We are continuing in a series of sermons from the Book of Hebrews that I am calling the Greatest of All Time. In this episode, we will see that Jesus is the Greatest Promise. In our last episode, we noted that a person’s voice is one of the most distinctive elements in their personality. Another distinctive part of our lives is whether or not we keep our promises. How we deal with the promises we make and how we keep our word, or not, will cast either a ray of sunshine or a shadow of cloud on our reputations. During World War Two, solemn promises were made by two different men, and both kept them, but in very different ways.
It is a well-known event in history that the Japanese began hostilities with surprise attacks on the United States at Hawaii and at the Philippines. Though great damage was done in Hawaii, Japanese forces invaded the Philippines, and after a four-month-long struggle, they captured it.
The American Commander was General Douglas MacArthur, who was ordered to Australia to organize a counterattack. When he arrived there, MacArthur, without consulting Washington, pronounced, "I came through and I shall return".
To fulfill that promise, MacArthur had to fight the Japanese, the horrible Southwest Pacific climate, and the power structure in Washington, where many leaders did not think that it was worth the effort to return to the Philippines and free them. It took about three years, thousands and thousands of troops, and MacArthur’s absolute determination, but it did come to pass.
On the other side of the war, a young Japanese officer, Hiroo Onoda, was sent to a small Philippine island to conduct guerilla warfare against the American counterattack. He promised never to surrender and to hold out until his commander returned and released him from his assignment. He determined to be faithful to the promise he had made.
In fact, his commander never returned, the war ended, but Onoda soldiered on. He continued to fulfill his duty for almost 30 years, until a man named Norio Suzuki found him and told him the war was over. Still, Onoda refused to quit his post. Suzuki returned to Japan, found his former commander, and brought him to that small island. Only then did Onoda put down his weapons and returned home, saying, “I was ordered to fight, and I fought. I kept my promise.”
These are great examples of keeping a promise, but today we will see a greater example from Hebrews 4:1-13. Let’s begin with Hebrews 4:1-3:
Therefore, while the promise to enter His rest remains, let us fear that none of you should miss it. For we also have received the good news just as they did; but the message they heard did not benefit them, since they were not united with those who heard it in faith (for we who have believed enter the rest), in keeping with what He has said: So I swore in My anger, they will not enter My rest. And yet His works have been finished since the foundation of the world, for somewhere He has spoken about the seventh day in this way: And on the seventh day God rested from all His works.
The Promise of Rest:
We begin by observing that Christ has given us a promise of rest. If time is a precious commodity, as we saw in our last episode, rest is nigh unto it.
Sometimes rest is scarce because of our sin. Not so much our individual sin, but because of the sinful state of mankind as a whole. Adam and Eve had a lush garden at their disposal, but when they sinned, God said that they would have to work by the sweat of their brow.
The very day before I wrote this message, I had an experience that illustrates why rest is scarce. A few days before, the cable broke on the footrest mechanism of our couch; specifically, it broke on the side of the couch where my wife sits. So, I had to repair it.
I searched for the part on-line, and I found two items which looked like they would work, but which were listed as having different lengths. I bought both, just to be sure, only to find that they were identical!
That cable was never intended to be replaced, and so I had to disassemble the entire couch to fit the replacement part. It took over two hours to complete the job, but with bruised and bloodied hands I could say that not only did I repair the cable, but I had no parts left over, and it worked. On the other hand, I felt like I had been runover by a truck! Things in life are just hard, and they are harder than God intended them to be.
Another reason that rest is scarce, is due to our own, individual natures. As a child, my mom would send me to bed at a good hour, but I knew that she and my father and my oldest sister were still awake and watching television or listening to music. I couldn’t sleep because I felt like I was missing out on parts of life that others were enjoying. FOMO was a thing with me before it was a thing!
Rest is more than physical, of course. Paul said he had learned to be content in whatever state in which he found himself, but he also admitted that his concern for the churches that he planted weighed heavily on him. In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul describes all the troubles and tribulations he had had in ministry, concluding with this in 1 Corinthians 11:28,
Not to mention other things, there is the daily pressure on me: my care for all the churches.
