Nowhere to Hide

And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. (Hebrews 04:13, NKJV).

The above verse is a graphic reminder of the futility of concealing anything from an omniscient and omnipresent God.

Everyone will face judgment for everything said and done in the flesh.

Those who face Christ as His children by faith, will be judged as in an athletic competition, receiving or forfeiting awards based on how they have lived on earth as Christians. Their sinfulness has already been judged on the Cross, and the penalty paid by Christ Himself. As children of the King, they are guaranteed citizenship in Heaven, symbolized by their names being registered in the Lambs Book of Life, but their roles and responsibilities there are based on what he or she has done with the opportunities and gifts given in this life.

Writing to Christians, the Apostle Paul informs us:

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. (2 Corinthians 5:10, NKJV).

For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. (1 Corinthians 3:11-15, NKJV).

“His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’ (Matthew 25:21, NKJV).

The rest of mankind, those who have knowingly and willfully rejected the offer of salvation through faith in Christ will also stand before God. It will not go well with them.

Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:11-15, NKJV).

“And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.” (Revelation 14:11, NKJV).

The writer of Hebrews has no intention of giving his readers a false peace. In fact, in a number of passages, his Holy Spirit-inspired words are clearly meant to strike fear in the hearts of some of his intended audience; especially those who either openly scoff at the truth, and those who put on an outward show of belief, but whose words and deeds reveal the falsenessfalseness of their confession.

To this first group his warning is that, whether you take it seriously or not, you will be required to give account of your earthly existence. Every utterance, thought, and action will be judged according to God's perfect standard. This is not good news. 

All of us fail to live up even to our own anemic ideas of right and wrong, let alone those absolute conceptions of good and evil that God has taken great pains to reveal. In essence, the writer is saying that the Holy and Righteous God will judge you, whether or not you believe He exists. Indeed, your very unbelief will be the first offense upon which your sentence of eternal punishment will be based.

Nor does it matter that you may feel the judgment harsh. Your feelings in the matter are utterly irrelevant. In truth, in view of the extravagant measures He has undertaken to enable you to escape this eternal death sentence, any rejection of it is not only insane, but completely blasphemous.

Not only this, but it is entirely in accordance with His character that sins against an eternal God require an eternal penalty, just as forgiveness of those sins through Christ results in eternal life. Logically, there cannot be Heaven, without Hell, else neither means anything.

And to the second group, the pretenders, the writer's warning is that there is nowhere to hide. God is not fooled by pretense. All creatures are naked and open to His sight. To think otherwise is to maintain an infantile view of the Eternal Transcendent Sovereign, like a toddler who believes he is invisible by merely covering his own eyes.

Now, if all we had was this warning, we would be in sorry shape, perhaps concluding that it would be better never to have been born.

But the gospel serves as the perfect counterbalance to the alarms raised in this verse. Those who have acknowledged Jesus as Lord and Savior, may suffer loss of reward on that Day, but they themselves will be saved.

What it does provide for us is tremendous incentive to live each moment of our lives with God as our witness.

Because He is.

And He doesn't miss a thing.

Sharp and Piercing

For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. (Hebrews 04:12, NKJV).

If you have ever suffered a serious cut from a very sharp blade, then you know how painful it can be. Yet that same type of blade, in the form of a skillfully wielded scalpel, can reveal and excise life-threatening malignancies.

If you are an unbeliever, then thinking that the Word of God is irrelevant is equivalent to ignoring an oncoming storm.

“He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him--the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day. (John 12:48, NKJV).

Likewise, if you are a believer and consider the Word of God optional in your daily walk, you are deliberately leaving yourself open for calamity and trial, for its purpose is to act as a guide, and a source of wisdom in all the issues of life in a Fallen world.

One day we will all stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ. We know that deep in our hearts. And on that day, we will either stand in His righteous, or be cast down in our own unrighteousness.

Don't get me wrong. There is nothing you can do to make restitution for even your smallest sin. The soul that sins must die. There is no ritual, or penance that you can perform that will mitigate the punishment due you.

No matter what you have done, no matter how long you live, if you break one of the least of the commandments of God's perfect law, you are guilty of all. There is no grading on a curve. There are no exceptions. It is either perfect righteousness, or doom.

That's the bad news.

The good news, the gospel, is that the same Word that guarantees your condemnation also guarantees your clemency, provided you allow it to pierce your heart with your own depraved sinfulness, and separate you from all illusion that you are "OK" with God.

This living and powerful revelation is intended to bring each and every human being to that place of brokenness of spirit, and contriteness of heart, so that you fall on your face in helplessness and ask God to forgive you in the name of His Son. It does not matter what evil you have done. The horrific sacrifice of Jesus Christ paid for it all, for all time.

But you must accept that revelation. You must believe that it is true, and then your sanctification, your moral and spiritual surgeries, will begin.

