In college, my professor of homiletics
and pastoral theology used to make a statement to us just about
every time we met for the class. He said, men, where there is
no summons, there is no sermon. And he was exactly right. He
was declaring to us that every sermon ought to call upon those
who hear it to do something. Not to do something physically,
but to do something morally, spiritually, mentally, to do
something in their hearts, particularly. Now in our text this evening,
Hebrews chapter 4, we are looking at a passage that deals with
faith, the blessed rest of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
yet, it is a passage filled with exhortations and admonitions
of things we must do, things that we must do in the exercise
of faith. You see, faith is not intellectual
pursuit. Faith is not just mental assent
to a creed or to facts, but rather faith is a living principle of
grace in the hearts of God's elect. Many women who are born
of God live by faith. I want to give you my sermons
and then I'll give you the sermon. Look at verse 1. Here's something
for us to fear. Let us therefore fear, fear,
Fear, this religious world doesn't know much about it. Fear, lest
a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should
seem to come short of it. We ought to fear missing Christ. So pastor, how does that fit
with the security of the believer, perseverance of the saints, the
promises of God? I don't know, but we ought to
fear him. We ought to fear missing him. There's nothing I fear like
being duped with hypocrisy, with a false religion, with a false
profession of religion. We ought to fear lest we miss
the Savior. Look at verse 11. Here's something
for us to do. Let us labor therefore to enter
into that rest. In other words, let's labor to
quit laboring. It's our business by nature,
our desire by nature, our tendency by nature to try to do something
for God's favor. Let's labor to shake ourselves
free from carnal religion and rest in Christ. In verse 14,
here's something for us to hold. Seeing then we have a great high
priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God,
let us hold fast our profession. Hold Christ with a death grip,
because life and death are the issues here. Hold Christ. Let
nothing take you from Christ. Let nothing turn you aside from
Christ. And here's somewhere for us to
go. Look at verse 16. Let us therefore come boldly to the
throne of grace. that we may obtain mercy and
find grace to help in time of need. Now, let's look at these
16 verses together, and I pray that God the Holy Spirit will
be our teacher, that he will take the things of Christ and
show them to us, inscribing them upon our hearts. What a blessed
passage we have before us. I'll just kind of skim the surface
tonight, and then the Lord willing, we'll look at it in some more
detail in future weeks. First, in verse one, Here's something
for us to fear. Let us therefore fear, lest a
promise being left us, a promise of the gospel, a promise of everlasting
salvation, a promise of grace and eternal life in Christ, lest
a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should
seem to come short of it. We ought to fear. Less like the
Jews who perished in the wilderness, we also, after hearing the gospel
and after professing to believe it, fall short of eternal life. lest we also, like those of whom
Paul speaks when he says, wherefore let him that thinketh, he standeth,
take heed, lest he fall. Let's not come up short. Let's
not miss the mark. Let's not fail to arrive at the
last goal in heaven, Christ himself, the prize of the high calling
of God in Christ, like those foolish virgins who came too
late, but let us rather earnestly look to Christ and run with patience
the race set before us, constantly bringing ourselves to the foot
of the cross, trusting His blood and His righteousness, His power
and His grace. Look to Christ alone. And every
time you get to looking at yourself, Every time you get to feeling
good about yourself, every time you get to thinking about something
that you do to qualify yourself for recommendation with God,
drop it like you drop a scalding hot potato and lay hold of Christ. Lay hold of Him and Him alone.
