Rest: October 2025
Table of Contents
Rest
As we pass through wilderness circumstances on our way (often so painful and trying) to the rest of God, there is nothing that so braces the soul and cheers the heart, imparting a fresh spring of life and energy and joy, as the sense of what God Himself is, and, we may add, of what He must of very necessity be, in the deep perfections of His Being. We feel the trials of the way — sorrow, suffering, pressure, need—but the soul that knows God well knows that of these things He is origin and source because it is His joy to bless, His nature to do good, and thus that only what is good, and worthy therefore of Himself, can ever flow from the heart of the blessed God. No taint of sin, no seed of suffering or sorrow, was there to mar that fair and wondrous scene of a completed creation when the Creator, as He looked on the work of His hands, pronounced it all very good. And as we look at the ruin and the desolation and feel its sad effects, whether in us or without us, we can only say, “An enemy hath done this,” while we look forward to that blessed and unending rest, the rest of God Himself, in which all shall be the eternal witness, the everlasting display of goodness supreme that must expend, but can never exhaust, itself in the blessing of all within its sway.
J.E.B., Christian Friend, Vol. 10
His Rest and Ours
Zephaniah 3:17; Matthew 11:16-30
It is a wonderful thing that we should be able to speak of rest on our way through such a world. But there is something more wonderful still in the first passage before us: “He will rest in His love” (Zeph. 3:17). It is that God should speak of finding rest for Himself in the thoughts and ways of His love as to us. He had been satisfying Himself. He saves, but it is to “rejoice over thee with joy.” And this is the primary thought of that parable of His heart in Luke 15. It is the perfect, blessed joy of God, not only to receive and eat with sinners, as the Pharisee said, but deliberately to seek that He might have them to receive, and that to eat with Him. Nor will He rest until the poor, convicted prodigal sits at His table. He rests in His love. It satisfies Himself, because He has no more to do. He has us out before His gaze in the perfection of Christ and is satisfied. What amazing blessedness for us! But the firstfruit of it is for Him. And this gives us the source of all rest for us; it is found in the rest there is for God, in the thoughts of His love and in their accomplishment.
His Rest in His Love
But if He rests in His love (in Matt. 11), He brings us to rest in it. But notice the way it is introduced, for it is this that gives it its full character. (Read Matthew 11:16-24.) The Lord Jesus had been through this world and found nothing in which to rest. But He had a secret of rest: “At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.” The trial that pressed upon Him was the ordering of infinite wisdom and of a Father’s love. Thus was He tested and proved perfect in confidence and in obedience. The deeper glory of His person comes before Him and the work He had come to do in connection with it: “All things are delivered unto Me of My Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him.” Rejected when presented as Messiah to Israel, He reveals the Father to whomsoever He wills.
Our Rest of Conscience
But now comes the anxious question: To whom does He will to reveal Him? “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Are there troubled hearts who have found nothing to satisfy, no source of rest in this poor world? He bids us come to Him that He may reveal the Father to us and thus bring us into the secret of His own perfect rest, so that where He laid His head, who had nowhere to lay it in this world, we can lay ours now, even on the bosom of a Father’s love.
The immediate connection of the verses is to be maintained, for this gives both the aspects of rest He speaks of their full character and preciousness. This first rest is not rest of conscience merely in the forgiveness of sins, although this must be first and be included in it. But it is nothing short of the revelation of the Father to our souls.
Relationship
The heart wants relationship; nothing but divine relationships will satisfy it, and this is what He brings us into. It is not all at once that we enter into the knowledge of the Father, and yet in 1 John 2 The babes in the family of God are addressed because they know the Father. Thus it is the privilege of all. When we come to Jesus, He would have us know that it is to the Father we have come: “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9). What blessed rest it is!
This brings us to the source of all the trial that comes, whatever may be the character of it. A Father’s love has put us into it, whatever may seem directly or indirectly to have brought it on. How remote the trial in His case might have seemed from the Father’s dealings with Him, but it is faith’s title to take nothing any lower down than from a Father’s known love. Then there will be something more present and real to the heart than the circumstances of the trial, namely, the One who puts us into them and the certainty of His wisdom and love in doing so: “I thank Thee, O Father. ... Even so, Father; for so it seemed good in Thy sight.”
