Trust and Obey

Hebrews chapter 3, and we're going to wind up on chapter 3, deal with the last two verses in chapter 3, and then the first two verses in chapter 4. He's now going to introduce a very long, detailed section that deals with rest, and we'll just say one or two things about that idea of rest, because we have to deal with that in verse 1 of chapter 4, but we will devote the next session to this whole concept of rest that he is dealing with here, and obviously it's a little complicated, but we trust the Lord will help us. And so let's read from chapter 3, 16 through chapter 4, verse 3. Chapter 3, verse 16 through chapter 4, verse 3. For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? Now with whom was he angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who did not obey? So we see they could not enter in because of unbelief. Therefore, since the promise remains of entering his rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them, but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. For we who have believed do enter that rest, as he has said. So I swore in my wrath they shall not enter into my rest, although their works were finished from the foundation of the world. So you remember that from verse 16 there are three questions and answers, and I'm just going to pick up on those so that we can then get to chapter 2, verse 18, where we have the third question. The first question is, who, having heard, rebelled? And the answer is, all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses. Second question is, now with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned? That's the answer. Those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness. Just this idea of their corpses falling in the wilderness is a very derogatory term. It doesn't say those who passed away in the wilderness, but those whose corpses fell in the wilderness as though they're almost animals, and obviously God doesn't regard anyone as an animal, but they died in shame. They died not having inherited the promises that God has. And the idea of them falling is the same idea that you get in warfare. We speak about soldiers falling on the battlefield. It's the same idea. So he's taking death here for them to a different level because that was not God's plan for them. They should have lived. They should have made it into the promised land. Now we get to verse 18, where we start this evening. So the third question, and to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest? But to those who did not obey. So those who did not obey were those who did not enter his rest. Now in what regard did they not obey God? Well, specifically in the context of the idea that he says to them, go in and take possession of the land. But they don't obey God. They don't go in and take the land, and as a result of that they die in the wilderness. Now the command that God gives them was not a hard one, as long as they remembered what God had been saying to them. And let me remind you that God was speaking to them all along, however number of months these are. This is less than a year from when they came out of Egypt, but during that time God had spoken to them in many, many different ways. In the cloud, and in the pillar of fire, and in the manna, and in the water out of the rock, and in the opening of the Red Sea, and the ten plagues in Egypt, and on and on. God speaks to them, and he is teaching them one lesson. He's saying one thing to them. In all of those things, his one message to them is, trust me. I am faithful. I am reliable. I am dependable. I will see you through. Every time they came up against the next problem, God was there, and God helped them. And so he is teaching them day after day to trust in him, to have faith in him. And so they did not enter in, because they did not obey. So God is saying, trust me. He shows that he is trustworthy. Then he says, now go into the land. So before they go into the land, they send in spies. And they send in twelve spies, one representing each of the tribes of Israel. And the spies come back, and ten of the spies bring an evil report. And I thought about that as being very similar to many of the conspiracy theories going around today. Oh, you know, you want to be careful. There are giants over there, and the cities are strong, and there's just no way that we can—we are like grasshoppers in their sight. We have no chance. But they're simply looking at it from a human perspective. They had already forgotten what God had been saying to them all of that time. They'd already forgotten that probably that morning they had eaten of the manna, which again testified to God's faithfulness. And so in their understanding, they're looking at it from a human point of view. And we, as we face many challenges in our Christian lives today and in the world today, it is easy to be like the ten. And we just look at it from a human point of view, and we see the problems, we see the challenges, we see the giants. And of course the giants were there. And yes, the cities were fortified. And yes, there were mountainous areas which were difficult to take. In a military sense, it's very difficult to fight uphill, because you have the disadvantage of