After all, it would sound awful if you only had a record of giving $5.00!
But, you see, if all we are going to give for is to impress our fellow church members, forget it! It’s going to be nothing but wood, hay and stubble! It will go up in a puff of smoke! If we give to whatever it is, our church or anything else, and we are doing it to bring God the glory, then yes, it will be gold, silver and precious stones! BUT to give God glory means that God is doing it and is in it NOT us. Everything is based on motivation! And His direction anything else is of no worth, He has given His all from creation on. Even the air we breath He gave to us that we might live even though separated from Him by sin and physical death. Then He gave us His son that through our being identified as IN Him on the cross there dieing in death to sin and the spirit of the world. There crushing the head of the serpent, the spirit of the world and the prince of the power of the air. Then in His resurrection and ascension we are reunited to Him and now in His likeness. The great mystery hid in God from before the foundation of the world.
Same way with any other good works that we can do. Why are we doing it? What’s our purpose? And, if our purpose is honorable in bringing glory to the Lord, it is gold, silver and precious stones. but here again He has to be the originator of it. If the only reason we are doing it is to impress somebody else, it’s nothing but wood, hay and stubble! But, maybe it will save us some sweat or tears knowing that there is no use doing something if we are only going to do it to impress others. This was the bases of the Aaronic priesthood an external or materialism based priesthood of works as there was no room in it for redemption which brings salvation. But only condemnation and death by that condemnation, or guilt and its shame. As in all religions and religious cults, the priests have a secret, or many secrets held from the parishioners and many of those requiring mans sufficiency of doing this or that in a form of works.
We're now under Grace as the building of which we are a part. It counts for nothing unless we are first and foremost based on the salvation around Christ’s death, burial, resurrection and ascension. Our confession is as it should be, we saw some time ago, then as verse 6 makes it so plain:
Hebrews 3:6 "But Christ as a son (or THE Son, the Preeminent One) over his own house; (that He’s building for eternity) whose house are we, (Now, we know that a lot of people like to take a verse like this and say IF we hang on. Well, we don’t think Paul ever uses that kind of language to impart that thinking, that IF we hang on and IF we have done enough. Rather it is a word of warning not to take these things flippantly. These things are graphic. They are important, but we are not going to lose our eternal salvation if we do not measure up to how we are building in this Spiritual house. Nevertheless, we have this admonition that) if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end."
The next verses are dealing with that gross time of unbelief in the life of Israel when they failed to go in and take the Promised Land. Scripture refers to it over and over and it is a constant reminder for us today, that there is nothing that God detests more than unbelief! Unbelief! It is awful and we don’t want us to leave this lesson without realizing that it is the worst possible offense against God.
We can bring it into the life of everyone. We have used the example more than once. If we know that we are saying something that is absolute truth. And there is not a hint of anything false about what we have said, how would we feel if somebody would come up and say to our face, "I don’t believe a word of it? You are lying!" Just think for a moment. How would you feel if anybody, we don’t care who it is, after we have said something that we know is absolute truth with no hint of error - doesn’t have to be spiritual, it could be anything. A witness to a car wreck at an intersection. Or it can be anything else that you can think of and you KNOW that you have spoken is truth. How would you feel if someone would just come up and call you a liar? If you are human, it’s going to make you almost mad enough to do something drastic! Isn’t that right? Of course it is! Because nobody wants their honor impugned in that way.
Think! When the God of Glory, the God of Creation, the God Who knows nothing BUT Truth has said something in His Word and puny men come along and say, "I don’t believe it." Do you think God’s going to take that lightly? We know that His Grace is greater than all sin, don’t get us wrong. But, this whole idea of the rest of this chapter is to impress on us how God detests unbelief! Let’s go back and read Hebrews chapter 3, verse 7 on down.
Hebrews 3:7-10a "Wherefore ( as the Holy Ghost (Spirit) says, Today if you will hear His voice, (If we are going to hear what God says, what is He going to expect? He expects us to believe it! So here is the warning.) Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation (testing) in the wilderness: When your fathers (remember, Paul is addressing Hebrews, so he’s going back to Israel coming out of the land of Egypt around Sinai and getting ready for the Promised Land. So when your fathers tested) tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation,..."
Now, let’s go back to see what the Apostle is talking about. Go to Exodus chapter 23 and we're going to assume that most of us have got a pretty good handle on Israel coming out of Egypt under Moses and Aaron. How they went straight to Mt. Sinai. There at Mt. Sinai God gave Moses the Ten Commandments and the Levitical Law. Gave him all the instructions for building that beautiful little tabernacle out there in the desert, gold like we wouldn’t believe! And then, after they had received the instructions and had built the tabernacle they are ready to head up to the Promised Land.
Here is a shocking thought! From Sinai to Kadesh-Barnea which was the border of the Promised Land was eleven days. Eleven days. How long did it take Israel to get there? Forty years and eleven days! They had a forty year detour. Why? Unbelief! Isn’t that sad? Just because of their unbelief instead of getting in and enjoying it after eleven days, they had to wait forty years in wanderings of unbelief.
Well, here it goes, Exodus chapter 23 verse 20. The Lord is speaking to Moses. This is back when they are encamped around Sinai and in chapter 25. He is going to give the instructions for building the tabernacle, so this is just shortly before they begin the work. God is already telling them what is waiting for them!
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