The Rest of Submission and Obedience
But this leads us simply and naturally to the next character of rest, and this too was illustrated in the path of the Lord Jesus. “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.” It is the rest we enter into by submission and obedience to the Father’s will, for what was the yoke of Jesus that He bids us take upon us? It was what we have just seen in Him—that perfect obedience that submitted itself in everything to the Father’s will. It is wonderfully brought before us in the words of Isaiah 50:46. He who was Jehovah (vs. 4) has taken, in grace, the path of the learner. “Yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered” (Heb. 5:8). “Morning by morning, He wakeneth Mine ear to hear as the [learner].” Thus He can say, “The Lord God hath given Me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary.” How deeply it enhances its preciousness that He spoke it out of the experience that He had gained in His own path in the world, which we have to go through. Now He calls us to learn from Him, to take His yoke upon us. This is the one necessary condition for our enjoyment of maintained rest of soul. His rest was perfect in His path through circumstances of unparalleled trial, because His submission was perfect, and He would have us know the same perfect rest in whatever we may have to pass through, making proof that His yoke is easy and His burden light.
The Working of Will
It is the working of will in the trial that gives it its bitterness; God has to set Himself against any working of it in us, to smash it, for our blessing. The instant we take God’s part in submitting ourselves absolutely to Him, the sting is gone out of the trial. We are brought into the path of Christ, and there is the full comfort of the sympathy of Him who knew no will of His own. We have been sanctified to the obedience of Christ. It was the knowledge of the Father that He brought us into first, and the title we have thus to take all from His heart, that makes it possible and easy now to submit ourselves under His hand.
The Rest of God That Remains for Us
One more character of rest remains. It is that presented to us in Hebrews 4. The various characters of rest we have been looking at are present. This is future: “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God” (vs. 9). We are on our way to it. Believers enter into it (vs. 3), but what gives it its character is that it is “His rest.” It is the rest of God, and it is thus developed: “He that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from His” (vs. 10). It is not the rest a soul enters into now by believing the gospel. It remains to the people of God. It is rest at the end of the path, when the work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope are over. The works from which God rested were not bad works. He saw that they were “very good.” He rested when His work was done, and into His rest the people of God will enter when their works are done. They are not the works of vainly seeking to establish our own righteousness, but the work and toil and energy of faith that is needed now for every step on the path of our heavenly calling. There is a sphere of rest God has; it is His own rest, where these will have place no longer.
They little knew the heart of God who sought to bind the Lord Jesus to rest on the Sabbath day in a scene where a man was afflicted with disease for 38 years (John 5). When all was yet as fair as He made it, “He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made,” but when sin came in with its attendant train of misery and death, all this was broken up. “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work” — till that wonderful work was accomplished, on the ground of which we might be introduced out of all the unrest here into the rest of God. The rest of God is a scene suited to the heart of God for the blessing of His own, where no trace of sin or its consequences can ever be found, where no tear or breath of trial shall ever come. The danger is lest any of us should seem to come short of it, that is, by thinking of finding rest anywhere short of that of the counsels of God for us — the rest of God that remains for us.
The path of faith now has to be made good, step by step, with diligence of heart, through a world whose principles oppose us. When we will have come to the rest of God, we may relax the diligence and let the heart go out to everything. All there will only be the reflection of His glory and beauty. In the rest of God, “they ... rest from their labors,” but now we have to labor (or “use diligence”) to enter into that rest. And we have the Word of God to be our most powerful and needed guard to detect for us, as a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, all that would slacken our pace in pressing on through everything here to reach the blessed scene that opens before our hearts — the bright vista of an eternal rest, the rest of God. Here God shall stand, as it were, on the threshold of a new heaven and a new earth, to wipe away all tears and every trace of the sorrow that came in by sin in the old creation. But it was in this ruined world and by the very ruin that we have been brought to know Him who has revealed to us the Father, and where the trials and exercises of our way through it are made to yield fruit so rich in blessing for our souls. Learning then from the meek and lowly One who has trodden the path before us, may we submit ourselves absolutely to Him, till the scene of His ways with us closes for us in that of His rest and glory forever.
J. A. Trench, Truth for Believers, Vol. 1
Rest of Heart and Soul
There are different kinds of rest spoken about in the Word of God, and it is important to recognize the difference between them. In other articles in this issue of The Christian, we have already discussed what can be called “rest of conscience,” which is the rest obtained when we accept the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior. This rest of conscience must be the starting point of any rest in the presence of God, for we can have no fellowship with God unless the question of our sins has been settled. We read in Romans 8:8 that “they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” As long as our life is characterized by that old sinful nature that Scripture calls “the flesh,” we cannot have a relationship with God. This is why the Lord Jesus said, “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). He was referring to rest of conscience, and as we have already noticed, it must come first in any relationship with God.
Rest of conscience is very precious and brings us into a wonderful relationship with God, yet God does not want us to stop there. The Lord Jesus is an all-the-way-home Savior! He does not save us from the penalty of our sins, and then leave us to deal with all the struggles and difficulties of life by ourselves. That is why the next verse in Matthew 11 reads like this: “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” (Matt. 11:29).
