“I heard the voice of Jesus say,
Come unto Me and rest.”
REST! Who, of all the dwellers in this weary world, does not, in some way or other, know the need of rest, either for mind or body, for heart or conscience? Man is naturally the most restless of God’s creatures. His proud aspirations, his rebellious will, his guilty conscience, his unsatisfied heart, all tend to make him restless.
Upon a seat, half-way up a toilsome hill, we saw painted in bold characters, “Rest and be thankful.” Now, though this seat gave rest to the climber’s body, any onlooker could see that it did not give rest to his aspiring mind; for in a few minutes you might have seen him toiling upward still. In reality the mind had gone ahead of the body, and only waited till the body had strength to go too.
Not long since, in a small country town, the writer’s notice was drawn to two signs on houses that stood side by side in the same street. One was The Traveler’s Rest over a public-house, the other, Funerals Furnished over an undertaker’s shop. To the writer’s mind there seemed to be a sort of relation between these two signs. Both spoke of a temporary rest for the bodies of men, and yet there was a marked contrast between them. The mind of the passing traveler who tarries for a night anticipates the business of the morrow as he lies down. That is, he has mentally gone on. But the spirit of him who needs a bed of clay as a hidden resting-place for his lifeless body has actually gone on: “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it” (Eccl. 12:77Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. (Ecclesiastes 12:7)).
Now of all the disturbers of man’s rest in this world this is the greatest. He may try many an opiate, but all in vain. “Cannot rest” is as plainly written on his heart and conscience as the publican’s sign is written over his door. Two words disturb him sorely, SIN-GOD.
A clever thief, who for years has managed to evade the King’s detectives, may comfort himself by the thought that he will be able to do so to the end. But every man knows that his last “move” is approaching, and that the cold hand of death, will find him out at last. The question of what SIN is to GOD must then be faced. Now, what does he need in view of this? The very thing he has not got—rest! Rest for conscience as he looks back; rest for heart, and conscience too, as he looks ahead. Yes, reader, he must, and so must you, have to do with God. Do you not remember what He has written? “As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God” (Rom. 14:11, 1211For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. 12So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. (Romans 14:11‑12)). Oh, but it must be a terrible moment when an unknown God has to be faced by an unforgiven sinner.
An Irish murderer, condemned to death, bewailed the fact that he was going to be hurried, “into the presence of God tied up as a criminal.” Yet every sinner who dies without pardon will suddenly find himself in the presence of God, bound by the chain of his sins. Men willingly spend a lifetime in such fetters. “They cry not when he bindeth them” (Job 36:1313But the hypocrites in heart heap up wrath: they cry not when he bindeth them. (Job 36:13)).
But think of the last moments of such a man. He is about to step into the presence of God. Bitter reflections trouble his conscience and rack his mind. Dark forebodings of what he has every right to expect make him shrink back from what is before him. Has he rest? Rest! No. He cannot rest. And still worse, he is not far from where “they have no rest day nor night,” forever and ever. Awful position!
Yet, blessed be God, rest may be reached, even at the sinner’s greatest extremity in this world. How? By the knowledge of God. A lifetime of sin could no more shut a repentant sinner out from God’s welcome and blessing than a lifetime of outwardly “good behavior” without repentance could bring him into blessing. You have only to read the story of the prodigal and his elder brother to have this amply confirmed by Jesus Himself. As surely as the discovered “well of water” suited Hagar in her dire extremity, or as the discovery of plenty for nothing, in the abandoned Syrian camp, suited those starving, desperate lepers, the discovery of what God is in grace, as expressed in Christ, meets the need of the greatest sinner that ever lifted his arm of rebellion against Him. When he discovers, notwithstanding the enormity of his guilt, that God’s attitude is one of compassion and mercy, a mighty change takes place in his soul. The light of a new day begins to dawn upon him, a day of divinely given rest.
