"Hitherto we have sought to display a panorama of the Promised Land, depict the misery and sorrows of a wilderness experience, and unfold for our encouragement the mighty victorious faith of a heathen heroine [Rahab].
"This morning I wish to take a further move and consider four steps Canaanward.
"Will you turn with me to the Epistle to the Hebrews, chapters 3 and 4. Here, as you know, the writer applies the story of entering the Promised Land to the people of God here and now.
"I want you first of all to notice the expression 'enter in.' It occurs no less than eleven times in these two chapters. Again and again the Holy Ghost endeavors to impress on our minds that the rest of God is a place prepared--a blessing secured and assured--an experience already prepared as well as promised--something we have to 'enter into'--a city of refuge already built--a land already lying at our feet--not something we have to create or make or labor to secure. It has to be 'entered into.' Oh! that this may sink deep into our hearts as well as our understandings.
"If we are persuaded of this blessed fact, we may turn and look at four of the steps that lead us into that gracious experience.
"(1) 'Consider the Apostle . . . of our profession, Christ Jesus' (Heb. 3:1)
"This word 'consider' occurs three times in the English version of the Hebrew Epistle, though in the original three distinct and different words are employed.
"The first is here 'Consider Christ how faithful he was' (Ch. 3:1). The second 'Consider how great he was' (Ch. 7:4) and thirdly 'Consider how patient he was' (Ch. 12:3).
"This morning, however, we are only dealing with the first, keeping in mind that it is the first step toward the Land. The word in the original is the very same word as the Septuagint uses in Numbers 32:8-9, when the spies were sent out to see the Land.
"The etymology of the word 'consider' in the English language seems connected with the Latin word 'sidus,' a constellation, and we may well therefore use it as such. The Holy Ghost bids us take up the telescope of the Scriptures and through the lens of faith see the Lord Jesus in the person of that great apostle of the Hebrew race--Moses, the one who was God-appointed to lead the people into Canaan.
"That was his consuming ambition. He had no other thought night or day; he lived for one thing and one thing only, viz., to bring God's redeemed people, carnal and worldly and murmuring as they were, into the Land of Promise. May we see Jesus thus. May we be assured that it is the all consuming desire of the Lord Jesus to bring His redeemed people into the land that flows with milk and honey.
"Let us note, however, the actual wording of this exhortation, 'Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider . . . .'
"The word 'wherefore' takes us back to the preceding chapter and links the 'heavenly calling' with the words: 'He is not ashamed to call us brethren.' It is this blessed consideration that encourages our hearts and recalls those wonderful words of Moses himself, when, in speaking of the promised Messiah, he was told of God to say, 'The Lord will raise up unto you from among your brethren a Prophet like unto me.' Can we imagine any human being daring to stand up and say, 'When Christ comes He will be like me'; and yet Moses was bidden so to speak. Yes! like unto Moses--very man--human, bone of our bone--flesh of our flesh--nigh unto us indeed, a man of like passions with ourselves, albeit spotless, stainless, sinless humanity.
"Oh, to consider Him faithful as Moses was in all his house, to pray and suffer and toil in order that we might enter in--all ye that are partakers of that calling wherewith He calls us brethren (not merely servants, friends, and sons). Consider the Lord Jesus in this capacity. We may well consider Him in many other ways, but for the purpose of entering into the Second Rest, we must through the telescope of the Scriptures and the story of Moses in the wilderness, consider the Lord Jesus thus and thus alone, nigh to us, our Elder Brother, not ashamed to call us brethren, declaring the name of His Father and ours unto us, and above all made like unto us. Yes, like unto that Moses, who, tender and compassionate, was determined at all costs to lead the people in, agonizing in prayer, pleading with God, fasting, day and night. Yea, for forty of them on the mountain top, using every argument with Jehovah that He would go amongst them and bring them triumphantly into Canaan. Let us fix our eyes on this picture painted for our learning. Oh, let us gaze upon a Christ such as this, till something of the glory enters our hearts and we cry aloud, 'Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief.' Until we are assured that Christ waits, longs, is ready and abundantly able to lead us in, we shall not seek with all our hearts. This then is the first step Canaanward. 'Consider Jesus Christ the Apostle of our profession.'
"(2) 'To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts' (Heb. 3:7-8)
"If the first step towards Canaan is to look steadfastly through the telescope of the Word at your Great Leader, Christ Jesus, then the second is to turn to the telephone of heaven, and hear what God the Holy Ghost shall speak.