Where There Is no Rest
Before we discuss the details of this “rest unto our souls,” we must notice where we will NOT find rest. The natural man, and even some of us as believers in the Lord Jesus, may think that somehow we can arrange our life and circumstances so that we can have rest in this world. This is essentially what Cain tried to do after he “went out from the presence of the Lord” (Gen. 4:16) and tried to make himself as comfortable as possible in a world that had been spoiled by sin. Man without God has been trying to do this ever since, but all his efforts have ended in disappointment. There is nothing in this world that can give lasting rest to the heart and soul of man. What then is the answer?
The Yoke of the Lord Jesus
First of all, we must be ready to take the yoke of the Lord Jesus upon us. What does this mean? It means that life down here will not be easy, not only because we live in a world that has been spoiled by sin, but also because we are following One who has been rejected by this world — the Lord Jesus. When we take His yoke upon us, we learn to walk with Him, and we learn how He went through this world. He did not fight against His circumstances, but rather endured. He endured for two reasons. He endured because He recognized His Father’s will in everything; He could constantly say, “Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in Thy sight” (Matt. 11:26). But He also endured because He could say, “All things are delivered unto Me of My Father” (Matt. 11:27). He accepted all the adverse circumstances from His Father, but He also walked in all the dignity of who He was and what was delivered unto Him. By the grace of God, we can learn the same thing by taking that yoke upon us.
Another has put it this way: “Jesus had borne the ‘burden,’ Jesus had borne the ‘yoke’ Himself, and therefore He could say, ‘Learn of Me.’ I am not speaking about the burden of our sins; the Lord Jesus came also to learn ‘obedience by the things which He suffered.’ Jesus was the One who had found out all the bitterness of rejection and scorn, and yet could say, ‘Even so, Father’; therefore it is, ‘Learn of Me.’” We learn the wonderful rest that comes in accepting everything in our pathway from God, and then taking our difficulties to Him in prayer.
Also, it is the saint who is fully conscious of what He is in Christ and what God has made him — he who was only a lost and guilty sinner—who can stoop down and joyfully humble himself in this world. This is what it means to be “meek and lowly in heart,” for meekness does not equate with weakness. No, meekness is a voluntary humility that comes easily to one who knows what he is in Christ. Again, another has put it well:
“A sinner saved by grace ought indeed to be humble, but the humility which a saint has because he is a saint and an heir of glory is of a much deeper kind than that which is occasioned by the discovery of sin. Nothing will bring a soul so low and make him willing to serve another in the meanest of service as the consciousness of his standing before God. Mark the Lord Jesus Christ here. He stands forth in the conscious possession of all things: ‘All things are delivered unto Me of My Father.’ And yet He says, ‘Learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart.’ Can you put these two together? I believe you can; the soul of the really instructed saint discerns their needful connection. The Lord Jesus, in conscious possession of all things, could afford to humble Himself. What was it that enabled Him to do so but His real greatness, because God was caring for Him? ‘Which thing is true in Him and in you.’ Nothing enables us to go and wash the saints’ feet, to lay ourselves down to be trampled on, but the knowledge of our real greatness. We can then afford to be humbled” (Christian Truth, Vol. 7).
My burden Is Light
In Matthew 11:30, we are told the remarkable truth that indeed “My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.” How can this be, in the middle of rejection and perhaps trials of every kind? It is because of the company we are in. The Lord’s presence in our lives and our communion with Him enable us to find that yoke easy and the burden light. If we get occupied with the difficulties themselves, then the yoke can seem heavy. It is only in Christ’s presence that the yoke can be made light.
The difficulties of the way have been different at various times in the church’s history. Some have been called to martyrdom and are still being called in this way, even today. Yet many have gone to their deaths rejoicing and triumphing over their enemies in this way. How could this be, when in some cases it meant leaving loved ones behind who, in a natural sense, depended on them for support? Again, it was the company of Christ, the One who had suffered before them and was victorious over death. His presence with them in the yoke, whatever that yoke might entail, enabled His own to gain the victory. That same victory can be ours too, even in these last and difficult days of the church’s history, if we are willing to be “meek and lowly in heart” and to be in the yoke with Christ.
W. J. Prost
Rest Under the Wings of God
This story is about how a full reward was given to two widowed women having no husband, no children and no inheritance. It happened because of the good grace of a man under whose wings they came to trust. There is much to learn in observing how they got into that sad state, but the part of the story with which we are concerned is how they overcame. The outcome of blessing turned upon a man who had passed through similar circumstances in his upbringing and became both gracious and strong. When he observed the devotion of these two women to each other, he realized that any mercy and kindness shown to them would not be slighted or abused. This man was called Boaz, meaning “in him is strength”; he was true to his name. Through him two women, Naomi and Ruth, obtained a place of rest and security under the “wings” of the God of Israel, as well as securing a son born that belongs to the royal lineage. The son’s name was Obed; he was the father of Jesse who begat David.
