Faith's Rest (Individual Messages)

Introduction

Hebrews 3:7–4:16 (NKJV)7Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you will hear His voice,8Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness,9Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, and saw My works forty years.10Therefore I was angry with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, and they have not known My ways.’11So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’ ”12Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God;13but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.14For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end,15while it is said: “Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”16For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses?17Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness?18And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? (God’s purpose was not just to get them out of Egypt, but to get them into an inheritance, into His rest)19So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.4:1Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it.2For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it.3For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: “So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest,’ ” although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.4For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”;5and again in this place: “They shall not enter My rest.”6Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience,7again He designates a certain day, saying in David, “Today,” after such a long time, as it has been said: “Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts.”8For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day.9There remains therefore a rest for the people of God.10For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.11Let us therefore be diligent (make every effort, work) to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.12For the word of God is living and powerful (active), and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.13And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.14Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast