Transcript
Before we turn to the book of Hebrews once again this evening, may I invite your attention first of all to the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 12. Turn to Deuteronomy chapter 12. Deuteronomy chapter 12. Just a few verses here, beginning in verse 8.
You shall not at all do as we are doing here today, every man doing whatever is right in his own eyes. For as yet you have not come to the rest and the inheritance which the Lord your God is giving you.
Please notice that the words rest and inheritance are used in virtually the same sense.
But when you cross over the Jordan and dwell in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, and when He gives you rest from all your enemies round about, so that you dwell in safety, then there will be the place where the Lord your God chooses to make His name abide.
And now for our passage in Hebrews we turn to Hebrews chapter 3. Hebrews chapter 3, beginning to read at verse 7.
Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tested Me, proved Me, and saw My works forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, and they have not known My ways.’ So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’
Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
For we have become partners with Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, while it is said: “Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all those who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.
Now come over to chapter 4, and reading at verse nine.
There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works as God did from His. Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall after the same example of disobedience.
Tonight I would like to give you some sensitivity training. And to begin with, I would like to introduce you to a remarkable woman who rates very high on the sensitivity scale. Her name is Alice Nelson Cannon. She is an 81 year old woman who lives in Salt Lake City, Utah.
One day last April she and her husband decided to travel to St. George, which is in the southwestern portion of the state. If they had had the slightest idea how their trip would turn out, they would never have left home.
As they were traveling towards St. George, they decided to take a side trip into the Dixie National Forest. And on one of the muddy roads in that forest their car was mired down in an isolated section known as Pine Valley. It was April the 15th, and they spent the next two nights sleeping in the car, hoping, I suppose, that the roads would dry up or somebody would come by.
On the morning of April the 17th they decided to try to walk out of the area. But eventually they became tired and they decided to build themselves a lean-to with sagebrush and pine branches. And they slept that night under their lean-to. The night turned bitterly cold and Mr. Cannon died in his sleep.
When Mrs. Cannon woke up the next morning she got up and she went on. At last she came to a deserted summer cabin. She broke into the cabin and for the next four days she lived on all the canned fruits that had been stored in the cabin until at last rescue workers found her and took her to safety.
By Saturday after surgery she was resting comfortably in the hospital. She deeply regretted that she had to break into somebody’s cabin. In fact, anticipating that she would die, she had actually left a note of apology which read something like this: “I am sorry that I had to break into your home. It prolonged my life. My husband is dead lying out by some rocks not far from here.” And she promised to pay for the food that she had eaten. And then her note added, “Please call our children. They will be so worried. Thank you. Our children will remember you.”
You know what? I think I’d like to meet Alice Nelson Cannon. My hat is off to an 81 year old woman who had the energy and determination to press on after her husband had died. But that is not the thing that impresses me the most. The thing that impresses me the most about this woman is her remarkable and amazing sensitivity.
Caught up in an ordeal, lost in the woods, deprived of her lifetime companion, facing possible death herself, she is sensitive enough to write a note of apology to the people whose cabin she had broken into.
My Christian friends, tonight I want you to understand that in the Christian life one of the greatest assets that you can possibly have is a sensitive heart. A sensitive heart. And one of the surest signs of spiritual danger down the road is loss of spiritual sensitivity.
The wise man, our Lord, said, “Keep thy heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life.” And it is with good reason therefore that the writer of Hebrews, drawing upon his vast Old Testament knowledge, chooses as his text for this portion of his epistle the ringing challenge of Psalm 95: “Today, today if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”
And it is out of deep pastoral wisdom and concern that he writes, “Beware, brethren,” did you notice that word “brethren”? This is a warning addressed to Christians. “Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God.”
And you see, deep down in the inner recesses and in the dark corners of our hearts there may be potential for doubt, even there lies the latent capacity for unbelief. And if there is anybody in the audience tonight who would claim that you are never, never tempted to doubt God under any circumstances whatsoever, would you come forward after the meeting and introduce yourself and I will give you a charter membership in the Liars Club of America.
Beyond us, be honest. We are capable, we are capable of doubting God. And it is particularly under the pressures of stress and trouble that that latent capacity tends to rise to the surface and to seep into our hearts like some poisonous anesthetic, robbing us of our spiritual sensitivity and hardening our hearts.
I was in Topeka, Kansas earlier this year. We have three very fine seminary graduates who are serving the Lord at the Topeka Bible Church. And it was my privilege to minister the word in that city. One night after one of the meetings we were in the home of one of these graduates. And we went down into the basement for some refreshments. And somebody said, “You know, it’s good to be living in a city that has basements in the houses.” And then they told me something about the city of Dallas that I hadn’t realized before. They said, “You know, the reason they don’t build cellars in the city of Dallas is because the soil is so rocky and so hard that it is too expensive to construct a cellar when you’re constructing a house.”
