The Book of Hebrews 3:12-19 Take care, brethren

Good morning. This is an expanded and explained version, which we do from time to time. That's where I get the sense that the translators could have done better. And so I want to bring some things out here. So thank you for reading that for us. And you also have it, as you probably noticed, not only here on the screen, but also on the top of your handout there as well. The top part, as we'll point out here, is addressed directly to the church, which in this case is the Jewish believers who are receiving this letter. And then the bottom part is spoken of the nation of Israel.

And so we'll be taking a look at that piece by piece. As we pointed out last week, we're in a section here that's a part of a pattern. Hebrews has five cycles of starting off with plain explanation and then exhortation. Now I should clarify, the exhortation doesn't mean that the explanation stops. It means that alongside the explanation is also an exhortation. I urge you that, or you must, kind of statement. And so we'll see that continue here in today's passage and even on into next week's passage as well, as we look at the exhortation part of the book of Hebrews.

Now, I want to ask you, how do you feel about backwards? How does backwards settle with you? Let me give you an example here. How does that work? you know, things get backwards. So, anyway, I think it's important we think about backwards and how you feel about it. You know, backwards happens. So, at any rate, it's important that you consider this. So, anyway, now, The reason I bring up all this backwards stuff is that the readers, the audience that this letter was going to were tempted to go backwards.

These believers were in Christ, having been Believers in Christ and they were in the body of Christ. So they're Christians like us But they came from a strong Jewish background and it was steeped in endless temple sacrifices Which of course is the nature of the Jewish temple sacrifices you got one sacrifice for this and another sacrifice for that Certain events and then there's annual cycles and you just got lots and lots of sacrifices as a matter of fact There's almost a sacrifice for everything There's even voluntary sacrifices if you haven't had enough with the required ones. So plenty of sacrifices, and they were attempted to fall back to that. And so the author of Hebrews is trying to get them to understand, look, if you do that, you're definitely going backwards, and I want you to understand what backwards means. So although these pictures may have been humorous, the intent here is to show in this letter how serious backwards is for these Jewish Christians. So they were all tempted to go backwards into the Jewish system that they'd all been steeped in and brought up with, and to them that was the way you do things. That was normal, right? We've always done it that way. Ever hear that before?

So rather than seeing the temple sacrifices as a big sign pointing to Christ, because that's what the sacrifices were, The sacrifices were a big sign pointing to Christ as the ultimate sacrifice. These believers were being drawn to go back to the sign itself. The temple was a sign. and they were drawn to go back to the sign itself.

And as we pointed out last week, that can be a very dangerous thing to do. When you see a sign that says fire exit and points in a particular direction, you don't want to stand by the sign that says fire exit and stay there, right? Especially in the middle of a fire. The fire exit is pointing you where you need to go and you'd probably better get there and make sure you get there and follow the sign. So they're tempted to go back to the sign and stand there, rather than the reality that the sign was pointing to, which was Christ.

Now, one of the things we want to do to get the big picture here is compare the Israelites, as this passage does, and contrast it with the church. When we say compare and contrast, we have a meaning behind that here, and that is compare says what's the same, and contrast says what's different.

So, starting with the Israelites, the Israelites were all baptized into something. Who were they baptized into? Into Moses. We have that insight from 1 Corinthians 10, verse 2. The Jews were all baptized into Moses, in the sea and under the cloud. They were all placed into Moses.

They were to enter the land of Israel and to take it. All this wandering in the wilderness that they did was not God's plan. They were to go to the land of Israel and take it. It had been promised to Abraham. It was promised to Isaac. And it was promised to Jacob. And they had been told about this land. And they were to go in and enter it and rely upon God to win the battles for them. That's what they were supposed to do. But they refused. And the Lord said, OK, what's going to happen? You're going to wander in the wilderness now for 40 years. OK? That's a long time. 40 years you're going to wander. You're going to stay out here instead of going into the land. And every one of you who disbelieved, 20 years and up, every one of you who disbelieved, you're going to die out here. Except for Joshua and Caleb.

So, you better really like manna. Because you're going to eat manna for how long? 40 years. Those of you who like variety, good luck. Matter of fact, you're going to figure out, okay, what do I have to do to make this manna interesting? Maybe put some hot sauce on it? I've got to do something, because I'm going to have manna every day of the week. And next week, what's on the menu? Hon, what are we having for dinner tonight?

