The Valley No.4 The Rest in the Valley

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. For unto us was the gospel preached as well as unto them. But the word preached did not profit them not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.

For we which have believed do enter into rest as he said as I have sworn in my wrath if they shall enter into my rest although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise and God did rest the seventh day from all his works and in this place again if they shall enter into my rest seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief. Again he limiteth a certain day saying in David today after so long a time as it is said today if ye will hear his voice harden not your hearts.

For if Jesus and incidentally that's the Greek translation of the Hebrew Joshua and it really refers to the Old Testament character there Joshua for if Joshua had given them rest then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God for he that is entered into his rest he also hath ceased from his own works as God did from his. Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief for the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit that the joints and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens Jesus the Son of God let us hold fast our profession for we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Amen.

I draw your attention to a verse in Hebrews 4 and I think you will find it helpful to have your Bibles open at that chapter. Hebrews chapter 4 and verse 9. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.

I think that's a very beautiful word, is it not? That little word, rest, it conveys an exquisite picture. It concerns, in the sense that it's used in this verse and in the sense that I shall use it in my address, not a state of inactivity, not relaxing and refraining from doing anything, but rather it's a description of a personality. It deals with the spiritual, with the psychological.

The dictionary gives this definition. Still, not agitated or troubled, there is a rest for the people of God. I wonder if that definition is, if you're like a suit that you can wear, do you identify yourself in that definition? Not agitated, not troubled, but still as you cope with life.

The world knows very little of this spirit of rest. In fact, unrest is something that characterizes the 20th century, and again I'm not referring to the hustle and bustle of life. I know we live it at a speed, but apart from that, if you look at the psychological makeup of men and women, there's so much that shouts at you of a deep unrest within the heart, within the spirit, and this is not a, this restlessness, this spirit of unrest is not a child of the 20th century alone.

It's something that our Savior recognized amongst his contemporaries 2,000 years ago. He saw people scurrying to and fro, so engaged in doing many, many things, but devoid of that tranquility, of that serenity of nature, and you couldn't have said of them that they were without agitation. They were never troubled.

Positively, you could not have said of them that they were still. For several weeks of late, we have been dealing with a subject that I have entitled the God of the Valleys, and by specific allusion to the Old Testament, we have been conceiving of life in terms of a journey through a valley, and I think that the similar is appropriate. You see, life has certain things that are akin to a valley.

A valley has a beginning and an end, and so does life. A valley knows change in scenery. There can be the narrow gorge and the wider plain, and so life brings with it a variety of circumstances, and although you do not find in this particular epistle reference to a valley, nonetheless the writer envisages life as a journey from one place to another place.

In the 11th chapter, for example, where we come across the great list of the heroes of faith, so it is apparent that these men are seen as travelers on a journey in transit from one place to another. For example, we read in the 9th verse of the 11th chapter of Abraham that by faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

So you see that in one sense the writer to the Hebrews is employing the same metaphor as we have been employing. He is referring to life in terms of a journey, moving through a valley, moving through different situations until the moment dawns when we as believers are taken directly and immediately into the presence of God. So the question that is now necessary for me to raise from the pulpit as we continue this series of studies is simply this.

What is to be our attitude of mind, our disposition as believers as we pass through life? And it's all summed up in that word rest. We are to be restful people, folks in which there is a spirit of restfulness that is obvious, that is apparent. I wonder if that annoys you.

I think sometimes preachers and preaching can be annoying, or maybe putting it theologically, it's it's a word of God finding us out. And having suggested to you that life is a passage through a valley and spelt out some of the difficulties and weeks gone by that the valley experiences bring, how dare one suggest that our frame of mind, our personality, should be ones that evidence restfulness? Oh, if only that youthful preacher knew my circumstances, he wouldn't speak along this line. It's increasing my difficulty.

You see, my valley, it's so narrow. It's like the gorge that we were referring to last week. To push my way down through the foliage is difficult enough.

To make any progress is very hard. There's little light. There's a great deal of sorrow and distress, and I find it very hard to be a Christian, very hard to be a sojourner through this world, very hard to be in transit from from this life to the next.