"He speaks in these verses of a 'wandering' heart (verse 10), of a 'hardened' heart (verse 13) and above all, an evil 'heart of unbelief' (verse 12). He tells us of God's 'works,' 'His ways,' "His rest,' and 'His wrath,' and laments the failure to enter, depicting as the reason that though the people had seen all God's 'works,' they did not know His 'ways' (see Ps. 103:7), and so could never 'enter into His rest.' He leaves us with the solemn warning of 'God's wrath'--manifested against one thing and one thing alone--unbelief. All the idolatry and lust and sin could be pardoned. These things shut none out of the promised land. No, it was only 'unbelief' that barred the gate and tied the hands of God. Against this awful sin is the wrath of God declared. This is the voice of the Holy Ghost. Have we heard it? Have we seen 'unbelief' to be not merely a hindrance, but the fons et origo of all evil: the essence of indwelling sin--the poison injected by the Serpent--a fearful, reluctant, suspicious, distrustful attitude towards God, springing from an 'evil heart of unbelief.'
"Only the Holy Ghost can show us this. Our natural intelligence may detect other forms of evil in our nature, but without the aid of the Holy Ghost, we shall never see or understand the exceeding sinfulness of unbelief.
"Oh, to wait upon God, the Holy Ghost, to hear His voice. The heavenly telephone will speak. There is the voice of the Spirit in the soul as well as that of Christ in the Word; and these two witnesses ever agree.
"(3) 'Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering in . . . .' (Heb. 4:1)
"If I may continue to use the simile of mechanical aids to our senses, let us turn to the heavenly gramophone. I need hardly observe that the word 'phone' is a Greek word meaning voice. A 'telephone' is a voice from afar or a voice at the other end. A 'gramophone' is a written [or recorded] voice.
"The third chapter of the Hebrew Epistle speaks to us of the voice of the Spirit or the heavenly telephone. In the fourth chapter no mention is made of the Holy Ghost at all; its entire subject is the Word of God--the 'written voice.' It is important throughout Scripture to note the double voice. In John 3 the Lord Jesus in speaking to Nicodemus suddenly changes from the first person singular to the first person plural. 'We speak that we know and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness.' In the preceding verse He had introduced beside His own voice and utterance, the voice and utterance of the Holy Ghost.
"So too in Rev. 3:20. There we listen to Christ's voice, 'If any man hear my voice . . . .' and in His next sentence He says, he that hath ears to hear let him hear the voice of the Spirit.
"The voice of the Holy Ghost in the soul--(the heavenly telephone)--and the voice of Christ in the Word--(the heavenly gramophone)--ever agree. There is no dissentience. One ever confirms the other. And so here in the Hebrew letter after speaking of the voice of the Spirit the writer at once confirms it by the Word and by applying the story of the Israelites' entrance into Canaan. He reiterates again and again that it is 'God's rest'--a rest--an experience--a state of heart created and prepared by God the Holy Ghost: it is not merely an attitude of faith on our part--it is the real state of heart, as real as the land of Canaan itself which God has prepared for us and given to us as definitely as He gave the Sabbath as a day of rest: both were ordained, prepared, and given of God and not demanded of the people. The Sabbath rest was a gift to them and not a demand from them.
"The warning in the third chapter was to take heed lest the Holy Ghost should speak in vain. The warning in the fourth chapter is to fear lest the 'word' has been given in vain.
"Those who fain would enter in must fear lest the promises of the Word fall upon deaf ears or lazy hearts and slothful minds.
"Oh! to stir up our sluggish hearts and lay hold of the written promises of God. We shall never enter into the rest that remains for the people of God unless we pay the deepest attention to the Word and hide its promises in our hearts for only so shall we kill the unbelief which lurks in every corner of our being.
"(4) 'Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need' (Heb. 4:16)
"We come now to the last of our four steps. With our eyes upon Christ Jesus--the 'faithful' Prophet like unto Moses--with our ear attentive to the voice of the Holy Ghost, and our hearts encouraged by the Word of the living God--let us draw near to Christ, our High Priest at the Throne of Grace, to obtain 'mercy' first of all and then 'grace to help.'
"The work of Christ as High Priest, the way through His blood into His presence, is all most wonderfully unfolded for us in the following chapters. I have not time today to speak of these things. The point we need to emphasize here is the need and way of drawing nigh.
"It is not enough to 'consider' Christ Jesus, not enough to listen to the voice of the Spirit, not enough to take heed to the promises, unless with humble, bold, appropriating faith we draw nigh to the exalted, ascended Christ who in heavenly places is ready and willing to bestow upon us the blessing.
