Let us turn again to God's Word,
turning to that verse that we were considering this morning
in Hebrews Hebrews 4.9, and the words, There remaineth therefore
a rest to the people of God. Tonight I want us to think about
that rest in terms of the heavenly rest We read that chapter in
the Revelation, chapter 21, that speaks something of the glories
that belong to that blessed place. Thinking then tonight from these
words of heavenly rest, I remind you how this morning we were
looking at the same scripture, but We took more particular account
of the reading that we have in the margin. There remain as therefore
a keeping of a Sabbath to the people of God. We thought then
this morning of Sabbath rest. Under the Gospel as the Lord
Jesus is that one who has changed the Sabbath from the last day
of the week to the first day of the week. The Lord Jesus himself
in some ways is the very fulfillment of the Sabbath day and certainly
that comes out in that remarkable hymn of William Gadsby with which
we commenced our service this evening, 636. The believer is one who finds his Sabbath,
his rest, in the Lord Jesus Christ. But that doesn't mean that there's
not a day to be observed, a day to be kept. Remember how the
Lord Jesus says in the Gospel that the Son of Man is Lord even
of the Sabbath day. And as God, after that great
work of creation, set apart, sanctified the seventh day, He
made all things in six days, He rested on the seventh day,
we're told at the beginning of Genesis chapter 2, and He sanctified
it. And so the children of Israel
are told to remember the Sabbath day and to keep it holy. Well, the Lord Jesus is that
one who has come and accomplished a much greater work than that
of creation, that great, that glorious work of redemption,
how he has finished the transgression, made an end of sin, made reconciliation
for iniquity, brought in everlasting righteousness, sealed up the
vision and the prophecy, rid of the anointing of the Most
Holy, and that greater work is remembered now in that we see
in the New Testament that the Lord's disciples would observe
that. First day of the week, referred
in the last book of Scripture in Revelation, Revelation chapter
1, we read of John, exiled on Patmos, in the Spirit
on the Lord's Day. The Lord's Day, that first day
of the week, the day that the Lord hath made wherein we are
to rejoice, wherein we are to be glad. Oh, the Lord Jesus is
that one who is Lord even of the Sabbath, and he frees the
Sabbath day. from all the traditions of men. Now the Pharisees were guilty
time and again of overlaying it with their own traditions
but the Lord would have none of it. Now we see him exercising
his gracious ministry healing men and women even on the Sabbath
day. Well we thought this morning
of that day, Sabbath rest the Christian Sabbath. But now, I
want us to consider the actual text as it stands before us here
in this verse. Hebrews 4, 9, There remaineth
therefore a rest through the people of God. Heavenly rest. Heavenly rest. And there is a
connection between the two, between Sabbath rest and heavenly rest. The Lord's Day should really
anticipate Heaven. It should be considered by us
as that that is a foretaste of Heaven itself, where congregations
never break up, where Sabbaths have no end, says a little couplet
in the head. That is Heaven. It is a place
of continual and constant worship of God. And as we come to consider
that heavenly rest, I want to divide what I say into two parts.
First of all, to see how that heavenly rest commences under
the Gospel. It begins under the Gospel. But
then it is ultimately completed only in heaven. It commences
under the gospel, it is completed in heaven. There remaineth a rest, it says. Now, here the
verb to remain is in the present tense. It's in the present tense, it's
a present experience that he is speaking of that is the portion
of the people of God. They enjoy a rest now in the
day of grace. The believer is that person who
has been born again by the Spirit of God. That means there is new
life in the soul of one who was dead in trespasses and in sins
previously. And what is that new life? Why,
it is everlasting life. Remember God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth
in him should not perish but have everlasting life. The believer has everlasting
life, eternal life. Again the Lord Jesus says there
in John chapter 10, I give unto them eternal life. And they shall
never perish. None shall pluck them out of
My hand. My Father that gave them Me is greater than all.
No man can pluck them out of My Father's hand. They, being
born again, have a life that can never be destroyed, can never
be lost. It's eternal. It's an eternal
life. Oh, what a contrast! The wages
of sin is death. The gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord. And it's a life to be known. When we're born again of the
Spirit, we know that we have a life that is indestructible.
Again, doesn't the scripture make that so clear to us? There
in the first epistle general of John, chapter 3 and verse
14, the blessed, the beloved apostle says, we know that we
have passed from death unto life. We know. That once we were dead
in trespasses and in sins, but no more, now we have new life.
