Bible Teaching

Calvary Temple Teaching Library

Run to the Rest Pt.3

Amen. Let's turn to the book of Hebrews. We'll continue our study on "Run to the Rest." Aren't you glad there is a rest for the people of God? Amen? In a day when everything around us is hectic and in turmoil, the pace that we're on, the prophet said that in the last days men would be running to and fro. We're making a lot of speed but not getting anywhere. Have you ever been on a trip and you got turned around? You're making great time, but just going in the wrong direction. That's where most of the world is. It's a time when we, as believers, need to realize that we're also being influenced in this hour in which we live. As we go into the world on a daily basis, we are vexed with all of the cares and the fears that are out there. We need to guard our hearts that we could labor to enter into the rest of God, so that in the last days there will be fruit from our abiding in Him that ultimately will bring Him the glory that He deserves.

Hebrews, the fourth chapter. Let me read a couple of passages to you as our text, and then we'll go back a few verses and deal with the context here a little bit to see what the Lord is saying to us. Chapter 4, verse 9. "There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his." That lets you know whether or not you're living in the rest of God. Have you been able to cease from your own works? Are you still leaning to the arm of the flesh? Are you still trying to wheel and deal, still looking for that one get rich quick scheme? Are you still compelled to move on up with The Jeffersons so you can feel good about yourselves? Whatever it is that's motivating the world and you're still compelled to look to the natural. The way that you're going to know if you've entered the rest of God is that you cease from your own works. Everything that he used to count gain, Paul said, he now counted loss that he might win Christ. Are you depending on your education? Are you depending on your relationships, are you looking for an inheritance somewhere? Are you holding out for the old rich uncle that you don't know lives? We hear those stories that somebody gets left a boatload of money. I ran into a guy the other day, it's really kind of funny. This fellow that we met at the races, the first time we met him, he was your typical racer out there. He had stuff that he'd had for many years and you could tell he was just getting by. He shows up this year and he's got all new stuff! I mean, if there's something you can buy, this guy's got it out there now. I happened to find out it was one of those classic stories; some relative that he didn't even know existed left him a boatload of money. I know what you're thinking: "Bummer, it always happens to somebody else," right?

It's amazing what we trust in or hope for. Some of you may buy Lotto tickets. I know what you're thinking. Somebody's got to win, right? What is it that you're looking for? Are you laboring like the world for that, "Ten more years and I'm going to be able to retire"? That's just about when Social Security will run out. What are you trusting in? There remains a rest to the people of God. What is that rest that belongs to us? How is it that we enter into that rest? You have to cease from your own labors, you've got to stop trusting in the arm of the flesh "and lean not unto thine own understanding [the wise man says]. In all thy ways acknowledge [God], and he shall direct thy paths" Proverbs 3:5-6. "Let us [verse 11] labour therefore to enter into that rest..." Cease from your own labor. In other words, cease from trying to do it in the natural, but begin to labor in spiritual things. The word labor there in verse 11 means to be diligent, to be a student of the Word of God; it means to study. Paul said it this way, "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." Make the Word of God your treasure. Make the wisdom of God that which is more precious than rubies, that which is to be valued over purest gold. Many of us read those passages and we say, "Yeah, praise God, the Word's valuable," but we don't see it in its practical, literal sense. There's a day coming, beloved, when only this wisdom will sustain you. The Scripture makes it very clear that in the last days, only a man's righteousness is going to sustain him. So study, labor to enter into the rest, so that you don't "fall after the same example of unbelief."

We're going to go back and look at the context again and see what that unbelief was. We looked at it in our last session. The writer of Hebrews 3 said in verse 10, "[There are people that] ...alway err in their heart; [because] they have not known my ways." What is God saying? You are always going to make a mistake if you don't know the Word of God. I don't care how wise you think you are, how many degrees you have, how many secular counselors you've heard from, you will err in your heart if you don't know God's ways. You're going to be deceived. You will trust in the broken reed of Egypt, the prophet said, instead of the supernatural presence of God. You'll lean to your own understanding instead of acknowledging God. It doesn't just come, beloved, you've got to study. Daily you've got to reprogram your mind and renew your mind. Wash your mind with the water of the Word, or you're going to be overcome with the secular, with the foolishness of man that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. What does the Scripture say? Pull down every evil imagination that would exalt itself against the knowledge of God. What are you doing to pull down all these vain imaginations, all the ways that the world tells you that you can be a success, all that the world tells you to trust in. How to dress, how to smell, what to drive, where to live, how to stay healthy, how to get rich. Most of those guys get rich selling the books telling you how to get rich. They didn't make it, they only had a theory. I love all of the new diet fads that are out, and all of the new health programs. I saw a shirt at the races that I loved. It said, "Eat Right, Stay Fit, Die Anyway." It's appointed unto man once to die, (Amen?) and after that the judgment.

