Entering the Place of Rest
We need to keep in mind that God knows us fully and perfectly inside and out. Nothing is hidden from Him. That is an incentive for obedience, but it is also an encouragement because His Word, which reveals our hearts, also shows us how we can be more faithful to Him.
Transcript
When I was growing up, my three brothers and I often thought our mother had eyes in the back of her head. That is a rather strange picture, but you get the idea. Mom never missed anything—even when it was behind her back. And I have to say, as a child, I never seemed to get away with anything.
Well, the Bible tells us that God truly sees everything. Every detail in the universe, including everything you and I do, is seen and known by our God. The Bible says that He even knows our thoughts.
As we sail back into Hebrews 4, I want to slow down a little bit and look at just three verses—very important verses. They give us some profound theological truths regarding the Word of God and the omniscience of God. Omniscience means all-knowing. Now you need to know that these truths are not just for theologians—or to set on a shelf somewhere to be admired. They are to shape the way we live every day.
The author of Hebrews begins by giving us a passionate goal for life:
Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. (verse 11)
We have already seen that in chapters 3 and 4 the author refers to various aspects of “rest.” What is the rest he is speaking of here? He is speaking to believers, who have already trusted in Christ for salvation. But now he exhorts his readers to “strive to enter that rest,” so this particular resting place is available for believers only. What kind of “rest” is this? This is rest that comes when we obey the Word of God.
That is why the author is exhorting Christians to “strive” to enter that rest—to make every effort to enter into it. We do not strive to earn our salvation, but we do indeed strive daily to enter the rest that comes through obedience to God’s Word.
The author illustrates this kind of rest by going back to the Israelites in the wilderness. Their disobedience caused them to fall short of entering Canaan, the land God promised to those who would obey Him. Remember, beloved, in Scripture Canaan is not a picture of heaven. I know there are a lot of wonderful gospel songs that say otherwise, but Canaan, the promised land, was a land of battles and struggles. In order to enter the land, though, Israel had to obey the word of God.
When they failed to believe God’s promises and obey Him, it left them short of enjoying the land of rest—the land of Canaan.
So, verse 11 is exhorting every believer to pursue an obedient life. Disobedience is like a roadblock to the land of rest. Let us not follow the example of the ancient Israelites. Obedient living is to be our passionate goal in life.
Now the author gives us our providential guide in life. He presents us here what might be one of the most enlightening descriptions of the Bible:
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (verse 12)
Let us break this amazing verse down. First, we are given the character of God’s Word: it is a “living” book. The Bible is not a history book we pull off the shelf to find out what happened yesterday. It is a living Book, capable of being applied to what is happening today—for you and me, right now.
Perhaps you have been a Christian long enough to have experienced this. You read a verse or two in the morning, and you find it to be the perfect text for something that happens that day. It is alive with Holy Spirit power.
The writer says here that it is “living and active.” “Active” translates the Greek word energēs. We get our word energetic from it. The Bible is not just words on a page; its words actually work, convicting us of sin, showing us how to live, reminding us of what matters.
Verse 12 goes on to describe the precision of the God’s Word. The author writes that the Bible is a “double-edged sword.” This is not a picture of destruction but of reconstruction. This sword is not so much a weapon as it is a surgical scalpel, performing spiritual surgery on our hearts and minds.
The verse continues, saying that God’s Word pierces to “the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow.” In other words, the Bible penetrates both the immaterial part of us and the material part. This is the writer’s way of saying that the depth of penetration reaches our innermost being.
He goes on now to write that the Word penetrates the inner recesses of our motives, “discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” “Discerning” is kritikos in Greek, which gives us our word critic. The Bible criticizes—it evaluates, it corrects—our deepest thoughts and intentions.
Beloved, the Bible is a divine X-ray machine. It reveals who we really are on the inside. On the one hand, this is a warning to us. We cannot hide our sinful thoughts from the X-ray vision of God. When you open the Bible, it will open up you; it will gaze into your heart and your mind.
On the other hand, this truth of God’s penetrating Word is a comfort to us. We can depend on God’s Word to give us the wisdom we need for daily living.
So, this great truth of the powerful, discerning Word of God is not only the motivation for us to obey the Lord and find rest in Him; it is also the manual that shows us how.
The question, then, is not, “Why should we read and study and memorize and obey the Word of God?” The question is, “How in the world can we afford not to?” This inspired manual leads us to experience a “rest”—a place of peace and delight as we obey the will and Word of God.
The author of Hebrews then makes a subtle shift in verse 13, where he writes this:
And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
This shifts our attention from the Bible to the divine Author. What is true of God’s Word is certainly true of God. Nothing is hidden from Him—not one thing in all of creation. And that includes all of us today.
He does not have to have eyes in the back of His head. He is omnipresent—that is, always present everywhere. He is an eyewitness to everything! He is also omniscient—He knows all. We can try to hide our sinful thoughts and intentions, and we might succeed in hiding them from people around us—even our closest loved ones.
But we all stand before God’s eyes, verse 13 says, as though we were completely naked. Down to the motives of our hearts, we are completely exposed before God.
But here is the good news: every sin you have ever committed was seen by the Lord, and He died to pay for them all. Think of it. How could Jesus die on the cross and pay the penalty for sin you would commit 2,000 years later? How could He do that? Because He is God the Son; and from eternity past, He already knew everything you would do today.
Our rest, our peace, our security is paid for in full. The Lord took the record of our sin and nailed it to the cross.
So, let us live today according to this providential guide—God’s Word. And let us live with this passionate goal—to enter into a place of rest today, by obeying Him.
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