In these seven messages we have seen what it means to enter into the Sabbath rest. How we need to enter into the remaining Sabbath rest! Our Christ has accomplished so much. As the book of Hebrews tells us a number of times, Christ is sitting in the heavens. To sit means to rest. Today Christ is sitting in the heavens enjoying a Sabbath rest because He has accomplished everything to produce the church which is the satisfaction and rest to God. We must be warned not to forsake the church life. If we were to forsake the church life, we would be wandering in the wilderness. Nearly all of us can testify that before we came into the church life, we were wandering in the wilderness. We were traveling among many different Christian groups and had no rest until we came home to the church. Here, in the church, we are at rest. Since the Hebrew Christians were wandering, the writer encouraged them to enter into this present Sabbath rest in the proper church life. As we have already pointed out, that the church is today’s Sabbath rest is proved by the fact that the church is the house of God in which the Son of God declares the Father to His brothers and in the midst of which He sings hymns to the Father. Be encouraged to be in the church life, today’s Sabbath.
This Sabbath will usher us into the kingdom. The church life will feed us, edify us, build us up, and qualify us for the next Sabbath, which will be the kingdom age. The kingdom requires people who have matured. Although we have the seed of life within us and are growing, we need to mature. Where can we mature? In the church. The church is the proper field, the proper farm, where we can grow into maturity. In the church we enjoy the benefits of today’s growing Sabbath. In the church we shall also be brought into the harvest Sabbath. Thus, the writer told the wandering Hebrew Christians to stop wandering, come into the church life, and enter into today’s Sabbath which would bring them into the better Sabbath of the millennial kingdom. If they missed the church life, they would be like their fathers who wandered in the wilderness, fell there, and died. How we need to be diligent to enter into the Sabbath rest and be in the proper church life today! Hebrews 4:9 has never been as clear to me as it is in these days. By the Lord’s mercy, may we all avoid the punishment and gain the prize in the coming age.
The church life is also a refuge. We need to escape Judaism, Protestantism, worldliness, and the wilderness, and flee into the refuge of the church life. Do not think that heaven is your refuge. Heaven is too far away to be a refuge for us who face a desperate situation on a stormy sea today. For us, the church life is a matter of life or death. If you wait until you go to heaven to find refuge, you may drown. Flee into the church life for refuge. Hebrews is a wonderful book containing many new concepts. Perhaps no one reading this message has ever heard that the church life is a refuge. But many of us have experienced the church life in this way. Suppose there were no church life in the United States. Where would we be? Most of us would have drowned in the stormy sea. Hallelujah for a refuge alongside of the stormy sea! The church life is our refuge today.