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Hebrews 4:6

Hebrews 4:6 Who enters the rest? This whole subject of “entering God’s rest” has been both illuminating and life changing. Chapter 3 of Hebrews highlighted the disobedience and rebellion of the Israelites, a whole generation of whom missed out on the Promised Land because of their unbelief. It warned us against sinful, unbelieving hearts that prevent us from entering the fulness of all that God has in store. Again, let’s emphasize that this does not allow us to make judgements about who will enter the glories of God’s eternal rest and who will not! What the verses do tell us is that it is possible to claim the Christian faith, to appear to be a solid follower of Christ but to not be at rest in Him in this world. It is chilling to realise that we may all be guilty of having heard God’s voice speaking to us but have hardened our hearts and so missed out on the rest that He has provided for us. Verse 6 emphasizes this point, we have heard the good news but are we really prepared to walk t...
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Hebrews 4:5

Hebrews 4:5 Stop striving In Mark 2:27 we read that Jesus said, “ The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”   He said this because His disciples had been accused of working when they walked past some fields of corn and plucked a few ears to eat as they travelled! By the time of Jesus, what was a simple God-given law about resting from labours for a day per week, had become a burdensome set of restrictions about what was allowable and what Sabbath rest really meant. Jesus questioned these practices and reminded His disciples that He was Lord of the Sabbath. He not only gave it, but He also oversees how it should be enforced. He is our rest, 24/7, every day of the week and we take our spiritual rest in Him. So much so that the Apostle Paul could write,   “Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of...
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Hebrews 4:4

Hebrews 4:4 The seventh day In Genesis 2:2-3 we read, “ By the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing; so on the seventh day He rested from all His work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it He rested from all the work of creating that He had done .” We all know how this “rest day” was built into the 10 Commandments where we are told to  “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.”  Exodus 20:8.  Here in the UK, some of us grew up in a culture that was regarded as Christian and where the “Sabbath Day” or Sunday was still a day-off for most people. Shops and businesses were closed, traffic was light, churches and chapels were well attended, Sunday afternoons were for children’s Sunday School. A law allowing Sunday trading for smaller businesses was passed in 1986 and expanded to include all business in 1994. Gradually, entertainment and sport followed suit, so that today it is impossible to make any distinction between the “Sa...
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Hebrews 4:3

Hebrews 4:3 It's time to enter His rest This verse is, at first, a confusing read. We need to turn it upside down and start at the end, where the author makes the point that God stopped working on the seventh day of creation and He had nothing to add to all that has been made. It is complete, it is finished, it is a reality. In the same way, when Jesus finished His work at the cross, He was able to cry out, “ It is finished.”  The work of salvation was completed and now He could rest.  God’s work of delivering the Hebrew slaves from their captivity and bringing them miraculously to the boundaries of the Promised Land had been accomplished in a very short time. He had used that time to meet with them on Mount Sinai and deliver the Torah so that they had everything they needed to live in His rest when the land was subdued. Here was the fulfilment of all their wildest dreams! God could rest now that they had arrived, but these foolish people dug in their heels and refused to ente...
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Hebrews 4:2

Hebrews 4:2 True faith = obedience It seems that it is possible to take the “good news” too lightly and to fail to recognise its significance and its dramatic and life-changing implications. Certainly, a large number of Israelites did this and were foolish enough to rebel and disobey the Lord’s commands. As a consequence, they were unable to enter the Land of Promise and to enjoy the prospect of being at rest. The good news they heard and experienced was deliverance from slavery in Egypt and that their wilderness wanderings would eventually bring them to the boundaries of Canaan, the land promised to their ancestors and that was waiting to be claimed. The Lord God had promised them this inheritance, it was theirs! Forever! What extraordinary and exciting news, this was the stuff of dreams, this was the Lord at His most bountiful, this was what the patriarchs had longed for, and the Egyptian slaves had died for. But, as this verse tells us, the message of hope was lost on these people, ...
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Hebrews 4:1

Hebrews 4:1 The promise of entering His rest still stands. We haven’t finished with the subject of God’s rest and how we, as His people, enter in and benefit from it. Moses had a tent that was pitched outside the camp of the Israelites and there he would go, with Joshua, to meet face to face with the Lord. On one occasion the Lord said to Moses, “ My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”  Exodus 33:14. On another occasion, whilst preparing Moses and the people for their crossing into Canaan, the Lord instructed him that all able-bodied men must be armed and ready to go and fight but their wives and children should remain behind in the fortified towns that the Lord had given to them. This arrangement was to stay in place until the Lord gave His people “rest.” Deut 3:18-20. God also promised King David “ rest from all his enemies.”  2 Samuel 7:11. It is clear from these passages that the troubled, battling nation of Israel would experience times of great upheaval...
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Hebrews 3:19

Hebrews 3:19 Unbelief keeps us out! We’ve tried in recent verses, to understand the purposes of God behind the central teaching of these chapters, that it is possible to be delivered from bondage but to still live outside of God’s rest. We have seen that the three reasons why a generation of Israelites “missed out” is because of rebellion, sin and unbelief. It seems a travesty that these ex-slaves, who cried out for God’s mercy were unable to benefit from the fulness of His provision. They never made it to the Promised Land. We’ve also drawn parallels with our own spiritual status, for the author of Hebrews is clear that we too may be in danger of missing out on the delights of the Promised Land! All sorts of “salvation theologies” have been proffered over the centuries, from those who adamantly insist that it is possible for believers to lose their salvation, to those who are equally adamant that “once saved, always saved.” What can we add to this debate? Firstly, it is not up to us t...
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