The following sermon is number 15 in the series, In the Wilderness, the Book of Numbers. The sermon titled is Fight to Enter God's Rest. The text is Numbers 13-14 and Hebrews 4, verse 11. It was preached at Nauset Baptist Church by Stephen Kitchen on July 26, 2015. To prepare our hearts, we're going to be reading Hebrews chapter 3, 7-19. Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, today, if you will hear his voice, do not hide in your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. Therefore I was provoked with that generation and said, They always go astray in their heart. They have not known my ways. As I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today. that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. As it is said, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion. For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not with 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 swear he 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. A second scripture reading is from Numbers, chapter 13, verses 25 through 33, found in the hardcover on 153 or the softcover on 104. At the end of 40 days, they returned from spying out the land, and they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the people of Israel in the wilderness of Paran at Kedesh. They brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. And they told him, We came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. Besides, we saw the descendants of Achan there. and the Amorites dwell in the land of Negev, the Hittites, the Jebusites, the Amorites dwell in the hill country, and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the Jordan. But Caleb quickly quieted the people before Moses and said, Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it. Then the men who had gone up with him said, we are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are. So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, the land through which we have gone to spy it out is a land that devours its inhabitants. And all the people that we saw in it are of great height. And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Ekan, who come from the Nephilim. And we seem to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seem to them. The Word of the Lord. Please be seated. Please remain standing for our next script reading, and found again in Numbers 14. We'll pick up where we left off in verse 1. Numbers 14, reading down through verse 45. You can find that in your pew Bibles on page 154, the hardcover, or page 105 in the softcover Bibles in the pews. Numbers 14. Hear now the word of the Lord. Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, Would that we had died in the land of Egypt, or would that we had died in this wilderness? Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?" And they said to one another, let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt. Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the people of Israel. And Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes, and said to all the congregation of the people of Israel, the land which we passed through to spy it out is an exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the Lord, and do not fear the people of the land, for they are bred for us. Their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them. Then all the congregation said to stone them with stones. But the glory of the Lord appeared at the 10th meeting to all the people of Israel. And the Lord said to Moses, How long will this people despise me? How long will they not believe in me in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them. And I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they. But Moses said to the Lord, then the Egyptians will hear of it, for you brought up this people in your might from among them, and they will tell the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you, O Lord, are in the midst of this people, for you, O Lord, are seen face to face and your cloud stands over them and you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Now, if you kill this people as one man, then the nations who have heard your fame will say it is because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land that he swore to give to them, that he has killed them in the wilderness. And now, please let the power of the Lord be great, as you have promised, saying the Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression. But he will by no means clear the guilty. visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation. Please pardon the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have forgiven this people from Egypt until now. Then the Lord said, I have pardoned according to your word, but truly as I live and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, None of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it. But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring him to the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it. Now, since the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valleys, turn tomorrow and set out for the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea." And the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, How long shall this wicked congregation grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against me. Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you. Your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. And of all your number listed in the census from 20 years old and upward who have grumbled against me, not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua, the son of Nun. But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected. But as for you, your dead body shall fall in this wilderness. and your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years, and shall suffer for your faithlessness until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure. I, the Lord, have spoken. Surely this will I do to all this wicked congregation who are gathered together against me In this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die. And the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing up a bad report about the land, the men who brought up a bad report of the land died by plague before the Lord. Of those men who went to spy out the land, only Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive. When Moses told these words to all the people of Israel, The people mourned greatly, and they rose early in the morning and went up to the heights of the hill country, saying, Here we are. We will go up to the place that the Lord has promised, for we have sinned. But Moses said, Why now are you transgressing the command of the Lord, when that will not succeed? Do not go up, for the Lord is not among you, lest you be struck down before your enemies. For there the Amalekites and the Canaanites are facing you, and you shall fall by the sword, because you have turned back from following the Lord. The Lord will not be with you. But they presumed to go up to the heights of the hill country, although neither the ark of the covenant of the Lord nor Moses departed out of the camp. Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites, who lived in that hill country, came down and defeated them, and pursued them even to Horma. Now may Jesus, who is the living word, speak to us this morning from this passage which is as written there. You may be seated. In a moment, we're going to have all the kids come up for our children's introduction. And I wanted you to be prepared. My own kids will be coming up, and if you're comfortable enough, you can all come up. I'd like to have you up here. But you can also listen back at your seat if that seems too wild and crazy for you. But before we do that, let's pray. Father, we do thank you for your word. I do thank you that you have given us rich guidance. You have warned us in many and various ways. And you have shown us the way to Jesus in so many ways in your word. I pray that you would show us that way again today. That you would give us eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts that are tender to your word. Oh, Lord, that we would not have a hardened, unbelieving heart as Israel had at this point in her history. but that we would be part of the new Israel, the believing, faithful Israel, united to Jesus Christ, our Savior. Help us in this, Lord. Meet with us. Refresh us with Your Word. I pray in Jesus' name, Amen. Alright kids, come on up. Well, given the recent loss, you know what I'm going to do? I have a new recorder and it didn't work last time, so I'm going to put my back up here. If you bear with me. Are you going to fix it? I think it's working now. But in case it's not, I've got two recorders going now. So, so as to handle that. Well, in recent events in our family, as the loss of my sister has been grievous to us, my Aunt Julie, right? We've been talking about heaven. What do you guys think heaven is like right now? What do you think it's like? Eternally, it's going to be somewhat like this world, isn't it? Why do you say that? Because of something your dad said earlier? What do you think, though? What do you think Heaven's going to be like? Ice cream and books. Ice cream and books, that's a good guess, because ice cream and books are good things. And TV. TV. Maybe. I have my theories, too. Here's something, though, from the Word of God we can count on. Listen to this promise from the Lord. Isaiah 40 talks about the Lord being the everlasting God. He's the creator of the ends of the earth and He does not faint. You know what fainting is? Like when you pass out because you don't have enough blood in your head or something. You pass out, faint, or grow weary. That means really tired. He doesn't. He's the creator of the earth. He doesn't get tired. He says there, he gives power to the faint and to him who has no might he increases strength. And even young people will faint and be weary. Young men shall even fall exhausted eventually. But they who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. So basically what he's saying there is that There's coming a time where God is going to give his strength to those who need it, the weak. That would be all of us. He never gets tired, and so he's going to give his strength to us so that we never get tired. I bet you that's where C.S. Lewis got the idea in the last battle. We were just re-listening to that, but I actually had it in my notes already. When they were in the heaven of Narnia, the end of the world came, and they're in the Narnia heaven, you ever read the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, they are wonderful. But as they are in that new heaven, I just want to highlight one little comment he made just to think about one little aspect of heaven, this idea of not growing tired. At one point running further up and further in. And this is how he describes part of that. He says, The air flew in their faces as they were driving fast in a car without a windscreen. The country flew past as if they were seeing it from windows of an express train. Faster and faster they raced, but no one got tired or out of breath. And then it goes to the next chapter, and he begins this chapter in a wonderful way, which in the recordings we listen to, they leave this line out, but it's a wonderful line. He says, If one could run without getting tired, I don't think