Hebrews 4:1 (CEV) - Forerunner Commentary

He begins, then, to show that the quotation from Psalm 95:7 has never been fulfilled. So, who would be the first ones to fulfill it? The first ones, you would think, would be the ones God called out of Egypt. That would be a right answer. They would be the first ones that could fulfill it, but we find in chapter 4:

They didn't fulfill it. It's still open. I won't go into every detail. Paul then goes on into Joshua and the people who entered the Land - which should have been the fulfillment. But it was NOT the fulfillment. You know what happened after Joshua died. Boy, the whole nation went down spiritually, like a rock in water - until everybody (as it says in the last verse of Judges) was doing what was right in his own eyes. There was no king. There was no central authority. There was nobody to point these people in the right direction. They didn't enter into the rest.

Now, let's jump all the way up to the time that Psalm 95 was written. It is generally conceded to be a psalm of David or of Asaph - someone of that period of time. And they were looking back. David lived how long after Joshua? Roughly 300 years after Joshua, and it hadn't been fulfilled in David's time either. Was it fulfilled in any other time? No, it wasn't. That's why the apostle is writing this. It still remains! God's promise has NOT been fulfilled.

Who's it going to be fulfilled by? Paul's hoping that it's going to be fulfilled by these people who were drifting away. That is, be fulfilled by the church. The promise of entering into that Sabbath rest has not yet been fulfilled.

What did he just say there? Have we entered into that rest? We have NOT entered into it yet. It hasn't occurred. So, what rest is God talking about here? He's talking about the Kingdom of God, which still lies before us. Now, look at the instruction.

We've seen the Sabbath, now, in several different lights. First of all, it commemorates the completion of the Creation Week. God is Creator. Then, in Deuteronomy, we see that it commemorates redemption. We find in the things that we see of Jesus in the Gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John - we see Him acting upon, not the Creation motif, but acting upon the redemption motif.

God has gotten us out of Egypt; now, how do we use the Sabbath? So He magnifies it, by showing that we should use the Sabbath in terms of a redemption motif. We might almost say that the first thing we need to make sure is that we are free and that we stay free. Therefore, we have to strive to do what? Keep the Sabbath! And the third lesson, then, is that it prefigures a time yet future when the people of God enjoy the rest.

So, now we see the Sabbath doing what?

These three areas are the perimeters within which Sabbath use and obedience fall. For there remains yet a keeping of the Sabbath. We won't go into this, but it is really beautiful. That is, what it shows in the Greek here - which, incidentally, is probably the most beautiful Greek in the whole Bible. It is really beautifully written. It shows that Sabbath rest has already begun IF we are striving to use it right. We have already begun to enter into it.

If a person works on the Sabbath, have they entered into it? Obviously not! I'm talking about working and earning a living.

This thing that I just mentioned ties very closely to the term eternal life in the Bible. And eternal life, we find (shown by Jesus Christ), is not merely a period in which there is extended life. That is, life without end. But, to God, eternal life also includes the quality of life being lived. It would be no good to have eternal life if we had to live it like a demon. But eternal life is only good when it is lived as God lives it.

Now, are you starting to live like God? IF you have begun to live like God lives - having His attitude, doing the things that He does in terms of what Christ has showed us - THEN you have begun to enter into eternal life. Therefore, … . . .

Now consider these people. They saw a multitude of things - miracles - done by God through His servant Moses and on occasion, through Aaron. They experienced the water in Egypt turning to blood. They experienced the hopping frogs all over the place. They experienced that eerie, penetrating, darkness that pervaded all of the land. They experienced then the division between Goshen and Egypt; and they were spared from the plagues that came upon Egypt. They knew that there was something working in their lives, did they not? Did they not see it occurring when the bugs were all over Egypt; but the bugs were not in the land of Goshen? Did they not experience it when the hail fell and it burned on the ground, burning up all the wood in Egypt - yet it did not happen in Goshen? Did they not experience on the Passover night when the firstborn of Egypt were killed, but the firstborn of Israel, because the blood was on the doorposts and the lintel, were not killed? Did they not see that?

Did they not spoil the Egyptians? Did they not go out? Did not God part the Red Sea right before their eyes; and all the Egyptian army died there? Did not they spend 40 years when God day after day gave them manna from heaven? Did they not see the water coming like a river out of solid rock? Did they not see quail being blown toward them - practically hip-high on the ground - so that they had all the meat that they could possibly eat?

They saw the glory of God descending on Mt. Sinai. They felt the earth shake under their feet. They saw the mountain of fire. They saw the glory of God come down on the tabernacle after it was built. Yet every single one of them, except for two men and their families, perished.

Is seeing believing?

Now, what about you? You are here. You are associating with God's true church. Are you a part of it? Do you really see it? Do you see what is happening in the life of this work? Can you examine things of the past and project that out to our future?

Is seeing believing? These people never saw God in those works. What they physically saw did not produce spiritual faith which enables one to see God, because (as these two verses show) there has to be a voluntary response by the one given the ability to see.

The Christian has the responsibility of responding to God's calling by acts of faith. The apostle is reminding these people of the deadly seriousness of their situation. God's calling is not indiscriminately mimeographed for all who might chance to see or read. Your calling is a personal invitation. It has been addressed to you! The warning is that, since ancient Israel did not enter into God's rest, someone else will, because God will carry through with His purpose. The Christian, therefore, ought not to think that there is automatic acceptance.

Living by Faith

We need to very seriously consider Israel in the wilderness. They heard the message; but they did not respond. If you read the preceding chapters in the book of Hebrews, you will find that their failure to respond is variously called hardness of heart, unbelief, or disobedience. Even though each one of these is distinctively different, they are all in this context synonyms of one another.

Now, why did this occur? Because Israel kept wanting to go back to Egypt. They were looking at all of the events through Egyptian-trained eyes - minds.

We see what we want to see. We see what we expect to see. We see what we are educated to see.

Brethren, we have to live on the basis of the words of promise. Hebrews 11:13 says these all died in faith. The heroes of faith all died in faith not having received the promises but having seen them afar off. And they rejoiced in them. You see, they believed what they saw. They identified themselves and God with it. It was this ability to see that gave them direction to their lives and set them apart from the rest of mankind.

. . .

Here is a powerful warning that means exactly what it says. If we do not believe God any more strongly and clearly than the Israelites in the wilderness, we will not enter God's rest.

A peculiarity of Hebrews 4:1-3 is that the term rest appears three times in these three verses, and it is used a total of nine times in this one chapter. We have all heard that repetition is the best form of emphasis. And God certainly is drawing our attention to something important in times like the Hebrews faced. That much repetition ought to be enough to make us understand that there is something here very important to our spiritual well being. It is clear that the author knew that the Jews needed to be reminded and encouraged regarding this term's meaning.

One of the usages of that word ought to bring the Sabbath to mind immediately. That, indeed, is one of the things that the author implies in this chapter, but it is not the only thing that the author is drawing attention to here by using the term rest.

Three different Greek words are used by the author and then translated into the one English word rest. The first word is katapausis. In Strong's, it is 2663, and it means reposing down, abode, rest. The second word is katapauo. It is 2664, and it means settled down, or (caused to) desist, cease, rest. As you can probably tell, these two are related to one another and from the same root. The third word is sabbatismos. It is number 4520, and it means the repose of Christianity, rest, Sabbath. It, brethren, is a horse of a different color from the other two, as used in this chapter.

