Simply the Best No.4 Jesus Rest in Times of Stress

The Eternal God is forever yours, The Eternal God is forever yours, The God beneath the everlasting dust, Beneath the river raging on the storm. O Eternal God, our refuge, Your Saviour still from every harm. O Eternal God, our refuge, Your Saviour in the everlasting arms.

O Eternal God, O Eternal God, It is sure and true. That leads us on to our next song, 205, in the supplement coming on the overheads. Our confidence is in the Lord, the source of our salvation.

Our confidence is in the Lord, the source of our salvation. Blessed is the new-given, the overall creation. He will fulfill the need of thee, He knows the hour of rescue.

In every circumstance to save you, Our love is built on Jesus. He is our fortress, we will never be shaken. He is our fortress, we will never be shaken.

Fidelity to us, day follows day, the weeks slip by. And in the uncertainties of life, we discover in Christ Jesus the rock of our stability. The Eternal God is our refuge, underneath are the everlasting arms.

We pray we may feel them. We might know the security of what it is to belong to God through Jesus Christ. Be with our world, so much toil that's unnecessary.

So much hurt that's inflicted, nation upon nation, individual upon individual. Lord, we pray for a human society as it is today, with all its conflictions, with all its turmoil. O God, in your grace, may the message of the great and everlasting gospel of Christ meet the needs of millions of people.

And bless your church and the heralding of the gospel from the north to the south, from the east to the west. And bless your children here. Some who are going through great difficulty, some who are knowing a little of what it means to endure the trial of their faith.

Some who come on the peak of success. Lord, we pray that whatever our circumstances are, we may bring the positive to you for our thanks. And we may bring the strenuous situations to you to test our faith.

And we ask that you will continue to work out your purposes in our lives. For the sake of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen.

Let's turn to God's word as it's found in the epistle to the Hebrews. And the fourth chapter. Actually we'll pick up the reading from verse seven of the previous chapter.

So as the Holy Spirit says, today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion. During the time of testing in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried me and for forty years saw what I did. This is why I was angry with that generation and I said, their hearts are always going astray.

They have not known my way, so I declared on oath in my anger, they shall never enter my rest. See to it brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily as long as it is called today.

So that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly to the end. The confidence we had at first.

As has just been said, today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion. Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned whose bodies fell in the desert? And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest, if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were not able to enter because of their unbelief. 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 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. Now we who have believed enter that rest just as God has said. So I declared an oath in my anger they shall never enter my rest.

And yet his 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.

And again in the passage above he says they shall never enter my rest. It still remains that some will enter that rest. And those who formerly had the gospel preached to them did not go in because of their disobedience.

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.

For if Joshua had given them rest God would not have spoken later about another day. 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 their example of disobedience.

For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double edged sword. It penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit.

Joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight.

Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Father we ask for your help as we come to this passage of your word. Break it open to us.

And in the complexity of its argument may we find the simplicity of truth. And in the keenness of our minds to understand. May there also develop alongside an equal desire in our wills to apply.

So that the hearing of the word may profit us. Because it was mingled with faith. The faith in turn devolved into action.

So may your word run its course. Amen. Well this is not the easiest passage to have a look at.

But it's one that's in front of us. And because we like to feel that the controls of our bible messages at the tab. Are those which are placed in order by the word of God.

And not just our human preference. Then we need to have a look at what is contained within this particular cameo from the word of the Lord. Let's try and get some handle on it shall we.

The main thought that is coming through in these verses. From the 7th in the 3rd chapter right through to the 13th in the 4th chapter of Hebrews. Is the concept of rest.

And by rest we are referring to tranquility. Peace of mind. Being in a state of such fulfillment and contentment.

That there is no anxiety at all. Within the heart. Within the mind.

Now there is of course a sense as in the doctrine of salvation. Where we are looking forward to something that we do not immediately have. I mean we are saved that is true.

But there is a greater fulfillment of our salvation yet in store. You can't be more saved than you are. In terms of being secure in Christ.

But there are far greater benefits which are in the future when the Lord returns. And it seems to me that this is exactly the case here in this whole business of rest. Of being relaxed.

Of knowing the dispersing of all anxiety. The day will come. When you will finally enter into the fullness of rest.

As your body decays. And as your spirit leaves this world. And you find yourself in the immediate presence of God.

That's why so often at funeral services the verse is used from Revelation. Those who die in the Lord rest from all their labors. But that doesn't mean to say that here your experience must be like going up and down on the Big Dipper.

