"HIS REST"
“HIS REST”
The ideal of man is rest. The end in the mind of God, when everything will be finished according to His pleasure - His rest - is the rest which He sets before us. That the day of rest was a chief purpose in and delight to the heart of God, we gather from the fact of His resting immediately at the beginning, when He “saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good”. His rest is henceforth the most prominent thing in connection with His dealings with man, as has been written: - ‘First, the participation in God’s rest is what distinguishes His people - their distinctive privilege. The heart of the believer holds that fast, whatever may be the sign that God has given of it (Hebrews 4). God had established it at the beginning, but there is no evidence that in fact man ever enjoyed any share of it. He did not work in the creation, nor was he set to labour or toil in the garden of Eden; he was to dress and keep it, indeed, but he had nothing to do but continually to enjoy. However, the day was hallowed from the beginning. Afterwards the sabbath was given as a memorial of deliverance out of Egypt (Deuteronomy 5: 15). And the prophets especially insist on that point, that the sabbath was given as a sign of God’s covenant (Ezekiel 20: 12, 20; Exodus 31: 13). It was plain that it was but the earnest of that word, “My presence shall go... and I will give thee rest”, (Exodus 33: 14; Exodus 31: 13; Leviticus 19: 30). It is a sign that the people are sanctified to God (Ezekiel 20:12-16; Ezekiel 20:20; Nehemiah 9: 14; compare Isaiah 56: 2 - 6; Isaiah 58:13; Jeremiah 17: 22; Lamentations 1:7; Lamentations 2:6; Ezekiel 22: 8; Ezekiel 23: 38; Ezekiel 44: 24). Besides these passages, we see that whenever God gives any new principle or form or relation with Himself, the sabbath is added; thus in grace to Israel (Exodus 16: 23); as law (Exodus 20: 10). See also, besides the verse we are occupied with, Exodus 31: 13,14;
[p. 242] Exodus 34: 21. When they were restored afresh by the patience of God through mediation (chapter 35: 2), and in the new covenant in Deuteronomy already quoted in the passage’ .
Once we are impressed with the greatness of the coming rest in the mind of God, and how His heart centres in that day when “he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing”, we cannot fail to see how necessary and affecting is the exhortation, “Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it”. Is that day when the blessed God shall rejoice, in that He has gathered in all around Himself in the perfection of Christ, the one great day that our hearts are set on? Is every other day here a day of toil, with no thought of any rest until then? The principle of the working man who engages to work for the six days of the week, with no prospect of rest or cessation till Sunday, is the one we should inculcate and foster; that is, to engage to work, and not to look for any rest until the great day of His rest is ushered in.
We may look first at the various ways in which a soul is diverted from this prospect, and then at the Lord’s way of preserving us, so that we may enter into it.
As rest is the ultimate and chief purpose of God in His relation with man, it must be at once the most appropriate and the supreme thing for man. If it be a question of his conscience, as we see in Matthew 11, rest is the first and greatest thing required; and if it be a question of his walk here, amid various hindrances and vexations, rest again is the one grand desideratum. Hence it is written, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls”. There is first the rest from the intolerable burden of our sins, too heavy for us to bear; and then there is rest of heart for us in the daily circumstances of life; so that whether it be within or without, rest is the great and singular goal for the heart. These two rests,
[p. 243] which in themselves prove how indispensable rest is, are present, and are to be enjoyed now. But besides these two, there is another required in a world of evil and sorrow, a complete and eternal rest - God’s rest, which, as we have seen, is the great end set before us; and it is here that the temptation or the delusion obtains or occurs. The temptation is to stop short of this, and to seek a measure of rest here. Are we to seek or to accept a temporary lull, an infinitely inferior rest here; or are we so truly in the mind of the Lord that we refuse the idea of any rest until the day and hour when He rests? Is His rest the one eternal definite goal before our hearts?
