Well, Pilgrim's Progress was published in 1678.
If you're not familiar with Pilgrim's Progress, it perhaps is the most famous allegory on the Christian life that has ever been written.
The main character, of course, his name is Christian, and it tells of a journey that Christian makes from the city of destruction to the celestial city or the celestial kingdom.
And all of the different uh discouragements, the different uh distractions, the difficulties along the way.
It's a great, powerful story to really encapsulate what it looks like to live a life of faith.
Because so many times on his journey towards the celestial city, there are ups, there are downs, there are discouragements and difficulties, and there are many opportunities for Christian to display faith, to display a trust in the directions and instructions that he has been given, that the way that he was told to go through the narrow gate, though it is marked with difficulty and at times suffering, that that is the correct way.
And so a Christian needed to have faith all along the way.
And so the story as a whole, it is a story of faith.
It's a story that's meant to kind of picture for us what our life as Christians should look like, a life of faith.
Now, as we continue in our study of Hebrews 3 into Hebrews 4 today, we're continuing to talk about the theme of rest, true rest.
And just like Christian was never going to make it to the celestial city apart from faith, what we're going to see today in Hebrews is that you and I will not make it to the celestial city.
We will not make it into rest that God offers apart from a life of faith, faith in Jesus Christ and the rest that He offers.
That's what we're going to see today in Hebrews 3.
Now, before we read it, I want to just give you a reminder of some of the things that we talked about last week, the five different kinds of rest that the Bible talks about.
Because we're actually going to see all five in this text this morning.
So I want you just to be clued into them and kind of have your antennas up to be looking for them.
So rest number one is spiritual rest in Christ.
That's really the main primary rest that's talked about in the New Testament.
That means to have salvation.
That means to have all of the benefits associated with salvation.
That's Paul in Ephesians chapter one.
Every spiritual blessing is yours in Christ Jesus.
So spiritual rest in Christ that you are invited into is salvation that Christ offers.
And then there's physical rest that's talked about even in this passage and other places as well in the Bible, in the Old Testament specifically.
And it's physical rest in the promised land.
So think Israel making their way through Peran to the land of Canaan, where God has promised them a land flowing with milk and honey.
And that land, and Israel settling into that land is called rest in the Bible.
So that's physical rest in the promised land, Israel heading towards Canaan.
And then we have God's rest at creation.
This is all the way back in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, specifically, where God created the world in six days, and on the seventh day he rested.
And that is what we see as the third kind of rest.
Then there's the fourth kind of rest in the Bible, the ceremonial Sabbath rest under the Mosaic law.
And this is connected to God's rest in creation.
Six days God created, the seventh he rests, and that becomes stitched into the covenant that God made with Israel as a regular reminder.
So six days they would work, on the seventh they would rest, six years they would work the fields, on the seventh they would rest.
49 years there would be a year of jubilee on the 50th year and on it goes.
So the rest that was demonstrated by God in creation becomes stitched into the fabric of the society of Israel.
And that's the ceremonial Sabbath rest.
It's even in the Ten Commandments.
Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
So that's the fourth kind of rest.
The fifth kind of rest is final, eternal rest.
That if you are a Christian, you're headed to.
So think even Pilgrim's Progress.
He was headed toward the celestial city.
That was his destination.
That was his future home.
That's what you are headed to, this rest in eternity, being with Christ in heaven, the new heavens, the new earth, where all things are subjected under the feet of Christ when he defeats every enemy once and for all.
So those five kinds of rest: spiritual rest in Christ, salvation, physical rest in the land, God's rest at creation that gets stitched into the ceremonial rest and the Mosaic Law, and finally the eternal final rest that we look forward to and that we long for a city with a foundation that cannot be shaken.
Now, I want you, as we read this together, I want you to look out for each of those kinds of rest because they're woven together in this text, Hebrews 3.16 through Hebrews 4.5.
Now let's read it together.
And remember, we need to live a life of faith in order to get there.