The Apostle Paul says, wherefore, my beloved, as you have always
obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my
absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. It's
God who works within you, both to will and to do of his own
good pleasure, but it is your responsibility and mine to make
certain that it is God working in us, to make certain that we
rest in Jesus Christ and in him alone. May God graciously make
my heart and yours pant for Christ. Pant for it. Lord God, whatever
it takes, whatever it takes, make me pant for your son. As
the heart pants after the water broke, like a running deer in
a hot, hot summer day, running from one pursuing it, running
from a lion is thirsty and thirsty and panting for just a drink
of water. Let your heart pant after Christ
Jesus, the Lord. Oh, may God make it so. that
I may know Him in the power of His resurrection, in the fellowship
of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death. Say what you are. I want to know
Him. I want to know Him, I want to
know the power, the merit, the virtue, the efficacy of his death. I want to know the power of his
resurrection. I want to know him in the blessed
fellowship of his sufferings. That is to know my personal relationship
with him as my representative and substitute. And I want to
be conformed to him in everything, in everything. All right, now
look at verse two. Let's fear. lest we also perish
like those Jews. For unto us was the gospel preached
as well as unto them. And I don't pretend to understand
this, but I know that there is a divine authority that attends
the preaching of the gospel. A divine authority so that the
most solemn business in the world is preaching the gospel and hearing
the gospel. When God Almighty is pleased
to speak by His servants, by the power of His Spirit through
the Word of Truth, it becomes the responsibility of men who
hear it to bow to the Word of Truth, to believe it, to receive
it, to acknowledge it, to embrace it, and that by faith. And look
at what the text says. The word preached did not profit
them. They heard it preached in the
law and in the carnal testimonies of the Old Testament. They heard
it preached in prophecy and type and picture. They heard it preached
by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They heard it preached by Enoch
and Noah. They heard it preached by Moses. But the word didn't
profit them, not those who perished in the wilderness. Though they
had the promises of God, the covenants of God, the word of
God, it profited them nothing except for a little bit of temporary
excitement because it was not mixed with faith. When you hear
the Word, pray that God will give you grace to believe the
Word. Lord, speak to my heart. Don't pay any attention to the
tones of the preacher. Don't pay any attention to the
preacher preaching. Don't pay any attention to the
way he preaches or the physical characters that he presents before
you or the mental character he presents before you, but rather
hear the Word of God and ask God to inscribe it upon your
heart. Now then, look at verse three. For we which have believed
do enter into rest. That's what faith is. 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.
The work of God's decrees, the work of God's purpose, the work
of divine predestination, all things that shall come to pass
were finished before the world began when God decreed that they
must come to pass. But this text is talking both
about the Lord Jesus Christ and about us who believe the gospel.
The Lord Jesus had a work to do upon the earth. We read about
it in Hebrews chapter 10. He came to do the Father's will.
He had a righteousness to establish. He had a law to satisfy. He had
justice to satisfy, sins to put away, a sacrifice to make, and
he was obedient even unto death. Now having finished his work,
he has entered into his rest, and he sits down at the right
hand of the majesty on high. We who believe come to the Lord
Jesus Christ, and we enter into rest by him. We enter into his
rest, Paul. Not rest we've won, his rest.
And his rest becomes our rest. Listen to what he says. Come
unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest. Come to Christ. You who are yet
without Christ, you who yet believe not, you who are yet trying by
some means or another to make your peace with God, quit it
and come to Christ and he'll give you rest. Give you rest.
You who are his people, as we struggle in this world, as we
face difficulties, adversities and trials in this world, as
we go through conflicts in this world, the Lord Jesus says to
you, now take my yoke upon you. Whatever it is, Bobby, that we
experience right now, that's his yoke. Whatever he calls us
to do, that's his yoke. He says, slip your neck under
it. Willingly, gladly, take my yoke upon you and learn of me.
And here's the result. You'll find rest unto your souls.
Believers find rest as they cease to kick against the will and
purpose and providence of God and willingly submit to him.