As you walk ever more closely with your Lord, your Old Nature will be cut away, slowly, often painfully, but in a necessary procedure to make you fit for eternal life.

You must trust Him. You must not attempt to leap off the operating table. Or the altar.

If you are truly His by faith, He will do His perfect work in your life. He will complete that good thing that He began when you first believed.

For some, like the thief on the Cross, the operation will be drastic and instantly successful. That thief had no opportunity to do other than believe and then die. He could make no amends. He could perform no good deeds. But in his last minute heart-deep confession of faith, he has since provided an example for all those who think they are guilty of too much, and/or have waited too long.

In addition to surgery, the Word of God also lays bare the underlying truth of every man's words and deeds - that without Christ, all the thoughts and intents of the human heart are evil.

Even the best that we do, no matter how noble and self-sacrificing in appearance, is tainted by our inherent evil.

In Romans, the Apostle Paul states unequivocally that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; that there is none who does good. No, not one.

It is only when a human heart sees that about himself or herself in the light of God's Word that hope and healing can begin. Until that time, it cannot heal, but can only condemn.

These things are true regardless of how we feel about them. Truth is like that.

It can hurt. It can destroy, but it can also save. It is the only thing that can.

But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:8-10, NKJV).

Living and Powerful

For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. (Hebrews 04:12, NKJV).

Before I became a Christian, I did not understand the Bible, nor did reading it hold any attraction for me.

When I finally did read it, my motivation was to find fault, to undermine the growing faith of someone very close to me because ongoing changes in that person's behavior toward me, scared me, and not for the reasons you might think.

The situation at that time in our relationship was such that anger, resentment, bitterness, and even hatred, I could understand. What I received unexpectedly instead was understanding, gentleness, patience, and love. I did not trust it, but I knew it was directly related to that person having begun reading the Bible herself - a lot. The connection between her changed heart, and that book was undeniably clear.

I wanted none of it.

So I embarked on a mission to discredit the Word of God. To do that effectively, I knew I had to do some first person research, and I must admit I was intrigued by the prospect that I would finally be able to lay this faith in God nonsense to rest. I would employ my vaunted and laser-like intellect to undermine all of Christendom.

That is not what happened. Not even close.

I finished reading the Old Testament fairly quickly, at first just because I wanted to get through it, but later because my fascination (and hunger) grew with each chapter. When I was done, I came to the surprising conclusion that I could believe that God existed and had intervened in human history for His good purposes.

The reasoning behind this conclusion, though important, is not nearly as significant as the fact that what I had consciously set out to do was the opposite of what, in fact, happened. I can honestly attest that my intentions were not only unfulfilled, but transformed, and not by any conscious volition on my part. As I said, I was surprised, and so were the people who knew me, and some, unpleasantly so.

As I continued into the New Testament, I hit a real stumbling block when I realized, perhaps for the first time, that the writers of the gospel accounts and epistles wanted me to understand that this Man, Jesus, was God Incarnate. Being raised where and how I was, I, of course, had heard the words before, but did not understand what that really meant.

This was a hurdle of immense proportions for me because I now wanted to believe in God, and it seemed that just when that was about to happen, I got hit with Jesus.

I recall completing the Gospel of Matthew and being sorely disappointed. I was supposed to believe that the Almighty God of the Old Testament, He who dwelt in eternity, outside of time and space, was also this Jesus of Nazareth who was born of a virgin woman in the backwoods of ancient Jerusalem?

There was still something (Someone?) that compelled me to keep reading, even through my disappointment.

During this entire endeavor, that person who served as my initial motivation continued to grow in the grace and knowledge of the One she now called Lord and Savior. Her transformation was… miraculous.

And all from this ancient and disturbing collection of writings written over the course of 1600 years by 40 different authors and yet - and yet - containing an obviously unified message that appeared to recount history before happened. 

By the end of the New Testament, I knew in my head it was all true; everything from Genesis to Revelation. God wanted us to know Him so lavishly that He sent His Son to become one of us, to be a partaker of flesh and blood just like us.

And more than that, He wanted to rescue us from certain damnation so that we could continue to know Him… forever.

I knew it in my head, but not yet in my heart.

For me that required an encounter with His people in a church that convened in a warehouse off a congested, but second-rate interstate highway.

There I saw the love of Christ worked out in hearts and heads other than mine, and a man I will never forget and will always be indebted to, invited me in to pray with him, seeing that I was obviously emotional after being in the service.

I told this man, though I was barely able to speak coherently, that I would do whatever it took, sign whatever paper was needed, pay whatever fee, to be part of what I had just experienced.

"If this is what you want," he said to me, "you need merely to ask with all your heart, and it is yours freely given."

Almost overnight I was fundamentally changed without effort on my part. It just happened.