That's another thing that we're going to see here in this text.
Verse 16 says, For who were those who heard and yet rebelled?
Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses?
And with whom was he provoked for forty years?
Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?
And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient?
So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.
Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.
For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.
For we who have believed in that rest, as he has said, as I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest, although his works were finished from the foundation of the world.
For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way, and God rested on the seventh day from all his works.
And again in this passage he said, They, Israel, shall not enter my rest.
Now, did you see the connection there, the through line of there is a line that separates these two audiences.
And the immediate audience that the author of Hebrews is writing to.
And he's then he's saying, Don't be like Israel.
They did not believe, they did not have faith, and they did not enter into God's rest.
And that's why he even says in verse 19 of chapter 3.
So we see that they were unable to enter the physical rest of Canaan because of unbelief.
Even in verse 2 of chapter 4, it says, For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.
And this is the warning of this passage of these two groups of people, Christians who are looking back at Israel and trying to learn a lesson of not being given over to unbelief.
And that's that's what he says.
They were not able to enter because of unbelief.
They were not united by faith with those who listened.
Well, who listened?
Joshua and Caleb ultimately.
They were not united with them by faith.
They doubted, they did not believe in the promises of God, and therefore they did not enter rest.
And even for you today, as we think about spiritual rest, salvation in Christ, and even eternal rest, uh, the future for those who have salvation in Christ today, you will not enter into that rest, no one will apart from faith.
That's the lesson that we see here in this text.
So, point number one, I want you to understand the necessity of faith.
Understand the necessity of faith because in this text we see that a lack of faith leads to a lack of rest.
Faith is essential to entering into the rest that God offers in Christ.
Now, of course, it's Christ that saves us.
Salvation belongs to the Lord.
But the instrument that is used, how is it that you and I receive the salvation benefits that God offers in Christ?
How do we receive that?
How do we get that?
How do we participate in that?
Well, the scriptures say uh resoundingly, we get them by faith.
We receive salvation by faith.
And so a lack of faith leads to a lack of rest.
Rest.
Faith is essential to entering into the rest that God offers in Christ.
Now it would be helpful for us to have a clear idea of what faith is.
And so sometimes it's helpful to define something, or at least to start to define something, by telling what it's not, what faith is not.
Here's what faith is not.
Faith is not suspension of reason.
That's a common sort of quip that you're going to hear from a secular perspective, maybe an agnostic or an atheistic perspective, is that faith somehow is antithetical.
It's an enemy of reason.
That's not what faith is.
Faith is not something that we just do blindly.
It's not just leaping with our eyes closed.
That's not what faith is.
Uh, one author said, I thought this was helpful.
Right faith and right reason are logically consistent with each other.
Right reason can demonstrate many truths about God and support many of the things that we believe about God.
So faith is not, again, a suspension of reason.
We're not leaving our reasoning faculties at the door in order to follow Christ.
That's not what you are being asked to do.
That's not what the Israelites are being asked to do.
That's not what faith is.
Part and parcel with that, faith is not disregard for evidence.
We have an evidentiary faith, meaning that there are real historical witnesses, there are real historical documents, there are real historical events that we can look even through archaeological evidence, and we can see the things that happen in the Bible, they are verified through actual physical, tangible evidence.
Evidence.
So faith is not a disregard for evidence, it's not a suspension of reason.
Again, that's sometimes how we can think of faith.
It's it's uh we just put our head off to the side and we're led with our heart somehow, or we just leap with open arms, we don't know what's coming, we don't know what's happening.
That's not what faith is.
Now, faith, of course, is you don't necessarily have all the details, you don't necessarily know exactly what the next step may be.
And there's a sense of trust, but it's not anchored in nothing, it's not uh against reason or against evidence.
That's not what faith is.
So, what is faith more positively?
Well, perhaps the most direct definition in the scriptures comes from Hebrews 11, verse 1.
It says, Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for.
Now, by the way, the things that are hoped for are grounded with reason and evidence.
