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You have just heard the theme of our meditation this evening is the sharp two-edged sword and the sympathetic high priest. The title is taken from words found in the Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter four. So let us, without further ado, read that chapter together. Hebrews chapter four. Let us fear therefore, lest happily a promise being left of entering into his rest, any one of you should seem to have come short of it.
For indeed, we have had good tidings preached unto us, even as also they. But the word of hearing did not profit them, because they were not united by faith with them that heard. For we which have believed do enter into rest, even as he hath said, as I swear in my wrath, they shall not enter into my rest. Although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he has said somewhere of the seventh day on this wise, and God rested on the seventh day from all his works.
And in this place again, they shall not enter into my rest. Seeing therefore it remaineth that some should enter it there in full, and they to whom the good tidings were before preached fail to enter in because of disobedience. He again defineth a certain day, saying in David, after so long a time, today, as it has been before said, today, if you shall hear his voice, harden not your heart. For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken afterward of another day. There remaineth, therefore, a Sabbath rest for the people of God.
For he that is entered into his rest hath himself also rested from his work, as God did from his. Let us therefore give diligence to enter into that rest, that no man fall after the same example of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart. There is no creature that is not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked and laid open before the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
Having then a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, one that has been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help us in time of need. And then chapter six, taking up at verse seven: For the land which hath drunk the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs, meat for them for whose sake it is also tilled, receiveth blessing from God.
But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is rejected, and nigh unto a curse whose end is to be burned. But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak. For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and love which you showed towards his name, in that you ministered unto the saints and still do minister. But we desire that each one of you may show the same diligence unto the fullness of hope, even to the end, that you be not sluggish, but imitators of them who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises.
When God made promise to Abraham, since he could swear by none greater, he swore by himself, saying, surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. Thus, having patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men swear by the greater, and in every dispute of theirs, the oath is final for confirmation, wherein God, being minded to show more abundantly unto the heirs of the promise the immutability of his counsel, interposed with an oath that by two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we may have a strong encouragement who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us, which we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast, and entering into that which is within the veil, whither as a forerunner Jesus entered for us, having become a high priest forever after the order of
Melchizedek. And may God, who gave us the word, give us good understanding of it as we ponder it this evening. It is always a suspicious sign, I expect you have observed it, a suspicious sign, I say, when people who have once been keen in their Christian faith and keen in their attendance at the meetings of the church, begin to fall away and not attend the meetings of the church so regularly, perhaps not at all.
It's a suspicious sign and causes naturally those who have the pastoral care of them to begin to ask questions. Why aren't they coming out to the meetings of the church? If they are not coming to the meetings of the church, where are they going? And why? And what does it mean? It was something like that that the writer to this letter must have found passing through his heart and mind more than once. For the people to whom he was writing had some years before professed faith in the Lord Jesus.
And in those early days of fervor and devotion, they had not only stood brightly in their testimony for Christ, but under persecution had stood firm and took willingly, indeed had taken joyfully, the spoiling of their goods. They had, some of them lost their employment, some of them had lost their furniture, some of them had lost their home, and some of them had lost their lives. They had been made a public gazing stock and a scandal, and had been despised and hated of men. For a while they had stood it.
But now, obviously, things had changed somewhat. And the writer, as he comes to the end of his letter, gently but firmly exhorts them not to forsake the assembling of themselves together, as the manner of some is. But so much as they should see the day approaching of the promised return of Christ, they would renew their efforts and their zeal and persevere in their Christian testimony. It had got the right of worry. For you'll see the question arose, if they weren't coming to the meetings of the church, where were they going?
They were going anywhere? They weren't perhaps going back, were they, to the Judaism that once they had left. If they were, what would that mean? Could it possibly mean that their faith was wavering? Could it mean that they'd lost their faith completely? Could it mean that in spite of all their professed devotion, they had never been believers at all? The worries would have been underlined in the writer's heart, as now he confesses as he comes to chapters three and four of his letter, because he remembers the disturbing fact that centuries before a similar thing had happened to their ancestors.
He reminds them at length about it. Their ancestors in the early centuries had once been slaves in the brick kilns and labor camps of Egypt. God had come down to deliver them in his compassion and sent Moses with miracles galore, both to Pharaoh and to his people, giving his people the gospel message that their God, the God of their fathers, had come down to deliver them and to take them to the land of rest that he had promised. Through mighty signs in Egypt, through the destroying angel passing through the land and smiting the firstborn, through the dramatic ceremony of the Passover on which they put the blood upon the lintel and high post of their houses, and sheltering behind it were saved from the wrath of God.