one would often want to do anything else. Isn't that a wonderful thought though? Think about it, if you could run as fast as you could and you would never grow tired, wouldn't that be great? Why do we stop oftentimes when we're having fun running around? We're out of breath, we're tired, we're getting sweaty, we're running out of gas. But imagine being able to run and not ever growing tired. You think it would be boring? I don't think so. Because it would all be the same, you think? But I don't think that's what's being pictured here. I think the idea is that you don't have to stop doing the interesting things you're doing because you don't grow weary. It's not all white, and spiritual, and bland, and nothing to do. I mean, don't get me wrong, there will be singing in heaven, but I dare say it'll be singing like you've never seen before. I would never get tired of going up and down a waterfall. That's right, they do then next swim up a waterfall, yeah. I don't know whether we're going to be able to do that in heaven or not. But nonetheless, nonetheless, the idea here is that in this life, We get tired, don't we? And sometimes it's not just our body's tired. And there's a rest coming for us. That that tiredness will be gone. That we can run and not grow weary. And keep exploring. And keep figuring out all this wonderful thing that God has created. There'll be a new heaven and a new earth. And we won't be tired in it. See, we're going to spend a little time, kids, today doing the other side of the coin that we hit several weeks ago when I was last here. In our passage, Israel wouldn't go into the promised land and get the kind of rest and prosperous rest they're going to have in the promised land because they didn't believe God. They hardened their hearts. And so we talked about how dangerous it is to turn away from the living God. Today, we're going to go to the other side of that coin and talk about what it means to enter God's rest. We get that phrase from Hebrews where it says, fight to enter God's rest, strive to enter God's rest. To strive means to fight or to struggle, to work really hard to enter into that rest, God's rest. But I don't think that rest means sleeping. That rest doesn't mean sleeping. It means that you won't be tired any longer. So I'm going to try to make a little bit of a case for that today, and you guys did a good job helping us introduce it. You guys can go back to your seats. See, the general problem that we as humanity have The general gist of our negative disposition as sinners, as fallen human beings, is that we stubbornly will not believe that God's wrath should be feared, on the one hand, nor his rest treasured. So we try to get satisfaction and rest other places. Some of us really like sleeping. We get rest by just taking a nap. If you've been running a race or something and you're physically exhausted, taking a nap or taking a rest or a sleep will be restorative to you, you'll feel better on the other side of that. But if all you did was rest, it wouldn't feel that good after a while, would it? We try to find rest in, sometimes literal rest, we try to find rest in distractions, our entertainments, and you know, in their proper places are all fine things. I'm not going to rail against TV. I'm not going to rail against the movies. These things are all nice things in their place, I think. There are wrong uses of them, to be sure. And one of the wrong uses of these things, even reading a good book, which is a wonderful gift, That was a very help to me even over this last week. I read a delightful little story throughout the week to take my mind in another direction and it was a wonderful gift. But if I was depending on that story or then the next story and then the next story to get my rest from all the turmoil, from all the hardship, it would not give me the rest I craved. There's a rest for us. We look for it all the wrong places. So we don't treasure the rest God is offering, and we don't fear the wrath of that same God. On both sides of that coin, we are in error as a race, a sin-cursed race that gets things exactly backwards. And that was Israel's problem. They were getting things exactly backwards. They've been rescued out of slavery, an oppressive slavery, and here in our story, they're wanting to go back. On the journey, though, they built up to this rebellion with grumbling after grumbling after grumbling. And that's how we do it, too. We grumble and then we grumble and we grumble. I don't want it to be hard. How many times did I have to wrestle with that over the last couple of weeks? Why does life got to be hard? If we don't nip that in the bud, It leads to a further rebellion. We grumble and we grumble some more, and then I want something good. I want something better. I have something good. I want something better now. That's just like Israel. They craved easy. Why does the journey have to be so hard? They craved better food. Miriam and Aaron even fell prey to craving glory. They wanted credit for what they were doing, their service. Recognize us. These are things that we grumble about, these things that we get discontented about. I was reading another book, it's about a practical theology of marriage, incidentally, but the point is really more broad than just marriage. He was making a point, there's several reasons why this book might not do you any good. And his first and primary point was, if you're discontent, it makes you unteachable. It's an interesting thought, isn't it? Do you think he's right? The more I think about it, I think he is. Because if you're always looking for that next thing, or a better thing, or getting married, it's not going to change that disposition. Israel was looking for the next