So faith is the assurance of those things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Now, you might say, flag on the play.
I thought you said faith is something that has reason and evidence.
Well, of course, faith has those things.
It's more than that, but it's not less than that.
And that's not what the author of Hebrews is saying.
The author of Hebrews is not saying that faith does not need reason, faith does not need evidence, or faith does not need our senses.
It does not say that those things are meaningless.
It's the assurance of things hoped for that are grounded in reason and evidence, the conviction of things not seen.
There are plenty of things that we don't see in this life, and nevertheless, we trust, we believe, we we know to be true.
Gravity is an example of that, right?
It's not something that you can tangibly see, but it's something that you experience and something that you know is true.
So it's the conviction of things not seen, even if you don't necessarily see it.
It's grounded in something that you hope for, which is based on sound reason and evidence.
Here's another definition of faith that I thought was helpful this week.
This is not my definition, but I think it's helpful.
It says faith is believing something on the word of a witness.
Faith is believing something on the word of a witness.
How does Hebrews 1 open?
God has spoken through his son.
Long ago, he spoke it many times and in many ways through the prophets, but in his last days, he has spoken through his son.
Even the apostle that wrote Hebrews, for example, in chapter two, he gives a chain of linked evidence for the validity of Christ being the Messiah.
Do you remember this?
It was first spoken of by Jesus, then it was attested to us by those who heard, that's the apostles, and God himself also bore witness with signs and wonders and various miracles.
So the author of Hebrews is not against evidence, he's not against reason.
In fact, he bakes it into his argument.
You you guys remember Jesus Himself, physically on earth, he taught these things, he taught them to a select group of people, the apostles.
They attested to what he taught to, to you, and we also have seen God do and testify and witness to the reality of those things through signs, wonders, and various miracles.
So God has spoken through his son.
So faith is believing something on the word of a witness, trusting something on the word of a witness.
The apostles testified to what was spoken, and the Bible contains preserved records of the witness of God through Jesus Christ.
That's what faith is.
You're believing something on the word of a witness.
God has spoken.
He has spoken through his son, Jesus.
His son Jesus spoke to disciples, physical, flesh and blood people on earth that then went and told other people there are historical records and data that verify the veracity of these things.
The historic voice of the church throughout the ages, the last 2,000 years have been a collective witness of the reality of Jesus Christ.
Faith is believing something on the word of a witness.
Now, faith again is the is the thing that demarcates Israel to the audience here that the author is pleading with.
Don't be like Israel, don't be given to unbelief.
Don't lack faith.
Believe in the witness of God through his son Jesus Christ.
It came from him first.
It was attested to us by those who heard.
God also bore witness.
Believe in him, believe what he has said, trust in his promises.
Now the Bible also talks about in Hebrews 11 the essential nature of faith.
Hebrews 11 6 says, Without faith, it is impossible to please God.
Without faith, you could even put in here, it's impossible to enter God's rest.
Without faith, it's impossible to experience salvation in Christ.
Without faith, it is impossible to please him.
It goes on it says, For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
Faith is necessary for the Christian life.
You cannot live the Christian life apart from faith.
Trusting in God, in the testimony of God through his son, that was given witness to, is attested to by the apostles and others throughout the ages.
It's essential for the Christian faith.
You cannot please God apart from it.
You cannot enter into rest apart from faith.
Now, where does faith come from?
Where does faith come from?
That's an interesting question.
The Bible talks about this in a variety of places, but Romans 10 17 perhaps is most direct.
Paul says in Romans 10 17, faith comes from hearing, by the way.
Hearing from who?
The word of a witness.
That's what faith is.
Faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.
That's where faith comes from.
Faith is given to you by the Spirit of God as you hear the word of God.
Faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.
That's where faith comes from.
Which is why, by the way, earlier in chapter three, what does he say?
Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as is in the day of the rebellion.
Faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.
Faith is necessary, it's it's essential.
Even it is by faith and through faith that you can be saved.
