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REST

J.Lovie

I believe that one great feature of the present time is that God intends that we should come to conditions of rest. God Himself rested as His labour was complete; He rested and was refreshed. Then God rested in a man like Noah. It must have been very precious to God to find in Noah a condition of things in which He could repose, because Noah's name means repose. I think it indicates that God found a condition of things in Noah in which He could delight and in which He could rest. Supremely of course God found His rest in Christ. How heaven was complacent in relation to all that came out in the manhood of Jesus; in every day of that life so pleasurable to God heaven rested. You think of the hidden years of the life of Jesus, and day by day in that life heaven found its delight: "I do always the things that are pleasing to him", John 8: 29, the Father signalising His approval from heaven and the Spirit coming down of His own volition and resting complacently on Christ as in manhood here. But then what is supremely so is the rest that God has in Christ where He is. Heaven rested fully on Christ in manhood; there was everything for the divine delight in that blessed humanity, in His committal to the path of the Father's will; and Jesus loved every day of that life in doing the will of God; so much so that He said prophetically, "Take me not away in the midst of my days!", Ps 102: 24. He felt the fact that His days were shortened, because He so delighted to fill out every day in such a way that heaven could rest in it. Then as He is, heaven delighting in Him, 'Received in glory bright up there' (Hymn 350). The Spirit justified everything that Jesus did, He was justified in Spirit, received up in glory (see 1 Tim 3: 16). God finds His rest supremely in Christ.

But then God found that in Noah in which He could rest: He was a preacher of righteousness. Think how Noah must have felt the condition of things in the days before the flood when they mocked at his preaching! Yet he went on in patience, he walked with God. It is a very fine suggestion that God is walking. I know Scripture says He can run and He can fly, but His pace is generally a walk. God walks - "The voice of Jehovah Elohim, walking in the garden in the cool of the day", Gen 3: 8. Noah walked with God; I believe God found companionship. Enoch too walked with God. There were features in those dear men, in the midst of the generation in which they were, in which heaven delighted. With Noah it was but a few, eight souls coming on to the renewed earth and God finding delight in that burnt-offering. Noah took of every clean animal and offered it up, a burnt-offering to Jehovah. Think, dear brethren, of what God had secured on the renewed earth. I believe there was a moment, it may have been a brief moment, when sin was not working, when there was what was pleasurable to God secured as the fruit of the burntoffering that Noah offered up to God.

Well then subjectively you and I would be exercised as to whether there is that about us in which heaven can rest. You bring it down to the present moment and the present testimony and find it is possible that, as thus committed to the will of God, there would be a state of things in the saints in which heaven delights - the life of Jesus continued in testimony. What the Lord Jesus said to Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus road indicated that the 'Me' was here, that Christ was here in testimony "Why dost thou persecute me?", Acts 9: 4. I think the Lord rested in that, He found delight in that, that His body was here. The more we look into that the more we find that the Head is described in the body here. It is wonderful that we should be concerned as we continue in the will of God that there is what is representing Christ, and that involves the present testimony. I think in relation to that that the Lord is in control and He is in charge of everything in relation to the testimony. He is not letting things get out of His hand; "The Father loves the Son, and has given all things to be in his hand", John 3: 35. Think of the administration of everything in the hand of the Son! There is no breakdown in relation to that administration, things are carried through in an inviolate, wonderful way in the hand of Christ.

I think that in these verses in Numbers 10 you get the suggestion that you can find rest in wilderness surroundings; not final conditions of rest, but in a provisional way, when in wilderness life and in wilderness circumstances we should touch something of a restful condition of things as proving the Lord's faithful love and leading and intervention for His people. We have come through much, we know that, but all that has been in divine ways and the Lord has been in charge of His testimony. What has been done has not been without His control. I think the time we are in is a time when the Lord is giving us to prove in local meetings that even in wilderness circumstances we are reaching a state and condition of rest. I think this is very precious. Mr Darby shows how he enjoyed this; even in times of the greatest conflict his soul is at rest, his soul is confidingly in the enjoyment of his relation with Christ, and as belonging to the assembly he finds himself restful in the midst of all the adversity and conflict linked with the wilderness position. While here, you might say, Moses is not really giving the lead he should give - leadership is failing and weak and broken down in measure - the ark which generally was in the centre of the camp is coming out of its position and corning into the lead, the Lord Himself going before. Oh, the sense of divine faithfulness and care! The Lord has not left us to find our own way; in His faithful love He is proving that He is our Guide and Leader, and our Guardian in wilderness circumstances. The ark comes out from its accustomed place in the centre of the camp - "The ark of the covenant of Jehovah went before them in the three days' journey, to search out a resting-place for them". I think this, dear brethren, is what we should come to: the experience of restful conditions in wilderness life. It is not the final thought of rest, we are in wilderness surroundings; we come together in wilderness circumstances, we come to the Supper as in the wilderness and we break bread in the wilderness. I think as we experience the Lord's gracious care and solicitation, His faithful love as the ark of the covenant of Jehovah that went before them (I think this may be the first allusion to the ark of the covenant of Jehovah), it is God in His faithfulness, Christ in His faithfulness; it is the faithfulness of divine committal in relation to the current position in the testimony, to come in and show the way. The Lord has Himself gone before; He has marked out the path that we tread (Hymn 139). I think that is the ark coming into this position in that three days' journey. It involves death and resurrection, proving that divine love has entered into the position in relation to signally giving a lead in protection and care so that the people of God and what is for God in testimony are carried through in wilderness life according to the divine thought. From this viewpoint every enemy is laid low because it says, "the cloud of Jehovah was over them by day", that is the divine presence. That is a great matter, the sense of the presence of God. But in addition to that, in this section, there is the great element of divine faithfulness. And so at Corinth God is faithful. You fall back on God's faithfulness: "God is faithful, by whom ye have been called into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord", 1 Cor 1: 9. You cling to that and you prove it, divine faithfulness in the way that divine Persons have acted to establish for Themselves in testimony here an order of things in which They can rest.