thing, the better thing, the wish we could have this thing. They're told to go into the land and that God would fight with them, and they won't go. And then they're told to not go into the land, and then they go. This is an illustration of their hard heart. They do exactly the opposite of what they're told to do by the God that had so obviously revealed himself to them. Aside from the generation that lived with Christ himself, there is no generation that saw more mighty signs than this generation of Israelites. Egypt was defeated by this God. Mighty plagues singled them out for favor. led them out with a mighty hand, the killing of the firstborn, led them through the Red Sea on dry land, killing their enemies behind them, spoke to them from the mountain at Mount Sinai, so that they all trembled. But they grumbled, and they grumbled some more, and they grumbled some more. Do you see, this is not This is not just, I don't have enough facts. This is the heart of rebellion. I don't want to follow God. And pushed hard enough, we would all fail the test apart from God's kind grace. We are stubborn rebels, and we should be afraid of a similar hard heart. As the Lord Himself said to this generation, how long will this people despise me? Do you know what despise means? It means to treat somebody as if they're nothing. Treat them as if they're of no significance. How long will this people despise me? Treat me as if I'm of no significance. And how long will they not believe in me? That's putting their trust in me. in spite of all the signs that have done among them. So it's very simple logic here, right? God clearly revealed himself to Israel. Israel stubbornly and repeatedly refused to believe in him. Therefore, Israel has treated God as if he's not important at all. This is the conclusion that the living God came to. It's pretty straightforward, isn't it? How can you at this point not trust God? And we're warned with this story in the book of Hebrews, which will guide a lot of our discussion, because really Hebrews is taking this story and then giving some application of it. We gave the negative side of it last time. We'll give the now strive to enter the rest side, the positive side of it. But he says in Hebrews 3, 12 through 14, take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, because unbelief is evil. It's a willful pushing aside the obvious truth of the one true God who has revealed Himself clearly throughout history and even in our day. That same God has spoken to every generation. There's not a person on the planet that does not know there is a Creator. We're all wired by that same Creator. We all see the same universe. We see what He's made. We see the wonder of His works. We all have enough information to condemn us. We all suppress the truth in wickedness. Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart. In chapter 4, though, He switches to the other side of things and said positively what you should be doing. There he starts talking about the promise of entering His rest that still stands. There's a rest that still stands that you need to strive to enter. This similar rest that this generation of Israelites rejected, there's still one waiting there for you. That's what we're going to explore. Key verse is Hebrews 4, verse 11. Let us therefore strive, which means, as I already said, struggle or fight for, fight vigorously, to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. They have the story happening here in Numbers in view, and it says, don't fall prey. Don't miss that rest that they missed. They had a rest in front of them, and they missed it. So what is that rest? What do we mean by that rest? He says in verse 3 that we who have believed enter that rest, So we by faith enter the rest they missed, that rest, as he has said, as I swore on my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. Now, even while the dominant storyline in mind is what's happening in Numbers, he's actually quoting there Psalm 95, verse 11 for that particular phrase, because I read for you this story in Numbers and nowhere does it say rest in that story. It talks about entering the land. So what's this rest stuff? What is that? Well, Psalm 95 is also referring to the numbers wilderness wandering, and this is what it says there, Psalm 95 verse 8. Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, another wilderness event, as on the day of Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. For forty years I loathed that generation and said, they are people who go astray in their hearts and they have not known my ways. Therefore, I swore my wrath, they shall not enter my rest." So this here is a summary of this generation's rejection. And he summarizes it by saying, what I swore, in essence, was that they may not enter my rest. So not being able to go into the promised land, it was described in Psalm 95, that they couldn't enter God's rest. Well, still, what do we mean by that? And why is there still a rest to enter? Let's try to answer both those questions by doing a little backtracking here. Let it percolate. What do you mean by that rest? What do you mean? It's good. Let it percolate. Why there remains a rest for us? Well, it's the same God that is operating with Israel. Look at here how he handles things at this time. With Moses first, God mercifully tells Moses of his impending justice. Why is that merciful? Because then Moses gets a chance to intercede, which he then does. But this is what he says, I'm going to strike them with a pestilence and disinherit them. I have a promise for them, but they're not going to be my children anymore. I'm going to disinherit them and I will make of you, that's Moses, a nation greater and mightier than