Now Topeka needs its basements because, you see, occasionally a twister spins its way through the city of Topeka. In fact one had passed through about a week before I came. And when a twister is on the loose in the city the best place to be is in a cellar.
And listen, my friends, if our hearts become hard, rocky, resistant soil we’ve got no place to hide. We are sitting ducks for the twisters that sweep through our lives and experiences. And there is a danger that under those circumstances, with hearts hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, that we may lose an inheritance of tremendous value and of tremendous worth.
After all, it’s happened before. It’s happened before. You see, when God brought the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, they saw all of those great signs and wonders. He had brought them to the very borders of the land of Canaan, the land of promise. And then, you remember, the children of Israel sent twelve spies into the land of Canaan to look at the land. And ten of those spies came back with a very discouraging report.
They admitted that it was an excellent land that they had looked at. But they said the people of the land are strong, the cities are large and well fortified, the people are of great stature. And we saw giants, some of the descendants of Anak, in the land. And we were in their sight as grasshoppers, and so were we in our own sight.
Forgive me if I suspect the Jewish spies of exaggerating a little bit, and more than a little bit. Do you know how tall a man would have to be to make another man look like a grasshopper by comparison? I did a little calculating on this. And even if the Israelites were only on an average of five feet tall, their enemies would have to be three hundred feet tall to make them look like grasshoppers. Magic Johnson or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar brought down here, the Jewish spies, his height, and they’d rush us like a bunch of bugs.
Did you ever do that? I mean, did you ever exaggerate your troubles just a little bit? “I’ll never get through that difficulty. They weigh me down and crush me like a mere insect.”
And oh how hard the other two spies, Joshua and Caleb, tried to get the children of Israel to trust God. And they gave a very eloquent speech. They said the land is an excellent land. “If the Lord delights in us, then He will bring us into it. Do not rebel against the Lord, nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread. Their protection has departed from them, and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them.”
What an eloquent speech. “Don’t get scared,” say Joshua and Caleb. “Nothing to protect them more than us. Courageous.” And would you believe it? When the children of Israel heard that speech, you know what they talked about doing? They talked about stoning Joshua and Caleb to death. “These guys are trying to get us killed. They’re going to lead us into a land of giants. They’re going to wipe us out like a pack of sheep, slaughter us like so many pigs. Let’s stone Joshua and Caleb.”
And that, my friends, is exactly what we mean by an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. Can you blame God for being angry with a nation like that? Can you blame Him for swearing in His wrath that they would never enter into His rest?
And the Word of God, drawing upon that incident so long ago, now comes ringing down through the ages to you and to me: “Today, today, not tomorrow, today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” For you see, if we do, we may lose our inheritance and our rest as the Israelites also did.
You know, I was reading not long ago about a hotel in the city of Tokyo called the New Otani that has a very unique way of helping its guests to rest. They have discovered that among the most restful sounds in all the world are bird calls. And would you believe it? They have a record with nothing on it but bird calls. And if a guest requests it they will pipe bird calls into their room so they can relax and go to sleep.
But tonight I’m not talking about a bird call to rest. I am talking about a Bible call to rest. I am talking about the most lovely invitation to rest that you can possibly conceive of: God inviting us to share His rest.
Do you agree with me that in the English language there are very few words that are more beautiful than the word “rest”? Here we are in the middle of July. Try to think about the hottest job you can perform in the city of Los Angeles. Or if you were living in Dallas it might be getting out on Saturday morning, late Saturday morning, and mowing your lawn. And there you are pushing the lawnmower around the yard while the temperature rises steadily in the direction of a hundred degrees. Sweat is rolling down your face. Your clothes are soaked. Finally after about two hours you look out over that lawn. It’s perfectly mowed and perfectly edged. And then you go inside your air-conditioned living room or your air-conditioned den and you sit down in your recliner and you pick up a tall glass of cool lemonade and you turn on the television and you sip your lemonade. And that is rest. And it is lovely. Or as Jackie Gleason might say, “How sweet it is. How sweet it is.”
But did you know that God invites you to a rest that is even sweeter than that? Even sweeter than that.
You see, thousands of years ago God worked for six straight days. He worked. And finally on the sixth day He created man and He set man in control over the works of His hands, over the creation. And then what did God do? You know what He did? On the seventh day He rested. And for a while man shared that rest with God. But then he blew it. Then he blew it. He reached out his hand for the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and he fell. And he was expelled from the Garden of Eden and banished from God’s rest.
And now the only way for a man to get back into God’s rest is by working for it, by working for it. Now I can just hear someone saying, “All right, you’ve gone and done it now. You’re telling us that we have to work to get to heaven.” This way, no, Pastor Hodges gets up on the platform. He’ll set that straight in no time. That’s not what I’m telling you.
You see the Bible is very clear on the subject:
By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.
And Paul wrote to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.
And I hope that everybody in this audience understands that you can be saved and go to heaven freely by the grace of God. You can be justified, fully accepted before God by a simple act of personal faith in Jesus Christ who died for your sins and rose again. I hope we are clear about that.