Through that marvellous night when they marched out into freedom for the first time for centuries. Through that nail-biting experience when they reached the coast of the Red Sea and saw the water in front and the hosts of Pharaoh behind, and they shrieked. Could already feel the lash of the slave masters once more coming down on their backs in their imagination, and cried to Moses, you fool Moses, why did you bring us here? Didn't we tell you in Egypt the thing could never succeed? It was a crazy notion, expecting to get ourselves free from the bondage to Pharaoh.
God in his mercy told them to stand still. They wouldn't have to fight. He himself would deliver. Deliver them he did through a remarkable miracle. And you'll remember the story, won't you? When they eventually stood on the far bank of the Red Sea, well, Moses sang. I don't know how often he was given to singing, but he sang, and Aaron sang, and the people sang. As if that wasn't enough, Miriam led the responses, and she sang, and they all sang, you'll see, until their hearts nearly burst. The Lord has triumphed gloriously, the horse and his rider has he thrown into the sea.
As they saw their enemies dead on the seashore and their chariots wrecked, they were so full of enthusiasm and joy. They felt as if they jumped an inch up, their heads would go through the floor of heaven. And they said in their enthusiasm, God, you've brought us out, and using a past tense, they said, you've brought us in as well to your great habitation. They seemed so sure that they would get to the promised land one day. Now, a few months down the road, they weren't quite so sure that God was so wonderful as they thought at first.
When the water gave out and the food was scarce, they began to get irritable and petulant, and tempted the Lord, saying, in effect, Lord, you'll have to do better than this. I mean, this is crazy. We remember the onions and garlics we had in- ate in Egypt. Jolly good they tasted too. The memory of their taste only mocked them here in the wilderness and nothing but this old manna stuff they did. It was an ominous sign, wasn't it? The manna tasted like honey, you know. And the promise was that God was going to lead them to a land flowing with milk and honey.
Well, if they got tired of honey in the wilderness, was it a wise thing to go on to Canaan? If you can't stick a little honey once a day, what would you do in a land flowing with the stuff? Like people, isn't it, who find the Bible boring. Well, they'd be well advised not to go to heaven. Goodness me, they would. But the Bible is God's conversation with us, and if you can't stick a chapter of God's conversation from the Bible now and again, why would you want to go to heaven and endure God's conversation for all eternity every day of the week, if there are weeks? We need, on times, to call a little logic to our assistance, don't we?
Anyway, let me not wonder. They, they, they, they, they went across the wilderness. Eventually got to the borders of the promised land. They stuck their noses over the border and sent the spies in to see what it was like, and the spies came back. When the people heard what kind of a land it was, they said, oh no. Oh dear, no. We don't want that. I mean, if we'd known that was what it was like, we never would have come. And they made a captain and proposed going back to Egypt. What did it mean?
How would you rate their initial profession of faith. Fortunately for us, we're not, uh, we have no need to decide it for ourselves. For here in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Holy Spirit himself, as he inspires the writer, diagnoses for us what it was that went wrong. And they refused to go into the promised land God himself said, all right, have it your way. You don't want to go in? You needn't go in. Don't go in. In fact, I'm telling you, God swore in his anger those men would never enter his land.
What was wrong with it? The end of chapter three of Hebrews tells us, verse sixteen: for who, when they heard, did provoke God? Nay, did not all they that came out of Egypt by Moses? Well, practically all, except a couple of them, Caleb and Joshua. And with whom was he displeased forty years? Was it not with them that sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness? Well, it so was. All the men over twenty when they came out of Egypt, perished in the wilderness. And to whom swear he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that were disobedient?
And we see that they were not able to enter in because of unbelief. Two reasons are given, therefore. They couldn't enter in and didn't enter in, in verse eighteen, they are, it is described as disobedience. To them that were disobedient. Verse nineteen describes it as unbelief. We must ponder those words just a moment. All of us, we who've known the Lord for many years, all of us in common will admit at many times we have been disobedient to the Lord.
Many a time our hearts have been moved and filled by unbelief, fear. The word that the Holy Spirit uses here for disobedience has throughout the New Testament a consistent usage. There are two words for disobedience, largely in the Bible, in the New Testament. This one of them is used in the New Testament constantly and only for the disobedience of those who reject both Christ and the gospel. Just to cite you a few examples, Paul was preaching in a synagogue in the course of his missionary journey, but after a while, the Jews in the synagogue rejected his message.
Some of the Jews, says Act, says Act, that were disobedient, stirred up the multitude against the apostles and their gospel. They were disobedient. It doesn't mean that they were believers who were that day out of sorts, like we all do when we get out of the bed the wrong way. He's talking about people who, having heard the gospel deliberately and a set purpose, rejected the gospel and refused to believe it. I have not the time tonight to run through all the examples in the New Testament, nor even some of them.
