Now we're going to continue the
messages in Hebrews. I want you to open your Bibles
to Hebrews 4. Brother John Chapman brought
a message from this scripture just about eight weeks ago, December
the 18th or 19th, and we had enjoyed the message and we were
greatly blessed by it. But I thought I wouldn't skip
the chapter. I'm going to preach a Friday night and Saturday night
out in Elliott County and Sunday morning down in Pikeville and
Sunday night here. So I'll preach from Hebrews 4
tonight and Hebrews 5 Sunday night. Brother Chapman will preach
here Sunday morning in my place. The last verse of chapter 3,
chapter 3 ends with a, and I've told you so often, you just,
the Bible was not written in chapters and verses. And you
just almost have to, if you're going to start studying a chapter,
go back a few verses and pick up the message, the subject, the
trend of the writer and the preacher and so forth. The last verse
of chapter 3 is a sad and solemn declaration. It says here, so
we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. They could not enter into God's
promised land, Canaan, the land flowing with milk and honey,
the land of rest and happiness and peace for Israel. They could
not enter in because of unbelief. Who's they? Well, they whom the
Lord favored above all nations. They were a favored people. Romans
9 tells us about that. It says in, I'll read it for
you, Romans 9, verse 4, these Israelites who are Israelites
to whom pertaineth the adoption and the glory. The glory of God
dwelt in that tabernacle. And the covenants, and the giving
of the law, and the service of God, and the promises, whose
are the fathers, of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, they whom
the Lord favored above all nations, they to whom the Lord sent his
messengers and his prophets, God, who at sundry times and
diverse manners spake to these people. by the prophets. They
to whom God gave the law and the priesthood and the sacrifices
and the atonement. They who saw his mighty works. They who ate of the manna and
drank of the rock. And that manna is Christ. That
rock is Christ. They who called themselves the
people of God and kept the holy days. They, that's who he's talking
about, they, those bare people, could not enter in. Why? Because of unbelief. And then
in chapter 4, verse 1, he continues that thought and he says, let
us. Let us? Who's the us? We know
who they are, now who's us? Well, it's us. It's this fella
right here. That fella, those girls and ladies
right there, us. You talk about favoring of God,
we're favoring of God. We're favoring of God right now,
here. You and I are holding in our hands the word of God. The
nations that do not have the word of God. We're sitting here
in freedom with the privilege of preaching what we want to
preach, what we feel led to preach, not fearing oppression from anybody.
We can sing and preach and pray, and God's been pleased to give
us the gospel and bless us all these years. Let us, therefore,
who have been so highly favored of God, let us do what? Let us
fear. Let us fear. Now, this is not
a fear that the righteousness of Christ will fail. That's out
of the question. I'm not even the slightest bit fearful that his righteousness
will fail. And this is not a fear that God
will cast away his elect. You can forget that. He's faithful
to his word, to his covenant, to his son, to his people. I'll never leave you, he said. Do not believe. He remained faithful. It's not that we don't believe,
it's we go through times of unbelief. But this fear is not a fear of
his righteousness failing or God casting away his people.
It's not a fear that his grace won't prove sufficient. He that
believeth on the Son will never be ashamed. But I'll tell you
what the fear is. Let us fear. lest a promise being
left us of entering into his rest. What's that promise? It's
eternal life, lay hold on eternal life which God who cannot lie
promised. Lest being left us a promise,
any of you should seem to come short of it. That's the promise
of unbelief, unbelief, unbelief. They said to our Lord, what shall
we do that we might work the works of God? He said, this is
the work of our God that you believe. Believe on him whom
God has sent. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. Our Lord said to Peter, he said,
I prayed for you that your faith fail not. Your sins, my sins,
your sins are not going to keep us from Christ. But unbelief
will. That's it, unbelief. Unbelief. Unbelief. Verse 2. Somebody says, well, we've heard
the gospel. For unto us was the gospel preached.
We've heard the gospel. We've heard the gospel hundreds
of times. But now watch this next line.
The gospel is preached to them, too. The gospel is preached to
them. Gospel in picture and pattern
and type. Gospels preached to them, but
here's the problem. But the word preached did not
profit them. Why? Not being mixed with faith
in them that heard it. That's the whole problem. Lord,
I believe. Help thou mine unbelief. Lord,
increase my faith. Lord, give me faith to believe
Christ, to believe him, to believe him, to believe him, believe
him. What shall we say that Abraham
our father hath attained? Righteousness. How? By what?