The Homeland
In the days after Naomi lost her husband and two sons, she hesitates to take her two Moabite daughters-in-law with her to her land of Bethlehem-Judah. It appears that she could not see a future for them in her homeland. Naomi sought means to persuade them to go back to their homeland. In her state of soul at that time, she little knew how one of them, Ruth, would be the means of a great restoration and help in settling their restlessness. Ruth refused all entreaties to separate from Naomi and return to her “mother’s house” in Moab. Ruth demonstrated commitment to her mother-in-law and faith in the God of Israel, in spite of the governmental judgment of the Lord on the family that had left their land of blessing. She would still willingly trade her place in Moab for a portion with Naomi in Bethlehem-Judah, even though in Bethlehem-Judah Ruth would be a foreigner. Moreover, Naomi could not provide any means of recovering the inheritance of her husband, which was left behind at the time of the family’s departure from Bethlehem-Judah.
A Husband
At the time of her departure from Moab, Naomi proceeded to bless her daughters-in-law, saying, “The Lord grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband” (Ruth 1:9). Naomi’s faith did not rise to the point that the “rest” she sought for her daughters-in-law could best be found in Bethlehem-Judah. No doubt Naomi thought that Moab would be a better place to find a husband. Having a spouse is an important factor in being at rest. Living one’s life without a spouse is not the ideal. When the Lord created us, He said, “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Gen. 2:18). But in the history of mankind, after sin came in, rest has not prevailed. God still has a plan to restore what is lost, though Naomi’s family had departed from the land of their promised blessing. After their departure, the Lord took away the companionship of their husbands.
Children
Naomi continued to reason with Orpah and Ruth, this time on the basis of how they could obtain children. She had no more sons to become a husband, and if they followed with her, having more children was out of the question. In her dire circumstances she could not see any hope for them in Israel. She saw herself only as a source of much grief for them. At this point Orpah kissed her and left, but Ruth clave to her. Her mother-in-law meant more to her than any other benefit. This is an important point. Had Naomi and her husband Elimelech realized beforehand the value of what they had with each other as a family, they likely would never have taken their children to Moab in the first place. Nevertheless, as we sometimes say, man’s failure is God’s opportunity, or, to say it according to God’s perspective, “Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world” (Acts 15:18). None of our mistakes frustrate His purposes.
When Naomi arrives in her home country with Ruth and saw what she has lost, her grief turned to bitterness. But bitterness does not lead down the road toward finding rest. Ruth, on the other hand, pursued another course; she began working to get food. She would not sit idly by, bemoaning her circumstances. She sought permission from her mother-in-law to glean for food in the fields of Bethlehem-Judah. It was the time of barley harvest, and there was the option of gleaning in the fields after reapers. Sometimes we call this food “leftovers,” but if received from the Lord, it is the best food. Moreover, she was optimistic about gleaning in the field of a gracious person. The Lord saw her situation and guided her to the field of a very caring and generous person. From the very first day she went out, this began a new chapter in her life.
Marriage
The next phase of the story given in chapter 3 of Ruth is about obtaining rest. Up to this point, Naomi had received from Ruth things she could no longer provide for herself, no doubt because of her age. Therefore Naomi considers what she can provide for Ruth. Ruth had declined the offer to return to Moab to find a husband. The devotion of Ruth and the results of her work in the fields of Boaz initiated Naomi onto a new course. Leaving her own sorrows behind, she looked out for Ruth’s welfare and rest. Both being childless widows, they devised a plan to advise Boaz, a near kinsman, of their need to have a family. Naomi’s plan was a bold action for Ruth, but it was based on a special provision in the law made for the case of one dying without children (Deut. 25:5-10). The case called for one of the brothers of the deceased person to marry his widow and raise up seed in order that the family not perish in Israel. This case with Naomi and Ruth was further complicated in that it involved marrying a Moabite woman to restore the family lineage. Boaz was willing to do this, he himself being the son of Rahab, a stranger. He grew up knowing what it was like to live in those circumstances, and he could empathize and love one like Ruth who was a foreigner. Because of the generosity and favor of Boaz, the plan worked. The restless family found rest. The book of Ruth terminates with the lineage of David.
The intricacies of this story give a picture of what must be done for us to obtain rest in its various forms. It is a living demonstration of what the Lord Jesus has done in order to be able to say to us, “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 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” (Matt. 11:28-29). This rest that He gives brings us back to God and will endure to the eternal day of rest — eternity.