they." Sounds familiar, that's the same sort of thing that he said back when they made the golden calf in Exodus. And Moses then was also told ahead of time, here's your cue Moses, now enter Moses as the God appointed mediator to plead for the people. What does he say? Well, he says, well, what will the nations think of you? What will Egypt say? Well, these nations who will hear this, certainly hear the message from the Egyptians that you're with, and everybody knows that you're with us because your glory clouds with us all the time. The pillar of fire by night and pillar of cloud by day. What are they going to think? They're going to think, you know what they'll think because of how fallen people think? They'll think that you couldn't do it. But then, more profoundly, he talks about God's own character. God's own character. And he reflects back to another passage in Exodus where God revealed his glory to Moses by sharing what his character was like. I didn't actually cite it there. I should have looked it up. I don't want to say it's Exodus 34, but I'm just guessing. But hear the language. He says, and this is Moses speaking to the Lord, and now please let the power of the Lord be great as you have promised, saying, And this is the greatness that you revealed to me, right? The Lord is slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression. Now if that were you or me, we'd probably stop right there. But he doesn't, because that's not the full revelation. But he will by no means clear the guilty, but will punish it in the third and fourth generation. Because the glory of the Lord is not just mercy, And it's not just justice, which would have been the first instance, wiping them out and starting over with Moses. That would've been just. But that's not his full character. That's not how he's revealed himself to Moses. And Moses says, be great like you've revealed to me, that you would be forgiving of sins and judging of sins. You will forgive sins. because of your steadfast love, and you will by no means clear the guilty. Now that just makes our brains hurt, doesn't it? But God is that. That's God's character. And so then we see in the story a shadow of God's glorious character to be fully revealed when? When? When Christ comes on the cross. Do you see how this is a shadow of that? What did Christ do on the cross? He paid for our sins because somebody's got to pay. Because the guilty are always judged because God is good. You know, some well-meaning people always try to give comfort to times of loss like this and say, well, God's too good to let your sister suffer now and say, well, that's not really the point. God's goodness is why people go to hell. So that God's goodness is not enough here. God's goodness is why people are judged, because he is a good judge. He is a perfect judge. He never winks and nods at sin. He doesn't say, that's all right. You know, he's not indulgent. He is not. He is holy. He is perfect. And sin will always be punished. And it was punished on the cross for you and for me. That's the glory of the cross. But it's only that part of the glory, because the other part of it is that He's also merciful, which means you don't punish sin. And abounding in steadfast love. Why? Because He promised He would do it. Because He's that kind of God. So the cross is God's character in sharp, living color. And this here in this story is just a faint shadow of it, isn't it? Listen to what God does with this generation. It's a shadow of it. He says, I have pardoned according to your word, but truly as I live and all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord. And that's a certainty. None of the men who have seen my glory and my signs and have yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice shall see the land. But my servant Caleb, and then later he mentions Joshua. Except for those two, this generation were all going to be put to death in the wilderness. Because God is a perfect, good judge. And they would die. They hardened their hearts and it killed them. And the spies, they died right away. Except for Caleb and Joshua. But here's the mercy And yet he's not going to wipe them out as one man, as Moses put it. He's not going to kill the whole nation, but their children would survive and they would be led into the land. So you can see there's sometimes an individual that can harden their heart and so miss out on the promises. Sometimes a whole generation can miss out on the promises of God, but you can't thwart the promises of God to Israel because God provided mercy for them. He provided a mediator for them. Somebody to intercede for them. And see, all of these things are shadows of the Mediator, Jesus our Lord, who is even now praying for us at the right hand of God. And saying, for the sake of your glorious name, for the glory of your steadfast love, and your righteous wrath, which has been fulfilled through my death, let them in. Let them in. That's why we sing. Because Joshua, later on, the next generation, he's going to lead them into the promised land. But that too, in its entirety, is a shadow of sorts. Because, listen to how they talk about that too. At the end of Joshua, after he's won all the battles and there's peace, what does it say? Joshua, in 21 verse 44, And the Lord gave them rest. There is rest on every side, just as he had sworn to their fathers, not one of their enemies had withstood them. So the Lord had given all their enemies into their hands. Do you see what rest means in that context? The rest of that previous generation never got to enjoy was the fact that all their enemies would be defeated. So they have peace. So in one sense, we have to see the rest of you in Hebrews. back to Hebrews chapter 