How then can you speak in terms of my disposition being one that always shows restfulness and serenity? Well, my dear friends, I don't suggest this because it's the fruit of my own thinking. I suggest it because I believe it's a clear statement of the Word of God. That's the difference between the preacher and the philosopher.

The philosopher brings his own thoughts. The preacher endeavors as God helps him to explain the Word. And I can do no other than to make this conclusion, bearing in mind the setting of this particular chapter, and having related you to the experiences of the great men of faith recorded in the 11th chapter, I can do no other than to say this, that the disposition that you and I are to cultivate through life is one of restfulness, and to show to the world that same characteristic as was absolutely illustrated in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Come back to my text then, because this is what it clearly states. There remaineth therefore, despite everything else, despite the circumstances that we find ourselves in, there remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. All right, with that in mind let's, as it were, put a magnifying glass upon the text, and by exploring it together I shall show you I trust its meaning and its relevance to you in your situation.

Pardon me being a little bit technical for a moment. It's necessary for you to grasp the the total sense of this statement. The word there translated in the Authorized Version rest is a strange Greek word.

It's the word sabbatismos, and if you have a Revised Standards Version, and I believe also, though I haven't checked this, the Revised Version of the Bible, you'll find that the verse is accurately translated, there remaineth therefore a sabbath rest to the people of God. In other words, the rest that is here referred to is linked up to a rest that God knows, and this is obvious even in the Authorized Version from the context in the next verse. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.

Here is an allusion to God resting from work. Now let's bear this in mind, and if you think it through with me, I feel that you'll grasp the point. When did God rest from his labors? When do you read of God taking a rest? Well, no prizes for the right answer.

It's easy for anyone who's got some knowledge of the opening chapters of the Bible. In the second chapter of the book of Genesis, and the second verse, we read this, and on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And the third verse, God blessed the seventh day, sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

Here is God depicted in scriptures taking a rest. Now let me immediately point this out, that this isn't a rest that was necessary because he was exhausted. It's the Prophet Isaiah who dismisses such a foolish notion as this.

He tells us of God that the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary. Rather, the rest that is described of God taking in the second chapter of Genesis is a rest of completion. He has finished his work, he has executed his purpose, he has brought into being that which he anticipated, and therefore he rests.

And this is the thought that you're to have in mind, the picture that you're to have in mind when you read this ninth verse of Hebrews 4, there remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. Again, let me labor the point. When the scriptures talk about the disposition of God, when they talk about his nature, they tell us most clearly that the Lord God Almighty is never agitated, he's never troubled.

There's a stillness, there's a calmness, there's a divine serenity about him. And what God enjoys for himself, and this is a staggering thought is it not, he wishes for his people. Let me repeat that, it's so astounding.

What God enjoys for himself, he wants you and me, who have been created in his image, also to experience. The Apostle Paul on one occasion, as he often does, he exclaims about the the wonder of God's loving provision in sending his son to this world. And the Apostle with bated breath says, he who spared not his own son.

This was fantastic, but the Apostle goes on and says, will he not therefore give us all things? That's a mighty comprehensive statement, is it not? Will he not give us all things? What is it that God enjoys in eternity? He enjoys his rest, the rest of a work having been created, having been accomplished. And the Bible here says that what our Heavenly Father knows, his inner disposition is something that he wants you and me to share in. There remains therefore a rest to the people of God.

And yet, and this is a logical deduction from my text, is it not? You and I and indeed the whole history of mankind testifies to the fact that on the natural level we have never experienced this rest. We've never qualified for it ourselves. We've never really entered into it as being something that we have deserved.

Again, the context of this chapter underlines this truth. References made to the work of God in creation, you notice in the fourth verse here. And on the seventh day again, the teaching is repeated that the Lord God rested from all his works.

Now go back, if you can, in your thoughts to that moment of time when Adam and Eve are there in the garden of paradise, enjoying all the glories of creation that have fallen fresh from the hands of God. God wishes them rest. And yet, they don't accept it.

They forfeit it. They reject it. Instead of enjoying the sacral rest in the garden of paradise, they opt for the unrest of what Milton refers to as Sabbathless Satan.