Since that day, the Word of God has continued to transform me from a mere man to a child of God, saved by grace through faith.

What was dross and horror behind a facade of bare civility became something very much different. Sometimes the transformation seemed painless. At others, it was like deep surgery without anesthetic.

It was not magic, but it was supernatural. It was not me. It was God working in me through His Word.

I am, and will always be, forever grateful.

For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12, NKJV).

Rest - Part 5: Diligence

Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience. (Hebrews 04:11, NKJV).

The opposite of diligence is carelessness, and herein lies a crucial difference between God's rest and human rest.

The Father's rest is not passive inactivity or indolence, but a lack of striving in our own strength.

To NOT strive to achieve our own ends, no matter what they are, is a challenge that we will fail without Christ within us, the hope of glory.

It is impossible without faith to let God work in our lives, and letting God work means ceasing from our own work. Don't get me wrong. I do not mean what you might think I mean.

I do not mean, for instance, that people in general are naturally industrious in the sense of having a decent work ethic. I do not mean that at all. 

I mean that most people will go to just about any lengths to get what they really, really want. They will strive to obtain satisfaction.

Just look around at the extremes that can be seen in the realm of politics, or business, or celebrity, to obtain power, or wealth, or fame. Amazing and strenuous effort is expended - sometimes against all odds, or sense, or sanity - to achieve a desired end at whatever means.

Some of those involved have neither decency nor a work ethic, but, they strive nonetheless, sometimes without ceasing.

If you have been alive for any length of time, you have encountered driven people. Some are driven to achieve something that might be considered good, others something bad, and still others something merely selfish.

Driven people are not restful. They may be single-minded, or have admirable endurance, but by and large, they are not nice to be around. And ironically, it is the most outwardly lazy people who are often driven the most, with their goal being self-indulgence.

Now, the example of disobedience referred to in the above verse is the faithless Children of Israel who came out of Egypt, led by Moses. In their natural striving for safety and security in their own strength, they refused to believe and obey God in regard to His giving them possession of the Promised Land. They got scared of the giants and walled cities, and the hopeless battles they envisioned in their future, and they stubbornly refused to have faith in God.

They attempted to change course when they finally understood the dire consequences of their disobedience, striving to convince God that they had a sincere change of heart, but by then it was too late. Just like it will be too late to choose faith when the object of that faith, Jesus Christ, makes His reality clear beyond all doubt - when He rips open the fabric of time and space to take possession of everything and everyone as Lord of Lord and King of Kings.

Someone who is diligent to enter God's rest is not driven. They are peaceable. They may work at something to the point of exhaustion, but in the midst of it they do not strive, they allow God to empower and direct. These kind of people stand out primarily because their most prevalent characteristic is a kind of calm cheerfulness, sometimes mistaken for resignation, but really its opposite.

They do whatever God puts before them, trusting in Him for the results.

But their doing is not self-propelled, it is through His strength and guidance. It probably won't look much different on the outside from any other form of work or activity, but at the center of it will be a heart at peace.

This can only happen through diligent practice at joyful self-surrender. Failure should be expected, but giving up is not an option.

The natural man is so twisted and bent by the Fall, that his only hope of remedy is to let the Father straighten him out.

And that requires a soul-deep acknowledgment that his own efforts and goals are useless and damaging, like a toddler trying to set his own broken leg.

God's rest is the key to transformation, but He will not force it on you.

You need to walk through the door on your own.

Rest - Part 4: Ceasing From Work

For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: “So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest,’” although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”; and again in this place: “They shall not enter My rest.” Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience, again He designates a certain day, saying in David, “Today,” after such a long time, as it has been said: “Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts.” For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. (Hebrews 04:03-10, NKJV).

A hallmark of faith is surrendering your pride.

Underlying all desire to please God through relying on ritual, or ceremony, or adherence to tradition, or charity, or kindness, or honesty, or refraining from evil behavior, is rebellion.

By doing so, you are demonstrating trust in yourself rather than trust in Him. Does this mean that we should't be kind, or generous, or refrain from evil, or tell the truth?

As the Apostle Paul would say, "Certainly not!"

It does mean acting out those things with the full understanding that it is God who works in you, both to will and to do His good pleasure. You deserve none of the glory.

We are not saved by good works, but are saved by grace through faith for good works.

Ceasing from your own works means not putting the cart before the horse.

You can't please God without first believing Him, and believing in Him. The gospel means that you are already dead in trespasses and sins, but Christ, through allowing Himself to be killed in your place, paid for those sins, and made you alive again.

He paid for all your sins.

Every last stinking one of them, from birth until the day you die. 

The debt has been forgiven, not because you did anything to warrant it, but because Jesus paid it all.

Unless you realize that you are incapable of any goodness apart from Him, you are still working the penance angle, and not fully relying on His finished work on the Cross.

