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Hebrews 4:11

Hebrews 4:11 Make every effort to enter the rest So what do we learn from all of this? We have been treated to a series of allegories, and the author of Hebrews has been trying to get his Jewish readers to understand. They were new-born followers of Christ and they, more than anyone, should understand the lessons from their history. These lessons are for us too as part of the wider church of Jesus Christ. Firstly, when we rest in the Lord, we do not put our feet up, but we do recognise that everything necessary for our salvation and future peace has already been done. We cannot add to it any more than God could add to His perfect creation. Secondly, once we have been delivered from sin and bondage we must be prepared to move on, sometimes through wilderness experiences, because the Lord is preparing us for the Land of Promise, where we can be at rest. There are those that inherit His promises but many others who do not. The major obstacles to exclusion from the Land are disobedience an...
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Hebrews 4:10a

Hebrews 4:10a Israel and rest Continuing on from our previous musings, we have seen how Israel, under Joshua, learned to remove the pagan gods and their adherents from Canaan; this involved military conquests and a great deal of effort but, eventually, the land was at rest, and it fulfilled its description as the Land of Promise. However, it was not long before the tribes of Israel compromised themselves and their relationship with the Lord God and they turned to worship foreign gods. Whenever they did this, they lost their “rest”. It was not just that they built idols and sacrificed on the high places but in so doing they rejected the provision and protection of the Lord, they preferred to worship man-made gods. This idolatry led to 10 of the tribes being completely overcome by the Assyrians and they were lost to civilisation to this very day. The southern nation of Judah also indulged themselves in paganism and they were taken into captivity by the Babylonians; there was no rest for ...
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Hebrews 4:10

Hebrews 4:10 Resting from our own works Perhaps the greatest lesson of these verses in Hebrews, has been staring us in the face for days! It began in chapter 3:7 and the writer has subsequently bombarded us with examples and twists on his main theme, that when we hear the voice of the Lord, we are required to obey and in so doing we enter God’s rest. It is a physical and mental rest as well as being a spiritual rest and it is so important that even God rested after the 6 days of creation. Three times we have been reminded that, “ Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.”  We will now spend a few sessions unpacking what this really means. If we go back to the book of Genesis, the first scenario that unfolds is of the Creator speaking into the darkness and bringing light and life to barren and shapeless masses of rock! After 6 days of commanding astonishing energy and life into the cosmos, God’s steps back with satisfaction and rests!  All is good! Does this...
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Hebrews 4:9

Hebrews 4:9 A Sabbath rest for the people of God The Lord Jesus was able to proclaim, from the cross just before He laid down His life, that “It is finished!” His suffering was over, His blood had been poured out, the taunts and mocking of His enemies was ended and now all that remained was for Him to submit, without restraint, to the entangling chords of death. What happened next was completely in His Father’s hands although He trusted the Word of God and that this was not the end. 3 days later He, of course, was raised up from the grave and revealed Himself to over 500 people who all saw the prints of the nails and the scars that He bore as a result of the Roman soldiers’ violence and abuse.  There was no question in the mind of the witnesses that Messiah was risen from the dead!  In 40 days, Jesus would bid farewell to His closest friends and leave them as He ascended, alone, to His Father’s side in the heavens. Was that it? Was that His place of eternal rest? Had Jesu...
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Hebrews 4:8

Hebrews 4:8 Another day of rest This verse draws our attention to the efforts of Joshua to claim Canaan. He courageously led the Israelites across the Jordan River and in a very short space of time, found himself confronting the might of the city of Jericho and then AI, and so on. The armies of Israel spread out across the land taking control, step by step, moving south, west and north. The main military campaign took at least 7 years during which time it is believed that 31 Canaanite kings were defeated and, eventually, the land could be divided up between the tribal groups. This may have been all that Israel could have hoped for, but it is certainly not the complete fulfilment of Shabbat that the Lord God had in mind for His people. There is another “rest”, another deeper meaning to His plans for mankind.  It could be argued that God’s rest is the eternal fulfilment of His plans when heaven and earth are cleansed of all evil and the Satan and his powers are completely extinguishe...
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Hebrews 4:7

Hebrews 4:7 Today! There are a number of terms in the Bible that give us a clue as to how God views time. For instance, the early disciples believed and taught that they were living in the “last days.” That particular term has proved to be a period of at least 2,000 years although any understanding of events in our world and the kind of timeline that is about to unfold will reveal that these  days are heading us towards some kind of finality for the human race. The word “today” clearly speaks of the present, the here and now, and it carries a note of urgency because no one has ever been able to predict exactly when “today” will end! For the travelling Israelites it started the moment they heard God’s commands and it completely dominated their future for the next 40 years, or for a lifetime. This is a great challenge for us, if we hear God’ speaking today, will our response govern the way we live out the rest of our lives? Could it be that this day of decision will never be repeated...
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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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