Heb No.8 God's Rest 4v1-11

study this evening and you'll doubtless have your Bibles open at Hebrews and the fourth chapter. Now I was so presumptuous as on Sunday evening to take a little passage of what we've been looking at last week and hold it up before our evening congregation so that they would be mindful of some of these studies from Hebrews and perhaps excited to come along. And in doing that, in selecting a little passage from this fourth chapter, I was also able to set the scene of what is to follow tonight.

But bearing in mind last Sunday evening's message, in which we were speaking about that missing ingredient, that faith to which reference is made in the second verse, which must be employed as people listen to the Word of God to make it effective. As we bear this in mind, let me spend just a moment or two longer bringing back to your attention the context for the third and the fourth chapters. You remember how our writer has been referring to the Hebrews, those ancient people of God, who should have followed God's ordinances, and they were pushing their way through the Sinai Peninsula, a journey that was to take them some 40-odd years and should hardly have taken them that number of days.

The reason for their unsuccessful venture, the reason behind them going round in revolving circles, was simply because of their disobedience, their unbelief. You remember how in the old-fashioned words of the Authorized Version, as you read it in the Exodus, you find the description of that bunch of folk as being a game-saying and a disobedient people, a game-saying and a disobedient people. And because of their constant unbelief and rebellion against God, it wasn't something that happened once or twice, but it was always in evidence throughout those 40 years God determined that they would never enter into the promised land of Canaan.

It was a terrible thing, a tragic situation, that one could have looked into Sinai itself and found thousands and thousands of graves marking the spot where Hebrew people had died, failing to enter into the fullness of God's blessing, failing to inherit the promised land because of rebellion, because of unbelief, because of a hankering after Egypt. Now, the reason for that historical excursion in the third chapter of Hebrews was not simply to remind the readers of this epistle of the folly of Hebrew people of yesteryear, but rather it was to bring the salutary point to their attention that what people did yesterday, they might do today. The sins of the past may be reproduced in the modern era, not just the time when this writer penned the epistle, but even down to the 20th century, because as I indicated in my prayer, the Word of God is contemporary.

And the mistakes contained within the Word of God are contemporary in as much as what people did wrong last century and centuries ago, they're still doing wrong today. So it's with that salutary thought in mind that what we read here is applicable to us in the 20th century, let alone at the time of the writing of this epistle, that we approach this fourth chapter with the picture in our minds of those ancient graves in Sinai, a testimony to a gainsaying and a disbelieving people. Now there are one or two things also that you need to have in mind as you come to this fourth chapter.

And I mentioned these or the first one specifically for those who are here on the first study of Hebrews as far as they're concerned. This whole book is taken up with the concept of the superiority of Jesus. Jesus is supreme.

He's greater than the patriarchs. He's greater than the angels. He's greater than Moses.

He's greater than Joshua. There's no one in history who dwarfed the Lord Jesus. He stands out as the Everest in the Himalayas.

And everyone else is cut down to size when compared with the Lord Jesus. And you will discover in this fourth chapter, after our writers made reference to Moses and to the patriarchs and to the angels, that now he's going to talk about Joshua. There'll only be a fleeting reference to Joshua, but he will show that Jesus, who in so many ways was typified by Joshua, is greater than Joshua, having a much superior attainment than Joshua managed to achieve.

So the thought of superiority will come out in these eleven or so verses. And there's something else that needs to be cleared up, though I make reference to it in the notes, and you may have read it already. And that is, in the AV, where in the eighth verse you find a reference to Jesus, you must read that as Joshua.

Sometimes people fail to make sense of Hebrews chapter four, simply because they don't appreciate that when Jesus is used as a name in the eighth verse, actually the reference is to Joshua. Now why should there be such a use of the name Jesus when the Old Testament character of Joshua is referred to? Well, the reason is quite simple. In Hebrew, the word for Jesus is Yeshua, which also happens to mean salvation.

In Greek, the word for our Lord is Iesus, and Yeshua in Hebrew and Iesus in Greek mean exactly the same. So Joshua in the Old Testament bears the same name as Jesus does in the New Testament. There's not a mistake made by the translators of the AV, but it would have been more helpful, I think, for those who are not so well instructed in original languages, had they used the word Joshua in the eighth verse, and we would have realized that it was to that remarkable man in the Old Testament that our writer was referring to.