This is what Paul says in Ephesians 2, verse 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith.
And this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God.
Romans 5:1.
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
There is no salvation apart from faith.
You have been saved by grace.
It's a free act of God.
It's his loving kindness on display.
Through faith, you have been justified, declared righteous by God, by faith is what Paul says.
And in fact, he goes on in other places in the New Testament to say that the righteous, those who are in Christ, live lives by faith.
Romans 1, 16 and 17.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith, for faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.
Even in 2 Corinthians 5 7, Paul says, For we walk by faith and not by sight.
Again, not to the exclusion of our senses, not to the ignoring and setting aside our senses and reason but reason, but we walk by faith.
Faith transcends those things.
We walk by faith, not by sight.
And the warning here in Hebrews 3, the end of Hebrews 3, into the beginning of Hebrews 4, is that they did not make it because they did not believe.
They did not have faith.
So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.
They were not united by faith with those who listened.
They did not listen to the voice of God.
They did not trust in the witness of God.
And think about who he's talking about.
This is a generation, it's even going to go on to say in verse 1, verse uh 16 and following of chapter 3.
This is a generation that saw many signs and wonders that God performed as he delivered Israel from slavery to the Egyptians.
That's who we're talking about.
They had all of the evidence, they had all of the reasons, they had all of the things that you could probably ask for in believing in the reality of God and his power, and yet they still didn't believe.
And that's by the way, just as a sidebar, sometimes people will kind of make the complaint that there's not enough evidence, there's not enough reason, there's not enough, there's not enough tangible things that we can touch and taste and smell and all of those things.
Well, again, look at the Israelites.
They had it all.
They had literally quail falling from the sky, seas that are split, and they walked down the middle of.
They were rescued and delivered, and God provided.
There's water coming out of rocks in the wilderness, and yet they did not believe.
Unbelief is a spiritual issue.
It's not a it's not an evidence issue.
There are so many people, even if you think about the gospels, Jesus is standing in front of the Pharisees performing miracles and teaching, and they've got to do something.
They've got to come up with something because they recognize that he's doing things that he shouldn't be able to do.
So what do they say?
He's empowered by Satan.
They had to acknowledge that he was doing things that only God could do.
So so he had some kind of power, some kind of divinity, but they didn't want to say that he was the Christ, that he was the son of God.
So he was empowered by Satan.
He was empowered by the Elzebel.
And they stood right in front of Jesus and they saw him, they heard him, they witnessed the things that he did, and yet they rejected him.
So it's not an issue of faith, or it's not an issue of evidence, I should say.
It's not an issue of reason.
It's a it's a spiritual issue, it's an issue of faith.
The righteous live by faith.
And even those who had perhaps more evidence than you and I ever will have, they still didn't believe.
They did not enter because of unbelief.
That's the warning.
We need to see the necessity of faith to enter God's rest.
Spiritual rest, salvation, eternal rest, being with Christ for eternity, eternal life that we will experience fully and finally with Christ in heaven.
We need faith to do that.
Now look at verse 16 again of Hebrews 3.
There's a series of questions and answers that the author is asking.
For who were those who heard?
And yet rebel.
This is what we're just talking about.
Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses?
Was it not all those who saw signs and wonders and miracles by God, a pillar of cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night?
Was it not that generation?
Verse 17.
And with whom was he provoked for 40 years?
That's how long they wandered in the wilderness.
Was it not with those who sinned, who rejected what God said, who rejected the voice of God, who rejected the commandments of God, those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?
They didn't make it, they didn't go into Canaan.
And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest?
But to those who were disobedient?
Now this is crucial because the author of Hebrews is showing us something about the reality of genuine faith.
How do you know if you have genuine faith?
What does genuine faith look like?
What does it do?
Well, according to Hebrews 3, they did it do something.
That tells us something that something that we should do.
It says they were disobedient.
They ignored the commands of God.
They were given over to their own passions.
They were given over to their own desires.
They were complaining and grumbling.
