Hebrews 2:2 Therefore, we must pay attention all the more to what we have heard, so that we will not drift away them. 2 For if the message spoken through angels was legally binding, and every transgression and disobedience received a just punishment, 3 how will we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? This salvation had its beginning when it was spoken of by the Lord, and it was confirmed to us by those who heard him.

Hebrews 3:7Wherefore, even as the Holy Spirit saith,To-day if ye shall hear his voice, 8Harden not your hearts, as in the rebellion, Like as in the day of the trial in the wilderness, 9Where your fathers tried me by proving me, And saw my works forty years. 10Wherefore I was displeased with this generation, And said, They do always err in their heart: But they did not know my ways; 11 As I swore in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest. 12Take heed, brethren, so there will be in none of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God: 13but exhort one another day by day, so long as it is called To-day; lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin: 14for we are become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm unto the end: 15while it is said, To-day if ye shall hear his voice, Harden not your hearts, as in the rebellion.

4:11Let us therefore give diligence to enter into that rest, that no man fall after the same example of disobedience. 12For the word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart.

One of the things to observe about these warnings, is that each of them deploys a form of a ratcheting up argument. If this, then how much more that. Here the argument is we must pay more careful attention. That is, more careful attention than was demanded under the terms of the old covenant. Verse 2: “For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?”

Numbers 20 records some of their rebellion, it is all through the wilderness wanderings.

They kept testing God, they kept wandering away. They rebelled, not only at these specific places, Meribah and Massah, but with the reference to the whole 40 years.

He says to them, don’t be like your own heritage because God is so wonderful. He’s good. He’s holy, but he does hold people to account. “So today, if only you would hear his voice, do not harden your hearts because God may say to you what he then said in principle to them, ‘I declare it on oath in my anger, they shall never enter my rest.’

You have a very similar sort of argument theologically speaking in 1 Corinthians, 10, where the author (Paul) focuses on the failure of the ancient Israelites to persevere to the end.
12Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. Hebrews,11:8 Abraham persevered to the end, believing that ultimately there is an ultimate city. He received the promises of God and pressed on in perseverance even though he really didn’t own any of the land except the cave of Machpelah that he bought in order to bury his wife.

The lesson is clearly an exhortation to persevere.

Hebrews 3:14. “We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold firmly till the end our original conviction.” It’s almost a definition of what genuine saving faith looks like.

“We have come to share in Christ, if we hold firmly till the end our original conviction.”

Mark 4, Matthew 13. Jesus describes seeds that fall on different kinds of ground.

Then Jesus explains it for us. “These are the ones,” he says, “who immediately receive the word with joy.” They’re the ones who seem to be most joyfully and quickly and wonderfully converted. They receive the word with joy, but afterwards a little later when trial or persecution comes or the like, well they are gone.

There is such a thing as a kind of superficial conversion. It’s not uncommon in both testaments where people have made some kind of profession and maybe seem to be the most promising of the crop precisely because there’s lots of joy around them and enthusiasm and speed. But how do you find out whether or not it’s real? You find out by watching to see if they stay with it.

“Because eternal life, by definition, sticks or it’s not eternal life. What that means is that you have to have a slightly more sophisticated theology of conversion in the first place. It’s not just that you’ve gone forward or signed a pledge.

John was saved when he was 7, Well, he was on his fourth wife, but she’s left him now. He’s a drunk. But you know, I believe, ‘Once saved, always saved.’ Don’t you, Pastor?”

Yes and no. The “yes” bit is if you really are saved and have eternal life, yes, because it is eternal life, it is eternal life. Once saved, always saved. Of course. But that doesn’t mean that just because a person has made a profession of faith that it necessarily is eternal life.

Initially this was a great convert, but where’s the perseverance?

I know this is complicated because sometimes it’s hard to discern between temporary backsliding and somebody who was never actually converted with the kind of grace that perseveres. I know that. It’s also complicated because sometimes that initial profession of faith is part of the ambiguity of youth, when people are still sorting out what is genuinely theirs and what they’ve merely inherited from the family.

Nevertheless, there are passages that warn about this sort of defection,

1 John 2:19: “They went out from us, in order that it might be made clear that they were not of us. Indeed, if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that they were not of us.”

