PERFECTION

PERDITION

OR

the reference to the `provocation' being introduced by the word `wherefore' and concluded by the warning:

`Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God' (Heb. 3:12),

and the conclusion in verse 14 balances the introduction of verse 6 thus:

A 6.

Whose house are we, IF we hold fast the confidence

and rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.

B 7-11.

Psalm 95 quoted `They shall not enter into

My rest'.

C 12,13.

Take heed. Heart of unbelief.

We are made partakers of Christ, IF we hold fast the

beginning of our confidence stedfast to the end.

Psalm 95 quoted `They should not enter into

His rest'.

So we see. Unbelief.

Psalm 95 is made much of in this passage, and calls for examination. The fourth book of the Psalms (see The

Companion Bible), commences with the Psalm of Moses, and corresponds with the fourth book of the law,

Numbers, the book of Israel's wandering in the wilderness. Psalm 90 refers to those of responsible years who had

rebelled against the Lord, declaring that their children had been led out of Egypt only to die in the wilderness.

Psalm 91 speaks of those very children who were preserved throughout the wilderness dangers and entered into the

land of promise under Joshua, when all those of the latter generation were dead.

`Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men' (Psa. 90:3).

While there may be a spiritual application of these words, they refer in the first place to Numbers 14:28-30:

`As truly as I live, saith the LORD, as ye have spoken in Mine ears, so will I do to you: your carcases shall fall in this

wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and

upward, which have murmured against Me, doubtless ye shall not come into the land, concerning which I sware

to make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun'.

Psalm 91, however, is the fulfilment of the succeeding promise of verses 31-34:

`But your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have

despised ... Your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years ... after the number of the days in which ye

searched the land ... and ye shall know My breach of promise'.

So in Psalm 90:9 we read:

`For all our days are passed away in Thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told'.

But in Psalm 91:7-16 we read:

`A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand: but it shall not come nigh thee ... with long life will

I satisfy him, and shew him My salvation'.

And so Psalm 95 takes up the story, and calls upon Israel to hear the voice of the Lord and not to harden their

hearts as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness. Let us remember that in Numbers 14,

where this great provoking is recorded, those who were thus doomed to wander and to die in the wilderness were A

PARDONED PEOPLE (Num. 14:20). Those who were warned about the evil heart of unbelief were `holy brethren'.

Hebrews is not dealing with the gospel of initial salvation; it deals with believers who, though delivered from their

spiritual Egypt, united with Christ as were Israel when they were `baptized into Moses', partaking of the blessings of

the wilderness provision `bread from heaven' yet, like those who were intimidated by the report of the ten spies, lost

their place in the land of promise. We observe in 1 Corinthians 10:1-5:

`That ALL ... were under the cloud, and ALL passed through the sea; and were ALL baptized unto Moses ... did ALL eat

the same spiritual meat; and did ALL drink of the same spiritual drink ... but with MANY of them God was not

well pleased'.