From where would a Jewish Christian of the 1^st century and a modern Christian draw his understanding of the author's use of the term rest in this sort of context? Well, the roots of this term go all the way back to the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The roots of the use of this word are not just a matter of its specific meaning, or of the promises themselves; but also the fact that the Bible clearly shows that much of Abraham's, Isaac's, and Jacob's lives were lived in a rather nomadic and itinerate way despite the fact that they were materially prosperous and had a rich relationship with God to go along with that prosperity.

A settled life they did not live. A settled life was always something hoped for - something off in the future, when their responsibilities would permit them the stability that other people seemed to have. Despite the exceeding wealth of Abraham and Isaac, Abraham never owned a piece of property other than Sarah's gravesite.

Where do I get the idea that God's plan was completed from the very beginning? It comes right out of verse 3.

God had this all planned out before He started. You can confirm this in Ephesians 1:4 and also in II Timothy 1:8-9. Both say that these things were finished from the foundation of the earth. I think this gives us some sort of an idea, an ability to catch just a little bit of a grasp of the immensity of the thinking of God.

When we stop to think that, usually if a man builds a building (whether it is a house, office building, or whatever), he draws up the plans before he does it. But - because men are not God - the plans have to be adjusted, and altered, and changed; and we sometimes start all over again, maybe with a new plan. But God's mind is such that He had everything figured out before He began!

That is so awesome, when you figure what just the earth is like or what just our little universe is like within the Milky Way, and what the Milky Way is within all of the heavens. What a Mind! And yet we worry. We will see that Jesus clarified some things here, just in case there would be a question.

Remember that I told you before that in Hebrews 4:3, this verse is telling us that the plan of God was completed before God even started the creation. But there is something else that is also mentioned here. It is a little bit difficult in the King James Bible, because it is not … . . .

The basic reason that Israel failed is given in Hebrews 4:1-2. The basic reason is because they did not believe God. They did not have faith. They lived by sight. They did not have the Spirit to really live by faith so they could not relate to what they were going through. They could not relate to what the nation was going through, they could not relate to why they had famines, economic problems, violence in the street, and so on. We can relate to those things and the only reason we can relate to them properly and not simply be aware that they are there, the world is aware that they are there but they cannot relate to it. You and I can relate it to God's purpose, you and I can truly relate it to sin, you and I can relate it to Satan the Devil. So God has given us an advantage there. We can make proper relationships about what is going on in the world, because we can see these things being fulfilled. We can live by faith.

Because of the Israelite's condition, they could not translate what they were experiencing into a cooperative way of life that would produce mankind's fondest hopes and dreams. They always had the idea of letting someone else do it, let someone else take care of it. We have to understand that it is our responsibility to take care of our part, and then anywhere else that we can assist, fine. God puts a priority there. The brethren come first, then to the world.

In I Corinthians 2:9-16 Paul shows very clearly that a person without the Spirit of God is absolutely held in bondage, because God has to reveal these things. He can do that. You can combine that with,

Without the Spirit of God to displace Satan's spirit, mankind cannot submit to the law of God. We have privileges that are awesome. The world knows of God, but as God's witnesses in so many places is they do not know Him. There is a difference. As Earl [Henn] was saying in his sermon, men can prove that God exists, but that does not mean that they know Him. They know about Him; they know of Him.

They can read His Word but most of the time they are going to misinterpret it, or they will misinterpret something correctly but they will not connect properly to something else. They keep coming up with the wrong answers. You and I can read those commentaries and we can see that they have a great deal of knowledge about God. But because they do not know God they do not put things in their correct sequence, and they keep coming up with the wrong final answer. This is why they believe that there will be a rapture, why they believe that they have immortal souls. They can read the same scriptures that we do and they misinterpret them. It is because they do not know God, they only know about Him. And because they have not been given the Spirit of God, those things have not been revealed to them.

Paul shows in relation to his countrymen in Romans 10:1-3, they had a zeal for God, but it was not according to knowledge. When it came to real truth, they were ignorant of God, even though they had a zeal for God.

We can see this in this nation churches are all over the place, yet, God says in the book of Hosea,

That is an astounding statement, mind boggling. We know Him, we do not just know about Him, we know Him. Do you know why you know Him?

There is a chain of things connected to us really knowing God, but the step that enables us to know more than just know about Him is that we obey Him. We try to live like He does. And because we keep His commandments, we begin to understand Him. We begin to understand how He lives.

An example is right now. The Feast of Tabernacles that we had. You experienced here at the Feast of Tabernacles just a tiny foretaste of the way God lives. How would you like to live that way all the time? Have a body that never wears out, never gets tired, has perfect eyesight, ears that work all the time, all the other good things that He will give us when He glorifies us. But He will not glorify us until we are learning how to … . . .

Please turn to Hebrews 4. I would like to read the first 10 verses so we get the gist of this. Paul is warning these Hebrews that their lackadaisical attitude could easily get them into trouble with God, and this is the tack that he takes:

Now, remember, this rest is ‘katapausis' - the stopping, the ceasing.

We are on the way to that rest.

Now, remember, the works that God did was making the physical creation of the earth. This is a hint that when those who enter the rest of God, they are going to cease with their physical labors and there is something better in the rest of God that they will be doing.

The Israelites' unbelief and rebellion had kept them from the goal. God was leading them to His rest. God was leading them to the Promised Land, which is a clear reference to the Kingdom of God, that is, His nation. He was to rule over them as King. But they did not. They failed to do what God had told them to do. They failed to follow God and they all died in the wilderness.

Back in Hebrews 3, right in the last few verses, it tells us essentially that their corpses were strewn in the wilderness because of their sin. They could not enter His rest. So the rest, he says, remains unfulfilled. If Joshua did not bring them into the rest, then there must be a rest in the future.

In verses 3-4, he refers to creation and to God's rest on the seventh day in creating the Sabbath. Now this is proof, if you will, that the rest that Paul is suggesting is not ‘repose' because God is never weary. He does not need to rest to become reinvigorated and reenergized. So the rest he was referring to in that is something different from repose. It is something different from ‘anapausis.' It is not a physical, reclined rest of that sort. He is talking about a different kind of rest.

We saw that God stopped His creative efforts on the physical earth and then He ceased working, to set us an example of how to keep the Sabbath. That is what we went through when we went through Exodus 20, Genesis 2, and Isaiah 58 - that we stop doing those physical things that we normally do and we do something else. So Paul is implying, by going to these examples, that the future rest (the one we are working toward, the one that we still have before us as a goal) is a lot like God's rest on the seventh day of creation, that our rests (God's rest) is a ceasing. It is a stopping. It is an ending of something.

Now, in verse 9, as I mentioned before, we have the other rest - the sabbatismos. This is actually, as far as we know, a Pauline coined word, that he kind of just made it up. He turned the Hebrew sabbath into a Greek noun. This does a couple of things.

It links the weekly Sabbath with the future rest of God, that in our keeping of the Sabbath every week we are prefiguring the rest of God of the future.

It also characterizes the future rest of God (or we could call it maybe the Millennium or the Kingdom of God) as a time of cessation from certain activities, as on the weekly Sabbath (we cease certain activities). Well, in the Millennium, there is going to be a stoppage, a ceasing of certain activities. And, then, because we have stopped doing these certain activities, we can then do the godly activities in imitation of God. We stop doing those physical things and start doing a lot of spiritual things.

Thus Paul clues us in on the goal of the millennial period. The goal of the millennial period is to change the focus of the entire world from doing its ungodly carnal activities in rebellion against God - that is our works, the works of humanity. We are going to cease doing those things and we are going to turn to doing godly, positive, eternal works out of love for God and out of love for fellow man.