This is not a rare theme in the New Testament. The reason why we find it so hard to accept it, I suspect, is because we have a kind of instant approach to all conversion.

I have no doubt that in the mind of God a person is either converted or not, but as we observe things down here, if might be a little more difficult to discern who is genuinely converted and who is not.

Colossians 1:21: “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death …”

They’re talking about conversion. Once you were this, but now God has reconciled you. “… to present you holy in his sight without blemish and free from accusation if you continue in your faith established and firm and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel.

I’d be the first to acknowledge that if we do persevere to the end it’s because God is at work within us.

Philippians,2:12 “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” Because it’s actually God working in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. That doesn’t diminish our responsibility to persevere.

It grounds it in grace, gives us confidence that God is working in us both to will and to do his good pleasure but persevere we must. Let no one presume on the grace of God.

“I made a profession of faith. I can live like the world and the flesh and the Devil and there are no consequences.” Yes, there are. The consequence is as Jesus himself taught, “By their fruit you shall know them.” There is no genuinely converted Christian who does not bring forth good fruit! None! So despite the ups and downs we have, our failures, our temporary defections, there is a distinction to be made between a Judas and a Peter.

Both began well. Both were accepted as part of the apostolic band. But of one it is written, “It would’ve been better if he had not been born.” Of the other it is written, “I have prayed for you that your faith fail not. Peter, feed my sheep.” Here the author of the epistle of the Hebrews uses the example of the Israelites as reflected upon by the psalmist in order to warn against falling away, a kind of falling away that actually has people being saved from but not into.

As people might be saved today from certain bad habits, bad works, bad associations, bad lifestyle, but somehow not into the consummated kingdom. It can happen. Conversion is
complicated, but where a person is genuinely converted, hear the Word of the Lord, “We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold firmly till the end our original conviction.”

“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried me and for forty years saw what I did.’ So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They will never enter my rest.’ ”

“Encourage one another daily, as long as it is still Today so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness

That’s a very important verse in understanding the theology of Hebrews. It is saying, in effect, that genuine conversion depends on perseverance. That is to say, those who are genuinely converted do persevere, by definition.

We have come to share in Christ if we hold to the very end the confidence we had at first.” That’s the way it is. The proof, in other words, of the genuineness is precisely in the perseverance. Ritual alone does not prove Salvation, it takes a change in real life.

Zechariah 7:2. God is not concerned about fasting, He desires obedience to His

The theme of Zechariah 7 is true worship as opposed to ritual. As 1 Samuel 16:7 says, “Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart,” reiterating the same principle. God has always defined true worship as something that is from the heart, not a routine, not a performance. And that is precisely the message that this chapter.

7;7Should ye not hear the words which Jehovah cried by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity,

“Now the town of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regemmelech and their men to pray before the Lord and to speak unto the priests who were in the house of the Lord of hosts and to t he prophets saying, ‘Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself as I have done these so many years.

There’s a great danger that they’ll fall back into a pattern that they fell back into in the past. And as it turned out, they fell back into it again. And that is that once they restored their temple and once they restored their patterns of worship, they would substitute the form for the reality. And so comes the Word of God to them.

‘Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself as I have done these so many years?’ ”

A. Is our religion for us or for God?

They faithfully fasted on certain days, thinking those were the “proper” days, did they do so primarily as an act of devotion to God, or out of some self-centered motivation of wanting to feel good about themselves (7:5–7)?

B. How much of the religious practice was offered to God? How much of ours is?

Does our religion elevate ritual above morality?

(7:8–12). Zechariah is asking if their concern for liturgical uniformity is matched by a passionate commitment to “show mercy and compassion to one another,” and to abominate the oppression of the weak and helpless in society (7:9–10). “In your hearts do not think evil of each other” (7:10). Zechariah asks us precisely the same questions.

C. Does our religion prompt us passionately to follow God’s words, or to pursue our own religious agendas?

“When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen” (7:13), the Lord Almighty announces. Passionate intensity about the details of religion, including liturgical reformation, is worse than useless if it is not accompanied by a holy life.

In true God honoring, Word based religion, nothing, is more important than whole-hearted and unqualified obedience to the words of God.