It's something to be known. what he is speaking of here then
is in the present tense it's a present experience that the
believer knows and is able to to live in that's the life that
he is living and he enjoys real rest in the Lord Jesus Christ
all the gracious words of the Savior as he comes in the gospel
and utters those words of invitation those words of encouragement
come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will
give you rest take my yoke upon you learn of me for I am meek
and lowly in heart ye shall find rest for your souls he says ye
shall find rest it is that that is to be enjoyed in the here
and now and the The truth is that what we have
in the Old Testament, this is the context here in this passage
where our text is found. If we go back through this fourth
chapter into chapter 3 we see how that the Apostle Paul begins
to to speak of rest from verse 15 in chapter 3 through
to verse 11 here in chapter 4, that's the theme that is very
much running through all these verses. And he speaks of different
rest, he speaks of the rest that God entered into after his work
of creation. Here in verse 4 of chapter 4, He spoke in a certain place of
the seventh day on this wise and God did rest the seventh
day from all his works. And then he also goes on to speak
of that rest that the children of Israel were to enter into
when they came into the promised lands. And that was very much
under Joshua. In fact, in the verse previous
to our text, he says, if Jesus, that is Joshua, as we see from
the margin, he's referring to that man who succeeded Moses,
who was to take the children of Israel into the possession
of the Promised Land, if Jesus had given them rest, then he
would not afterward have spoken of another day. That rest that
they came into the possession of in the land of Canaan, is
the type of another day. That's what he is saying. And what is it a type of? In
a sense, the rest of Canaan, the rest of the promised land,
is a type of the gospel. The whole context makes that
so clear. Go back to the end of chapter
3, with whom was he grieved 40 years. Was he not with them that
had sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness? And to whom
swear he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them
that believe not? So we see they could not enter
in because of unbelief. The whole generation that came
out of Egypt did not enter in. because of unbelief. They didn't
believe what Joshua and Caleb said. They believed the evil
report of the ten other spies who had gone to search out the
land. You know the account that we have there, back in the Old
Testament. He is clearly here then in the
context, time and again, speaking of Canaan. We have it here, as I say, in
the immediate context of our text verses 8 and 9 that rest
that they should have entered into but they didn't because
of unbelief the following generation goes in and they come into the
possession of the land they enjoy that rest but it is all typical
really of the gospel and it's interesting because we see in
scripture there are certain parallels that can be drawn between the
rest that they had in Canaan and the rest that the believer
has as he possesses his new spiritual life under the gospel. What sort of a rest was it that
they had in Canaan? Well, it was a rest that still involved
conflict. it still involved conflict. There
were those nations, the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Perizzites,
the Hivites, a multitude of nations and we're told how the Canaanite
would dwell in that land. They didn't rid the land of those
nations all at once. There were constant warfares
and conflicts with the inhabitants of the lands. Now it's spoken
of there in Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 7.22, the Lord thy
God will put out those nations before thee, it says, by little
and little. Thou mayest not consume them
at once, lest the beast of the field increase upon them. They've
entered into the land, it's a land of rest, it's a promised land,
but they're in conflict, they're in warfare. Now isn't that the
case also with the believer when he enters into gospel rest? We
must, through much tribulation, enter into the kingdom of God,
says the apostle. What is this gospel way? What
is this narrow way that leads to life? It is not an easy way. It's a way of difficulties, of
conflicts. There's Satan, there's a great
enemy who is ever active and seeking to devour us. We wrestle
not against flesh and blood, says Paul, but against principalities,
against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world,
against spiritual wickedness in high places. Oh, there's our
terrible adversary, Satan. There's the world about us. And
all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of
the eyes, the pride of life, is not of the Father, but of
the world. But there's not only that enemy that is without, there's
enemies within. How the believer feels it, he
has an old nature, called the flesh. And the flesh lost it
against the spirit, and the spirit lost it against the flesh, and
that contrary one to the other, says Paul, and ye cannot do the
thing that ye want. Or the believer wants to be holy.