That's quite a pregnant phrase, you know? Sabbathless Satan. Here are Adam and Eve, and we see them as representatives of you and me, offered the rest of God, but rejecting it. And as they fall foul of the law of God, as they lose their innocence, as they're turned out of the garden of paradise, they also lose their rest.

And from that moment in history, as you read of the development of mankind, so in every nation, at every century, you see the restlessness of people. The rest of God was lost, as well as man's innocence, when Adam and Eve disobeyed the Lord. And the argument is developed here in this fourth chapter.

References made, as I said in my reading, in the eighth verse to Joshua. Now Joshua, as you remember, was one of the leaders of the Hebrews. Forty years before he became their commander, they had been in Egypt, and under the tyranny of Pharaoh, they had prayed to God for salvation, for some rescue mission to be accomplished.

God sent Moses. And in the wilderness, certainly they were delivered from all the difficulties and the oppression of the Egyptian bondage, but they didn't know rest in the wilderness. It was a very hard period in their history, a period that was lengthened by their sinfulness.

You couldn't say that when they were in the wilderness, the Hebrews had known rest. This is the argument, I say, of this fourth chapter. And neither could you say that when Joshua was enabled by God to lead them into the promised land, did they know rest.

Indeed, sinfulness then dug their footsteps, and they never enjoyed the height of the blessings of God that could have been theirs. And so, referring back to the Scripture, we read this, if Joshua had given them rest, if they had been able to find this rest that was so necessary for them in the promised land, then would not Scripture afterward have spoken of another day. So this is the point, I trust it's clear to you from this rather complex argument in this fourth chapter.

Adam and Eve, as they left the Garden of Eden, they walked into an atmosphere of restlessness, and this restlessness is characterized in the experience of the Hebrews. They didn't regain it, no, not even when they re-entered the land of promise. But there is here a reference to the possibility of another day dawning, of a new opportunity for men and women to enter into rest.

And I reckon that this is important for you and for me, because having dispensed with the history lesson, we are now dealing with present possibilities. Look again at the first verse of this chapter, and we read, let us therefore fear lest a promise be left us of entering into his rest. Any of you should seem to to come short of it.

And the original language there suggests this, that the promise has been left open. And the New English Bible translates the latter part of this verse, that there is a possibility that one another amongst us might be found to have missed his chance of entering into rest. Well, what's all this mean? How can we understand it from the Word of God? Well, I must bring into view the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, the greater Joshua, one who bears the same name in the Hebrew as the Joshua of old.

When he came into the world, we find him actively engaged, do we not? He's preaching, he's healing, he's teaching, he's moving through his life with one objective, and that is to accomplish the will and the purpose of his father. Indeed, we read of the Lord Jesus Christ, I work the works of him that sent me. This was his claim.

He came into the world to work. He came into the world to be active. Now, what was all this activity in aid of? What was the employment in which he was engaged? What is meant by the achieving of the will of God? Well, follow the life of the Lord Jesus to his last visit to Jerusalem.

See him in the upper room. See him later on in the Garden of Gethsemane. Watch him as the soldiers come and arrest him and haul him in front of the priests and then in front of Pilate, and then trace his footsteps that terrible day in the history of mankind when he left that holy city and climbed the hill called Calvary, and there he was crucified.

Why did he die? The Scripture says he died for you and for me. The Scripture tells us that he was dying for the transgressions that you and I had committed, so that we would not receive the just judgment of our actions. And what were his words before he actually died? It is finished.

Now, that's interesting. His one word in the original was finished. What is finished? The work that God gave me to do.

And when you think in terms of the resurrection and the ascension and the glorification of Jesus, do you know really what you're talking about? The rest that Jesus has entered into. He is now in the glory. He is enjoying the rest of God, and in one sense we are moving towards that experience ourselves.

This is what the writer is saying later on in the 11th chapter of Abraham and of all the Old Testament heroes. They were traveling through this world, going through the valley, looking not for any abiding city here, but moving on towards that city whose maker and whose builder is God. And in that eternal dimension there will be absolute rest which you and I shall enjoy.

But you see, there's more to it than this. My text is not just speaking of rest at the end of the valley. It's speaking of a possibility of rest today.

