And as to experience:
And as to experience:
Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you endured in a great conflict full of suffering. 33 Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated.
In the light of the above two passages, think again about this exhortation:
Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it. (Hebrews 4:1—NASB)
Think about it! We might not be too surprised if the writer exhorted them to make sure they do not lose their place in Heaven. But the writer is not speaking about Heaven as their goal, is he? The context of the statements in Chapters Three and Four do not appear to refer to moving to Heaven, do they? The rest of God is a state of being that mature saints are to labor to enter during their discipleship in the earth.
Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience. (Hebrews 4:11)
Why do we have to "make every effort" to enter God's rest? It is because there are enemies in our personality that do not want God to find rest in us, or we to find rest in God.
The two enemies are the unclean spirits that dwell in our personality; and our old nature, or "old man."
That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; (Ephesians 4:22—KJV)
Most of our unclean spirits can be dismissed relatively easily, by confessing them as wicked, and asking the assistance of the Lord Jesus in turning away from them. This is an "eternal judgment" on Satan if we steadfastly refuse to yield to them.
Our old nature, or "old man," is a different matter. Our old nature is the personality we were born with, so to speak. It is "who we are."
It may be true that most believers are glad to get rid of the unclean spirits that affect their behavior. But submitting to the crucifixion of our personality may be more than we care to experience.
We cannot cast out our adamic nature. It must be killed. How do we do that?
It is a matter of permitting God, Christ, and the Spirit of God to sit on the throne of our will, to take the place of "King Self-will. It is our "will" that defines who we really are.
This is what the Apostle Paul meant by, "I am crucified with Christ, it now is Christ who is living in me."
Let me stop right now and ask you a question: "Are you actually ready to abandon your self-will so that Christ can take over the management of your life, your thinking, speaking, and behaving?"
If not, you cannot possibly grow spiritually past the Pentecostal experience. The rest of God, the state of being in which we always know what God's will is, and have the desire, wisdom, and strength to perform it, is impossible to attain to until we get off the throne of our life and permit God to direct all we think, say, and do.
I have realized for over sixty years that this is the fundamental decision facing the Charismatic believers.
I notice that there is a movement today in which Pentecostal people are supposed to enter a great anointing and finally to gain positions of authority in their various countries. One of the names of this movement is The New Apostolic Reformation.
Regardless what may be said in support of this attempt to restore spiritual fervor to the Charismatic-Pentecostal people, it will become the False Prophet of the thirteenth chapter of the Book of Revelation. It does not emphasize our need to die to self-will so that our Lord Jesus Christ is exalted. It is people-centered rather than Christ-centered, from the little bit of it I have seen.
We simply must come to understand that what truly is taking place in the spirit world today is portrayed in the twelfth chapter of the Book of Revelation. God's true saints are in a travail to bring forth Christ. Christ Himself is the only true Ruler of God's works.
The world of today, including the Church world, is in an unbelievable mess because of the self-will of man. Neither the secular world nor the Christian world will be straightened out by the efforts of well-meaning Christians. It is only as we get our hands off the Ark, to speak in a figure, and submit to personal crucifixion, that God's true King, the Lord Jesus Christ, will come forth and bring to us the eternal righteousness, love, joy, and peace that we long for.
The False Prophet, self-willed Christian believers, will end up supporting Antichrist, just as Chapter Thirteen of Revelation informs us.
Entering the rest of God is the subject of the Book of Hebrews, although not all of the topics in Hebrews appear to be directly related to this primary thesis. It is evident, however, that Hebrews has largely to do with pressing on past the initial works of redemption.
As far as the elect are concerned, the goal of their life is to enter the rest of God. This means we must believe that God has called us to be a member of the Royal Priesthood. Therefore we are not to scheme how we may arrive at some other goal of our own choosing. Our task in life is to seek Christ constantly, to lay aside all else, as did the Apostle Paul, and grasp that for which we have been grasped.
God did the fighting when Israel left Egypt. But the next generation, those who were permitted to enter the land of promise, had to fight, as God strengthened and guided them.
There are enemies in our land of promise, As I have been saying, just as there were enemies in Canaan as the Israelites sought to enter.
To enter our assigned role in the Kingdom of God necessitates our patiently enduring numerous tribulations. Our most intense desires remain unfulfilled while we wait as cheerfully as we can in God's prison. As the Prophet mentioned, "We are shut up and cannot come forth."
