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1 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. 2 For we also have had the good news proclaimed to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed. ~ Hebrews 4:1-2
Today, we enter Hebrews 4, right in the middle of a warning that began in the previous chapter. You will remember the book of Hebrews was written around five warnings to guard us from backsliding in our faith in the Lord Jesus. The first, we considered in Hebrews 2:1-4, where God urges us to give the most aggressive attention to our personal relationship with the Lord Jesus, so that we do not drift away from Him.
The second is found in Hebrews 3:7-8 where we read, “Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness."
Hebrews was written to a group of young believers who, like us, struggled in their young faith in the God of the Bible. Due to persecution and social pressure, these young believers were being tempted to turn back to Judaism, and away from the Lord Jesus Christ. The real issue the Lord was addressing in these young believers lives was the danger that their hearts could be so hardened to the Lord that they would have backslidden away from Him.
In v.1 of today's passage we read, "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.
Having used an illustration out of the book of Exodus when the children of Israel did not enter into the promised land, the Lord uses the writer of Hebrews to help us understand what it means for us to enter into His rest. Without mentioning Joshua and Caleb who were the only ones of the twelve spies sent in to spy out the promised land, who had faith, the writer of Hebrews clearly tells us our ability to enter into this rest is always available to us. The problem the Jews who did not enter the promised land faced was their over magnification of the problem rather than the solution. Their problem was not unbelief, they could not enjoy what God promised. Their problem was their unbelief in the promises made to them by the God of the Bible.
God's rest means the believer comes to the place where we cease from depending on self. It means to stop from self-dependence and self-labor. This means we no longer are trying to please God by our feeble, fleshly works. And the moment we enter into God’s rest, works cease as a way to please God. Our good works have never please Him, because we can not do enough good to be perfect and acceptable to Him. And so, rest, then, involves a cessation from legalistic self-activity. It is a rest in His free grace.
As we mentioned before, the Jews entering into the promised land is a picture of our sanctification which includes the ability to be free from that which we are trusting in rather than the God of the Bible. The land of Canaan doesn't represent heaven, as some suggest, it represents the life the Lord Jesus died to give us, now. Canaan speaks of the victorious life of the one who is actively placing his trust in the Lord Jesus, now. Canaan could not represent heaven because the lessons learned from Israel going into the promised had to do with God changing them from the inside out. It had to do with their sanctification, not their justification. Plus, no man can earn the favor of God through the changes in his life. No, it is only through the perfection of the Lord Jesus Christ that we will spend eternity with God in heaven and that we experience His work of sanctification, now.
Being forced to live by faith in the God of the Bible is hard, yet, it is the exercising of our faith that softens our hearts and keeps them soft toward the Lord. His rest guaranteeing heaven is automatic and complete the moment we trust the Lord Jesus' finished work on the cross for the forgiveness of our sin. His sanctification rest that renders the life God wants to give us, right now, is not automatic. In the same way that the promised land was not automatically Israel's, our sanctification is not ours automatically. It requires submission and faith and obedience on our behalf.
In v.2 of today's passage we read, "For we also have had the good news proclaimed to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed."
Our sanctification does not work without our faith in the God of the Bible to deliver in and through our yielded lives. There are times when we all find it most difficult to rest because we are not willing to come to the Lord Jesus and allow Him control over our lives. We are like the guy who is drowning, when our rescuer gets to us, we try so hard to save ourselves that we are in danger of drowning ourselves and our rescuer. The key to entering into God's rest is to let go, to go limp and allow our Rescuer the responsibility and opportunity to bring us into His rest. God’s rest simply means to possess the perfect peace that He gives. It means to be free from guilt, worry, and anxiety. It means we have been freed to observe Him working in the world and in and through our lives. The vantage point from this posture is most amazing and most rewarding.
A part of our sanctification is that we are being given the ability to see God for ourselves with our hearts. And, somehow, our hearts ability to see Him now will impact our eyes ability to see Him tomorrow and when He returns. The Lord Jesus is calling us to a level of intimacy that can only be sustained by His constant presence in our lives, and, our willingness to trust Him enough to allow Him to call all of the shots in our lives. To enter into His rest means to enjoy, right now, the security the death and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus has brought us already. From this angle, fear is so removed that we are learning to exercise absolute trust and absolute confidence in God’s care and charge over our lives.