Chapter 4:1 is a bad chapter division. There is a continuous thought, which is itself an exposition of Psalm 95, which runs from 3:7 to 4:13.

The key message is repeated several times:
3:8 - "Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness"
3:10-11 - “They always go astray in their heart… did not know My ways… I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’”
3:13 - "...that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin."
3:15 - "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion”
4:7 - "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts."

The message is a warning: “Don’t harden your heart. If you do, you won’t enter God’s rest.” So to properly understand the warning we need to understand both “hardened hearts” and “rest.”

The warning is to people who only half-heartedly decide to follow Christ. They claim God, but they stop short of surrendering their entire lives to and trusting Him. The Israelites did this on their way to the Promised Land, and they died on the journey.

Do you realize distance between Egypt and Canaan is only about 250 miles? At 6 miles per day that would have only take 40 days, not 40 years! God continually extended their journey to give them opportunities to repent.

God’s patience is long, but it is not eternal. He wants us to have His promises for ourselves, but at some point He will no longer extend the offer.

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

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Chapter 4 begins with the statement “Let us fear” (more literally, "let us be afraid”). Don’t put much stock in the NIV’s watered down version of this, “let us be careful.” The Greek word is phobeō (φοβέω), from which we get the English word “phobia.” It is a strong word and conclusively means “be struck with fear, be seized with alarm.”

Maybe fear isn’t something we talk about much in modern Christianity. The current wave of Christianity is still perhaps reacting to the “fire and brimstone” preachers of a few generations ago. They may have dwelt on the negatives too much, but the idea of fear is certainly a biblical mandate.
- Jesus said “I will warn you whom to fear: fear the One who, after He has killed, has authority to cast into hell; yes, I tell you, fear Him!” (Luke 12:5)
- Paul told the Philippian Christians, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12-13).

The Hebrews writer likewise tells us to fear. But look very carefully at the wording in verse 1 because it’s easy to jump to the wrong conclusion.

We learned back in 2:15 that Jesus rescued us from the fear of death. There is something else we should fear, however: WE should fear the possibility of OTHER PEOPLE not entering that rest. Or to make it personal, YOU should fear ME not making it all the way to the end.

Did that catch you off guard? Read verse 1 again. “Let US fear if… any one of YOU may seem to have come short of it.” This really goes back to 3:13, which placed daily responsibility on each of us for the faithfulness of the rest. Not only should we come to the aid of each other daily, we should fear the possibility of anyone among us falling short and missing out on the rest God wants to provide.

How much of our Christian lives are truly devoted to worrying about whether others among us will make it and exhorting them to continue to press forward?

We in the western world have an illness which we call a virtue. INDIVIDUALISM. It often causes individual Christians to abandon their gospel responsibilities toward others.

Fear that others will not enter God’s rest.

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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. 4:3a 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,”

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Here’s the thing. What Israel didn’t want was for the journey to the Promised Land to be their sole focus or highest priority. Sure, if God’s going to take care of it all – if we remain as we are and get our own land of milk and honey – we’re all in! But what God required was them to give themselves completely to Him.

Hearing without faith is just as dead as faith without works.
This text says that we and the Israelites heard the same good news. The “good news” here is the promise of God’s rest (3:11). The Israelites heard it but didn’t truly believe it. They wanted delivered from their old lives in Egypt, and they even wanted the Promised Land. Who wouldn’t? But they weren’t ready to completely trust God to get them there.

So God said in Amos 5:22-26 that they carried gods of their own making along on the journey to the Promised Land that God wanted to bless them with.

That sounds pretty twisted and sickening. How could they? And then I look at the things in this world that I place importance upon and wonder what gods I might be carrying along with me on my way to the Promised Land.

Abraham proved at the altar of Mount Moriah that his son was not his god. The Rich Young Ruler showed by “keeping the whole Law” that sinful indulgences were not his gods, but by walking away sad he showed that money was. David proved on the rooftop that Bathsheba was his god. Moses showed in Numbers 20:12 that “doing something spectacular” was his god, and he missed the Promised Land because of it.

It seems to me from the context that the “other gods” of the original readers of Hebrews were what we often call “good works.” In other words, the original readers trusted God plus their own righteousness to get them to the promised rest.

After 2000 years of “grace alone” preaching, we know better than that. Modern Christians don’t typically make the “works righteousness” mistake. But what gods might we moderns take along on our journey to the Promised Land?

