Title: The Promise of Rest Still Remaining
(Hebrews 4:1-8)
Although Israel came out of Egypt to enter Canaan, the reason they were destroyed in the wilderness was because they did not believe in God's Word and tried and complained about God in the wilderness. He tells us that we should take this as a great alarm in our life of faith. Regarding this, verse 1 says, “Therefore let us fear, lest any of you fall short of the promise of entering his rest.”
There are things we need to feel and realize through these words. For our realization, the book of Hebrews gives a strong warning. It is the fact that in the past, the entire process of the Israelites entering Canaan, the land of rest, was shown as a shadow of a journey through which God's people who came to the church were going to the world of heavenly rest. Therefore, even if we have God's promise for the kingdom of heaven, we should fear that there will be no one who will fall short of rest like them through Israel's failure.
1. The True Meaning of the Canaanite Rest
The book of Hebrews shows that the promise of Canaanite rest promised to Israel is a shadow of true spiritual rest given to us. Then, let's look at some facts shown in the Bible.
(1) A city called Egypt appears. The country of Egypt in the Bible represents the world to Christians. Until they were called by God, Israel had been a slave in the country of Egypt. They had no way out of this slavery. Born as Israelites in Egypt, they lived as slaves for the rest of their lives, and later died there. This life of Israel symbolically shows that we are born into a sinful world, and we are slaves to sin for the rest of our lives, and in the end we will have to die as the price for our sins. Moses had deceived his identity as an Israeli for some time in Egypt, but his identity as a sinner was revealed for committing a murder that kills people, and he was driven out into the wilderness.
(2) Next, if we look at Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, he is a symbolic existence of Satan who is called the king of the world. Just as Pharaoh pursued and tried to kill Israel until the very end, Satan keeps the people of this world entangled in sin and makes them slaves.
(3) And Israel's crossing of the Red Sea signifies the separation between the Church and the world. The Israelites crossed the Red Sea by God's miracle. By crossing the Red Sea, Israel was completely freed from the rule of Pharaoh and was led by God's word in a new world.
Christians are the people who crossed the Red Sea in this world. Between the world and the church is the Red Sea in the middle. We are people who have already crossed the Red Sea and are freed from Satan's dominion and are living under the control of God's Word in a new world. They miss the old life and want to go back to Egypt, but they cannot cross the Red Sea because the Red Sea is blocked in the middle.
Israel resented God in the wilderness and longed for Egypt, but in the end, none of Dan could return to Egypt, but instead received God's wrath in the wilderness and was destroyed. The only place for God's people to live is the church. Just because you don't like church life doesn't mean you can return to the world. Go out into the world because the church life is difficult. Returning to the world does not make you a worldly person. You just get beaten up and come back.
(4) The wilderness symbolizes the church life. Israel failed in their wilderness life. Why did it fail? This is because they longed for Egypt while they were living in the wilderness. And I tried to live the way I lived in Egypt. However, if you try to live in the wilderness the way you lived in the past, you will surely fail. There is no rice in the wilderness. No water either. No meat either. However, the way of living in Egypt in such a place did not work. There, we can live by living according to the word of God, who creates miracles and makes things that do not exist.
(5) A person named Moses appears as the leader of the wilderness. But Moses is a symbol of the law. “The law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” The Israelites were led by the law in the wilderness. But the law does not lead us to the land of Canaan.
(6) A person named Joshua appears in the wilderness. This Joshua is a figure representing Jesus. The reason that Moses failed to lead Israel into Canaan and the law failed because it was Jesus' work to enter Canaan, not the law's.
Conclusion: The 40 years of life in the wilderness symbolizes one life in the Christian life of the church. However, although Israel entered Canaan, the land was only a shadow of the land of rest, not the land of true rest. Why is that? This is because God promised a rest other than the Canaan rest. We will continue to study this over the next few days, trying to understand the biblical teachings about what rest is.