Everybody has their theories on life, and how to do this, and how to do that. Everybody is an expert. What are you doing to pull down the evil imaginations that would exalt themselves against the knowledge of God? When we're following all of these voices, how can we hear the still small voice? How much time do you take to get quiet and know exactly what God wants you to do in this situation? There are plenty of people that put themselves off as experts that will give you advice. What's an expert? An expert is a guy with a briefcase ten miles from home. In other words, nobody there knows how stupid he is. You can put yourself off as anything you want to be. Have you labored diligently, studied, and renewed your mind "to enter into [that] rest, lest [you] fall after the same example of unbelief"?

Look at verse 12 of the third chapter. "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God." We now see that the alternative thought process is not just secular, it's not just another way of doing things; it's an evil heart of unbelief. To trust in anything but God's wisdom is sin. We're living in a day when everybody around us--because of all of our advanced technology and all of man's learning--believes the Bible is antiquated. Anybody who believes in the Bible today is some type of mental cripple. I'm going to tell you something, beloved. Heaven and earth are going to pass, but this Word is not going to pass away. This Word is truth. It is the absolute authority on every area of life to those of us who believe. For anything that has relevance, you've got to know what God says about it, or you're going to enter in to unbelief. You say, "The Bible doesn't say anything about microbiology, and it doesn't say anything about all of this subatomic research that's taking place. What does the Bible know about that?" Do you want me to tell you what the Bible says about all that? The Bible says if you know God and His wisdom, you can turn water into wine. You can walk on water. You can say a word and shut the heavens up for three years (let them try to forecast that one). Yet we look to them for the answers, and the answers are right here. They still can't explain what gravity is, they just know the effects of it. Colossians tells you what gravity is. It says, "By him all things consist." Jesus. That means they're all held together. They can't explain why there are water spots on the moon. I can. (They should have asked me, I could have saved them all this money. I would have done it for a percentage.) "Study to shew thyself approved...."

Everything the world's system involves itself in is at enmity with God. It's in opposition to God. It's not just an alternative, it's not just "secular," it's the fruit of that tree of good and evil, and good without God is evil. Good done for man, by man, is evil. It is rebellion, it's the fruit of rebellion; it's the fruit of the worship of the creature instead of the Creator. We're being seduced constantly to move into that arena and serve the creature, exalt the creature, and worship the creature. Many of us are into worship of our bodies through all of these other plans. We trust more in herbs than we do the prayer of faith that heals the sick. We believe more in our exercise than we do in divine health. We are being seduced. We believe in our retirement systems, and we are so afraid to invest in the eternal that we lay up, as the foolish man, and then who shall all of these be? But when you give, "...it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall [God] give into your bosom" (Luke 6:38).

The Bible is foolishness to the natural mind, which says, "Hoard, save up." The Bible says you scatter to your increase. It makes no sense, but it works. What do you believe? The men who know how to scatter to increase are the ones that are at rest, because God never runs out. "Yeah, but this is the last little handful of meal. This is the last bit of oil." Give it to God first. The prophet said, "Give it to me." When you move into that realm of supernatural rest, the cruse of oil doesn't fail, the meal doesn't run out. What formula would you rather know today? Donald Trump's whatever something deal, big deal, or the wisdom of God that makes rich and adds no sorrow with it. We're being seduced, beloved, and many of you sitting here tonight are anxious; you're fearful, you're discontent. You have no course set, there is no direction, and you are no different than a lot of the world. You don't know who you are and you don't know where you're going. From the beginning of time, that's been the frustration of man that's been out of fellowship with God--lives governed by fear and dominated by the evil heart of unbelief.

