Dr. Jack L. Arnold Equipping Pastors International Hebrews
What one word would best describe the world today? It might be rebellion, hate, confusion,
frustration, corruption or selfishness, for these words do describe the
world. However, the one word that
best describes the world in my opinion is Òrestless.Ó The world and the individuals who make up the world are
restless. They do not know where
they came from, where they are going or what their purpose in life is. The world is restless because those in
it have not found the real meaning to life. This is why men must gain more wealth, more power and more
prestige. They are restless in
soul and think that all there is to life is to be found in this present
material world. This is why men
are always seeking for some new fad or new pleasure or new experience. They are not at rest within
themselves. They have not been
able to anchor their souls to anything that is solid and lasting.
ManÕs restlessness is really a spiritual problem. Man was created for God but sin has
separated him from God and keeps him from experiencing God in his life. His unrest is due to the fact that he
does not know God in a personal way.
There is, however, spiritual rest for the people of God, and it is only
as one is anchored to God that life will take on its true meaning. There is spiritual rest for men and
that rest is centered around the person of Jesus
Christ.
The context of Hebrews 3
and 4 is about the first generation of
Israelites who came out of Egypt and they failed to enter the land God promised
them because of their unbelief.
This land was a place of rest and they could not enter the land without
faith in God and His promise.
Consequently that whole generation wandered in the desert for forty
years and died in the wilderness because of their unbelief. They never entered into GodÕs temporal
rest or His spiritual rest.
TEMPORARY RESTS -
Hebrews 4:3b-8
Ò...although His works were finished from
the foundation of the world.Ó --This clause actually goes with verse four which speaks of a
rest of God that was in existence from the creation of the world.
ÒFor He has thus said somewhere concerning the seventh day,
ÔAND GOD RESTED ON THE SEVENTH DAY FROM ALL HIS WORKSÕÉÓ -- The whole idea of rest was not
something unique to the children of Israel. There had been a rest from the very creation of the
world. This is a quote from
Genesis 2:2,3.
ÒAnd by the seventh day God completed His work which He had done; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. The God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.Ó
This was the beginning of the sabbath rest.
God created the universe in six days and on the seventh day (the Sabbath
or Saturday) He rested. Why did
God rest? Was He tired? Think of God creating all the millions
of galaxies, billions of light years away. He created millions and millions of celestial bodies, which
are a thousand times larger than planet earth. What a tremendous work of God. Was He tired?
Is this why He rested? No,
God is all-powerful and He never tires from any labor. He rested on the seventh day because
there was nothing else to do. God
ceased from His creative activity.
He had provided everything in six days of creation and then rested. The Jew was told to recognize the
Sabbath as part of the Mosaic Law.
ÒRemember the sabbath
day, to keep it holy. Six days you
shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath
of the LORD you God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your
daughter, your male servant or your female servant or your cattle or your
sojourner who stays with youÓ (Exo. 20:8-10).
The Jew was told to do nothing on Saturday as a memorial
that God provided everything in creation.
The Sabbath, as it was observed before the Mosaic Law, and the Sabbath
of the Mosaic Law is but a type or a shadow of the spiritual rest of salvation
that God offers to all His people in Christ. Christ is the fulfillment of the Sabbath in His person and
work.
Lest we miss the argument, it is that there was a spiritual
rest for GodÕs people before the children of Israel failed to enter GodÕs
temporal rest of the land of Canaan because of unbelief.
ÒÉand again in this passage, ÔTHEY SHALL NOT ENTER MY REST.Õ
--
This should be translated Òthey shall not enter into my rest.Ó This merely shows that the rest of
Canaan was not the ultimate fulfillment of GodÕs rest. Canaan was temporary and it was a type
or shadow of the rest of salvation that Christ provides in His death for all
who receive Him.
ÒSince therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those
who formerly had good news preached to them failed to enter because of
disobedienceÉÓ --
Even those who entered into the land did not experience complete temporal rest
which indicates that the rest of Canaan was temporal and not final. It was only a type or shadow of the
heavenly rest Christ gives His people.
ÒHe again fixes a certain day, ÔToday,Õ saying through David
after so long a time just as has been said before. ÔTODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS.ÕÓ -- This is a quote from Psalm 95 to show that five hundred years after Moses
and Canaan, King David was still speaking to people about GodÕs rest of
salvation. Canaan rest was not the
final rest, and even the rest that King David spoke of pointed forward to the
coming of Messiah who would make a perfect sacrifice for sins that men might
enter GodÕs spiritual rest.