They longed to go back to Egypt rather than to go into the land that God had promised.
They were disobedient to God.
Their faith was not genuine because they were disobedient.
Genuine faith leads to genuine obedience.
So point number two, I want you to rightly identify genuine faith.
Because again, I just said it, but genuine faith always leads to genuine obedience.
Faith and obedience in the scriptures are inseparable.
Now, listen, you're not saved because of obedience.
You're saved by grace through faith.
Since then, we have been justified by faith.
We live lives of faith because we've been saved by grace through faith.
But nevertheless, faith and obedience are inseparable in the Christian life.
Think about some examples that we'll get to in chapter 11 of Hebrews.
When God told Mo or Noah rather to construct the ark, what does he do?
He constructs the ark.
He does what God told him to do, even though it probably made no sense.
Even the dimensions of this thing were astronomical, and yet he did it with obedience and with faith.
When God came to Abram, who we know as Abraham, and said, Hey, I want you to pick up and go to a land of which I will tell you.
Didn't even tell him where he was going, just get up and go.
What does Abraham do?
He goes, He obeys.
When God tells Abraham, after years of him and Sarah wanting and longing for a child, an offspring, they finally have Isaac.
What does God tell him to do?
To offer his son, his only son, whom he loves.
This is Genesis 22, as a sacrifice.
And what does Abraham do?
He willingly begins to make preparations to do what God had commanded.
Because he's thinking to himself, okay, God is faithful, he's true to his word.
God is able to even raise him from the dead.
So he does it.
He he obeys.
And of course, the angel stops him, but he obeys.
Faith and obedience are inseparable in the Bible.
And this is what even the apostle John, as another example, in 1 John chapter 2, verses 3 through 6.
Here's how he says that I want you to listen to this because this he does not mince words.
This is a a stinging passage, perhaps, but one that is necessary for us to think about.
1 John chapter 2, verse 3 says, And by this we know that we have come to know him.
And that's kind of the question, right?
What's genuine faith?
What's true faith?
How do we know that we've come to know him if we keep his commandments?
That's what John says.
And by this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments.
Whoever says, he continues, I know him, but does not keep his commandments, is a liar, John says.
And the truth is not in him.
But whoever keeps his word in him truly the love of God is perfected.
By this we may know that we are in him.
Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
This is the reality of genuine faith.
Genuine faith leads to genuine obedience.
And that's what we see here.
They disobeyed, they were unable to enter because of unbelief.
They didn't have genuine faith because genuine faith leads to genuine obedience.
To whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient, is what Hebrews says.
By this we know we have come to know him if we keep his commandments.
And it's all too common today for so-called Christians to claim the name of Christ while living lives of blatant disobedience with no regard for what God has said in his word.
The Apostle John has words for that.
He says, You are a liar, and the truth is not in you.
Whoever says, I know him, but does not keep his commandments is a liar.
And by this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments.
Genuine faith leads to genuine obedience, and disobedience is a sign of lack of faith.
And disobedience ultimately kept Israel from entering into the promised land.
They did not believe, they did not trust in God, they ignored the word of the witness of Moses and Aaron, and even the signs and wonders and miracles that God did in their midst.
Now, as a Christian, what are some things that should motivate your obedience?
If obedience and faith are inseparable, and of course they are, that's what 1 John 2 says.
That's how we know we have genuine faith.
If you say you have fellowship with him, while you do not keep his commandments, you are a liar and the truth is not in you.
So what should motivate us to do this?
Of course, we're not motivated, we're not trying to earn our salvation, we're not trying to make it back to the Lord.
We're not doing anything to earn our salvation or to to merit any sort of anything in our Christian life.
That's that much is clear.
But we should be motivated, nevertheless, by the love that we have received by God through Christ.
Love is a phenomenal motivator, perhaps one of the strongest motivators.
You should be motivated towards obedience of God because you love God.
This is what Jesus says: I love, love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.
This is the greatest commandment.