It means you are still in unbelief, just like the Children of Israel.

From the outside, your life may look good, but from the inside, your heart is still hardened, and you will not enter His rest.

Later in Hebrews, we will be told that there is one thing we are to do with the same agonizing effort and determination that a world class athlete employs to win first place, and it's this: we are to strive to enter His rest.

This means the giving up of self-reliance is difficult, like fighting a physical addiction.

If you've ever been successful at that, you know that even years after your last indulgence, that desire, that taste, that craving, can come back with unbelievable and surprising strength. It can literally knock you over with the force of it.

And unless you are fully prepared ahead of time to continue steadfast resistance, you can succumb to the old dependence.

Know that underneath stubborn self-reliance is a spiritual addiction to pride.

There is no craving stronger than that which drives you to uphold your self-image, no matter how torn and shredded it has become.

Even the most craven street addict, the most reprobate social outcast, the most hardened criminal, retains some semblance of this pride, and is concerned with some aspect of saving face.

So it's hard to cease from works. God knows that and gave you a perfect example.

When He, the omnipotent. omniscient, omnipresent God, the one worthy of all glory and power and honor and worship, finished Creation, He ceased working.

So when each one of His children by faith - who are sinners by birth and proclivity, worthy of nothing but condemnation - come to Him to be cleansed of our unrighteousness, we need to let Him do it all.

We need to be still and know that He is God, and watch Him work the miracle of transformation in our hearts and minds.

And that means giving up our own paltry and feeble attempts at self-righteousness and fully surrendering to Him.

When we do, we'll be changed from the inside out, and in the end, we will be transformed into the image of His Son.

That's His goal.

He will stop at nothing to achieve it.

Rest - Part 3: The Door is Still Open

For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: “So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest,’” although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”; and again in this place: “They shall not enter My rest.” Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience, again He designates a certain day, saying in David, “Today,” after such a long time, as it has been said: “Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts.” For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. (Hebrews 04:03-10, NKJV).

The Israelites of ancient times were offered sanctuary in the Promised Land as soon as they departed from servitude in Egypt, but they did not enter because of disobedience.

In refusing to believe the promise, they opened the door for that ultimate rest to be offered to the entire world. In other words, what they meant for evil, God used for His good purpose. What would have happened had they obeyed that first time is a matter of speculation, but their refusal was an intrinsic part of the Father's Plan of Redemption, and foreshadowed that nation's rejection of their Messiah some 14 centuries later.

Paul says it this way in Romans:

I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. (Romans 11:11, NKJV).

God used their stubbornness and pride to throw open the door of salvation to the entire world. And that door is still open to Jews and Gentiles alike, so that for the last 2000 years, what was a bipartite division of mankind between Jew and Gentile, has, during this designated day, become a tripartite division, consisting of Jew, Gentile, and the Church. The former two become one in Christ, who is our ultimate rest.

This is very good news indeed, and reminds us of three very important characteristics of our God.

The first is that He is faithful. He ordained rest, and when it was refused, although He swore that the disobedient generation in the wilderness would not be allowed to enter His rest, He guaranteed that that some must enter it.

That some is is comprised of all those who are descendants of Abraham by faith (as opposed to genetics).

Secondly, it shows He is long-suffering. Jesus, our most Excellent Sovereign and King, sacrificed Himself nearly 20 centuries ago, and yet the door remains open.

Finally, it demonstrates God's incredibly gracious persistence. He has been saying since David (the ancient psalmist King of Israel), and in reality, since the Fall in Eden, Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts.

This is not an exhortation made once, or a few times, and then forgotten. It is an invitation that He has repeated daily throughout human history - through His Word, through a person's circumstances, through the gentle persuasion of His Holy Spirit who is with mankind continually, wooing us to Christ. His goal is for each man, woman and child to ask forgiveness so that He can be in each one as a down payment, or guarantee, of eternal life to come.

But there is bad news here, as well, and it's this: there will come a day when that door will shut, like the door of Noah's Ark, and then those left outside, by their own choosing, will suffer irrevocable judgment. They will have waited too long, past the Day of Salvation freely offered through faith.

And rather than entering into His rest, they will enter into the Day of Judgment and God's Wrath.

To any who read these words and dismiss them as quaint, or fantasy, or myth, or dysfunctional superstition, please note, your willful rejection of the truth is precisely what will become for you, an unpardonable sin.

Repent now, while you still can, and believe.

That is all it takes, but it takes no less than that.

Rest - Part 2: Unrest

For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: “So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest,’” although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”; and again in this place: “They shall not enter My rest.” Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience, again He designates a certain day, saying in David, “Today,” after such a long time, as it has been said: “Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts.” For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. (Hebrews 04:03-10, NKJV).