Before Christ comes, the whole world, as we know, is under the sway of Satan the Devil and they are doing the things that he wants us to do. When Christ comes, He puts Satan away; we are going to cease doing all those bad things that … . . .

Now, it is this last bit, that last clause at the end of verse 3 that I am really interested in right now. I wanted you to see the context of it here, because it is important to understand what that clause really means. Paul is showing that since faithless Israel did not enter God's rest - we have no indication that very many of them were converted, and as Paul shows here, most of them died in the wilderness; their bodies were strewn throughout the desert, and so, they could not enter into the Promise Land - having died in the wilderness, that promise is still valid. Somebody has to enter that rest. So, it falls to spiritual Israel, which Paul calls the Israel of God (Galatians 6:16) - His church made up of believers, us - to enter in. It falls to us, and all of those whom God has called and converted throughout history.

So, while it appears from what took place that God altered His plan, the author, Paul, wants to assure His readers - us - that this is not the case. God never altered His plan. That is what he is saying. That is what this last clause indicates.

I want to paraphrase what this says. First, here it is again from the New King James Version: They shall not enter My rest, although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. Here is my paraphrase: God said this, (meaning, ‘You shall not enter my rest,') even though His plans for what He would do were complete from the time that He created the world. Paul is saying that when God finally decided on how His plan would work out, it was before the creation of the world when this happened, and everything has been going according to plan like clockwork. Everything has been going according to plan. There has been no alteration.

This is interesting too - there has been an idea in the churches of God that in the Garden of Eden when Eve took of the fruit and ate of it, that God had to suddenly switch to plan B. We can use this same argument. But, no, He did not. He knew exactly what He would do, and that both Adam and Eve would sin. Therefore, there would be a need for a Savior, and all that has gone on since then.

So, what he is saying here is that God has had this all planned out to the most minute detail from the very beginning - from before He created the world.

In other words, in this particular context in Hebrews 4, God never planned for Israel to enter His rest at that time (1400BC). That was not the plan at all. He knew what Israel would do. He knows us, our frame, our nature; He knows Satan the Devil, and his abilities; He knew that they would fail. He had always planned - always planned! - for His firstfruits, those who are part of the first resurrection, to enter His rest first. He had always had the plan of having a church of those specially called-out ones that He would train to be firstfruits to enter that rest. And that is for us to do. Israel would be converted later. They were merely a type that was allowed to exist under His covenant for a long time to give us instruction, and to show us the things that we need to understand for our conversion, and growth toward our change.

The overall point of what we have seen so far is that God is a planner, and a preparer. God takes the time to sketch things out, and to get them absolutely, perfectly right, and then executes them perfectly from the beginning to the end. He is a planner and a preparer.

Each step - here is another interesting point - of the plan is a preparation for the next step in the plan. They all happen in order, so one thing happens, and then it has set up the next thing. And then that thing happens, and it sets up the next one. This just keeps on going and going. Each thing is built, one upon the last until the end is reached.

And it follows - and this is an interesting point that we should understand for the rest of the sermon today - that those physical people who are involved with Him, in any one of those steps, have the job of helping Him to prepare for … . . .

This is a testimony of what happened to those people in the wilderness. Just tie this into what we just read, especially in Deuteronomy 29, verse 4.

There was the problem. They did not have spiritual faith. They saw the miraculous things God did, and they were amazed and wondered by what they saw. They would cheer God and compose songs about Him, and did things like dancing and so forth, and then two weeks later it was gone from their minds. They learned no lesson because they were not given God's Holy Spirit, and they did not have the faith like Moses and Joshua and Caleb, and so forth.

God has given you and me a tremendous advantage by converting us and giving us His Spirit. And so those people never grasped the significance of Moses, of Aaron, the giving of the law, their being accepted into the presence of God, the priesthood, the tabernacle, the rituals, the making of the covenant, the manna, the water from the rock, from the length of time they trudged through the wilderness. They never made the proper connection, because they allowed their present difficulties to overshadow their trust in God's promises. The result was that the wilderness became strewn with their bones from Sinai to Canaan, as they died in their misunderstanding.

You might compare this to modern America. Fox News took a poll in 2005, and claimed that 91% of Americans believe that God exists. That very same poll said 87% of the people believe there is a heaven, and that 76% in another poll said that they think they have an excellent chance of getting there. That is modern America. But the Bible - the truth of the Creator God - shows heaven is not the right goal, and besides that, people have formed all kinds of unrealistic conceptions about it, and this tends to show that uninformed people are leading lives that are motivated by wrong goals and perceptions about life and its purpose. This is exactly what happened to the Israelites because they did not believe Moses. I am sure they got excited from time to time, but they really did not have the faith to keep them going, and instead they kept allowing themselves to be directed by their Egyptian-born slave mentality.

You can probably recall reading maybe at one time in your life Alice In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Maybe it drove you up the wall, so you did not read it very long. You could not stick with it. But it is an interesting book. Many people today seem to think it as a children's story about zany characters dwelling in a fantasyland that Alice fell into by accident. Well, its intent was far different from that. Mr. Carroll wrote it as a political satire, attempting to describe the madcap political scene in England at the time in his life.

At one point in her journey, attempting to return home, Alice had a conversation with the Cheshire cat. Listen to this dialogue:

Brethren, that is what the Israelites were doing. There was no rhyme nor reason to them as to why they were doing what they were doing and going where they were going. It just did not register with them. In one case there is pretty good indication that for a decade or so they stayed in what is now called Petra. God never moved that Cloud, and they were within easy walking distance of going into the land within a couple of days. There is no indication in the Bible that they even asked any questions. Why are we sitting here all this time?

By the way, that area was not called Petra then, but it was what we call today Petra that they were there. The Israelites made that journey with no clear purpose in mind, but they stayed there long enough to die in the wilderness.

So the question for us here today is, if this were our conversation with the cat, where would you be? We must ask this question because today's religious scene gives one the very definite impression that God does not have a plan beyond only attempting to save us. Is there no purpose beyond that?

Well brethren, God has both a purpose and a plan. It is … . . .

I am going to proceed again through this series on the priesthood. In the previous sermon we saw that there is a direct connection between holiness and goodness. The term holy implies difference, separation, and cleanliness. All three are partly achieved by departing from the evil of this world. The contrast between the world's goodness and this world's evil creates this goodness that is slowly, but surely, becoming God-like. The only way this can be achieved to God's satisfaction is by means of His Holy Spirit. The apostle Paul states that we must walk in the spirit by faith, and to walk indicates motivation and application in life's activities toward the Kingdom of God.

That metaphor is drawn from the example of the Israelites walking for forty years from Egypt to the Promised Land, and all along the way they walked and faced life's trials. However, they did not walk, as we just saw in Hebrews 4:2, in the spirit by faith. Most of the problems were created by their own carnality - events such as the golden calf incident, the uproar that was caused by Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, by their lusting after the priesthood.

And then there was their fear of the people of the land when they refused to cross the border and go in and take the land from the Canaanites. The problems caused by others included the dastardly rear-guard attack of the Amalekites, the devious plot of Balaam and Balak, and the wars of the Edomites and the Moabites as they approached the border of the Promised Land the second time.

They also accomplished some positive things while they were making their walk toward the Promised Land - things such as the construction of the Tabernacle and all of its furniture. They organized the priesthood and all its ceremonies involved in the worship of God, which was centered on the Tabernacle. But overall, as we just saw in these verses, they failed miserably at meeting the challenges of walking in the spirit. These verses in Hebrews 4 present us with a conclusion of a word-picture of dead bodies strewn across the landscape all the way from Egypt to Canaan as a testimony of their utter failure.