Listen now, Paul begins here to remove all the various forms
of rest that were mentioned in scripture, thereby describing
what this rest is. Look at verse four. For he spoke
in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, and God did
rest the seventh day from all his works. Now the place where
you read that's Genesis chapter two, verse two. We do not keep
a seventh-day Sabbath as they kept in the Old Testament, and
we refuse to be brought in bondage to the laws of men and keep a
first-day Sabbath as the legalist of our day would have us to keep
it. We do not observe any kind of carnal Sabbath. Now, I'm adamant
with regard to this. I'm adamant with regard to this
because to do so is to revert to legality and works religion. What would you think? What would
you think? Folks say, well, you know, we ought not to be too
picky about this. We ought not to press this too
far. What do you suppose you'd do if I were to say to you now,
we're going to, on the day of Jewish Passover, bring a lamb
in here and sacrifice it and offer its blood to God? you would
say, well, you won't be preaching to me anymore. Because either
you have departed from the faith altogether, or you just flat
lost your marbles. Because those things are done
away. Christ fulfilled them. Either Christ is our Passover,
completely and totally, or he is not. If he's our Passover,
we cannot keep the Jewish Passover. And we can't keep the Jewish
Sabbath, Larry, because Christ is our Sabbath. We can't do it.
You can't do both. You can't do both. You cannot
rest in Christ and rest in your works. It can't be done. Now
the scripture tells us plainly that we are to keep a gospel
Sabbath. We are to keep a Sabbath of faith.
As God ceased from his own works at the end of the first week
after creation, so we cease from our works when we trust Christ.
That's what the Sabbath is all about. We come to him You see,
the problem with men, the reason there's no rest for the wicked,
the problem with men is that all men by nature try to do something
to make up with God. Now you might mix a little Jesus
in there, you might mix a little grace in there, you might mix
a little mercy in there, you might mix a little eternal covenant
in there, but you're still trying to do something, make up with
God. You're still standing with one foot, on the law and your
works and your goodness, and trying to put the other one on
Christ, and it can't be done. What the believer does, when
we come to Christ, we rest in Him and cease from our works. As God rests in His love, Zephaniah
317, so we rest in Christ. Oh, how sweet it is to acquiesce
in our Savior. to rest in his blood, to rest
in his righteousness, to rest in his goodness and his grace,
to rest in his promise and his providence, to rest in him. Rest, that's what it is to believe
God. It's to rest in Christ. Look
at verse five. And in this place again, if they
shall enter into my rest, The seventh day rest was typical
of rest. It was a typical day of rest.
And the land of Canaan was a typical land of rest. The unbelieving
Jews perished in the wilderness because of unbelief. But the
land of Canaan was set by God in covenant promise to Abraham
as a land he would give to his people as a symbolic rest set
before them. And the work is written plainly
here that someone must enter in. Look at the next verse. Seeing
therefore it remaineth that some must enter in. Those who perished
in the wilderness didn't. They didn't. They perished because
of unbelief. But it remains still that some
must enter therein. And they to whom it was first
preached entered not in because of unbelief. They perished in
the wilderness. But Joshua was raised up. Moses,
who typified the law, perished with them. And that's the reason
Moses perished, because he typified the law. He could not, he could
not bring them into the land of promise. But God raised up
Joshua, the type of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Joshua brought
in an elect people. Joshua brought in God's Israel
into the land of promise. Now don't miss this. The Lord
Jesus Christ fulfills the type. Every one of those of God's Israel,
every one of God's elect must possess the land of rest, and
Christ will bring us in, just as Joshua brought the Jews into
Canaan. But look at verse seven. Again, he limiteth a certain
day, saying in David, now this is nearly 400 years since Joshua
died. Today, after so long a time,
as it is said today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your
hearts. You see, the day in which God
speaks is the day of grace for those to whom he speaks. This
is today. God speaks by his word today. Now as he speaks, harden not
your heart. The seventh verse specifically speaks of this gospel
day. God set a day, this day, when
he would speak to chosen sinners by his spirit, through his word,
and bring them into the promised rest of faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ. This is the day of salvation.
This is the accepted time. We have nothing to do with all
those old legal ceremonies, all those old legal precepts, all
those old legal covenants. We have nothing whatsoever to
do with them for one good reason, because we've entered into rest.
