That is the fear that every person who follows Jesus should have: may I not drift from Jesus.
Instead, may I (verse 13) exhort my brothers, and be exhorted myself every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
For (verse 14) we have come to share in Christ if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.
As it is said, ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.’
Note: it’s quoted again. The second time. It’s quoted three times altogether in this passage.
It is such an important verse: ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts in the rebellion.’
So, that’s one thing: making sure we enter the rest and enter heaven by staying faithful to little Jesus.
This is when the famous definition of preaching comes. Verse 11: “Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.”
For (verse 12): “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”
When we come to church, we place ourselves under that sword. It’s a terrifying thing to do, and yet a necessary thing to do.
It’s like a surgeon who offers a weekly heart surgery, if somehow we could imagine that it was beneficial, not detrimental.
It is beneficial when it comes to the Holy Spirit’s work of piercing us with the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. It’s a good thing to come to church, therefore.
And as we said last week, once again, Christmas is the time where these things get squeezed out. Don’t squeeze them out.