longs and yearns after that holiness and yet always conflicting with
himself. You see the similarity then between
the children of Israel entering into Canaan and that experience
of the believer under the gospel. But there are other parallels
we can draw. There was a remarkable provision
that God made for them in that land, that promised land, a land
that was flowing with milk and honey. We are told concerning
the spies, for example, in Numbers 13, they came, it says, onto
the brook of Eshkol and cut down from thence a branch with one
cluster of grapes and they bore it between two men on a stave. It was such a cluster of grapes,
it took two men to bear it, to carry it. It was a land so rich
and so fertile. And this is how the Sprys, those
faithful men, Caleb and and Joshua speak of the land
in the 14th chapter of the book of Joshua how they speak there
so faithfully bear with me, bear with me It's not the book of Joshua,
it's the book of Numbers in Numbers Numbers chapter 14 and there
in verse 6 Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb
the son of Jephunneh which were of them that searched the land
rent their clothes and they spake unto all the company of the children
of Israel saying, The land which we pass through to search it
is an exceeding good land. If the Lord delight in us, then
he will bring us into this land and give us a land which floweth
with milk and honey. Only rebel not ye against the
Lord, neither fear ye the people of the land, for they are bread
for us. Their defence is departed from
them, and the Lord is with us. Fear them not. These faithful
men, you see, they see the land and they see that this is God's
provision. And the people are not to despise what God has provided. Well, isn't the Gospel also described
to us in Scripture as a feast? It's a feast of factings. Oh, what a provision God has
made for needy sinners in the person and the work of the Lord
Jesus Christ. In this mountain, this is Mount
Zion, in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all
people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the leaves,
of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the leaves, well
refined. What is this provision? It's
all the riches of the grace of God. It's all that fullness of
salvation that is in the Lord Jesus Christ. And what do we
have there? We have the pardon of sin. we
have reconciliation with God, we have peace with God, we have
justification, we have sanctification, all that is necessary for the
salvation of the sinner. All we have nothing to fear,
but just to believe what God has done, the provision that
God has made. He made provision for the children of Israel they
could not enter in. They could not enter in because
of unbelief. and think of all that fullness
of grace that is in the Lord Jesus Christ. How do we enter
in? By faith, looking onto Him, trusting
in Him. There are these parallels. They
were going to a land, there'd be conflict, yes, but there was
a wonderful provision and above all What is that provision? It's the very presence of God
Himself. The Lord God was there with them,
in the midst of that land. Again, in the Old Testament we
see it. This time, I trust it is Joshua,
and it's Joshua chapter 18. Joshua 18 verse 1, The whole
congregation of the children of Israel assembled together
at Shiloh, and set up the tabernacle of the congregation there, and
the land was subdued before them. They assembled at Shiloh, and
what did they do? They set up the tabernacle. And what does the tabernacle
speak of? It speaks of God. It speaks of God's presence.
Now, subsequently, of course, the tabernacle is removed. It's
taken from Shiloh. It's David who takes it and establishes
it now at Jerusalem, upon the Mount Sinai. And there God makes
his special dwelling in the midst of his people. and we have it
in the language of the Psalmist 132nd Psalm, Arise O Lord into
thy rest thou and the ark of thy strength the Lord hath chosen
Zion he hath desired it for his habitation this is my rest forever
here will I dwell for I have desired it or what was it that
made this land to be so so precious to them. He was God. And He was
the presence of God. And He was God there in the midst
of His people. His special presence was at Shiloh.
Then He was at Zion. But where does God dwell now?
He dwells in the hearts of all His people. That's the amazing
thing. When the Lord Jesus is praying to His Father, In that
remarkable high priestly prayer of John 17, what does he say
concerning those disciples, I in them, I in them, and thou in
them? He is one with the Father. He
is the eternal Son of the Father. He is there in the God and in
all the glorious unity, one God. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our
God is one Lord. And yet God subsisting in three
persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. With all that prayer,
the union now you see between Christ and His people. He says
to the Father, I in them. He comes, He is in the midst
of His people. You are the temple of the living
God, says the Apostle Paul. As God has said, I will dwell
in them and walk in them, and I will be their God. and they
shall be my people." There are then these parallels that we
can draw, the believer's position in the day of grace, that rest
that the believer enjoys under the gospel. Even here in this
present world, the believer is a partaker of that new life,
that spiritual life. He's a partaker of the divine
nature. He's born again by the Spirit
of God. And the Spirit of God comes and
dwells in the hearts of all his people. There is a rest that
remaineth. It begins now. The present tense. There remaineth therefore a rest
to the people of God. But that's rest is ultimately
going to be completed in heaven. It will only be completed in
heaven. God is resting in the midst of
his people, yes? When God's people come together,
when we gather for worship, we have that promise of the Lord
Jesus Christ, where two or three are met together in my name,
there am I in the midst. It is the Lord in the midst that
is the glory of the church. When we see it there in Revelation
chapter 1, it is Christ in the midst of the golden candlesticks
representing the churches. That's the glory of the church. That's why we're not to forsake
the assembling of ourselves together. But all of this is to be consummated
ultimately in heaven itself. That's why the Christian Sabbath
should be to us a foretaste of heaven. We enjoy something of
heaven on earth when we come together as a local church, a
gathered church to worship God. But I have not seen nor he a
herd neither hath entered into the hearts of men the thing that
God hath prepared for them that love him. Or there are greater
things yet, greater things yet. And we see it in that lovely
chapter that we were reading from earlier, that 21st chapter
in the Revelation. I saw a new heaven, says John,
and a new earth. For the first heaven and the
first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea. And
I, John, saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God
out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out
of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men. and he will dwell with them,
and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with
them, and be their God." Or the tabernacle, and all that the
tabernacle, all that the temple there in the Old Testament speaks
of. Now you see then there is a sense
in which, in some ways, Canaan is also a type of heaven. Yes, it's a type, really, of
rest in the gospel. And we've spoken of some of those
parallels, and amongst them that we, in this life, as believers,
we're in conflict. There's no conflict in heaven.
