blessed.
RECOGNIZE THE SUPERIORITY OF CHRIST: One of the problems that the Jews to whom this letter was originally written had was the fact that they were enamored with the great men of the past.  The high priest in the days of Aaron and the great leaders like Moses were their heroes.  They had heard the stories of the past and wanted to have similar experiences.  The problem with this was that they had already received revelation far superior to that of Moses, Aaron or any other man.  They had received the revelation of Jesus Christ.  He is the ultimate revelation of God to man.  Any time we lose sight of the supremacy of Christ, we are risking grave consequences for our failure to be faithful to the complete revelation with which we have been blessed.  Men of the past or the present may impress us and be helpful to us in many ways, but no man past present or future may ever compete with Christ and His rightful place as Savior and Lord of our lives.
REMEMBER THE DANGER OF DISBELIEF: There are grave consequences to disbelief and disobedience, especially for those who have been given special revelation.  We must never allow our hearts to grow cold or indifferent to the revelation of Christ in our lives.  A hard heart to the revelation of God is a very dangerous thing.  Any doubts we might have about that should be quickly erased as soon as we read about the millions of people who died in the desert because they did not believe the Lord and disobeyed His commands.  God has miraculously freed them from Egypt, He had delivered them from enemies, opened the Red Sea, fed them with manna and quenched their thirst with water from a rock.  God spoke to them from the mountain and revealed His will to them through the Law and Moses.  They experienced God and His presence in a way that no other nation had ever had.  Yet, they still did not believe in the difficult times and doubted the power of God to take them to the Promised Land.  The result of their unbelief is that that entire generation died over next 40 years as they wandered in the wilderness.  The scary thing for us is that we have been given in the person of Christ, the presence of the Spirit and the power of God’s Word a revelation far superior to anything the children ever had.  We must be very careful and protect our hearts from the danger of disbelief.
REALIZE THE IMPORTANCE OF ENOURAGEMENT: One of the greatest protections from disbelief and disobedience that we have available to us is the encouragement of other believers.  We need one another to help us appreciate God’s Word and to show us when we are failing to obey the Lord.  Disbelief and disobedience are bound up in our hearts and it is very easy for us to allow our hearts to lead us down the path of hardheartedness.  We need the correction and counseling of other brothers and sisters in Christ who will show us the error of our way and help us return to the path of submission and obedience.  We need to be open to the encouragement of other people and we need to be faithful encouragers of the people around us.  If we are going to be faithful to the Lord we need to be faithful to serve, correct, encourage and love one another.  The Christian life is not meant to be lived in isolation.  God calls us to become part of a body that serves and loves one another that together we might effectively trust, obey, worship and glorify God.

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