WE ARE ON OUR WAY TO OUR LAND OF PEACE AND REST – THE HEAVENLY CANAAN
Sakkie Parsons
Translated from Afrikaans: Ons is oppad na ons land van rus – die Hemelse Kanaän
The Good News
Someone wrote to me as follows:
“Can you please explain the meaning of ‘rest’ as it is written in Hebrew 4:1-11?”
Let’s read the passage:
HEB 4:1-11
1 Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.
2 For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.
3 For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, "As I swore in my wrath, 'They shall not enter my rest,'" although his works were finished from the foundation of the world.
4 For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: "And God rested on the seventh day from all his works."
5 And again in this passage he said, "They shall not enter my rest."
6 Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience,
7 again he appoints a certain day, "Today," saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts."
8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on.
9 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God,
10 for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.
11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.
I want to draw your attention to the fact that we do not know who wrote the book to the Hebrews.
When I look at the style of writing, I consider it to be my great hero Paul, but that is just what I think – I have no definite evidence of that at all. I will therefor refer to the author as: “The writer to the Hebrews.”
Actually the writer to the Hebrews already began to talk about this matter in the third Chapter. We read:
HEB 3:9-11
9 where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works
10 for forty years. Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, 'They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.'
11 As I swore in my wrath, 'They shall not enter my rest.'"
Here the writer to the Hebrews refers way back when the Israelites, in their disobedience, refused to move into Canaan, the Land of rest that our Lord gave them and our Lord then allowed a whole generation to become extinct over time before they eventually could stop moving around in the desert and enter into His land of Rest for them.
I quote a few passages here which are now relevant from the Word to this writing:
NUM 14:2-4
2 And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, "Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness!
3 Why is the LORD bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?"
4 And they said to one another, "Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt."
When one reads this passage, you feel like you want to call out:
“What a terrible insult to our Lord who brought them to this Land of Peace with many wonders!”
Therefor our Lord became very angry towards them. We read:
NUM 14:11 And the LORD said to Moses, "How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them?
Then our Lord said:
NUM 14:20-25
20 Then the LORD said, "I have pardoned, according to your word.
21 But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD,
22 none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice,
23 shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it.
24 But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it.
25 Now, since the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valleys, turn tomorrow and set out for the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea."
Then the Israelites moved around in the wilderness until the entire generation that murmured deceased.
NUM 14:26-30
26 And the LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying,
27 "How long shall this wicked congregation grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against me.
28 Say to them, 'As I live, declares the LORD, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you:
29 your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me,
30 not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun.
Our Lord then made all the people wander in the wilderness for 40 years until all people of 20 years and older died. You can read this fascinating history yourself.
The first rest (peace) that the writer to the Hebrews speaks about was the rest that Israel had after spending their many years in the desert when they entered into the Promised Land, Canaan.
The second rest of which he speaks is the Heavenly rest / peace that only those will enter who accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and who will follow Him through this earthly life in this world (wilderness, sinful world) until they eventually through the death-Jordan will enter the Heavenly Canaan.
We, who have accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior, are, concerning this world, strangers and pilgrims who are on our way to our Land of Peace and rest – the Heavenly Canaan and it’s an enormous huge tragedy that there are a vast amount of spiritually dead bodies lying in this worldly wilderness today and there will even be more dead bodies before Jesus returns to fetch us, because they have heard this Gospel and if they look in the Spirit, they can see our Heavenly Canaan but they do not want to walk in faith into it. But – You do not need to be one of those dead bodies.
In the first three chapters of the book of Hebrews, the author tells us, among others, that Jesus is higher than the angels and that He is our High Priest.
Then in Chapter 4 he shows us, that through Jesus alone we enter God’s rest today. In fact, he tells us that Jesus Himself, so to speak, is God’s Rest / Peace for us and we, who have accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, (with great respect) already have our one foot in the Heavenly Canaan.
EFE 2:18-20
18 For through Him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.
19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,
20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone,
Therefore, what the writer to the Hebrews has written under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and what we see throughout the Word – is that there is only ONE way to have a loving relationship with our Lord and therefore there is only ONE way to step through Heaven’s gates and that is to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and follow Him through this life, like the Israelites had to follow the cloud in the desert.
How do we do this?
ACT 2:37-39
37 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?"
38 And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself."
You see – there is simply no other way to get into the Heavenly Canaan…
ACT 4:12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."
Now, according to Jesus, what is the simplest way that you and I can know that we have a serious loving relationship with Jesus and that we are heading to God’s rest for us in the Heavenly Canaan?
JOHN 14:15 "If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
JOHN 14:16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,
JOHN 14:21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him."
I must regularly ask myself: Do I really love Jesus? – And then use the criteria of John 14:15-16 and John 14:21 as a measure to where I stand in my loving relationship with our Lord.
In closing I now want to ask you the following question:
Do you want to make sure that you will live in the Heavenly Canaan in God’s rest forever in the afterlife and not forever die a horrible death in hell – where you actually never will die?
Well, the only way to do this is to pray in your own words or pray the prayer that I share with you now. Pray to Jesus in all sincerity:
“Jesus, I hear the knock on the door of my heart.
I now realise that without You in my life I, a sinful person, am lost.
Jesus, I accept You as my Lord and Saviour and I now entrust my life to You.”
Now search, as a matter of urgency, for a church that accepts the whole Bible as the holy Word of our Lord.
Visit the church on a day when there is a service to our Lord and make an appointment after the service with the minister of that church for further guidance.
Someone asks:
How can I know for sure that I am now a child of the Lord when I really took to heart in sincerity everything you wrote and acted accordingly?
It is easy and simple –
God says – and put it in His Word for us and God does not lie:
NUM 23:19 God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?
There is a passage in the Word where our Lord who cannot lie – to put it in this way – encapsulates everything what I have shared with you today:
JOHN 1:12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his Name, he gave the right to become children of God,
Maybe someone who read this writing has not yet received Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.
Then I want to encourage you –
Jesus is knocking on the door of your heart – that is the reason you have read this far.
Now the question to you..
Are you going to open your heart or are you going to ignore His knocking?
REV 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.
REV 3:21 The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.
Greetings,
Sakkie