So it is, "it came to pass when the ark set forward, that Moses said, Rise up, Jehovah, and let thine enemies be scattered". It is a great triumph. The force of this comes into your soul, that there is nothing which can stand athwart the intervention of divine power, the movement in the wilderness when externally leadership has broken down. God asserts the initiative and Christ in faithful love shows the way in view of rest. It says, "when it rested, he said, Return Jehovah, unto the myriads of the thousands of Israel". This is very precious. Dear brethren, we should be able to cling to this, that the ground we occupy is the ground that every true believer should be on. It says, "Return, Jehovah, unto the myriads of the thousands of Israel". You think of what that return is! Is it then that the ground we are occupying is the ground that you can rightly say every true believer should be on? Let us look at this subjectively in ourselves and our own exercise and look at it in relation to our local meeting - the ground we are occupying is the ground that God would have every believer to be on. Therefore we are not apologetic as to that position, we are not apologetic as to the weakness that marks the public position. The sense of divine resource, the sense of divine faithfulness, the sense of divine care and protection guards and keeps His own testimony so that there is what is answering in some way to what God is resting in. It exists by reason of the presence of the Spirit; the truth is maintained in all its fulness in the Spirit, for the Spirit is the truth. The Lord is the truth objectively there above, everything established in a Man in the presence of God; and it is maintained subjectively here in the Spirit. So that in the faith of your soul, as travelling on this road that Christ has marked out before, you come to it through experience, through faith and by the Spirit, that the ground we are on is the ground that God would have every true believer to be on. Let us not shrink from that. That is not assuming anything, that is not boasting. We reach this order of things linked with wilderness life where we know conditions of rest in the local assembly. I think that is a very attractive matter at the present time. We have come through much and we need not go into that - not at the present time anyway - but to find that in the local meeting a state and condition of rest under the leadership of Christ is being experienced. I think heaven is delighted with that.

I read the passage in Matthew 11 because, while it is really the servants' chapter, it would have a certain bearing on every one of us because we can all be servants. Every brother and sister here can serve in some way. And I would say every brother and sister here can take a lead. Romans contemplates that every one of us can be a leader when it says, each taking the lead in paying honour to the other (see chap 12: 10). That is very fine. Young people should think of that; they honour their father and mother, then they honour the element of experience and elderhood in the local meeting, they honour the experience and solidity in aged sisters who have stood in the truth, have come through crisis after crisis and are in restful circumstances. While Matthew 11 then is the servants' chapter it is also Christ in relation to the will of God and in the yoke of the Father's will. While His ministry is rejected and He Himself is rejected, He turns in the confidence of His links with His Father: "Jesus answering said, I praise thee, Father, Lord of the heaven and of the earth". Oh, what a model is that blessed, glorious Saviour, what a model is Jesus in the path of service here! Though outwardly rejected, the cities in which His mighty works were done rejecting Him, the Lord is going on in the confidence of that yoke in the Father's will, and He wants you and me to be in it. So we should be restful in whatever feature of service the Lord would have any of us carry out. As I said already, He would give us each something to do.

So He says, "Come to me, all ye who labour and are burdened, and I will give you rest". Oh, the rest in that yoke of the Father's will; it is the kind of yoke that we want to be in, the yoke of the Father's will: "Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me". Let us, dear brethren, as occupied with Christ find that in Him the example is so fully set out that we take on this yoke in committal in relation to the Father's will and find rest in so doing. How the Lord found rest in that path of devotion and service here in relation to the Father's will! He was really the ram caught in the thicket by its horns. It was the power of love that held Jesus in that unswerving path of devotion to the Father's will. This is the path of true happiness, this is the path of committal to the Father's will. May we know it more as we commit ourselves to it, for His Name's sake.

BROOKLYN NY

28 September 1973

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