Hebrews: The New Covenant Administration of Christ Max A Forsythe (c) Anno Domini 2002

From the Pulpit at Pilgrim's Rest Presbyterian Church in America

Introduction:  Very many of the world’s religions take a page from the same worldly play book used by the Masonic cult.  In that “Gnostic” orientation  it is presumed that there are various levels of knowledge to be experienced as a soul grows and matures.  And once the highest level is attained  therein lies nirvana or some other form of heavenly attainment by sheer guts and will power alone!  The Masons have their 32^nd Degree which is the highest form of their “Gnostic” trip towards power and authority within their lodge and our society.  Other, more religious groups are usually content with some smaller number of steps to reach a more heavenly enjoined enlightenment.  The last tidbit of knowledge to be attained by Ron Hubbard’s Scientology cult at their highest level of attainment:  is that aliens from space landed on earth at some point in time and granted a chosen few their precious wisdom.  Of course, by the standards of the United States Air Force in the 1950’s, he was a certified psychological mess and had the government been more willing to pay for his protective custody  the world would be much the better for it!

Native American cultists like the “Ghost Dancers” of the 1890’s, and the Peyote induced visions of various and countless Shamans consistently and constantly gave the illusion that real “spiritual” power was attainable, manageable and useful.  At least, at bottom the Masonic cult can only guarantee material prosperity and political support to its chosen leaders.  In our county, whenever a truly honest man without their political connections - attempts to run for office, at least a dozen local “clansmen” as I would describe them, jumps into the race to divert the uninformed vote and those within the circle of power are carefully instructed as to the real candidate to support.  It works every time I have seen this happen since I began to vote.  And no one outside of their power oriented culture: hardly has a chance of attaining any electoral success.

But these are worldly concerns much like the illegitimate spiritual claims of modern Israel to the land and environment of Palestine in our times.  Of course, their military conquests and political struggles merit our admiration for their determination to attain what remains as a worldly vision at best.  However, except within the providential allowance for ending the world order at His convenience  there is really and truly no reason for automatic Christian support for any of the Zionist causes.

Historically we could give equal assent to the Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian revivals engineered by the Syrian, Iraqi and Iranian visionaries.  The fact that these latter three are all Muslim in context does not limit their willingness or ability to slaughter each other in the name of Allah. In the last century, a pompous Mussolini took the European country of Italy down the road towards a restoration and renewal of the Roman suzerainty.  But of course the coarse national socialist Hitler aimed higher when he announced a thousand year state reminiscent of post-millennial orthodoxy.

The Communists of the last century were not far behind in their blind ambition to slaughter millions of humans in their bloody reach for total world domination. And do not fool yourself into believing that it could never happen here.  The secular religion of promoting the socialist utopia is alive and well in the hearts and minds of every liberal powerbroker beyond the local level.  The real danger of our contemporary socialists is that unlike many of the nationalistic movements who seek their promised land in their time, they secularists are willing to work towards a worldly domain sometime in the future that will unite of peoples in their socialist disorder as they pass the dream of that realization from one generation to another.

Now what unites all of these historic and contemporary fantasies?  It is the deep human yearning of attaining a final rest promised in Scripture and seemingly laid within the heart and soul for fulfillment in some way shape and form.  Many of course can be content with a few acres, a house and garden  as their own, while others crave a larger canvass to sign their possessive name to!

Development:  That this earnest yearning is a part of the human psyche can hardly be doubted.  And yet the world has hardly scratched the surface to comprehend the spiritual implications of that dream which should above all point us towards the heavenly home that our Father in heaven would provide all of those whom He is calling into His eternal rest.

1.  The first point that can be made this morning is to be found in a careful consideration of verses three through five in our text for today.  F.F. Bruce appraises us that “it is for those who have accepted the saving message by faith, then, that entry into the ‘rest’ of God is intended  that rest which, Psalm 95:11, He refers to as ‘my rest.’  The possessive nature of those two words at the end of the Psalm is absolutely immense in their implication!  The spirited argument against an all too humanly millennial and worldly expectation in this regard goes something like this.

The essential question which F.F. Bruce advocates is this:  “In what sense does God speak of ‘my rest’?   Does it simply mean “the rest which I bestow” or does it also mean “the rest which I myself enjoy”?  Bruce adopts the second premise and as evidence he demonstrates the use in the LXX of the “same Greek word for God’s ‘resting’ or ‘desisting’ on the Sabbath day from His creative work … as for the ‘rest’ of God in Psalm 95: 11.”  The argument in the Hebrew text is slightly more expansive in vocabulary but not in absolute meaning.

Thus, if we follow the implications of the text, when the Lord God speaks of “my rest”, it is that “rest” from the works of creation that have been ongoing since the first seventh day at the beginning of time.  Bruce argues that “When we read that God ‘rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made’, we are to understand that He began to rest then; the fact that He is never said to have completed His rest and resumed His work of creation implies that His rest continues still, and may be shared by those who respond to His overtures with faith and obedience.”