As rest is such an essential, as I may say, it may be well to examine the many ways by which we are decoyed from seeking and accepting, in our wilderness journey, the true rest. The Lord in His walk of service here proposed to His disciples to “rest a while”. He says in Mark 6: 31, “Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while”. The very term “a while” shows that it is only for a limited period, and indicates that it is only a temporary suspension of the toil to which one is called here. The word to Israel, “Go up and possess the land”, detected their evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. First they “remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick”; and next they murmur, and are afraid of the giants and the cities, and refuse to go up. They refuse God’s rest. We are therefore exhorted to labour diligently to enter into that rest, lest any fall after the same example of unbelief, of not obeying the word. All through Scripture we find that the failure or declension of every servant of God is traceable to the desire for rest before, or independently of, the one only true and divine rest. What did Cain attempt or aim at, but such a progress in the things here that there should be a cessation of toil and sorrow? And it is simply this that [p. 244] human religion aims at. If heaven, God’s rest, where everything is according to God, were the only spot where one could see a true and full end of all toil and sorrow, surely philanthropic works would have little place, and there would be no thought or attempt to advance man here on the earth to a condition pleasing to God. Thus the word, “Go up”, detects in a peculiar way the secret motives and intentions of the human heart - any road or pursuit but the straight one to heaven. To rest here is to turn aside, and the very desire to turn aside is exposed by pressing on the soul the word of God. On the other hand, every service to man which would tell on that day would be rendered, if the heart were in the day of God’s rest. In a word, as the sense of that time and its wondrous perfection is before us, and we are impregnated with it, so does every one of our acts and purposes assume the colour of it.
The improvement of man on earth is the most subtle and successful snare of the enemy in diverting the conscientious from the rest. It is here that the popish element came in, and it is the spring of ritualism and self-culture. Timothy is warned of the first in 1 Timothy 4; the Hebrews are forewarned of the second, and the Colossians of the third.
The building of Babel set forth in principle man’s mode of reaching rest; and in its climax, Babylon, we find it in its fully developed form: “I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow”. There is nothing of religion here. It is man setting up independently for himself; and every attempt and pursuit into which we are drawn in order to advance ourselves on the earth is a growth from this root. It would be at once exposed and condemned by the word, “Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it”; or better still, “Let us therefore use diligence to enter into that rest, that no one may fall after the same example of not hearkening to the word”.
[p. 245] There is another head or form of deception by which saints are drawn away from His rest. Jacob furnishes us with an example of it. He, after much conflict and exercise of heart, is quietly established in the land; but instead of God’s rest being the only haven for him, he stops short of it, and is induced to settle at Shalem. No doubt, after all his toil, he naturally wished for rest; but ere long he found out, as every saint bitterly learns, “This is not your rest: because it is polluted..”. What is so remarkable in Jacob is that he continues to be religious; he builds an altar, and does not appear to have surrendered any of the truth which had been committed to him; but he failed, and exposed himself to the judgment on the world, because he sought his rest in it. Surely whenever we do so we shall find that the world “hath cast down many wounded: yea, many strong men have been slain by her. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death”.
Under these three heads there are innumerable subdivisions, like so many roads, one or another presenting something to draw away the heart with a promise of rest here - a cessation of toil. Many a one works on assiduously, buoyed up with the hope of being able, at some more or less distant time, to cease his labours, and retire and enjoy the fruits of his industry. Every desire and intention of the kind in the saint, when allowed, betrays that the heart is not simply and truly set on His rest.
In conclusion I would say that there are two things which keep and sustain the heart which is set for His rest. One is the word of God, which ever detects and exposes what is of the flesh, and what would detain us in the wilderness; and this by insisting on and inculcating the mind of God, which is the very opposite to man’s natural mind. The other is the intercession of Christ, providing everyone led by the word with His grace, because in His sympathy He knows our need; and thus we are supported and cheered, while adhering to the [p. 246] heavenly road on which He ever walked while down here. No one then is either pursuing the right road, or receiving succour and help for the journey, who is not steadily and heartily fixed on heaven - God’s rest - as his home and destination.