He says, "Be careful that you don't enter in to that same spirit of unbelief to where you also become one of the provokers of God. The writer of Hebrews here is speaking and he says, "Be careful that you don't enter into that provocation." Verse 15, "While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses. But with whom was he grieved forty years?" Who was it that God was opposing, who was it that God was disappointed in, who was it that He perceived as His enemies? "Was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness? And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest...?" What a piercing of the heart when that revelation came to them! When God spoke by His prophet and said, "I swear to you, you will not partake of the promise that I gave you." Why did He say that to those people? (We're going to read it in just a minute,) because what He promised, they despised. What does it mean to despise the promise of God? Let's talk about some of the promises of God. Some of the promises of God to you and me are these: Don't be afraid, don't be anxious. I won't leave you, I'm present. Do you live in fear? [If so,] then you are provoking God. God said He'd heal us. Are you trusting in man, and in man's methods, and in medication? It's a provocation to God. We explained that in detail the other night, so I won't go back into it. When I talk about trusting, I'm not talking about the fact that you take medicine or whatever. I'm talking about what it is you are trusting in. What are you doing to set your life on course to where you are absolutely 100 percent dependent upon God, satisfied in God, and pursuing the Lord God, or are you content with religion, with a visitation? Are you content with His blessings rather than His presence? Labor to enter into the rest. What was that provocation, what was it these people did that caused them to die in the wilderness? Listen to the language here; listen to the power of this: I swore to them.

Now what ticked God off--and in our lives, if we make a mistake, is God going to write us off? No. As we're going to see in just a moment, when we go to Numbers. He said, "These ten times have you said that I brought you out here to kill you." Now what was it that God said by the prophets that He was going to do? He said He brought us out to (do what?) bring us in. God didn't bring you out to let you fend for yourself; He brought you out to bring you in. He didn't deliver us from Egypt, from Pharaoh's heavy hand, He didn't supernaturally reveal His power through all of the plagues, He did not divide the Red Sea, He did not destroy Pharaoh's armies for you to now depend on yourself or to worship the gods of the nations, but to absolutely live in dependence upon God. To simplify it: the rest is dependence and anxiety is independence. Fear is independence, doubt, confusion, and lack. Discontentment is independence, and you have to work to learn how to rest, to cease from your own labors, to allow yourself to be crucified daily. "They could not enter in [verse 19 says] because of [their] unbelief."

Turn back to Numbers for just a moment now. Let's take a little bit of a look at what's going on here. The children of Israel are being delivered from Egypt. God has made them a promise to partake of a land that flows with milk and honey. In the midst of this, as they journey into the wilderness, they have different trials that they are running into. They are not long into this journey and you find Korah and Dathan trying to rise up, trying to bring a faction in the body of Christ, a people that were looking back to Egypt. "We had it better in Egypt. They have it better in the world. Why do bad people have good things happen to them? I had it easier when I was a sinner; I had fewer problems when I was a sinner." Of course you did, the devil already had you. He already took you up on the mountain, just like he did Jesus, and said, "Look, look at the kingdoms of the world. They are mine and to whomever I'll give them. You bow and serve me, and I'll give you some of it." Many people have bowed their knee, some for great wealth and some for less, but nevertheless, they've been sold that bill of goods. I want to tell you something: "The wages of sin is death." Satan is a tough taskmaster.

We find God, as He intervenes in this journey, whether it's Mount Sinai and the party at the Golden Calf. "Where is Moses?" "He's died. Let's raise up some leaders, we'll head back to Egypt." People are always ready to turn and run back to Egypt, back to the world's methods. Sometimes, because, apparently, those that have gone before us, this great cloud of witnesses, have run into adversity, it appears as though they've been defeated or failed. The rest brings us to know that men who are walking in faith never fail, they just become another cloud of witnesses of God's faithfulness. There is no failure in faith. Hebrews makes it very clear, "These all died in faith, not having received the promises...." You don't have to receive anything to be successful, to be victorious. You have to believe, you have to trust. What you don't receive here you will receive better there. "Aw, man, that's just the old religion, pie in the sky and the sweet by and by." Hope to tell you, because He's gone to prepare a place for us. Amen? "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him" (1 Corinthians 2:9).

Beloved, we need to get our eyes off this planet and begin to look into that place that's being prepared for us. We need to live for the eternal and not for the moment, for the temporal. We've become so consumed with ease and comfort and temporal treasures that Christians have lost sight of heaven--not around the world--just us here who live in Disneyland, Americans. Do you want an eye-opener? Go spend the night in Kawangware and you'll start looking for heaven. Instead of worrying about what supplements you're going to eat, and what special diet you're going to be on so you can be toned and hard, let your body be eaten up by cancer to where nothing you can put in your mouth will help you, and you'll start looking for heaven. Priorities will change and you'll be delivered from that evil heart of unbelief. Where are we today? "Who hath bewitched you, [Paul said to the Galatians] ... having begun in the spirit, are ye now made perfect in the flesh?" As the people of God were coming out of Egypt, (and there was way too much Egypt in them) every time they hit a snag, they would look back. They would look to the temporal; they would look back to the natural way of doing things.