And yet I say that we can draw parallels. We sang that lovely
hymn of Isaac Watts on heaven just now. And the imagery he's
using, of course, is that of Canaan. The hymn writers often do that. And I don't believe we can say
that they're altogether wrong. There is a way in which Canaan
was a type of heaven, the land of pure delight. And we can Therefore, draw the
contrast between the type in the Old Testament and the anti-type
in the New Testament. Remember, in the Old Testament,
God dwelt only with Israel. You only have I known among all
the families of the earth, he says in Amos. And think of the
language that we have there, we've referred to it in times
past, the 147th Psalm, there at the end of the book of Psalms,
at the end of the Psalm, He showeth His word unto Jacob, His statutes
and His judgments unto Israel, He hath not dealt so with any
nation. As for his judgments, they have
not known them. Praise ye the Lord. He dwelt only with Israel. They had the tabernacle. They had the temple of the Lord. And there is a sense in which
we could say that the tabernacle, the temple was only for the Levites. It was under the Levites. They
had all the ministry there in that holy place in the midst
of Israel. But what a contrast when we think
of heaven. In heaven God is dwelling with all of his people forever. Behold the tabernacle of God
is with men and he will dwell with them and they shall be his
people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God."
That's what we read there in Revelation 21.3. God's tabernacle there is not
just for Israel, not just for the Levites. No, God's tabernacle
is with men. and their God dwells in the midst
of them. Again, look at the language that
we have later in that chapter that we read, verse 22, I saw
no temple therein for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are
the temple of it. Well, that's the glory of heaven,
you see. It's Him who is the fulfillment of the tabernacle,
the fulfillment of the temple. It's the Lord Jesus Christ Himself
who is there the Lamb, all the glory in Emmanuel's land. But then we have to also recognize
is there is a contrast between the gospel and heaven. As I say in the gospel We have, as it were, the beginning,
but in heaven we have all the fullness of the blessings. That is the wondrous thing that
we behold. Think of how things are under
the gospel. God's people, in this day of
grace, they are but a remnant. The Lord says to his disciples,
fear not little flock. It is your Father's good pleasure
to give you the kingdom." There is in Scripture the doctrine
of the remnant. And remember again how in Isaiah
1 it's a very small remnant, except the Lord had left unto
us a very small remnant. We should have been as Sodom,
we should have been like unto Gomorrah. God's people are not in the majority.
Oh, there's a company that's innumerable. Multitudes. But here in this world, God's
people are but a remnant. I will leave in the midst an
afflicted and poor people, he says. And they shall trust in
the name of the Lord. Ah, but heaven, what did we read?
