REST FOR MAN AND FOR GOD
Gospel Preaching—24th May 1959
I want to speak about rest for man, but also about rest for God. In the passage in Matthew, we read that the Lord first says, “I will give you rest”, and then “and ye shall find rest”, and then we find in Hebrews that God has it in His mind that we should enter into His rest. The gospel has not had its full effect until we know something about entering into God’s rest. But first we need to know rest for ourselves.
Firstly, rest is given to us by Christ, and is then found by us by following the line proposed by the Lord. Thus the Lord says, “Come to me”. These words are associated with a certain authority: “Come to me”! In Acts 5 we read about two different people who gathered men around themselves. The first of them was called Theudas, and the second was Judas the Galilean. But they were both killed, and those who listened to them were scattered. But the Lord lives forever, and He says in reference to those who come to Him, that no one will take them out of His hand, and that no one will take them out of the hand of His Father. Thus the Lord Jesus is a great gathering point for men and now He makes this appeal: “Come to me, all ye who labour and are burdened”, and then He says, “I will give you rest”.
Now I believe that the greatest burden that men bear is the burden when they awaken in relation to their sin; and then it is the burden they have when they feel their sinful state and the lack of hope in the flesh. But it is very beautiful that the Lord says, “Come to me, all ye who labour and are burdened”, as if there was no one who had any burden that was not invited to come to Christ. We read in the scriptures of those who were burdened. We read of a man who went up into the temple and could not even lift up his eyes to heaven, who smote his breast and said, “O God, have compassion on me, the sinner”. This was a burdened man, and he found relief by coming into the presence of God and acknowledging the truth in the way it is stated, and how he felt it. And we read of a woman in Luke 7, who came where the Lord Jesus was, into the house of the Pharisee, and she stood at the feet of Jesus, and wept and washed His feet with her tears, and dried them with the hair of her head; she kissed His feet, and anointed them with myrrh. What was the reason for this? The Lord tells us the reason. He tells us that she was guilty of many sins. “Her many sins are forgiven”, He says, v 47. She was also a burdened person, but she appreciated that grace. God had come to her in the Person of the Lord Jesus.
Those who love Christ break bread in remembrance of Him. When the bread is broken, the Lord tells us, “This is my body, which is for you”, 1 Cor 11: 24. I wonder if it has ever made an impression on you that Jesus is He who is, as it is said: “over all, God blessed forever”, Rom 9: 5. Is it not wonderful that He should talk about having a body? The woman appreciated His feet, she kissed His feet, and they were part of His body. He had taken a body so that He could serve men in grace and that He might die. It is not possible for God to die. But He, who in His Person is God, took on a form in which He could die. He is the man Christ Jesus, who has given Himself as a ransom for all. Think of the greatness of Christ who entered the scene of death; remember how great was the sacrifice offered to God when Jesus offered Himself spotless to God! And all this was for every one who is burdened with sins. All this has had an effect over the last two thousand years, that in His name repentance and forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed to all who come to Him. And everyone who feels burdened by sins finds in Him a perfect answer to all that burdens him. Thus there is something attractive in the words of the Lord Jesus: “Come to me, all ye who labour and are burdened, and I will give you rest”. The same One who died for our sins and went under the judgment of God, and who endured it, and who died and also was buried, is the same One whom God raised from the dead and set in glory at His right hand. Now God wants the whole world to know that this matter is for His glory, and that in the Name of the Lord Jesus forgiveness of sins is proclaimed.