Chapter 14 of Numbers starts off this way, "And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night." Now what are they all upset about? The spies had come back and given the report (chapter 13, verse 27) that surely it was a land that flowed with milk and honey, but verse 28 is the crux of the whole thing. "Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled... [There are giants there and we are as grasshoppers in their sight.]" Not what everybody was looking to hear. We all know the story: a couple of guys, Joshua and Caleb, two of the spies that had come back. The people began to murmur and began to be overwhelmed by the difficulty of the circumstances. "We thought God was going to bring us out here and just kind of throw this thing in our lap and we wouldn't have to do anything. Do you mean we're going to have to fight for what God has given us? Do you mean this is going to take a little bit of effort on our part? I don't know if we signed up for that or not." "And Caleb [verse 30] stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it. But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we. And they brought up an evil report..." The people are weeping and murmuring now (verse 2) against Moses and against Aaron. They said, "Would God [verse 2 of the fourteenth chapter] that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness! And wherefore hath the Lord brought us unto this land, to fall by the sword [of our enemies], that our wives and our children should be a prey? were it not better for us to return into Egypt?"

Again we hear that maybe there should be another course, maybe we need a new leader. It's not the first time Moses experienced this. So the Scripture tells us, then, that when Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before the congregation, Joshua and Caleb "...spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land, which we passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land." Now, beloved, I want you to get hold of verse 8 here, and we're going to spend some time in this study over in Daniel. I want you to grab this spirit, "If the Lord delight in us, then he will bring us into this land..." The rest is the ability to commit yourself absolutely to the sovereignty of God. "I don't know what God is going to do, but I know whatever it is, it's going to be right, it's going to be just, it's going to be good, it's going to be eternal. Yes, there are temporal fixes. There are things I can take into my own strength and accomplish, but if God delights in us..." Abraham said it this way, "It will not be said that any man has made Abraham rich." Moses said it this way, "Lord, I don't want You to send Your angel before us to prosper us and give us the land. If Your presence doesn't go, I'm not going. I don't want anything God hasn't given me." Can you say that today? If you really can believe that and say that, you're going to be at rest. I don't want that house if God hasn't given it to me. I don't want that mate if God hasn't given it to me. I don't want those resources if God is not the source, for it's the Lord that makes rich and adds no sorrow. Any man can get rich, but it will be with sorrow if God is not the author of it. Riches will kill you if God is not the author of them. Riches will seduce you and cause you to trust in their uncertain powers and seduce your heart from God, and you'll trust in the riches and not the Father that gave them to you. "Beware," the Lord said, "when I take you into the land, that you don't think that you've obtained this with your own strength and by your own ability and forget Me."

The wise man prayed, "Just give me sufficient. I don't want to lack so I steal, and I don't want abundance so I forget You." Where are you today in laboring to enter into the rest? What is the rest? God is the source, God is the source, total dependence on Him. "If the Lord delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us...." Look at verse 9. Remember, we talked about the evil heart of unbelief, always erring in their hearts because they didn't know who God was and what His intentions were for them, always erring because they used the wisdom of the knowledge of good and evil. "Only rebel not ye against the Lord...." Don't fear the circumstances, there is no weapon formed against us that will prosper. If God is for us who can be against us? "[Don't fear] the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defence is departed from them, and the Lord is with us: fear them not."

Are you afraid of failure? Are you afraid of not measuring up to the world? Are you afraid of the devil? Are you afraid of the diseases that are going around? Are you afraid of the terrorists? Are you afraid of the sniper? (You had a better chance of getting the Lottery than getting shot by that guy, and yet, I'll bet some of you here were looking behind every tree.) What are you afraid of if God is for you? Our lives are not lives of fate and chance. We are not living under some of the mythological gods of fate, but the Creator of heaven and earth, the giver of every good and perfect gift, the One who orders our paths, our steps, the One who knows your name, the One who has numbered the hairs on your head. Have you labored to enter into that rest? Do we really believe that? Have we ceased from our own labors? This is a pretty good speech he's giving, this is a pretty good sermon; but they didn't say amen, though. It says, "But all the congregation bade stone them with stones." Yup, that's pretty much the general consensus when you take this kind of a stand. The message of trusting God doesn't draw a crowd. (Well, it does, but they try to kill you.) They think you're a fool. If you believe the Word of God, if you live by the Word of God--I want to tell you, in this day and age we're living in--if you believe the Bible, you'll be perceived as part of a cult. (I'm just saying that because the day we're living in, no self-respecting Christian really believes the Bible.) "Christians are just people that are born in America; Christians are non-Muslims." The term Christian was first used in Antioch; it means Christlike. What does it mean to be like Jesus, to totally trust in the Father?