There, Revelation 21, 24, we read of the nations of them
that are saved that's heaven the nations of them that are
saved no remnant there all those there
are the side of the Lord and none others Furthermore, under
the Gospel, is it not a fact that believers sometimes do find
themselves walking in darkness. God deals with us because of
our foolishness and our sins. We wander from Him. He has to restore us. He has to correct us. He has
to chastise us. And sometimes He hides His face
from His people. who is among you that feareth
the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh
in darkness and hath no light, let him trust in the name of
the Lord, and stay upon his court, or the heir of heaven walking
in darkness as the Puritan Thomas Goodwin says as he expounds those
words at the end of Isaiah chapter 15. There are times in this life
when Alas, the believer feels himself to be in the dark. There's
nothing of that in heaven, of course. Oh, there's nothing of
that in heaven. And we read it in that 21st chapter
of the Revelation. The city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine
in it. For the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the
light thereof. That's heaven, you see. And besides
being a place of light, it is also that place of perfect rest. As I've already said, there's
nothing of conflict there. There's nothing of warfare there. Think of the Think of the words of the hymn
writer, Sin, my worst enemy before, shall vex mine eyes and ears
no more. My inward foes shall all be slain,
nor Satan break my peace again. Oh, what a rest is that. What
a rest is that. No more an old nature. No more
a devil to tempt and to torment us. It is that blessed abode,
and how it's described there for us in that chapter in the
Revelation, verse 8, the fearful and unbelieving and the abominable
and murderers and whoremongers and sorcerers and idolaters and
all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with
fire and brimstone, which is the second death. There shall in no wise enter
into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination
or maketh a lie, but they which are written in the Lamb's book
of life. For there remaineth therefore
a rest to the people of God. Ultimately that blessed, that
glorious rest which is heaven itself. Again, look at this verse
in Revelation, Revelation 14, 13. John says, I heard a voice
from heaven saying unto me, Writes, Blessed are the dead which die
in the Lord from henceforth. Yea, saith the Spirit, that they
may rest from their labors, and their works do follow them. They rest. It is a place, a glorious
place of rest. And there in heaven you see that
rest is completed. It's completed. It's consummated. Canaan in a sense we can say
is a type. It is a type certainly of gospel
rest, but also a type of heavenly rest. It has been said that grace
is glory in the buds, and glory is grace in the full flower.
You see the relationship between grace and glory. There is a relationship. In heaven they are eternally
taken up contemplating that great mystery of God, the Trinity. In heaven they're taken up always
with that glorious mystery of the Lord Jesus Christ in his
person and in his work. There in heaven they worship
God and they worship the Lamb. and we can never fathom those
mysteries. How can we ever really begin with our created minds,
our finite minds, and we're never anything more than creatures?
God only is the creator. And how can we creatures really
begin to understand that mystery which is God? One God in three
persons. God the Father, God the Son,
God the Holy Spirit. How can we ever really begin
to comprehend that mystery of the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ that he is never anything less than the eternal Son of
the eternal Father. He is the second person in the
Godhead and yet he is a real man. and even there in heaven
you see he has ascended as a glorified man and these are the things
that we must be contemplating forever and forever we're going
to sing just now another hymn on heaven Joseph Hart's hymn
850 here in Gadsby's selection of hymns Heaven He's that holy, happy place where
sin no more defiles, where God unveils His blissful face and
looks and loves and smiles, where Jesus, Son of Man and God, triumphant
from His wars, walks in rich garments dipped in blood and
shows His glorious scars. Heaven, you see. What makes heaven? Heaven is the presence of God,
and God as He has ultimately revealed Himself in the person
of His Son. No man hath seen God at any time.
The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father,
He hath declared Him. You know, it was said of one
of the Puritans, it was said of Richard Sibbes, that Heaven
was in that man before he was in Heaven. Heaven was in that
man before he was in heaven. All that that might be said of
us. What is it for heaven to be in us? Well it's for the Lord
Jesus Christ himself to be that one who is in us. Look at the words of the Apostle Colossians 1.27,
he speaks of the riches of the glory of this mystery among the
Gentiles which is Christ in you the hope of glory that's the
mystery you see Christ in you Christ in me and that's the hope
of glory but there of course that blessed hope is fully and
finally realized when we're in heaven all there is the rest that remaineth, there
remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God." It begins under the Gospel. Ultimately,
it will lead to Heaven. But what of now under the Gospel?
Well, there's no place. There's no place under the Gospel,
though as we said this morning, we We know rest in the Gospel,
there is a Sabbath rest, there is that resting in the Lord Jesus
Christ, but there's no slothfulness, there's no idleness. Woe to them
that are at ease in Zion. What do we read here? How does
the Apostle continue? Verse 11, Let us labour, he says. Let us labour therefore to enter
into that rest. Lest any man fall unto the same
example of unbelief. Remember the unbelief of those
that came out of Egypt. Or Paul says earlier, verse 12
of chapter 3, Take heed brethren, lest there be in any of you an
evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. to whom swear that they should
not enter into his rest, but to them that believe not. So
we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. Here is that sin, that awful
sin. That most dreadful of all our
sins, the sin of unbelief. Oh God, deliver us from unbelief.
And God grant that we might know that true faith. And what of
that true faith? Why Paul can speak of the work of faith, the labour of
love, the patience or endurance of hope. We are to labour then. We are not to be those who are
slothful and idle. We are to be those who are persevering,
calling upon God, seeking God, crying to God. much in prayer
to Him, and we need that He would keep us, and keep us to that
glorious and that blessed abode of all those who are the faithful.
He that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved. There remaineth therefore a rest
to the people of God. The Lord be pleased to bless
these things to us. Amen.