There seems to be a restless spirit that hangs like a pall over this age. This spirit is characteristic of a deep dissatisfaction with life. We see it in the world where there is a constant demand for change, but now we are witnessing it within the organized church. Many of this post-modern age, while searching for the answer to the unrest of their soul are seeking for it in the wrong places. Many have turned to such experiences as yoga, eastern mysticism, new age teaching, contemplative prayer, and such like, and it has only served to numb their conscience of the real cause of their unrest. These are man made efforts to try to appease the restlessness they are experiencing. Often they are a mere façade that they use to try to conceal the fear and frustration of the sin within. Rather than heed God’s call to repentance and faith in the “Lamb of God that takes away the sin” of the world, many have resorted to the wresting of the Scriptures to try to diminish the saving efficacy of the blood of Christ and in so doing they never find the rest of soul they so desperately need.
They are questioning whether Christ is the only Savior of the world and if Christianity is the only true religion. I remind all who read this that Christianity is not discredited when Christ is rejected any more than the sun is discredited because a lunatic chooses to live in a cave. The rest offered by Christ is not diminished by ones refusal, any more than the potency of a remedy is diminished because some demented patient refuses to take it. When one rejects Christ he always rings the curtain down on everything that is wholesome, good and eternal. When one refuses Jesus’ invitation to rest it is because he puts his trust in himself and as one stated long ago, “unbelief is man’s faith in man,” which leads to an eternal unrest of the soul.
Jesus said, “come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” This rest is not something one can earn through discipline, prayer labyrinths, or any other mystical or pagan practice; it comes only from Christ as a gift. When one comes to Him in the simplicity of a childlike obedience and with faith in the Living Christ he can receive rest from all the guilt of past sins and the assurance of everlasting life. The load that he carried with its darkness and dread of future wrath is lifted from man’s soul and he receives the rest he long desired and hope for the future.
Jesus further promises, “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. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Here is a rest that comes in response to the believer’s submission to Christ’s yoke. This rest is not a gift as the first, but a discovery. This rest comes when the believer makes a total abandonment of himself to the whole will of God and trusts in the efficacious blood of Christ to cleanse from all sin. As Peter testified in Acts 15: 9, that God put no difference between the Gentiles and the Jews, “purifying their hearts by faith.” The believer acknowledges the Savior as Lord and Sovereign, and experiences deliverance from inbred sin and selfishness. If one refuses His yoke he will be encumbered with his own yoke of self-centeredness with all of its fears, frustration, and restlessness.
My text speaks of a rest to the people of God. This is what Wesley properly termed the ‘second rest.’ The rest brought about through the cleansing of the heart from carnality. “Where one ceases from his own works,” Hebrews 4:10 by, “presenting his body a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God which is our reasonable service.” Romans 12:1. This is that which is provided by the second work of grace, namely entire sanctification. “Faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it.” (I Thessalonians 5:23).
This rest is not to be confused with physical death because Hebrews 4:3 informs us that this rest is entered into by faith, “we which have believed.” In Hebrews 4: 11 we are admonished to “labor” (sometimes translated ‘hasten’ or ‘give diligence’) in order to enter into this rest. It will take neither faith nor effort to physically die. The tense of the word also teaches that this rest is not speaking about the rest the Christian will enjoy in heaven because “we which have believed DO (immediately) enter into rest.” Therefore this rest is for the people of God and is to be received by faith in this life. It is second and subsequent to the new birth and is necessary for victorious living here and a triumphant entry into heaven in the hereafter.
Just as the Land of Canaan was the promised inheritance of the children of Israel when they left Egypt, this second rest is the promised (earnest of) inheritance of the believer today.
When Moses brought the children of Israel out of the slavish bondage of Egypt, he did it with the purpose of bringing them into the Promised Land of Canaan. It was not God’s plan or purpose that they wander in the wilderness for forty years. It was because of their unbelief and disobedience that they wandered in the wilderness for forty years. God said, “Go up,” but they saw Giants and didn’t go. God said, “Today,” but they said tomorrow and when tomorrow came, God’s time was past, and they suffered defeat at the hands of Amalek. The tragedy was that all the adults that left Egypt and refused to enter Canaan at the point of Kadesh-barnea were never permitted to enter the Promised Land. As one songwriter put it:
“He brought me out to bring me in,
Where shall I then His praise begin?
Freedom from sin, Canaan within,
He brought me out to bring me in.”
The writer turns to this dispensation of believers and warns, “take heed brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” (Hebrews 3:12-13) “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.”
(Hebrews 4:1)
When God says, “Again He limiteth a certain day, saying in David, Today, after so long a time; as it is said, Today, if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts,” Hebrews 4:7. There is a serious danger of closing the door before our own faces if we fail to enter when the Lord calls us in. Many, through their biases against a second work, have trifled with the possibilities of grace and suffered spiritual tragedy. There are those who allowed themselves to be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin,” (can be translated ‘deceitfulness of sinners’).
They have allowed the door to close with themselves on the wrong side. They missed their heritage in soul rest because of their failure to go in in God’s time. They have turned away from their spiritual Kadesh-barnea with the Promised Land lying beyond, to spend their years and dissipate their spiritual possibilities in aimless wandering in the waste of the wilderness. The tragedy is that far too many others are following in the wake of those Israelites. They are rebelling as they rebelled, rejecting as they rejected, and will die as they died.
My prayer and admonition to all believers, and every adopted child of God, is that they not fail to claim the “earnest of inheritance” that is rightly theirs to possess and “today” enter into the “rest” that God has reserved “to the people of God.” Jesus brings us out of the slavish bondage of sin in regeneration in order that we “may receive inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me,” Acts 26:18.
The second rest is the inheritance of the saints, just as Canaan was the inheritance of the Israelites. This second rest unclaimed is as unsatisfying as Canaan un-possessed.
Through forgiveness of sins He gives us the rest of pardon. Through cleansing from the sin inherited He gives us rest of purity. He justifies us freely so that He might sanctify us wholly. This is the Believer’s Rest!
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