Those kinds of questions. Does this manna make me look fat? Things like that, right? So, you're going to eat manna for 40 years because you refuse to go in. But that's the way it's going to be. Now, we in the church, we're not baptized into Moses, who gave the law. We're baptized into Christ.

Romans 6.3. Galatians chapter 3 as well.

We're all called to rest in dependence upon who we are in Christ and who Christ is in each one of us. And as we'll see here in the book of Hebrews, and we're to encourage one another in that resting. So when, when somebody gets up here and they say at the end of the service, now, now rest this week, they're not just kidding. Okay. It's an encouragement. That's a biblical encouragement. When you see people sign off their emails and letters, you know, resting, they mean it. And it's an encouragement for you to rest as well. We are called to encourage one another in this resting.

Now, this baptism we pointed out a couple weeks back was something that the believers understood from what was used in the common culture and one example that we gave was they would take a piece of cloth and baptize it in the red or purple dye and then bring it out and that cloth would be, with the technology of the day, permanently changed as a result of that baptism.

A similar use that we pointed out a couple weeks ago was they would take a sword after it had been formed and they heat it white hot and then when it was white hot, plunge it in water which would case harden the sword. And it would permanently change the nature of the metal as a result of that immersion. So those were two examples of baptism and how that word was used.

It wasn't just simply a religious word as we typically think of it today. So being placed into Christ means being immersed into Him and with the result being that you're radically and permanently changed. That's how it would have been understood by the people of that time. We are called, as a result of having been placed into Christ, to recognize that permanent and radical change that has taken place.

We were not baptized into Moses as the Jews were. We've been baptized into Christ. Their baptism into Moses made them subject to the 613 laws in the Old Testament. We were not baptized into Moses. We were baptized into Christ and separated from the law. Let's talk about resting. There's resting, and then there's resting. And what I mean by that, there is Israelite resting, and then there's church resting. And I hope you're having a nice time resting in the pews here.

The Israelites were discouraged from entering the land by the ten spies that they sent out. and from entering God's rest from all their enemies in the land so that there was death among them and no rest for 40 years all because of what? Unbelief. You're going to have lots and lots of funerals. You're not going to rest and the rest would have been a rest from all their enemies once they conquered the land and God would be their fighter for them in that conquering of the land. But no, they would not have that. They would not have that rest. They would have first 40 years of funerals. 40 years of manna. And by the way, you had better like the clothing that you've got on because it's not going to wear out. You're going to wear it to your last day.

We in the church, however, are encouraged to enter God's rest diligently And daily, depending upon who we are in Christ and who He is in us. By the Spirit, and we've got three E's here, enabling, energizing, and empowering. And the New Testament uses all three of those E words. We live in an era where things get E's and I's put in front of them. You notice that? With the internet and all that stuff. You got I this and he that. Well, these are three E words and it was way before the internet. Enabling, energizing, empowering is the work of the Holy Spirit within us. For God to pull it off, not us. We rest in His working.

Okay, so there's Israelite resting, which is resting from their enemies as they go in and conquer the land and live there. And then there's church resting, an entirely different thing. Same word, an entirely different thing. Our resting has nothing to do with the land and going in and fighting a military battle. Our resting has to do with complete dependence upon what Christ has done and who He is in us and who we are in Him.

Now, I put in here, take perceptive care, brethren, and the reason is this. The word that's translated take care is one word, and it actually is a word that in other places is translated behold. Take it in until you get an aha moment. One way that we could put it is take a mental picture. Get this. Get this is what he's telling them. But it's an imperative.

You must get it, brethren. Now, they're brethren because they are in fact believers. They're brethren who also have a heavenly calling. They're brethren who are also brethren along with Christ. These are the people he's talking to. So the author of Hebrews there is talking to the believers that they must, and that's a gracious imperative, okay? Remember when you see must in the New Testament applied to believers? That's a gracious imperative. They must all be very perceptive, get it, okay? This isn't robot kind of walking and talking. This is perceiving, understanding. And act accordingly so that not a one of the believers falls away unbelieving. Not a one of the believers falls away unbelieving.

So these Jewish believers were tempted to go back under the sacrificial system. Do you realize that the sacrificial system was given by Moses? Does that sound like it has authenticity? Moses gave it, right? There it is right there in the Bible, right? So is that for you?

No. Do you realize what the author of Hebrews is calling falling back under the law? He's calling it unbelief. He's calling it falling away. How many of you know Christians who think that they're under the law. What's astounding is the author of Hebrews is saying that those Christians who think they're under the law are in unbelief and have fallen away. That's a pretty strong statement. Unbelief and fallen away.

