11/29/21 DON'T MISS THE PROMISED REST
There is a rest that comes with our conversion, but there is also a Promised Rest that comes at the time of our total commitment.
This is the Promised Rest that was foreshadowed in the Sabbath Rest and the Promised Land.
The Promised Rest comes with our full surrender to God and God's fullness of the Holy Spirit.
There is a reason that the Spirit filled life, the life of Total Surrender is called the "Promised Rest."
It is the rest from internal struggle, internal upheaval, internal conflict.
It is rest from internal war with the "self" (Old Man, Carnal Mind, Double Mind).
It is rest from Fifth Column conflicts.
It is rest from Roman's Seven's, BODY OF DEATH
It is the ACTUAL rest which the Sabbath rest of the Old Testament was a TYPE.
We are not under obligation to keep the Seventh Day Rest.
The Seventh Day Rest was the preview of the Christian Rest from internal labors and human endeavor.
The Promised Rest is the Believer's Rest.
God revealed this truth through the writer of Hebrews. Read from Hebrews 3:7 to 4:11 concerning the REST God gives to His faithful children. Though it is separated into two different chapters, it is one continuous thought. I will give the passage and share thoughts (dlg note) along the way. This whole subject is in reference to the experience and life of Total Commitment (also known as Entire Sanctification). Don't be afraid of it. It doesn't make you a freak, it delivers you from being a "Two Hearted" freak a Double Minded spiritual freak.
Hebrews 3:7-4:11
7 Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice,
8 Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness:
(dlg note 7-8) It is possible for Christians, who are saved from the bondage to sin and Satan to harden their hearts as Pharaoh hardened his heart in the Exodus and as the Hebrews hardened their hearts in the wilderness. They hardened their hearts against God and His leading through Moses.
9 When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years.
(dlg note 9) The Hebrews were delivered from slavery, but they were not willing to submit to the One Who delivered them. Getting out of Egypt was one thing, reaching and entering the Promised Land was a different story.
10 Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways.
(dlg note 10) The rebellion of the ancient Hebrews started with one rebellious thought and grew into a life of rebellion. God gave that generation of Hebrews a lifetime of opportunities, but they hardened themselves against God's rule. As a result, God was grieved with them for THEIR OWN RESPONSE TO HIM. Yes, God always knew they would harden their hearts, but God gave them opportunity to surrender, to trust, to obey.
To "not know" the way of God is to not approve the way of God; to not agree with the way of God; it is to resist, reject and rebel against the way of God. God did not make their damnable choice for them, but He was grieved with their choice. God was grieved, vexed, angry, displeased with them for having rebelled. Some people believe that God wills for men to be rebellious. If God chose for them to rebel, then God should have been angry with Himself, which is absurd. God did not choose for them to rebel or force them to rebel or deny them the ability to obey. IT WAS THEIR OWN CHOICE AND GOD WAS NOT HAPPY ABOUT THEIR CHOICE.
God is Love, God is merciful, God is patient, God is kind, but after His grace and blessing have been rejected repeatedly and incessantly and unapologetically, there comes a time when God, in His judgment and justice cuts people off. BEWARE your ongoing resistance and rejection of God. To resist His goodness is to seek His justice.
11 So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.)
(dlg note 11) God is angry with those who WILL NOT enter into His rest when invited and He expresses His determination that they will never enter.
12 Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.
(dlg note 12) God not only invites and provides a way to enter His rest, as He referred to it, but He warns believers of the danger in not entering into His rest.
He begins His
warning by telling where the rebellion comes from.
It is the dark,
sinful nature within the person.
It is the "remains of sin," which
continues to exist in the heart, inner man of the believer, after he is
saved.
It is the Double Mind of unbelief.
The problem always comes back to the absence of faith. The failure to enter into the Promised Rest is the failure to believe God for complete deliverance. This failure to believe results in departing from God.
13 But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
(dlg note 13) God exhorts believers to call each other to this Promised Rest. The rejection of this rest will cause the hardened heart to harden even more. Hardening of the heart is not the result of light, but the evil effect of deception. Satan deceives people into rejecting the Promised Rest.
