A Rest To Look Forward To

“There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.” (Heb 4:9 AV)

 

I know the theme of Hebrews is the rest promised to Israel through Abraham.  The rest spoken of here is not heaven.  Rather, it is the millennial reign of Christ.  However, the principle still applies to the New Testament saint.  We can be very encouraged because of the context.  The writer compares Israel’s present struggles against the promised rest.  Israel can have their eyes on the world and how it treats them.  They can wonder if it will ever end.  They can begin to lose hope that the LORD will come and rescue them from the troubles they constantly face.  But the word ‘therefore’ is a wonderful word.  Despite what they might be experiencing and the labor of soul which they suffer, there remains a rest.  Just because the majority of the nation rejected Christ does not mean the Father has rescinded His covenant.  There remains a rest.  All they need to do is to exercise faith where their forefathers failed.  The New Testament saint can apply this verse to glory.  There remains a rest for us, too.  We are promised a home in heaven.  We are promised a mansion in the house of God.  We are promised an end to all that plagues us in the horrible world in which we journey.  There remains a rest for us, as well.  By death or by rapture, we will enter into our rest.  Then this life will seem but a distant memory.

My doctor has diagnosed me with a condition whose cure is rest.  Sleep, that is.  I don’t do well at all when I haven’t had a good night’s sleep.  Just to give you an example, this week I had to get up about an hour and a half earlier than I normally do on several mornings.  The other two mornings, I woke up at 4:30 and couldn’t fall back asleep.  So yesterday was rather interesting.  My lovely wife and I had to take a trip to another town to find a place we had only been to a couple of times before.  It was not the big turns or decisions that were a problem.  It was the little ones.  Finding the right entrance to a place was a chore.  Being in the right lane for the correct turn was not the easiest of things.  We stopped at a breakfast place.  Wrong driveway.  I had to make a u-turn.  Leaving the restaurant I missed my left-hand turn, so I had to go a bit further and make another u-turn.  At the next signal, I was supposed to turn right.  Missed it.  A thousand feet down the road and another u-turn.  Making a left onto the road I was supposed to be on, I entered the wrong parking lot.  It was for the business next door.  You guessed it.  Another u-turn.  I should have taken the next entrance.  We left from there to finally arrive at our final destination.  Not being sure of whether we needed to go left or right, I chose right when we should have gone left.  Another u-turn.  I joked that I was trying to send my GPS into self-destruct mode.  It wasn’t on, but I can only imagine the voice instructions as it tried to adjust to all my u-turns.  All this because I was short of rest all week long.

There is coming a day when we can rest for all of eternity.  We will be in a constant state of regeneration, so to speak.  Our cups will be filled to overflowing.  Now is not the time to rest.  The harder we labor, the sweeter the rest.  This is Paul’s point here.  For Israel, the labor is labor unto saving faith.  For us, our labor is to labor for righteousness and faith.  Our labor is not in vain, Paul tells us elsewhere.  We labor that we may be accepted of Him, the Bible declares.  We labor that the glory of God may be seen in our lives to the saving of men’s souls, Paul tells Timothy.  Jesus tells us we should work while it is day.  Once the light of the Holy Spirit is taken from our world, no man can work.  Now is the time to do something for the LORD.  Now is the time to work hard for the glory of God.  Knowing we have a rest is the truth we need to endure through that which the LORD would have us to do.