Once a person believes in Christ for salvation, that person is saved eternally by faith, and by faith alone, and nothing else. From then on, though eternally saved, believers can walk in unbelief in their condition, and following the law is unbelief. following the law and trying to live by the law is falling away in his unbelief that is the message of Hebrews here now we have some parallels with the book of Romans Romans 6 through 8 and one of those that doesn't come across in your typical translations is it is reference here to the sin nature and even to the deceit of sin nature, which is a message from Romans 7. So here you have some things that were from our Romans 6, 7, and 8 study, and here's one of them. The believer before faith in Christ, and typical of all unbelievers, is separated from Christ, that's a death of separation, and joined to three things.

Joined to the sin nature, joined to the principle of law, and joined to the world. That's the position of the unbeliever, and it's the position of the believer before the point and time of belief. By faith, that believer crosses over. By faith, that believer crosses over. In Christ, after faith in Christ, we have this.

He is, having been previously separated from Christ, now, Romans 7.4, he is joined to Christ. Having previously been joined to the sin nature, the sin nature is associated with his body, now separated from the sin nature, which doesn't mean the sin nature goes away, we'll talk about that in a minute, but separated spiritually from the sin nature, from the principle of law, and from the world. Those three things, okay? Separated from the sin nature, separated from principle of law, and separated from the world, joined to Christ.

That's what the Bible clearly teaches, and Romans 6, 7, and 8 are some of the principle places where those truths are laid out. So this is what happens, and this passage here in Hebrews is particularly talking about the sin nature. That's why we had this expanded and explained to get that clear in the translation there. Here is another way of looking at it, which I think you'll find helpful.

We have in this diagram on one side, on the left side, here is the physical realm. We have a body, and hopefully inside the body we have a brain, right? Which is actually a part of the body. There is as part of the functions of the brain, mind, emotions, and will.

Now, on the spiritual side, we have a spirit. that is a created entity in the spiritual realm, and within that there is a soul. Sometimes you'll see the soul and spirit used in the Bible interchangeably, and the reason that you'll see that is because the soul is a part of the spirit, and it is a spiritual entity. Now, what you also have here, and this is taught here in Romans 8 passage, the spirit, soul, and spirit are God's dwelling place. That is also taught in other places.

For example, 1 Corinthians chapter 6. The believer's soul and spirit are God's dwelling place. We, as individual believers, are a temple. Each one of us is a temple of the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 6, and then 1 Corinthians 3, we together are a temple of the Holy Spirit as a church body. But this is talking about the individual thing here.

Now, the teaching that is critical to this passage we're looking at in Hebrews, the sin nature as a spiritual entity, even in the believer, still attacks the body. The sin nature used to be, when I was an unbeliever, the sin nature was a ruling monarch. It called all the shots. Whatever the sin nature commanded, that's what I did. As a believer, I am spiritually separated from that sin nature. When I was crucified with Christ, that sin nature was no longer the ruling monarch. The sin nature, however, is attached to this body.

It's one reason why God doesn't just make you a believer and then take you home. In order to have any believers here, He has to leave us here with the sin nature separated from us spiritually, but still present and attached to this body. Don't worry, we'll eventually get rid of it. That's the good news. We'll eventually get rid of it.

So that's one of the things we want to point out when it talks about the sin nature here in the book of Hebrews. This is the kind of the context we need to look at it and understand it as. The sin nature is deceitful. Roman 711 and Hebrews 3.13 both those passages tell us the sin nature is deceitful even to the believer. Can the sin nature deceive you as a believer? Yup. And that's the warning in Roman 711 that is the warning here in this passage. What does the sin nature use to deceive you? Lots of things, but one of the key things the sin nature uses is the law. Just one is all it takes. Just one. That's what Romans 7 to the end of the chapter is all about. Just one. Paul writes, you know, here's one law, it says, thou shalt not covet. He says, all I can do is covet, right? Coveting all the time.

It's the problem that I presented to Hassan when he was here. I said, Hassan, I'm going to tell you, do not think of a pink hippopotamus. Hassan, I am not kidding. Do not think of a pink hippopotamus. And I told him that for several minutes. I said, Hassan, what are you thinking of? He said, oh boy, am I thinking of a Hippopotamus, right? That's the problem with the law. You get 365 don'ts. 365 things not to do in the law of Moses. And boy, what do you feel like you really got to do? Is those things that you're told don't, right? The sin nature uses the law to deceive.