Every sinful behavior must be resisted determinedly. Some of our sins have a spiritual basis. These must be confessed and cast out. The Lord Jesus will assist us with this if we ask Him.
Every one of those who are called to be the brothers of Christ must experience the sufferings of Christ, the sufferings of the cross. Our personal cross is not a delight. It is painful at times. If we fasten on it, it will grind us to powder. We must continue to think of our blessings, what we do have and can do, and not what we do not have and cannot do.
There are those who have been called to the Royal Priesthood, the governing body of the Kingdom of God, who come quite a ways toward their goal. Then the stress becomes too much for them and they fall back into the ways of the flesh. How disappointing this is to the Lord who had such high hopes for them.
We can come out from the bondage of the world spirit and put to death the sins of our flesh as the Spirit points them out to us. But it is that third area at which some believers draw the line. They are not willing to give up their personal desires and obey Christ as He leads them toward the goal God has set before them.
What often happens is that the believer is placed in a situation in which he is miserable. His desires are being deferred while he is obligated to continue in a detested situation. He cannot get out of this bondage without breaking God's laws.
When we find ourselves becoming angry with people, that often is a sign God is using them to perfect us. Why should we be angry with the tools God uses? That does not make sense. Let us rather look to Jesus to see what He wants us to do. Anger prevents us from hearing clearly the gentle voice of the Spirit.
We must accept the fact that we are not going to be treated fairly in this present world. The Lord Jesus was not treated fairly. Pilate handed Christ over to be crucified when Pilate could find no reason for doing this. Christ was entirely innocent and Pilate knew it.
This sort of injustice may cause us to fret until we, like Christ, give ourselves over to the will of God. Only then will we be able to hear that still, small voice of the Spirit and know what the next step on our journey is to be. We may have to permit ourselves to be defrauded for a period of time.
We always are to pray, and keep on praying, that God will give us the desires of our heart. And He will in his time. But we must not give in to our fleshly impulses and take matters into our own hands, as Satan counseled Eve to do. The minute we do this we no longer can hear what Christ is saying to us through the Spirit.
I do not doubt there have been many ministers of the Gospel who have explained clearly the rest of God and how we are to press into it. However, I have not heard this subject preached. This suggests to me that it is in our day that the Lord Jesus is explaining to his disciples this all-important subject.
Well then, what exactly is our goal, our rest and God's rest in us.
Perhaps the strongest of the Old Testament types, concerning the goal of the Christian discipleship, is Canaan, the land of promise. The Israelites were saved out of Egypt in order to have their own home in Canaan, the land of milk and honey.
But what does Canaan stand for? I would say it stands for the rest of God, that is, the condition in which our life is focused on doing Christ's will at every moment. It stands for pressing past our natural life and entering the resurrection Life of our Lord. It is God's intention that we find perfect righteousness, love, joy, and peace in the very center of his Person and will.
Many Israelites never attained to their goal and died in the wilderness. The writer of Hebrews warns us about this and urges us not to stop moving forward until we have entered God's rest.
Beyond all doubt, one of the greatest hindrances to a clear understanding of the Kingdom of God is the traditional belief that the spirit Heaven is the land of promise, the fulfillment of the symbolism of Canaan. It assuredly is not! While there certainly is a spirit Heaven, where Christ, his saints, and the holy angels may be found, residence in Heaven is not the rest of God, the goal of the Christian redemption.
First of all, there is no passage of Scripture that points toward residence in the spirit world as the goal of redemption. Second, we would have to wait until we die in order to enter God's rest.
When we die, we are not faced with walls of Jericho, so to speak. The land is not divided up among us. We do not have to drive out the enemy. The entrance of Israel into Canaan is nowhere near being a type of the rest spoken of in the fourth chapter of the Book of Hebrews.
To go to Heaven is a change of place. To enter God's rest is a change of personality, a change of what we are, how we conduct ourselves. Contrary to popular belief, dying and going to Heaven does not change what we are. The only way we can be changed is by interacting with Jesus on a daily basis.
The following passage could be interpreted to mean that residence in Heaven is our goal.
Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. (Hebrews 11:16)
However, later, in the Book of Hebrews, we find that Paul is referring to a city that is coming, not one to which we go and reside forever.
Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come. (Hebrews 13:13)
"The city that is to come."
The Kingdom of God is coming to the earth and His will shall be done here. This is the answer to the "Lord's prayer," isn't it?
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