At the fair. There is a peace. There is a rest.

Which Lord God offers through Jesus Christ. We sing sometimes in our hymns don't we. There is a place of quiet rest.

Near to the heart of God. A place where sin cannot molest. Dear to the heart of God.

Oh Jesus blessed Redeemer. Sent from the heart of God. Help those who draw beneath you or near you.

Loved by the heart of God. And then there is another hymn that speaks of our Lord Jesus. And it says Jesus I am resting, resting in the joy of what thou art.

I am finding out the fullness of thy loving heart. So here is the concept. A rest that is yet to be in all its consummation.

And yet a rest of freedom from unnecessary anxiety. This side of eternity. So to be at rest is one of the goals of the gospel.

I mean here is our beloved Lord. He is speaking to a lot of people. He is near Jerusalem.

And He knows that the citizens of Jerusalem. He knows that the people in His day are sometimes like sheep going to and fro without a shepherd. There seems to be no driver in the seat of their lives.

And Jesus says come to me all you who labor. All of you who find yourself in a downward spin as though you've lost control. Come unto me.

Learn of me. Take my yoke upon you. And I will give you rest.

You will find rest for your souls. Well I say that something like that is really the seed message. The seed lesson that is found in these verses.

Where the apostle is dipping into the Old Testament. The book of Exodus. Taking you to the 95th chapter of the Psalms.

Bringing you back into His contemporary experience. And then applying His Old Testament lessons to the readers of His day. You see one of the purposes behind the Old Testament is to enable Christian people like ourselves.

To have such historical illustration that as you read the Old Testament. You will find the kernel of truth that you can crack open and digest. And therefore the Old Testament incidents will be a blessing to you.

So you find the writer of the Hebrews time and time again. We've seen it already in this series. Going into the Old Testament in order to illustrate and in order to encourage.

So generally speaking. And this is just a hook onto which to hang your thoughts. Generally speaking from the 7th verse through to the 19th verse of chapter 3. You've got an illustration.

It's an illustration from the Old Testament. The ancient Hebrews. And it's not a very happy illustration.

You see these Hebrews they'd been in Egypt for so long hadn't they. And they disliked it. I mean they came to Moses.

They came to God. They complained about their lot and their long God. Because He's a compassionate God.

He heard their grumblings. He heard your grumblings. And He gives them pass to Moses.

Not the greatest leader. There'll be one superior to Him. But as good as any that there have been heretofore.

And Moses has the responsibility of getting this bunch of Hebrew slaves out of Egypt. And through Sinai, the wilderness. And on into the promised land.

Now yesteryear's people are exactly the same as contemporaries. We have a bias to moan more than we have a propensity to say thank you. And here are these ancient Hebrews and they're out from Egypt.

There's been the miraculous opening of the Red Sea. And God has studded the opening days with miraculous provision. I mean He's made His presence felt.

You remember those of you who read the Old Testament. There's that pillar of fire that is there at night. There's a cloud by day.

God showing that He is before and behind His people. But the days go by. And some of the benefits of Egypt that didn't seem to be important when the Hebrews were slaves come back into their mind.

Where do you get meat in a desert? And the Bible on the sole occasion it uses the word lust out of the sexual connotation. It says they lusted for meat. And they reminisced about the garlic and the cucumber and the vegetables and so on and so forth that there was in Egypt.

Now you see what they were going through was a physical experience of salvation. You see in the Old Testament there are, if you like, adumbrations that are anticipations of the gospel. And here what you have is a sort of primitive setting of the gospel.

Here is the exodus. When our Lord speaks of His death, He speaks of His exodus. Prior to the exodus a lamb was slain on the cross of Calvary.

A lamb was slain. Here is a people that are redeemed as a result of the death of Christ. An innumerable company of people have been redeemed.

So what happens to the children of God when they are redeemed? They are tested. They are tested on the anvil of their trust, of their confidence in God. That is why we carefully selected the songs.

We did not randomly engage in lucky dip this morning in suggesting these particular verses. Our confidence is in the Lord. But for forty years these men and women were tested by God.

And when He evaluates this experience, He says that they were provoking Him. Your fathers tested and tried Me, verse 9, in the wilderness. You see, I think you could make a case historically to say that it wasn't God's ideal plan for the Israelites to be forty years in Sinai.

It doesn't take you forty years to walk from Egypt to the Promised Land today. You'd make it in just a few days, a couple of weeks. Why were they forty years? Why did not God allow them to use a fast track? And the answer was He was testing them.

