MOST men look forward to rest. In a world of hard work, and of much suffering no wonder that this is so. Some put the object of their desires as the hoped-for solace of their old age, while some have little expectation of it beyond what the Saturday evening at the end of the week’s toil may afford. Our reader is no doubt one who, like most men, looks on for rest, for we are hardly addressing little children, whose great idea of happiness consists in playful activity. Childhood seldom knows the weariness of the world, nor feels what it is to have a jaded mind in a jaded body, for, in the mercy of God, the world is to a child a bright place of unexplored wonders.
The rest of which scripture speaks is not always of the same kind. There is rest from the burden of unpardoned sin. The Christian has this rest; his conscience is quiet in God’s presence, being purged by the blood of Christ, but more, if walking with God his heart is at rest.
This inestimable possession at once marks the Christian off from the generality of men. Let him be ever so poor in the circumstances of life, he has a treasure which the wealth of all the world can never buy. There is no market over the length and breadth of the wide world, no store known by a solitary individual amongst its many million inhabitants, where rest can be bought. Rest is the treasure of heaven, and those who have it have obtained it, not from the storehouses of earth, but by the gift of Him who sits at God’s right hand in glory. Jesus only gives men rest—Jesus, who was the sufferer and the Man of sorrows here, and who knows what human heartaches are, and what the labor of this world is Perhaps there is no nobler testimony to His divinity than His own words, so familiar to us all, “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” We seem to hear Him uttering these wonderful words amongst the men whose pride despised Him, His heart yearning over them, knowing the folly of their thoughts, Himself in communion with His Father in heaven, and thinking the thoughts of God. Never before had such language been heard on this sin-stricken earth; never before, where the toil and the sorrow brought in by sin have wrung human hearts for thousands of years, had such blessed words as these fallen on the cars of men’s wearied souls, “I will give you rest.” The Lord had come from the Father to give that which the world possesses not.
There are thousands who long for rest of an undefined kind, having in them the sense that this world is weary and sad; but the rest which Jesus gives is of no uncertain sort, it is precise and distinct. In the first place, man needs rest from the burden of sin, and we dare not speak of any other rest till this is assured. A man may have a sad heart because of his troubles at home, and yet may have beyond this a peculiar weight upon him, on account of the fact that his creditors are about to hale him to the judge. So the sin-burdened spirit has an overwhelming trouble pressing it down, one terribly definite and specific—one, too, which no circumstances of life can in any way affect. Does our reader know by experience what this burden is? Does he know this labor? Is he in this sense heavy laden?
The words of Jesus are addressed to such as feel this burden. Man, in his pride, may say, scornfully, “What! ‘come unto Me?’ Is this the way to get rest?” But the sin-burdened soul has many a sigh over the simple words, “Come unto Me!” Is it easy? Is it difficult? How am I to come?
It is both easy and difficult. Easy for a simple faith, which takes the words as uttered, and goes, as a child goes when invited, asking no questions, but going. Rising up at the call, because called. Never thinking of self, but of the Speaker who says, “Come.” Difficult for theorizing, which adds to the invitation and overlays it with human additions and questions, and for unbelief, which looks within, and asks, “Am I coming,” instead of looking at Him who speaks, while listening to His “Come unto Me.”
“But how am I to come, for I do earnestly desire to come?” By coming at once; for each moment or hour spent in saying “How” is simply time occupied in practical unbelief of Him who invites.
The invitation stands, and those who accept it receive the rest proffered, and each such soul is a living witness to the grace of the heart of Christ.
The removal of the load of sin, the ease of conscience therefrom ensuing, the lightness and joy of knowing that the burden is gone, are quite distinct from rest of soul in the midst of the trials by the way. The circumstances of life, its sorrows, its pains, are not altered when the sin-burdened sinner comes to Christ with his heavy load; indeed, it is often the case that when the sinner has thus come to Jesus, and the Lord has removed the load from him, that new trials and difficulties become his portion. Until our consciences have rest from the weight of the sense of unpardoned sin, rest of soul is impossible; but rest of conscience, because our burden of sin has been removed, is not rest of soul.
The Lord speaks of another rest from that of the conscience in His words, “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.”
In order to obtain rest of soul the yoke of Christ must be borne. We learn of Him, who was meek and lowly of heart, and see a Man whose soul was ever in the conscious enjoyment of His Father’s love. Circumstances of the most trying kind encompassed Him, but no sorrow ruffled the calm of His spirit. Friends might forsake Him, and trials bear down upon Him, for He was, indeed, the sufferer, the Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, but He was the one Man upon the earth who was absolutely at rest.
He ever bore His yoke—namely, obedience to His Father’s will—and, therefore, He could say at all times, “The lines are fallen unto Me in pleasant places.” And He invites the believer to take His yoke upon him, and to learn of Him. Yet how few, comparatively, accept the invitation! We do not find Christians generally having rest of soul. It is a rare thing to meet such persons, but such are to be found—men and women who bear the yoke of Christ, and say in their trials, as well as after them, “Father, I thank Thee.”
Our circumstances test as well as try us. Sorrows prove our faith, and show us how weak we are. What we need is to be like Christ, who went through the trials and sorrows of the way, but in perfect rest.
There is then rest of conscience for the sinner who comes to Christ, and rest of soul for the believer who takes His yoke, and learns of Him. And beyond these regions—beyond this sorrow-girdled earth—there shines the rest of God—the eternal Sabbath which God will keep. He will be able to say of the new creation, even as His, He saw everything that He had made that it was “Very good,” and His people shall rejoice in His rest, for “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.” (Heb. 4:99There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. (Hebrews 4:9)).
Onward is the word, fellow pilgrim, as that rest beams before the soul. Labor to enter in; seem not to come short of it. Gird up the loins and press forward, for the last stage of the sand of the desert will soon be trodden—this short day will soon, very soon, end.
“Then no stranger, God shall meet thee,
Stranger thou in courts above?
He, who to His rest shall greet thee,
Greets thee with a well-known love.”
H.F.W.