I commit it to your study. You should check it. It is indeed all I say. I think you will find that both the noun, the verb, and the adjective are used only of those who reject the gospel and reject the law. Paul says to Titus, of some, they profess to know God, but in their actual behavior they deny him. They are disobedient, that is, they are straight unbelievers, though they profess to know God. He that hath the Son, that believeth on the Son, has eternal life.
He that disobeys the Son shall not see life, for the wrath of God abides on him. We're talking, therefore, as the Holy Spirit now diagnoses what was wrong with those people in the wilderness. He is saying that they did not believe. They were found out at last to be unbelievers. And it is supportive of that, that as you will notice, uh, verse two of chapter four tells us, as it draws a parallel between them and us, we have had good tidings.
That's the word for the gospel. We have had the gospel preached to us, even as also they had the good tidings, the gospel in their day to them. But the word of hearing did not profit them, because they were not united by faith with them that heard. They didn't believe. You say, what was it they didn't believe? What was this good tidings that they didn't believe? Some would say, well, it was simply the good news that when the spies came back from surveying the land of promise, the spies reported it was a delightful land, and they brought a whole lot of great food.
Uh, uh, and they said, look here, don't fear the giants. God will give you this land, but the people wouldn't believe it. And some say that, uh, that's all it means. They, they were believers to start with, but when they got to the promised land, they, they, they, um, they found that a little bit too much for the time to, to, to believe. But it isn't that, is it? Or at least it's not that. Or if you will read carefully in the book of Numbers, which records the very time when the people refused to go into the Promised Land. And you listen carefully to what God is saying, you'll find God charging them with this.
It wasn't just when they got to the Promised Land they refused to believe, they never had believed. Listen to God speaking. He's speaking to Moses. Numbers fourteen eleven: and the Lord said unto Moses, how long will this people despise me? How long will they not believe in me, for all the signs which I have wrought among them? Or again, the Lord said, I, I, I, I, in very deed as I live and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, because all those men which have seen my glory and my signs, which I wrought in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have tempted me these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice.
Surely they shall not see the land which I swear unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that despise me. Our grave charges indeed are, says God, all the signs that I did them in Egypt right from the start and through the wilderness. That they not only rejected them, they have despised me. And when you look at it, it becomes a little more clear. The Holy Spirit says in Roman, uh, Hebrews four, they had the gospel preached to them, but it was not mixed with faith.
Think for a moment, if you will. In what terms did Moses preach the gospel to these people? Let me put one po- possibility. Do you suppose that Moses preached like this? He came to the Israelites and he said, you know you're having a very rough time here. No, no doubt you feel rather blue and despairing, uh, you'll see, and life is hard and you feel miserable here in Egypt. Now God has come down to deliver you. The main thing is, this is the gospel, the main thing is getting out of Egypt. You'll see, and being saved from the wrath of God that's going to descend on Egypt. And that's the gospel. Would you be interested in that?
You would, yes. Well, that's the main thing. Actually, once you're out, uh, you see, there'll be another, a deluxe edition of the gospel, and if you're interested, you could go into in into that as well, you know. You, uh, could consider, for instance, having got out of Egypt, to take the second diploma course i- in God's salvation, and that would be crossing the wilderness and entering into this promised land. It'll be a bit rough, like the diploma courses are, eh, getting across the wilderness, but once you get there, I think you'll find it worthwhile the struggle. But of course, you don't have to sign up for that yet. You can make your minds about that afterwards. The main thing is to get out of Egypt. That's how you suppose he preached?
No, of course he didn't, and nor should we. We can't preach the whole of the gospel every time we open our mouths, can we? We should be careful not to give people the impression that the main thing is to get saved and a guarantee that you'll never get to hell. Now get that. If after you've got that straight, you'd like to go on and take things further, I mean, read the Bible, for instance, and pray and witness for the Lord and so on, and take it further. Well, that's open to you if you care to sign on for that as a diploma, extra course. Some people are keen like that, and they do, you know, but you don't have to. The main thing is to get saved, and as long as you know you're saved, it doesn't matter whether you come to the meetings of the church or not, or what you do, uh, so long as you, you're, you're, you're free and saved and uh, and uh, hope one day to get to heaven.
There is no such gospel. The gospel that Moses preached to Israel was this: God has come down to deliver you out of Egypt and bring you to the Promised Land. You take the lot, you take nothing. The gospel for us is similarly. Oh, thank God, it is deliverance from the bondage to Satan. It is the forgiveness to sin, the release of the chains of the guilty past, but it is also following the Lord, right the way to glory. And anybody who says he is this hope in Christ, show by his actions that his faith is genuine.