You see, the greatest thing that you can contribute to God, so to speak, in terms of satisfaction for the Lord, is obedience to what He tells you to do. And what God wants from these ancient Hebrews was the obedience, compliance to all that He, in His grace, was doing for them. And yet, they hardened their hearts.

Look at verse 8. God is speaking of these forty years. And He uses this one tragic word to describe it. The rebellion.

Look at verse 15, quoting from exactly the same psalm. Psalm 95 gives you a summary of Old Testament history, at least the Exodus. The rebellion.

Do not harden your hearts, says the psalmist, using the analogy of the ancient Hebrews as you did in the rebellion. When God looked back upon that period, He did so with great regret. You see, there were so many occasions when they tempted the patience of God.

We want water! And the request was not put in a faithful fashion. It was put in the setting of remonstrating with God and complaining to Moses that water they had in Egypt. And even Moses takes his staff.

And with, perhaps at the human level, pardonable impatience, but at the divine level, culpable lack of faith. He strikes with anger. And a rock cracks and water bursts out.

But God takes the anger of Moses and the frustration of the people as being an indictment against His faithfulness. God tests you at the level of your trust and your confidence in Him. And in these 40 years, time and time and time again, these people showed that they doubted the faithfulness and the consistency of the love of God.

Now don't you see, my friend, that sometimes in the New Testament, just to underline the point that I made a little while ago, when reference is made to Old Testament incidents, they take the Old Testament incident as a sort of little cameo of the life of the church in the New Testament. So here is Stephen, for example, and he refers to believers in his day, Stephen the first martyr. He's referring to the early Christian church.

Now how does he refer to it? Well, yes, as the church, the company of God, called to belong to the Lord, an increasing company. But when he looks back to the Old Testament in his sermon, when he's preaching from Exodus, he talks about the church in the wilderness. You see the point? There is this counterbalancing, this juxtapositioning.

Here is the church in the Old Testament. Oh yes, they had the gospel preached in those days. Don't think in terms of using the gospel simply, though this is the most wonderful setting, as the death of our beloved Lord on the cross and Him being raised from the dead as an atonement for our sins.

Of course it embraces that. That is the heart of the gospel. But there are anticipations of this in the Old Testament.

They had the gospel preached to them. Look at verse 2 of chapter 4. We also had the gospel preached to us just as they did. It wasn't the full gospel in those days.

But it was an anticipation of the glory that was to come. And here are the Hebrews in the wilderness. And what do you find them doing time and time again? They're doubting the faithfulness of God.

And nobody could have struck up in the Hebrew congregation at some point if that hymn had been available in those days. Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father. Summer and winter, pardon from sin.

You remember all those sentences, all those stanzas which flow together to underline? God is pleased when you acknowledge His faithfulness. But they didn't. And the net result? Well, look at verse 16 and 17 and 18.

You get a triplet of questions. Who were those who heard and rebelled? With whom, verse 17, was He angry? Verse 18, and to whom did God swear that they would never enter His rest? These are some of the most loaded questions in the New Testament which are applied retrospectively of people and circumstances in the Old Testament. Here says one Puritan writer is the saddest sight of all.

And he casts his eyes across the Sinai Peninsula. And he sees those little mounds, the earth that's been disturbed. And those little mounds witnessing to the graves of ten, twenty, hundred, thousand, ten thousand, thousands of people.

Who were those graves? They were the graves of the disobedient Hebrews who never entered the land of promise. What a long line of graves. The saddest in the world.

They came out of the bondage of Egypt under faithful Moses. But they fell as corpses in the wilderness, constantly abandoning God. He abandoned them.

Only Joshua and Caleb's faith remained intact. A journey which might have taken months lasted forty years. Forty years of traveling and never arriving.

Will that be your metaphor? Or rather the epitaph? The inscription on your tomb? He traveled. She traveled. Far and wide.

But never arrived. Like that tomb I've sometimes quoted on the outskirts of Paris in a graveyard. Here lies the body of a man who came into this world without... Who left this world without ever knowing why he came in.

You see, it's tragic. People who were destined for the rest in Canaan. For if you read about Canaan, you will find that it's described almost as heaven on earth.

Deuteronomy 11, 12, 21, chapter 14 will tell you of the blessings of Canaan. This is a land that flows with milk and honey. Oh yes, there's metaphor in this, of course.

Here is a land where the grapes are, and the bunches of grapes are so huge, it will take a couple of strong men to be able to carry those bunches back into the wilderness to give an illustration of this land. The land of Canaan is a wonderful land, even to this day. Canaan was heaven on earth.

