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Again, good morning. Please turn in your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 4. Hebrews chapter 4. Be looking at verses 6 through 8. Hebrews chapter 4, verses 6 through 8. Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had good news preached to them, failed to enter because of disobedience, he again fixes a certain day today, saying through David, after so long a time, just as it has been said before, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.

For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken of another day after that. We read in the scriptures just a few moments ago, seen from Mark chapter 4. It happened as the disciples were crossing the sea that a huge storm came up that scared the daylights out of the fishermen.

Now that's a storm. They had weathered many before, but this was a very intense storm. They felt like they were about to sink, and what was really upsetting was that Jesus was there asleep, perfectly calm. And they awakened him and they asked, Do you even care about us?

Where are you in this situation? And then he uttered those words: peace, be still, hush to the waves. And it became perfectly calm. Placid. A once very turbulent sea becomes still, perfectly, completely still. It's a good picture of what rest is about. It's a good picture about the one who gives that rest.

And when we hear God's voice, it has a settling and calming effect. It can settle and quiet the most turbulent sea, and it can settle the most troubled soul. This is what the gospel does. The gospel message speaks to put our faith and trust in God and let God calm your soul.

This is the message that the Hebrews needed to hear. They were in the amidst a very tumultuous time in church history. Nero's persecution. Many were thinking about turning back. Many were closing their ears to God's voice. Where is your rest? Do you rest in God? Is your rest found in God, His Word, and simply trusting in it?

Well, I hope it will be. That's why I'm here to exhort you to that. Because you'll never find true rest in your situation or in other people or in circumstances. Because what happens around us. Can easily agitate us. Sometimes it feels like we can be bombarded or constantly harassed on all sides by the worries and circumstances and things that come against us in any given week.

But we've got to be a people beyond that who rise above the circumstances and situations and worries and cares and harassments of this life. And we can only do so by believing God's word. We're in a great chapter in the Bible right now, Hebrews chapter 4. It's a chapter that's all about God's rest.

You see, good news is proclaimed for the purpose of benefiting the hearers. That's why God speaks good news. Is he wants to bring that good news into our lives so that we will combine it with faith so that it will produce a benefit in our lives. And that benefit in context of Hebrews chapter 4 is rest, soul rest.

You see, God wants you to enjoy. What he enjoys forevermore. He wants to bring you into that sphere, that fellowship of enjoying what he enjoys. And that is why the preacher in Hebrews 4 opens with such a strong exhortation to enter God's rest. Look at verse 1. Therefore, let us fear if while a promise remains of entering his rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it.

Strong language. Fear. The one thing you need to fear in life is not entering into his rest through unbelief. Believe his promises. And he opens this chapter with the good news about the good news. The good news is it's not too late for you to receive the good news.

Sometimes we think we're late to the game. We come late. Or that this is, we're too late to receive what God has for us, or too late to enjoy what He enjoys. But the good news is it's not too late. Today, if you hear His voice, you can enter into that rest.

And entering into God's rest is the very Purpose of your existence. That's why he made you to bear his image, to fellowship with him, to enjoy what you, what he enjoys, and so put what he enjoys on display. Entering God's rest is the very purpose for your existence, and that's why the preacher in Hebrews 4 interrupts himself to strongly exhort his audience to believe the good news.

Look at what he says in verse 2. He starts, let us enter that rest. And then he says, For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also. But the word they heard did not profit them because it was not united by faith in those who heard.

For we who have believed entered that rest, just as he said, 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 said somewhere concerning the seventh day, and God rested on the seventh day from all his works.

And again, in this passage, they shall not enter my rest. What he's saying is, look, let us, there's a promise to enter into God's rest. Rest. Now, before I go any further, let's make sure that we too must enter that rest. We too have had good news preached to us.

And we too need to combine the good news with faith for it to have any positive benefit. And so, in verse 6, we pick up in our passage this morning, the preacher picks up this theme again from verse 1. Let us therefore fear if while a promise remains of entering into his rest.

Then he says, Therefore, since it remains, verse 6, for some to enter it, see how he picks up this theme of entering God's rest. There are two things that you need to know about God's rest and about entering into God's rest. Two things. We'll be looking at those this morning.

Or maybe I'll just be preaching them. There you go. First, the opportunity to enter God's rest is still available. It's still available. This fact is explicitly made clear in these verses. First, it's clearly stated in verse 6. Look at verse 6. Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had good news preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience.