So God provides us with a simple direct overall reason why Israel failed in the wilderness, why they failed to work with God in the creating of holiness, why they failed to walk in the spirit, why they did not produce the holiness God desired, and thus they died in the wilderness. God tells us directly and clearly why. They did not act on the basis of what they knew, which is faith. It says that in Hebrews 4:1. They did not act on the basis of faith.

They heard the gospel. How much depth, I do not know, but there is enough in God's word to accuse them of not responding to the gospel. This example is given on our behalf as a warning, because it applies to us even more that it applied to those who came out of Egypt because the stakes are so much higher, and because God has given us His spirit. He did not give it to them. They had to work on their carnal faith, but God did that in order to give us His example of what it is going to take, and that is to make use of the gift that He freely gives to us.

In Hebrews 10:38 it says, The just shall live by faith. It is going to take faith to produce holiness. That statement is a statement of fact of what God requires of His children. They must live by faith. At the same time it is a prophesy carrying the force of a command at one and the same time, and if we fail to become holy, it will be because we do not use our faith in daily application. It gets down to something that simple.

In other words, we have to mind our Ps and Qs. We have to mind what He is instructing us as we go along the way - things that we learn from what Israel did, or failed to do; things we see in those who succeeded, like Joshua and Caleb. God has given us the information we use as free moral agents to make the correct choice.

One of the most shocking lessons that one can draw from Israel's journey through the wilderness is how few of the original group of somewhere around 2 to 3 million Israelites who left Egypt made it alive into the Promised Land. Not counting those who were twenty and under when they left, only two are actually named to have made it: Joshua and Caleb. It appears reasonable to assume that their wives and children also made it, but do you realize what the percentage of that is? It is one one-millionth of one percent. That is incredibly low, and for anyone who takes salvation seriously, this is nothing to inspire one to be passive about making it.

I am sure that this is God's point, because everything that He does is done with loving wisdom in order to produce the best and the most for His purpose. Sometimes a sobering shock such as this has its value. The lesson is clear: His purpose is not just to give people salvation. It becomes clear that His purpose is to produce the best and the most for His family kingdom, and the best and the most is produced by making those called to salvation have a part in overcoming the downward pull of human nature.

Satan has worked very hard to convince people of a concept that comes very close to God owing us salvation entirely on the basis of Christ's sacrifice. I am sure that those who believe in this doctrine of Eternal Salvation would not say that, but their lack of change reveals something of that nature is eroding the drive to produce fruit. What they claim is akin to saying that once God freed Israel from their slavery to Egypt, they did not have to walk across the wilderness to the Promised Land. That was their work, brethren - walking there in unity with those who were headed in that direction. And they could not even do that!

The word picture in this context in Hebrews 3, especially the tail end of the chapter, is one showing the corpses of uncountable numbers of people strewn helter-skelter across the landscape as far as one could see. To me, this shows that these fallen fellowshipped with the group. Remember Jesus' parable about the Sower and the Seed, about those that fell on the stone. They sprung up, and as soon as trouble came, they died. They passed from the picture. This shows me that those fallen fellowshipped with the group for awhile, thus making some amount of progress toward the Promised Land. They endured for a while, but it was not enough. As their faith gradually eroded, a temptation or a trial arose, and they turned aside from the way, and died.

Viewed as a whole, the book of Hebrews is a 13-chapter-long stir-to-action speech, urging Christians with powerful arguments to get moving toward the goal. It is essentially saying that nothing better in all of the history of mankind has ever been offered to a select group of people. The author is urging us to quit being fearfully passive, and to reach out, doing whatever is necessary to submit to God, strongly laying hold of salvation, and going on to perfection.

The book of Hebrews arguably contains the most powerful - even frightening - passages in all of the Bible, especially toward the end of Hebrews. With that thought in mind, let us move forward now in time to our time, to our day, considering briefly the times that we live in as we look into a section of a discourse that Jesus aimed directly at those of us living in the end-time generation.

As we go through Matthew 24, always keep at the forefront of our minds the Israelites and what they had to go through - the general atmosphere and environment. Matthew 24 describes some of the environment that we are living in, and is yet to come upon us.

Let us continue to build this case for the fear of God and once again turn to the book of Hebrews where, we remember, we have, as the audience, a group of people who were sliding away in relation to God. They were neglectful, as we find in chapter 2. And when we reach chapter 4 Paul says,

We are certainly familiar with the Greek word that is translated fear. It is the word phobia. We have all heard of phobias. This can easily be translated, Let us be sore afraid! The English-speaking people have attached other words to phobia. Hydrophobia means to have a fear of water. Claustrophobia means to have a fear of cramped, tight, or closed spaces. Agoraphobia means a fear of open places - things that are out and away from those things with which one is comfortable.

These last few verses present a paradox. We normally run away from the things which we fear, do we not? A person with hydrophobia will run from water. A person with claustrophobia does not want to be in enclosed places. A person with agoraphobia does not want to leave those places with which he is comfortable and go out into open areas. And so we have a tendency to run from those things which we fear. But this book is teaching us that we are to run toward the One whom we should fear above all things!

Paul is exhorting his listeners to not be complacent about their calling and relationship with God. Failure to reach the Kingdom of God is life's supreme disaster! I do not think that we would be complacent if we felt aware that we were about to lose our most valuable possessions. Would we not act because we were afraid to lose these things? This is exactly what is happening in the book of Hebrews. These people are being urged to press on! And from this we get a very interesting and helpful principle: fear is a motive for strenuous effort. Our fear motivates us to take action. It makes us react. How do we react? This is the key to understanding the fear of God.

Something remarkable is beginning to emerge because of what fear does to a person. It causes us to react. Sometimes we react to avoid something unpleasant - something we may fear to face or feel. Fear may motivate us to react in order to save our life, will it not? If we were in a jungle and we knew that we were in the lion's territory (the area in which he was very comfortable and we were, in a sense, out of our element) and it is dusk and we, perhaps, had seen or heard signs indicating this lion was nearby, do you not think that every sense in our body would be attuned to the slightest sound? Do you not think that you would be on edge and ready to react in order to save your life? You had better believe we would react in such a manner! Fear makes a person react. And we will react in proportion to the intensity of the fear. The greater the fear, the greater the effort that will be made during the reaction!

In the case with God, He wants us to react to Him in order to avoid something that is unpleasant and, at the same time, will both enrich and save our lives. And if we do not react, in fear, then because we have sinned and because of the holiness and justice of God, we will lose our life!

God does not want us to merely fear Him. He wants us to react by taking Him, His Son, His purpose, and sin into consideration every day, all the time, and in all circumstances. We are supposed to practice this until His way becomes so ingrained and so habitual to us that it becomes written in our hearts - and we, then, live it by nature!

Now, if everything is already predetermined, why should we fear? Well, the answer is, everything is not predetermined. He is not willing that we should perish, but we are told to fear, lest we fall short - lest we even seem to fall short. The lesson here is taken from the children of Israel. God willed to give them the land of Canaan He promised to their fathers.

However, many of the people chose to die in the wilderness through their disobedience. They did not have to die there. He was fully willing. Hear that word? Fully willing to take them into the Promised Land at the end of the second year; but they chose otherwise. They chose to disobey and not go in at His command because they lacked faith, and because they lacked faith they feared the people of the land and decided that it was too fearful to go in there.

So their fear worked against them. As a result, God judged what they did and said that they would all die in the wilderness, and they would not go into the land until that generation that disobeyed died. So, as it more literally says here, their bodies were strewn from one end of the wilderness to the other, because they chose to die in the wilderness.

