IT is a blessed thing to have to do with God, terrible to the flesh; but there is nothing we so easily forget as that always, under every circumstance, every moment, it is God with whom we have to do. The natural heart is always getting out of His presence, and then, like a disobedient child, dreading the thought of His presence.
People who are always looking at second causes are led by it into practical infidelity. And there is the same tendency in Christians, by resting in circumstances, to lose practically the sense of having to do with God. Yet, if it is happiness we seek, where shall we find blessedness that nothing can touch, or hinder, or separate from? Where, but in having to do with God? For He is not only the source but the blessing itself. There are, indeed, outward blessings which He gives His children by the way, as well as those who are not His children. But it is the having to do with God which is the blessing, and the source of all our strength and joy, for when once we come to know God we know Him as Love, and then, knowing that, all things come from Him. No matter what the circumstances are, we interpret them all by His love. I may be called to pass through pain and sorrow, but everything comes to me as the expression of His love because it comes from Himself, and I look through the circumstances to Him. Where God is but little known, and there is not, therefore, confidence in His love, there will be repining at circumstances, and the feeling that we have to do with God will cause more fear than gladness.
Whenever we stop at the circumstances, and consider only our own feelings and judgment about them, it shows that our souls are not in communion with God as they should be. It is not the circumstances themselves, but what God intends by them, that we should be occupied about.
Our consciences should thus be exercised about them, for our consciences have to do with God, and it is to know that all in our hearts is “naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom they have to do.” He sees everything in us which would hinder or dim communion with Himself though we may be unconscious of it, and sends some circumstance to make it known to us that we may put it away. The circumstance does not create the evil, which perhaps it excites; it only acts upon the evil it finds in my heart, and so makes it manifest to me as something that comes in between me and God, and (though I might not have known it before) must hinder my full communion with God. But He discerns the thoughts and intents of our hearts, and because He loves us He could not be happy in leaving anything in our hearts that hinders our love and confidence in Him, and so must hinder the fullness of our blessing.
The heart of man naturally seeks for rest, and seeks it here, but there is no rest here. It is written, “There remaineth a rest to the people of God.” To know that there is no rest here is full of blessing, full of sorrow to the flesh, because, as it is always seeking rest here, it has to be always disappointed, but blessing to the spirit, because the spirit, being born of God, can only rest in God’s own rest. There can be no such thing as rest here for the child of God—no circumstance, no place—because sin is in all, and God will have us to rest only in His own rest.
God can rest only in Himself, in Jesus, in perfection, in holiness, and because He who thus rests is Love, and because He loves us He will have us enter into His own rest, His own delight. Let the soul once know what this rest of God is, let the heart once be set upon this rest, and you will not be able to find rest in anything else. There are, indeed, joys by the way, but the moment you rest in them they become as poison, like the quails. The moment the eye is off God’s rest the heart is seeking rest here, but every time it finds something on which it attempts to settle, it is but a new source of trouble and conflict, of exercises and weariness of heart, for God loves us too well to lei us rest here, because all is evil. When we attempt it He sends something or other to disturb, some circumstances to detect the state of our hearts, by touching something about which our wills are concerned. But these circumstances will not trouble us if they did not find something in us which was contrary to God, they would rustle by us like the wind. But God is dealing with that in us which hinders communion, which prevents our seeking rest in Him alone, so that all His discipline is but the exercise of His love. If He destroys our rest here it is only to bring us into His own rest.
The Holy Ghost cannot rest in anything here, not even in the Church as it now is. He must lose His love of holiness if He could. How, then, could He allow us to do it? Never, till all is perfect, will God find rest in anything on the earth.
“He that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God from his” (Heb. 4:1010For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. (Hebrews 4:10)). It is not the question here about justification, that is all settled; there is rest forever about that, both in God and in us. By Christ’s obedience many were made righteous, and “by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.” The believer has already ceased from his own works altogether as to that. But the point here is concerning those who are already justified, whom God has brought into His own family, and whom He will train and bring (being His children) into the full enjoyment of His own blessedness and joy and rest. If I, being a parent, enjoy anything, it is impossible, if I love my child, not to wish him to enjoy it with me, and “if we, being evil,” &c., “how much more our Heavenly Father?” He delights to bring us into His own happiness, and He has given us to be partakers of His own divine nature that we may be able to enjoy it. And His love cannot rest while there is one thing in us to mar our enjoyment of Himself.
The apostle proves in Hebrews 4 that the Jews had not entered into the rest. And though believers are “entering into rest,” there was no need to tell the Hebrew Christians any more than ourselves that they had not entered into rest, for they were still in need of patience because of their afflictions and persecutions, as we are because of our trials and conflicts; and the two exhortations he gives are plainly inconsistent with a state of rest. “Let us fear, and let us Labor.” If justification were the question here, it would be, “Do not fear, do not Labor, for Christ has done it all for you”; but this fear and this Labor begin when that question is forever settled, when we are redeemed out of Egypt into the wilderness. Because we have full confidence in God’s love, therefore we fear everything, every working of the flesh, which would come in between Him and us. The blessing is secured to us, but God keeps us in the right way to it by means of such exhortations as these. He warns us that we may exercise the sense of responsibility towards Him while we are journeying on to the rest. It is through “faith” we are kept, and the apostle says, “If by any means I might attain”; not because he did not see the certainty of the end, but because he saw all the difficulties of the way, and greatly feared whatever would lead him for a moment in the downward path. The flesh whenever indulged does this, and we know what is the end of that path, though we know that grace will prevent such a result to us as saints. There is no such evidence of a true-hearted saint as this holy fear. The unconverted man has no dread truly of Satan, but (if not quite hardened) he has great dread of God.
