The Failure of the X(odus) Generation
Don't Stop Now!
A study of the NT book of Hebrews
by Pastor Frank Rice
Hebrews 3:7-19
We’ve developed categories into which we tend to put people. These often describe certain features or events which characterize the times in which people live. We talk about boomers, busters, the X generation and other categories. The Bible presents an X (exodus) generation, those who experienced the mighty acts of God when He delivered His people out of Egypt. The author of Hebrews uses this generation to motivate his people to keep moving toward their God-provided Messiah. He depicts the drastic consequences of stopping short of full faith in Messiah!
I. There Are Always Negative Examples to Avoid (Vv. 7-11)!
v The Holy Spirit is the One from which this exhortation derives!
1. His listeners are reminded of one of Israel’s most lamentable moments in their recorded history. The catastrophic events of Numbers 13:1-14:45 are summarized in Psalm 95:7-11. Every Jew was very familiar with the fiasco at Kadesh-Barnea!
2. The Psalm also reflects on an era of Israel’s history, a period of time in which their behavior was deplorable! (BTW, they were not kicked out of the land, they never got in!)
v The historical record refers to a day of infamy when Israel said “no” to God after they’d seen & experienced God’s mighty acts!
1. He decimated, devastated, and destroyed their captor nation of Egypt! He’d fought against the gods of Egypt and won!
2. He’d delivered His people and miraculously provided for them as they exited their prison house inEgypt! He led them, fed them, and tenderly cared for them!
3. After all of this, when given the opportunity to enter the good land that He had so graciously promised, they refused to believe He could do what He said He would do!
4. Rebellion may be understood as an arrogant disregard for God.
v The historical record refers to a period of time when the nation of Israel paid dearly for their refusal to believe God.
1. They continually tested Him and tried His patience for forty years. They hardened their hearts against Him. They made stupid choices and blamed God for the dire consequences!
2. The hardening of the heart by testing and trying God describes the decision at Kadesh-Barnea and the forty-year wandering was the direct result of that ill-fated choice.
3. God displayed His anger because of their deliberate refusal to walk in His ways and to listen to His voice. So He made an oath that they would never enter the rest He offered them!
II. There Are Always Warnings to Heed (Vv. 12-15)!
v His listeners are warned against replicating this attitude!
1. No one is impervious to the same attitude that characterized the X generation (which became the wilderness generation)!
2. It is rooted in a spiteful heart that refuses to take God at His word, blames Him for the results, and turns its back on Him! The evil heart is characterized and controlled by unbelief, a refusal to take God at His word which in essence is to call God a liar!
v His listeners are exhorted to exhort each other to avoid this fate!
1. Their exhortation to trust God must be done directly and daily in order to be effective.
2. Without this continual exhortation there is every possibility that the difficulties of life and the deceitfulness of sin will harden the hearts of their friends.
v His listeners who have placed their confidence in Messiah have become partakers of Him!
1. Those who have taken hold of Messiah will endure. (This may refer to the end of their lives or the coming of Messiah.)
2. Those who’ve not yet placed their confidence in Him must do so while they can still hear His voice, lest the time come when they can no longer hear it!
III. There Are Always Consequences for Disbelief (Vv. 16-19)!
v A few rhetorical questions (w/ provocative replies) should help motivate those who are still undecided (vv. 16-18).
1. Every one of the exodus generation whom Moses led out of Egypt was guilty of rebelling! (Overstatement for effect?)
2. Every one of them endured the penalty for disbelief with the wilderness generation! Their sin incurred God’s anger and they dropped dead in the desert. Those who were from twenty years old and up were held responsible for that decision (Numb14:29).
3. Every one of those who refused to believe and obey was guaranteed the forfeiture of entry into His land of promise!
4. “The ‘unbelief’ of the wilderness generation reached breaking point when they refused to enter the land at Kadesh-Barnea. By this act they categorically denied the adequacy of God’s power and the validity of His future but imminent promise to give them the ‘rest’ for which they had left Egypt. Unbelief springs from the heart but becomes real in the concrete act of refusal to trust God.” (Cockerill)
v Only one conclusion remains; since belief leads to obedience, those who would not believe could not enter! It’s that simple!
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” (John 3:16-18)
“He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” (John 3:36)
The fate of the faithless is guaranteed and it’s not pleasant!
“No amount of pious religious practice can avail for those who reject God’s Son.” (Cockerill)
God is serious about the consequences of faith and unfaith!