You see, the lesson to us (at least in terms of this particular subject of predestination) is though God has willed that we have eternal life, and God has willed that we be in the Kingdom of God, we also have free moral agency. Therefore we must fear about the kind of choices we are making, because every act is not predetermined. Only the end result has been willed that this is the way that God wants it to be.

Of course there are some that He undoubtedly calls (maybe all of us, for that matter) to fulfill certain responsibilities within the body of Christ - looking forward to the Kingdom of God, and His preparation then through that, is to prepare us for that. I go and prepare a place for you. He spends the time that we're walking through the wilderness, as it were, preparing us for that. The children of Israel died because they chose to sin with the golden calf, to rebel with Korah against Moses, to commit fornication with the daughters of Moab. God didn't predestine that they do those things. That was their choice.

If God permits something, we should not assume that God predestined it. If He permits something to happen in your life, you should not presume that He predestined it. He certainly did permit it. The Bible does not support such a view. At best, it only indicates that He decided to use such a circumstance to see what we would do with it - not that He willed it. God always has alternatives. If we chose to go one way rather than the other, well...He switches to plan B, and maybe we make a detour until He gets us back on track again. So we make it hard on ourselves.

In Hebrews 4, stated very succinctly, was Israel's major problem:

Israel's major problem was that they walked through the wilderness by sight! We understand that God was not trying to convert them at that time, and we can look back and learn from that situation. He did it for us. He was not punishing them because they were unconverted; He was leaving this example for you and me so we would understand that we are not to do what they did. He gave us their bad example, and then He gave us good examples in others, as well. Probably the primary example among men born by natural processes was the father of the faithful, Abraham. Mr. Pope told you that what set Abraham apart from everybody else up to that time was that he walked by faith, not knowing where he was going. As such, then, he became father of the faith-full. He is the progenitor; he is the primary example among men; he is the father of those who are living by faith. He is the father of those who are full of faith.

God showed us another example in that trek through the wilderness, in that the spiritual trek that we are taking - our pilgrimage - is going to have certain characteristics. The most obvious is this: they did not go to the Promised Land - representing the Kingdom of God - in a straight line! They wandered all over the place, seemingly. I want you to understand this, though: The wandering was purposeful! It was God who was in the cloud; it was God who was in the pillar of fire; it was God who was purposefully zigzagging them all over the place. He wanted to see whether these people were full enough of faith even to follow by sight where the cloud and the pillar of fire were going. That is an example to you and me. Are we going to be full enough of faith to follow the zigzag course by which He is going to take us into the Kingdom of God?

It would have been so nice to have just signed on, as we might say, way back when we were baptized. We committed our life and - zoom! - He took us right under Mr. Armstrong, and everything went very nicely, hunky-dory, smooth; and there was constant growth and constant spreading of the gospel; and there were no problems within the work . . . right on out to the end. He did not do that. Any of you who have been around any length of time know that the work of God under Mr. Armstrong went in many different directions.

We see here that, despite the fact that God was in the cloud and in the pillar of fire, Israel was walking by sight. Thus, they were impacted by virtually everything that they saw. Their spirituality went up and down. It was, we might almost say, awful the way they responded to situations. God gave us a bad example, and He gave us a good example.

And then it goes on to exhort these people, through comparisons of what happened to the children of Israel in the wilderness and relating it to the kind of situation that they were going through. It is the Bible's way of saying, You either use it, or you lose it. And they were in the process of losing it, but the writer was trying to get these people to use it. Then, as they used it, they would understand. What they lacked, in an overall sense, is stated in chapter 4.

They would not use it. They would not step out. They held back, because the bottom line was that they did not really believe it. Now we are getting to an issue. Do you believe what you are hearing from the Word of God? If you do not believe it, I guarantee that you will do nothing. We only do what we believe. Everybody in the world operates by this principle - they do what they believe!

But do they believe God? The answer is, No. That is one reason that I began this Feast by saying what I did. We are here because we believe. And because we believe in the right way, we obey. Do you know that, in chapter 3, Paul equates belief and obedience as being synonymous? That is a very interesting study. In that one sense (even though they are significantly different), the effect of one should be the product of the other.

And so Paul says essentially the same thing. That is why you will find words there, belief, unbelief; and then when you look in the margin, and it says obedience and disobedience. The words can be taken either way. We do what we believe. Are you beginning to see the real problem here? The reason these people were apathetic (the reason these people were neglecting things) was because their belief system had undergone a serious change from the time that they first heard.

When Satan - as the tool of Almighty God - blew the Worldwide Church of God apart, he knew exactly how to do it. The way to do it is change the doctrines! When the doctrines change, the belief system changes. And, when the belief system changes, those who believe the same basic way will flock together. Those who believe other ways will also flock together. And those who believe a different way will flock together.

And that is what happened. We filtered our way into groups - very likely, I would have to say, with the guidance of God - into areas where our belief systems were very similar. And that is what happened to the Israelites there in the wilderness. They did not believe God, and they failed. They all died. That whole first generation died, as a result of their disbelief.

This is why I say that what Lyndon Johnson said in regard to the freeing of the American slaves, well over a hundred years now, that they were not really free to go to the starting line. You might say they were not ready to compete on a level field with everybody else because there were elements that were missing from their minds, from their hearts, from their character and from their instruction. They were unable to compete with the rest of society; they were not on the same level.

By the same token, somebody who has been taken from the spiritual bondage to spiritual Egypt is not up to snuff. They are free. They are covered by the blood of Jesus Christ and they have been given God's spirit, but they are not any where near where God wants to get them to so that they can inherit the land.

Israel was freed after around four hundred years of being in Egypt, about one half of that time in bondage. God's power in liberating them from that bondage, I think, was evident to all of these people. Unfortunately the very authority of God Himself liberated them but they were unskilled in belief and they failed.

The result was that even though freed, they maintained their traditional slave mentality they had shed the chains that bound hand and feet, but the mental shackles remained. To me it is impossible to think that the Israelites disbelieved God's existence. That was not the problem. They knew God existed. Their belief lay in a much higher level of faith than merely believing whether or not God exists because after God's powerful demonstrations in their behalf, that concept of God's existence should have been drilled into their heads. Israel's disbelief lay somewhere else and it is so today as well. There are millions of people who believe in God's existence, but at the same time they do not submit to God any more than the Israelites. That belief is, at a very low level and of course it is shown by what they do with their lives.

They believe God exists, but the demons believe too and they tremble before God. Apparently men, who believe God exists, do not tremble before God. I think we can begin to see that there are levels of faith. I think we can understand why Mr. Armstrong wrote two different booklets, one saying, What is Faith? the other saying, What Kind of Faith is Required for Salvation?

Two different cans of peas altogether, the one leads to the other. The one is only a launching pad, that is, the kind of faith or understanding what faith is and believing in the existence of God, but the other kind of faith has a much higher level of capacity to it.

We are now going to go to Romans 7:22-23. What Paul writes here is quite a contrast to the Israelites' conduct, behavior, and attitudes in the wilderness.

Let us go to Hebrews 4. This section has two points that I want to make here.

Now, what are the two points? The first is a long-ranged point, and the second is a short-ranged point.

1. The long-ranged point is that we need to be diligent to enter the rest that is the Kingdom of God. That is the rest we are looking for. That is when God will cease from His spiritual labors, when we have come into His rest in the Kingdom.

2. The short-ranged point is in verse 9: There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. That word rest is sabbatismos - the Sabbath rest. In fact there is another translation that says: We must therefore keep the Sabbath as the people of God. (I am not saying that is right or wrong; but it seems a good translation to me.) But the point I am getting at is that the Sabbath is a type of GOD's rest.

