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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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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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