Now the saint has no fear of that kind of God, but he has great fear of Satan.” Jesus says of His sheep that they will flee from a stranger, for they do not know his voice. The sheep fear all but their own Shepherd. Above all they fear the wolf. And if any were to say, “The end is sure, never mind the means,” the sheep would know that was no true shepherd’s voice. “No,” says the saint, “it is not enough to know that by and by I shall be with God. I know Him now, and wish to enjoy His presence now, and I exceedingly dread anything coming between us—anything that would prevent the eye being single to God.” When the eye is single the whole body is full of light, and therefore every evil is detected, and every hindrance to all our affections being fixed on God. It is not from any uncertainty about this love of God, but from the certainty of being in the desert, that we are to fear and Labor—not through fear of God’s presence, but through the certainty of Satan’s presence. The saint knows that this is a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; but bring him into God’s presence, and his soul is satisfied with the river of His pleasure. Redemption brings us into the desert, and there, if we have not God, we have nothing. If we lose sight of God’s eye and hand we have nothing but our own foolishness, and the desert sands around us. But while our eye is fixed on God and our souls are resting on Him, the ways as well as the end are in our hearts, and become channels of communication with Him; and blessed is the man in whose heart are the ways as well as the end.
Everything proves to us that there is no rest here; “fearing” because of the flesh and of Satan is not rest; “laboring is not rest.” There is the diligence and activity of the soul in its own portion. We ought to know what our proper portion is—our own sphere of Labor; “and there is much food in the tillage of the poor.” The men of this world have their own pursuits, and we have an altar whereof they have no right to eat who serve the tabernacle. We have a sphere in which the divine life given us can exercise its own faculties, and find its own resources. The Church has its own joys, its own interests, its own treasures, its own sphere of life, its own field for affections, its own topics, its own world, in short, in which there is fruit to God. Have you this, portion? and is it the delight of your soul to search out therein the riches of Christ, the good that is in God?
All that I have yet got of Christ’s riches is but a means whereby to attain those riches which are unsearchable. It is the holy labor in searching out the riches that are in Christ which keeps us in the lively sense of what is ours in Him, and therefore makes all other things worthless. It is having the soul fixed, on Christ that enables us to resist temptation and sin. It is not by thinking of the object which tempts us that we shall get this strength; it is not by letting our minds dwell upon it, even with the object to resist it, but our privilege is to be occupied with Christ, and thus obtain the victory.
Our liberty is this, to be no longer subject to sin—liberty to serve God without hindrance of the flesh. I do not want liberty to the flesh, but liberty to the new man, and that is to do my Father’s will.
It may not sound like privilege to talk of fear and Labor, but it really is so; and because we fail so in these things, it is also a blessed privilege to know that God searches the heart and deals with our consciences, and that in all things we have to do with God. Is it not a comfort for anyone who loves holiness to know that God will come and sweep the house, lest there should be anything left in it to offend His eye, and hinder us from walking in the light, as He is in the light? He shows us the evil by His Word. This is the use which the Spirit makes of the Word in His presence. And when He detects something evil, does He speak to us about it in judgment? No. He says, Here is something not in accordance with My love, something that does not satisfy My love. He sees something in us which is an interruption to His love, and because we have neglected to judge ourselves by His Word, He must deal with us in discipline. Perhaps we have been seeking rest here; then God begins to work and uproots us again, unless He sees it needful to leave us a little while to ourselves in order that, by stumbling, our consciences may be awakened. Perhaps we may find circumstances very trying and perplexing, but the moment we recognize His presence dealing with us through them, all is peace, though not rest. It is not rest to be searched and tried. Blessed be God that our rest is not here; that His holiness will not let us rest where there is sin; that His love will not let us rest where there is sorrow. There remaineth a rest for us; and oh, what holiness and joy there will be in God’s rest. There will be neither sin, nor sorrow, nor trouble in His rest, but there will be Himself there, and we shall rest in Him, and the brightness of His presence will dispel every cloud.
If you only knew, beloved, a little more of His love, if you only entered a little more into His purpose of love towards you, you would say, Let Him deal with us, let Him chasten, let Him reprove us as He will, so that we may but have full fellowship with His love. Do not be satisfied, beloved, with low enjoyments, but press forward, look right onward; for He, He Himself, is all your joy, and all your rest.
J. N. D.
FAITH never looks at difficulties, except indeed it be to feed on them. It looks not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are unseen. It endures as seeing Him who is invisible. It takes hold of the living God. It leans on His arm; it makes use of His strength; it draws on His exhaustless treasury; it walks in the light of His glory shining forth over the darkest scenes of human life.
C. H. M.