14 For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end;
(dlg note 14) Entering into the Promised Rest is a natural and normal step in the life of a believer. Once a person receives Christ, becomes a partaker of Christ, then that person is able to continue to remain faithful, hold fast, continue in the faith, continue in the Lord, continue in grace, abide in the Vine and that person will be enabled to hold fast throughout his Christian experience, throughout his earthly life. Being a partaker of Christ is dependent on being faithful, remaining steadfast unto the end; and it should extend from conversion to departure of the spirit from the body..
15 While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.
(dlg note 15) God repeats His charge, so as to highlight the importance. TODAY, IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS AS SOME DID IN THE WILDERNESS WHEN THEY PROVOKED GOD. Choosing not to move into the Promised Rest provokes God to judgment and wrath.
16 For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses.
(dlg note 16) The passage can be correctly translated, saying that all but a few provoked God and failed to go into the Promised Land. This indicates that it is possible that a great number who start for the Promised Rest don't make it. Very sobering passage.
17 But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness?
(dlg note 17) God makes it clear as to who it was that grieved Him and they were not allowed to inherit the promise of God. God was vexed with those who sinned against God through faithlessness and disobedience.
18 And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not?
(dlg note 18) God repeats His judgment, with emphasis on their disbelief.
19 So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.
(dlg note 19) The sin of disbelieving God, the sin of unbelief disqualifies a person from entering into the Promised Rest, just as it disqualified the Hebrews from entering into the Promised Land.
Hebrews 4:1-11
1 Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.
(dlg note 1) God focuses on the need of believers to fear (exercise watchful care) concerning the possibility of not entering into the Promised Rest. Believers who sin, who do not trust, who do not focus on the Promised Rest may come short of it.
2 For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.
(dlg note 2) Just as the Hebrews, who were delivered from Egypt, failed to enter the Promised Land, so too can New Testament believers fail to enter into the Promised Rest, if they do not mix faith with the word preached concerning God's full deliverance. In order for the redemptive work of God to be effectual, it must be received and believed. There is no salvation without Divine intervention, such as death and resurrection of Christ. But the death and resurrection of Christ does not save until the lost believes the message.
The Promised Rest is part of the redemptive work and it requires the believer to accept, believe that Christ delivers from the works of the flesh, from the internal struggle with the Old Man.
3 For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
(dlg note 3) This passage is not simply saying that the Promised Rest is our entrance into heaven. Sometimes the fulfillment of a prophecy includes more than one event. The second coming of Christ includes the Rapture and His return. The Promised Rest includes the deeper spiritual life now and heaven after we die. This passage actually says that we enter that Promised Rest, here and now.
1 Corinthians 2:9-10
(9) But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have
entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for
them that love him.
(10) But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
4 For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works.
5 And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest.
(dlg note 4-5) God hinted at this Promised Rest with the Seventh Day Rest and the Land of Promise to Israel.
6 Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief:
(dlg note 6) It is true that the first families of the Bible did not enter into this Divine Rest and the Children of Israel did not enter into the spiritual Promised Land. Yet God has known it and declared that His people would enter into a Promised Rest. But remember, this is not strictly the promise of heaven (though there is a promise of heaven).
7 Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
(dlg note 7) Neither was the Promised Rest going to be found in the days of King David or during the years of Israel's kingdom.
8 For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day.
(dlg note 8 ) The Promised Rest is the rest of God, the rest of Jesus. It is God, the Father and God the Son that gives the Promised Rest, in these days.
9 There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.
(dlg note 9) Salvation is the gift of God to the lost person, but Promised Rest is God's gift to the believer. It is a rest from internal struggles with carnality, turmoil, fear, doubt, disobedience, self confidence, pride.
10 For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.
(dlg note 10) Trusting the flesh, distrusting the Spirit of God is the plague of the carnal Christian. When a believer takes God at His word to save Him from trusting the arm of flesh, then the Christian knows what it is to truly rest in Jesus and His finished work of salvation.
11 Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.
(dlg note 11) Rather than spend our energy trying to please God with our own carnal works and our own earthly wisdom, we begin to trust in Jesus to deliver us and give us inner peace, joy, satisfaction, confidence. We still spend energy, but it is spent in the Spirit. There is a peace, a fulfillment, an accomplishment when our energy is spent on faith in Christ, rather than dependence on our own puny works futility.