There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. Oh yes, it's coming one day. This life will eventually be over.

Our bodies, which are always in a process of decay, will come to that moment where life can no longer be sustained, and we shall be taken to be with God, and there we shall be in our Father's house forever. We'll enjoy that rest in that place where there is no sorrow, no injustice, no greed, no hatred, none of those characteristics that we know so well in our world today that rob us of rest. Oh yes, all that's in the future.

It's at the end of the valley. But my point in bringing this address to you is to underline the truth of the teaching here when it suggests to us that there is a rest, a foretaste of this, that we can experience now. It's a long time since I read Alice in Wonderland, so if I've got this quotation wrong, forgive me.

But I seem to remember somewhere in the story, and I think it was the king, who was always promising his servants, jam tomorrow. It didn't matter what they did, when they came to be rewarded, he would say that they get it tomorrow, jam tomorrow. And Karl Marx and some of lesser ability than him have passed this criticism on the Christian faith, that it's always in terms of jam tomorrow.

To quote Lenin in one of the books that he wrote, it's spiritual moonshine that's offered to working-class people of a better tomorrow, and it keeps them happily working for their employers today. But Marx was wrong, and so was Lenin, and so have many other people been wrong as they've tried to evaluate the Christian faith. My dear friend, let me put it in the words of Alice in Wonderland, it's not just jam tomorrow, it's jam today.

There is a rest for us to enter into at this moment. But look into the 11th verse if you want to know how to enter into this rest, and here you're going to find something that's very surprising. Again I read to you the 9th, there remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.

Verse 11, let us labor therefore to enter into that rest. Now that seems a contradiction, doesn't it? How do you labor to enter into rest? Well there are certain principles laid down in the remaining part of this chapter, and also developed in other portions of the Word of God, which clearly tell us how to enter into the rest of God. But one of the things that I want to put before you first of all, as we consider this practical application of our subject, is this, that the rest of God is not instantaneous.

We live in an instant world. You go around the supermarket and you'll see so many instant things, instant soup, instant potatoes, you name it and they've got it instant. But there isn't such a thing as instantaneous rest.

Look, the very language, the very vocabulary of the writer conveys the thought of a progress, of a process. Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest. You know the Bible very often talks in terms of a process, of a progression, not very often in terms of something that's instantaneous.

There is a growth in grace and in the knowledge of God. The Apostle Paul talks about not having fully apprehended Jesus Christ, not having been completely sanctified, but always moving towards the mark, pressing towards the goal. There's a development you see, a growth.

And this is what I am putting to you, that as you go down the valley of life with all the difficulties, even though you say you don't have absolute rest, that's not to frustrate you. This rest is something that is to grow. It's going to be commensurate with your, with your years of service down here in the valley of life, but it's going to grow as you follow certain precepts from the Word of God, as you cultivate certain things that the Word of God tells you to attend to.

But let me make that point, it's most, it's most important, for I would not have you go from this church feeling more frustrated than you were when you came in. This rest is not instantaneous. Oh yes, there will be difficulties, there will be problems, and maybe you'll not have it as, as much as that, as you wanted it.

Nonetheless, it's there. You've got a little of it, but it's going to grow as you attend to certain things within the Word of God. You say, what are these other things? Well, let me split them into two categories and deal very quickly with them.

There are spiritual disciplines that need to be attended to if you are going to labor and enter into your rest. It's not by coincidence that in the twelfth verse, we find that the writer of the epistle raises the point of the Word of God. The Word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword.

In other words, the Word of God is applicable to your situation. How often, my friend, do you read the Word of God? How often do you redeem the promises of the Word? There's a culpable ignorance of God's Word today. There's an absolute inability on the part of many Christians to apply the precepts of the Word of God to their own experience, because they never read the Word of God in the first place.

This is a remarkable book. I would be so bold as to make this statement from the pulpit. There is not one experience that you can go through in your life that there is not teaching about within this book, in principle.

So it is necessary, if you are to enter into this rest, to be a man of the book, not in an academic sense. God forbid that there's been too much intellectualism within the Christian Church, which has rubbed it of its life and its power, that we are to read this book because it is veritable food to our soul. And if you're going to know the rest of God, then you're going to rejoice in the pages of this book and all that it has to teach.