This is like the conversation I had with the father of a groom in a wedding I performed. I asked him, “So, I guess now that your son is married and out on his own, you don’t have to worry about him anymore?” He replied, “No matter how old they are, you never stop being a father.”
Here’s the good news for us: Christ has prepared a rest for us. If we trust Him and invest our faith in Him, we will someday hear these words,
Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.
Jesus offers us rest, and it is a greater rest than any rest offered on this earth. This is because it is a perfected rest.
The Perfection of Rest:
Let’s read verses 4-10:
For somewhere He has spoken about the seventh day in this way: And on the seventh day God rested from all His works. Again, in that passage He says, They will never enter My rest. Since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news did not enter because of disobedience, again, He specifies a certain day—today—speaking through David after such a long time, as previously stated: Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts. For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. Therefore, a Sabbath rest remains for God’s people. For the person who has entered His rest has rested from his own works, just as God did from His.
If humans can’t find rest, we need God to help us and give us His rest, and He has promised to do so. We know He can because He has perfected His rest.
The example that the writer of Hebrews has given us is God’s work of creation. As we know, Jesus created everything, and when He finished, it was perfect and complete. Then, because He was finished, He rested because there was no more creating to do.
When I was active in Southern Baptist Disaster Relief, we knew our workday was complete when our team leader told us, “Let’s go get a shower and get ready for supper.” No one would take a shower and then go back out and run chainsaws and pull limbs, but the thing is, that respite was just temporary, because on the next day, we’d be back out running chainsaws and pulling limbs and getting hot and sweaty and dirty, because the job was not yet done.
Although it is beyond human ability to find rest, Jesus not only completed creation, but He also completed the process of salvation. On the Cross Jesus proclaimed, “It is finished,” and then He went to sit at the right hand of God. Then, because He was finished, He rested because there was no more to do to provide us salvation. He is enjoying His sabbath and He is looking forward to giving us that eternal sabbath also!
Joshua may have led the Children of Israel into the Promised Land, but he could not lead them to capture it and subdue. The task was not completed. And Israel has never been at rest in their own land. Jesus perfected His rest because it is complete. He also showed us how to have that rest by giving us a manual to find it.
The Manual for Rest:
Let’s read verses 11-13:
Let us then make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall into the same pattern of disobedience. For the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the ideas and thoughts of the heart. No creature is hidden from Him, but all things are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account.
As I have said before, God does not play peek-a-boo with his children. He does not play hide-and-seek, nor does He play pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. He is open and honest with us, and in fact, we are the ones who hide from Him, just as Adam and Eve did after they sinned.
Jesus told us plainly how to find the rest that we need in Matthew 11:28-30:
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.
In John 14:27, Jesus also said,
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
So again, as we have seen before, the rest that we seek is not found through the accumulation of wealth, or by following a list of mystic principles, or by discovering “one weird trick” on the internet that will radically change our lives. We find rest in none of these, but we find rest in a person, Jesus. This is what the Word, our manual for finding rest, teaches us.
The writer of Hebrews discovered another facet about God’s Word in addition to it being the source of our rest and peace. Yes, God’s Word reveals to us how to find rest in Jesus, but it also reveals the truth about us also. Paul also discovered this as we have seen previously in passages from Romans.
The Word of God is able to pierce our very soul and to expose all that is in it. In fact, the writer of Hebrews says that we stand naked before God. As much as Adam and Eve tried to hide their nakedness, and despite the fact that God had to kill animals to give them physical clothing, spiritually they, like we are today, were totally exposed to God.
When we served in England with the International Mission Board, our assignment was in what we now call church revitalization. The church we served there had gone through hard times, not the least of which was losing their church building because of dry rot.
A hidden part of the wall of the church had gotten wet from a leak in the roof, and a dry rot started growing. In fact, its tentacles slowly wrapped around the outer walls of the building, destroying their soundness, but silently, hiddenly, inexorably and definitively. By the time the problem was discovered, and the original source of the dry rot was exposed, it was too late. One deacon described it as a horrible, alien-looking thing. In truth it was just dry rot, but it destroyed their beautiful Victorian chapel building.
This is just like an infected abscess in one’s body. The symptoms can be treated, but the infection cannot be cured until it is exposed and excised. It is painful, but to be healed it must be done. Sometimes this is what the Word is like in our lives. In fact, it must be that way, so that our spiritual lives can be healed.