This is the day of which they all spoke. Now turn, if you will,
to Colossians chapter two. I want you to see this. This
is not a matter of supposition. This is not putting two and two
together. This is just reading the word of God. Why do we keep
no Sabbath days? Why do we keep none of the old
laws? Why is it we don't live by the
law? Why is it we keep none of the
old ceremonies? Colossians chapter two, verse
16. Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink. You just eat whatever you want
to with moderation. Drink whatever you want to with
moderation. Let no man judge you in respect to a holy day.
Don't you let anybody bring you in bondage to keep some outward
carnal holy day. I don't say too much about Christmas
and Easter and Thanksgiving and all those things. We observe
them as national days of rest. We observe them as family days.
We observe them as days to be pleasant and nice and get together
with family and friends. That's fine. Don't you make it
something spiritual. You make it a holy day, I can't
have anything to do with it. You make it something spiritual,
I can't have a thing on earth to do with it. You make it something,
now this is the time when we come to God. Come to God. You
know, we just came through Easter season. We don't have much problem
with it here, but a lot of folks, they like Easter lilies. They
just pop up on Easter Sunday and that's the end of them. That's
the end of them. Not God's people. They don't
observe holy days. No holy days of any kind, ever.
Look at it now. Or the new moon. Don't observe
the new moon or of the Sabbath days. Any kind, no matter what
way you want to call it. Don't observe them. Don't observe
them. Which things are a shadow of things to come. They were
just a picture. We've got the real thing. They
were just a symbol. We've got the body. Look at verse
eight. For if Jesus, now as you read that in your Bible, it's
translated properly. But as you read, he's not talking
about the Lord Jesus, he's talking about Joshua. If Joshua had given
them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another
day? You'll remember when Joshua was called out and sent by Moses
as a spy to spy out the land of Canaan, his name was changed
from Oshi, which means let God save, to Joshua, which means
God shall save. Big difference. For the law leads
us around in the thorny wilderness of this world, in the thorny
wilderness of curse, in the thorny wilderness of the land of darkness.
And the law may cause us to cry, God, send a Savior. The law may
cause us to cry, God, help us. May God save. But the law will
never provide one. The Lord God Almighty sends us
one who was typified in Joshua, whose name is Jesus, and he says,
God shall save. The Lord God will, by his grace,
in this gospel age, save his people through his son, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Joshua is here called Jesus because
that's exactly what his name means, God will save. The Lord
God was typifying here the Lord Jesus in new covenant grace.
He was telling us that the Lord Jesus and he alone will lead
us into rest. Joshua brought Israel into Canaan,
but he couldn't give them rest. They were warring with their
enemies all the time. He could not bring them into rest because
that wasn't possible. Only the Son of God can give
real rest. Only the Son of God can at last
bring us into perfect rest in everlasting glory. Look at verse
nine now. There remaineth therefore a rest. You know what the word is? Some of you do, I know. It's
Sabbath. That's what the word is. If we
were writing it out exactly according to translation, the word ought
to be written out, Sabbath. Sabbath. There remaineth therefore
a Sabbath, or perhaps a keeping of the Sabbath. There remaineth
therefore a Sabbath to the people of God. Now what's he talking
about? This Sabbath is Christ. It's the Sabbath of faith. Those
chosen sinners, redeemed by the blood of Christ, called by God's
Spirit, given faith in Christ, coming to Christ, keep the Sabbath. That's the only way you can do
it. That's the only way you can do it. People say, well, I keep
the law. No, you don't. No, you don't.
You might make a stab at it. You might try to, but you don't
keep it. Somebody said, I observe a Sabbath day. You might look
at it and say, I observe a Sabbath day, but you don't observe it.