There's a depressing timelessness about the events that occur in this world. While the accessories of sin may change with the times and technology, the underlying nature and motive is the same: offenses against a holy God, and self-aggrandizement, respectively.

Nothing is new under the sun in terms of human misbehavior. The results and reasons are the same throughout history. From "little white lies" to execrable, heinous depravity, all marches on as it has from Eden's demise.

Knowing this, as He knows all things, God still prepared, from the foundation of the world, a marvelous destiny for his beloved creatures, and called it rest. Specifically, His rest. Within the magnificent Creation Symphony, played out over the course of six earthly days, and building up to the stirring crescendo of His creation of the first human couple, He enacted a final dramatic pause: the Sabbath Rest. By doing this He signified His ultimate purpose and plan - the Universe and everything in it was designed and constructed for everlasting, carefree fellowship with God Himself.

He is like that father who takes great pains to provide joy, entertainment and safety for his beloved children in that custom backyard playground, except His playground is the Universe and all time, space and spirit.

Once mankind rebelled, that destiny was forfeit, again like that father who cannot reward bad behavior in his children lest their evil and rebellion be rewarded and they become incorrigible. In truth, Adam's sin could have ended the whole saga, but God in His mercy and love, chose before the outset to provide another way to regain the perfect fellowship that was lost, but it was at the greatest conceivable price - the death of His beloved Son on the Cross.

Belief in Christ, His virgin birth, His perfect life, His voluntary sacrifice and His stunning resurrection is all that is needed for the children to regain favor. In short, believing God is accounted for righteousness. In that sense, belief is a command that if disobeyed, renders all possibility of reconciliation null and void. 

Prior to Christ's incarnation, belief in the promise of the Coming One was the requirement that made one righteous, and since the sparklingly clear revelation of His actual earthly work and ministry, belief that He has come and finished the work of redemption is what is necessary.

And to those who remain in disobedient unbelief?

To them God has sworn that they shall NOT enter that rest, but shall be condemned for all eternity to agonizing unrest.

There can be no starker contrast; perfect joyful rest in God's Presence versus unending separation from that Presence, described as everlasting torment in Outer Darkness and eternal immersion in the Lake of Fire.

I am of the persuasion that God does not visit torture or punishment upon those who choose Hell, but that Hell itself, by definition, are those things inherently. What does it mean to be separated from the source of light and life and love forever? It means conscious agonizing pain, sorrow and regret that can never be relieved.

Unless you obey the command to believe, you will not enter that magnificent destiny fashioned before the foundation of the world.

Your eternity will be spent in unflagging weariness and striving to avoid that which can never again be avoided. It will be literal Hell in ways far beyond what we can conceive or imagine.

There has always been an effort to undermine the theology of Hell. It is nothing new.

But without Hell, there can be no Heaven. Without judgment there can be no justice.

And without faith, there can be no rest.

Rest - Part 1

For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: “So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest,’” although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”; and again in this place: “They shall not enter My rest.” Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience, again He designates a certain day, saying in David, “Today,” after such a long time, as it has been said: “Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts.” For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. (Hebrews 04:03-10, NKJV).

I highlighted (bolded) the start and finish of the passage above to focus on perhaps the loudest cry of the human heart: the desire to rest.

By this I don't necessarily mean cessation from activity, but freedom from worry, stress, and uncertainty.

Even a young child fresh from the womb has needs that equate to worries - food, comfort, quiet, and heights, to name just four- and the range of worry only increases exponentially as the little one matures.

Only in Eden was there no legitimate cause for worry. Since then, nothing but, especially in regard to loved ones under our care.

Then too, if a person is at all concerned with judgment and eternity, to all the stresses of physical survival, add the compulsion to please God, or at least the hope of being able to please God.

The Creator, in His beneficence and mercy, gave us sleep, making it an essential for life, at least post-Fall, so that at least we might gain regular physical rest. But even that need can add to the sum total of things that can be fretted over; just ask an insomniac.

As we age, the effort to survive gets no easier, even if we have been fortunate enough to heap up for ourselves earthly treasure and provision, because maintaining that storehouse of goods adds yet more to the stress level.

The bottom line is this, while we cry out for rest, it eludes us constantly and the longing increases as time passes.

Part of this is God's plan for restoring fellowship between us and Him. Like the Law, weariness is a tutor that shows us our essential helplessness over the things that matter most.

Humans will try anything to rest. Drugs, alcohol, relationships, frenetic physical activity, mind-numbing stimulation - anything - all in a largely futile effort to be assured of entering into a blissful state of freedom from care and worry.

All such attempts result only in fleeting success at best, and futility at worst, until finally, the grave itself is anticipated in moments of exhausted delirium as perhaps a solution. It is no accident most cultures look at the place of burial as the final resting place.