So there is. The promise remains in force. It remains. There is a promise that remains. It's in force. And what is that promise for some to enter into it? What is the it in verse 6? The rest, God's rest, referring back to verse 1. So in light, therefore, of everything that he's been saying in the scripture that he's been preaching from, Psalm 95, he has been expounding it.

He makes this statement, therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, some are certainly going to enter it. Opportunity is still there. Rest. There are some who are going to enter into God's rest, and the whole exhortation running through this passage is make sure that it's you, that you're among them.

As you study rest in the Bible, there are many dimensions to rest. Rest is sometimes referred to as a place, like a safe place. Canaan was pictured as such a place, a place of being settled. No more Roman. Around and not harassed by enemies, a place of settlement, being free from the attacks of enemies.

Rest can also involve a specific time on the calendar. Sabbath days were given as frequent reminders that we must take time to rest. We must take time to reflect. We must cease our own activities, rest in God's provision, trust in Him. We need rest. And you need to put that on your calendar.

Rest can also involve a state of being. A state of being. A soul at rest is a soul that is ceased from internal worries, a soul that is free from the pains of worldly harassments. A soul that is satisfied. A soul that is stable. And a soul that is marked by confidence in God.

Such is a soul at rest. Rest in the Bible can also refer to a person. God is our refuge. God is our fortress. God is our provider. My soul looks to Him and confidently waits for Him. God provides for his people's physical needs. You wouldn't be here if he didn't.

You want proof? God's provision? Here we are. But it's more than that. He knows we have physical needs. He also knows we have righteousness needs. We need to be righteous. He knows that if we are going to have a relationship with him, we must meet the perfect standards of righteousness to be able to fellowship with him.

That is why he gives us Jesus Christ, our King, His Son. He gives us His righteousness. He provides for our physical needs. He provides for our spiritual needs. He provides for our righteousness. He provides everything we need for life and fruitfulness in Him. He is to be trusted, no matter what your circumstances are telling you that you may face this week or you faced last week.

But the good news is, there are some who are going to enter into the fullness of God's rest. Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, that's the good news. And that's extended to you today. But there are some who will not enter it. And they are described in this verse as the disobedient, those who were rebellious.

Look back. Those who formerly had good news preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience. It's talking about that Exodus generation that came out of Egypt. But because they didn't learn to trust in God and believe him, they didn't enter into the land of Canaan. They didn't trust in God.

They thought God was going to kill them in the land of Canaan. So they said, let's get another leader and let's go back to Egypt. That's rebellion. They're not just helpless victims. They're determined rebels to not do what God wants them to do. And they got there because of unbelief.

Unbelief inevitably leads to disobedience. Because they didn't believe, they wouldn't obey. You see, the only reason you will not enter God's rest is because of disobedience, like that of the Exodus generation. If you're not experiencing God's rest today, it is because of disobedience. Enough has been revealed about God to your soul that if you would combine it with faith, you would find rest in God.

But like that generation who had seen and had heard good news, they stubbornized their heart. They chose not to believe. And it resulted in disobedience. You see, to treat lightly the message proclaimed in the gospel is to tempt God and is to keep trying God's patience, which ultimately leads to forfeiting the rest that He gives.

That's why in verse 1, the preacher is saying, Let us fear. Look at what it says in verse 19: 3:19. See, we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief. Therefore, let us fear. If that same unbelieving heart is in us, let us be fearful of not obeying.

Let us be fearful of our unbelief. That's the thrust. That he is communicating and very practical. I can see. Oh, so that's what I was supposed to say. Okay. You see, the disobedient will never know the fullness of God's rest in this life, and nor will they enjoy what God enjoys in the new heavens and the new earth.

The fact that the opportunity to enter is still available is clearly stated in verse 6. But in verse 7, it's also clear that the opportunity still exists today because the word today still means today. Look at verse 7. He again fixes a certain day, today. Saying through David, after so long a time, just as it has been said before, today, today, this very moment.

And what are you saying? Even though so much time had passed from the Exodus generation, in Psalm 95, David is able to say, There is still today enter into his rest. And this same passage. Psalm 95, our preacher of Hebrews picks it up and is preaching to a Hebrews generation there during Nero's reign.

Again, saying, Today is the day that you can enter into his rest. Don't harden your heart, don't stubbornize it, but believe the gospel, believe the things that God has spoken, and let that hush settle your soul today. It had not expired in David's generation, it had not expired during the Hebrews' generation, and it hasn't expired in 2026.

The opportunity to enter God's rest is still available and held out to each of us today. See to it that you enter it. Well, there's a third reason that underscores this fact that the opportunity to enter God's rest is still available. It says clearly in verse 6, some are going to enter it.

