The Epistle to the Hebrews part XCI

Hebrews 4:8
"For if Joshua had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day."

In other words, Joshua couldn’t make the same kind of promises that Moses and Aaron could because the Canaanites were still there. The first thing they had to do was fight. They had no easy road. My goodness, you go back and read the Book of Joshua and go on into the Book of Judges - we thank God that we weren’t living in those days. It’s death and mayhem all the way through those Books of the historicals in the Bible. There wasn’t any rest associated with that. So Joshua, as he took the people in under a mode of warfare, all he could promise was that which was coming. He couldn’t offer them rest because after all, he had to lead them in by warfare. This is the scene as revealed by John in Revelation, the battle of the Kingdom for the hearts of lost, unbelieving humanity and the actions of those who by faith have put on the full armor of God through death.

We all know the account back there after they crossed Jordan. What was the first thing they had to do? They had to face Jericho and we all know the battle of Jericho. Even though God did that one without lifting a sword, yet that was just the beginning of having to gain the land of Canaan, or Palestine, city by city, tribe by tribe, and they never did get to the place where they had total rest, and so that’s what the verse meant. Had Joshua taken them in under the same circumstances that Moses could have, he wouldn’t have had to speak of a future day when their battles were won and so forth. But Joshua couldn’t.

And so all of these things become just a great lesson for us that what Israel rejected by unbelief, they paid their dues when they went in later and had to work by the sweat of their brow, by the blood of their sons, and then never enjoyed a full occupation of the land of Canaan without the presence of the Canaanite people. Alright, then lets go on into verse 9.


Hebrews 4:9
"There remained therefore a rest to the people of God."

See, that’s the difference. For the unbeliever there is no rest, as it’s a constant turmoil. Even for those Hebrews, what can we call them? They’ve got one foot in Judaism; they’ve got one foot in Paul’s message of Grace, and neither one is profiting them anything. They’re not in any rest. And so this is the constant plea of the Apostle. "Make the break. Come out from that legalism and come into the rest that only God’s Grace can offer." Now then verse 11 may be a verse that throws a curve at a few people. They say, "Well, see, that shows we’ve got to work for your salvation." Absolutely not!


Hebrews 4:11
"Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall (not out of salvation, but never having attained it) after the same example of (what?) unbelief." Unbelief. It isn’t a matter of having been in and fallen out. They never came in. There were two seas that they needed to go through before entering the promised land, but many never got through the first as they continued in the Egypt mindset even after the lot of them died in the wilderness. They still clung to the old traditions, customs and ways of the forefathers, as if still in Egypt. Even when passing through the second sea, both were a form of baptism out of the old and in to the new but still they had no vision or revelation of the New. The Hebrews continued under the cloud of unbelief or the separation from God. Now let’s look at what Peter says about this. I think it’s chapter 1.


I Peter 1:10
"Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied (spoke forth) of the grace that should (what?) come to you:" At a future day. So the prophets knew that there was a time coming when even Israel could come in without all the demands of the law.

Well the other one we were looking for is where Peter says that "we were to work to make our calling and election sure." We're not seeing the verse that we wanted. But what did he mean when he said that? Well it didn’t mean that we do physical work for somehow appeasing a Holy God. But it means that we get down into the Book. Make work of searching the Scripture and don’t just sit in some easy pew and let somebody feed us pablum or worse watered down milk. The Scripture says labor to enter into that rest. Not by doing something for salvation but make work of studying the Scripture with earnest prayer. Because in them the Scripture tells us have what? "Eternal life." This is the whole idea. But, see, people just don’t want to get into the Book. they don't know or trust the Holy Spirit to convey Truth to them. Here’s where it’s at and once we get into it we can’t hardly close it. We mean it just consumes us. And so never lose sight of the fact that their whole example of not cashing in on the glory of the Promised Land was unbelief.


Hebrews 4:12a "For…"