That's what Romans 7 says, and that's what Hebrews 3.13 is telling us.

Romans 6.23 says that the sin nature faithfully pays a wage of spiritual debt. That's often quoted to people for the wages of sin is death. And it's even used sometimes in telling people what they need to know to be saved.

But that's not what the verse is about. It's written to Christians And the sin nature faithfully pays a wage of spiritual death, that is, separation from God in our condition, if we fall into unbelief, such as trying to live by the law in our walk. Trying to live by the law is all it takes for the sin nature to go hog wild. That's all it takes. Matter of fact, let me say something.

You can't live by the law, because that's not what the law does. You can die by the law, but you can't live by it. You can get paid a death wage by the sin nature, but you can't live by the law. Not even one. You can't. You can't live by the law. I've got that up here, but I have to put that caution. Trying to live by the law, yeah, you can try. The law is there to kill you. Paul, 2 Corinthians chapter 3 calls it a ministry of death and a ministry of condemnation. It'll kill you, but you can't live by it. You can get paid a death wage. The sin nature will deceive you, but you can't live by the law. Never could, never will. Can't be done.

Now, here's how we deal with the sin nature. And I make brief reference to our study of Romans chapter 6. We're given an additional insight here. In our study of Romans chapter 6, we saw that the way to deal with the sin nature is to know, verses 3, verses 6, and verse 9.

Three times, know, know, know. Here are things to know. And the things to know start with knowing that you died with Christ. You were buried with Him and you were raised with Him. That's at the central point of knowing. Three times, verse 3, verse 6, verse 9. The next, verse 11, is to reckon, or consider, to count it up, figure it out.

You've died to the sin nature, but are alive to God. And then yield your members to God, because otherwise you're going to yield your members to the sin nature, as a believer. Either way, the word used for this yielding The word used there means a military instrument. The sin nature will use you as a military instrument on its side of the battle if we don't yield ourselves as military instruments to God. So, what we studied for several weeks in Romans, I just summarize quickly. I'll let you go back to that.

What's shown here in this passage Not to displace those at all. Those are essential truths that are very important for us to understand in dealing with the deceitful sin nature. And this passage certainly agrees that the sin nature is deceitful. You see, the sin nature isn't going to come up to you and say, hey believer, I want you to do something here and this is just going to be wonderful. This will be so great. And if you do what I'm suggesting here, it's going to turn out real good for you. No, not so much.

The sin nature is not going to be honest. The sin nature is fundamentally deceitful. Even making you think, boy, if I follow the law, then I'll really do the right thing. Wrong answer. It's not a replacement for those essential truths. These verses tell us that there is a church body aspect, that is, all of us, to avoiding the sin nature's deceit. And what am I talking about?

It is a coming alongside other believers to encourage a rest walk with the Lord. Encourage one another come alongside one another that is another aspect of Dealing with the deceit of the sin nature It's encouraging one another Encouraging one another to walk in fellowship with the Lord and to rest in him Very important, so this is a and a passage of agreement with the Roman 6 and Roman 7 passage that we looked at previously, but it's also got a complementary and additional truth. And we, as a church body, have a place of encouraging one another, encouraging one another in walking with the Lord, in walking in fellowship with the Lord, and in resting in Him.

Now, another key insight here is this passage keeps talking about today. It did in the previous week's passage, two weeks ago rather. Twice in today's passage, this word today comes up. So today, you and I will either walk with and rest in Christ or we'll be deceived and hardened. That's the way this fork in the road works. We will either walk with and rest in Christ or be deceived and hardened. That's the way this gets laid out. Twice in this passage we find the word today. Today. This day. Today is the only spiritual opportunity in front of you and me.

Can I decide now that I should have walked with the Lord yesterday? Nope. Can't do it. Can't change it, right? And then how about tomorrow? Suppose I say, you know, tomorrow I'm going to walk with the Lord. I don't know about today, I've got some other things to do. But tomorrow I'll walk with the Lord.

Is that going to work? Not so much. This is not a procrastinator's dream place here. It's today, it's a spiritual opportunity that you and I have in front of one another. There will likely be a tomorrow, unless the Lord takes us home. I hope He comes for all of us. But not until tomorrow becomes today. So tomorrow isn't an opportunity yet. And yesterday's opportunity is past. It's today.

