Good morning everybody. It's
great to see you. I'm very grateful we don't have
three inches of snow on the ground. It's beautiful out there. Let's
be remembering Brother Bob Coffey. He's in Springfield right now.
Pray the Lord will bless him and the brethren out there. Brother
Cody Henson is in Spring Lake preaching for the brethren there
at Brother Rupert's. And let's be remembering each
other. We say this all the time, but
there are things that all of us go through, and sometimes
we know what they are, and sometimes we don't, and it's okay. Our
Lord knows. But still, we love each other,
don't we? And let's bring each other before
the Lord, whatever our needs are. He's going to supply them,
but still we ask, don't we? And let's remember each other
as often as we can. Let's have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank
you for this day. Lord, thank you for the opportunity
to pray. If you left us to ourselves,
we would never do that. We would never call on you. We
would never acknowledge you. We would go about our life living for worldly things, living
for ourselves, we would not consider our latter
end, and we would go meet you in judgment.
But you in mercy have laid hold of our minds, our hearts. You have opened our eyes. You've
called us to yourself. You've been gracious to us. And
you've enabled us to come to your house and bow before you
and worship you. And we beg, Lord, would you enable
us to do that this morning? We do pray for every man who
is standing up right now, our brethren from here and our brethren
everywhere. Lord, be with your men in the
gospel today. We are all weak vessels. None
of us are sufficient to preach. None of us are sufficient to
hear. We can't hear the gospel without your work and help. And so we beg, we come as beggars,
Lord, help us and feed us this morning. Prepare our hearts and
bless us, we beg for Christ's sake. Lord, we pray for every. Brother and sister, we pray for
our loved ones. That's what they are. We love
each other. And we bring each other to you,
Lord, we do have frailties and sicknesses and weaknesses. And
you are the great physician and we come to you, we bring our
brethren to you. And Lord, spiritually speaking,
we bring all of our loved ones to you. We bring our children
to you. Lord, would you please, in mercy,
open all of our eyes and save our souls? Forgive us, Lord,
and if it be thy will, would you forgive others through the
means of your gospel? Would you open up new ways to
declare this truth, new means if it be thy will. Would you
bless your gospel by your spirit according to your will? We ask
all these things in Christ's name. Amen. Alright, turn with me if you
would to Hebrews chapter 4. Hebrews chapter 4, I want to
look at the first 11 verses this morning. And the message of this text
is, if God rested, so should we. That's the message of this
text. I've always loved this chapter. I always love this, if God rested
so should we. Look at verse 10, Hebrews 4 verse
10 says, for he, and that's talking about the sinner, he that is entered into his rest,
Christ, the rest of Christ, he that is entered into his rest,
he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from His. I just adore that. The soul,
the center that has entered into Christ's rest, that soul has
completely stopped all of His own works as God did His. Now turn with me over to Genesis
chapter 1. Genesis 1 verse 31 says, And God saw everything that He
had made, and behold, it was very good. And the evening and
the morning were the sixth day. Chapter 2 verse 1 says, Thus
the heavens and the earth were finished. and all the host of
them. And on the seventh day, God ended
his work, which he had made. And he rested on the seventh
day from all his work, which he had made. And God blessed
the seventh day and sanctified it because that in it, he had
rested from all his work, which God created and made. Now, I want to tell you something.
This is not in my notes. This is just popping into my
mind. I found out that one of our little children, I pray that
God would save our children, plant a seed in their hearts,
that we have these classes for them, these Sunday school classes. I tell you, God blesses the preaching
of the gospel. His word doesn't return void.
We have these little bitty girls, and I found out that one of them,
this was a little while back, they went through the days of
the week in the little, little class. And they got up on Sunday
morning, and the little child said, you know, what day is this? Something to that effect. And
parents said, this is Sunday. And the little child said, oh,
good. We get to go find out what happened on the seventh day.
That's wonderful, isn't it? Looking forward to going in here.
And I thought, that child's going to find out God rested. on the
seventh day. And then maybe one of these days
God will open up that child's eyes to really find out what
the Sabbath is, who the Sabbath is, who the seventh day is. God rested on the seventh day,
the Sabbath. But oh, may God bless all this. May God bless all this. Okay,
let's go back. It says God rested from all His
works which He created and made. Now, from that moment Okay, from
Genesis 2 verses 1 to 3, from that moment God has not created
any new thing. He hasn't created any new thing.