The Japanese officer that I mentioned above, Onoda, took advantage of the jungle to hide from his adversaries. Sadly, it also hid from him the truth of the end of the war. Jesus is the Word of God and He was given to us so that we can know about the rest that God has offered us.
The problem of knowing how to find rest is not with God but with us, because we hide from Him and His Word.
The Rejection of Rest:
Finally, let’s look at some verses that reveal a real tragedy. Let’s read verses 2-3a,
For we also have received the good news just as they did; but the message they heard did not benefit them, since they were not united with those who heard it in faith (for we who have believed enter the rest), in keeping with what He has said: So I swore in My anger, they will not enter My rest.
It is a tragedy that some people have heard the message of the promise of rest, but they ignore it. Again, the Japanese soldier Onoda is a sad example.
When Japan surrendered, leaflets were dropped on the Jungle where Onoda and his small band of followers were hiding. Onoda rejected them, and when one of his soldiers decided that he was going to surrender, those who remained considered him to be a traitor.
Even after all of his followers died or left him, Onoda refused to believe the word of Japan’s surrender. He would not even believe the testimony of Norio Suzuki. Suzuki had to bring Onoda’s former commander to him. This is an apt illustration of what many people have done with the message of rest in Christ.
- First, when God’s Word came to them, they refused to believe.
- Next, when prophets, God’s messengers came to them, they also refused to believe.
- Finally, God Himself came to them in Christ, and unlike Onoda, they continued to refuse to believe!
If anything can be more tragic than living in the jungle for 30 years because of a hasty promise made to the representative of a corrupt and morally bankrupt cause, it is to reject the opportunity to find the rest that no human can provide.
Verses 10-11 also say,
For the person who has entered His rest has rested from his own works, just as God did from His. Let us then make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall into the same pattern of disobedience.
It is a tragedy that some people have thought that their own works are equal with God’s work. This is simply not the case.
- God is sinless, and we are sinful.
- God gives us rest, and all we give ourselves is strife.
- God has quit His work, because His task is complete.
- People quit work because they have made a mess of it.
In some ways, this was Douglas MacArthur’s situation. He reclaimed the Philippines, and he reformed the Japanese government and society. Surely that was enough, right? No, it wasn’t.
He continued on serving through the first months of the Korean War. Again, MacArthur had success, but then he pushed things too far. He had always thought highly of himself, and he always valued his own opinions above those of others. When the Chinese intervened in the Korean War, MacArthur developed strong opinions about how the United States should react. The leadership in Washington disagreed, and unlike during World War Two, he ran into a President who was not reluctant to fire him. And so, he did.
If MacArthur had not been proud and arrogant, he could have been the old soldier who could fade away in dignity and honor. Sadly, he was proud and arrogant, and he paid the price. Even more sad are the ones who value their opinions more highly than God’s. They will never see the rest that God offers those who listen to Him!
Finally, let’s read verses 5-7,
Again, in that passage He says, They will never enter My rest. Since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news did not enter because of disobedience, again, He specifies a certain day—today—speaking through David after such a long time, as previously stated: Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.
If we think carefully about the actions of Onoda and MacArthur, we might find a different motive for their actions. Instead of keeping promises, they may well have just been stubborn.
In the movie Gettysburg, Tom Berenger plays the role of Lieutenant General James Longstreet, Robert E. Lee’s “Old War Horse.” In a reflective moment, the Longstreet character admitted that maintaining the institution of slavery was a losing strategy for the Confederacy saying that, “We should have freed the slaves and then fired on Fort Sumpter . . . we’d rather lose the war than admit the mistake.”
The biggest mistake we can make is to be stubborn and hard-hearted, and to refuse to admit our needs. A mistake that is like unto it is to admit our mistake but stubbornly insist that Jesus is not that answer to our problems. Either way, our stubbornness robs us of the promise of rest pledged to us by Jesus.
Conclusion:
Are you sick and tired? Are you sick and tired of trying to do the right thing, but failing? Are you sick and tired of trying to make your own way in the world? Are you sick and tired of trying to justify yourself to everyone, even God? Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired? Our solution is to find rest in the Greatest Promise: Jesus!