D. C. Buchanan
Resting on The Word
“I have it in the Word,” was the blessed confession of one who had learned to trust the Savior, and. to rest in what the Word of God declares concerning Him, and the work He accomplished for sinners. Weak from heart disease, unable to drink of the world’s streams as others, this dear young girl had heard the joyful sound, had received the glad tidings of salvation, and was now quite sure that she was saved. Why this certainty? From whence does this rest of conscience and heart spring?
Does she differ from you or me? Is she, because she is shut out from the world around, any less of a sinner? No, she made no mention of her own goodness, her happy feelings, her good training, her grand experiences. What then made her so sure of her salvation?
“Ah well; whatever happens to her, she is ready for both worlds.” Turning to the sufferer, I asked her if this was true? “Yes” she said at once. Wishing to be quite plain with her, I said “Then are you really saved?” “Yes” was her decided answer again. Seeking still further to know the ground of her confidence, I asked what made her so sure about it? With a bright smile she looked at me and repeated “I HAVE IT IN THE WORD.” So it was; for as a lost sinner she had believed God’s record about His Son, that He had come to seek and to save that which was lost. In other words, she had appropriated to herself the Savior that the word of God reveals. God’s “faithful saying” (1 Tim. 2:15.) and Christ’s finished work (John 19:30.) were the ground of her confidence, and therefore she could be quite happy about her soul’s salvation.
Many others have this same confidence and would endorse the sweet and blessed confession of this bright young believer “I have it in the Word.” What a perfect answer to all the unbelief of the human heart, and the insinuations of the devil! And if confidence in God’s Word gives certainty, rest, and peace in view of eternity, do we not want it too? It is a common thing to speak of the “uncertainty of life;” but how blessed to have God’s own authority that I am “secured for eternity,” as I once read on a country tombstone.
The Word of the Lord Endureth Forever
The apostle Peter, (1 Peter 1:24-25), after comparing man to the grass which withereth, goes on with the glorious contrast, “But the word of the Lord endureth forever, and this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.”
Christ Himself says, “Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my word shall not pass away” (Matt. 24:35). If this Word is not the ground of our confidence we are still on the wrong road, and bound for judgment. But if we have believed God’s Word, then we can rejoice in the glad tidings and make our boast in the work that has been done, and better still, in the One who has done it. If challenged by man or devil as to our salvation, let this be our simple answer “I have it in the Word.” What a resting place! That Word which can never fail — that “faithful saying” which is as true tomorrow as today, and as certain for eternity as now.
T.E.P.
Rest at Noon
“Tell me, O Thou whom my soul loveth, where Thou feedest, where Thou makest Thy flock to rest at noon; for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of Thy companions?” (Song of Sol. 1:7).
“Rest at noon”! How inviting it sounds! To understand this song, we must picture ourselves in Eastern lands. It is noon, and the rays of the scorching sun are beating upon the parched and wearied earth. There is no escape from its pitiless glare. But there is One who is skillful in finding rest even at noon for His flock; He is addressed as the One “whom my soul loveth.”
Dear troubled, anxious Christian, has it been noon with you? Have the scorching rays of tribulation, trial, weakness of body, or of shattered hopes and a broken spirit reached you, till you have felt you could bear no more? What you need is REST.
There is One, the same whom your soul loves, who can give the rest you need. He loves you well, and it is He who has permitted the tribulation, the weakness of body, the broken spirit in order that, parched and weary, you might at length turn to Him and find “rest at noon.” Even at noon there is a place of perfect peace. What a rest it is! To lie perfectly passive in His hands, knowing that the love, the perfect divine love which has planned out your pathway, has measured the weight of your sorrow. He is engaged in working out the purposes of His love in you for His own glory first, and then for your exceeding gain. In the knowledge of that love your heart may rest—“rest at noon.”
I knew a Christian who was dying. One would have thought that he could not stand any greater pressure and further weakening, but the fiercer the trial, the more beautiful was the rest that he enjoyed. There is no possible combination of circumstances in which this rest may not be known.
“A Man shall be ... as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land” (Isa. 32:2).
“Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28).
The same truth is put in different ways. In all our weariness we know Him who knew weariness and thirst. He who was “God over all, blessed forever,” yet truly Man, is now glorified, the succorer of His people and their great High Priest, “touched with the feeling of our infirmities.” Surely we can find rest in Him, as under “the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” He gives the invitation: “Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Every weary sinner who comes to Him will find rest. Blessed Jesus! The One whom our souls love is the same who can give rest to His flock at noon. “Rest at Noon”! Do you know anything of it?