But again, if you're going to know the rest of God, look at verse 14 and the injunction given right at the end of the verse. Let us hold fast our profession. Let us work at our faith.

There are times, and I've put it to you before from the pulpit, when we have to take ourselves in hand and psychologically discipline ourselves. How fanciful our thinking sometimes is. How often we cherish notions that are absurd, and we're full of fears that we could discipline ourselves to reject.

This, you remember, was what the psalmist did. Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me? He's speaking to himself. He's applying discipline.

The rest that he wants in that situation, he can't find. So what does he do? He relates his own experience to God, and he talks to himself. In other words, he's laying fast on his profession of faith.

But again, come to the 16th verse, and what do we find here? We are to come boldly unto the throne of grace. Why are we to come boldly unto the throne of grace? Well, so that we'll find grace and time to help, and we will find grace to help in time of need. You see, in the 14th verse, we're told that by the throne of grace there is our Lord Jesus Christ, a great high priest, one who's been through the valley before, one who knows all about the gorges, one who knows all about the difficulties as we feel hemmed in in our situation.

We're to come to him. He's not insensitive. He knows your need.

He knows my need, and it's in the school of prayer that I shall find rest. It's there that I say, be still, my soul. The Lord is on thy side, says Isaiah, they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.

So it is necessary, my friend, to work at your faith. It is necessary to to immerse your mind in the teaching of this book. It is necessary to present yourself continually before the Lord God, and to ask him for the strength and the grace that you require.

Those then are spiritual disciplines, but there are what I would call personal disciplines, and I mentioned them within the compass of two minutes. And the first thing is this, let's be sure that what we're endeavoring to do for the Lord Jesus Christ is within our physical limitation. You know, the Apostle Paul, a very human man, as he gives out his advice, he refers to those who are weary in well-doing, and this is a possibility.

You can be too overactive even in God's service, you know. Weary in well-doing, immersed in doing too much until the work becomes more important than God himself. This is always a great problem for enthusiastic people.

We're not to be weary in well-doing. We are to realize our limitations. It was not by chance that that Scripture records the story when Moses is given more helpers on the advice of his father-in-law, because the job that he was doing was too big for one man.

When God meets Elijah, he puts him to sleep after giving him a good meal. Our God is a practical God. There are personal disciplines that you see we have to employ, because we are human beings.

You and I, though we are Christian people, we are not supernatural, and there is common sense that we have to attend to. We must ensure that we get the right amount of rest and sleep. Remember the French philosopher who says, I've got so much to do, I must go to bed.

He was speaking with the essence of wisdom there, and there are occasions when we must rest from our labors in the Lord, our evangelistic activity, and spend time just with him on our own, spend time relaxing in his presence and in the company of others. And so one could go on almost ad infinitum, applying the Word of God, speaking of personal disciplines, of things that we have to attend to, the things that we have to watch, and the net result is that when we appreciate the teaching of God's Word with regard to spiritual things like prayer and Bible study, and when we regard, when we give attention to personal disciplines and the looking after of our body, then by the power of the Holy Spirit we shall more and more have an earnest of that rest which will be ours absolutely in glory. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.

And again I do not apologize for bringing this teaching to you. I find it within Scripture itself that as we go through the valley, no matter how dark, how dismal, how difficult, there is a rest that you and I can find from God, a rest that is illustrated in our temperament, in our disposition. May God grant it to us for his glory.

Amen. Our Father, we thank thee that thy word is practical and relevant to us, and as we were singing earlier, we would not have the restless mind that hurries to and fro. Help us more and more to stay ourselves upon thee.

Help us to find rest in the valley, and may the disposition that we illustrate to our fellow men and women be a means in turn of leading them to thee. So grant us rest, peace of mind, and an ability to relax in thy presence, and to redeem thy promise until that day comes in our experience, when we shall be transported from this confused and difficult world into that heavenly dimension where rest pervades in its absolute form. And now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God, the friendship and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be our experience now and until our Savior returns.

Amen.