The third thing that I want to say before we actually dig into these eleven or so verses is that on several occasions you'll find reference made to a rather wonderful term, the rest of God, the rest of God. As I say, on three or four different occasions this term is employed, and you have to have in mind, as I shall extend upon this comment in a moment or so, that when God created the heavens and the earth, on the seventh day, the Bible said he rested. And that rest that is attributed to the Lord God in the book of Genesis really typifies the full blessings of salvation that you and I who trust Jesus as Lord are destined to inherit.

We're not here forever, praise God. We shan't be in a world that knows all the problems that there are in this particular era. We are strangers.

We're pilgrims. We're moving through this world. We're moving through the boundaries of this world in terms of space and time to a new world.

We're moving through to a new era, an eternal era. And when the writer of Hebrews makes reference to eternity and all that lies beyond for the Christian, he has this wonderful concept that the Christian person shall enter into the rest of God. The blessings, the tranquility, the freedom from tension, and all those concepts that one associates with the blessedness of heaven, to that you and I are moving.

God rests and we are progressing through this world to our inheritance of the fullness of eternal life, which is depicted in this chapter in terms of sharing the rest of God. Well, I think having made those three observations, God willing, you should be clear now and ready to start our investigation of these verses, which so often create problems for ordinary folks as they're reading through the Bible and they just can't really understand what the writer of Hebrews is saying in this fourth chapter. So let's have a look at these introductory verses.

Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. For we also have had the gospel preached to us just as they did, but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith. What's our writer doing in these two verses? He's doing what any reasonable preacher will do.

He's used an illustration and he's rubbing it home. He's still got in mind those graves in Sinai. He's still got at the forefront of his thinking the failure and the tragedy of the ancient Hebrews to enter into the blessings that God had in store for them in Palestine.

And he has more than a grim suspicion at the back of his mind that the mess they made of things might be reproduced amongst the Hebrew community to whom he directs this letter. So, the injunction at the beginning, therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful, and he associates himself rather tenderly with this sentiment, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. You see, it's possible for people to have been thoroughly evangelized and to have received the message clearly in their mind and yet to be outside of the purposes of God.

Look at that incredible statement in the second verse. We also have had the gospel preached to us just as they did. You say, but the gospel is something that was proclaimed by Jesus.

How can he use that term to describe the experience of Hebrews that lived thousands of years before the advent of Jesus? Well, for this reason, there is only one gospel. The gospel in the Old Testament predicts what is going to be more clearly set forth in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, it's the gospel of promise.

It's the gospel pointing to the advent of Jesus. It's the gospel that speaks of a merciful and a holy God who, at some stage in the future, will move into time and space and make an atonement for the sins of believing mankind. And folks who will acknowledge that, even before the advent of Jesus, will be saved because of the death of Jesus.

Calvary is prospective, it looks forward, and it's retrospective, it looks backward. There will not be a man or a woman in heaven who will be there apart from the shed blood of Jesus. Adam, Moses, David, all the Old Testament writers will be in heaven because of the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

There's only one gospel. The Old Testament anticipates it. The New Testament declares it in full.

And when Moses comes along, and I gave you references last week and on Sunday evening for you to check in Exodus and numbers, when Moses comes along with his brother Aaron and preaches, he preaches what is in essence the gospel. But the people rejected it, time and time again. It was nothing to do with the deficiency in Moses' preaching.

In fact, our author doesn't allow that there was any defect at all. For we also have had the gospel preached to us just as they did. And again, you can't really capture this in the English language, but the tense is a perfect tense.

It's got the idea of something that was absolutely performed and thoroughly completed. They were well evangelized. They had good preachers.

They were brought face to face with the truth of the holiness of God and the sovereign power of God. But despite all the attendant blessings that they experienced in Sinai, they rejected, they rejected, and they grumbled, and they grumbled. And as a result of that, God swore that they would never enter into Canaan rest.

There are three ingredients that are necessary for a person to be converted. You remember my address last Sunday evening? First is a message. Second is the hearing on the part of the congregation.

And the third is faith. Look at verse two. There was a message that was brought.

There was a hearing. For the Hebrews listened to what Moses and Aaron had to say. But there was an absence of faith.

And when faith is missing, there can never be salvation. So it was on that basis that these people never entered into Canaan. And our writer is alarmed, lest any of his contemporary Hebrews, or anyone who happens to get hold of his letter, might be in the same situation as those ancient Israelites.

So he rubs in his illustration in the third chapter, in the first two verses of the fourth. But let's move on. And that quickly.

As from the third verse right through to the ninth verse, he reaffirms something of the things that he has already been applying. And we move into the concept once more of the rest of God. Look at that third verse.