"Our first need as we draw near to Him is to 'obtain mercy.' Many seek and seek in vain for 'grace to help in time of need' because their proud hearts are unwilling to own their need of first of all 'obtaining mercy.'
"How hard it is for the experienced Christian worker, the cleric, the minister, the professional evangelist to come a second time as a little child--a poor leper--a semi-blind beggar. How hard is the 'repentance of believers'! How stiff and stubborn are the remains of our Christian Pharisaism and self-righteousness! How difficult is it to own except in general terms our need! How humiliating to admit that during all these years of Christian service we are still in the wilderness! How hard to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God! And yet here is the condition, not, be it observed, of consecration, but a humble, lowly repentance in His presence--bringing nothing but our need and our inward sin; just as at first we brought nothing but our guilt and our transgressions.
"Oh! let our hungry hearts come boldly to the Throne of Grace, for He wants to bless!
"How many witnesses could I call to testify of these things! How many have I seen humbling themselves under God's Almighty hand and by a bold appropriating faith allowing the Lord Jesus to bestow upon them His most precious gift.
"Two or three must suffice. One, a business man, had been attending our gatherings for a few days--Superintendent of the Sunday School and Leader in Bible Class, one of the Church officials, he was considered the most earnest and most spiritual member of the Church.
"I think I shall never forget the unutterable agony of soul when the Holy Ghost convicted him as Isaiah of old of his 'undone' condition. He wept before God in the greatest distress--but there and then as we sought the Lord together he found Him to be not only a 'sin forgiving Saviour' but a 'Cleanser of hearts' and 'mighty Deliverer' from indwelling sin. He sought in true humbleness of spirit to 'obtain mercy.'
"Some time later he wrote as follows:
I came, drawn by His love and grace, led by the Holy Ghost, and confessing my sins to Him, looking to the Cross and believing that His precious Blood cleanseth from all sin: He did cleanse me . . . and now I have the blessed consciousness of His abiding presence. Oh how wonderful it is! I can't describe it! Oh, the joy and peace which fills my soul when I awake in the morning. Immediately I am aware of it and I start praising my Lord and say, 'I thank Thee, dear Lord, Thou hast done it all.' Oh! the joy to feel Thy presence within me! Sometimes I can hardly contain the joy . . . . This blessed fellowship goes on all during the day and while I am working at my office desk, I tell Him how I love Him and my eyes are often dimmed with tears of a joy that passeth all understanding . . . . I simply can't help telling everybody, and how anxious I am for others to have this blessing also . . . .'
"Here is the testimony of another, an Army officer, an earnest Christian and yet among other things a slave to tobacco. Deeply convicted, not of this in the first instance, but of the trouble deeper, more tenacious and widespread--indwelling evil itself, and, hearing of the way of deliverance through the Blood of the Lamb, he was enabled by the Holy Ghost in deepest humility to come to the Throne of Grace and there confessing his sins, one by one, believed in a sin-destroying Saviour.
"Not long after he writes as follows:
Oh! the amazing effrontery to imagine that the Blood of the Lamb is not efficacious for that 'indwelling sin'! Oh, the blindness of never having seen all this before but praise the Lord He has come and spoken to me the second time . . . . The Lord has so wonderfully transformed my whole outlook and being, that I now think of almost nothing else but Him . . . . What amazing preciousness I find in Him. No wonder it is written that He is far above all. What a wonderful Saviour is Jesus my Lord.
"Still another who discovered that the secret of entering God's Land of Promise was seeking mercy at the Throne of Grace writes thus:
I am at rest, absolute and sublime rest: I never dreamed any such rest could be ours in this life. When I came and had a chat with you I saw it all as clear as daylight. I thereupon confessed and believed and from that moment I spent the most miserable month I have ever had in my life. I see now why that was. I had not got to Rom. 7:24, and was not willing if sanctified to surrender all. Well, after a month of agony I came to the place where I was willing to do anything the Lord wanted, if only He would cleanse my heart and fill me with all His fulness. Thereupon He enabled me to believe and filled me with rest. Now I am willing to do anything He wants.
"Seeing we are compassed about with these and many other witnesses to God's faithfulness, let us lay aside the sin (of unbelief) which doth so easily beset us, and looking unto Jesus the Author and Perfecter of our faith . . . come boldly unto the Throne of Grace where we may obtain mercy and there find grace to help in time of need."
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