And these people were to go to that earthly heaven. They were to enter into their rest. But they never did.

Why not? Because the gospel that they had preached was not one received with faith. And so you move from the historical aspects in the third chapter to the fourth, where there is the final application. You get some idea of the application earlier in the twelfth verse of the third chapter.

See to it, brothers, none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart like these do. Encourage one another daily, as long as it's called today. Take the opportunity, minister to one another.

You see your brother in difficulty. You see your sister fallen. You see them compromising.

Then come alongside them. Be to them as a Moses. Encourage one another.

But don't, for God's sake, don't. Have the same problems, the disobedience, the lack of faith, that these ancient Israelites as a mass seem to direct towards their God in an insult that causes Him to register the period in the wilderness as being a period of rebellion. Therefore, brothers, verse four, 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.

When God created the heavens and the earth, He did so in six mighty epochs, you remember. The wondrous language of the first chapter of Genesis. You can check all your scientific thinking, and you can read your most eloquent dissertations on the idea of how our world comes into existence.

And I tell you, you'll never find a more succinct summary than you discover in the opening verses of Genesis. Here is poetry, but here is the kernel of literal truth. Behind phenomenon is the phenomena of God Himself.

He speaks, and out of chaos comes cosmos. He speaks again, and the waters subside, and the land emerges. He speaks again, and He puts the greater light to lighten the day and the lesser light to lighten the night.

He causes the animals to come forth, having created vegetation and the ability for the animals to have life sustained on earth. And in that sixth day, having created animals, He moves to the apex of His creation, and He breathes into man the breath of life which is also breathed into animals. But He makes the distinction with man by fashioning him in the imago Dei.

And He says, after the first five epochs of creation, activity, it was good. And having made man, it was very good. And then what? He rests on the seventh day.

His work is fulfilled. It's not the rest of inactivity, for He shows His providential care towards faithful sons of Adam. But He rests, completing the satisfaction of a job done.

Here is our beloved Lord, and on the cross He says, It's finished, and He's raised in the power of an endless life. And He returns to heaven, and He enters again into the rest that was His after the completion of the creation of the heavens and the earth. But there is a sense in which the rest of God, can you follow this through? The rest into which God entered, the rest into which Jesus entered, is available for men and women this side of eternity.

So you get the indication, although it's put negatively, in the fifth verse of the fourth chapter. And again in the passage above, He says, They shall never enter My rest, but there are some who do. It still remains that some will enter that rest.

Who are they? Who can go through this life with a sense of peace? And the answer is, you guessed it. Those who have responded to the gospel. Those who today, verse 7, the quotation being from Psalm 95, have listened to the voice of an even greater than Moses.

Those who have had a captain, verse 8, who is even superior to that of Joshua. For Joshua, you remember finishing the story of the Israelites in the Exodus, takes the Hebrews into the promised land, and there they enjoy the benefits of the land that God gave to Abraham. But that was only a type.

It was only typical of the final rest. In that land there was much nourishment and there was much joy, but there was also rebellion in the hearts of the people, and they despoiled what should have been heaven on earth. So here the writer capitalizes on this and says, Well, yes, Joshua, he took over from Moses.

He brings them into the land. But if that was the sum total of the rest, then we have not fully comprehended what God has in store. Because God talks about another rest, not just the rest that you can know in Him this side of eternity, but there remains an ultimate Sabbath rest for the people of God.

What does he mean? I have had two occasions in the last few days, one by proxy and the other by direct experience, to evaluate, to make some comment on the death of people. One man, he died last week, and his son told me what a horrible death, paralyzed with fear, his hand groping for the hand of the nurse. When the hand was no longer there, the panic took over again.

A man who died in utter horror. There is nothing, I tell you, on God's earth more difficult to experience than to be by the bedside of a man or a woman who is afraid to die. There is no hope.

A black abyss, a fear besots them, and you cannot reach them. But last Wednesday night in Chichester, or on its outskirts, I was there by a man who used to come here for 20 years in the 1920s, and he was ready to slip into the presence of God. But he couldn't speak.

But he was alert to what was being said. And I unpacked again the old 23rd Psalm, laid my hand upon his head, may have even been later than 10 o'clock, and committed him to the Lord, the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. What I tell you is gospel truth.

The peace that he had. The only response he could give was a squeezing of my fingers, and that he did. And within 24 hours or 30 hours, he was safe in the presence of the Lord.

