In many ways, the journey of God’s people from Egypt to Canaan serves as a pattern and a picture of the Christian life. As Israel moved to its rest in the promised land, so the church moves toward its rest in heaven; and as they experienced temptation and declension in the wilderness, so do we.
The pressure surrounding God’s people in the wilderness was such that they were constantly looking back to Egypt—much to God’s displeasure. The writer to the Hebrews therefore warns us (borrowing the words of Psalm 95) not to do as they did: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion” (Heb. 3:7–8). We don’t want to look back, let alone go back, to Egypt; instead, we want to look forward and follow the example of those who have proceeded “firm to the end” (v. 14).
With this goal in view, Hebrews 3 offers us three directives. As we put each into practice, they will help us to keep moving toward the promised land and prevent us from turning our eyes back to Egypt.
“Consider Jesus”
First of all, Hebrews 3 directs us to “consider Jesus” (v. 1). Such consideration is more than a casual glance at Christ, an infrequent or careless hour or two a week given over to the things of God. In Puritan language, it means “centering down”—bringing all of life and thinking to bear on this one end. In the words of golf coach Harvey Penick, it is to “take dead aim.”1
This is the same word that Jesus used when He told His disciples to “consider” the ravens and lilies (Luke 12:24, 27). He was saying to them, “I want you to look carefully, apply your mind to this, in such a way that, in understanding the significance of what is being taught, it may become a life-transforming principle for you.” In the same way, the writer to the Hebrews is urging the readers, and us, to fix our gaze on Christ, allowing the sight of Him to revolutionize everything else.
Consideration is more than a casual glance at Christ, an infrequent or careless hour or two a week given over to the things of God.
This is a practice with a number of benefits. We will gain great confidence as we remember the Lord’s faithfulness. We will remember our purpose and direction in life. We will be spared from the need to compare ourselves to others, knowing that it is before our own Lord that we stand or fall (Rom. 14:4). It will cure us of discouragement in the face of worldly disappointments as we remember the heavenly promises with joy.
To consider Jesus is to consider one who is to us an Apostle and a High Priest (Heb. 3:1). As Apostle, He represents God to us, and as High Priest, He represents us to God. He speaks from God to His people, and He represents His people to God. As the hymn writer puts it,
Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea,
A Great High Priest whose name is Love,
Who ever lives and pleads for me.2
Take Care of Your Heart
In the wilderness, as Psalm 95 reminds us, the people hardened their hearts. In biblical language, the heart is the moral center of our being, the place where the issues of life are addressed. So the question of our heart’s orientation is essential.
It may be easy for us today to look at the wilderness wanderers and say, “My, my! Weren’t these people really dreadful?” But when we think realistically about ourselves, we have to admit that there’s a fair chance we would have been numbered among the hard-hearted rather than with the few who had faith. So Hebrews warns us, “Take care , brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God” (v. 12).
There’s a fair chance we would have been numbered among the hard-hearted rather than with the few who had faith. So Hebrews warns us, “Take care.”
A heart of unbelief is what prevented the generation in the wilderness from entering into the land of promise (v. 19). As their hearts increasingly hardened, they were increasingly unbelieving. And their unbelief was an indication of their disobedience. There are direct connections between the deaf ear, the hard heart, and the wandering life. Someone who professes faith in Jesus Christ while wandering from the track of obedience has a hard heart and a deaf ear and, without repentance, will fall away rather than staying firm to the end. Willful disobedience and Christian assurance never go hand in hand.
The great danger, then, is presumption and complacency. So the word to us is “Take care.” In other words, we’re to make sure, to pay careful attention, to jump to it—and not, through inattention, to fail to listen to God’s words—both of comfort and of warning.
Exhort One Another
Hebrews 3 finally directs us to “exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today’” (v. 13). It’s sometimes said that the devil’s favorite word is tomorrow. By contrast, the Christian is called to obedience today—in this instance, in embracing the responsibility we share for one another. We are “holy brothers” and sisters, made a family together in Christ through the “heavenly calling” we share (v. 1). It is only sensible, then, that we would watch out for and encourage one another.
This kind of concern for others doesn’t mean nosiness or interference. Rather, it involves thoughtfulness, care, and the recognition that no one lives to himself or dies to himself (Rom. 14:7). Our lives, we might say, are like coals in a fireplace. If you get the tongs, take one piece of coal, and lay it on the hearth, it will quickly begin to lose its heat and fade out. But if you take a piece of coal that has been isolated from all the others, dead and dark, and put it into the midst of the heat, it will light up again and mingle with the flame.
Our relationships with each other should be marked by a care and comfort that strengthens, so that when a crisis emerges, we’re able to hold firmly to the end.
Our relationships with each other should be marked by a care and comfort that strengthens, so that when a crisis emerges, we’re able to hold firmly to the end. As sin approaches us, exaggerating its appeal, exaggerating the satisfaction that it has to offer, we need to beware lest we are blinded by its attractive glow. We need to beware lest we close our minds to the reality of God’s retribution. And we need to be thankful that God has put others around us so that we might “consider,” in relationship to each other’s lives, “how to stir up one another to love and good works” (Heb. 10:24).
These are not matters of marginal importance. When we make the effort to consider Jesus, mind our hearts, and encourage each other, our hearts will be prevented from hardening, and many will be fortified to stay firm to the end and enter into the promise. It is by these means that we will avoid the fate of the wilderness wanderers. As one commentator has written of this generation, “What a long, long line of graves—the saddest in the world! They came out of the bondage of Egypt under faithful Moses … but they fell as corpses in the wilderness!”3 If we wish to avoid their fate, we would do well to embrace the helps offered to us by God’s hand, in God’s very Word.
This article was adapted from the sermon “Holding Firmly to the End — Part One” and “Holding Firmly to the End — Part Two” by Alistair Begg.
Harvey Penick, Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book: Lessons and Teachings from a Lifetime in Golf (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2012), 45–46. ↩︎
Charitie Lees Bancroft, “Before the Throne of God Above” (1863). ↩︎
R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Epistle of James, Commentary on the New Testament (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1961), 123. ↩︎
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