He went through His creation, He created light, He created
darkness, He created heaven, He created earth, you know, sun,
moon, stars, planets. He created land and water. He created trees and plants and
herbs. He created all manner of fish,
all manner of birds, all manner of four-footed beasts, all manner
of creeping things. He created man, he created woman,
and then he stopped creating. He stopped creating. He has not
created any new thing since then. He rested from all his work. He said creation is finished. It's finished. Now man takes
the things that God created, things like iron and steel and
copper, and he makes things out of them like cars. You can say,
well, cars weren't around back then and now they are. Cars are
a creation of something that was already there. He was already
there. The tree that God made, man takes
that tree and he can build a house with it. But that was all already
there. Solomon said, there is nothing
new under the sun. Can it be said of anything? See,
this is new. And the answer is no. God rested
from his work of creation. The same thing applies to salvation. Same exact thing applies to salvation. When our Lord gave His life and
He said it is finished, that was it. It was finished. He ascended back on His throne
and He sat down. He rested from the work of salvation
because it was finished. Now when I rest, Down here on
this earth, here in this life that I live, I rest because I'm
tired. When we think of rest, that's
what we think of. I'm resting because I'm tired.
My physical work is never going to be over down here. Never. Just when you think, you know,
we got it, it's just never going to end. Never going to be over.
My labor is never going to stop. Until God removes me from this,
I will, I believe and hope and pray, carry the burden and the
work of reading, studying, preparing and preaching messages until
the day I die or God removes me from it. It's just never going
to end. We moved here and bought the
house we live in. Everybody who was here came over
and helped me work on that house. We remodeled the house and when
I bought it, I made a list of all the things I wanted to do.
You know, I felt like the house needed and I wanted to do to
it and I made this list and I've said ever since, it's going to
take 20 years to finish this list. And then I thought, once
the list is finished, that's 20 years from now. It's going
to be time to start remodeling the remodel. Isn't that right? Isn't that how it goes? It's
never going to end. It will never, ever end. So I
take a rest because I'm tired. That's the reason I'm tired.
That's not why God rested. God rested because it was finished. That's the glory of God. Finished. Finished. You know,
people say He's working for your good. I can't stand what they've
done to Romans 8.28 in these new, you know, translations of
the Bible. You know, they say God is working
for your good. That's not so. That's not so. God is working toward good for
you. In this plan that he has, the
end result of that plan is good and he's pursuing it. That is
just not true. It's not true. All of his works
are finished. They're all finished. Look with
me at Acts 15. Acts 15 verse 18 says, Known unto God are all his works
from the beginning of the world. Known unto God are all his works
from the beginning of the world. Now God is not removed from us. His hand still works and moves
in the hearts of his people. He is active with His people
and with this world. Whatever is done, God is the
doer of it. We see all of these, you know,
what people call natural disasters and all these things. God is
the doer of it. He is right now reigning and
ruling over everything. But every single thing that He
has purposed to do is already done. In the mind of God, in
the will of God, It's already finished. Everything is ordered
and secure. And it has been that way since
before the foundation of the world. It's already finished.
We worry. Oh, what peace we often forfeit. Oh, what needless pain we bear
all because we don't believe him. Every single thing is finished. Over. If that clock is right, it's
10, 18. Everything from 10, 17 and back
is done. Can't be changed. It can't be
changed. Everything from 10, 19 and forward
is done. Can't be changed. It's done. It's done. Rest. Rest. It's done. It's ordered. It's secure. There is no time
with God. We live in time. There's no time
with God. He knows the end from the beginning. Do we know why He knows the end
from the beginning? It's because He is the end from
the beginning. He said, I am Alpha and I am
Omega. He didn't say, I know Alpha and
I know Omega. Alpha is the beginning, Omega
is the end. He said, I am. I am the end. I'm the end. My brain cannot
comprehend that. It just cannot comprehend it.
The reason is because I'm subject to time, I have not reached the
end yet, and I can try to get a grasp of it, but it just, I
can't comprehend it. But the truth is, He was the
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. From the foundation
of the world, He was done. It was finished. And then in
time, the time He put us under, He carried it out. And if anybody,
you know, I thought about people coming in and hearing this. If
anybody says, I just don't understand what you're saying. I don't understand
that. My answer would be, neither do I. But God has given me a
heart to believe it. He's given me a heart to believe
it. Our Lord is not waiting for any outcome. He's not waiting
to see how Anything turns out, everything is finished. It's
finished. Don't go over there, but I love
this. John 17, he said, those that thou gavest me I have kept
and none of them is lost. Kept is past tense. I kept them and I didn't lose
any of them. I did not lose none of them.
All right, that was 2,000 years ago. He said that 2,000 years
ago. How many people have come and
gone in the last 2,000 years? How could he back then say, I kept all of them. None of them
are lost. The reason is because he'd already
lost none of them. They were already not lost. All
of them. Finished. Finished. And the point
of Hebrews 4 is to tell us, when it keeps talking about rest,
keeps talking about rest, what it's saying is, trust Him. Trust
Him. Stop at His word. That almighty,
sovereign word. Just stop at it. If He said it,
rest. Now go with me back over to Hebrews
4. We'll go through these quickly. Verse 1, let us therefore fear, lest a
promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should
seem to come short of it. He's talking about Moses delivering
the children of Israel out of Egypt. And they wandered in the
wilderness and they literally went around in circles. They
were so at one point so close to the promised land and then
just kept going around in circles for 40 years and the people kept
murmuring and complaining and God said nobody above the age
of 20 is going in. And all those people who were
above 20, they died in the wilderness, didn't they? Died in the wilderness.