We have a weekly, twenty-four hour period of time when we can be still. God gives us one day in seven as an opportunity to be still and come to know Him. That is one of the reasons that we have the Sabbath day. People of God need this one day - to pull out of the world, to take it easy, to get out of the rat race, and to get into communion with God. We need to use this time, on the Sabbath day: to get into the right attitude, to see godly reasoning, to receive instruction, to see God at work, and to get to know Him. (Those are the five points that I just mentioned a few minutes ago.)

We have the Sabbath day to be still; but it is not just limited to the Sabbath day. Those of us, who are lucky, find time during the week (and, during the year) when we can be still. This time of the year is one when we need it the most. That is, to be still before the Passover - to get our minds in the right attitude and get the right instruction so that we are in the proper way of thinking (in the proper mode) for the Passover and the holy days.

It is not restricted just to now. Also before Trumpets and Atonement, and the Feast, is another time when it would be good for us to find a time of stillness. Any time, when we are in need of self-evaluation, is a time when it is best to be still.

I think that lays it out pretty clearly here.

We have Christ as our example of being faithful; and then we have the man Moses who is also faithful. We can look at both examples. They are wonderful examples. But Moses led the people into the wilderness to bring them into the Promised Land, a type of our journey to the Kingdom of God. And these people heard the gospel, as we see in chapter 4, verses 1 and 2 there. They heard the gospel, but they did not mix it with faith. They did not believe the gospel that was preached to them. They did not believe the truth of what God was doing with them.

And so what did they do? They rebelled, they disobeyed. And God said, Ok, if this is the way you're going to be, you're all going to die in the wilderness. So He destroyed them and they did not enter His rest. Paul tells us, let us take a look at this example and learn something from it. And the thing we need to learn from it is that we have heard the gospel, we have to mix it with faith, that is, we have to take what we have heard, be faithful, and obey God. Do the things that He wants us to do, in fear that we will not make it, so that we will make it. And be diligent about it! Have some zeal!

That is what He wants us to do. Take what we have learned, and what we continue to learn, mix it with faith, that is, trust and confidence in God that He can get you where He needs you to be and where you want to be, which is the Kingdom of God. Trust Him that the instructions that He gives you in the Bible are apt for your situation. What you need to do, how you need to be, what your attitude needs to be, and do it, obey it, follow it.

And you know what that is going to do? That is going to land you in His rest. The Promised Land is yours. God will not destroy you in the wilderness. The Kingdom is open to you. Hear the gospel, add some faith, follow the instructions, enter His rest. Sounds easy, does it not? We know it is not. But that is the formula. Hear, faith, follow, firstfruits. Simple to say; hard to do. But that is the general formula.

So being freed from Egypt pictures redemption, or justification; but there was a great deal more to come. They had to walk for a lifetime - roughly 40 years - before they even got to the Promised Land. So walking out was only the beginning. Brethren, if you get the picture (and I'm sure you do), thus it is with us and the receiving of our inheritance.

One of the first things that God did, when He got them out, was to enter into a covenant with them; and He revealed His laws to them. There is a parallel here. There's a pattern here. People want to do away with the laws of God. But, if we do that - from the clear pattern that is shown in the Old Covenant - then we are doing away with the rules of the game. We are doing away with part of the very elements that are necessary for our purification. That is, so that we are prepared to inherit the Land.

And so this revelation of the law was necessary - in order to prepare them, and to set the rules for the relationship between them. It was to prepare them so that they would be fit to live in their inheritance. So it did not save them. God did that. But it was to prepare them. But look at this:

As we can readily see, it didn't prepare them - because they did not believe God. They were uncircumcised in heart; and, therefore, they refused to live by it.

Notice all the future tense words here. (That is, future from the time period of Exodus 19.) First of all, they were already holy in the sense that they had been chosen by God. They had been separated away from the Egyptians, separated away from the world. God was going to use them for something. But they never became sanctified in the second sense, because that would be accomplished only if they lived God's way. And so they never made it to be a kingdom of priests. They never made it to be a holy nation. Again, it is the same with us!

Israel failed because they did not accept what they heard in faith. Therefore they did not submit in obedience to God. They never came to love Him. They never came to know Him. And so to me, the ones with the greatest faith are the ones who know God best, because they are continually working to develop their relationship with Him by talking with Him, letting Him talk to us through study, yielding to Him, living in conformity to His way.

That is what Enoch did. That is why he stood out, and there is something very interesting about Enoch that might be noteworthy of us living in the end time. It says, right on the heels of the fact that he walked with God, is that God took him, and he was not. Is that an indicator of who is going to the Place of Safety? I think it is a pretty good indicator [for those who walk with Him like Enoch walked], who was taken away from the trouble, that he should not see the kind of violent death that otherwise would have come upon him. God took him out of it and placed him in another area, and he lived out his life in peace, and he died a normal death. I think that is worthwhile paying attention to.

Is faith important to Passover? You had better believe it is, and I personally feel that it is the single most important aspect to Passover, because everything else is strung out, built upon, founded upon, anchored to our faith in God and the depth of our relationship with Him. Israel knew that God existed, but that knowledge never carried through into their daily life in living trust. It was business as usual, even though they were separated from Egypt, and thus it is clear why Israel failed. There is a direct connection between knowing God and submitting to Him, because to know Him is to love Him, and we submit to those we love.

There is why Israel failed: Their faith broke down! Did Adam and Eve's faith break down? They saw God. They talked to Him. They heard Him command what they should do. And yet their belief, their trust in Him, dissolved under the deception of Satan the Devil. The Israelites who left Egypt saw multitudes of plagues. They saw multitudes of miracles. They saw a nation devastated. They saw water split through an ocean [or, sea]. They saw God feed them for forty years. And yet, as Paul says in another place, their carcasses were strewn from one end to the other. Now we know why. Their faith dissolved. It disappeared. They stopped believing what God said and what God did.

Now, connect that with John 6. Jesus said, Everything of God that has been manifested through Me - all of the works (meaning, everything I have said, everything that I did - up to and including the crucifixion and resurrection), everything has been done by God to produce faith! This is the way God is working. This is the work of God - that you believe! And not fail like Adam and Eve did. And not fail, like the Israelites did.

God does not want our faith to dissolve - where we disbelieve what He says. This is the God who gave those Ten Commandments. In each case, those people believed that they knew better than God.

And we can relate to that. It sounds just like teenagers in their relationship with their parents. They believe that their parents exist, but they do not believe what their parents say. [They think] that their parents are trying to restrict them, that the parents are harsh, the parents do not understand. They are old fuddy-duddies. They do not get it. They are not modern. They are stuck back in the '50s, or '40s, or '30s. It is the same principle.

It's interesting that the author here says, any of you should seem to come short of it. There is no doubt at all that he was thinking about the Exodus experience, and especially the experience of the children of Israel in the wilderness. Those who died in the wilderness came short of it. It's another way of saying that if we act like they did, we're not going to be there either.

The point is this: God, without doubt, made the solemn promise. He admitted that. However, Israel entered into the Old Covenant with God, and they did not hold up their end, and thus God was freed from the obligation of His promise. He did not fail. They did. The author here summarizes why they failed.

There are many kinds of sins that were committed in the wilderness similar to the murmuring mentioned in Numbers 14. However, underlying all of them was the breakdown of their trust that God would follow through. The message to you and me who have made the New Covenant with God is that the promise of God is still valid for us. That's the message. However, if we fall short through unbelief as Israel did, then like them, it means that we will not make it. Israel's refusal of God was not just a momentary reaction in one incident, but ten times they tempted Him, showing that their rejection of Him was a continuous stretch of unbelief over the two years up until the time of Numbers 14.