Now, we who have believed enter that rest just as God has said. So I declared on oath in my anger, they shall never enter my rest. See what he's talking about.

We who believe will enter into Canaan promises, into the land of Canaan, spiritually speaking. Even as much as those who did not believe never entered into Canaan yesteryear. But the comment is made in the latter part of the third verse and on to the fourth verse.

And yet his work, God's work, has been finished since the creation of the world. For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words, and on the seventh day God rested from all his work. What have you in this fourth verse? Well, you have a reference made to the origin of the rest that gospel blessings ultimately lead to.

Once more, I take you back to Genesis. You remember God creates the world in six days and you get at the end of every epoch of creation and the evening and the morning were the first day. Remember how that comes almost in parrot fashion repetition.

I use that expression not in any way demeaning the glory of and the poetry of Genesis 1 and 2. But when you come to the seventh day, you find that God no longer engages in activity. On the seventh day, having assessed his work and pronounced it good on the previous six days, God enters into his rest and there's no reference to an evening. God's rest goes on forever.

It's an eternal rest. It's freedom from creative activity. Now it's that rest that God enters into on the seventh day that he wants to bring all righteous people into.

He wants all the people of God to experience in its full. But unfortunately, unfortunately, though believers enter in, unbelievers never did and never can. That's why the writer quotes from Psalm 95 in the latter part of the third verse.

I declared on oath in my anger, they, the ancient Hebrews, shall never enter my rest because they didn't believe. And because they didn't believe, they never made Canaan. So impassioned is our author at this time that he repeats the quotation at the end of the fifth verse.

And again, in the passage above, he says, they shall never enter my rest. So you see the point. God's rest in creation was what he wanted the ancient Hebrews to enter into.

Having left Egypt, they wanted a more relaxed type of life. This is what God wished for them. So he brings them through Sinai and meant for them to enter into Canaan where there would be freedom from all the pressures of Egypt.

And had they gone into Canaan in that fashion, that would be typical of the spiritual rest that they too would have entered into in greater fullness at death when their spirits had gone to be with the Lord. But these ancient Hebrews failed in two ways. They never entered into Canaan, and they never entered into the eternal rest of God.

They were doubly debarred from God's blessing. But the point that remains astonishingly for you and me to cling on to is that this idea of an eternal rest as the objective for all believing people is touched on in the second chapter of Genesis, where reference is made to the rest of God. But look, if you've followed that, and I trust you have, come to the sixth verse because here there seems to be a bit of a problem.

Our author says, all right, these ancient Hebrews did not enter into God's rest. I've demonstrated this twice from referring to Psalm 95 in this passage of Scripture, and I've also underlined the point by taking you back to the experiences in the Pentateuch. But it still remains the fact that some people will enter into the rest of God.

The offer is still open. So he comes again to the 95th Psalm in verse 7, and he says, therefore God again set a certain day, calling it today, when a long time later he spoke through David, as was said before, today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. What's he referring to there? Well, he is saying that the fact those ancient Hebrews never entered into the rest of God does not mean that the possibility of others entering that rest is no longer open.

In fact, the reverse is the case. The Hebrews missed it, those ancient Hebrews, but David speaking centuries after the Hebrews had died in Sinai, still says that it's possible for men and women to enter into the rest of God, having completed their earthly pilgrimage here in this particular scene of time. Bear that in mind and come to the 8th verse and you'll find that there's a bit of a problem.

It's as though someone has stopped our writer and said, well look, you said that the Hebrews didn't enter into God's rest because they were rebellious in the Canaan. You say that God's rest still remains, however, to their descendants. But isn't God's promise of rest fulfilled because of what Joshua did? Well, what did Joshua do? You remember he was the successor of Moses.

He and Caleb were the only two who were adult when they left Egypt to enter into Canaan. All the rest died. But Joshua brought the descendants of those dead Hebrews into Canaan, into Canaan rest.

So, the writer is here dealing with the objection, hasn't Joshua therefore known the fullness of God's promise? He said he'd take the Hebrews into rest in Canaan. The fathers of those who died in the wilderness never entered that rest, but their children did. So, the promise no longer exists.

Ah no, says the writer of the Canaan. And it's true that they enjoyed the blessings of the promised land. But there's a much fuller experience of God's rest that is still available for righteous people even to this present day.

