16 Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? 17 And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert? 18 And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? 19 So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief. (NIV)
Once again turning to the idea of Hebrew believers who turned away, the author of Hebrews recalls one of the most blatant rebellions against God in Scripture. The emphasis here is that rebellion against God condemns. It’s a general picture, really: this happened in the past to God’s own people at the foot of Mount Sinai and still can happen. They had all the marvelous miracles. They had the manna. But their carcasses fell like wild animals in the wilderness. Some of them might have repented (Aaron and Miriam and Moses himself, for example), but they didn’t get where God told them they would get to, because of unbelief and doubt.
Now, you are on a journey, too. The writer urges us: Learn from the mistakes of the past and encourage one another. Put your faith in Christ alone and let anything else fall to the side of the road.
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. His wife, Kathryn, attended Chapel from 1987-1990 while studying Secondary Education (Theater and Math) at UW-Madison. Kathryn’s father, John Meyer, was also the first man to serve as a Vicar at Chapel.
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