And the reason is because they would not rest in his word. We saw that last Wednesday night.
He said, this is what I'm going to do for you. And they would
not rest in his word. They died because of unbelief. That's what he said back in Hebrews
3. We looked at it last week. Go
to Hebrews 3 verse 12. He said, Take heed, brethren,
lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing
from the living God. But exhort one another daily
while it is called today, lest any of you being hardened through
the deceitfulness of sin For we are made partakers of Christ
if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the
end. If God gives us that faith, if
he gives us that ability to rest in his word. Verse 15, while
it is said today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your
hearts as in the provocation. For some, when they had heard,
did provoke, howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses.
But with whom was he grieved forty years? Was it 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 believed not. So we see that they could not
enter in because of unbelief. Chapter 4 verse 1 says, let us
therefore fear. We fear God, don't we? We fear
God. This is Probably one of the scariest
things to me about religion today. Religion scares me for so many
reasons, but this probably is the scariest one to me. There
is no fear of God before their eyes, both in religion and out
of religion. There is no fear of God before
their eyes. No fear. The fear of the Lord
is the beginning of wisdom. That is the beginning. And if
we want to be wise, it starts right here. Let's fear God. Let's fear God. How do we fear
God? How do we fear God? We start by believing what he
says about God. This is all about believing and
not believing. We start by believing that God
is holy just like he said he was. We believe what he says
about man, that he's sinful. We believe what he says about
sin, he's going to punish it. The wages of sin, this is, you
know, man talks about his works, his works, all his works are
filthy rags. They're all sin. Here's what
you get. Here's your paycheck. The wages of sin is death. And
we believe where he said our only hiding place is. We have
one hiding place, and that's in the blood of Christ. So verse
1, he said, let us therefore fear lest a promise being left. This is one of the most necessary, I
believe, removals of an italicized word. This is why I believe it's
so important to have italicized words in our Bible. The word
us is in italics. If God promises us something,
God's going to provide it. Isn't that right? So this was
originally written, let us therefore fear lest a promise being left
of entering into his rest. God made a promise. Some are
going to enter into his rest. Let us therefore fear lest a
promise being left of entering into His rest, any of you should
seem to come short of it. Verse 2, for unto us was the
gospel preached as well as unto them. But the word preached did
not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard. They missed Christ because of
unbelief. Does a man have to believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ? We'd better believe it. They
missed Christ because of unbelief. That is ultimately what will
damn a soul. That is what will damn a soul.
Abraham lied. He said, he told his wife, you
tell all these people you're my sister, they're going to kill
me for you. And he did it on numerous occasions.
He lied. But God saved him. God had mercy
on him. Moses committed murder. The reason
Moses left Egypt the first time is because he murdered an Egyptian.
And he feared for his life. Hebrews 11 says he didn't fear
for his life. In Christ he did everything perfectly,
but that's why he left. He murdered a man. God had mercy
on Moses. God saved Moses. The Apostle
Paul murdered a lot of people. He murdered a lot of God's people
when he was Saul of Tarsus, but God had mercy on him. God saved
him. David committed adultery. I mean,
you think about it, if this was being said, if we have these
congregations and then you start going through the congregations
and say, well, you know what so-and-so did up there at Tom
Harding's? And you know what so-and-so did
over there at Donny Bell's? These were God's people. David
committed adultery and then had the woman's husband murdered,
had him killed. God had mercy on that man. God
saved that man. But the one thing God said he
will not forgive is unbelief. Unbelief. This is what men and
women just don't naturally realize. Christ came to save the chief
of sinners. That's who He came to save. He
said that all through this word. People just don't, they don't
believe Him though. They don't believe Him. They
think this flesh has to fix itself. Isn't that right? And God calls
that unbelief. Believe on Christ. God calls
it unbelief. Verse 3, For we which have believed
do enter into rest, as He said, As I have sworn in my wrath,
if they shall enter into my rest, although the works were finished
from the foundation of the world, he's quoting Psalm 95, verse
4, for he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this
wise, and God did rest the seventh day from all his works. We just
read that in Genesis 2. Verse 5, he's quoting Psalm 95
again, and in this place again, if they shall enter into my rest,
seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein. That is our hope. That is our hope. That's our hope. In this thing
of believing and resting in Christ, God's people don't have a choice. They don't have a choice. They
don't have a choice. This is so, so relieving. They must enter in. God's people
are chosen to enter in. chosen to receive the gift of
faith, chosen to enter into the rest of Christ. And when this
gospel is declared, our Lord chose to use the means of the
gospel for this to happen. When this gospel is declared,
two things happen. It condemns those in unbelief. It is the condemnation of those
in unbelief. But it also calls out, it quickens
the ear, it quickens the mind, it quickens the heart of God's
children, those that have been chosen to salvation, and it causes
them to believe. God causes His people to believe
and enter into rest in Christ. Faith says this is all in God's
hands. That's what faith says. It's
all in God's hands. He's going to save whom he'll
save. He said, I'll have mercy on whom I'll have mercy and whom
I will, I'll harden. And that's where faith leaves
it. Isn't that right? What is it ultimately in the
end? He's going to have mercy on whoever
he chooses to have mercy, and he's going to harden whoever
he chooses to harden. That's it. God's people are going to
believe that. Verse 6, Hebrews 4, 6, seeing
therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, And they
to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief.
