CANAAN REST THE REHEARSALS; HEAVEN REST THE REAL DEAL
Rewriting Hebrews 4:1-11 to a Contemporary Audience
From the very
beginning, God has always have it in mind to give His children rest from their
labours and struggles against Sin and control of Satan which came as a result
of the fall of man. However, while awaiting the fulness of time, God had to use
the nation of Israel to illustrate how the ultimate rest will be like. Israel's
experience of slavery in Egypt, God's promise of a place of rest for them and
their eventual deliverance were all part of an illustration of the ultimate
salvational rest.
The promise of a place of rest for Israelites was the good
news that illustrated the promise of heavenly rest that God has gave His
children. Since this promise of rest was part of a covenant, it's fulfilment
was based on the condition of 'belief and obedience'. Unfortunately, out of
several hundreds of thousands of people who were delivered from Egypt, only two
people (Joshua and Caleb) fulfilled the condition of belief and obedience. That
means, just those two entered into the physical place of rest God promised them.
Remember, God was just using His dealings with Israelites as an illustration of
His ultimate Salvation. Now the danger is that, people are looking at that
promise only as the physical land of Canaan and conclude that God had already
fulfilled that promise when Joshua took the Israelites into Canaan which today
is the land occupied by Israel and Palestine.
Now, this is the real truth: the
promise of a place and experience of rest that God gave His people was a
spiritual and heavenly promised-land and since what Joshua gave the Israelites
was physical, it therefore means that, the promise of real spiritual and
heavenly rest still stands today and it can only be gotten through Jesus
Christ. However, note this strong warning: just as those Israelites who heard
the first good news of the promise could not encounter it because of their
unbelief which manifested in their disobedience, there is still the danger that
many of God's people today would miss the encounter of the promise of spiritual
and heavenly rest because of unbelief. (Please note: when I say 'unbelief', I
do not mean that the Israelites did not agree with the fact that God sent
Moses; or that Christians today do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God;
rather, 'unbelief' in this context means: the character of those Israelites and
Christians today do not reflect what they confessed as their belief. This is
what would make Christians miss the spiritual and heavenly promise).
There is the possibility that some people today may have the repentance and born again experience and miss the heavenly rest, which is the ultimate salvation, because the profession of their belief do not show in the character of love for God, love for man and obedience to God.
For this reason, let us strive to qualify
for the real spiritual and heavenly rest of God. Let us strive by putting our flesh under
spiritual discipline; by carefully avoiding disobedience so that we would not
also miss the promise of rest like those disobedient Israelites did. The phrase
'strive to enter' indicates that: although God has already provided the
heavenly rest by grace; it does not mean that we can live carelessly and expect
to walk into the heavenly rest - building a vibrant relationship with God
requires hard work. Some people on the other hand can also make the unbalanced
mistake of seeing this promise as only in the future, i.e when we get to
heaven. However, the Holy Spirit, several hundred years after Joshua led the
Israelites into Canaan, spoke through David concerning another day of rest,
calling it "Today".
In Psalm 98:7,8 David referred to the incident
where the ancient Israelites rebelled against God when they asked for water and
caused Moses to miss the Canaan rest. David ended by saying, 'Today, if you
hear God's voice, do not harden your hearts as your fathers did'. That means,
although the ancient Israelites hardened their hearts and missed the promised
rest, God did not cancel the rest, He only prevented those set of people from
entering; there is still another opportunity today. You can still experience
rest from struggles of Sin and control of Satan today, not until you get to
heaven.
Someone can experience a life of victory over Sin and Satan's
manipulations like worries, fears and doubts while here on earth; it is
possible to come to that point in one's life that he says, "although I
cannot avoid the storms of life, yet, I can avoid Satan using any of those
storms to cause me to worry, doubt, fear or sin against God". When one
gets to that point, he can say that he has ceased from struggling against Sin
and Satan. In fact, even Satan himself takes a break from trying to tempt him,
at least for a season. So, while we await the eternal rest in heaven, we can
still experience a bit of that heavenly rest while on earth. This promise of
heavenly rest is still open for and to any child of God who will grab it.
