The Greatest Rest Series

Heaven is so appealing because it is a place where all negatives are forever eliminated.

No more war and struggle on every level, but peace and security with all threats gone. It

is a place of rest from all the strife of life. God’s goal is to share with all of His people the

blessedness of rest, which is the satisfaction that comes with a job well done and a task

completed. He finished His creation and rested, and He commanded His people to do the

same. The Sabbath was to be a taste of heaven where labor is replaced by leisure, and

where enjoyment was to replace employment. The Promised Land was a part of this same

picture. It was to be a place where His people dwelled in peace and prosperity in contrast

to being slaves for centuries in Egypt, and living in poverty. The Sabbath and Promised

Land were a taste of the ultimate in God’s plan for His people. They were a taste of

heaven.

These were mere shadows of better things to come, however, and they were never

adequate to accomplish the goal of giving people God’s experience of rest. The Sabbath

became a burden to people rather than a blessing because the Pharisees made so many

laws to regulate it that it became a pain. The Promised Land never became a place of

peace and rest because of the disobedience of the people and its history is one on warfare

and much disappointment. The children of Israel never did enter into the fullness of the

rest that God had for them, and so there remains yet a Sabbath-rest for the people of

God. It is still God’s goal to give rest to His people, and it is still the great challenge of His

people to enter into that rest. That is the essence of the message of Hebrews chapter 4.

God’s plan has not failed just because His people failed to receive and achieve it. He

wants His people to enter into His rest, and every generation of believers is expected to do

so.

Our rest is not found in the Sabbath, even though the principle of resting one day in

seven is still valid, and our rest is not in the Promised Land, for that was exclusive to

Israel alone. Our rest is in the Person of Jesus Christ who is our Sabbath and our

Promised Land. Jesus said in Matt. 11:28-29, “Come to me, all you who are weary and

burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am

gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Jesus is our rest, and in

Him alone do we find all the peace and comfort that God wills for us to have. He is our

Promised Land where we live in peace with God. He is the greatest rest because in Him

we have rest for our souls. It is not merely rest of the body that we have in Him. It is rest

of the soul, which means that we have in Him an inner peace with God that is a real taste

of heaven. The Sabbath only gave rest for the body and it was temporary, but in Jesus we

have rest for the soul that is permanent. The rest we have in Jesus is like the appetizer of

a great meal. It will be followed by that great meal which is the marriage supper of the

Lamb, which is the beginning of the eternal banquet we call heaven.

Hebrews 4 is the great rest chapter of the Bible, for the word rest is used 9 times in this

chapter, and that is more than any other entire book of the Bible. It is an important

subject because it is an important part of God’s plan for man, and the people He chose to

experience His best in time failed to experience it because of their unbelief. God gave up

on them and swore they would not enter into His rest, but He never gave up on getting

people to enter that rest. Man’s disobedience and failure will not stop God from achieving

His goal, and so there always remains a rest. There always remains the danger of missing

it also, and that is what this chapter is about. The promise remains of a rest, but the same

problem of unbelief also exists, and so the writer is warning this new generation of God’s

people to take heed that they do not miss God’s rest because of a hardened heart of

unbelief that caused so many in the past to miss it. God is going to have a people who will

enjoy His rest with Him for all eternity, and they will be a people who enjoy a strong taste