The Warning

 DEVOTION

TO HEBREWS

THE  WARNING

Heb 12:14-17

14 Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. 15 See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. 16 See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. 17 Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. He could bring about no change of mind, though he sought the blessing with tears.

NIV

We cannot ignore the warning about seeing that no one, which would include us, is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau. The Greek renders this as “lest there be any fornicators or lawless people as Esau”. This Greek word pornos, translated here as sexually immoral, directly means male prostitute. We can easily see the English word pornography, which today includes everything that is completely sexually immoral. We would think this would not be seen in the church, yet there is this warning. Because it is associated with the godlessness of Esau who sold his birthright for food, or to satisfy his body's hunger, and as we know later in life, he married many wives, some of who were not Hebrews. His life was more about Idolatry, than sexual immorality. The point here is the warning of turning away from God for the physical pleasures of this world. As people of God, people of faith, those of us who accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, would not turn to the pleasures of this world, and lose our inheritance of eternal life. However, the question remains as if we are trying in some way to be in both, the body of Christ, and in this world. Are we trying to serve God and serve ourselves at the same time? Are we just living in this world, doing all the things of the world, but not the sexual immorality, but simply the pleasures of wanting as much of things we can get, being lustful for stuff, enjoying all the pleasures of materialism, which in some way is idolatry, and then add Jesus to our lives? This would look more like just going to church on Sunday and leaving church on Sunday to return to our worldly materialistic life, living like Esau did. That certainly seems to be the warning we need to be on guard against. The extreme warning is about not being able to change the mind of God, if we are not sold out to him, and him alone. It goes right to those words of Jesus about not serving two masters, God or materialism. We cannot have one foot in the kingdom, and one foot in the world, or have dual citizenship. Our inheritance is only in Jesus, and thus we need to be sold out to a life of faith, a life of trusting God. It is not that we will miss out on the stuff, for God told us if we seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, he will add the stuff to our lives that we need, or like the pagans run after. Let us heed this warning.