these guys being able to shoot down at you, and in the meantime you have to climb and exhaust yourself in order to get there to fight. And even when you do fight, the other guy is higher than you are. So it's a military disadvantage, and very difficult. In the end they didn't take that part of the land until Caleb said, I'm going to take that. And so yes, the problems they saw were real. But the other two came back and they said, yes, these things are there. But there are also blessings. There's also this bunch of grapes that we brought that two men have to carry, it's so big. It's a land, as God has said, that flows with milk and honey. Everything that God has told us about this land is true. But not only are these things true, but God will fight for us. God will be on our side. And so we don't have to fear the giants. We don't have to fear the fortified cities. And you remember that when eventually they go in, 39 years later, they march around Jericho, and Jericho's walls just fall down, and the city is taken just like that. And so the question simply is, who were they listening to? And obviously they were listening to the wrong people. And unfortunately many Christians today are listening to the wrong people. They're not listening to the two who had God's testimony, they're listening to the ten, and yet the majority unfortunately outweighs the minority sometimes. And so the listening to the ten, and they're listening to all of the problems and all of the issues and the threats, and they're quaking in their boots, and they're not able to obey God. So there are many areas in which Christians are being disobedient to God because they are not believing God. And that's the next point that he makes. So verse 19, we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. Now I introduced this idea last week, and this is very important, and this is really what I want to share with you this evening. So verse 18 says that they did not enter because they did not obey. But verse 19 says they did not enter because of unbelief. And obviously if you're a skeptic, you look at that and you say, well you see, the Bible contradicts itself. Because in the one verse it says they didn't enter because of disobedience. In the next verse it says they didn't enter because of unbelief. But clearly it's not a mistake. Clearly the author has a particular message in mind. And of course the message is that unbelief leads to disobedience. And he's going to give us the flip side of the coin, as I said in chapter 11, where he shows us that faith, or trusting God, results in obedience. And so if you read through chapter 11, if you go home tonight, you'll see all of the things that these men did because of faith. These guys did not enter in because of unbelief. And so unbelief results in disobedience. It's as simple as that. So it begins with the issue of faith. Now remember that faith is not a religious experience, or a religious idea. Faith is simply trusting, or having confidence in something. And so if you have confidence in your motor car to drive you home this evening, then you can also say you have trust. You trust your car that when you turn the key or press the button these days, it'll start. You trust and have confidence in it that it will bring you, take you home. You can also say you have faith in your car. So faith is not a religious thing. We exercise faith all the time. We trust the electricity. We trust people around us. We trust the government. We trust all sorts of things. We have faith in these things to do the things that they are supposed to do. So you don't lock your door at night and say, well now I wonder if the door's locked. You feel it. No, it's locked. Will the bolt hold when the thief comes? Well, maybe not, but you don't even think about that, because you have faith in the fact that the door is locked. And sometimes we have faith in the most ridiculous things. All of us have faith in a closed window, and yet it's a thin pane of glass that you can smash with one blow, and someone can climb through the window or the sliding door. And yet we have faith that that little piece of glass is going to keep the intruder out or the bear out or the mountain lion out or whatever is outside. We simply trust these things, and yet we cannot trust God. And so faith results in obedience. So why did they not enter in? Because they didn't trust God. Now you can begin to see, I hope, how serious it is. So why does God swear in His wrath they will not enter in? Was it because they just disobeyed? No, in fact it was because they insulted God. Because the day they took the vote and said we're going to listen to the ten and not the two, the vote wasn't about the ten and the two spies. The vote was not about should we go into the land or not go in. The vote was do we trust God or not? And the majority of Israel said no, we cannot trust God. We don't believe God. Can you understand why God is angry? And God says, but I've proven myself to you over and over and over and over, and yet now you turn around and you tell me to my face, we don't trust you God. And yet we do exactly the same thing today. God proves Himself to us over and over in so many ways, and yet we don't trust Him. And