e the
authoritative voice of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle is reminded by the
words which he has just used, "We are God's house," of the Psalmist's
joyful exclamation, "He is our God, and we are the people of His
pasture, and the sheep of His hand."[43] Then follows in the Psalm a
warning, which the Apostle considers it equally necessary to address to
the Hebrew Christians: "To-day, if indeed you still hear His voice (for
it is possible He may no longer speak), harden not your hearts, as you
did in Meribah, rightly called,--the place of contention. Your fathers,
far from trusting Me when I put them to the test, turned upon Me and put
Me to the test, and that although they saw My works during forty years."
Forty years,--ominous number! The readers would at once call to mind
that forty years within a little had now passed since their Lord had
gone through the heavens to the right hand of the Father. What if, after
all, the old belief proves true that He returns to judgment after
waiting for precisely the same period for which He had patiently endured
their fathers' unbelief in the wilderness! God is still living, and He
is the same God. He Who sware in His wrath that the fathers should not
enter into the rest of Canaan is the same in His anger, the same in His
mercy. Exhort one another. In the wilderness God dealt with individuals.
He does so still. See that there be no evil heart, which is unbelief, in
_any one_ of you at any time while the call, "To-day!" is sounded in
your ears. For sin weakens the sense of individual guilt, and thus
deceives men by hardening their hearts.[44] All that came out of Egypt
provoked God to anger. But they provoked Him, not in the mass, but one
by one, and one by one, with palsied limbs,[45] they fell in the
wilderness, as men fall exhausted on the march. Thus, for their
persistent unbelief, God sware they should not enter into His
rest--"His," for He kept the key still in His own hand. But persistent
unbelief made them incapable of entering. If God were still willing to
cut off for them the waters of Jordan, they _could_ not[46] enter in
because of unbelief.

3. Similarly, the promises of God are still in force. Indeed, the
steadfastness of the threatenings involves the continuance of the
promises, and the rejection of the promises ensures the fulfilment of
every threatening. As much as this is expressed in the opening words of
chap. iv.: "A promise being left to us, let us therefore fear."