ÒFor if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have spoken
of another day after thatÓ -- Even when Joshua led the people into the land, this was not
the ultimate fulfillment of the rest of God. The final, complete and total fulfillment of GodÕs rest is
in Christ. Creation rest, Canaan
rest and sabbath rest are types
and shadows that point forward to Messiah-Christ who is the reality and
fulfillment and the substance of all types and shadows.
PERMANENT REST -
Hebrews 4:9-10
ÒThere remains (is remaining) therefore a Sabbath rest for
the people of God.Ó --
The rest of God for His people is not limited to one generation but is
available to all generations. The
rest of salvation is open to all men everywhere if they will avail themselves
of it. Those who do not harden
their hearts to Christ but believe the gospel shall be saved. They shall enter into GodÕs salvation
rest.
ÒFor the one who has entered His rest has himself also
rested from his works, as God did from His.Ó --
As God ceased from all creation works after six days of creation, a person who
believes in Christ must cease from all human works and trust wholly in Christ
if he is to be saved. A person has
not exercised saving faith until he ceases from his own works. Saving faith is exercised when a person
stops trying to save himself by good works and believes that Christ provided a
perfect salvation in His death.
Christ has secured the rest of salvation and all one can do to enter
into that spiritual rest is believe. This is more serious than most of us
realize, for God will not save a man who does anything to save himself. Christ procured and secured a perfect
salvation at CalvaryÕs cross. He
did everything that was necessary to bring salvation. No man can add anything to ChristÕs work. All any person can do is receive Christ
by faith. Christ cried out on the
cross, ÒIt is finishedÓ and that settles it forever. Christ offers His salvation to all and all anyone can do to
be saved is say, ÒI believe that Christ died for me.Ó You can only say as the hymn writer, ÒJesus paid it all; all
to Him I owe!Ó It is through
ChristÕs blood that we have obtained eternal redemption. ÒÉand not through the blood of
goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for
all, having obtained eternal redemptionÓ (Heb. 9:12). To be saved,
we must rest where God rests and that is in the shed blood of Christ.
Think about this for a moment. All of you who are presently
saved had to come to the place where you stopped trying to save yourself. You received Christ and rested on that
fact by faith; you stopped your own efforts; you ceased from your works and
rested in ChristÕs work.
THE LIFE OF REST
Every Christian, in a positional sense, has entered into
GodÕs rest by faith. Salvation and
heaven are the certain possession of all who are true believers in Christ. Yet, GodÕs rest is not something that
we must wait until eternity to experience. Christians can begin to experience in degrees something of
GodÕs rest now. There is a
moment-by-moment rest for GodÕs people who continue to exercise faith in GodÕs
promises. As long as we are in
this unredeemed body, we will never experience GodÕs rest totally, completely
or finally but we can progressively experience the rest of God. The key to experiencing GodÕs rest is
continued faith in God and His promises.
As Christians, we must understand that God has prepared,
before the foundation of the world, this life of rest in God. God has already prepared in Christ all
we need to walk the Christian life but we must claim it by faith.
Let us suppose that you go to someoneÕs home and the host
and hostess prepare a ten course dinner for you. For some reason, however, you do not trust the host. The dinner is beautifully prepared and
they say, ÒDinner is served.Ó Even
though you are very hungry, you turn your back and say, ÒNo, thank you. I am
not interested in food.Ó If you do
not partake of the wonderful food because you distrust the host, you shall
never be filled and have your hunger pangs satisfied. God is saying to each Christian, ÒI have prepared a rest for
all my children. I am inviting you
to eat with Me.
Your spiritual dinner is served.Ó
But if you do not trust God, you will never eat at His table and you
will never go deeply into His life of rest. You must eat His meal.
You must believe the Word.
You must claim the promises.
You must mix the Scripture with faith. If you do not eat, you shall starve spiritually.
Christian, you entered into the rest of salvation when you
believed in Christ, but are you experiencing GodÕs rest in your life? If you have trusted Christ for your
salvation, which is the greatest thing God could ever provide for you, if you
have trusted Him for eternal life and the forgiveness of sins which is the
biggest thing of all, can you not trust Him for the little things - the
problems, the heartaches, the
difficulties? Can you lean only on
God and wait patiently for Him to work in your behalf? You must begin TODAY to trust Christ
for everything, for He is your God.
At this very hour there is a beautiful suspension bridge
across Niagara Falls. This bridge
was built very ingeniously. One
day an engineer flew a kite across the falls. When it came down on the other side, he had it anchored so
that there was a slender cord stretched
across from one side of the falls to the other. Now who would have believed that a little cord would have
become a suspension bridge?
