The Rest and the Courage of Faith

"There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God" (Hebrews 4:9)

"So we see that they could not enter in because of their unbelief" (Hebrews 3:19)

Joshua 14:6-14

I am sure it will sound to many of you like going a long way back and going out into a very broad realm when I say that we Christians are being constantly confronted with and challenged by our Christianity. Many of us have not really entered into Christianity yet. What do I mean? Well, for one thing, the very door into true Christianity is the door of rest, the rest of faith. The very simple way in which the Lord put it in His appeal was - "Come unto Me, and ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28). That was to a multitude, and those words are usually employed in Gospel messages to the unsaved. The meaning of the Lord in using those words is given to us here in the Letter to the Hebrews, a very much deeper and fuller meaning than is generally recognized in the usage of the simple invitation "Come unto Me ... and I will give you rest". There is something that we have to hear, to detect, in the statement - "There remaineth therefore a sabbath rest for the people of God" (Hebrews 4:9).

A Present Entering Into Rest

If you look at the context, the meaning  is something into which people of God had not entered. "They were not able to enter in because of unbelief" (Hebrews 3:19). They could not enter in. Who were they? - the people of God. It is still the people of God for whom the rest remaineth. Do not let us put that into the future, that is not the meaning at all; that afterward, when we get Home to glory, then we will arrive at the Sabbath day rest, we will enter into rest. It is not something for the tombstone - he or she entered into rest. It is something for the people of God, not in death, but in life. The rest remaineth.

You will not think me too elementary, for you know in your heart, as well as I do in mine, that this matter of the heart rest, the rest of faith, is a live question continually, it is coming up all the time. One of the things which is lacking in so many of us is this rest, or, to put it the other way, the things which characterize us so much are fret, anxiety, uncertainty, and all those things which are just the opposite of calm assurance, quiet confidence, the spirit and attitude and  atmosphere which says all the time, Don't worry, don't fret, it is all right. One thing our great enemy is always trying to do is to disturb that, destroy that, rob us of that, churn us up, fret us, drive us, harass us, anything to rob us of our rest or to prevent us from entering into rest.

It is the rest of faith, not just the rest of passivity, indifference, carelessness. There is all the difference between carelessness and carefreeness. There remaineth, there is still to be had, there still obtains, there still exists, there is still preserved a rest for the people of God - for the people of God. We have no right to go to the unsaved and bid them come to Christ and find rest until and unless we ourselves know that rest. Our testimony and our ministry is jeopardized; weakened, limited and discredited if we are not ourselves in rest; and this is the object of the enemy's activity in this matter - to discredit us by taking from us that very birthright of our union with Him Who is never perturbed, never anxious, never in doubt as to the issue, the One Who reigns. You see, rest is the practical outworking of our belief that He is Lord, and the very Lordship of Christ is struck at by the unrest of the people of God.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 2)