Entering Into His Rest: Part 2
By Pastor Mitch Horton | February 2002 | Posted in • Archives | (0) Comments
In last month’s issue, I mentioned the inward rest and the outward rest that we all need, and how to obtain it in our lives. In last month’s issue, we discussed inward rest. This month, I want to discuss the importance of outward or physical rest.
“There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered into His rest has himself ceased from his own works as God did from His” (Hebrews 4:9-10).
When God completed His work of creation, He purposely patterned rest into the cycle of life on earth. In his book Lectures To My Students, Charles Spurgeon said, “Beasts of burden must be turned out to grass occasionally; the sea pauses at ebb and flood; earth keeps her Sabbath of wintry months; and a man, when exalted to be God’s ambassador, must rest or faint; must trim his lamp or let it burn low; must recruit his vigor or grow prematurely old.” 1
God has not planned that we live under constant relentless busyness with no rest or repose. He has designed rest into all the patterns of life. We receive inward rest when we pull away from the affairs of daily life and spend time in God’s Word and in fellowship with Him in prayer. We renew our strength when we take the time to “wait on the Lord” in our “closet” of personal intimacy. And outward, physical rest is just as important for us to maintain.
We Americans abuse the idea of physical rest more than most cultures around the world. We find it hard to just sit and relax even when we have a day off from normal work. I’ve personally felt uncomfortable on a number of occasions when traveling in another country, when much of the population is taking an afternoon “siesta.” We’re so “wired” to be active, and the Lord desires to teach us how to rest.
One of the Ten Commandments is “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8). In Exodus 20:9-11, the Lord goes further and spells out how the Sabbath day is to be kept holy. He commanded that work be done on six days of the week, and that everyone, slave and free, rest on the seventh day. We need to remember that Jesus did not come to do away with the law. He fulfilled it! And today, Jesus has become our Sabbath rest, too.
But the principle of taking a necessary break from work is still an important one for us to honor. The importance of the Sabbath rest is also seen in God’s instructions to Israel concerning their land. In Leviticus 25:1-7, God instructed the Israelites to allow their land to rest from growing crops every seventh year. In that way the land would be revitalized and yield a greater harvest.
Another interesting thought along the lines of how important the Sabbath rest is to God is seen in Jeremiah’s prophecy to the wayward Israelites that 70 years captivity was headed their way (see Jeremiah 25:9-12; 27:6-8; 29:10; 2 Chronicles 36:20-21). One of the reasons they were going into Babylonian captivity was so that the land could receive its Sabbaths that were missed over the years. Interestingly, they had not observed the “land Sabbath” commanded in Leviticus 25 for 490 years! That’s 70 years that the land was supposed to rest that they had missed. And God said that they were to go into captivity away from their land into Babylon for 70 years. In that way, the land would still receive its rest commanded by God. God thinks the Sabbath rest is important.
Of course, we’re not under Jewish law today. But there are some natural principles that still apply to us. We still need regular intervals of natural rest! Most of us don’t get enough nightly rest, much less take a day of rest each week! And we ministers are the worst! The result of our lack of rest is seen in physical and emotional difficulty that we often wrestle with in life. Our quality of life would be so much greater if we just took regular breaks from the normal routine.
I want to end this article with several quotes again from Charles Spurgeon’s book Lectures To My Students. Let these quotes speak to you personally and make a decision to bring about the adjustments necessary to receive the God ordained rest that you need to improve the quality and length of your life.
“The bow cannot be always bent without fear of breaking… Repose is as needful to the mind as to the body… Even the earth must lie fallow and have her Sabbaths, and so must we… Rest time is not waste time. It is economy to gather fresh strength… A little pause prepares the mind for greater service in the good cause… Fishermen must mend their nets, and we must every now and then get our machinery in order for future service… To tug the oar from day to day like a galley slave who knows no holidays, suits no mortal man… Millstreams go on forever, but we must have our pauses and intervals… It is wisdom to take an occasional furlough. In the long run, we shall sometimes do more by doing less… On, on, on forever may suit our spirits emancipated from this heavy clay, but while we are in this tabernacle, we must every now and then cry halt, and serve the Lord by holy inaction and consecrated leisure… Let no tender conscience doubt the lawfulness of going out of harness for a while, but learn from the experience of others the necessity and duty of taking timely rest.” 2
1. C.H. Spurgeon, Lectures To My Students (Reprinted from editions issued in England in 1875,1877, & 1894, The Old Time Gospel Hour, Lynchburg, Va.), 174-175.
2. Ibid.
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