Hebrews 3
7So, as the Holy Spirit says: "Today, if you hear his voice, 8do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert, 9where your fathers tested and tried me and for forty years saw what I did. 10That is why I was angry with that generation, and I said, 'Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.' 11So I declared on oath in my anger, 'They shall never enter my rest.' "
12See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. 14We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. 15As has just been said: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion."16Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? 17And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert? 18And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? 19So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.
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John 6
43"Stop grumbling among yourselves," Jesus answered. 44"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. 45It is written in the Prophets: 'They will all be taught by God.'Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. 46No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. 47I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. 48I am the bread of life. 49Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. 50But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. 51I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." 52Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" 53Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. 57Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever." 59He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
As we can not know for sure in this lifetime who gains eternal rest in heaven, surely the forty year journey of the Israelites is a picture we need to refer back to and see the lesson, as Jesus points out again in John 6. The journey through the desert is fully a picture that we need to see of us too. The entire forty years was not about getting to a physical destination, but a transforming destination. Geographically it could have been a lot sooner, but on a heart and soul level, the journey was about change, and not all seemingly good in the face of it, but from God’s eye ;true to His Word. This lesson in particular was all about faith. The only thing keeping these reluctant Israelites from the promised land was their lack of faith. Hebrews 3:12 “See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. What does this say to us and our walk? How do we bridge that gap ? And what truly is the object of our faith, is it submitting trust always in Jesus Christ ?
ReplyDeleteSo is the question as much about, did the Israelites in the wilderness that did not believe that God would see them through, and did they go to heaven or hell, but what is God’s Word telling us about our final destination and our faith issues.
Personally, I often feel an unrelenting need to have all the answers, to this life, eternity,
God’s Word and His promises to us, almost to a point where I feel self deserving, and so is this too a faith issue.? Reminds me of my parents telling me the final reason and answer to my query’s were, “because I told you so”, and with us and God, sometimes that needs to be enough. If some days I get plagued with doubts that are bigger than my little mind can ponder, I too need to pray to let God fill this void with faith.
So, in this heaven or hell question, there is a faith issue which we need to have assured, and yes for our obvious heaven and hell reasons. The good thing is it is not something that God gave for us to figure out. John 6:45 “It is written in the Prophets: 'They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me.” Heb 12:2 says "...Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith". And Rom 12:3 says " ... God has allotted to each a measure of faith." These two verses tell us that faith is not something that we do, that faith is a gift from God. Rom 10:17 says " ... faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ." So faith is a gift from God that we receive from the word. Rom 5:1 says, " ... justified by faith" and Rom 4:5 says, " ... his faith is counted as righteousness". We see from these verses that faith is not of our doing for that would be a works based salvation, and we know from Eph 2:8,9 that salvation is surely not from works. However Eph 2:8 says something else "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God." In Eph 2:8 the "it" refers back to faith which is consistent with Rom 12:3 and the other scriptures. Faith is a gift from God. Rom 3:28 also says, " ... a man is justified by faith." We read in Rom 9:32 that Israel did not arrive at righteousness because they did not pursue righteous by faith but as though it were by works. If we must muster up our own faith then justification is by works and again we know that is not correct.
So then if the Israelites in the desert did not find their eternal resting place in heaven, and too we let our journey end in the desert, it can only be because we do not have the faith that He would give us, to trust in His righteousness in His eternal plan.
ReplyDeleteHebrews 4:1-13 Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith. Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said,
"So I declared on oath in my anger,
'They shall never enter my rest.' " And yet his work has been finished since the creation of the world. For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: "And on the seventh day God rested from all his work." And again in the passage above he says, "They shall never enter my rest."
It still remains that some will enter that rest, and those who formerly had the gospel preached to them did not go in, because of their disobedience. Therefore God again set a certain day, calling it Today, when a long time later he spoke through David, as was said before:
"Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts." For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.
For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.