because we don't trust Him, we don't do what He tells us to do. Sometimes we do what He tells us not to do, again because we don't believe. Now this is very, very serious. It runs very, very deep. I've said to you before that if we really believed, someone testified to that end this evening, but if we really believed that Jesus can come back at any time, we would live very different lives. But we don't really believe He can come back at any time. Over and over, God tells us certain things about how we live our lives. And He says, don't do this, because there are consequences if you do this. Whatever it is. And yet we do it. Why? Because we don't believe God. God says things in His Word, many things. And if we believed it, we would obey Him. We would not do what He tells us not to do. We would do what He tells us to do. But because we don't believe Him, we disobey. And folks, that's a serious thing. If we really believed that hell is forever, it must change our behavior. If we really believed that Jesus can come back, that God knows and sees everything, it must change the way we act. And so the real problem we have when it comes to a lack of holiness, when it comes to a lack of living the life that God wants us to live, is unbelief. Because we just don't believe God's Word. We just don't believe God. And in a sense, we live like the unbelievers, like the world. Why do we call them unbelievers? Because they don't believe God. Why does the world, why do the unbelievers not all get saved? Because they don't believe God's Word, and they don't believe God. If they did, they would get saved. That's where it begins. That's why salvation begins with faith. But folks, the sad thing is that as Christians, we often live just like unbelievers, because we also don't believe. Here's one of the most shocking things in this account. Remember that we're looking back at Israel as they come into the Promised Land. So they come to the River Jordan, and they make the decision, we don't trust God, we're going back into the wilderness. When the spies went into the land at that point, the people in the land had heard that Israel was coming. You don't move three million people with their animals without people not knowing, here they come. I mean, we see several thousand people coming up from South America, and yeah, we have modern technology, but even without technology we know they're coming up to the border. But here you're talking about three million people. They're not just taking a bus here and riding a train there. No, they're marching in columns, twelve tribes, each in its proper place, with the ark in the front and the priests in front, and the pillar of fire in the cloud. This is something that everybody took note of. You remember there were two kings along the way who were afraid, and they called Balaam, the false prophet, to come and curse Israel, because they were scared of them. So they go back into the wilderness. For forty years they wander and they die, and the next generation comes, and then they send in more spies. Only two spies this time. And they come to the house of Rahab, the harlot. She ran a public house. And she says to the men, she shelters them on the roof of her house, where she was drying flax, and they hide there. And the men of the city come, and they say, we heard that there are two strangers around here. And she says, they were here, but they went out that way. And so she put them off the trail. But then they begin to talk to her, and here's what she tells them. She says, please save me, please save me, because forty years ago, when you people came to Jordan and turned away, we heard that you were coming. And she says, all of this country were ready to run out the other side. Read it, it's there. We were ready to run. Our hearts had melted and become like wax within us, because we knew that God is with you. Folks, here are unbelievers who had never eaten the manna, never drunk the water, never sheltered under the cloud, never felt the heat of the fiery pillar, had not seen the Red Sea opened. But they believed God, when Israel would not believe God. What a statement! No wonder God is angry with them. And folks, of course, the warning for us in these passages is that if that happened to Israel, it's the same with us. We who have been born again have experienced the forgiveness that's come as a result of the cross of Calvary. We've known the joys of knowing our sins are forgiven. We've known the peace that God brings. We've seen His care and His provision in our lives. And yet there are unbelievers sometimes who believe God better than we believe Him. Folks, it all goes back to, do I trust God? And of course we say, yeah, of course I trust God. What a question! And I'm sure that if I began the meeting and I went down the roads this evening and I said, do you trust God? Every single one that's present here tonight would say, yeah, I trust God. Do you believe God? Yeah, I believe God. And yet every one of us do things and don't do things that we ought to or ought not to do because we actually don't believe God. Now in chapter 4 he continues, therefore, there's that important word, therefore, since the promise remains of entering his rest. Now I'm just going to introduce that idea of rest because the word appears ten times in these two chapters, and remember that in verse 18, to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest? But those who did not obey, they could not enter in chapter 4 verse 1, therefore, since the promise remains of entering his rest. So just very quickly, and we're going to look at this in much detail the next time, but the word rest here refers to two things. In fact, there are four uses of the word rest. It applies four different ways in this passage. That's what makes it complicated. But the two that are particularly relevant to us is a present rest and a future rest. A present rest in God from our labors. Now I don't want to get more into that, otherwise we're going to get off track. The other aspect of the rest, so Christians are not experiencing the rest of God. Maybe we can put it this way, not experiencing the peace of God in their lives because they're not believing God. But then there is a future rest, and clearly the passage is using that as well in the sense of the promised land for us is heaven. And the warning is very clear in both these chapters that there are Christians who are not going to enter into heaven, into the rest, eternal rest of God. When you speak about eternal rest, we're not speaking about death. Many cemeteries speak about eternal rest, or the cemetery is a place of rest. That really doesn't have any biblical idea. The rest that we're looking forward to is heaven as much as they were looking forward to the promised land. And so there is a, there remains a rest, and there is a promise. And so God has promised Israel rest. Rest in the sense that they would come into the land and initially they would have to fight some battles, and they would have to clear the land of the enemy nations. And then God would, and you'll find this term all over the Old Testament, God would give them rest from their enemies. In other words, the battles have been fought. One of the promises of God is that every man will sit under his own victory. Speaking of being at rest, a land of promises, a land of blessings. So God gives them these promises. God gives us promises. Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And yet many Christians don't experience the rest of God in their lives presently because of unbelief. But there is also a rest in the sense of heaven, and He has given us those promises. Look, He says, don't let your heart be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. I go away to prepare a place for you, and when I've prepared a place, I'm going to come back and I'm going to receive you to myself, that where I am you may be also. Jesus gave us that promise. And yet of course the danger is that some of us may not enter into that eternal rest because of unbelief. Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest. So what He is saying is that God made a promise to Israel of entering into His rest. But there is still a promise. But the promise now is to us. Because you'll see the next verse after the comma, therefore since a promise remains of entering His rest. So this is not just Israel, God gave them a promise of the promised land, and that didn't happen for that generation anyway. And that's the end of the story. No, there is still a rest. And then He says, let us fear, lest any of you seem to have come short of it. So now He's saying that was Israel and the rest of God, but now He's saying there is a rest for us, and for the Hebrew believers that He's writing to. So let us fear, lest any of you, any of you, those in these churches that He was writing to, seem to have come short of it. So there is a rest. And it is a promise. And it remains. But it has to be entered into. Notice the word entered into. What was the problem with Israel? They didn't enter into the land. The land was there. All they had to do was cross over the river, and God would give it to them. And there is a rest that God offers us. But we have to enter into it. God was not going to take the promised land and transport it and put it on them in the wilderness. They needed to get themselves into the land. And many times Christians are expecting God to do something in their lives when God says, I've got it for you. It's ready. You just get in there. But we don't get in there because we don't trust Him. And we don't believe His word. Now here's another word. Let us fear. Now that seems to be a contradiction, because He's speaking about rest, and now He's speaking about fear. And those two things seem to be opposites. The word fear appears many, many times. I think about eight times or so in the book of Hebrews. And we're going to come across this over and over and over as we go through the book. It speaks specifically of Jesus. He was heard in that He feared. Now, I don't want to analyze the word too much tonight, because we're going to run out of time. But we understand what the word fear means. And I think we understand what He is saying. He's saying, let us fear. Let's be afraid. Not of the giants, but let's be afraid of coming short of what God has for us. That's the thing we need to fear. Don't fear the giants. Don't fear the world. Don't fear what the Democrats or the