Gods are what we turn to for security and fulfillment. Gods are what we would feel insecure or unfulfilled without.
What are my other gods? Are they my work, my home, my hobbies, my relationships? Are they my kids, my grandkids, my wife? Are they my skills and talents? What is it that I expect to take along with me on this journey that might tempt me to grumble like a wilderness Israelite if it were removed?

That answer, I’m almost certain, is not “nothing.” And I’m pretty sure that many of the things God allows us to experience are intended to bring those idols to the forefront so that we can release them to God. The Israelites were in fact following God (the cloud and the pillar of fire). They did want the Promised Land. What they didn’t want was to release everything to God and give Him their full devotion. That is what the Hebrews writer warns us against. 2 Corinthians 2:15 tells us that Jesus died so that we might not live for ourselves but for Him.

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HEB 4:3b although His works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4 For He has said somewhere concerning the seventh day: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”; 5 and again in this passage, “They shall not enter My rest.”

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Verse 3 is as difficult to understand in Greek as it is in English. I like the way Marvin Vincent, a well-respected Greek scholar, summarized its meaning: “These unbelievers did not enter into God’s rest, although he had provided that rest into which they might have entered” from the foundation of the world. In other words, God Himself established that rest on the seventh day of creation (v.3) end entered into it Himself at that time (v.4). He intended for man to enter it with Him, but sin prevented that. He now offers us that same future to us.

[On a side note: The fact that God entered this rest on the seventh day of creation and has continued in it ever since suggests to me that it wasn’t a 24-hour day].

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

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As one of my favorite old church songs, “To Canaan’s Land I’m On My Way,” suggests, the rest discussed in this text is future. Nothing here suggests that we can enter it now. Today we’re still on a journey. It is still a land of promise. Our faith, like Israel’s, must endure until the end of the journey for us to enter.

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

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Do you know that “Joshua” and “Jesus” are the same names? In fact, in verse 8, the English translations say “Joshua,” but the Greek is Iēsous (Ἰησοῦς), which is “Jesus.” I’ll leave it to your mind to consider the implications of Joshua / Jesus leading a new generation into the Promised Land after Moses.

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HEB 4:9 So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. 10 For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.

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The word “Sabbath” for the first time accompanies “rest” here, and Sabbath refers back to the 7th day of creation.

On Day 7 God said everything was good, but then it no longer was because man, whom He created in His image, sinned. There no longer was rest for man, nor for the creation of God in which man lived.

The Hebrews writer says the rest “remains,” meaning that ever since the Fall, no mere human has yet entered that rest. Not until everything is in harmony with God again (when “God will be all in all,” as in 1 Cor 15:28) will we be able to rest. This is why Paul asserts in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that “if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come” and in in Galatians 6:15 that nothing matters but “new creation.” There is no rest until everything is restored to the way it was when God rested from His work.

So what is this rest the writer has been talking about? Rest from what? From what “works” are we resting? “Rest” here is not idleness. It is something more like the junction of calmness, contentment, satisfaction, and tranquility. The extended context suggests that it is the work of being human and yet loving God, the pain and toil of trying to fight through this maze of sin and achieve fulfillment. Fulfillment in this world is so difficult to acquire and so fleeting once it is attained, isn’t it? Someday, no more.

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HEB 4:11 Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience.

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As before, the author is telling us to keep on keeping on. This whole section is loaded with charges to continue. In fact, the entire book of Hebrews seems to be for that very pastoral purpose... “don’t give up!”

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HEB 4:12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

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Although it is certainly true of any word God speaks, let’s keep the context in mind. The writer is saying here that this word of God from Psalm 95, which he has just quoted and exposited for his readers, is alive and active. It is sharper than any double-edged sword and can judge our hearts’ thoughts and intentions.

He uses surgical terminology in this verse. These words cut open and expose our insides. They don’t just sit there on the page – they accomplish something in every case. In short, how we react to the perilous consequences of trusting anyone but the Lord to give us rest reveals our hearts’ intentions.

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HEB 4:13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.'

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That is the very purpose of God’s Word – to show us our sin, our own helplessness. It doesn’t make us feel better about ourselves – not at all. It shows us we’re detestable, but after that it shows we have hope outside ourselves. The Word of God should provoke a soul stirring, life-changing experience.