Verse 7, today still means today. And in verse 8, it's clearly. That Joshua didn't provide them this kind of rest. Joshua didn't provide this rest. Look at verse 8. For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken of another day after that. So the fact that the psalmist speaks of another day of rest beyond those days of Joshua's time establishes the fact that God's rest is still available.

God's rest is still available. Joshua's time. Now we need to take a few moments to think about this and study some other scriptures because I think there's need to sort through. How does this text, for if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken of another day.

How does that square with the statement in Joshua 21, 43? Let me read this to you. You remember that the Joshua generation showed lots of faithfulness. They went into the land and they took the land. And then in Joshua 21, 43, we read these words. So the Lord gave Israel all the land which he had sworn to give to their fathers, and they possessed it and lived in it.

And the Lord gave them rest on every side according to all that he had sworn to their fathers. And no one of all their enemies stood before them. The Lord gave all their enemies into their hand. How does that reconcile? We let Scripture reconcile and interpret Scripture. We want to understand how does this harmonize?

Well, it's very simple. This statement made in Joshua simply demonstrates God's faithfulness to do what he said he's going to do. It is not a statement, if you read it carefully, it is not a statement that God had fulfilled all of his promises to Abraham. There are still a lot of promises that he made to Abraham that were still to come.

One of them being Christ himself, the seed. But what Joshua was stating at the end of his life was that what God had done bringing Israel into that land, that generation, that Joshua generation into the land, it indicated to Israel that God could be trusted to bring about everything else that he had promised to do.

God is faithful. He is faithful to Abraham. And some distinctions need to be made. Between Israel and a generation of Israel. Very important. You make this distinction. The Exodus generation was not the Joshua generation. For God to be faithful to Israel, he'd have to be faithful to both, to all generations of Israel.

And he is. Has been. He brought a generation of Israel out of Egypt, but they proved to be faithless. But God remained faithful to Israel and to that generation. Think about it. What would happen if God just said, okay, I'm done with all this Israel thing, you're all gone?

What would happen? No Israel, no fulfilled promise to Abraham. But God remained faithful to Israel, and so he continued to provide for that faithless generation in the wilderness, so to bring forth another generation that he would bring into the land. You see that? God remained faithful to one generation so that there would be another generation that would come forward, even though they were.

Faithless. And so he brought forth another generation to enter the land. But as you keep reading the Bible, you realize they too quickly became unfaithful. You remember some of the opening words in the book of Judges? Listen to this. Judges chapter 2, verse 1. Now the angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and he said, I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land which I have sworn to your fathers.

And I said, I will never break my covenant with you. That's God talking. He's the one who swore to the fathers. He says, I will never break my covenant with you, Israel, with Abraham. And then he says this in verse 2: And as for you, this generation, I said to you, you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land.

You shall tear down their altars, but you have not obeyed me. What is this you have done? Therefore, I also said, I will not drive them out before you, but they will become as thorns in your sides, and all their gods will be a snare to you. So it's very clear that God brought another generation in, who too.

Would prove to be faithless, it's clear that there was no generation of Israel that was ever permanently settled in the land. And yet that's exactly what God promised to Abraham. He says this in Genesis 13:15, for all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants, plural forever.

There's an eternal component to that. And he says it multiple times. In Genesis 17, 8, he says this, I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.

You see, the rest that God had promised to Abraham involved an eternal element. But entrance into the land during the Exodus generation was based on a conditional promise. That was what the Mosaic covenant was about. If you will go in and you will be faithful, then all these things will come upon you.

And they affirmed, and they said, yes, we don't really want to hear God. God's voice. Just tell us what God wants and we will do it. That was their response. We can do all that God wants and we will do all of God's wants, but Moses, just make sure he talks through you.

Don't have him talk directly to us. You see, the law was given to show people the evil and the inability of the fallen human condition. We cannot bring about what God wants in us because of our evil condition and because of our limited condition. You see, Israel, in order for them to occupy the land, they would have to come to the point of looking to the one true God.

They would have to come to the point of bankruptcy and trust in the one true God. And without trust, they could never occupy the land. Faith was necessary. Faith in God was necessary to enter the land and to occupy the land. And fast forward it to our times.

God has yet to permanently settle a generation of Israel in the land. Of Canaan according to his promise to Abraham. Yes, there's a generation of Israel currently in the land, but they are far from settled. Just look at the news, they're far from being settled in the land.