All of the law and the prophets hang on these two commands, Jesus says.
Love should motivate you because you understand who God is.
You understand his character, you understand his faithfulness, you understand that he is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
That his steadfast love endures forever.
A love for God motivates obedience to God.
And that's even true with our kids in an ideal situation, right?
When our kids love us in their good best moments, they want to obey us because they know that we love them.
Because they know that we love them, they love us and they want to obey us.
Of course, that's not always the case.
Sin gets into it, maturity gets in it.
You know, we get it.
But love, right?
Love is a great motivator for obedience.
We understand who God is, we understand his character, and we're motivated towards obedience because of love.
And the other thing, even the example that we see here in Hebrews that the Israelites lacked was trust in God.
So be motivated towards obedience by trust in God.
You have to trust that God's way is good, and not just that it's good, it's best.
You have to believe the words of Psalm 19 where it says, the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.
I mean, think about that for a second.
The precepts of the Lord.
Let's just say the commandments of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.
Is that how you feel about the commandments of God?
Is that how you feel?
That your heart rejoices at what God commands you to do and to obey and to pursue and to live and to put off and to put on?
Because that's what David feels in Psalm 19.
The law of the Lord is perfect, he says in verse 11, reviving the soul.
The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple, the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.
Is that how you feel about obeying God?
We have to trust that God's way is good and best, and that living in the way that God has commanded us to live is good.
And our heart rejoices, it will rejoice because we're doing what we ought to do.
We're living not at odds with our Creator, but in unity with Him.
We trust God.
Obedience is motivated by trust.
We trust that God's way is good and best.
And the other thing I would say that should motivate our obedience is humility, or at least the need for humility.
That we recognize that someone else gets to call the shots.
We recognize that you are not the creator of the world, and neither am I.
I think of what God says to Job, where were you?
It's funny, Job, that you have a question for me.
Where were you when I created the world?
Where were you when I separated the waters?
Where were you, Job?
You weren't there.
That's the point.
Humility, someone else calls the shots because God is the creator.
He is the king, a great king over all the earth.
And so faith is demonstrated and displayed physically and tangibly through your obedience, through your submitting to what God has said.
And it says here that they did not enter God's rest because they were disobedient, that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.
They lacked faith.
They did not trust that what God was doing was best.
They did not trust in God's promises, in God's provision, and they did not enter because of their unbelief.
Now let's look at verse one of chapter four.
That's the warning.
Israel did not enter, they were disobedient, they did not trust, they lacked faith.
So he says, For you, Christians, there is a rest, there's a promise of that rest that's being extended today, and it still stands.
Here's the urge.
Let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.
For good news came to us just as to them.
But the message that they heard did not benefit them because they were not united by faith with those who listened.
That's the warning.
Let us fear, lest any of us should seem to have failed to reach it.
The message that they heard, they heard the same thing.
It did not benefit them because they were not united by faith with those who listened.
Point number three, I want you to fear the consequences for lack of faith.
Fear the consequences for lack of faith.
I mean, that's that's the encouragement, that's the warning.
That's exactly what he says.
Let us fear lest any of us should fail to reach it.
Let us fear and recognize that just like the Israelites, they were given over to disobedience, they were given over to unbelief.
You could be given over to disobedience, you could be given over to unbelief.
We need to have a healthy fear.
Fear the consequences for lack of faith.
Now, is this a is this a contradiction?
Because throughout the Bible, you're going to see do not fear in a lot of different contexts.
Paul says in 2 Timothy 1:7, God gave us a spirit not of fear.
God himself says in Isaiah 41, 10, fear not, for I am with you.
Psalm 46, 2, we will not fear, though the earth gives way.
Psalm 23, even though I'm in the sh the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.
Hebrews chapter 2, verse 15, Jesus delivered all those who, through fear of death, were subject to lifelong slavery.
So again and again and again, the Bible says we are not to be given over to fear.
Jesus himself has freed us from the fear of death.