Republicans or the Libertarians are going to do. There's one thing we need to fear, and that is that God's got something for us, and we don't make it. We don't get into what God has for us, the present rest and the future rest. And yet we are afraid of so many other things. And I find that there are so few Christians who fear that they come short of God's promises in their lives. And yet that's a real thing we need to be afraid of. As I get older, as I get nearer the end of my life, I'm deeply concerned that maybe I missed the best that God had for me, that God had certain things in my life that I didn't get. And I'm not talking about possessions. I'm talking about spiritual territory that God has for us. But because of unbelief, we didn't get what God had for us. In fact, this is a real problem amongst Christians. Because Christians find themselves, as I said last week, in the wilderness. It's not God's will for you to be in the wilderness. It's not God's will for you to be going around in circles over and over and over, year after year after year, the same problems, the same issues, the same nonsense, never getting anywhere. That's not God's will for you. God's will is for you to get into His rest. But we don't because we don't believe, and because we don't believe, we disobey. I mean, God says, now get in there. You say, uh-uh, I don't trust you. I'd rather go back in the wilderness and go around and around and around. But what an existence. And yet, so many Christians live that third-grade life. Now, verse 2, Therefore indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them. Now remember, when he says the gospel, it means the good news. When we use the word gospel, we invariably mean the gospel of salvation. They obviously did not have the gospel of salvation while it was preached to them in the tabernacle, and I don't have the time to go through that. But if you remember, the tabernacle spoke about salvation over and over. It spoke about the altar, the very first thing you came to, where the shedding of blood spoke about the forgiveness, spoke about Calvary. And so the sacrifices spoke of this perfect sacrifice that would come, Jesus. So in a sense, the gospel is being, the gospel of salvation was preached to them. But I don't believe this is what he has in mind here. The good news that was being preached to them was that God's got a plan for you. God's got a land for you. And it's a wonderful place. That was the good news. The gospel we have is that God also has a wonderful plan. And I'm not talking about the four spiritual laws nonsense that God has a wonderful plan for your life. But as Christians, God does have a plan for us. His plan is that we become like Jesus. His plan is that we inherit eternal life. His plan is that we spend eternity with Him. That is God's plan for every one of us. But the gospel was preached. And of course, all of that is the good news. The good news to them was God's got a land. The good news for us is God has got more than a land. So the gospel was preached to them and to us. But the word which they heard did not profit them. Folks, I wonder as I come to this stage in my life and I look back over the last 19 years here and the last 50 years of preaching, and I look at people and I say, the word didn't profit them, didn't help them. Was it because the word was weak? No. Maybe you say, well, the preacher was weak. But it's not up to the preacher. It's still the word. But the word did not profit them. Why? Because it was not mixed with faith. Because the word wasn't those who heard it. You see, the word is the seed. And when we receive it, you have to add to it something. Remember, there's always this cooperation between God and us. God gives us His word. But what I now need to do is I need to put something with the word which is belief, believing. And when God's word and my believing His word come together, germination happens, and something grows, and the word begins to produce fruit. But if the word comes and there is no faith mixed with it, the word remains alone, and there is no fruit upon it. And so God sends me the word, but I need to believe the word. I need to believe, first of all, that the word is for me. And we've reminded you so many times of the fact that we receive the word and we say, well, it's a pity so-and-so's not here, because this would have been just right for them. You see, we don't believe that the word—no, folks, the word that we have here this evening is for every one of us who is here. This is God's word for you, and for those who are watching online, this is God's word for you right now. But we don't believe it's for me. And even if I believe it's for me, I don't believe that it is true. And when God says, don't go there, because that road leads to destruction, we say, ah, you know, God doesn't, you know. The Bible's written at a different time. They had different issues. They don't have the stuff we have today. I'm just going to go down here. He'll look after me. But God said, don't go down there. And then we end in disaster. And we say, well, God, where were you? Yeah, He was there at the beginning, at the crossroads. And He said, don't go that way. And I said, no, I'm going that way, because