Their life still very much hangs in the balance. I remember walking the ramparts around Jerusalem with a journalist in Israel, a very famous one, and she said, Is it even possible for all this to work? Holocaust looks like it'll again be on our radar. Their lives still hang in the balance.

They are unsettled in the land because their hearts are still far from God. So, when you are praying for the peace of Jerusalem, you are praying for much more than a temporary ceasefire. You are praying for the conversion of Israel to Christ, to really trust in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to really listen.

Listen to the teachings of Moses and the coming of our Lord Himself. Jesus said in Luke 13:35, after the crucifixion generation had made it clear they had rejected him, he says, Behold, your house is left to you desolate. And I say to you, You will not see me until the time comes when you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

The crucifixion generation rejected their Messiah, and so the house of Israel was left desolate. You know what that means? Without a Messiah. Left without a Messiah until a future generation would recognize their Messiah, would recognize the crucifixion of their Messiah, and would say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

So when you're praying for the peace of Jerusalem, you are praying for nothing short of the second coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, because that's what it's going to take to bring peace to Jerusalem. All other peaces are false and temporary. But in order for there to be a future generation to recognize the Messiah and say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, God is going to be faithful to the current generation of Israel to ensure the existence of a future generation.

And I don't know when it's going to happen. But just as God provided for the Exodus generation even after they rejected him, God continued to provide and protect Israel's existence all the way up today, even after they crucified him. Why? So that a future generation would be here on earth and in the land, so that God could bring about his promise to Abraham.

That is why we see Israel still in existence today. Those who oppose Israel's existence oppose God. Those who curse Israel's existence curse God. And be sure, God will bring about all that he has promised. Concerning the physical offspring in the lineage of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But you can be sure something about that future generation.

That generation will not only be the physical seed of Israel, they will also be of the spiritual seed of Abraham. They will have the same faith as Abraham in the one who would come from Abraham, who would be the source of blessing to all nations. You see, the hang-up with many eschatological systems is that they fail to recognize all the parties in the Abrahamic covenant.

There are three major ones: there's the physical seed of Abraham, there is the spiritual seed of Abraham, and then there is the one unique seed of Abraham through whom all the nations will be blessed. The physical seed are of the lineage of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Israel, the spiritual seed are those from all nations who have the same kind of faith as Abraham.

And the one seed is Jesus Christ, through whom all the nations will be blessed. And when you. Fail to recognize these distinctions, you inevitably end up in some form of replacement theology. Well, it really applies to the physical seed and not the spiritual seed. Or it applies to the spiritual seed and not the physical seed.

Or it applies to the one seed and not the others. You must take that. It involves them all. The promises that God made to Abraham involve the physical and the spiritual children of Abraham and the one through whom all the nations will be blessed. And this is the gospel that was preached beforehand to Abraham.

Remember, we spent a lot of time in the book of Galatians. Remember what Galatians 3:8 said? The scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, All the nations will be blessed in you. The gospel. The gospel is God's answer to the universal bankruptcy of fallen humanity.

You need God in your life. And the way you get God in your life is to trust what He says, to believe in what He says, and to receive. Receive his Son, Jesus Christ. And that is what will bring you back from the dead. You see, when we come to the end of ourselves, we are ready to come under God's grace and enter into his rest.

The gospel brings us to the end of ourselves. It doesn't leave any prisoners. We must come fully confessing our bankruptcy, our dependency, and our reluctance to even believe and confess that too, and then choose to believe. Choose to trust. I love what A.W. Pink said in differentiating the covenants between Abraham and the covenant made through Moses at Sinai.

He says this, God's promise to Abraham was made on the ground of pure grace. No condition whatever was attached to it. But grace only superabounds where sin has abounded. Sovereign grace intervenes only after the responsibility of man has been tested and his failure and unworthiness manifested. And that's where the gospel takes us.

It points out our sin. And it points out our shortcomings to drive us to the one who is complete and to the one whom there is no lack and the one who can say to ourselves, peace, be still. Now the law drives us to God. And this brings us back to the rest promised in Hebrews 4:8.

Let's come back there. Joshua did not provide Israel the kind of rest that was promised in the gospel, verse 8. For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken of another day after that. Fact, the opportunity for you to enter into God's rest is still available today.

It's clearly stated in verse 6: today still means today, and Joshua didn't provide this kind of rest. So we've looked at the opportunity to enter. That God's rest is still available. Now I want to look into the criteria for entering into God's rest. This is the second thing you need to know about entering God's rest.