We are not to fear the valley of the shadow of death, because Jesus is with us, he's leading us home.
So when the author of Hebrew says, let us fear, is this a contradiction in terms?
Well, of course not.
The Bible does not contradict itself, it comes in understanding what the encouragement here is.
One pastor I was listening to this week said it this way.
I thought this was helpful.
When it comes to the Christian, there's one thing to fear.
It's not believing in the promises that make you fearless.
That's what he's saying.
There is one thing for us to fear: not believing in the promises that should make us fearless.
Not believing that Jesus, in fact, has freed us from death, has freed us from the devil.
This is a fear that focuses us.
This is a fear that keeps us moving forward.
It's like carefully watching your step as you near the edge of a cliff.
You might get close, you might peer over, you can see what's on the other side, but it kind of you slow down.
You watch where your feet are going a little bit more carefully because you know that there's danger on the other side.
That's what he's talking about.
So we're not giving over to anxiety.
We're not paralyzed.
That's not what he's encouraging us towards.
It's towards a healthy sort of focus.
It's carefully even checking your equipment before you begin a vertical climb.
It's carefully checking both ways before you pull out onto a busy street.
That's what he's saying.
That's what he's encouraging us to do: to check both ways, to keep moving, to keep trusting, keep believing, fear.
Again, we're not giving over to anxiety.
We're not giving over to things that are unhelpful and that are rooted in unbelief.
We're giving over to things that keep us focused.
So, in that sense, there is a fear that could be detrimental to the Christian life.
A fear that is rooted in unbelief.
Fear that is rooted in doubt, that stems from a lack of trust in God.
That is a kind of fear that by God's grace you are to rid yourself of and be far from.
You have not been given a spirit of fear.
But there is a fear that corresponds with faith.
It's somewhat similar to what the Proverbs says: the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
Fools despise wisdom and instruction.
There's a fear that helps us uh that that helps us again focus on the promises of God.
It's a fear that longs to carefully follow what God has said, being obedient to his word, recognizing the dangers that come from ignoring his voice.
Really, that's the whole point here.
That's the encouragement.
He says, Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.
And here's the reason why.
For good news came to us just as to them.
Good news came to us just as to them.
We all have the same information, we all have the same news, but some people get it and some people don't.
And so there's there's cause for what we need to we need to focus on.
Okay, well, what makes it so that we get it?
It's faith, is what he says.
They were not united by faith.
It did not benefit them because they were not united by faith with those who listen.
He even goes on and says in verse 3, for we who have believed, who have had faith, we enter that rest.
This is a this is a sure thing, it's a confident thing.
We who have believed, enter that rest.
But those who who are battling with unbelief, those who are given over to disobedience, it says, we need to we need to focus, we need to have a sense of evaluation and look at this warning and recognize that there are consequences.
This is a fear, again, that longs to carefully follow what God has said, recognizing the dangers that come from ignoring his voice.
This is similar to what the author of Hebrew says at the beginning of Hebrews chapter 2.
Let us pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away.
That's the kind of fear that he's talking about.
Pay attention, stay focused.
You're getting close to the edge.
We need to slow down, watch our steps, be mindful of where we are.
We need to trust in God, believe in him, have faith in him.
The Israelites heard, but they did not believe.
They were not united by faith.
And so that's why he says, Let us fear, lest any of us should seem to have failed to reach it.
And again, the appeal here is that there is an ongoing invitation to rest.
That's the next section, verse 8 of chapter 4.
For Joshua had given them rest.
For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on.
So the physical rest of Canaan, they ultimately enter in.
So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.
For whoever has entered God's rest also has rested from his works as God did from his.
So there's an invitation.
There, there is uh God speaking today.
Again, the Holy Spirit saying, Do not harden your hearts.
There's rest that's available, there's salvation that is offered.
And what's necessary for you to enter into that rest?
Faith.
Faith was the difference maker.
Some made it because of faith.
Joshua and Caleb, very few.
