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October 11, 2009
“God’s Rest”
Hebrews 3: 16-18/4: 6-13
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Since moving to Indiana over a year ago, I have been traveling on the interstate highways as I travel long distances to visit family members and friends. As I travel on long journeys I have become more attentive to the signs that tell me how far it is to the next rest stop. If I have anyone traveling with me, when I see such a sign I usually ask if anyone needs to rest. The term “rest stop” has sometimes become a euphemism for a bathroom break, or a snack or meal stop.
I actually see very few people resting in rest stops. When I am traveling alone I use rest stops for what might be seen as the opposite of resting. I use them to get a little activity after sitting in the car for 3 or 4 hours. I often get out of the car and briskly walk the entire length of the sidewalks in front of the rest stop so I can stretch my legs and bring a little refreshment to my weary body which has been sitting still for far too long. But such activity does in a sense provide me with a rest or respite from my long periods of driving.
Describing such activities as Rest may help us understand the way the word “Rest” is used in this passage. It is used first of the Israelites who came out of Egypt and wandered in the wilderness with Moses for 40 years. I guess I should remind you here that the Author of this Epistle to the Hebrews was a rather meandering writer, often going off the main subject to explore other related issues. But if you look back into the 3rd chapter and the beginning of the 4th chapter of this Epistle, you will see that the main subject of these parts of the Epistle is the rest God promised to folks who came out Egypt and then wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. That Rest is implied to have been entry into the Promised Land.
This weekend is the time for our local “Feast of the Hunter’s Moon” That event commemorates the French traders who lived in our neighborhood for several years in the 1700s. But they came and left. It was the later settlers of European descent who came by way of Virginia and other Eastern locales that set up farms, businesses and communities. Their part of the history of Indiana should teach us that the coming into a new land and setting up homes, farm, and businesses in it is not exactly restful. In fact it can require quite a bit of energy. But for those settlers who came here, and for those Israelites who came out of Egypt it was considered to offer a better route to self sufficiency and prosperity and to bring a greater chance at a more restful existence in the long run.
The folks who were with Moses had been slaves for several generations and there was no promise of any change of that status for them in Egypt.
And so the prospect of living in a nation of their own and owning property for themselves and their families and being able to develop their own businesses and farms was described as a rest. They would rest in their own homes after years in slavery and another period of time journeying in the wilderness.
But the point that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews makes is that hardly any of the adults who came out of Egypt got to that promised land of rest. All but a few died in the wilderness during the 40 years. Many of those who were under 20 years of age when they left Egypt and their children and grandchildren did get into the promised land with Joshua.
The Author of this Epistle reminds his readers that that first generation of Adults did not get into the promised rest “Because of disobedience.” And he implies that they also missed something much greater than mere entrance into the Promised Land. They missed the eternal rest that is also a part of God’s plan for those who really belong to Him.
He refers his readers to the 95th Psalm. You might be slightly familiar with it by now because we have both sung it and read it responsively this morning. In that Psalm the Psalmist, whom the author of Hebrews identifies as David, talks about that rest that many of the Israelites of the Exodus missed, and says that that same rest was still available for the people in his own day. Now David lived 400 years after the Exodus and was living in the Promised Land yet implied that some element of that rest was still available for those who believed in God in his day. He exhorted them writing “Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” as their ancestors did in the wilderness.
At this point the author of Hebrews states that there is still a chance for the people of his day to get into God’s promised Rest. Each generation of people has a chance to get into God’s rest. We often refer to that rest as “heaven”. Although I sometimes use that term, I prefer to think of it as the Kingdom of God in its final and complete form. All who have accepted the promises and forgiveness of God will participate in God’s final rest.
The Sabbath or Sunday rest is to be a sample for us of that eternal rest. Total and complete rest is not the issue here. We are called to participate in God’s rest as he rested after creation. But I would remind you that God, having completed creation did not take up position in an eternal hammock and rest forever. After creation God still labored in his rest. He changed what he had created and he stayed active in calling each generation to his rest and in directing them as to how to be a part of it.
So God’s rest is not a total rest for him or for us. Being in God’s eternal kingdom will be an active rest. We will be engaged in activities that will energize us and build us up.
And how do we get into this great rest of God? By dealing with our disobedience. We need to confess our sins and allow the grace of God to work in us so we sin less as we grow in God’s grace.
And that is where verses 12 & 13 come in. “Indeed the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul and marrow; it is able to judge the thought and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.”
The Word of God that we have in our Bible and in our Lord Jesus Christ is a dual purpose tool. It contains the standards by which God will judge us. And it is the tool we need to make use of to prepare ourselves for God’s final judgment.
I have heard some rumors about how some of the professors and teachers at Purdue prepare their students for the final exam. Some of them say that most if not all of the questions on the final have been given to the students earlier in quizzes and other exams.
This is what God has done for us by giving us the Bible as His Word. It is that by which he will judge us and we get to see it ahead of time. We can use it to inspect ourselves and examine and correct ourselves before God uses it to examine us to see if we can enter his rest.
The Author of this epistle says that the Word of God is living and Active. It is no dead document. It is inhabited by the Holy Spirit as we read it and the Spirit uses it to reveal things to us about our God and ourselves. The Spirit uses the Word to convict us of our sins and show us the way to repentance and forgiveness. Our author compares the Word to the two edged swords that were used in those days by Roman soldiers and gladiators in the deadly games in the arenas throughout the Roman Empire. He had obviously seen or heard about some of the victims in the arena, human and animal, being cut into pieces so that many of their inner parts were exposed to all.
I like to think that if the author of this epistle were alive today he would compare the word of God to an x-ray machine or a cat-scan. or perhaps an enhanced ultra-sound machine. These are tools we use to have the inner parts of our bodies exposed so our doctors can see what is causing our problems and illnesses. But an x-ray does not help any patient if no one reads it and diagnoses it.
God has given to us his word, containing his standards, and his Holy Spirit to lead us to see how we stand up to his standards. The word of God is not only to be used as a weapon against God’s enemies, it is to be used by us against ourselves so that we might judge ourselves and receive the judgment of the Holy Spirit now and repent and do our best to live up to God’s standards.
As I studied this passage this past week I came to a shocking realization about the words of the 13th verse. The English translations all tone down the original image. The English translations present to us the image of a person standing before God stripped naked of soul and spirit so God can see all. As scary as that might be, that is not the image that is presented by the Greek words of this passage. Those words are used in other non-biblical texts to refer to a victim about to be sacrificed or executed. The “laid bare” part describes the victim with its head pulled back and its throat exposed for the knife or sword.
It describes us as people standing before God with our throats exposed to God who is holding a knife in his hand.
The judgment that we will have to face before God is serious business. God has given us his scriptures to prepare ourselves for that judgment so we can in all honesty repent and be forgiven and enter God’s eternal Rest.
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at October 11, 2009 05:34 PM