The criteria. Hasn't changed. Look back at verse 7. He says this, saying through David, after so long a time, just as it has been said before, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. He then again lifts up Psalm 95:11. This is the main text of the preacher in Hebrews.

Look back at verse 3:8. Do not harden your hearts as when they provoked me in the day of wilderness. I'm sorry, verse 7. Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. Do not harden your hearts. There it is.

That's his message. Look again at 3:13, but encourage one another today, as long as it is still called today, so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. So encourage one another. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts and help each other not to harden their hearts.

Why? Because look at verse 15. He then comes to it again, 3.15. While it is said today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. Hearts. And now we come down to 4, verse 7. Today, he said through David, Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.

Do you see what he's doing? He keeps coming back to Psalm 95:11, and that is the message he is saying, he is communicating to that audience there. And do not stubbornize your hearts. Three times, he comes back to that saying, three times in a short pay attention. He keeps saying it.

It's a third time he comes back to this text. Notice the timing is the same. The criteria is the same. And the timing is the same. Today, today, you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. Today, urgency is on his mind. Today. The moment you hear is the moment God expects you to exercise faith, not sometime afterwards.

You need to pay close attention here because the time to have faith is not in our control. The time to exercise faith is not in your control. You can only believe when you hear his voice. The only time you can exercise faith is when God speaks to you.

Makes sense. But the connection between unbelief and disobedience is unmistakable. Look back at chapter 3, verse 19. So we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief. Look down at verse 6. For since there remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had good news preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience.

So they didn't enter because of unbelief. And then in verse 4, 6, they didn't enter because of disobedience. The two are very connected. The one leads to the other. Unbelief leads to disobedience. Therefore, what are he saying? There's an urgency to obey God's voice. To wait, to obey, is disobedience.

To wait, to obey is to choose a path of disobedience. To choose a path of unbelief. Listen, the very nanosecond that you hear God's voice, you choose. A trajectory, belief or unbelief, trust in God or disregard. It's urgent. See to it that the very moment you hear God's voice, you are quick to respond.

And if you feel sluggish, say, God, help my sluggishness. The very moment you hear God's voice is when you respond. To delay is to disobey. And the timing is still the same. Criteria involves timing. But also the means is still the same. Not only is the timing the same, but the means, God's voice.

Today, if you hear His voice, and the voice of God is synonymous with His Word. You see, there is great benefit to hearing the voice of God. And this is what makes His word exceedingly valuable. Do you really believe that God's Word is intended to benefit your soul?

There's rest in salvation, there's rest from circumstance, there's rest from all kinds of anxieties, and resting in the promises, standing. On the promises? Do you really believe God's Word is intended to benefit your soul? Well, the degree to which you believe will be marked by the degree to which you search the scriptures.

Do you see the scriptures as great treasure? And are you one who goes after those treasures? That says something about your belief in what God's Word is. The benefit, benefits in life. The greatest benefits of God are tied to faith in His Word. And that's what makes His Word exceedingly valuable.

We need God's Word. Deuteronomy 8:3. God says, He humbled you and let you be hungry, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of God. You see, we are more than just brute animals.

We are to relate to God and image God, and we do so through His Word, by hearing His voice, and combining that voice with faith and responding. A lot more to say on this. Men maybe just need to come. To the men's retreat. Peace. Be still. This is the gospel mandate.

Cease striving. Trust in God. Trust also in Jesus Christ. Why are some of you so slow to believe the gospel? Why are you so slow to believe all that the scriptures have testified? It is only because of a lack of faith. Christ calls you into a relationship with his heavenly Father.

Through his shed blood, he will mediate on your behalf. He will be your shepherd. He will be your guide. He will be your king. And he has gone to prepare a place for you. He will protect. He is our peace. He is the refuge of our soul. He is the gift of heaven.

His voice can silence the roughest seas. And his voice can quiet the most troubled souls. Let us come to Him, be coming to him, and always be coming to him. Enter his rest today. Heavenly Father, thank you for the truth of your word that just speaks so deeply into the core of our beings, dividing soul and spirit, going down to the very core of who we are, Father.

And as we look deeply into your word and we look deeply into our own hearts, Father, we see lack. But then we see your supply. We see lack in our own ability. We see a deficiency in our morality, in our ability to choose, our inability to choose the best paths forward.

Father, we see inability on so many levels. We see our inability to be able to face and to overcome the difficulties that we face each week, and then we see your supply. You have guaranteed promises to your people, and you will be faithful to bring them about. And so we trust in you.

And help us to trust in you more. In Christ's name. Amen.