A lot did not because of unbelief, because of their doubt, their hardness of heart, their complaining, they're grumbling, they're insisting on their own way, they're ignoring godly counsel.
Let us fear, lest any of us should seem to have failed to reach it.
That's the warning.
We should fear the consequences of faith.
And again, we're not trying to live in a constant state of anxiety over the truthfulness of our salvation.
That's not what we're going for here.
That's not what the author of Hebrews.
In fact, Hebrews is written so that you feel assured in your salvation, confident in your salvation, that you're running forward with faith, with full assurance, with confidence.
That's his point is not to undermine your assurance.
His point is to bolster it.
And as a part of that, as a part of the Christian life, we should have a healthy fear of doing things that God has commanded us not to do.
We need to stay focused.
They heard the same thing.
The message that they heard did not benefit them because they were not united by the faith.
But the good news of the gospel is that today, as we talked about last week, today is a day that you can respond and hear the truthfulness of God, the truthfulness of who Christ is, that he died on the cross to pay for your sins, and that believing, having faith in him, you can have life in his name.
You can enter into rest and you can have confidence.
You can have the confidence of verse three.
For we who have believed, who do trust in Jesus, who do recognize that God has spoken through his son, we enter that rest.
We have it.
We can be assured in it and have confidence in it.
We who have believed, and that's the that's the appeal today.
That you need to recognize that faith is a necessity.
That God commands you to believe.
By grace you have been saved through faith, believing in the gospel, believing in who Jesus is, turning from your sin and trusting in Him.
This made me think of a story perhaps familiar to most in this room.
On April 10th, 1912, the largest passenger ship in the world at the time, known as the Titanic, set sail from Southampton, England.
As the ship made its way west across the Atlantic, the captain maintained high speeds as they entered icy waters.
Nearby ships, the story goes, sent several wireless messages warning of the dangerous conditions ahead, of the ice and the icebergs, warnings that ultimately largely ended up being ignored.
So shortly before midnight, just mere days after their maiden voyage began, the Titanic, the lookouts of the Titanic, saw an iceberg directly ahead of the ship.
But at this point, of course, you know the story, it was too late.
Due to the ship's size and the speed that they were traveling, they were unable to change course.
And they ended up striking the iceberg.
And the ship was designed for four compartments to be able to flood and still maintain, still be able to float, but five compartments and even more began to flood, and it was catastrophic.
If you know the story, of 1,500 people that night lost their lives in the frigid water.
The largest and widely considered safest ship in the world sank in its maiden voyage.
The captain and the crew in this example did not have a healthy fear of the danger ahead.
They grew prideful, they grew overconfident in either their ability or the ship's ability, and it ended in devastating loss of life.
As you traverse, if I can say it this way, the waters of this life, you need to recognize that there are icebergs of unbelief that lie dead ahead.
That's the warnings of Hebrews.
And the call today is to change course, to heed the warning, to steer towards Christ.
Because it's in Christ that you can have rest, salvation.
Jesus Himself says, Come to me, those who are burdened and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
And today that invitation, that promise still stands.
And your response today should be one of faith.
I believe.
And your belief will make all the difference.
He says in verse two again, the message that they heard was the same message, but it did not benefit them because they were not united by faith.
There are icebergs of unbelief dead ahead.
And we need to fear lest any of us should fail to reach it.
Let's trust in Christ, trust in the promises of God, and have faith that He is truly the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Let me pray for us.
God, thank you for the warnings here in Hebrews.
We're thankful that the promise of rest still stands.
So God, I pray that those in this church, perhaps that do not know what it means to have rest in Christ.
God, would you open their eyes?
Would you give them faith?
Would faith come from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ?
God, I pray that we would have a confidence that through faith in Christ, not in our ability, not in anything that we have done, but in Christ's perfect work and sacrifice on the cross, that we can experience full rest and the salvation that we long await, a city with a foundation that cannot be shaken.
God help us to keep moving forward with faith, keep pressing on, and to pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away.
Help us with that, I pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.