For everyone, this hope, has this hope set on him of one day being like the Savior, will purify himself, even as Christ is pure. And to refuse to take the course of discipleship, and to follow the Savior, and to develop a Christian character, and to grow in faith and in love and in sanctification. That raises very seriously whether such people who propose it have ever believed the gospel at all. And that is why, when these dear people, under the pressure of much per- more persecution than we have ever known, began to leave off coming to the meetings of the Christian church, it raised very big questions in the mind of this writer who had a spiritual and pastoral care for them.
He now points out, of course, to these Jews that their ancestors who came out of Egypt and were over twenty years old, and thus proved to have been unbelievers all the way along the line, finally rejected the rest of the promise left. That Joshua subsequently brought the next generation into Canaan, and the book of Joshua says he gave them rest from all that effort. But if a Jew tried to argue that that's what God meant by the rest, then that was that, and that's hundred years ago. That's nothing to do with us.
The writer to Hebrews now points out to his contemporaries that while Joshua gave them rest, in one sense from their end, that wasn't the final rest that God had in mind. For later on, in another Psalm ninety five, God spoke again, centuries after Joshua. And from what God said in that Psalm, it was evident that God still had a rest. My rest, he called it. Not the rest in the physical canyon. This was God's own rest. What do you mean by God's own rest? Well, the writer refers us back to Genesis one and ca- and 2, that God created the heavens and earth in six days, and on the seventh he rested from all his works, creations and seeds.
My rest. The works were finished before the foundation of the world, and God rested. We are invited to enter his rest. What does that mean? Well, he quotes Genesis to show that when God rested, he rested from his work for creation. We are held out the possibility one day we shall rest from our works too and share the rest of God. From those illustrations, our thoughts pass to the New Testament. There is for us an eternal rest. Peter speaks of it in terms borrowed from Israel's history.
We've been begotten again, he says, unto a living hope by the resurrection of Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, reserved for us in heaven. Rest of the saints above, Jerusalem of God. The great eternity of glory that God planned when he first flung this world into space. So you'll see, my good friend, the Bible assures us that long before God created our world and our universe, he had plans for us.
He created us, and then he didn't have to sit down and say, well, I've created these folks now, what the hell shall I do with them? Oh no. Ah. Long before he created us, he had his purpose that one day we should be before him in his eternity, in love, having predestinated us to adoption as children to himself. That was the scheme. You see, God was not content simply to have us as creatures. He wanted something more than creatures.
He wanted children, that is, sons. Not all, not God Almighty could produce children of God at one go. He could produce creatures without asking their permission. I don't know whether God asked your permission. He didn't ask mine. I suddenly woke up and found I was here on Earth, and nobody asked me whether I wanted to come. I was here, born into this world, a creature of God. I had no choice in it. Ah, but when it comes to being a child of God, uh, you have the choice, don't you?
Not all people are children of God. All are creatures of God. But if you will be, uh, the child of God, you have to become a child of God. That's why one John chapter twelve says, to as many as received him, to them he gave the power to become children of God, even to those who believe on his name. That's the purpose. That is the purpose why this universe was created and our special planet in it, so that God could bring us here first as his creatures. Earth was never intended as more than a temporary stepping stone to the great eternity.
A life as creatures through which we travel on towards the great eternity. The great rest, the inheritance that is above, designed for those who, in the course of this life, become children of God, share with God his eternal rest in that world to be. We which do believe enter into that rest. In a sense, we enter into it now. We find the Savior, and he finds us. We receive him. Are here and now born again, and born again not with a temporary physical life, but with the very life of God.
We become children of God already. In a sense, we are joined to Christ, and spiritually we sit in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus already. Then there's the not yet bit. We're not yet home, and we're still on the journey, and we're still walking through this temporary world, on towards the great eternity. That rest lies beyond. On the road? Ah. Just like Israel on the road were put through their tests, so shall we be.
The terms for entry into God's great eternity are faith, of course. It's not our works that will ever qualify us to enter or earn for us entry into the eternal rest of God. It's by faith and by faith only. Here, let me say it once more in your hearing. Terms of entry into the eternal city are these, blessed are they that wash their robes, that is, in the blood of Christ. They may have rights to the tree of life and enter into the gates of the city. It is by faith. It is simply through believing the gospel, believing the Son of God.