Again He limiteth a certain day, saying in David, Today, after
so long a time, as it is said, Today, if you will hear His voice,
harden not your hearts." God has given you faith in Christ.
He's saying believe on Him today. Do it today. Do it today. We're not promised tomorrow.
We're just not promised tomorrow. Rest in Him today. Don't rest
in anything else. We put a lot of stock in our
feelings. We put a lot of stock in our
feelings. Don't rest in feelings. Don't be good and settled and
okay with things because I feel saved. And don't get thrown all
out of whack when you don't feel saved. Don't put any stock in feelings.
None. Don't put any stock in what you
see yourself doing. Don't be lifted up with pride
because not only am I going to church, I want to go to church. And don't be completely thrown
all out of whack when you don't see in this heart what you wish
was there. And you say, oh wretched man
that I am. Rest in Christ. He's the foundation. He's the
rock. He feels what I don't. His spirit is groaning things
to God that I can't even utter. Trust Christ, you rest in what
he said he accomplished. Verse 8, for if Jesus had given
them rest, now last Wednesday night we talked about Joshua,
same name. Joshua in the Old Testament is
Jesus in the New Testament. Right here if you have a margin
it says Joshua, this is physically talking about the man Joshua.
If Joshua had given them rest, then would he not afterward have
spoken of another day? God gave Moses the Ten Commandments
and he said, rest on the Sabbath. That was one of them. Rest on
the Sabbath. Moses physically told the people
to rest on the seventh day. That was a type of another day
to come, another rest to come. Joshua led them into the promised
land. That promised land was not our
rest. That seventh day was not the
rest. The promised land was not the rest. People think that God
is going to come back and go to that promised land. He is
going back to Canaan to raise up His throne and bring His people
there. That's not it. Nothing on this earth is our
rest. True rest is in a person, in
Christ. So Joshua would not have spoken
of another day. Verse 9, there remaineth therefore
a rest to the people of God. There is a rest. to the people
of God. For he that is entered into his
rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, just like God
did from his." If he says, if God rested, so should I. If God said it's finished, it's
finished. And Psalm 23, David said, he
makes me lie down in green pastures. When I was out in Springfield,
one of the men out there, he came out of a congregation that
hounded progressive sanctification. Progressive sanctification. If
Christ is my sanctification, to progress is to become better
than Christ. That's blasphemy. That's blasphemy. Christ is it. That's it. Now I want to grow in faith.
I want to grow in grace. I want to grow in love. I want
to grow in all kinds of things. But when it comes to sanctification,
meaning my purity and holiness and righteousness and perfectness
before God, Christ is the end of that law. But this fella had
been, bless his heart, he'd been hounded all his life. That progressive
sanctification, you better look within, you better become better.
You better this, you better that. We were talking about it Saturday
night. We were all meeting together,
had dinner together and we talked about Christ being our sanctification
and he said, isn't that so relaxing? I said, yes it is. That is so
relaxing. Look to Christ. How good are
you before God? That good. How happy is God with
you and what you've done? That happy. Rest, rest, rest. And we'll stop right here. Verse 11, let us labor therefore
to enter into that rest. He didn't just change his tune.
Let us labor to enter into that rest. He's not saying let's work
our way to heaven. He didn't change the message
right then. What he's saying is let's strive to stop working. Let's be very, very fervent to
sit down and look to Christ. Lay hold of the free gift, it's
free, it's free. Come buy without money, without
price, it's free. Whosoever will, let him take
of the water of life freely. We don't earn it. So he said
in verse 11, let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest
any man fall after the same example of unbelief. Let's labor to enter
into the rest of the gospel. the rest of Christ himself and
rest in and with God's people. Let's labor for rest and peace. Okay, you're dismissed.