One of the interesting aspects of the Once Saved Always Saved issue is that the no law people are essentially saying that God has entered into an agreement with them in which they are held to no terms, except that they believe in Jesus Christ. That gets rid of the rest of the covenant. What a convenience! They are essentially saying that God requires nothing productive of His partners.

Remember, Samson, in the end, proved that he had faith in God. That is the reason I started the way that I did. Samson is in the honor roll of faith in Hebrews 11. But, most of his life, he showed that though his physical strength was mighty, he was quite weak in faith. He had faith. He reminds me of Revelation 3 where it says that the Philadelphia church has a little strength - enough to do the job.

Samson had great physical strength, but his faith was quite weak despite having God's Spirit rushing into him at times to do those great works. We will see that in the sermons to come. And he came disastrously close to failing completely, as we will see in chapter 16; to falling short, as it speaks of here in Hebrews 4. He did this by not taking heed to God's instruction, and to His will. He did not obey. That was his problem.

But, God willing, and He is, if we continue in His way, we will avoid Samson's pitfalls, and produce better fruit to glorify God, and we will see this as we go through this story.

I promised you that by the end of the sermon I would give you a hint as to where I am going with this, at least in part. So, I will give you an assignment. I do not speak again until November 11, so that gives you three weeks. I want you to read these four chapters about Samson's life, chapters 13 through 16. I want you to consider that Samson was a son of faithful parents. He was, in essence, a second-generation Christian.

Now as far as this sermon is concerned on this principle about Eternal Salvation, it is not that God did not want to save them. He could not under the circumstances. We find then, when we get to the end, that everybody is dead except for Joshua and Caleb. This is recorded in Hebrews 3 and 4, especially Hebrews 4:1-2 which give you a word picture there in the Greek. God is showing the whole wilderness strewn with bodies from one end to the other as a witness to the Israelites what happens to people who do not cooperate with Him. That is the lesson to you and me.

God is not hard on us. He wants us to be ready. Right there in that section is proof that Eternal Salvation is not promised in the Bible. We learned that all those promises He gave them in Exodus 23 were conditioned upon their submission to Him, and wonderful promises they were. But here is the point. Since they did not do their part in keeping the covenant, God did not have to give His either. All those promises went out the window.

He did not force it on them. They chose to not cooperate. To me that is the most powerful lesson on this subject in the entire Bible. People who made the covenant did not make it [survive] because they did not cooperate. They did not do the works that He required of them in the wilderness. So that is where we are now, brethren. We are in the wilderness. We are walking with God, and while walking with Him He gives us the opportunity to conform to Him.

We understand that salvation is by grace through faith. I want you to think about that faith for a little bit. Jesus taught us that miracles are not conducive to producing the faith that saves! Paul said the same thing in Hebrews 4:1-2. Israel saw all of those miracles when they were coming out of Egypt, yet they failed because they did not have faith. Jesus is saying the same thing here: A miracle will not produce a saving faith.

If a person does not believe the Word of God - Moses and the prophets - it will not change his conduct. A miracle will not change a person's conduct except momentarily. You can see that very clearly in the example of Israel in the Old Testament. God is looking for faith - trust in Him over the expanse of one's life - and for that kind of faith, one needs the Spirit of God and the Word of God, and not a momentary surge of awe in some miraculous occurrence.

I might add to this that Jesus did not say, Be a good person. All you have to do is love. He did not even say, Look, fellow, all you have to do is believe in Me. No, He said, Look to the law and the prophets. Please do not miss what I am saying here. He is saying that to you and to me. That is the word of our Savior, because what God wants is changed lives. In order for us to use our faith, our free moral agency, and our will, we must have standards and the guidance that is given in the law and the prophets. You do not get those in a miracle.

Now, of and by itself, the major difference between the Old and New Covenants that these people stress is nothing more than a smoke screen, a diversionary tactic, to get one into thinking in the wrong vein. The real issue, brethren, is what kind of faith? When they signed on the dotted line (back there in Exodus 24), the Israelites believed - even as people believe whenever they get married. And then, when those people divorce, these are the same people who believed whenever the marriage covenant was agreed to. That is, whenever they said, I do. So, what was the problem? The problem was that one or both did not live up to the terms of the original agreement; and therefore the covenant, or the contract, could not work.

They believed in the beginning, but what happened? Their faith did not grow. Their faith did not endure. It did not last. The problem was not with God. It was with the people! And that is exactly what Paul says in Romans 8:3, and also in Hebrews 8. The problem was with the people! They did not have the kind of faith that would enable them to keep, to uphold, and to do the terms of the covenant that they willingly, enthusiastically, excitably, agreeably entered into. That is, the one that they thought was going to be in their best interests. And what happens when faith breaks down?

He is talking about Israel in the wilderness.

Now these, as taken to heart, are really heavy statements, because Paul is saying that the Israelites failed to accomplish their responsibility of walking from Egypt to the Promised Land primarily because of one weak element in their character: faith. They did not believe God nor His messenger Moses. They were not thoughtfully, yieldingly listening and comparing what they were seeing with their eyes with what they were hearing from God and His messenger.

Because Hebrews 10:35-39, chapter 11 places the virtue of faith directly in contrast to the sin of unbelief, by showing what unbelief caused to occur. Paul wants people to be saved, but people were lost because of unbelief.

What do those verses in Hebrews 10 tell us, especially verses 38 and 39? They tell us that the Israelites drew back in fear rather than going forward in faith, and they died. Thus, the major point of the entire book of Hebrews is that those who shrink back from this war we are called to fight, by failing to put their trust in the living God, are destroyed; whereas those who believe are saved.

A clear understanding of faith in this context of Hebrews 11, and especially within the context of the whole book of Hebrews, largely depends upon how that first verse of Hebrews 11 is translated.

I think that the most difficult thing for us is to stay on track. I think that God's experience with Israel clearly reveals this, because there was a whole generation that died in the wilderness. All they had to do was to follow Moses. They did not, because other concerns distracted them and so their desires led to their destruction and to their death in the wilderness. I will tell you, brethren - that is a stunning witness. I mean it is stunning!

If you read Hebrews 4:1-2, Paul used a Greek phrase there that indicates that their bodies were strewn from one end of the wilderness to the other - just like you see in pictures of the Old West. You come across a cow's carcass somewhere, or bleached-out bones with nothing left but maybe a skull, and that is kind of the picture that Paul used of men's bones, bleached by the sun, out in the wilderness - all the way from Egypt to Canaan.

These were the Israelites who fell by the wayside, who did not keep plodding along, who lost their faith in God, lost their faith in God's servant Moses, and the result was rebellion, sin. They did not remain faithful to the purpose and reason why they were brought out - so they died. That is a powerful witness. It ought to be a powerful warning to those of us that God has called out, to take God's Word seriously.

The stakes are so much higher for us! It was not just a matter of physical life being lost, or physical destruction; but once we are talking about spiritual Israel (spiritual matters), we are talking about eternal life at stake. If we express the same attitudes and actions as they did - with the knowledge and the calling that we have - the effect is so much worse. Hebrews 4:1 says that we should be terrified of falling short of God's Kingdom! Let us therefore fear of not entering into that rest, because if we do not, that is it.

This section says pretty much the same thing that Paul said in Hebrews 3 and 4. If you think you are doing okay, if you feel satisfied with your spiritual standing, if you feel like your relationship with God is okie dokie - watch out, because something is going to be coming. You have become self-satisfied. You have become like the Israelites who felt that their closeness with God (in the covenant) would take care of everything for them, and they could do pretty much as they pleased. So if we find ourselves falling into this sort of attitude, we will end up falling just as Israel fell. Their bad examples are inscribed in black and white in God's Word so that we can avoid repeating those things.