However, the engineer did not stop with just one cord. He tied a heavier cord to the little
cord and pulled it across, then a heavier cord and another and another, until
soon there was a steel cable across the
falls. To this was added another
cable and another and finally there was a powerful bridge there where people
can cross and look down over the falls. This is true also in the Christian life.
By faith, we lay the first strand across the spiritual chasm which is our
initial act of faith in God and His son Jesus Christ. But we do not stop there; that is just the beginning. Now by faith, we continue to lay more
strands and then more strands until we have matured enough to have a solid
cable. But we do not stop there,
for we continue to build the superstructure on a solid foundation. We spend our whole life building the
superstructure, or the bridge, but we do it from a solid foundation. We build our foundation by claiming one
promise and then another until we have a solid foundation. Then we continue to build the bridge by
continued faith and obedience.
However, the bridge will not be completely built until we reach heaven,
our eternal home.
You must develop by GodÕs grace a habit of trusting God in
everything and for everything. You
must learn that your power, strength and stability come from God. In your problems God will stand with
you.
ÒCasting all your anxiety upon Him,
because he cares (is caring) for
youÓ (1 Pet. 5:7).
Ò...The battle is the LORDÕS...Ó (1 Sam. 17:47).
Ò...Stand by (stand still) and see the salvation (deliverance)
of the LORD...Ó (Exo. 14:13).
As you keep on believing and continue to mix the promises of God with faith you will go deeper into experiencing the rest of God.
When you enter into the rest of the Lord, you are letting
God do the fighting and not you.
Your problems are turned over to the Lord. When you are resting in God, you are trusting God to work on
you, in you, through you and for you.
You stop trusting in the arm of the flesh and trust wholly in God to
work out His sovereign will. When
you enter into GodÕs rest, you learn to relax spiritually. You are delivered from fleshy
efforts. You stop manipulating
people, religious hustling, fleshy programming, phony religiosity, external
hypocrisy, church facade when you enter into GodÕs rest of faith. The rest of faith sets people free to
be what God wants them to be. You
can relax and know that God has all things under control.
The rest of faith does not mean inactivity but it means we
stop trusting our own efforts and we trust God to work through us. When we are depending on Christ, we
will be working for Christ. When
we are believing, we are doing things in ChristÕs
power and not our own.
It is the faith-rest life that gives us the power to be a
witness to this world. We can know
something of GodÕs rest when our whole external world is crumbling out from
underneath us. We do not have to
push the panic button. This is the
sort of thing that impresses the world that Christianity is real. The world watches our lives to see how
we react to situations. If we
fret, moan, groan, complain, panic, or fall apart at the seams, the unsaved
world concludes that Christianity is purely psychological and a hoax. But if the world sees quietness, calm,
peace and stability when crisis is all about us, then they know that the Christ
we claim to follow really works in our life.
Recently a Christian businessman told me of an interesting
experience that happened to him.
As you know, the business world is in a state of panic - there are great
shortages of material, inflation has made it difficult to make a profit and the
national business scene is very shaky.
He was dealing with a group of business people from somewhere in the
east. There was a business woman
who was a very strong supporter of womenÕs liberation who noticed something
distinctly different about this Christian businessman (she did not know he was
a Christian). She asked him
outright, ÒHow come you are so calm when the rest of these businessmen are in a
frenzy?Ó He quietly told her, ÒIt
is not me who is calm but it is the Christ who lives in me who makes me calm.Ó He went on to give this woman his
testimony. She did not receive
Christ but she heard the gospel.
Who knows, perhaps God will in grace save her!
CONCLUSION
What is the problem with the world today? People are restless. Why are they restless? Because they are
unsaved and they have no rest for their souls. St. Augustine said, ÒOur hearts are restless, O God, until they find their rest in
Thee.Ó ManÕs constant quest for
rest can only be satisfied in Christ.
Christ fills the void of the human heart and prepares a person to live
as well as to die.
Are you burdened?
Are you tired of the whirlwind life? Are you weary of the phony life of constantly putting up a
front? Behind all these problems
is the problem of sin. Sin has
separated you from God and only Christ can bring you back to God. You must stop all your human efforts to
save yourself and you must turn only to Christ, for only Christ can bring you
the rest of salvation.
Almost two thousand years ago Christ made an offer to men
and this offer is just as true and real today.
ÒCome to Me, all who are weary and
heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I
am gentle and humble in heart; and ÔYOU SHALL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.Õ For My yoke is easy, and My load is light.Ó (Matt. 11:28-30).