Hebrews 3:7-19
Hearing God's voice demands immediate faith and obedience, because persistent unbelief hardens the heart and forfeits entrance into God's rest.
7 Therefore, even as the Holy Spirit says, “Today if you will hear his voice,
8 don’t harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, like as in the day of the trial in the wilderness,
9 where your fathers tested me and tried me, and saw my deeds for forty years.
10 Therefore I was displeased with that generation, and said, ‘They always err in their heart, but they didn’t know my ways.’
11 As I swore in my wrath, ‘They will not enter into my rest.’ ”
12 Beware, brothers, lest perhaps there might be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God;
13 but exhort one another day by day, so long as it is called “today”, lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
14 For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence firm to the end,
15 while it is said, “Today if you will hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts, as in the rebellion.”
16 For who, when they heard, rebelled? Wasn’t it all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses?
17 With whom was he displeased forty years? Wasn’t it with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?
18 To whom did he swear that they wouldn’t enter into his rest, but to those who were disobedient?
19 We see that they weren’t able to enter in because of unbelief.
Hearing God's voice demands immediate faith and obedience, because persistent unbelief hardens the heart and forfeits entrance into God's rest.
To warn against hardening the heart in unbelief by using Israel's wilderness rebellion as a solemn example.
Consider Jesus, the Faithful Son Over God's House
Because Jesus is the faithful Son over God's house, his people must consider him carefully, hold firmly to their confidence, and resist the hardening deceitfulness of unbelief.