Enter the Rest of God
Enter the Rest of God
Hebrews 3:1- 4:13 NIV
Thesis - God provides an opportunity to enter into His rest, the experience of heart holiness, today.
Sanctification Objective - To cause Christians to enter the rest of God.
If we are going to understand the message of these verses for us we must put ourselves in touch with the background that the writer to the Hebrews had in mind.
God through Moses, had delivered His people, the Israelites, out of the bondage of Egypt. Then He had called them to enter the land of Canaan. He brought them out of Egypt so He could bring them into Canaan.
Canaan was to be a place of rest from internal strife and aimless wandering for these people of God. It was also a place of great fruitfulness. This was proven by the cluster of grapes the exploratory spy party brought back. It was so large they had to suspend it from a pole so two men could carry it.
The spy party brought back more than grapes. They brought back the report that Canaan was inhabited by Anakin giants, a people about twice their size, who made them feel like grasshoppers. This negative report caused the people to disbelieve God's promise of possession of Canaan and to disobey His command to enter the land. Disbelief of God's Word always results in disobedience to that Word. Their disbelieving disobedience, under Moses, resulted in them dying in the Wilderness of Sin.
Hebrews 4:8 reminds us a second generation of Israelites did finally possess the land under Joshua.
Now all of these events were a type of something to come. There was a new people of God to come. And there is a different kind of rest and fruitfulness than the one which Moses sought and Joshua entered. Canaan is a type, a symbol of something which God is calling us to enter. Today, God is extending to us
I. The call to enter the experience of heart holiness.
A. Canaan symbolizes heart holiness.
B. Heart holiness is an experience of rest.
1. It is the hymn writer's "place of quiet rest near to the heart of God."
2. It is an experience of rest from self-effort and carnal struggles.
a) We rest from the work of trying to make ourselves holy (4:10).
(1) "But the place of quiet rest, near to the heart of God is the place of self-crucifixion, of total surrender of self to God, of complete abandonment of our vain efforts either to create the Kingdom of God on earth or to create holiness within ourselves," -Richard S. Taylor
(2) Vicar John Barridge, a friend of George Whitefield and pastor of a most unsanctified congregation of the Church of England prayed: "Lord, if I am all right, keep me so; if I am not right make me so." God replied, "Cease from thy works and believe only."
(3) Joe Hammond
b) It is an experience of rest from carnal struggles, not a cessation of action.
(1) Romans 7:14-25
(2) "We are not summoned to the heavy slumber which follows overtaxing toil, nor to inaction or indolence; but to the rest that is possible amid swift activity and strenuous work; to perfect equilibrium between the outgoings and incomings of life; to a contented heart, to the repose of the will in the will of God; and to the calms of the depths of nature which are undisturbed by the hurricanes which sweep the surface; and urge forward the mighty waves." -F. B. Meyer
C. Heart holiness is also an experience of fruit.
1. Character fruit (Galatians 5:22, 23)
2. Conversion fruit (John 15:1-8)
So, today, God is calling us to enter our Canaan.
II. The call to enter may be answered by faith and obedience.
A. The first Israel didn't enter because of unbelief (3:19).
1. Apietheic is the word translated unbelief.
2. It can also be translated disobedience (3:18).
3. Since they didn't believe God could overcome the giants and give them the land they didn't obey.
B. The second Israel did believe and obey and they entered Canaan.
1. They didn't enter our rest (4:9, 11).
2. They proved "trust and obey" is the only way.
C. The church must believe and obey God.
1. We must believe that God can give us rest from the giants with which we struggle.
a) Giants of self-pride, cynicism, jealousy, bitterness, greed, lust, etc.
b) "For only we who believe can enter this place of rest"(4:3, TLB).
2. We must believe that God can give us an experience of great fruitfulness.
3. We must obey God and cross our Jordan of self-will by consecration and faith.
It is important to understand that
III. The call to enter unanswered will result in death in sin for you.
A. This is what it resulted in for those under the lesser Moses.
1. Attitude
2. Act
B. This passage is filled with conditional language (3:6, 14; 4:11).
C. The Scriptures are filled with such warnings elsewhere.
1. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Matthew 5:8
2. Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. Hebrews 12:14, KJV
A poem written by W. H. Griffith Thomas will put a ribbon on this package of truth :
"They came to the gates of Canaan
But they never entered in!
They came to the very threshold,
But they perished in their sin.
"On the morrow they would have entered,
But God had shut the gate;
They wept, they rashly ventured,
But alas! It was too late.
"And so we are coming
To the place where two ways part;
One leads to the land of promise
And one to a hardened heart."
You can enter Canaan here and now. Obey God! Enter the rest of God.
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