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THE PENTATEUCH

GENESIS ---EXODUS--- LEVITICUS 1.1-7.38 --- 8.1-11.47 --- 12.1-16.34--- 17.1-27.34--- NUMBERS 1-10--- 11-19--- 20-36--- DEUTERONOMY 1.1-4.44 --- 4.45-11.32 --- 12.1-29.1--- 29.2-34.12 --- THE BOOK OF JOSHUA --- THE BOOK OF JUDGES --- PSALMS 1-17--- ECCLESIASTES --- ISAIAH 1-5 --- 6-12 --- 13-23 --- 24-27 --- 28-35 --- 36-39 --- 40-48 --- 49-55--- 56-66--- EZEKIEL --- DANIEL 1-7 ---DANIEL 8-12 ---

NAHUM--- HABAKKUK---ZEPHANIAH ---ZECHARIAH --- THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW ---THE GOSPEL OF MARK--- THE GOSPEL OF LUKE --- THE GOSPEL OF JOHN --- THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES --- 1 CORINTHIANS 1-7 --- 8-16 --- 2 CORINTHIANS 1-7 --- 8-13 -- -GALATIANS --- EPHESIANS --- COLOSSIANS --- 1 THESSALONIANS --- 2 THESSALONIANS --- 1 TIMOTHY --- 2 TIMOTHY --- TITUS --- HEBREWS 1-6 --- 7-10 --- 11-13 --- JAMES --- JOHN'S LETTERS --- REVELATION

--- THE GOSPELS

Chapter 19 We Who Have Believed Do Enter Into Rest (Hebrews 4.3).

In the midst of a world which is full of bustle and strife and heartache these words come as a gentle balm to the soul. Israel of old had been offered a land in which if they believed and were trusting and obedient they would find rest. But sadly they found no rest. They did not enter into their rest. And why? Because of their hardness of heart. They were hardened through the deceitfulness of sin (Hebrews 3.13). They had within them an evil heart of unbelief which resulted in their turning from the living God (3.12). Instead of looking off to Him they looked at all the problems round about. And all that they could do was murmur and grumble about God. And the writer then comes to us with a warning lest we too be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. He says, ‘We are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence firm to the end’ (3.14). He is not trying to frighten us. He is simply pointing out that if we would enjoy Christ’s rest we must have constancy of faith, not a faith that is here today and gone tomorrow.

We have been looking at ways in which we can find rest by coming to the One Who said, ‘Come to Me all you who labour and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest -- learn of me --and you will find rest to your souls’ (Matthew 11.28). Now we ask again, how do we enter into that rest?

That brings up another question. Why did Israel not enter into that rest? And the answer is clear. They looked at the wilderness about them, they looked back to the Egypt that they had left, they saw that the way was not easy, they looked at everything round about, and their faith collapsed because they were not looking to the living God. They were totally taken up with looking at what this world had to offer, and as they seemed to have so little of it they were disgruntled. If only they had turned their eyes away from what could be seen and had looked to the unseen (2 Corinthians 4.18), then they would have known that they had nothing to fear. But they could not. They were bogged down by the world.

The writer then turns to his readers. We too have received the Good News, he says, and a rest remains for us (4.2, 9). And he likened that rest to God’s rest on the seventh day of creation (4.4). Why, he says, when God had finished the work of creation, He was able to cease from what He was doing. And we too, he adds, can enter into that rest by believing, by putting everything in God’s hands and leaving it there, by ceasing from our own works and letting God act through us to will and to do of His own good pleasure (Philippians 2.13). We do not have to go on working, because i is not something that we have to strive for. It is God’s gift to us. For we have Someone Who has passed into Heaven on our behalf and who is there on our behalf (Hebrews 4.14-16). And He brings before God the merits of His perfect sacrifice for us (9.14) and He intercedes for us constantly so that He is able to save us to the uttermost (7.25). He is the Trek-leader of eternal salvation to all who obey Him (5.9).

We then are to look constantly to our Trek-leader. We are to follow in His steps. We are to obey Him. And then we can be sure that as our perfect Trek-leader He will lead us to glory (2.10). For He has been ‘sanctified’ (set apart in holiness) by God for the purpose, and once we are His we are sanctified (set apart in holiness) by God in Him so that He calls us His brothers (2.11). So all our trust must be in Him. Then we will find rest. It will be noted how all this ties in with what we have already seen.

Here he likens the rest to the Sabbath day, to that one day in seven that God set aside for the benefit of His people (4.4-5). It is not to be a day of punishment or intended as a trial to be borne. It is to be a day when His people pause in life to consider Him. It is to be a day of doing good. It is to be a day of blessing. It is rather a day to be called ‘a delight, wholly separated to the Lord, honourable’ and in it we are to honour Him, not doing our own ways, or finding our own pleasure, or speaking frivolously, but delighting in Him, and then He promises that we will ride ‘on the highest places of the earth’, we will enjoy rarified air and will be spiritually fed with all good things (Isaiah 58.13-14).

The assumption is that observing this day truly will be part of the way by which we are enabled to walk the walk of faith. It is the day when God especially says, ‘Stop, and let me tell you, what the good Lord’s done for you’. It is a day on which He says, ‘and then go out and reveal My love and show compassion and do good to others’. It is a symbol of His rest. Indeed God specifically declared that our observance of such a day would be a sign between us and Him that we are truly His people and that by it people would know that we were His. And it would be a constant reminder to us that He is the Lord (Exodus 31.13; Ezekiel 20.12, 20). If we neglect His day it will not be long before we neglect His Lordship.

And just as we are called on to observe the seventh day and enter into God’s rest, so are we equally reminded by it that we are called to enter into that rest constantly day by day, by trusting our Trek-leader, by keeping our eyes firmly fixed on Him, and by believing that He will take care of every thing that we must face in life, so that we may rest constantly in His continuing saving power. It will be by constantly recognising that day by day, our lives are hid with Christ in God, and His life and power is there to be manifest through us.