Those who die in the Lord rest from their labors, for their work is done. They move from the salvation rest that they've had this side of eternity into the eternal unsullied rest, which will be theirs forever and ever in the presence of God. So you see, the writer says, there still remains a rest, a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for anyone who enters God's rest, verse 10, also rests from his own work, just as God did from his.

Now let's come to completion. And I hope I've been able to help you, weave your way through what is a fairly complicated passage of Scripture by taking it gently. Verse 11, astonishing.

You see, verse 11, I love Scripture because occasionally it is not logical. And the fact that it is not logical helps you to realize that it's making a very succinct point. So look at verse 11.

It says, let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest. How do you make an effort? God bless me, how do I make an effort to be restful? I mean, I would have thought that one of the things about being restful is you just don't make an effort. You sink back into your armchair, and you play whatever music helps you and so forth.

Or you come in from the garden, and you have a shower, and you have a good cup of tea and a natter with the wife or whoever. Then you rest. But here, the command is, make every effort to enter the rest.

What does he mean? Well, you see, he's back to the little bit of pastoral advice that he gives to all his brothers and sisters in the 12th verse of the previous chapter. See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart. This salvation that's yours, watch over it.

It's something very precious. Work at it. Since the promise of entering his rest, verse 1, chapter 4, still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it.

Why did he say that? Well, look at the 10th verse of the third chapter, going back to Psalm 95 in the quotation, that encapsulates the attitude of the Hebrews. Why were they in such a terrible condition? Well, halfway through verse 10, their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways. Moffat puts it, they didn't want to take my road.

Work at it, brothers. Work at it to ensure that nothing deflects you from taking the high road. The obstacles that come, those who would cut across your path.

Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience. You need to work at it. What you do, what you read, what you say, in order to enter constantly into the blessings of the salvation that is yours now, to anticipate the peace and the rest that you will have in an absolute sense in the era that is yet to be, for you will be tested.

You will be tested on the anvil of the revelation of God's word, as the Hebrews received and rejected it from Pastor Moses. So you will be checked by the response that you gave to that preached word of God, for the word of God is living and active. It can say, but it's also a sword.

It can cut. It can scythe you down. It's the word of God that will find you out.

There is no hiding place. There is nothing that you have done that will not be revealed, which is not covered by the blood of Christ. This is why it is so important that you and I keep daily accounts with the living God and do a John Edwards check because he has some 13 points where he used to check his life every day or even more.

Edwards knew nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. I find that the most frightening text in the whole of the Bible.

But the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses from all sin. What you confess, He covers. What you cover, He will expose.

Do you receive the word? Do you receive it with faith? Do you receive it with humility? Or do you get mad at this God and say Egypt was better, the garlic and the meat we lust for these things? See that mound of grace, that pitiful sight in the ancient world, the memorial of stubborn humanity's folly in the sight of an omnipotent, gracious God. But my friend, learn from that example. It's no need to be like that.

Here is God's word expressed to you. Today is the day of salvation. Receive what He has done in Christ Jesus and enter into that rest.

Not just ultimately, though thank God that is the case, but enter into it now. I speak with feeling so that come cancer, come the breaking down of physical abilities, come the surrender of your independence, you still have peace, you still have rest. Jesus, I am resting, resting.

Not in my health, not in my wealth, not in my family, not in my car, not in my house. All these things are honorable, but from them you will be detached. Jesus, I am resting, resting in the joy of what you are.

Never a friend like Jesus. Let's hook into that as we again, that thought of rest and freedom and peace in God. We go to 362, 362 in hymns of mission praise.

A hymn that I've quoted a couple of times, but now you'll get it exactly as it was written by the author. Jesus, I am resting, resting in the joy of what thou art. I am finding out the greatness of thy loving heart.

As we come to the fourth verse, we'll be preparing to come around the table of the Lord. Some may have to leave at that point and do so quietly if you need, but I'm still fairly early on in the service, so the service hasn't run over time. So it may well be that many of you can spend some moments around the table of the Lord, having come around the word of God and find that at the table we are renewed in our inner man.

We regain our strength and our ability to go on into the future, entering further into the rest and the peace of God is made available to us through our Lord Jesus. Mingling the gospel message with the response of our faith, thus pleasing the heart of our God, who is so distressed because of the unbelief of his ancient Hebrew people. Oh, that God will take us all into a greater sense of rest, this side of eternity, as well as ultimately when we stand before him.

362. Oh, Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, I am finding out the gracious of my loving heart. Sing we, O Jesus, I'm beneath the cross since every knee is depressing in the joy of Christ.