By faith. By faith. This promise is unto
us also who believe. They heard the gospel too, but
one mixed with faith, and them that heard it. That's where they
missed it. Now God was angry with their
murmuring. He's angry with our murmuring. God was angry with
their ingratitude as angry with ours. God was angry with their
shenanigans and all these things, but the thing that kept them
out of the land of promise was unbelief. That's it. Unbelief. Unbelief. Oh, I'd look at verse
3. For we which have believed We
which have believed, honestly, truly believed on Christ, we
who have believed, God has worked in our hearts a work of grace
and faith. We have believed on the Lord
Jesus Christ. Have you? Have I? I have. I do. I do. We who have believed do. We have already. We do enter
into rest. We've already entered into this
rest. Not just the future thing, we've
already entered into his rest, into his rest, into his peace,
into his kingdom. We've already been translated
from the kingdom of darkness and confusion into the kingdom
of his son and peace. Therefore being justified by
faith, we have peace. Peace with God. And I want you
to turn to John 14 and listen to our Lord as he describes it
here. John 14. We have already, we who believe,
those who believe, have already entered into his rest. We do
enter into his rest. Already. John 14, verse 27. Listen to this. Peace I leave with you. John
14, 27. My peace I give unto you, not
as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid. We who have believed have already
entered into his rest." Now I want you to watch the next few verses.
I'm going to read them and then I'm going to help you with them. In verse 3 he says, to enter
into rest, already entered into his rest. Come unto me, he said,
I'll give you rest. We rest in Christ. That's that
psalm I read a while ago, Psalm 62. He's my rock. He's my refuge. He's my fortress. He's my peace. We're at rest. And then he starts
talking here about what that rest is not. As I have sworn in my wrath,
if they shall enter into my rest, They shall not enter into my
rest, is what he's saying there, although the works were finished
from the foundation of the world. 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. And in this place again, if they
shall enter into my rest. Verse 6, Seeing therefore it
remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it
was first preached entered not in to rest. because of unbelief. Again, he limited a certain day,
saying in David, today, after so long a time, as it is said
today, if you'll hear his voice, harden not your heart. For if
this word Jesus is Joshua, he's talking about the Old Testament
man who followed Moses and led the people, some of them, into
Canaan. If Joshua had given them Then
would he not afterwards have spoken of another day." Now,
very simply, these verses are difficult to read, they're difficult
to deal with word by word, phrase by phrase, because of the way
they're worded in the King James Bible. But here's what he's saying.
Back there in verse 3, people who have believed in Christ,
rested in Christ, they have entered into a rest. have entered into
a rest. The unbeliever's soul and heart
is like the troubled sea. Ours is not. He leaves his knee
beside the still water. Though I walk through a valley
of the shadow of death, I fear no evil. He's with me. His rod
and staff comfort me. We have entered into his rest. Now this rest is not, this is
what he says in those verses, it's not. He gives three things
which it's not. Number one, it's not the rest
mentioned in Genesis 2-2, when God finished his work and rested
the seventh day. That's not the rest. That's not
the rest that is promised to believers in Christ. That's not
the rest our Lord says, I'll give you if you come to me, rest.
Secondly, it's not the Sabbath day, which the Jews kept with
regularity and with the deepest commitment They worked six days
and they rested, and they rested on the seventh. They couldn't
pick up sticks, they couldn't build a fire, they just couldn't
do anything but just lull around and rest. That's not it. And then it's not Canaan. It's
not the promised land. It's not any materialistic, physical
place on this earth. We're always going to have trials.
We're always going to have tribulations. You men are always going to have
to work. Buy the sweat of your brow, earn your bread. You women
have always got to go through all of the trials you go through,
bearing children, caring for children, washing and ironing
and cooking and preparing meals. You're always going to have your
down days and your up days and your struggles and your conflicts
and your disappointments and your weepings and sorrows and
sickness and trials. It's not entering some utopia
here. It's not Canaan. If Joshua had
took them into the promised land with milk and honey and peace
with their neighbors and all, if that had been it, we wouldn't
have spoken of another one. See that? So it's not this rest
we're talking about here. Don't miss this by unbelief. This is what you want, this rest.
It's not here. When God rested from his labor,
his work, and when the Sabbath day was given, and Canaan, I'll
tell you what it is. This rest, this rest, is both
a present and future rest, which we have. It's a possession which is ours
right now. When a believer, when an individual,
by the grace of God, is unable to see himself a sinner, hopeless,
helpless sinner, doomed and damned, and deservingly so, stripped,
is brought by the Spirit of God to cast himself on Christ, to
cast himself and his case and his cause upon the Lord Jesus
Christ, and to rest in him upon Him to cast my past, my
present, my future into His hands and to believe on Him and trust
in Him. That moment, that day, that person
enters into this rest that we're talking about. It's His. It's a pleasant possession. Come
unto me, I give you rest. Rest. And I'll tell you what
it is. It's a rest from works. It's a rest from duties. It's
a rest from any effort on our part to find favor with God.
