Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3217
“And to whom swore He that they should not enter into His rest, but to them that believed not? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.” Hebrews 8:18,19.
ALL the histories of Scripture are written for our examples, but especially the story of the Israelites in the wilderness, which is given to us at a length far exceeding the value of the narrative unless it is intended for purposes of spiritual instruction, for it occupies four books of the Old Testament and those, by no means, short ones! These things were written that we might see ourselves in the Israelites as in a mirror—and so might be warned of dangers common to us and to them—and be guided to a worthier use of the privileges which we enjoy. Always read Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy with this view—“This is the story of the Church of God in the wilderness—I would see how God dealt with them and how they dealt with Him, and from this learn lessons that may be useful to me in my own pilgrimage to the eternal rest.”
The great promise which was given to Israel was Canaan, that choice land which God had of old allotted to them. “When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.” He made Palestine to be the center of worship, the joy of all lands, the seat of His oracle and the place of His abode. In the wilderness the tribes were journeying towards this country and it was a very short distance from Egypt, so that they might almost at once have taken possession of the land, and yet it cost them forty years’ travelling! If you trace their travels, you will see that they ran a perpetual zigzag, backward and forward, to the right and to the left. Sometimes they were actually journeying away from the promised rest, plunging into the deeps of the howling wilderness—and all, we are told, because of their unbelief! The land itself flowed with milk and honey. It was a land of brooks and rivers, a land upon the surface of which all choice fruits would grow, and out of whose bowels they could dig copper and iron. It was the choicest of all lands and will yet again become so when there is an end of the accursed rule which now makes it desolate. Once more, under decent, settled rule and properly irrigated, it will again bloom and become such a country as all the world besides cannot match! This was the promised land and into it they were to enter—and there to multiply and increase as the stars of Heaven—and to be a nation of kings and priests unto God. But “they could not enter in because of unbelief.” This, alone, shut them out.
Brothers and Sisters, Canaan is a type to us of the great and goodly things of the Covenant of Grace which belong to Believers. But if we have no faith, we cannot possess a single Covenant blessing! This day, in the proclamation of the Gospel, the demand is made of faith in God. And if there is no faith, no matter how rich the Gospel, how full its provisions and how precious the portion which God has prepared, none of us can ever enter into the enjoyment of them!
Some of you, because of unbelief, have not entered into the rest which God gives to His people even here below (“for we which have believed do enter into rest”) and into the rest which remains—the blessed Sabbath of the skies—you will not be able to enter because of unbelief. This pains and troubles me, but so it is. Moses wrote a mournful Psalm which began, “Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations,” and then he went on to weep and bewail the transitory nature of man’s estate. He wrote it while he was seeing forty funerals, at least, every day, for it required an average of forty deaths per diem to carry off all the people that came out of Egypt in the forty years. Their days were spent in bewailing the dead so that it was true of them as it is not true of us, “All our days are passed away in Your wrath.” They had to mourn and sigh with Canaan but a little way ahead! They might have been laughing in its glades, sunning themselves in its plains, feasting on its figs and grapes and corn, but instead, there they were—pining and dying, digging
graves and expiring—for “they could not enter in because of unbelief.” Many, many, many this day are tormenting themselves with needless despondency, shivering in fears they need not know and vexed with plagues they need not feel because they fail to rest in Christ through unbelief! Alas, myriads more are descending into the lake that burns with fire and they know no rest—and never shall know any! For them the harps of angels never sound! For them the white robes are not prepared because the unbelieving must have their portion in the Lake of Fire! Oh, that God would now deliver them from this dreadful sin of unbelief!
I have only three remarks to make. And the first is that these were a highly-favored people, yet they could not enter in because of unbelief Secondly, that the sole and only thing, according to the text, which shut them out was unbelief And that, thirdly, there were other people, their own sons and daughters, who, being delivered from this unbelief, did enter in. That must have made the case more clear against them because their little ones, who they said should be prey, were, nevertheless, permitted, each one, to stand in his lot. God’s purpose was not frustrated because of man’s unbelief! “If we believe not, yet He abides faithful: He cannot deny Himself.”