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Through the Bible with Les Feldick
LESSON 2 * PART 4 * BOOK 48
Hebrews 4:1-11 - Part 2
Back to Hebrews, chapter 4 and verse 4. Hebrews 4:4-5
"For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest (and that’s the word we’re really looking at. God rested) the seventh day from all his works. 5. And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest."
Rest. Now if you’re resting, and I’ll just use a simple childlike illustration. Rest. God has said it’s finished and we don’t have to sweat and work and try to do this and do that. We just rest in it. I’m talking about the salvation experience. Rest was rejected because of unbelief but on the other hand a picture of what rest really can be for the believer. Oh, we can just revel in the fact that we don’t have to work, work, work, work for salvation, as that’s all been done. It’s finished.
You’ve got to fulfill this obligation; you’ve got to fulfill that obligation. Hebrews 4:5b
"…If they shall enter into my rest."
By faith and faith alone, plus nothing, because it’s finished. Come back to Hebrews chapter 1 verse 3. Alright, we were speaking of the Son back in verse 2. Now verse 3.
Hebrews 1:3
"Who being the brightness of his glory, (He was God from the beginning, from eternity past. He was God in the flesh. He, as God took the sins of the world upon Himself. It’s finished. I’ll never comprehend it. There is no way that I can understand all that God poured out first from the wrath side on God the Son who became the epitome of sin itself. Mercy. How can mortal man comprehend that? God, you did it, you said it, it’s complete, it’s finished. I’m resting. Listen, never do these verses that list conditions deal with the believer. It’s talking to these people who were on the fence. You cannot leave one foot in religion of whatever sort it is and have the other foot in the Grace of God and be accepted. It won’t work. "Well God you didn’t really finish it." And God won’t have it. No little puny mortal man is going to tell God that he didn’t quite finish the job.
Alright, let’s come back to chapter 4, and let’s come on down to verse 6.
Hebrews 4:6
Well, we’re talking about Israel at Kadesh. God had had those Canaanites working 400 years like bees getting everything ready. Unbelief.!
How many people ever look at them? We’re a nation tonight of total unbelief. Unbelief. America no longer believes this Book. America scoffs at everything this Book says anymore. Because there comes a time when God says, "I’ve had it!" and so, here’s the text. Now verse 7.
Hebrews 4:7a
Now if you think I repeat, I don’t hold a candle to this Book, because it’s always repeating and repeating and repeating. Hebrews 4:7b
Alright read on. Today) if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts."
Hardened his own heart. God didn’t harden it. Now I also said God never gives up, of course not. Alright now then verse 8.
Hebrews 4:8a
"For if Jesus…"
Joshua now is going to bring the Nation of Israel in from the East of Jordan. And as Joshua leads the nation into Canaan, what’s the scenario? Is it a life of ease and rest like Canaan would have been? So what is the Christian life? It’s a constant battle. It’s a constant working to maintain our Christian experience. You’ve got the land of Canaan pictured as a place of total rest, a finished work, and Christ sat down because it was finished. Positionally, we’re in the place of rest, experientially, we’re in a constant battle. Alright let’s go on with verse 8 repeating.
Hebrews 4:8
"For if Joshua had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day."
My goodness, you go back and read the Book of Joshua and go on into the Book of Judges - I thank God that I wasn’t living in those days. There wasn’t any rest associated with that. Even though God did that one without lifting a sword, yet that was just the beginning of having to gain the land of Canaan, city by city, tribe by tribe, and they never did get to the place where they had total rest, and so that’s what the verse meant. Hebrews 4:9
"There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God."
Come out from that legalism and come into the rest that only God’s Grace can offer." Now then verse 11 may be a verse that throws a curve at a few people. They say, "Well, see, that shows you’ve got to work for your salvation." Hebrews 4:11
"Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall (not out of salvation, but never having attained it) after the same example of (what?) unbelief." Unbelief. I Peter 1:10
Well it didn’t mean that you did physical work for somehow appeasing a Holy God. The Scripture says labor to enter into that rest. Not by doing something for salvation but make work of studying the Scripture. "Eternal life."

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