3 and 4, the rest in view there has to have this sense of being free from enemies, not just free from activity. We're not just talking about taking a nap. We're talking about peace. But this idea of rest is further informed by another statement in Hebrews. Now we'll zip back to Hebrews. Chapter four and the second half of verse three, just to get our context is that they shall not enter my rest. That's I swore they shall never not enter my rest. Referring to Israel in the wilderness, that generation, that wicked, unbelieving, hard hearted generation that willfully would not believe in trusting God. They should not enter my rest, although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. Whose works? God's works, for he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way. And God rested on the seventh day from all his works. Genesis 2.2. Interesting. And then he goes, and again in this passage, Psalm 95 again, he said, they shall not enter my rest. So the rest that he's talking about that Israel missed is even deeper than the rest that then Joshua gave them. He even says it explicitly. For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken on another day later on. Psalm 95 through David, years and years later, right? He spoke of a rest, of entering a rest. What? If they're already in the land, what rest then is in view? For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on, so then there remains a Sabbath rest. That's harking back to the creation rest of God. The Sabbath rest to the people of God. For whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works, as God did from his. And don't ever forget this. God never gets tired. When God rested on the seventh day, it wasn't because he needed a nap. No, it was not. What was that kind of rest? And again, We're trying to poke into it. Are we going to fully get our arms around this? Probably not. But I hope we at least fire the imagination here this Lord's Day. When God was finished with creation, what did He do in creation? He took the watery chaos, and He ordered it, and He filled it, and then He was done to do what? Enjoy it. No more enemies to be defeated. And there is a rest that in the Garden of Eden we failed to enter. And then in Israel's history, they failed to enter into that. And by that way, that little phrase of he gave them rest in every side, I've got several other passages where he speaks that way. God gave them rest when they were obedient to God, they trusted God, and then God gave them prosperity and he gave them rest from all their enemies. It's this kind of rest we're getting at here. What rest does God have for you and I? It's a rest where we won't grow weary. I mean, I'm mindful of Lamech. Remember Lamech? He was Noah's dad. And he lived to be 777 years old. But when he had Noah, I think he was about 500 or something like that. I'm guessing. I can't remember. I didn't look it up. But I think he was about 500. So he'd been living about 500 years, right? And he names Noah. Rest. That's what Noah means. Because he thought that maybe he would be the promised one that would give them rest. Because part of this sin-cursed world is where this world is weary. And we know that. We know weary. Sometimes everything is weary. We get that. And we try to fill ourselves up with a rest. We try to take a nap. We eat something that we love to eat. We try to do an activity that we enjoy. We're scraping after this rest. We want that fishing trip, or we want that vacation with the family, or we want that boat. And none of these things are bad things. These are all good gifts, right? But the reason they're good, do you know why they're good? Because they are hints, they are shadows. They are just tantalizing reminders that there is something that is good that's out there and that we are meant to enter. But it only comes from God. Don't miss the last, he's saying. Don't miss it. On the one side, negatively, don't harden your heart and abandon the one true God. No, on the contrary, Do everything you can, strive, struggle, fight, enter into his rest. He himself is there with you. That's where we're going. A couple of quotes along these lines. The noun rest, even the word itself, does not convey the thought of idleness, but rather of peace. Peace. It stands for consummation of a work accomplished and on the joy and satisfaction attended upon this. When you finish a job, job well done. You build a tree house, and you go all out, and you do your research, and you do it right, and you put it together, and then you get in there with your kids. And it's great. You build that boat. But you fill in your blank. You make that special recipe. It comes out perfect. It smells so good. And then you eat it. You see, these things are pointers at the rest we're talking about here. These are just little reminders, little shadows. Another quote, and by rest I do not mean inaction, but I mean an energy completely free from labour, without any feeling of suffering and with the most perfect ease. I go back to that illustration I used of the kids. Imagine running and it just you'd just be at perfect ease. It's been a long time that I even had a shadow of that, right? I still run around some and I'm thankful for that, thankful as far as that goes, but it always hurts, you know? But imagine running and it's all done. No more pain, no more even weariness. Let's strive to enter God's full and true rest. That's out in front of us. Don't put these good things that God's given us in this life in the wrong place. Don't try to get your full and final rest there. See them as good gifts from heaven, as reminders, as hints, little shadows. And thank God for them. Be thankful for all those things that you get. Be thankful. Enjoy