Oh that we would listen to God’s voice today! The Psalmist writes in Psalm 95: 8-11: The Lord says, “Don’t harden your hearts as Israel did at Meribah, as they did at Massah in the wilderness. For there your ancestors tried My patience; they courted My wrath though they had seen My miracles. For forty years I was angry with them, and I said,”They are a people whose hearts turned away from Me.They refuse to do what I tell them.” So in My anger, I made a vow: ‘They will never enter My place of rest.” (That passage is quoted again in Hebrews 4: 3-7.) And what was it that inflamed God’s anger? It was the disobedience of the Israelites. God had promised them the land of Canaan. All they had to do was enter the land and conquer it. But the Israelite’s unbelief was more real than God’s promise, so they were punished by aimless wondering in the wilderness for the next forty years until the older generation passed away.
God wants us to obey His word. We can clearly see throughout the Old Testament numerous examples of God’s wrath manifested in floods, famine, wars, fire and brimstone, pestilence, and droughts when people or nations were disobedient. But conversely, when people and nations were in line with His will, they were blessed. That’s the way God worked. He protected those who were selected to be His very own, either by punishing their enemies or bestowing blessings on them. Malachi 3: 10-11, is very specific “…If you do [as I say], says the Lord Almighty, I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won’t have enough room to take it in. Try it! Let Me prove it to you!” Your crops will be abundant, for I will guard them from insects and disease. Your grapes will not shrivel before they are ripe. Then all the nations will call you blessed, for your land will be such a delight.”
The “rest” promised to the Israelites was the land of Canaan. That was their destination. Had they been obedient to God and continued to live in accordance with His will, they would have entered their “promised land” and would have experienced rest, peace and prosperity as they communed with God. (Canaan could have, in effect, become like the Garden of Eden) However, that was not the case, and also the reason the author of Hebrews writes in 3:15, “Today you must listen to His voice. Don’t harden your hearts against Him as Israel did when they rebelled.” Since those who first heard the message were disobedient and did not reach their destination, God set another time for entering his place of “rest”, and that time, according to the psalmist David, is “today”.
As followers of Jesus Christ, God invites us to join Him in His place of rest. You see…God’s plan for our salvation is perfect. He knew that we could never achieve His standard of perfection through our own effort. History would, and has, proven that. But today we can enter our place of rest, not by our own effort, but by accepting God’s gift to us. And this is a gift of grace because we did nothing to earn it, and we were certainly were not worthy of it. But this is a gift from a loving father who wants an eternal relationship with His children. As followers of Jesus, we are “heir to all the spiritual blessings in the heavenly realm” (Ephesians 1) and all the promises in the Bible. Now it is no longer about our work and effort, but about our faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ.
When Jesus was nailed to the cross, He died for all of our sins…past, present, and future. I know how hard that is for us to wrap our minds around that truth, because I have heard the same response more than once. ”What? Come on…that makes no sense to anyone with a brain in their head!” The fact is…you’re right. When limited by our rational thinking, it makes absolutely no sense. But God knew we would struggle with many of “His ways”, and His majestic qualities such as omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience. That’s why He spoke through the prophet Isaiah in 5:8-9 and said, “My ways are not your ways, My thoughts are beyond anything you can imagine. As high as the heavens are above the earth, My ways are not your ways; My thoughts are not your thoughts.” In other words, “just be still and know that I am God! (Psalm 46:10) His plan for our salvation, “which existed before the world was created” (Ephesians 1:3) is perfect, and it is based entirely on our faith in Him.
Since God knows us better than we know ourselves, He knew we could never – through our own effort – be worthy of coming into His presence. Why? Because we, like it or not, are sinners and are stained with sin. And sin has been proven to spread, contaminate, kill and destroy. If you doubt that, just look at the world around you. This was originally paradise, but would you call the world “paradise” today?
The Promised Land the Israelites were seeking was described as a fertile land; a land where their crops and livestock would flourish. To them it was a land of milk and honey; a land that would fulfill their dreams. As Christ-followers, we are also looking forward to our “promised land”, and we too are expecting Paradise. But the wonderful truth of being a Christ-follower is…we don’t have to wait until we die to begin experiencing God’s kingdom. His Kingdom has come to those of us who have accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. And we can begin experiencing it right here, right now...even in this fallen world.
That is the part of being in-Christ that too many Christians seem not to have grasped. Jesus came to give us life... a new life, and he wants us to live it to the fullest. At the moment of our rebirth, we become a new creation. Our old self (our sin nature) is taken away, and we are filled with a new spirit, the Holy Spirit. This Spirit is part of God’s salvation package, and empowers us to rise above the world around us. Prior to our rebirth we were slaves to our sin nature, but after our conversion, we are set free from our bondage to sin. Now we are free to make different choices that are in line with God’s will for our life.
Notice that I said, we can choose. The Holy Spirit empowers us to become the person God created us to be, but we have to choose that path of change. It must be a conscious effort on our part at first, but over time we begin forming new habits
Perhaps the most unsung benefit of this new life is the “rest” that comes from being in Christ. Apostle Paul clearly portrays the confusion, strife and hopelessness found in a life directed by our sinful nature. In Galatians 5:19-21, he states: “…your lives will produce these evil results: sexual immorality, impure thoughts, eagerness for lustful pleasure, idolatry, participation in demonic activities, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, contempt, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other kinds of sin. Now contrast that with the life directed by the Holy Spirit found in Galatians 5:22-23. This is a life that produces, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. 1Corinthians 14:33 tell us, “God is not a God of disorder, but of peace”.
As we begin to see the truth of God’s Word manifested in our lives, the more our faith grows, and the more we mature as Christ-followers. It doesn’t take long to realize that the peace and serenity we are now experiencing is what we’ve always wanted, but unfortunately, we had been looking for answers in all the wrong places. Conforming to the patterns of this world is clearly not the answer, and the harder we try to fill that “hole in our soul” with worldly things and endeavors, the more we sink deeper and deeper into the quagmire of hopelessness. Yes, we may find temporary answers, but there is only one eternal answer that fills our needs. And that answer is Jesus Christ. He IS our place of rest.
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May God Bless Ya…
Dan Presgrave (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)
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