That's a simple statement, but it is the lack of faith mixed with a certain amount of pride that produces grumbling. When those are combined, they produce sin. The grumbling, of and by itself, is no big thing, but it indicates that a weakness is there and if we don't watch out, it will lead to something that is very destructive to the relationship.

What is the evidence of the lack of faith of the Israelites? I didn't read it, but Paul goes on to say that their bodies were strewn from one end of the wilderness to the other. That's almost literally what it says. Their bones were strewn from one end of the wilderness to the other end. In other words, the proof of their lack of faith was that they didn't make it into the Promised Land. If they had the faith, they would have made it. If they had the faith, they wouldn't have grumbled.

The further evidence that they didn't trust Him was provided in the recorded evidence that they didn't conduct themselves rightly. You can see that in the narrative that is given in the wilderness journey. They simply didn't make right choices and Psalm 78 clearly shows that they forgot because it says that they remembered not the faithful providence of God - His past works and His promises.

Now this is a very theologically rich passage, but the essential truth, here, is that God's rest - the Kingdom of God - is still before us. We have not entered it yet. The only One who has entered God's rest is Jesus Christ. And it is kind of interesting that He has not stopped working because we have not entered that rest yet.

However, Paul gives a very stern warning here. He says that what befell the Israelites in the wilderness (and they fell by the tens of thousands, through sins of various sorts through their wilderness trek) that same fate could befall us also. The lesson here is that if we want to enter God's rest, of which the Sabbath is a type, of which the Promised Land was a type, we have to continue walking, and we have to continue working to overcome sin. We have not yet entered God's rest. Have you noticed?

So our work, as verse 10 says, has not yet ceased. The work is not over until we enter the rest. God worked six days, and He rested on the seventh, and hallowed it for us, to give us right there in the second chapter of the Bible what He wants us to do.

So Paul's advice, keep up the good work all the way into the Kingdom of God.

One of the things it has done, brethren, is that when we believe it, and we start using it, it separates us away from family in a way that is almost mystifying, but that is exactly what Jesus said. Sanctify them by Your truth. Truth believed and used separates. That is what God has provided. He has left us with the free moral agency. It is still there, but something has been added that makes it possible for us to use our lives in a way that others cannot. That is really humbling.

It is why Paul said in II Corinthians 4:7 But we have this treasure in flesh. I do not know how to explain it. It is so humbling. We have something that angels desire to look into and they cannot quite grasp. Why would God ever do that for them? is probably the way they think, but they are good servants though of God, and they work in our behalf. But you can be sure, because of Satan's mindset, that it really burns him up, as we would say. He sees it in an entirely different way and gets upset at it.

Let us go to one more thing about this because it is kind of good. Do you remember the subject of Romans 14:16-18 where Paul mentioned the word preaching? Well, Paul says here:

This is the reason that Israel died in the wilderness. They heard it, but they stiffened their neck and did nothing to correct their lives - because they did not believe it. Instead, as they were playing the game of life, they kept reverting. It is like those basketball players who really were not sold on the coach's system. And so, when they got out in the court, they just did what they always did, and fell back on their athleticism rather than the system (the way). It is a simple principle, but really meaningful.

The Israelites simply would not yield their minds to admit that God was right. They seized upon their own opinions and observed them - rather than what God told them to do. Maybe each individual Israelite did not actually go through the process of rejecting. That is, maybe each one did not think it all through and say, I'm going to set my will, and I'm not going do it. They simply just kept right on doing things as they had always done. And thus, their actions and their attitudes spoke for them - revealing what they, in their heart of hearts, really believed. You cannot keep what is in your heart hidden. It will come out.

There is a second way that is related, which is part of the same principle. The children of Israel came through all of the plagues in Egypt. They were out in the wilderness. They saw the Red Sea divide and come back together. For 40 years they ate manna. They were led by the cloud. They saw the pillar of fire. They saw the glory of God at times coming to rest over the top of the tabernacle. They undoubtedly saw many miraculous things occur through the hand of or through Moses. Yet is says, in Hebrews 4:1-2, that up until now, it has not done them one whit of good, and it tells you why.

It is because they did not have to live by faith. They were not required to do it.

That is what is involved here. It is to your advantage that I go away, because that forces us to live by faith. We have to go through this wilderness, in a sense winging-it ourselves, as we follow the cloud, wherever it goes. We are forced to live by faith. Otherwise, what would we live by? We would live by sight, watching Christ. This way, without Him around, it gives us a much greater test. So it is necessary that it occur.

Paul sums up, briefly, concisely, why Israel failed. It is found in Hebrews 4:1-2. The basic reason is they did not exercise their faith in God. Physically, they had everything they needed to make the right choices. But without the Spirit of God (that one ingredient that God withheld from them, but which you and I now have), they could not do it. God did it that way so that you and I would understand that.

Those Israelites were in no way inferior to you and me, physically. They were every bit as intelligent, and maybe more so. They were every bit as strong physically, and probably more so. And they utterly failed because they did not have the Spirit of God. Now, God has eliminated that in the New Covenant; a covenant with better promises.

So, you can see the pressure is on you and me now. This is it. We might even say the handwriting is on the wall for us. I do not mean to make that oppressive, but I do mean to make it serious. We are having our judgment - the judgment is now on the household of God.

This is the very area in which the Israelites fell short. They would not trust God on a daily basis, and this is why it so frequently makes mention of their discontentment. They grew impatient. They griped. They got frustrated. They rebelled in the wilderness all because of their lack of faith. The bottom-line issue in our life is faith. Now love is undoubtedly the greatest of God's attributes, but that love will not be operative in us unless it is preceded by faith. It is the precursor. It is the foundation. It stands under, and it is what supports the relationship with God. The growth of true love has a starting point, and faith in God is that point. So the admonishments to us, here in Hebrews 4, is to be concerned that this does not happen to us. God's promises hold true for us because God never changes in His character or His purpose. His promises are still valid and open to us, and what remains is for us to believe them, and to use them.

We are told that we are to be partakers of Christ, and that entails if we hold to the beginning of our confidence with the foundation, as I mentioned. We are told not to neglect our salvation or let this world take your crown. We must not allow our hearts to become hardened. He tells us that we should not be like those that came out of Egypt. They saw the miracles of God and the awesome power of God, and then rebelled against Him and troubled Him forty years and died short of the rest that was set aside for them.

Our journey, brethren, is to the Kingdom of God and our rest is the Kingdom of God. Who is it that could not enter that rest? Those who hardened their hearts.

The apostle Paul knew that he was on a journey, and that he had two hearts, or two ways of living, in him. One of these hearts was to fight against and the other was to fight for.

You might wonder why this happened on the Sabbath. What is the significance of this being done on the Sabbath? It is the Sabbath that commemorates God, our Creator. This is the same God who rested on the seventh day of creation. This is Jesus Christ - the Word of God!

The word sabbath, in Hebrew, even means rest. That is the basic idea of the Sabbath - it is a rest. It looks back on creation. Now to what does this rest, the Sabbath, look forward to?

Now what happened when Jesus Christ was raised from the dead? He entered His rest! And guess when Christ was resurrected? On the Sabbath, when the wavesheaf was cut!

They all tie together. So by a resurrection from the dead, we inherit and fully enter the Kingdom of God. We could call it the World Tomorrow, or maybe a few other terms may come to mind.

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