Perhaps the greatest irony and tragedy in all this is that for most humans who have ever been alive, death is the beginning of eternal, irremediable torment, and the epitome of lack of rest. The most harried, hectic, and anxiety-riddled spans of time in life are a sweet picnic in comparison to each and every nanosecond of Hell.

But there is rest to be had, and it was purchased at unimaginable cost - the Savior on the Cross.

The entry price is to become of child of God through faith, for we who have believed do enter that rest, It may not seem so day-to-day, but as children of God, rest is not only our destiny in the life to come, but is part of the down-payment we receive in this life. Why? Because, there remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.

God promised rest to the Children of Israel, but they forfeited that promise through the disobedience of unbelief. Yet the promise remains, and some must enter it in order for God's infallible and inerrant Word to be fulfilled.

And the only way to enter that rest in this life, is to trust in Him and know that He rules over the affairs of all men, and that He cares for us in ways that we cannot know or imagine. This is the only means to attain that peace that passes all understanding that is bequeathed to us now. 

And part of that trust also entails the cessation of trying to please Him through any works of our own flesh. This is a crucial aspect of the gospel - the surrendering of all false beliefs that we can somehow earn His approval by any means other than faith in Christ.

No ritual, no sacrifice, not ceremony, no generosity, not good deed of any kind done in our own strength avails us of anything except condemnation. For all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.

But through faith in Him, and only through faith in Him, can the cry of hearts be answered in all His fullness.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:8-10, NKJV).

Let Us Fear

Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. (Hebrews 04:01-02, NKJV).

All but two men of the original generation of Israelites who came out of Egypt perished in the Wilderness without entering into the Promised Land of Canaan.

Their corpses fell in the desert because of unbelief. Even Moses, the Lawgiver, failed to enter in because he misrepresented God by striking the rock twice in anger at Meribah.

This promise of rest is the underlying subject of Hebrews Chapter 4; a rest ultimately made possible by the excellence of our Lord Jesus in fulfilling the Law and dying in our place. And this greater rest was a theme threaded throughout the history of ancient Israel; a rest that they failed to achieve because they did not receive the word of the promise with faith.

The writer uses them as an example to warn those who came after them, and he does so in a way that, if we are paying attention, should stab us with fear at the possibility that we too may fall short. He will also shortly continue the comparison between Moses and Christ, and introduce a parallel line of reasoning between Joshua and Christ, all again to argue the indisputable superiority of Jesus to everyone and everything.

Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest confirms that the fulfillment of rest has yet to take place. It will, because it must, for a promise of God will never remain incomplete, but Israel, though offered it first, did not avail herself of it because the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it.

God revealed to them the good news, that righteousness was attained through believing in Him, but they did not accept it, and in their rejection they fell short of it. He brought them to the very cusp of entrance into His rest, assuring them He would be their strong tower and their rear guard; proving by His defeat of Egypt that He would fight their battles and guarantee their victory, and yet, they turned aside in rebellious unbelief.

This tragic outcome of coming to the brink of belief but failing to take that final step of faith can also occur to those of us who hear the gospel today, and perhaps even pay lip service to it, yet fail to trust solely in His promise, or falsely profess to receive it. For these people there will never be rest.

The exhortation let us fear is not meant to keep us questioning our faith, but to continually examine the state of our hearts, and to not be presumptuously confident of the wrong things.

By this I mean we are to guard our hearts from false reliance on family tradition, or church attendance, or good works, or lack of obvious sin, or self-righteousness of any kind. We should be constantly aware that we are incapable of knowing what really goes on in our fallen minds, and can never assume that our motives apart from Him are pure or good.

We need to mix with faith God's Word, and not just receive it on either an emotional or intellectual level. It has to sink down into our souls and transform us into His image, despite ourselves.

This entails an act of willful surrender to Someone we trust.

And the only way to attain that trust is to approach the word with meekness and fear, often and regularly.

We must invest the time in fellowship with our Savior, otherwise, and this is vitally important, we are in danger of falling into the same unbelief that plagued the Children of Israel.

It is this fear, this awe and terror of the Living God, who is a consuming fire that inoculates us from taking anything for granted about ourselves.

We can and must have complete faith in Him, but tread on dangerous ground indeed if we have that same kind of faith in ourselves.

We must be like Peter, who after denying His Lord three times, would not presume to answer with false bravado Christ's questions during his reinstatement as the Lord's disciple in John 21.

We must be like the father who cried out in desperation, "Lord I believe! Help my unbelief!"

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths. (Proverbs 3:5, 6, NKJV).

Corpses in the Wilderness

For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, while it is said: “Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. (Hebrews 03:14-19, NKJV).

If-then statements make the world go round. If X then Y else Z is a fundamentally exclusive conditional proposition of logic.