those things. And share those things. Be generous with those things. And also, be willing to let go of those things. Because you know that you have a rest that those things are only just faint pointers at. You have the real thing to look forward to. As again, back in Hebrews 4. Again, verse 11. Let us therefore strive, struggle, fight to enter that rest. so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account." Do you see, the enemies in view here are not Canaanites, they are not Egyptians, They're not somebody pointing a nuclear missile at us? Real threats, real people out there do bad things? No, the enemy, the real enemy we should be terrified about, the one that really will do us in for eternity, is the enemy within. Or even the one within, without, and then spiritual warfare, right? The world, the flesh, and the devil. The world is sinful humanity out there. The chorus of people saying, no, you can't really know God. You can't really be sure. Or false religions. No, you've got to find it over here. You've got to find it this way, that way, the other way. The world leads us astray in any number of ways. But the flesh, the heart that just wants to go our own way, does not want to be in submission to the one true God. We hear His voice and say, you know, I just want to go the other way. His way doesn't seem good to me. He says, go in the land, and I don't want to go in the land. I want to go back to Egypt. He says, I can't go in the land, and I want to go in the land all of a sudden. I just can't figure it out. Well, it's not really complicated. You are a rebel. When somebody commands you, you want to do the opposite. Just like me. The world, the flesh, and of course the devil, they're spiritual forces at play here that we know very little about. But we know they're there, and we know there's a battle. We are fighting for our souls, for our future eternity. The stakes are high. And our real enemy is sin. And we have good evidence, good, clear historical evidence, that death itself was defeated by Jesus. He not only He not only brought Lazarus back from death for a short period of time, because then Lazarus died again, but he himself went to the grave and then came back out of the grave and ascended to heaven, never to die again, before many witnesses. This wasn't done in a closet. This wasn't done before one person. This was before many witnesses. And then he gave signs and wonders to these original witnesses while they wrote these things down. So we have a sure witness to these things. We have we have clear evidence that the living God has spoken historically to humanity, to you and to me. And he has defeated death. Do not harden your heart like Israel of old. Do not put your head in the sand of the overwhelming evidence. that God has won the victory and He will win the victory in front of us. But there is a fight to fight. It's part of the lesson here. Israel is being asked to take up swords and go and try to do battle with a wicked generation of Canaanites that were big and tall and scary. And we are called to face the blackness of our own sin. And it's not pretty. When the heat's on for me, and the heat has been on for me, I see my own sin. I see my own selfishness. It crops up again and again, and I have to battle it. But we are not battling by ourselves. And we're battling with the very one that defeated death itself. We've got a fight to enter, but Jesus is with us. Jesus will fight with us. That's the promise. Listen to how Paul put it in 2 Corinthians 10. He says, For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. We're not pulling out swords or guns or tanks. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ. Not just out there. In here, take captive every thought. We take the truth about Jesus. We meditate on the truth. We go to the Word. We find out what that truth is. And as he said in the Word, the truth will set you free. The truth, the truth will set you free. And what are you enslaved to? The Jews that Jesus said that to? They say, we've never been a slave to anyone. Ironically, when they're being dominated by Rome at the time, but we've never been a slave to anyone. And then Jesus talks about their sin. He said, when you obey sin, you are a slave to whoever you obey. Right? Same message here. We need to fight sin. And then with Jesus helping us, we will conquer. We will overcome. And we can be confident of that because God Himself in the person of Jesus and the Holy Spirit sent to help us has promised He will go with us. He promised He would never leave us or forsake us. With all this evidence, do not harden your heart. Strive to enter the rest of God with faith. That's the message. So daily, turn. Put your faith in the mercy and justice provided for us on the cross of Jesus Christ. The mercy and justice. Our sins have been paid for. We have been judged guilty in Christ. And then we've been judged innocent in Christ. We're not guilty in Christ. One small choice at a time each day. Today. Start today. Turn away from temptation and toward obedience because you trust Jesus. It comes down to simple, ordinary decisions every day. This is where we fight. These are our weapons. Truth. Prayer. The Living God. Let's pray. Father, hardness of heart threatens all of us. Wages war against our soul. Enticements in this life that promise far more than they could ever deliver. Lord, would you redeem these things, would these things transform into occasions for thanksgiving and reminders of your goodness, reminders of the eternal hope that we have. May we die to ourselves daily. May we be willing to let go of this life and give this life back to you and enter into your rest. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.