In Christ, I have favor with God. That's right. Highly favored. In Christ, I
am not working to please God. Christ pleased God in my state. He's pleased with me. Secondly,
it's a rest from the burden of sin. The burden of sin, all sin. Don't you grieve over your sin?
Don't you grieve over what you've done and what you've said and
what you ought to have said you didn't say and what you ought
to have done you didn't do and you go back over your life and
wish you'd have done things differently? It's a burden of sin. Well, rest! Quit it. That's right. Rest. Quit trying to straighten
out what Christ straightened out. You just go back and make
another mess out of it. Just rest. Thirdly, it's a rest
from the labor of the law, and ceremony, and ritual, and requirement,
and Sabbath days, and tithes, and ceremonies, and all these
religious shenanigans people are going through. They're miserable.
Rest. If you feel like you have to
do it, don't do it. That's right. Unicola. If you
feel like it's required of you, and you're going to get some
bounty points for it, skip it. Do it because you want to. Do
it because you love to. Read the Scriptures because you
want to. And love to. Witness because you love to.
Give because you want to. Worship because you want to.
Come to the house of God. When you can say, I was glad
when they said to me, let's go to the house of God. But I'm
resting from all that I used to carry on years ago. It's rest
from fear of condemnation. It's rest from fear of punishment.
It's rest from fear of losing favor with God. Can any of your
children lose favor with you? I don't care what they do. They're
my boys and my girls. Isn't that right? We're not going
to lose favor with God. We're in Christ. He's not looking
at you anyway. Look at Him. He looks at you.
Oh boy. Rest. It's a present rest. You see what I'm saying? And that's what that's saying
right there. That's what you told us. It's a rest. And you can just shorten those
verses right there. What he's saying, it's not this,
it's not that, it's not the other, this is what it is. In verse
9, there remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.
Boy, are we going to enter into a fulfillment of all this one
of these days. One of these days. And I'll tell you, that may mean
that when all this was going on, that that wasn't the true
rest, Christ purchased the true rest. This also might mean and
can mean and does mean that there's a rest that's waited. Come ye blessed into the kingdom
prepared for you from the foundation of the world. No more tears,
no more sorrow, no more heartache, no more suffering, no more pain.
Rest. All right, verse 10. Now this
is the illustration. John did this so beautifully,
I hate to even deal with it again because he did it so beautifully.
This is talking about Christ here in verse 10. For he, Christ,
the Lord Jesus Christ, he that is entered into his rest, this
is his rest. That's what I call this message,
Ronnie, his rest. He also has ceased from his own
works as God did from his. Let me tell you, let me show
you what this is. He is Christ. This is our Lord Jesus Christ.
He sat down. He came down here to redeem a
people, made of a woman, made under the law. He actively obeyed
God. He passively obeyed God. He completely
obeyed God. He willingly obeyed God. He did
everything God required of him to redeem our souls and went
up and sat down, finished his work, like God did when he finished
creating the world. When our God created the world
in the six days, the six days in which he created the world,
He said it's finished, it's good. Don't add anything to it. It's
done. It's done. You reckon there's
anything we ought to do to kind of help God's creation out? Maybe
make another star put up there. Is there one missing? Maybe a
brighter sun or a brighter moon. Done. It's done. And when our Lord said it's finished
on the cross, it's done. Salvation is finished. The work is complete. Everything
that you and I need, that God requires, that heaven demands,
that is expected, it's done. It's finished. It's ours. We're complete in Him. Now verse
11, let us labor. And John said, that's not laboring
by doing more work and winning more souls and building more
churches getting bigger Sunday schools. This labor, it's a labor
in it, John. You told it. This hardest thing
you ever tried to do is totally, completely, absolutely rest. You know, I try to take a nap
in the afternoon. When you get 70, you'll take
a nap too in the afternoon. But it's so hard for me sometimes
to take a nap, because I feel like I ought to be doing something. I lie there, I say, now, you
need to rest because you got to preach tonight. I lie there,
but I ought to be up doing this, and I'll be doing that, and I'll
be doing this. It's hard sometimes to rest. I hear people say, I
can't sleep in the daytime. That's the reason, because you
can't rest. You can't let everything else
alone. There's people out there that'll take care of it. That's
right. There's people out there. You
ain't nears. What's the word? important as you think you are.