Today is the day that we have as an opportunity to walk in fellowship with the Lord. We either walk with and rest in Christ or the choice is to be deceived and hardened. That's it. Pretty simple. Pretty simple. Our opportunity to rest in who we are in Christ and who He is in us and have fellowship with him to rest where we're blessed is today only. You got that?

Rest where you're blessed. Nice little poem there. Rest where you're blessed. By the way, where are you blessed? In Christ in the heavenly places, right? Where are you seated? With Christ in the heavenly places. Where's your citizenship? with Christ in the heavenly places. Where can we set our minds on things above? With Christ in the heavenly places. Where's our calling? It's a heavenly calling. We saw that earlier in Hebrews, right? We can rest where we're blessed. We can rest where we're blessed.

That's it. It's simple. It's not that tough. It's not that tough. Tomorrow isn't today, yet. We can rest where we're blessed today. Right now. This moment. Not yesterday. Can't fix yesterday. Not tomorrow. Nope. Tomorrow doesn't come. Today. We can rest where we're blessed today.

In Hebrews 3.14 we have the expanded and explained version like this. We have become spiritual partakers and fellow sharers of the Messiah, and I have that as the Messiah for this reason.

In the same way that sin, in the previous verse here, had actually in Greek the definite article, the sin, so the sin nature, and it's the same the sin and deceit as Paul has in Romans 6 through 8. But here, The definite article is in front of Christ, the Christ. It's the same definite article that the high priest has for Jesus when he's interrogating him and saying, are you the Christ? That's what this says, the exact same form.

Are you the Messiah? Okay, was the question he was asking. And that's it. We're fellow sharers of the Messiah. By the way, who's he writing to? Jews, they would say, that's my Messiah. Our relationship to the Messiah, however, in the church is different. We will come with the Messiah when he returns as soon as seven years from now.

If we, and we probably will, this is an if of probability, stay the course at the beginning of our assurance when we first believe, firm until the end. In the traditional translation here, which is from the New American Standard, and it's very similar to Hebrews 3.6, this term hold fast, as it's called, is a nautical or shipping term from the era. It's a term that means to stay the course. We're staying the course. We're not being blown off. We're not drifting off by the current. We're not being blown off by the wind. We're not getting distracted by something. We're staying the course. if we stay the course.

So this verse is addressing our spiritual condition. Now we need to talk about condition and position. Our position is who we are in Christ and who He is in us eternally. That doesn't change. You're in Christ and there's no verse that says you're going to go whoop and fall out. That's your position. Your position is fixed. God did it all. All you did was believe. God did everything about your position and it's permanent. It's not going to change and you're not going to mess up. There are no oopses in your position.

The condition is our day-to-day walk, believing in and depending upon that position. So this verse is addressing our spiritual condition, our day-to-day walk. In our position, we are already spiritual partakers and fellow sharers of Christ the Messiah. That's because that's who we are and that's who God made us to be. Our living out of that and our experience of that, in reality, depends on our walk of faith in our daily condition according to, and we can use the word consistent with, if that helps fix it in your mind what that means, consistent with the eternal position that we already have.

As believers, we are always catching up to what God's already done. When you first believe, did somebody explain to you, oh, by the way, you're in Christ and you've died with Christ and you were buried with Him and raised, ascended and seated with Him? Anybody explain that to you right away? No. What happened is you probably caught up with that later. We're always, as believers, spending the rest of our life here on this planet catching up to what God's already done.

That's the nature of the Christian life. We're discovering, in terms of our coming to understand, and we're discovering in our living out of life what God has already accomplished. We're always running to catch up. Now, here as we come to this passage here, we've got the 3.12-14 which is addressed to the church. That's us. And it's addressed to Jewish believers who were a part of the church in which their Jewishness was not primary, but their being a part of the church was.

Now, in order to illustrate the issue, he goes from verse 15 to 19 Addressing the issue of the nation of Israel to give them a warning to give the believers in the church a warning Stemming from and learning from how God dealt with the nation of Israel so it is a quote from Psalm 95 7 in Hebrews 3 7 and 3 15 and 4 7 where it says today if you hear his voice do not harden your hearts as when they provoked me and Hebrews 3.7 already had it. It's here again, and he's going to repeat it again in 4.7. If he repeats it three times, I think it's important. Eh? He repeats it three times, I think it's important. And it is.

Now, we're going to do a quick review. Because you may not remember, and there are some of us who were not here last week. So we're going to have a quick review so we get the context. I'm going to give you an introduction to Jewish baseball. This is abbreviated since last week we covered this, but I want to make sure we get included.