Christian Truth, Vol. 37
Labor and Rest
“The apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told Him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught. And He said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. And they departed into a desert place by ship privately” (Mark 6:30-32).
There is a word of great sweetness and comfort in these verses. We are introduced to a scene of real labor and toil. The Lord had called the 12 and sent them out two by two without anything for their journey save a staff. They went forth without scrip or bread or money; they preached, they cast out devils, they raised the sick; it was a time of diligent service and incessant toil, but a time of labor which resulted in fruit. After this we find the apostles returning, gathering themselves together, and rehearsing to their blessed Master all they had done and taught.
He had sent them forth, as it were, empty-handed and destitute of all man’s resources, and now they have returned and are spreading at His blessed feet the acquired treasures, the fruit of their work and toil. He, with all that tender grace and kindness which were ever His own, accepts it all and, in the divine and blessed love which ever sought the good of His own, He says, “Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while.” Let us note it well. He does not say, “Go and rest,” but “Come and rest.” Ah! it is not the desert place that could furnish the rest; if so, it might have been “Go,” but it is Himself there — there where no distraction can intrude, no surge of worry, no blast of care can for a moment enter. Oh! how blessed His company in that sweet retreat, made so by Himself alone! How well may we sing of that rest!
“No soil of nature’s evil,
No touch of man’s rude hand
Shall e’er disturb around us
That bright and happy land;
The charms that woo our senses
Shall be as pure, as fair,
For all, while stealing o’er us,
Shall tell of Jesus there.”
But there is a further precious thought here. Our own Master and Lord knows the snare of active service, even for Him — the danger of giving it that place which alone belongs to Himself. There is the temptation to His poor, weak child and vessel to be more absorbed with it than with Him; hence, how often do we hear Him say, “Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while.” We are told that “there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat.”
Overwhelming Needs
In today’s world, there are overwhelming needs on every hand. While recognizing fully our clear, distinct duty to the church and the world, let all who love His blessed service bear in mind the lesson of our passage, which is plainly this: The quality of our work will be poor indeed, if not connected with Christ, from Christ, for Christ. Those who really and truly work for Him must first of all be sustained and fed by Himself, as they hear Him say from time to time, “Come ... and rest.” And oh! how gracious of Him to take His poor, wearied worker apart in a desert place with Himself, shutting him out from all but Himself, that with mind undisturbed and heart undistracted, all may be gone over with Himself, in rest and quietness. Fresh thoughts of Himself and His love are then impressed upon the heart, producing renewed vigor and energy for further service for Him.
After this, we have recorded a delightful instance of the deep compassion of that heart which was always touched by distress and need. We are told the people “outwent them, and came together unto Him.” Oh, how He did attract the weary and wanting ones! How He also met and taught and filled them! How He made the desert place to yield bread enough and to spare and then, having finished all in His compassionate tenderness and goodness, He Himself departed into a mountain to pray; His meat was to do the will of Him that sent Him and to finish His work.
In the departure of Jesus into the mountain (vs. 46), we are shown in figure His taking His place of intercession on high. His disciples cross the water in a boat, and we have a change in their circumstances, along with hardships. It is such a comfort to think of what is said here: “He saw them toiling in rowing.” Not the shades of night, nor the earnest vigil which He kept in prayer on the mountaintop, nor the storm-lashed lake that they were crossing could hide His poor servants from the Master’s eyes. Then He who “saw them” came to them in the darkest part of the night, walking on the water in supreme majesty, but in love, and spoke such words of comfort, “Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid.”
“In darkest shades, if He appear,
My morning is begun.”
Lastly, observe it is said, “He talked with them.” How blessed the rest of that conversation after all the toil and labor!
Christian Truth, Vol. 3
God's Rest - The Saints' Rest
The heart of man naturally seeks rest, and seeks it here. Now, there is no rest to be found here for the saint; rather it is written, “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God” (Heb. 4:9). To know this is both full of blessing and full of sorrow: sorrow to the flesh, because it is always seeking its rest here, and it has always to be disappointed. But it is blessing to the spirit, because the spirit, being born of God, can rest only in God’s own rest, as it is said, “If they shall enter into My rest” (Heb. 4:3,5). God cannot rest in the corruption of sin. He can rest only in that which is perfectly holy. And because He who thus rests is love and loves us, He makes us understand that He will bring us into His own rest, into His own delight.
Now let the soul once know what this rest of God is, let the heart once be set upon it, there will be joy unspeakable in understanding that God’s love can rest in nothing short of bringing us into His own delight. There will then also be the full, settled consciousness that we cannot find rest elsewhere. There are indeed joys by the way, but the moment we rest in them, they become, as the quails of Israel, poison (Num. 9).