I didn't mix the word with faith. I didn't believe His word. Now God has to bail me out. Folks, we need to mix the word with faith. We need to apply it to our lives, believing God. And when God says something, it is true. That when God's word says something, even if it was written 2,000 years ago, it is true today. And it will be true to all eternity. Not one jot, one iota will pass away, even though heaven and earth will pass away from His word. And so the message this evening is simple. And yet this is really the heart of many of the problems that Christians deal with and face in their lives. And we sang that hymn this evening, Trust and Obey. There is no other way to be happy than to trust and be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey. You see, if I trust, if I believe, I will obey. There is no way that we will obey if we don't believe. If I say to you, don't cross the 405 on foot, and you say, well, he's from South Africa, what does he know? But if you believe me, you'll save yourself a lot of trouble. It's a matter of trusting God's word, that when He says something, it's true. And He will do what He said. When He warns about something, it is true, because He knows the end from the beginning. He can see where this thing is going to go. And then when it comes to obedience, so the first part, sorry, deals with disobedience that I've just dealt with. So when God says, don't go there, I go there because I didn't believe Him. When God says, go there, I don't go because I also don't believe Him. But I also don't trust Him. So maybe I believe Him. Maybe I believe, because remember the spies carried those, that bunch of grapes with them. And I imagine they took turns. I don't think it was just the two good guys, Caleb and Joshua, who carried the bunch of grapes. I think they all carried the grapes. They all saw them. They all ate of the grapes. They saw the good stuff. They believed it was a good land. In fact, they said it was a good land, but they still didn't trust God. And so even if you believe His word, even if you believe what He is telling you to do in your life, and you say, I know that that's what I must do, you may still be disobedient because you don't trust Him to see you through. You don't trust Him to deal with the problems that are inevitably going to be there once you get there. But you see, this is the nature of our God. He doesn't tell us to do things that are impossible. He doesn't expect of us to do things that He is not able to bring to pass in our lives. And when He says there is a rest, and as I said, we're going to spend a long time on this next time, but if He says there is a rest, in other words, that you can live in this world in 2021 with everything that's going on around us, with COVID and the politics and the moral decline and all of the stuff going on, that you can live a life of rest, I must trust Him. Because if I don't, I'm not going to experience that rest that He has for us. Oh, global warming, the sea's going to rise and come up here to the valley and flood the whole valley. I'm not saying that. I don't know. I mean, when it comes to global warming, I don't know who to believe, but I know who I trust. And that's all that matters. It's not whether there are giants or not giants. It's not whether there's trouble on the horizon. It's not whether there may even be civil war on the horizon. That's not the issue. It's whether I can trust God. And if He has failed me in the past, well, then maybe I can't trust Him. But I can say without a shadow of a doubt that God has not failed any one of us here this evening yet. And if He hasn't failed us in the past, we can trust Him for the future. Father, we pray that you'd help us to understand, Lord, that we may believe you, that we may believe your word, Lord, that when you tell us don't go down a road because it is dangerous, Lord, help us to believe you. Lord, when you tell us to enter into your rest, into your promises, Lord, that we may believe you and trust you to see us through and to give us the victory. And so, Lord, I pray that we may not be as the children of Israel who perished in the wilderness and went around for 40 years just waiting to die an aimless, pointless existence, but Lord, that we may be like Joshua and Caleb who had their eyes fixed on the promises and inherited those promises and lived in the land and sat under the fig tree and enjoyed the milk and the honey. Lord, only two made it. Lord, I pray that there would be more than two of us that make it on that day. Lord, I pray that you'd help us to enter into that rest that you have for your people in a turbulent and a stressful time in this country and in this world. Lord, that we may experience and walk in that peace and rest that you have for us because we've come to trust you. Our confidence is in you and not in the arm of flesh. And so, Lord, help us to understand. Help us, Lord, to above all that these truths may penetrate our hearts and change our hearts and minds. Lord, that we may live lives of faith, pleasing you. In Jesus' name we pray. Pray that you'd go with us, keep us and protect us, bring us together again safely. On Sunday we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.