We live it all the time. If you spend more than you have (X) then you will be in debt (Y) else you will not be in debt (Z). Sometimes the 'else' branch is explicit, as in the examples just cited. At other times it is even more obvious, but implicit, as in 'You are guilty of a moving violation if you fail to stop at a red traffic light.' The implied else is very clear: otherwise you are not guilty of that violation. 

The opening argument contained in the above verses follow that last pattern of an exclusive conditional statement, and it is the most important proposition of logic in the universe. How do you know you are saved from the eternal penalty of sin? The answer: if your commitment of faith, while it is a commitment of faith, perseveres until you die. 

By this I mean that if you wait to declare your allegiance to Christ until it becomes impossible to do otherwise - when He descends from Heaven in glory and all-power forcing every knee to bow and every tongue to confess that Jesus is Lord - then it will be too late. That is NOT a commitment of faith, it is an acknowledgement of undeniable reality. 

But if you exercise the gift of faith given to every human being as part of our standard equipment package BEFORE such a declaration is based on incontrovertible evidence, then your confidence is founded on faith, not sight. And it is by grace we are saved through faith, for without faith it is impossible to please Him.

God has ordained that believing Him, and believing in Him, makes us righteous. He can be both just and the justifier of those who believe because the payment for sin was paid by His Son's sacrifice on the Cross. That is the good news - the gospel - because if He had ordained that performance was the key there would be no hope. In our fallenness we could never meet the required standard of perfection to gain entrance into eternal life. Never.

Another component of the standard human equipment package is the ability to choose, and here is the incredibly solemn ramification of that gift - we can choose to NOT hear the invitation to life through faith in Christ. We can willfully and effectively turn a deaf ear in rebellion. Then, if we persevere in that, rather than in confidence through faith, the result is a hardened heart which at some point will become unable to exercise any other choice.

Thankfully, while alive, none of us knows when that willful point of no return has been reached in someone else. We may guess but we can't know. But when it is, the result is given in the bleak picture above of all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses whose corpses fell in the wilderness.

They heard but chose not to believe. They had all the evidence necessary to reach an informed conclusion, and rejected God anyway. Hard-hearted unbelief is rebellion, and rebellion ends in eternal death.

I know people who present all the symptoms of this heart ailment, and while they long for peace, they can have none, ever. In scoffing at God's offer of salvation, for whatever reasons justify their willful rejection, they are choosing not to obey and He swears that they will therefore NEVER enter His rest.

The entire historic 40-year episode of the Children of Israel's Wilderness Wanderings is presented to us in Scripture to graphically illustrate the tragically logical result of such rebellious unbelief.

The horrid image of an entire generation of rotting corpses depicts the outcome perfectly. These souls did not die in epic conquest or noble pursuits, but in a circuitous traversal of a barren desert leading to nowhere, and lasting just long enough for them to drop dead in their tracks.

What a vivid portrait of an unbelieving life! An ignoble and purposeless meandering through wasted time until death makes its inevitable claim.

More unfortunate even than this is the truth conveyed to us by God that the desiccated corpse is not the end of suffering, but merely the beginning.

When a human dies, he or she does not enter oblivion.

Their destination will either be one of eternal blessed rest and joy, or eternal torment.

There are no other stops in the after-death journey.

There is immeasurable joy in knowing that Christ has made the first outcome possible through His death on the Cross.

There should be unmitigated horror in knowing that the other is the default destination without faith in Him.

Departing

Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. (Hebrews 03:12-13, NKJV).

This is the second dire warning in Hebrews. First you drift away by not giving earnest heed to the doctrine of Christ, then you depart when that hardening heart degenerates into full-fledged and fatal unbelief - unless you beware.

Warnings in Scripture are there precisely because our Maker knows where we are weakest and most likely to stumble and fall. When these warning are repeated in the space of a few paragraphs, we should pay particular attention.

I believe the writer is not specifically addressing believers here, whom he calls, holy brethren, but brethren in the cultural, ethnic, or social sense, those on the cusp of believing, but not yet fully committed to the truth of the gospel.

This is a dangerous place to be, in some ways more perilous than outright rejection, because the straddler, or the seeker merely flirting with the truth, runs the risk of becoming desensitized to the marvelous revelations of God. How do I know this to be the case? For the compelling reason that in just a few chapters this very serious spiritual condition will be detailed even further, presenting even more catastrophic consequences.

To pretend belief is a form of self-deception. Whatever the motivations - relief from guilt, a desire to conform, a need to put on a certain facade - an insincere confession of faith is similar to the scam perpetrated in the early church by an infamous couple who made a great (and ultimately fatal) show of false generosity toward the church in Jerusalem.

But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession. And he kept back part of the proceeds, his wife also being aware of it, and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles’ feet. But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself? “While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.” (Acts 5:1-4, NKJV).