Not according to the way the book says observe it. It doesn't
happen. Not literally. Not in a carnal sense. No man
ever did, except the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Well, what's
this talking about? It's talking about a Sabbath
that we keep. We keep it by faith in Christ. We come to him and
cease from our works. All the Sabbath days in the Old
Testament were designed specifically for this reason. Let me give
them to you. I'm not going to get done tonight,
but we'll come back at it another time. There were three distinct
Sabbath days spoken of in the Old Testament. The first was
the seventh day Sabbath. And then after that, God required
Israel also to keep a seventh year Sabbath. And then he required
them to keep a seventh, seventh year Sabbath. Every 49th year,
they kept the Sabbath of Jubilee. Now on the seventh day Sabbath,
the Lord God ceased from his works and required men to do
so. We come to Christ and we cease from our works. On the
seventh year Sabbath, God required that the creation be given a
rest. He required that the creation which had been serving as a slave
to man for seven years, the garden, give it a rest. The fields, give
them a rest. This pasture over here, give
it a rest. Graze your cattle somewhere else. Raise your garden
somewhere else. Give the land rest for a year. Because it typified
a day when God Almighty is going to deliver this world from the
bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons
of God. And Paul speaks of it in Romans chapter 8. And then
there was another Sabbath. The seventh, seven year Sabbath.
Every 49 years, every 49 years, all debts in Israel were canceled. All of them. Some of you looking
like you'd like to live back there. All mortgages were released. Every one of them. If you owed
$100,000 on your house or if you owed $5 on your house, the
debt was canceled. Mortgage was released. Every
bondman was set free. What do you reckon that talks
about? The Lord Jesus Christ has canceled our debt. He put
away our sin. The Lord Jesus Christ has canceled
our mortgage. He's fulfilled righteousness
for us, rendered to God every speck of obedience we need. And
God requires, and he set these bondmen free. He brought us into
liberty, the blessed liberty of his grace. All right, now
look at verse 10. For he that is entered into rest,
he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. just as God did on the seventh
day when he finished creating the world, just as Christ did
when he had finished the work of redemption and sat down in
heaven. He sat down because he quit working. The believer comes
to the throne of grace and sits down in Jesus Christ the Lord
and says, bless God, God requires no more. God requires no more, no more. We rest. Verse 11, let us therefore
labor. To enter into that rest, lest
any man fall after the same example. These Jews, he's referred to
again, who perished in the wilderness, after the same example of unbelief.
Now what's he saying? He's saying, children of God,
my brothers and sisters in Christ, most difficult thing in this
world, that which is most contrary to our flesh. I mean most contrary
to our flesh, nothing, nothing more totally contrary to human
flesh than to rest on the merits of the crucified substitute and
the free grace of God in him and shake yourself free. shake
yourself free of all clinging to self and all personal works. You say, well that's the way
I am. I'm not leaning on anything I have. You do from time to time. Oh yes you do. When you get to
feeling a little uneasy about yourself and start trying to
make up with God. When you get to feeling a little
discomfort in yourself and you start reading your Bible and
now you feel better about yourself. That's called works. It's called
works. Keep pushing it aside and enter
into this rest. The fact is We enter into it by degrees,
as long as we're in this world. We sing, "'Tis done, the great
transaction's done. I am my Lord's and he is mine."
But we still have difficulties. I never have any problem with
assurance. I do. I do. I just have to be honest
with you, I do. Cause every now and then I start looking in here.
I start looking at these hands, these feet, this mind. And I
start to base something of my peace before God on me. And I don't have any. Thank God
he won't give me any there. He won't give me any there. And
I keep coming back to my resting place. Jesus Christ is all. That's it. That's it. Rest in
Him. Rest in Him. And as you do, one
of these days, Rex, we're going to, sure enough, enter into rest. Everlasting, glorious, perfect
rest. Rest from all labor. Rest from
all sorrow. Rest from all sin. Rest forever
in Christ the Lord. Amen. All right, Benji, you lead
us into him, please.