Throughout this letter the Pastor will pause from the main subjects to bring a warning to the people. This is the second time in the letter. This time the warning passage is quite long starting in verse 7 and continuing into chapter 4 v 13.
The Pastor is warning the people that they must listen to and obey the voice of God. He reminds them of the Wilderness story and the generation that never entered the Promised Land.
“That is why I was angry with that generation; I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.’ 11 So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’ (Hebrews 3 v 10-11)
The Pastor highlights the response from God that His people did not know His ways.
A way is not just a thought, or a perceived attitude about something, it is how one lives their life.
It is the customs, institutions and achievements of a particular nation, people or group, it is called culture.
Is it possible to know the ways of God? Is it possible to truly know God? To know His culture?
Moses was around 81-82 years old when he asked God for something new? His task was to lead 10s of 1000s out of a country – these people were dysfunctional generationally. It was a hard task but the result would be wonderful. What does he pray? Was it, “Oh God help me, bless me, anoint me, appoint me, prosper me, help me, deliver me, fill me, reach me”?
Exodus 33 v13 Moses asked, “Teach me your ways.” Moses is asking God to show him His culture. I need to understand your culture, your ways, absorb your character into my character.
But at times God’s ways can be very strange. Looking back we can see why but at the time that is a hard difficult way to walk. But that’s the Bible and the story of God isn’t it?
At some point God is going to send a situation to you that will make you feel He is your enemy and not your friend. You will not recognise the hand of God. You are going to have to struggle and behind that struggle is God. It may not feel like God, the testing and provocation may feel like hell but through the struggle you will learn the ways of God.
Just ask Jacob who struggled with God and forever walked with a limp.
Just ask the Canaanite woman with the daughter who needed freedom and who declared, “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” (Matt 15:27)
What had she understood even in the place of rejection? It was this: ‘even Gentiles are included not just the Jew’.
She got it. She understood what the disciples didn’t. That even as an outcast if she persevered she would get a crumb. And one crumb from the masters table is all she needed.
The tests of God are never easy.
To have no hope, no prospects, be impatient, to lose strength; to become powerless, to have little success and yet not accuse God of any wrongdoing could be the point of the test. God does no wrong.
Just ask Job. “I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” (42:2)
Just look at the cross!
The more we walk with what we know of God the more we will know His ways. The less rebellious we are the less we will stumble. It takes a lifetime and more to fully know the ways of God.
Maybe you don’t fully understand what God is doing or asking of you. You might not fully grasp the meaning but all you know is you need to surrender all and that is what you do.
The Pastor is reminding the people that to enter in (and we will discover what he is meaning about ‘rest’) then we will go through a season of testing as the Moses generation did and it is so that we might know the ways of God.
Missions Paul 
Nobody ever said the narrow path was easy it comes with challenges
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