I didn't say it, he said it. It'll get along without you,
so go to sleep. And I'll tell you this about
laboring to enter his rest. He'll take care of it, he doesn't
need your help. And that's what that means, what
you said, it's the hardest thing you ever had to do is rest in
his And our people say, well, I was baptized. Well, that's
fine in him. Well, I believe, well, that was
a gift to God. Well, I've done this, that and
the other. Well, you better rest. Let's labor to enter into his
rest, lest any man fall after the same example. It's not due,
it's done. It's done. And then this next
verse now, and this is where I want to spend just a few minutes,
Bar, the Word of God. Now something, these next verses,
you don't just come over here and start all over again and
go talk about the scriptures now. No, this Word of God here,
John Owen and John Gill and a host of others say this is Christ,
and I believe it is too. John Calvin and a few others
said it's the Scriptures. But why can't it be both? How
can you have the Scriptures without Christ? The Scriptures reveal
Christ, and Christ reveals the Scripture. He's called the Word
of God. So we're talking here about the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, let us endeavor, let us strive, let us labor to actually
believe him, not to profess it, not to claim it, not to put on
an outward show, not to play church, because he's not deceived. For the Word of God is alive. The Word of God is powerful.
He can do all things. The Word of God, the Lord Jesus,
is sharper than any two-edged sword. He cuts away the dross.
He's got no blunt edge. He only kills what ought to be
killed. We're talking about the Son of God here. Piercing even
to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit. He finds his way
and his knowledge everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere. Even between the soul and the
spirit. That's pretty hard to get between, isn't it? Even between
the joint and the marrow, he reaches the most hidden, secret
parts. He penetrates every secret, hidden
place. He knows everything. Don't play
games with him. That's what he's talking about.
Why, he's a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And neither is there any creature
that is not manifest in his sight. But everything is naked and open
unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do." So this goes
back to what you were talking about. Let's labor to shuck all
these things that we claim and do. Paul said, I count them but
dumb, that I may win Christ and be found in him. I count them
lost. for the excellence and knowledge of Christ in honesty
and in sincerity and in truth. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. And I don't say that for your
benefit or even for my benefit. I say it in his presence before
God because he's alive and powerful. and sharper than any piercing,
two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of thunder, soul
and spirit, and joint and marrow." He is a discerner of your thoughts.
You can fool men, deceive men and women. Everything naked and open before
Him with whom we have to do. See what he said? See, so it
goes right along with what he's been talking about here. The Jews played the game. Don't
you do it, he said. They went through the motions.
God help me. That's what Barnard used to say.
He said, honest people don't wind up in hell. It's dishonest
people. Men and women who are honest
before God. I am what I am. God knows what
I am, but I am what I am by the grace of God. And it's real. My God's real. My faith is real. My trust is real. So my rest
is real. He has compassion. But seeing,
what's this? Seeing we have such a great high
priest. Verse 14. Seeing we have such
a great high priest. He's passed into the heavens.
That's where He is. He doesn't do business here on
this earth like the priest of old. He's in heaven. And it's none other than the
Son of God who is our priest. Let's hold fast our profession.
Continue in the faith. Rest in the rock. Trust in Him. We don't have a high priest that
doesn't understand us love us and enter into our infirmities. He knows what we are. He remembers
our frame. He knows what we are. Let's don't
try to be anything but what we are before Him. He knows what
we are. But yet, He loves us anyway. He's not a high priest that cannot
be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He Himself He
walked around the road you're walking. He felt the pain you're
feeling. He felt the wind blowing like
you're feeling. He felt the chill of misunderstandings
and heartache and hurt and wounds. He felt all that, tempted as
we are, yet without sin. Thank God. And that's the reason
we have a perfect righteousness. So let us Let us come boldly,
not reluctantly, not embarrassed, not ashamed. He reads us, as
we used to say in the Navy, loud and clear. Let us therefore come
boldly under the throne of grace. Let's come reverently. It's a
throne. Let's come in awe. It's a throne.
But thank God it's not a throne of justice, and it's not a throne
of majesty and power, it's a throne of grace. Grace, grace, grace,
grace, grace. That we may find mercy, obtain
mercy. That's what Paul used to say,
I didn't buy it, I didn't earn it, I obtained it. If mercy comes to us, it's
going to come freely. If God sells it, it's not mercy.
If we deserve it, it's not mercy. If we merit it, it's not mercy.
And find grace to help in our time of need. When is my time
of need? Well, when I get sick, no. I
need grace to worship. I need grace to preach. I need
grace to pray. I need grace to live. I need
grace to forgive. I need grace to love. I need
grace to wait. I need grace in time of trial
and time of prosperity. I need grace in poverty. I need
grace in health. I need grace in sickness. I need
grace in old age. I need grace in death. I need
grace today. I need grace tomorrow. His grace is sufficient. Faith. I believe God. All right, let's sing one of
our favorite songs, number 355, From Every Stormy Wind That Blows.