On the great day of Atonement (Lev. 16), after the sprinkling of the golden Mercy Seat with blood, and the acceptance of the same on the part of God, it was said to the tribes of Israel, “On that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the Lord.” And then it was added, “It shall be a sabbath of rest unto you” (vv. 30, 31). God found satisfaction in the sprinkled blood, and their sins were typically removed by the scapegoat.
But what was the secret of such a provision for a sinful people, year by year?
It was what God Himself was. Hence it was entirely of His own ordering. He would have them all at perfect rest before Himself, without a spot of sin to disturb either Him or them.
No doubt this provision on the day of Atonement pointed directly to Christ and the work He would do on the cross, but it pointed none the less to Him of whom it was said (and it was left for the very lips of Jesus to utter it): “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son” (John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)).
He ever dwelt in the Father’s bosom, and was well able, therefore, to convey to us all the feelings and gracious desires of that bosom. It was He who could say to the weary and the heavy laden, “Come unto Me... and I will give you rest.”
You will never, my reader, be fully at rest till you see that the rest He imparts really subsists in what He is who imparts it. Looking into His face in heavenly glory believers can say—
“The curse is gone: through Thee we’re blest;
God rests in Thee: in Thee we rest.”
One of the youngest defenders of Mafeking in the South African war was a tall youth of sixteen years, whose mother was known to the writer.
Percy M— enlisted in a Colonial Volunteer Corps, and was shortly after sent to the place already named.
One evening during the siege he had just returned from two or three days of special military duty outside the town when he was told that they wanted just one man more for that night’s piquet. Would he go?
“Well,” he replied, “I will go for two hours, but I am so worn out that I must have rest after that.”
When the two hours were expired, and no relief forthcoming, he sent a messenger to the captain of his corps, saying that he wished to see him.
When the captain arrived he explained matters. He reminded him that he had served so many hours consecutively, and asked him if he could find a man to relieve him.
“Oh yes, my boy, I can,” he said cheerfully, and went back into the town. In a short time, the relief man appeared. But who should it be but the captain himself, not in officer’s dress but in the uniform of an ordinary trooper, ready forthwith to take the weary lad’s place!
It was this kind act which called forth the admiring words which the mother read me from the boy’s letter, “What a fine man! eh, mother?” And, indeed, it was a fine act on the officer’s part to take the lad’s place on a night of danger in order to give rest to his weary body. Percy M— never knew his captain so well, never admired him so much, as he did that night. A link of attachment was formed not to be easily broken. How truly might the young trooper’s heart rest in the fidelity of such a friend!
Yet, how far all this is put into the shade when we turn to our blessed divine Rest-giver, the Lord Jesus Christ!
Think of the place He took in standing for us against the enemy, silencing his accusations by bearing the weight of sin’s just judgment on the cross, that He might impart perfect rest to our guilty consciences. But it is what He is, coming out in what He did, that gives such absolute rest to our disturbed hearts. We have found an unfailing Friend who has declared God’s very heart to us by meeting all that He found in ours. We have accepted His great offer; we have tasted His precious love, and we rest in HIM.
“The curse is gone: through Thee we’re blest;
God rests in Thee: in Thee we rest.”
Percy M— had to send for a substitute to take his place. It was not so in our case.
“Not sinful man’s endeavor,
Nor any mortal’s care,
Could draw Thy sovereign favor
To sinners in despair;
Uncalled, Thou cam’st with gladness,
Us from the fall to raise,
And change our grief and sadness
To songs of joy and praise.”
Nor does the heavenly wonder end here. “This perfect miracle of grace” goes further still. Having taken our place in the dark night of sin’s judgment and “gotten Himself the victory,” He is determined to share His honors and glories with us in the bright morning of His public manifestation. “We shall appear with Him in glory,” and better still, we shall be like Him.
What a blessed Friend! What a glorious offer He makes! Happy the man who has made His acquaintance. Have you, my reader? Can you say—
“I came to Jesus as I was,
Weary, and worn, and sad;
I found in Him a resting-place,
And He has made me glad”?
If not, how gladly we can tell you that the offer is still open, but, mark this, you may never have another.
GEO. C.