The mark? Well you will never enter this kind of rest unless you work for it. Please remember that at the very beginning of my message we read from Deuteronomy chapter 12 in which the children of Israel once again at the borders of the land of Canaan, they are about to enter into the Promised Land. And it is clear from that passage that the word “rest” is used in the same way as the word “inheritance.” And therefore when we talk about entering into God’s rest we are talking about entering into our inheritance.
Now don’t forget what we have learned already from the book of Hebrews. Jesus Christ has sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. And God has said to Him, “Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies the footstool of Your feet.” And it is God’s intention and purpose to give to the Lord Jesus Christ dominion over the world, dominion over the creation.
But as we have seen, God is also bringing many sons to share the glory of His kingship and His authority and His dominion with Him. The King has companions. He has partners. And to enter into this partnership, to enter into this privilege is to enter into our inheritance and into our rest.
C. H. Spurgeon, the famous preacher, once preached to an audience in excess of 23,000 people in a place called the Crystal Palace. It was Wednesday. When he came home he went to bed Wednesday night and he slept until Friday morning. All day Thursday his wife looked in on him and she found her husband sleeping peacefully and wisely decided not to disturb him.
Now I can empathize with that. You folks out there that have never been up on a platform and preached, let me tell you something. Preaching is work. It is draining emotionally and physically and psychologically. And some mornings when I am finished with my Sunday morning sermon at Victor Street in Dallas I head straight back to my apartment and to my bedroom.
Now I have to admit to you that I’ve never preached for twenty-three thousand people and therefore I’ve never slept twenty-four hours after a sermon. But I can just imagine how draining this was for C. H. Spurgeon. And he had done a special work for God and God gave him a special kind of rest.
Listen, for those who work for God right up to the end, God has a special kind of rest. That is why we read in Hebrews 4 verses 9 and 10, “There remains a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works as God did from His.”
God labored for six days and when His work was finished He rested. And those who labor for God, when their work is finished they will rest.
Please, please do not understand me to suggest that we are going to sleep for 10,000 years in the kingdom. That would get very old very fast and we would miss an awful lot of action. No. God calls us to a rest that is better than sleep. He calls us to a rest that is better than sitting in our recliner and sipping lemonade.
He is calling us to an experience of rest that is better than anything we have ever called rest. He is calling us to the rest of sitting down in the experience of kingship with Jesus Christ our Lord. Jesus said,
To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.
And my friends, when the struggles of life are over, when the battles are fought and won, when our job for God is finished, God will say to you and to me, “Sit down, My son. Sit down, My daughter. Sit as a king. Sit as a queen. This is My Sabbath rest. For now man has dominion, in the person of Jesus Christ My devoted Son, over the creation. This is our rest and this is our inheritance.”
And it is for this reason that the writer of Hebrews challenges us, saying, “Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of unbelief.”
This is a rest that can be missed. And the Israelites in the Old Testament, we saw through unbelief, did not enter in. But listen, if our hearts remain sensitive, sensitive to God and to His word, if we continue to trust God to enable us to conquer the giants and to capture the fortified cities of our life, if we trust Him to help us get the job done, we will enter that rest. We will obtain that inheritance.
Four years after the sinking of the Titanic, a great disaster in which more than 1,500 lives were lost, a young Scotchman got up in a meeting in Hamilton, Canada, and he told this impressive story. He said, “I am a survivor of the Titanic.” And he said, “On that awful night I was floating in the ocean clinging to a spar from the wreckage of the ship when the waves brought to me Mr. John Harper of Glasgow who was also clinging to a piece of wreckage. And as we came close to each other Mr. Harper said to me, ‘Man, are you saved?’ And I said, ‘No, I’m not.’ And Mr. Harper said, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.’”
“And then,” said the young man, “the waves separated us. But strangely enough after a while the waves brought him back to me and he said, ‘Are you saved yet?’ And I said, ‘No, I can’t say that I am.’ And he said to me, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.’” And shortly after that, said the young man, John Harper went down. He went under.
And that night under the darkened sky with two miles of water beneath me I believed. “I am John Harper’s last convert. I am John Harper’s last convert.”
Thrilling story. Caught in a famous disaster, John Harper clinging to a piece of the wreckage for his very life remained sensitive to the spiritual need of another human being and sensitive to his responsibilities to God. He bore witness to the saving power of the name of Jesus. And he served and worked for his Master till the last moments of his life.
Who was he? Who was he? He was one of the heirs. He was one of those who entered into rest. He was one of the partners of the King.
Shall we pray?
Father, we thank You for this marvelous vision of the future, the rest into which You call us in fellowship with Yourself and with Your Son. We thank You, Father. Help us to be diligent to enter into that rest, sensitive to Thee and to Thy will, dedicated to Thee till the very closing moments of our life. We ask it in Christ’s name. Amen.