Whenever the soul loses practically the knowledge that its rest is in God’s rest, the moment the eye is off that which “remaineth,” we begin to seek a rest here, and consequently get uneasy, restless and dissatisfied. Every time we find something on which we attempt to settle, that very thing proves but a new source of trouble and conflict to us, a new source of exercise and weariness of heart. God loves us too well to let us rest here.
Our Contentment
Are we content to have or seek our rest nowhere save in God’s rest?
What is the secret of the unhappiness and restlessness of many a saint? A hankering after rest here. God is therefore obliged to discipline and exercise that soul—to allow, it may be, some circumstance to detect the real state of the heart by touching that about which the will is concerned. Circumstances would not trouble, if they did not find something in us contrary to God; they would rustle by as the wind. God deals with that in us which hinders communion and prevents our seeking rest in Him alone. His discipline is the continual and unwearied exercise of love, which does not rest now, in order that we may enter into His rest. If He destroys our rest here, if He turns our meat into poison, it is only that He may bring us into His own rest, that we may have that which satisfies His desires, not ours. “He will rest in His love.”
J. N. Darby
The Promise of a Rest
Hebrews 4
It is a cheering thought to the Christian, amid the turmoil and confusion of life, that there is a promise of “rest” — an eternal rest before him—that there remains a rest to the people of God! It cheered the heart and lightened the step of Caleb, while he was suffering for the unfaithfulness of his brethren and was obliged to turn back from the borders of his rest of an earthly Canaan (Num. 14) to wander for 40 years in the wilderness. It cheered his heart to know that come what would, of vicissitude and trial by the way, his rest was sure, that Canaan, whose bunches of first-ripe grapes he had tasted and whose land of hills and valleys he had traversed for 40 days (Num. 13), lay before him. He was assured that when the toil and labor of the wilderness were over, he would enter into his rest and enjoy what his soul longed for, during his 40-years’ pilgrimage (Josh. 14)!
It cheered the heart of Paul, whose soul had feasted for a moment on the delights of his heavenly Canaan, when he was caught up to the third heaven and heard “unspeakable words” (2 Cor. 12). It cheered his heart to know that beyond the toils, trials and self-denials of his wilderness journey lay that “rest which remaineth to the people of God” — a rest which was God’s! And it is a cheering prospect to the believer now to have this “promise of entering into God’s rest” before him, when the labor, trial and toil of wilderness circumstances shall be over. It is a wonderful prospect that God Himself shall have ceased to be “a worker,” which our sin has made Him!
Future Rest
You see that the “promise of rest” which is “given us” in this chapter is not a rest which has already come and of which we are in possession now. The believer already possesses rest of conscience now, because of the finished work of Christ. But here the believer is spoken of as laboring onward to this rest of God. The believer has not yet entered into this rest; it still remains a future thing. Paul had just been speaking in chapter 3 of Jesus as the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, and the analogous thought arises in his mind of the children of Israel under the leadership of Moses and Aaron — Moses being God’s messenger or apostle and Aaron His high priest throughout the journey through the wilderness to their Canaan of rest. All this is a marked and impressive figure of those under the “heavenly calling” who profess the name of Christ and are going onward through a wilderness course in this world. Christ as a “Son over His own house,” since the cross, is leading us to the rest which remains to the people of God. And we are warranted in seeking instruction from these things; they serve as warnings, motives and grounds for exhorting ourselves. “All these things happened to them for ensamples, and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come” (1 Cor. 10:11).
What care and love it reveals on the Lord’s part to give these solemn warnings against the “unbelief and sin” of nature and flesh among those of us who have professed the name of Christ! We are warned lest that which caused many Israelites to fall in the wilderness way should also prevent any from entering into the heavenly! But notice this: He never raises the shadow of a doubt of the true believer finally attaining it. He says, “We which have believed, do enter into rest.” It is as sure to the believer as if he were there even now. But He presses it upon all our hearts who have professed His name, “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” (Heb. 4:1).