So, he says in verse 9, there remains then a Sabbath rest for the people of God. And prior to that sentence, he goes back to the thought that David, who lived years after Joshua, still doesn't feel that Joshua's entering into the promised land fulfills God's promise. David says that it's still possible to enter into the rest of God, even though those children of the people who died in the wilderness entered into Canaan.

Well, what do we make of all that? Actually, I think by this point it should be clear. The children of those people, they entered into Canaan. And Canaan had many blessings.

But Canaan was a material land. A land flowing with milk and honey, yes. A land which gave the Israelites security, yes.

But it only typified inadequately that eternal rest of God, which he has reserved for all those who remain righteous and have confidence in God throughout their lives. Look, here the thing surely becomes clear. The writer of the Hebrew epistle sometime later will say that we're just pilgrims passing through this world.

Here we have no abiding city. We don't want to be here in the world as it now is forever. Thank God for that.

Because there are so many pressures, so many problems, so much evidence of sin. We are moving forward to a city whose maker and builder is God. You remember that verse, don't you? That comes later on in this epistle.

We're moving to a new era. This world as we now know it is not here forever. It's going to know a rejuvenation.

Eternal life which we experience at this moment, we have not yet grasped in its fullness. But we're pushing forward to that time when in God's eternal rest, we shall find ourselves enjoying blessings untold. Abraham looked for a city whose maker and whose builder is God.

So likewise ourselves. Now it's that point, that point of application that our writer takes hold of and rubs in from the 9th to the 11th verses. There remains then a Sabbath rest for the people of God.

For anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest so that no one will fall by following the example of those ancient Hebrews in their disobedience. There remains a rest of God, not within the boundaries of this creation, but it's the rest of the new heavens and the new earth.

In Revelation we read, do we not, of those who die in the Lord, who cease from their labor. Peter is going to tell us, and I think I give you the quotation so I'll not turn to it, of the new era that God is going to usher in. And time and time again in Revelation we get a picture of this.

I, John, saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down from God. And he goes on to say how he heard a great voice telling him about the advent of this new era where there is no more sorrow, where there is no more crying, where all the things that contribute to these tragic emotional conditions will not be in existence at all. And so people are moving, those who trust the Lord God, to that rest, that rest which God has reserved in heaven for those who trust him.

It's not a rest of idleness, it's a rest from pressure, it's a rest from discord, from sorrow. I was with a lady this afternoon who very shortly will be in the presence of God, and I was the immediate presence of God, and I was sharing with her the final part of my Bible study this evening. Indeed, it seemed as I was talking to her, although I prepared this study some weeks ago, that what I had written in these notes might have been a letter directly from God to her.

Let me read what I put in the third part of the notes that I've handed to you, because that has a precis of exposition of those final verses. The ultimate point of the writer's argument is clearly stated. There remains then a Sabbath rest for the people of God.

It's not centered within the bounds of this creation, but is the rest of the new heaven and earth. On entry one ceases from labor, thus the blessings pronounced on those who die in the Lord. But this everlasting rest is not one of idleness.

God rests from the work of creation, but he is providentially involved in human affairs. Similarly, the rest of the people of God is from the sorrows of this present age. In the eternal Sabbath rest, the tears, tragedies, heartaches of the present life will be absent.

A further glimpse of that rest is gained in Revelation 7-9, where we see a multitude of people having come out of trial into the eternal joy of God's Sabbath rest, where they will worship and serve him free from all the frustrations of a previous era. Do you really believe that? When you're on your deathbed, Hebrews 4 begins to make wonderful sense. Your body's beginning to decompose.

Certainly it's in the last state of decay, and you realize that that's not the end. It's just the launching pad for you to enter into the Sabbath rest of God. It's the final unending era to which God directs you and me as Christian people.

Now, what would be the greatest tragedy? The greatest tragedy would be, as the 11th verse suggests, that we don't make every effort to enter the rest, and therefore, following the example of those ancient Hebrews, we forfeit blessings. How do you know whether you're really a believer? Well, the test is a life that is lived in the service of God, in the presence of God, knowing the companionship of God. A life of unbelief and disobedience means that one forfeits the eternal rest that God offers, that those who trust Jesus as Lord and Savior, those who respond to the gospel with faith and not unbelief, are not left without hope on death, but they move forward into the eternal rest of God, into the heaven that He has created for those who love Him.

I can think of no more wonderful thing on our deathbed than to consider the Sabbath rest to which God beckons those who have trusted Him. The old Hebrews, they missed it. May we, by obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ, enter into it now partially and ultimately in all its fullness as we pass over to Emmanuel's land.

Amen.