To feign conversion, or to repeatedly come to the boundary of full belief and knowingly retreat, if done frequently enough, ultimately cements you in a state of self-deceived rejection. Better to declare your unbelief forthrightly than to continually remain borderline but undecided. That way your are not guilty of trying to fool anyone, especially your own wicked heart.

God is not mocked. False allegiance to Christ is rebellion.

What is the most effective preventative for such a deadly state of mind and will? Daily exhortation to renew your knowledge of the truth, to exhort one another daily before it is too late and this disease, like the hardened heart of the prior verses, becomes incurable.

I am convinced that regular immersion in the truth of God's Word inoculates us from the temptation to fall back into the deceptive sin of covert unbelief. We are washed in the water of the Word. Our minds are renewed and we are transformed, rather than conformed to the world.

There are a variety of ways to implement this vitally important spiritual principle in practical day-to-day living. These include regular fellowship with other believers, daily study and meditation of the Bible, prayer for wisdom and guidance - two supplications guaranteed to be fulfilled, and cultivating a thankful, rather than a hardened and cynical heart.

To neglect this in your Christian walk is willful disobedience.

And disobedience to the Savior is both a sign of unbelief, and a hallmark of lack of love toward the One who died to free us from the unthinkable penalty of sin.

God knows that our fallen human tendency is to forget rather than remember His goodness. He knows our congenital bent toward sin is a mountainous obstacle that needs to be conquered anew every morning. He understands that we are continually at war with our flesh and its allies, the world and the devil.

To assist us in the necessary battle He provides us an armory of spiritual weapons, but they avail us nothing if we don't purpose in our belief-softened hearts to faithfully use them - daily.

And He promises that the war has already been won, and that He will always go before us into the fray, picking us up when we inevitably fall, healing our wounds and cleansing us from all unrighteousness.

We need to heed and act upon these warnings.

To do otherwise makes us dangerously susceptible to the deceitfulness of sin.

Heart Disease

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, In the day of trial in the wilderness, Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, And saw My works forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, And they have not known My ways.’ So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’” (Hebrews 03:07-11, NKJV).

Far more serious than hardening of the arteries is the hardening of the human heart itself, not physiologically but spiritually.

What are the presenting symptoms?

Rebellion and an arrogant tempting and testing attitude toward God.

The inevitable result is the pouring out of God's wrath.

These verses in Hebrews are a New Testament quotation of Psalm 95:7-11. As is all Scripture, the ultimate author of the Psalm is the Holy Spirit, regardless of who the human writer might be, and this direct attribution reaffirms our understanding that God is the source of His Word, not men. The Bible is God's revelation to His creatures. To deny that, or ignore that, is yet another symptom of a hardened heart.

In the midst of this warning is God graciously imploring us to hear Him now, today, before the heart disease progresses to incurability.

Paradoxically, humans at their core seek peace; peace of mind, a peaceful environment, relief from guilt and regret. Yet those who have allowed their hearts to harden end up pursuing the opposite by their tempting God with overt unbelief and enmity.

That is what the Children of Israel did in the Wilderness.

They wanted to return to Egypt for their coveted cucumbers and leeks. They decried this vile manna that provided nourishment at little expense or effort. They defamed Moses, their Deliverer, for bringing them into what they willfully viewed as a God-forsaken desert, and for putting himself forward as their leader.

These were all complaints against God, stupidly impugning His righteousness, care, and provision.

And that is another symptom: stupidity.

When you neglect to follow God, when you cease believing in His goodness, when you put yourself, rather than Him, on the throne, you quickly become an idiot.

There is no other way to describe the foolishness of those who worship the creature rather than the Creator. Instead of following the sensible, rational course, these rebels go astray, from the inside out. What begins in the mind, will and emotions (the scriptural meaning of heart), manifests in time and space as surely as death follows birth. 

The result is that the peace that is sought becomes increasingly unreachable, and God Himself will prevent rest.

It is fitting that this should be so, for how could a Holy God who desires that none should perish reward such self-destructive behavior?

For nearly forty years He made His presence known to Israel daily, as a Cloud of Glory during the day and a Pillar of Fire by night. For forty years he supplied them supernaturally with food and indestructible garments and sandals. For forty years he directed their wanderings and gave them His Law through Moses, who spoke with God face-to-face. His Presence was unmistakable.

Yet, their willful unbelief prevailed, and all but two of that generation of wanderers died in the Wilderness.

The freedom to choose is a harrowing thing, utterly fateful, leading either to eternal life or eternal damnation. Because we are born in sin, the default is damnation. The only escape is to soften your heart and believe.

There is ample evidence for God's existence and desire. His power is declared in nature. His love is declared at the Cross of His Son, and His Word reveals His great and good purposes towards us.

Take the warning to heart and hear His voice calling you today. 

Before it is too late.