One Thing God Tells us to Fear |
by David A. DePra |
| Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into |
| his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. |
| For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but |
| the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith |
| in them that heard it. |
| Have you ever felt as if you don't measure up to God's |
| standards? And having seen you don't measure up, have you |
| felt as if you don't qualify for His promises? |
| This is a common problem in the Christian experience. Even |
| though God tells us that everything He has done for us in Christ |
| is free, and that we ought to simply believe and rest in that Truth, |
| it somehow escapes us. We still think we have to qualify for |
| God's free gift. We still think WE have something to offer Him |
| in return. |
| The incredible Truth of the New Testament reveals that the |
| only way I can become disqualified for the things of God is |
| by -- doing what? "Doing" isn't even involved! The way I can |
| become disqualifed is by refusing to BELIEVE. |
| Anyone can believe -- as the Bible defines faith. Anyone to |
| whom God has taken the initiative to reveal the Truth is already |
| able to believe. Thus, the command to believe is something |
| which is not difficult at all. |
| Actually, if we realized what faith was all about, we'd have |
| no concern about whether we had "enough" of it or not. Faith |
| is NOT "trust in my ability to believe." It is a rest and a reliance |
| upon God -- completely apart from anything about ME. |
| These first two verses of Hebrews 4 are talking about the |
| need to take our eyes off of ourselves, and to get them onto |
| God. They are telling us to stop trying to figure out whether we |
| qualify for God's promise, and start believing His promise that |
| in Christ, we DO. |
| Coming Up Short? |
| Verse 1, if we don't read it correctly, sounds as if God is telling |
| us to fear, lest we not measure up to the qualifications required |
| to enter His rest. It seems like He is saying that we'd better |
| beware lest we "come short" of qualifying for the promise God |
| has given of His free gift of grace in Jesus Christ. |
| Actually, that is pretty much the way many of us live our |
| Christian lives. We live under a constant fear that we aren't |
| measuring up to God's standards. So we do alot of things to try |
| to measure up. Christianity has been plagued by this legalism |
| for the last two thousand years. It is precisely what God says we |
| must NOT do. |
| So what does this verse say? It says, "Let us fear, a promise |
| being left us of entering into His rest, that we distrust the |
| promise." In other words, we aren't to fear of "coming short" of |
| qualifying for the promise, but rather, we are to fear that our faith |
| will come short of believing the promise. Israel did exactly that: |
| They came short of believing the promise. They refused to enter |
| the rest. |
| This tells us something about the nature of faith, as well as |
| the nature of unbelief. Faith is not an intellectual, emotional, |
| or tempermental choice. It is a moral choice. A moral issue. |
| Faith involves a surrender and yielding myself to the One in |
| whom I trust. This is first a heart attitude, but will work itself out |
| through obedience. |
| Unbelief, on the other hand, is the opposite of faith. It also |
| is NOT a matter of intellect, emotions, or temperment. It is not |
| an inability to believe God. It is a refusal to believe Him due to |
| a hardness of heart. In short, unbelief come from wanting my |
| own way. Or better yet, it comes from wanting to posess my |
| own life. |
| There is nothing accidental about unbelief. Neither is faith |
| an accident. They are choices of the heart and will. And we |
| make them over many things everyday. |
| God is telling us in Hebrews that we are to fear -- lest we |
| refuse to believe. We are to fear refusing the free gift of God |
| because if we refuse that, what else could God offer us? There |
| isn't anything else He has to offer. |
| Note the phrase in v. 2, "the word preached did not profit them." |
| Why? Because the word was "not mixed with faith in them that |
| heard it." The point is, our faith doesn't qualify us for God's |
| grace, or win any victories over anything. It is God who has given |
| us all things by His grace, and it is Jesus Christ who has already |
| won all victory. These are finished realities and will continue to |
| be finished realities whether we believe them or not. But despite |
| the fact that God has given us all things freely in Christ, and |
| despite the fact that Jesus has already won a finished victory, |
| none of it will PROFIT US if we don't believe. To us, they might |
| as well be lies. |
| For example, suppose I was locked in a prison cell and was |
| then told that the door was unlocked. I was furthermore told that |
| I was free to get up and walk out. Despite the fact that I was |
| being given my freedom, it would profit me nothing if I didn't |
| believe it. I would never even walk to the cell door and open it, |
| let alone walk out of the prison. God has given His gifts in Jesus |
| Christ whether I believe He has or not. But God is not going to |
| force anything upon me. I must believe or they will profit me |
| nothing. |
| This applies to salvation first, and then to everything else God |
| has provided through salvation. Jesus Christ died for all men. |
| That is an historical fact, and the reality of it could not be |
| reversed or undone even if no one ever believed it. It would still |
| be a fact whether it was believed or not. But only if someone |
| believes it can they be saved. The Word must be "mixed with |
| faith in them that hear it." |
| Don't misunderstand, however. God is not sitting in heaven |
| waiting for us to generate the faith necessary to apprehend what |
| He has done. No. It is impossible for us to hear the Truth |
| without the Truth we hear actually gendering faith: "For faith |
| comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." (Rom. |
| 10:17) So if we have heard the Truth, we already have the |
| faith. |
| Jesus is the Author and Perfector of our faith. We are not. |
| And that is great news. It means that the faith we need to enter |
| the rest is already ours. We need only yield to Him. * |