So they wanted to kill them, and when they tried to kill them, "The Lord said unto Moses, How long will this people provoke me? and how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have shewed among them?" (That's a rhetorical question, by the way.) "[I'm going to kill them and disinherit them, and what I'm going to do is] ...make of thee [Moses] a greater nation and mightier than they." Moses interceded for them and said, "[Lord, if You do that], then the Egyptians shall hear it... [and they'll say You weren't able to bring them in] And they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land: for they have heard that Thou Lord art among this people, [One whom we've had visit us and] ...seen face to face. [Don't let it be said that You couldn't bring these people in.]"

Here's what I want you to see, beloved. Listen to the prayer that Elijah prayed on Mount Carmel, "Lord, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel...." We are making decisions to walk differently from the world, to let it be known that He is God in our midst. We don't have to do it their way. We're not serving their gods; we're not using their methods. If you want to know the supernatural of fire coming out of heaven, if you want to know the supernatural of preservation like the children of Israel, then put yourself up against the world and say, "Lord, that it might be known that You are God, I'm looking to You totally as my source." Are you ready to enter into that rest, to absolutely be motivated by a jealousy for the glory of God? Not that I'll receive this thing, but that God would be seen as the source.

"They'll say because You couldn't bring them in, you killed them in the wilderness," verse 16. "And now, I beseech thee, let the power of my Lord be great, according as thou hast spoken, saying, The Lord is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and [You're the one who] by no means clearing the guilty..., [Lord, forgive us.] ... And the Lord said, I have pardoned according to thy word [verse 20]: but as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord. [But, listen up, I'm going to spare the people, but not all of them. I'm going to do a work in your midst, but not everybody is going to benefit from it.] Because all those men which have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice; Surely they shall not see the land... [for they have provoked me]: But my servant Caleb [will], because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed me fully.... [verse 28] Say unto them, As truly as I live, saith the Lord, as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you: Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness; [everyone] ... from twenty years old and upward [is going to die. And they, then, will] doubtless ye shall not come into the land..., But your little ones, which ye said should be a prey [verse 31], them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye [look at it, verse 31] have despised."

We know what it takes to walk in the spirit, we know what brings glory to God. Let's not despise it by failing to partake of this life in the supernatural. When was the last time you did it in the spirit? When was the last time you wholly trusted God? Caleb had another spirit in him for he "...hath followed me fully...." Labor, for there is a rest for the people of God.

Father, we thank You for Your Word, and as we take these next few sessions and spend some time, O Father, don't let us lose the supernatural in our lives. Father, we've become so soft in our prosperity, in our abundance. We've been put at such ease through our prosperity, through the pharmakeia, and so much of the professed church today has become part of the whore--the apostate religious system--the one that is embracing the spirit of antichrist, that looks for the praise of the world, and that uses its methodology in building the church: demographics, mass-mailings, and surveys of what people want to hear. Paul stood and said, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of [God]: it is the power of God unto salvation." Who are we? Are you at rest, knowing in whom you believed? Are you persuaded that that which you have committed to Him, He will keep against that day? Let us labor, Lord, to enter into that rest, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen, amen.

Let's stand before the Lord tonight. I'm sure you can sense what's on my heart. We can't lose our heritage. We can't lose the greatest gift of His presence, the life in the supernatural, and yet so much is being eroded away daily. I don't have time to get into it right now, but so much of what is trusted in, as Christians today, so many people don't trust in God. They trust in our constitution that gives them liberties. Those liberties are going by the way, it's a straw man! We trust in our affluence. Beloved, this economy is a house of cards. Where is the rest, where is the peace, where is the contentment, the daily reliance, the smile from just knowing He's there? It's our heart's desire, Father, that we would return to our rest, that You might be glorified, that men would see the good works and glorify our Father in Heaven. Grant it, and be glorified in it, we ask, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen, amen.

Before you go, turn to somebody next to you and say, "There is a rest for the people of God." Go in peace, God's love go with you.

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