Psalms 95:6 “O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker. 7 For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. To day if ye will hear his voice, 8 Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness: 9 When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work.”
The phrase, “To day if ye will hear his voice”, is quoted three times in the Hebrew Epistle (Hebrews 3:7,15; 4:7); applying it to the New Testament Church, just as it was used for Old Testament Israel. Many of Israelites refused to “hear [obey] his voice”, consequently they died in the wilderness, and were not allowed to enter in the blessed “rest” (Hebrews 3:11,16) the Lord had prepared for them in the land of Canaan. Canaan’s “rest” is a practical prophecy of our New Testament “rest” in the glorious Church Of Jesus Christ. It is explained this way: “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. 10 For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.” (Hebrews 4:9-10). The phrase, “ceased from his own works”, declares that all the “works” necessary to save the Children Of God to Eternal Heaven were fully and finally (John 19:30) completed by our Beloved Lord Jesus Christ as He Sacrificed Himself on the cross. Therefore, we must not drag up any of the “works” from the Old Testament Law Service and try to mix it with the Grace of our Lord’s New Testament Church and Gospel; neither should we bring in any of the more modern “works” invented by men. Paul made it perfectly clear, when he, by Divine Inspiration, wrote: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9). Let us greatly rejoice in our God-given “rest” in the Church of Jesus Christ, where His Blessed Gospel is believed and preached, where we strive to do good “works”, not to get saved to Eternal Heaven, but because He “hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began” (II Timothy 1:9)!