Angelic Conflict part 160: Human history (Rest) – Heb 4:9-12; 1Ti 4:1-5; 1Co 10:14-22; Num 16:22: 27:15-16 ; 1Co 2:9-16; Rom 8:12-17.

Title: Angelic Conflict part 160: Human history (Rest) - HEB 4:9-12; 1TI 4:1-5; 1CO 10:14-22; NUM 16:22: 27:15-16 ; 1CO 2:9-16; ROM 8:12-17.  

 

HEB 4:1 Therefore, let us fear lest, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you should seem to have come short of it.

 

HEB 4:2 For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard.

 

HEB 4:3 For we who have believed enter that rest, just 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.

 

HEB 4:4 For He has thus said somewhere concerning the seventh day, "And God rested on the seventh day from all His works";

 

HEB 4:5 and again in this passage, "They shall not enter My rest."

 

HEB 4:6 Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had good news preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience,

 

HEB 4:7 He again fixes a certain day, "Today," saying through David after so long a time just as has been said before,

 

"Today if you hear His voice,

Do not harden your hearts."

 

HEB 4:8 For if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have spoken of another day after that.

 

HEB 4:9 There remains [left behind] therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God.

 

HEB 4:10 For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.

 

HEB 4:11 Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall through following the same example of disobedience.

 

The example is the Exodus generation who would not mix the word they heard with faith because of their hard hearts.

 

The process of hardening a heart begins when the emotions take over the soul.

 

This is a failure to control oneself through choosing the new spirit and its influencer, God the Holy Spirit. When the flesh rules too often then the emotions become the aggressor.

 

Emotions are to respond to the thoughts from the heart. Therefore the heart is the right man and the emotions the right woman. The man is to initiate and the woman is to respond.

 

Just like a husband will eventually become bitter if he allows his wife to assume authority over him in the marriage so the heart becomes hardened when the emotions assume authority over the soul.

 

While the believer is commanded to persist, or to be diligent to enter God's rest, there are certain attitudes, moods, status of soul, that hinder persistence or become antagonistic toward persistence.

 

 "Let us be diligent" - spouda,zw[spoudazo; aorist active subjunctive] = hasten to do a thing, labor, endeavor, to do something with intense effort, and to make haste.

 

The aorist tense points to that time when you recognize that you are outside of God's rest and you realize that you must do whatever it takes to get your head [soul, spirit, heart, mind] to enter it. Listen to doctrine, go to God in prayer, take some time out to examine yourself.

 

The antagonists against diligence are disillusion, boredom, discouragement, self-pity, loneliness, frustration, bitterness, jealousy.

 

These can all show up at the party if we entertain or dwell on any one of them. The problem with dwelling on them is that they feed themselves. They are like a perpetual motion machine, which doesn’t exist in the material world, but these do compound themselves. Disillusion feeds itself until the person never sees fulfillment in anything. Boredom feeds itself into more seclusion. Discouragement feeds itself into a defeatist attitude. Self-pity feeds itself into a whiner. Loneliness feeds itself into fear of people. Frustration feeds itself into an explosive temper. Bitterness feeds itself into uncontrollable stress. Jealousy feeds itself into hate. And where one is entertained it seems that they invite the others.

 

These antagonists rob the soul of the rest that God has left behind and then the believer finds himself frantically searching for a happiness and contentment that is outside God's plan of doctrine and the filling, or influencing of the Spirit.

 

So then all of these antagonists can lead to idol worship in the hope that something in the world system can heal their negative effects on the soul. God has healed them through His word mixed with the spiritual power of the new spirit and Holy Spirit that He gave every believer at salvation.

 

It is not at all unusual nor abnormal to suddenly discover in your life these enemies of positive volition, yet to cater to them is abnormal.

 

The solution to each of them is simple. Accept by means of faith the life that God has decreed for you and trust Him to lead the way that He has already worked out before you were born and have faith that it is a way that is better than anything you have dreamed, thought of, or heard of in the world.

 

The abnormal and unusual thing is to cater to them, and the believer caters to them by reaction. We can respond with doctrine or we can react with emotions and the spirit of the world. The believer caters to this status by reacting with a frantic search for happiness.

 

Catering to the enemies of PV leads the believer on a frantic search for happiness in the devil's world, i.e. "send us back to Egypt."

 

The soul, like a marriage, should be balanced by proper authority and proper responsiveness. Rejecting God's rest and searching for happiness in the world system always upsets this balance in the soul as emotion takes over. Emotion has no content or proper thought. It is a terrible master. This misery begins the hardening process and emotion is no longer a responder to doctrinal thought.

 

If it happens to be a self-righteous search this is how we get holy-rollers. If it happens to be a lascivious frantic search this is how you get into the phallic cult.

 

Before the Babylonian captivity Israel was full of idol worshippers involved in the Phallic Cult. After the captivity we find the birth of the Pharisees and Sadducees and Israel exchanged lasciviousness for religion asceticism. Before the captivity the Sabbath was ignored. After the captivity hundreds of silly rules were added to it. Many of them went from immoral degenerates to moral degenerates.

 

Both the immoral and moral degeneracy are results of hard hearts.

 

MAT 12:43 "Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places, seeking rest, and does not find it.

 

MAT 12:44 "Then it says, 'I will return to my house from which I came'; and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order. 

 

LUK 11:21-22

When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own homestead, his possessions are undisturbed; but when someone stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away from him all his armor on which he had relied, and distributes his plunder.

 

MAT 12:45 "Then it goes, and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. That is the way it will also be with this evil generation."

 

The combination of the antagonists and the frantic search for happiness results in a changed attitude toward doctrine. The changed attitude can be apathy, indifference, or outright antagonism. This leads to some form of negative volition.

 

Once the rest of God and the doctrines from God are replaced by worldly searches for happiness the soul opens up like a vacuum to doctrines of demons.

 

1TI 4:1 But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times [CA and onward] some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons,

 

1TI 4:2 by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron [hard hearts; scar tissue is unfeeling and unresponsive],

 

1TI 4:3 men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods, which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth.

 

1TI 4:4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, if it is received with gratitude;

 

1TI 4:5 for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.

 

Insight into the doctrines that apply to everything that God gives us, people in relationships, materialism, and all circumstances should be sought for in prayer.

 

Obviously the word of God is needed as well, but prayer becomes a powerful weapon when seeking the application of that truth to the things that God has graciously given to us.

 

JAM 1:5-6

But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.

 

The antagonists to God's rest are the result of modern day idols which are built and maintained by demons designed to influence the soul.

 

And idol is anything that the believer looks to for deliverance, for happiness, for fulfillment, or for stability.