https://youtu.be/zU--rXvJmGg

“Will You Profit from Others Experience?”

“Learn from the Mistakes of Others. You Can’t Live Long Enough to Make Them All Yourself”

Quote from Eleanor Roosevelt

WE can learn from the mistakes of others or we can learn from making our own mistakes; regardless what is important is not where we learn but whether we learn at all. Ask most younger siblings- they learned what to do and what not do based on how their older siblings were encouraged and disciplined.

Hebrews 3:7-19 New King James Version (NKJV)

7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you will hear His voice, 8 Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, In the day of trial in the wilderness, 9 Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, And saw My works forty years. 10 Therefore I was angry with that generation, And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, And they have not known My ways.’ 11 So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’ ” 12 Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; 13 but [a]exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, 15 while it is said: “Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” 16 For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? 17 Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? 19 So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.

The Holy Spirit says- Along with other NT writers, the writer of Hebrews regards Scripture in the ultimate and truest sense as the words of the Holy Spirit rather than the words of a mere human.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 New King James Version (NKJV)

16 All Scripture is given by inspiration (breathed) of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for [a]instruction in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

When we read the Bible, we should not think we are reading merely the opinions of Matthew, Paul, Peter, John; we are reading the very words of the Holy Spirit revealing who God is, the nature of His salvation and what His will is for the church and for our lives.

Today if you will hear His voice- the writer refers to the disobedience of Israel in the wilderness after their exodus from Egypt as a warning for believers under the new covenant. The Hebrew believers would know only all too well the tragedy of the Exodus generation.

Psalm 95:7-11 New King James Version (NKJV)

7 For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture, And the sheep [a]of His hand. Today, if you will hear His voice: 8 “Do not harden your hearts, as in the [b]rebellion, As in the day of [c]trial in the wilderness, 9 When your fathers tested Me; They tried Me, though they saw My work.10 For forty years I was [d]grieved with that generation, And said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts, And they do not know My ways.’ 11 So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’ ”

Because of Israel’s unbelief in the promises of God, their constant disobedience, failure to resist sin and hardness of heart, they were barred from entering the promised land. Likewise, the Spirit says,