It is good to come to Christ, not just to hear Him, but also to come to Him and have to do with Him. In the 4th chapter of the gospel of John, we read about a woman who had to do with the Lord. The Lord made her aware that He knew her whole story, so much so that she said, “Come, see a man who told me all things I had ever done”, v 29. All the things we have done must come to light. Everything that is hidden must come to light. It is a good thing to come into the light now and come to Him who died now, that our sins may be forgiven, and not only that our sins may be forgiven, but that we may also receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
But then there are also those who are burdened with what they discovered in themselves, and they always tend to look inward, and then they are disappointed that they do not find things the way they wish. But all this has also been met for us. At one time Samuel mourned for King Saul, for Saul had proved to be a great disappointment. But God said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul, when I have rejected him?” He then said to him, “fill thy horn with oil” (1 Sam 16: 1), and he had to go and anoint David. This is what God wants to say to everyone here who mourns about what he finds in himself. Perhaps no one knows about it other than God, but He knows what is going on in your mind and in your heart, and He would say, How long will you mourn for the man whom I have rejected? God has rejected the first man. When the Lord Jesus took our place and was made sin for us, the One who knew no sin, He was completely united in grace with our sinful state. Our sinful condition by nature is hopeless. Scripture says, “and they that are in flesh cannot please God”. It says: “Because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God; for neither indeed can it be: and they that are in flesh cannot please God”, Rom 8: 7, 8. That is why our position is hopeless by its very nature. David said, “Behold, in iniquity was I brought forth, and in sin did my mother conceive me”, Ps 51: 5. He came to believe that he was sinful in the root and origin of his being. But we too must come to this. Therefore, one does not expect anything from a corrupted tree, but one turns away from it in the light that God has rejected it. Thus, when Jesus was made sin for us, He, who knew no sin became completely identified with the sinful state in which we are found by nature. In this position, sin in the flesh was condemned by God, and the judgment, which was an expression of this condemnation, was borne and exhausted by the Lord Jesus. And then He died, and He was buried, and it was all for us. We are entitled to accept this for ourselves and to understand before God that sin and the sinful state have not only been condemned, but that the sinful man was also finished in death and has gone out of sight in burial. Now God has brought forth the Man of His choice from death, the true David, the root and the offspring of David. God has raised Him from the dead, and everyone who believes in Him receives the Holy Spirit and is set before God in the life of Christ. There is no condemnation at all for those who are in Christ Jesus. You are completely outside the realm of condemnation.
Now I believe that you can understand that when you come to Christ in faith, all this is yours, and you can then also understand that the Lord gives rest. It may be that you have been struggling for a long time and are trying to improve yourself, as Peter says on one occasion: “Master, having laboured through the whole night we have taken nothing”, Luke 5: 5. That is what people discover when they struggle and try to improve themselves, that nothing comes of it. But what a joy it is to come to Christ and receive rest from Him: “I will give you rest”. This is something very stirring to note how fully the Lord has identified Himself at the cross with the sinful state in which we were, so that by this means, that sinful state is forever finished and judged before God. There is now a Man before God, in whom He is well pleased, and every one who believes in the Lord Jesus is before God in Christ. One finds in Genesis 7 at the end, that the flood had destroyed all mankind, and this refers to what came into being in God’s eyes at the cross of Christ, namely that the end of all flesh has come before God. Then it says, “And Noah alone remained, and what was with him in the ark”, Gen 7: 23. This is the position today, that the end of all flesh has come before God, before Him on the cross, and Christ, whom Noah represents, remains and those who are with Him.
Thus we find in Matthew 9 that two blind men come to Jesus and He touches their eyes. We read in Mark 1 that a leper came to Jesus, and the Lord touched him. In Mark 7 we find that a deaf man who could not speak right was brought to Jesus, and Jesus put His finger in his ears; and He spat and touched his tongue. Then in the next chapter, we get a blind man brought, and the Lord spat on his eyes and laid His hands upon him. All these events in the gospels, where the Lord touched various conditions in man, are given with the intention to remind us of the way He became completely involved with our state. On the cross, He was made sin, who knew no sin, and thus the whole position was met. So I believe that we can understand that when we come to Christ, He gives us rest.