As further evidence he gives the example of Christ in the words of John 5: 17 where we might read the spoken words of Jesus:  “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”  Bruce would argue with my own concurrence that the implication of these words mitigates any symbolic age/millennial theory in the division of time.  Instead, the simple understanding of the text here is that the Father’s present and ongoing “rest” is available “to His people since the work of creation was finished, but it will be forfeited by disobedience.”

2.  A second point to be considered may be drawn from verses six and seven.  Here, the Apostle argues from the Davidic understanding that the promised rest was still available in David’s day and time.  Thus, we may understand that the final goal of the people of Israel was not just the possession of the Promised Land under the leadership of Joshua.  As Bruce outlines it, “the writer of Psalm 95 urges his contemporaries to listen to the voice of God ‘to-day’, instead of hardening their hearts in obstinacy like their ancestors and being debarred from entering into the rest of God as they had been.”

David here is seen in the same sense of every preacher who speaks for the Lord of all the earth.  The current application of ancient challenges is thoroughly appropriate because the anticipated “rest” is available to one and all in every time and place since creation until the end of the current age.  Bruce again posits the eternal challenge:  “the point of paramount importance [in the psalm] is that it was God who spoke ‘in David’ and His word remains in effective vitality long after it was uttered, addressing the heart and conscience of hearers in the Christian era with the same convicting relevance as characterized it when first it was spoken.”

3.  A third point brought out in verse eight is in the plain ordinary explanation of the words you can read clearly:  “For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on.”  What better evidence could we have to argue against every utopian dream and plan to bring in a heavenly society here on earth and for all time to come?

Interestingly for the Greek readers of the original letter, is the fact that the comparisons between the first “Jesus,” which we read “Joshua” and the second “Jesus” whom we worship and adore: the same names allow an unmistaken and illustrative contrast between the entry into the material land of Canaan and the heavenly kingdom envisioned in and through Jesus Christ.  But, that is a side trip and we must move on in our study of the text before us.

Application:  Our fourth point in the text this morning is to be found in verses nine and ten.  At this point I should explain that there truly is a relationship between the Hebrew verb for rest and the noun which describes the day of rest.  Once again Bruce enlightens us:  “This rest which is reserved for the people of God is properly called a ‘sabbath rest’  a sabbatismos or ‘sabbath keeping’  because it is their participation in God’s own rest.”

This is why the Puritans and my own ancestors had such a high view of the Lord’s Day which we so carelessly use and abuse.  Week by week, since the first dawn of the world  there have been people who honored the Lord of creation by following His command to set aside one day in seven to remember what He has ordained and promised them.  Our own Lord’s Day then becomes a minimal appetizer or foretaste of the spiritual kingdom to come

Well did Christ announce that not only He, but the Father also works on this specified day to further the advance of the Kingdom of the Spirit.  And so should we realize the intensity of faithfulness, study, prayer and commitment to use the day so that we might better know Christ crucified, dead, buried and rose from the earth for our benefit.

A fifth and last lesson to be drawn out from this is fourth one wherein as we grow in grace and learn to acknowledge that the system of theology derived from the scripture so informs all of the details that often remain confusing.  By this, I mean  if we take the consistency of Bruce’s understanding of this section even an obscure passage in the letters of Peter wherein Christ is reported to have rescued the captives in prison becomes better understood.

Certainly, Bruce allows that the promised “rest” under discussion could be attained for all Old and New Covenant believers at the final resurrection.  However, since the “rest” is reported to be attainable for every generation of believers, “it is, indeed, perfectly conceivable that in [Apostle’s] view the Old Testament believers entered into the rest of God as soon as Christ had accomplished His redemptive work, while believers of the New Testament age enter it at death.”

However, we all arrive at the final destination; the promised “rest” is in the presence of the Lord.  And like those preached to by the first Joshua, and those encouraged by the psalmist David and even we at this late date “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”  In other words:  pay attention God is speaking through His messengers to encourage you weekly to remember there is something more than the sum of the last six days.  Here on this Lord’s Day, like on every other since creation  you as every human before you and those all to come afterward are invited into “the promised rest.”  Will you accept the invitation and heed the warning to listen carefully?  May God grant you the spiritual strength to accept and then to live daily as a citizen of the Spiritual Kingdom to come.

Once in Seminary, when the liberals were doing everything possible to disabuse the reality of the world to come, I heard a lecturer argue against the primitive “pie in the sky” attitude of all of us non-progressive types.  While I didn’t believe his admonitions at all  I was left with the impression that if anyone really believed what he had to say, then there was no reason to engage the Christian faith at all.  It is indeed a challenge to go forward day by day and wrestle with the implications of the faith once given to the saints.  And I worry that some of you do not take the lessons of the scriptures seriously enough?  My concern in this regard is not that you haven’t taken the hour and a half necessary to be here this morning  but that you should also take time every day to study the word and pray individually, as families and as time and professions allow: to gather more than one hour a week to make your calling and faith sincere and secure.  May the Lord bless you one and all as He will allow.  Amen.

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