In Jewish baseball, we've got the Jews versus the Egyptians. In which case, as they're battling here, you have an entirely different set of rules. And one of those rules is, in Jewish baseball, it's ten strikes and you're out, not three. Ten strikes. And this, you would say, is a fly ball. But in Jewish baseball, flies mean something completely different.

It's not the same at all. Now, they wear hats like Moses knows best. And what would Moses do? Things like that. So, different kind of a game altogether. Now, here are the ten strikes. The strikes of blood, frogs, lice, flies, and diseased cattle. There's five. The next five are boils, hail, locusts, darkness, and death. And we said that the boils were nuclear-powered zits.

Right? Okay. Now, so those are the ten strikes, and then the Jews are out. Right? So, they have the Passover, in which they mark with blood of the Passover lamb on the top of and each side of the door and the Jews eat the Passover meal standing up and then they're off. Ten strikes and you're out. Now they're out. They're getting out and they go from the land of Goshen down across the Sea, and the sea by the way, here's the Israelites where they cross the sea because Moses puts his staff out and they cross on dry land.

If it were happening today, it might look something like this. But it didn't happen like this. It happened back then 3,400 years ago. Now, there was also the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day. As the Jews were passing through the water. I'm sure it might have been an opportunity for something like an aquarium like experience But they in fact I'm sure were quite distracted from watching any of the fish or any of the other creatures in the sea and so they crossed on dry land and got to the other side and it didn't turn out so well for the Egyptians and Now, so they went from Goshen, and they went down the west side of the Sinai Peninsula to Mount Sinai, where Moses was given the law.

And this is the way the depiction is of that time, and this is the way it looks now. Good luck with planting a garden. OK. They were given, by that time, all 613 laws that are in the law of Moses, every single one. 365 of them are things not to do. The rest, things that you must do.

From there, they went up the east side of the Sinai Peninsula, and the route was a bit more complicated, but they ended up there at the southern end of Canaan, and the Lord told them to send in 12 spies into the land of Canaan. And so these 12 Jewish spies made a trip up to the northern end and then back along a very similar, almost identical route back down to the encampment of the Israelites. Two of the spies, Joshua and Caleb, said, yeah, let's take the land.

This is a good land. God's with us. Let's go. But the other 10 said, nah, this is a good land. But boy, those people are really, really big. And we felt like grasshoppers among them. And so now we shouldn't go. And that's what they listen to, which they shouldn't have.

The people of Israel listened to the fearful and unbelieving voices of the ten spies, so the Lord had the Israelites wander in the wilderness for forty years until that generation died off. Hope you like your manna. Hope you like wearing the same clothes for forty years. That's what's going to happen.

Now, Israel refused its rest by unbelief. They said not we are not going in we believe the ten spies and We're afraid to go in there We in the church ought not also to fail to rest so Israel refused its rest by unbelief So the Israelites have 40 years of funerals in the desert before they were allowed to go into the land again lots of daily death dozens and dozens of funerals every day until all 40 years have passed and we're done with the deaths and we're done with the manna and we're done with these clothes because boy are we tired of them we are warned however by this letter not to live in unbelief but now today and we're not done with this topic of resting but now today to be diligent to enter God's rest the one he intended for us, a walk of dependence upon who we are in Christ and who he is in us. Living by our best efforts is not God's rest.

God does not want you to try to be a good Christian. He does not want that. He does not want you to try to be a good Christian. If you say, I failed at being a Christian, Well, good, because that's not what he has in mind. If you say, I tried Christianity and it didn't work for me, you probably didn't try it. Did you hear that? Living by our best efforts is not God's rest.

I'm going to pass on this one for now. We closed last time and I'll close again with a song by John Fisher. It's a quick and easy one. I'll sing it for you. Rest, rest in Him, your work is through. Lean back on His great power, He'll work through you. Rest, rest in Him, your work is through. Lean back on His great power, He'll work through you. Let's pray.

Lord, thank you for this wonderful passage. Certainly some stern warnings on the one hand, and even to look at it and say, oh, all these deaths and the difficult things that these unbelieving Israelites went through. At the same time, there is great hope in here. We see what is true and we see that there is indeed a rest for us. And while we are not called to work, we are not called to do our works, it is indeed our call to rest in you so that your works are done in us and through us. We thank you for this marvelous truth. and this wonderful rest all by your grace. We pray in Jesus name, Amen.