It is through faith we shall enter. Now here comes the other side of that coin. If we profess to be believers, our faith will be tested. We shall be required to give evidence that we are true believers. So that whereas we are justified by faith and set right with God by faith, and Hebrews chapter six and eleven and the epistle of James chapter two will tell us that we shall need to be justified by work.
And I was a youth. In Victoria was it. Uh, I do this, but that's not the point. When I was a youth, my senior Christian men had a very neat way of explaining the difference between justification by faith and justification by works. And it went like this: we are justified by faith before God. We are justified by works before men. I thought that sounded marvelous, really solved the question. I lived too long along, and it didn't quite solve it. The actual fact is, we are justified by faith before God.
But God will require that we justify our faith by our works before God. Say, that's contradictory, isn't it? No. You'll say when we're justified by faith, it's a question of the guilt of our sin, and how can we be accepted by God and be counted as just and righteous, pronounced just and righteous by God? And the answer is not by our works, but by our faith through Christ, through the propitiation that is in Christ Jesus. And being justified by faith, we have peace with God, and we can be utterly sure of attaining the glory of God.
You're justified then by faith, are you? Well, wait a minute. The question arises, how do we know our faith is genuine? James will look us in the face and say in his rather blunt way, uh, that James has of talking, you're a believer? Marvelous. The devils believe there's a God. Doesn't do them a lot of good. You believe there's a God? Well, you show it then. Show me your faith. How can you? Well, the only way you can show you are a believer is to show people by your works that you are a believer. In other words, it's our faith that is being justified, demonstrated to be reaped, and you do that by your works.
So it is that Hebrews chapter six quotes the story of Abraham, how God swore an oath to Abraham saying, blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven. Question will arise when you read that passage in Hebrews six, when did that happen to Abraham? When was Abraham justified by works, as James would point out? He was justified by works, says James, when he offered his son upon the altar. That's when he was justified by works. Oh. So that's the story that the Hebrews six is quoting precisely.
What happened there? Well, it wasn't a question of Abram being justified before men. Nobody knew of it. This was all Sarah, I suspect, until it did have it. It was God that was concerned, and God that demanded the effort. And when Abraham at last offered, or was about to offer Isaac on the altar, the angel of the Lord appeared and spoke to him out of heaven and said, now, now I know that thou fearest me, being thou hast not held thine only son from me.
Now I, God, know. That's funny, surely he's God, he knew all the while. Yes, in one sense he knew. In another sense he didn't know. What on earth do you mean now? You're getting late at night, isn't it? You're getting confused. How can you know and not know? Well, I know that if I took off at Blust Bay, you'll see, and jumped hard and arrived at the South Pole, I know it was jolly cold. How do you know that? Well, I've read it in books, and reliable New Zealanders have told me. I know it that way round.
I don't know it by experience. Knowing because standing here, I can work it out logically, and I can foresee that if I arrive at the South Pole, I should be very cold. I can foresee that. I've never experienced it. And long before I was born, God could foresee me and knew me in that sense. I'm glad he didn't content himself with that. He commands us to have the knowledge of experience, you see. I was actually. And when it comes to my faith, God demands to know by experience that I'm a genuine believer. What was this testing of Abram all about?
What wonderful thing did he have to do to show that by his works that he was a true believer? Well, the story is this. Abram believed God, so Genesis chapter fifteen says it was counted to him for life. Only me, you believe only me? Yes, Lord. I'm going to give you a son? Yes, said Isaac, said Jap- said Abram, I do believe. But God didn't give him a son immediately. And one day Sarah, I don't know whether it was at breakfast or tea, she said to Abram, Abram dear, I've been thinking. He said, you have. What about?
She said, well, this, this promise thing, you see. Um, God said he's going to give us a son. Yes, I know, said Abram. That's marvelous, isn't it? He's going to give us a son. Well, I don't know so much, said Sarah. You see, God is being a bit contradictious. Oh, really, said Abram. Um, um, yes, he promised he's going to give us a son, but he's overlooked the fact that I'm barren, you see. And what's more, he shut up my womb, so I mean, that's rather contradictions. You women do see things, don't you? Well, what do you make out of it? Well, I make out of it this, said Sarah, you see. I think that when God said he was going to give us a son, Abel, he didn't mean just he's going to give us a son just like that.
I mean, he says you're going to give us a son, but he means you've got to do your bit for him. You've got to use your own resources. God helps those that help themselves. That's nice, said Abram, we haven't got any resources. We have, we've got my servant girl. So. So Abraham took Hagar and fathered Ishmael, thinking by his own effort to fulfill God's promise. And God said, no, thank you very much. Nice lad, Ishmael. I'll bless him, but that's not what I meant.
When I promised to give you a son, I was going to give you a son. I meant that.