“Seem to Come Short”
Now what does “seem to come short” mean? It is spoken lest we forget we are redeemed for that rest of God and sink down to the ways of the world around us. It is settling down as if this were our world, instead of being like “strangers and pilgrims” and having “no certain dwelling place.” To forget this is practically like looking back, longing after the “flesh-pots of Egypt” and forgetting our “heavenly calling.” It is opening the door of our heart to the inroads of “unbelief,” and thus practically “departing from the living God”; it is putting ourselves in the way of being “hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” I speak to those who have professed the name of Christ; to your true state before God I do not address myself. But I ask you, “Is there anything in your ways in which you practically deny your heavenly calling?” Our place is to be hastening onward through a defiled world which is not our rest. Are you clinging to the money-loving, self-advancing, self-seeking plans and projects of this present evil world? Or have you heard a voice in your inmost soul, saying, “Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest; because it is polluted” (Mic. 2:10)? Are the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, the pride of life, and the vanities of the world filling your heart, so that in your practical ways you “seem to come short” of your profession? You have heard the glad tidings of a heavenly rest, as Israel heard of the glad tidings of an earthly rest from the lips of the spies, whom they sent to spy out the land (Num. 13). Has the word in your ears been like that which sounded in theirs — a profitless word, because it was not “mixed with faith in them that heard it” (Heb. 4:2)? Or are you treasuring in your heart the thought of this rest of God and counting “all things but dross and dung” which would hinder you by the way? How often the world clings to the ways, thoughts and desires of those who make the fairest profession, giving nothing tangible to show to the onlooker that their citizenship is indeed in heaven! Thus they “seem to come short of it.” How often self is portrayed, rather than the name of Christ!
God Still Works
But some might say, “God rested in creation when He had finished His work (Gen. 2:2-3), and how is it that ‘God’s rest’ seems to be spoken of here as yet to come?” Surely, I reply, God rested from all His works which He had created and made, but His creature man did not enter into His rest with Him, nor did He Himself enjoy it long. Sin came into His rest and broke it up (Gen. 3), and instead of resting where sin was, God became again a “Worker” to put it away! Man became a toiler and a worker in a world which was defiled by sin. His sentence was, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.” And of the Lord God we read, “The Lord God did make coats of skins and clothed them” (Gen. 3:19-21). Or, as the Lord Jesus expresses it in John 5:17, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” The Father (God’s name in grace) had become a worker when sin had come in; the Son was a worker, and the Holy Spirit is a worker, because God cannot rest where there is sin.
There Remains a Rest to the People of God
As the epistle of Hebrews says, if a man had entered into that rest, he would not be laboring — he would have ceased from his works, as God ceased in creation, at that time, from His own works. “Let us labor [or, use all diligence], therefore, to enter into that rest [God’s], lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.” The believer labors onward through the wilderness in the full consciousness of the grace in which he stands. His very position as a believer has constituted him a “worker.” His position as a sinner had excluded such a thought, for salvation is “to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly” (Rom. 4:5). The Christian’s work is a “work of faith,” and his labor a “labor of love” (1 Thess. 1:3).
The rest which remains is a glorious certainty, and with lightsome heart and gladdened step, the believer labors onward in his course, with the rest of God in view. The believer’s heart is cheered when he finds the Word detecting everything that would hinder or make him stumble by the way. Also his confidence is sustained by the great High Priest, who already traversed the way Himself, and thus he finally enters into the rest that remains for the people of God!
F. G. Patterson, Words of Truth, Vol. 1 (adapted)
Eternal Rest
High in yonder realms of light,
Far above these lower skies,
Fair and exquisitely bright,
Heaven’s unfading mansions rise;
Glad within these blest abodes
Dwell the raptured saints above,
Where no anxious care corrodes,
Happy in Emmanuel’s love.
Once the big, unbidden tear,
Stealing down the furrowed cheek,
Told, in eloquence sincere,
Tales of woe they could not speak.
But, these days of weeping o’er,
Passed this scene of toil and pain,
They shall feel distress no more,
Never, never weep again!
‘Mid the chorus of the skies,
‘Mid the angelic lyres above,
Hark! their songs melodious rise,
Songs of praise to Jesus’ love!
Happy spirits! ye are fled,
Where no grief can entrance find,
Lulled to rest the aching head,
Soothed the anguish of the mind.
All is tranquil and serene,
Calm and undisturbed repose;
There no cloud can intervene,
There no angry tempest blows;
Every tear is wiped away,
Sighs no more shall heave the breast,
Night is lost in endless day,
Sorrow in eternal rest.
Thomas Raffles
We Rest on Thee
We rest on Thee, our Shield and our Defender;
We go not forth alone against the foe;
Strong in Thy strength, safe in Thy keeping tender;
We rest on Thee and in Thy name we go.
Yea, in Thy name, O Captain of salvation!
In Thy dear name, all other names above;
Jesus our Righteousness, our sure Foundation,
Our Prince of glory and our King of love.
We go in faith, our own great weakness feeling,
And needing more each day Thy grace to know:
Yet from our hearts a song of triumph pealing;
We rest on Thee and in Thy name we go.
We rest on Thee our Shield and our Defender;
Thine is the battle; Thine shall be the praise
When reigning in the kingdom of Thy splendor;
Victors, we rest with Thee, through endless days.
E. G. Cherry