But then He goes on to say: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest to your souls”. This means that we can rest in a certain way, and if we do not move forward on this line, then we will not find the rest which we are speaking about. A large number of true believers are not at rest; but the Lord has this before Himself that we, as believers, are to be at rest, calm in all the circumstances of life. The secret is that we take His yoke upon us. When the Lord was here as a man, He had no will but the will of His Father. He found His pleasure in the will of God. He could actually say: “My food is that I should do the will of him that has sent me, and that I should finish his work”, John 4: 34. But now, as believers, we are admonished to present our bodies “a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your intelligent service. And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God”, Rom 12. These are the lines on which we find rest, that we are here on the principle of obedience. Remember that when the children of Israel came out of Egypt, they first found no water to drink, and then they came to a place called Mara, and there they found that the waters were bitter. As young believers, we often find that the will of God seems to be contrary to what we desire. In this respect, the waters are bitter. But Moses cried to God, and God showed him wood which he cast into the water, and the water became sweet. Well, the wood is simply Jesus as here in the same world in which we are, as here to do the will of God and to be satisfied and happy in this will, as it is prophetically said of Him in Psalm 16: 6: “The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage”, that is, that the Lord found pleasant places and a goodly heritage in the circumstances which God had appointed for Him. He found peace and joy and satisfaction by following His course on the principle of obedience to God’s will. That is why, at this point in Mara, that God set them a statute and an ordinance for the people, and that was simply on the principle of obedience. As we move forward on these lines, we will find rest for our souls. God said that He would not lay on them any of the diseases He had laid on the Egyptians. We often find that people in the world are full of disappointment and bitterness and feel that everything is against them. These are some of the diseases that God has placed on the Egyptians. It is that which comes to those who are here in independence of God, while the believer, who finds rest in the will of God, is free from all these things. Then it is said that they came to Elim, where were twelve water springs and seventy palm trees. There we come in reality to the assembly, it is the complete administration of divine things in the Spirit, and one sees the brethren in power and the joy of victory over the world, of which the palm trees speak.
I now come briefly to the passage in the epistle to the Hebrews. We find in chapters 3 and 4 that God speaks of His rest and that He desires that we should enter into His rest. Well, we noticed this afternoon that the rest of God is mentioned first in Genesis 2, according to the six days of His work in creation. At the end of the sixth day, He introduces us to the thought of Christ and the assembly, for it is said that on the sixth day He created man, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them. Thus, from the beginning, God had before Him Christ on the one hand and the assembly on the other. Now, every believer who has the Holy Spirit belongs to the assembly. It says: “in the power of one Spirit we have all been baptised into one body ... and have all been given to drink of one Spirit”, 1 Cor 12: 13. That is why every believer who has the Holy Spirit belongs to the one body. This one body is nothing less than the body of Christ; that is, it is the expression of Christ in men, men and women of course—that is, when I say, ‘men’, I mean members of the human race. God does not effect these great thoughts in angels, but He brings forth this His wonderful thoughts in men, the assembly as the body of Christ. When Jesus was here as a man, everything in which God could rest in a man was here. There was nothing that the heart of God desired in man, which it did not find in Jesus. But how wonderful it is that the assembly is His body, the fulness of Christ. Through the work of God, all that is for the good pleasure of God in Christ is formed in the saints, and the wisdom of God is so infinite, and His power is so great that the assembly, when His work is complete, will be the exact expression of Christ. Nothing will be lacking, and nothing is superfluous, but it is the complete fulness of Christ, composed of those who were once sinners, but who are sanctified by the death of Christ on the one hand and the gift of the Holy Spirit on the other. Well, in this wonderful plan, God finds rest for His heart. When we read the gospels, we get an impression of the rest that God finds in Jesus. He says, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight”, Matt 3: 17. Well, that will be extended in the assembly. Nothing is added, everything that is there comes from Christ, but under the eye of God it is expanded. Although we have to wait for the day to come for it to be completed in its glory, we can already understand by faith and by the Spirit that God finds rest in Christ and the assembly. God also wants us to surrender completely to the assembly. That is why He says in this passage in the epistle to the Hebrews, “To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts”. Today is the day for the greatest things to be grasped, and every believer, brother and sister, should understand and enjoy their part in the assembly, and also see that nothing is allowed to come in that does not correspond to our calling, to have our part as those who are called to participate in such a great matter. That is why the passage here says: “For we are become companions of the Christ”. That is what we are, nothing less. The first chapter tells us that Christ is anointed with oil of gladness above His companions. We get a certain impression of this when we meet in assembly on the first day of the week, that Christ is there and that His companions are around Him. He is anointed with oil of gladness above them, but we have our part with Him in the joy of the position, and the Spirit gives us the knowledge that God Himself finds rest in what He has brought about in the assembly. He wants us to enter into this rest, and this is where the gospel wants to lead us, first rest for ourselves, and then the privilege of sharing in the rest of God. May the Lord bless the word!
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