So there is a special rest still waiting for the people of God. For all who have entered into God’s rest have rested from their labours, just as God did after creating the world. So let us do our best to enter that rest. But if we disobey God, as the people of Israel did, we will fall.
For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable.
Hebrews 4:9-13
There are two things which are puzzling many of you judging by the emails and texts you send me.
- Why did the Jews rebel in the wilderness when God’s miracles accompanied them for 40 years? Wasn’t it clear to them that they were rebelling?
- Why are verses 4:12-13 placed where they are in the overall text, when I have never been able to work out the point of these two verses at the end of the passage which precedes it?
We could also add to the above puzzling questions, the connection of these verses both to the Jewish Christians living at the time the author wrote his letter, while including ourselves as well. Especially when we have verse 11 which links the passage before it to the two verses we are examining. Namely:-
So let us do our best to enter that rest. But if we disobey God, as the people of Israel did, we will fall.
Hebrews 4:11
Don’t let it happen to you! (Gem 2075)
I think I have demonstrated to you the flow of this passage and I have made clear to you the power that is contained in the first part of our two focus verses given the layering of the doublets.
For the word of God is alive and powerful and is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword
cutting between both soul and spirit
between both joint and marrow.
It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires
The children of Israel {the choice of words is deliberate} were not able to perceive their own rebellion because they did not understand the difference between their souls and their spirits nor were they able to distinguish between their thoughts and their desires. Reading a number of the comments in commentaries made me realise even the experts don’t know the difference between the soul and the spirit. Two commentaries had the comment, “The soul wars against the Spirit.” The Spirit of God detects hypocrisy in each one of us. He reveals the underlying intentions and motivation of our hearts. The inner truth is brought to light because God desires truth in the inner parts. We may have difficulty with the indeterminant nature of soul and spirit but God doesn’t. The Word of God reaches to the inaccessible parts, even to the manufacturing centre of our blood and our DNA. God knows our inner thoughts and desires, even that which we don’t know ourselves. He makes clear to us that which we conceal from others and from ourselves but we can’t hide it from God, nor from His Word. We are naked and exposed before Him. The Word of God penetrates deeper into us than a double-edged sword with pin-point accuracy. The Word of God has no blunt side.
But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Matt 5:28
Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’
Matt 7:21-23
“This child is destined to cause many in Israel to fall, and many others to rise. He has been sent as a sign from God, but many will oppose him. As a result, the deepest thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your very soul.”
Luke 2:34-35
“You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me! Yet you refuse to come to me to receive this life.
John 5:39-40
Don’t copy the behaviour and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
Rom 12:2
And remember, our Lord’s patience gives people time to be saved. This is what our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom God gave him—speaking of these things in all of his letters. Some of his comments are hard to understand, and those who are ignorant and unstable have twisted his letters to mean something quite different, just as they do with other parts of Scripture. And this will result in their destruction.
2 Pet 3:15-16
Isn’t the question ‘Adam, where are you?’ an interesting one. [Gen 3:9] Do you think God didn’t know where Adam was and had to ask? No! God knew exactly where Adam was and what he had done. God’s question was for Adams sake? That he might come to a realisation about himself and confess. Instead he said, “The woman You gave me made me do it.” We need God’s help with more than a spell-check on our thoughts, reflections and deliberations [enthumēseon]. We need a moral-check on our thoughts and then subsequently on the notions, ideas and intentions [ennoiōn] which flow from our thoughts. The things that come to mind in the process of thinking and then we need the searchlight of God to be focused on our motivations and the intentions which direct our thinking. We need to be able to distinguish between [kritikos] our thoughts and motivations of the heart.
Why did the Israelites fail so consistently? They failed to discern their own heart attitudes behind the things they were thinking and the assumptions they were making. God had everything under control in the wilderness. Water, no problem; food to eat, taken care of; rest, no worries. In fact His intention was always to bring them from one degree of the glory they had experience in Sinai to His glory which would rest and abide on them in Paran. He wanted to ‘endow them with His glory’ but they just couldn’t see it and they didn’t realise what was hidden in their own hearts. Are we any different? We don’t know how to rightly understand God’s thought and His ways. We don’t know our own motivations and desires. Our strongholds deep within are what channel and influence our thinking.
I love the song we sing in church, Way Maker.
Miracle worker, promise keeper
Light in the darkness
My God, that is who You are
Yes that is who You are
Even when I don’t see it, You’re working
Even when I don’t feel it, You’re working
You never stop, You never stop working
You never stop, You never stop working.
God is always working out His purposes; He never stops working on us and in us. In summary God is always working to bring you into His rest. The writer of Hebrews reminds us that the rest God promised is still available. It is available now, TODAY. We can learn to enter into His rest now, before we get to experience the Life of the Age to Come. “Jesus I am resting resting in the joy of what Thou art; I am finding out the greatness of Thy loving heart.” That is what God wants for you. Will you allow it to happen? Let the Word of God which is alive and active, filled with the ability to discern your hidden thoughts and motivations take you deeper to discover the things hidden inside your soul. Allow Him to teach you to live out of your spirit and not your soul. To go deep inside your thoughts and imaginations and show you the difference between soul and spirit, joints and marrow and the thoughts and intentions of your heart.
I show those who do Deeper Bible with me just how deep the Word of God is. Allow God’s Word to go deeper into you to help you discern the hidden things lurking there. Do you know the saddest thing in this ‘modern‘ world? The world around us is trying to squeeze us into its mould and encourage us to reject the Word of God and listen to the cleverness of mankind. No thanks. I will never do that. I know too much about the depth of the Word of God and the nature of the God who stands behind His Word. Don’t be one of those who fails to go beyond the Word; start talking to the One Who made it all.
Learn to suck the marrow out of life; live the life God intended while you are on earth. But if it’s too hard, keep on holding on to Him in faith and step out into the life God intended it when you reach your eternal rest.
Ian
Sucking the marrow out of life doesn’t mean choking on the bone.
Robin Williams
To be truly free to be who God made us to be we have to learn not to hide who we are but to become who it is He created us to be. That requires considerable realisation. For that you will need your Maker’s input.
Ian
I want to live deep and suck all the marrow out of life so that when I come sliding into home base I can shout “Thank You God for such a wonderful ride.”
Ian
To get to the Rhema you have to spend time in the Logos. (Translation: In order to hear a quickened, personal, intimate Word from God you have to spend time reading the Bible.)
Dick Hemmings
How sad the world tells you the Bible is archaic and obsolete. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Ian
Adam and Eve were caught out eating from the Tree of Good and Evil, their response was not denial but buck-passing, a strategy that did not avoid punishment. The passage has something very insightful to impart about how very difficult it is for humans to take ownership for their actions and accept responsibility for the consequences, intended or not, that flow from them. Can we therefore assume that Adam did not confess because he was human and it goes with the territory?