TV 1756 | Rest

I've had some thoughts that, you know, could be expounded over a lot of time, but I'm just trusting the Lord will help me to share a couple of very simple thoughts that I think are relevant. And a word that has come to me quite a lot lately is a very simple word, and that word is rest. We all have an idea as to what rest, you know, is about. We get to the end of a hard work day, we know that our bodies need rest. And a scripture that is very familiar to us is the one where Jesus said, come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. But I think it's pretty self-evident that when Jesus was saying that, it didn't have merely to do with physical rest. There's a deeper rest than you can even get from this world when you think about it. Think about the words in the Old Testament where it says, the wicked are like the troubled sea which cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. What that's saying is that there is no source of real rest in this world. I don't care who you are. Now somebody will hear that and say, well, that's not me. I'm not one of those wicked people. But the reality is we all are by nature. We were born with a life that is infected with sin. These are things we've heard many times and there's not a thing we can do about it. And whether we express that in ways that are obviously sinful like going out and killing people or whether we just ... In fact, the worst way is self-righteous. You get a lot of people who think that they can kind of adopt a Christian worldview and a mentality and a religion and they'll adopt a standard in their life in certain areas and they're very quick to point out the faults of others. And all they're doing is propping up a kind of self-qualification for acceptance by God. There's no such thing. Thank God that there's another way for all of us because the gospel puts every one of us in exactly the same boat.

And Jesus didn't say, come to me and I'll show you how to obtain rest. I'll show you how to earn it. There's a giving of rest. What an awful thing it would be for Jesus to do everything that He did, all that was expressed here this morning, and for someone to miss out. Oh my God, what a tragedy. How could such a thing happen? Scriptures we've heard many times beginning in Hebrews chapter 3 where the writer is concerned about people who were born Jews evidently and somehow had come to a knowledge of Christ and they had agreed with it to a degree and yet there was something about the situation that caused him to question, to say, are they really believers or not? This is a serious issue whether you ... People can adopt Christianity, like I say, as an outward thing but never really get to the depth of what it means to participate as Ben pointed out in what we're talking about today. There is a full-blown identification and anything short of that and you're short because what you're doing is clinging to the life you were born with in this world in some fashion and trying to add some virtues, some benefits from Jesus to that. Fundamentally, it's me and what I want. The writer quotes from the Old Testament and says, today, if you hear his voice, this is beginning in the middle of 7, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion during the time of testing in the wilderness where your ancestors tested and tried me though for 40 years they saw what I did. That is why I was angry with that generation. I said, their hearts are always going astray. They have not known my ways so I declared on oath in my anger, they shall never enter my rest. Now the example, of course, is the wilderness and this was the case where God did exactly what was being, what has been said this morning, led them out. They were slaves. They were helpless.

They were hopeless and God supernaturally led them out with a promise of something that he was going to bring them to and yet there was This persistence of unbelief and self-will and rebellion that kept coming out and kept coming out, and it was because it was down here. And so what ... I mean, they could stand there and dance and celebrate on the far shore of the Red Sea, and if you had seen them then, you would have said, praise God, there's God's people, a bunch of believers, and yet all they had to do was get a few days in the wilderness and you saw a different story. I'll tell you, we need, if there's ever a time in the history of this planet where people need to be sure, need to enter into what Jesus is talking about, a place of rest, where every spiritual issue that relates to our relationship with God is settled forever. There's no further question about it, okay? And so the writer goes on, see to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God, all right? How many times have we seen people grow up in the church here and by all outward appearances they're believers? And then they grow up and all of a sudden you find out what's really in here, there's an attachment to this world. My God, it cost Jesus everything to go to that cross. And participation is not just saying he did that for me personally, it is all that. But that means he took me there and I died on that cross. I was willing, I saw the true condition of the life that I was born into this world with. I saw how hopeless it was to live for the values of this world. I saw that there was nothing good here, nothing that could ever participate in the purpose of God in making me in the first place. And the only way out was to lay down this world and this life and have it to be killed and done away with. But God's purpose and God's promise was not to simply take me to a cross and a grave, but to bring me out of that grave with a new life that cannot die. That's what the gospel is about.

It's giving up a life we cannot keep to gain one we cannot lose. But oh God, what a horrible thing it is when you see the power of sin that continues to grip some people. And you see people that don't really enter in. You know, the poster child for that would be Judas. I mean, there's a man who participated in the ministry, who was one of Jesus' disciples, and yet at the end he was willing to trade eternal life, to trade Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. What's Jesus worth to you? What is it in this life that your heart is so attached to? I'm just talking to whoever this applies to, whether here or someplace else. My God, what is there here that is so important that you would throw away your soul, send Jesus to that cross, and say, no, it's my life. Give me the 30 pieces of silver, send Jesus to the cross. And yet people do it every day. They live their lives. They spend their lives trying to find something that will scratch an itch that cannot be scratched. And they'll make that choice. And that's where their hearts really are at. See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily as long as it is called today. Boy, that's a key word, isn't it, today? I know specifically of cases where God spoke to somebody's heart and said, it's today or it's never. Has the Lord ever come down and made it that definite? Because that's where the world is at. It's today. And that's for people who hear His voice, all right? Encourage one another daily as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be

hardened by sin's deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end. Now, that's a ... Scripture that the devil can twist very easily. And basically what the devil would say, would turn this into was, yeah, you start out, but now it's up to you to keep it. You've got to hang on all the way, and if you hang on to the end, it'll be good. No, he's saying the evidence that you got the real deal in the beginning is that you do hold out to the end. Because what God puts in here is eternal, it's living, it's life. He comes in and there is that transformation that begins on the inside. And so the evidence that that happened, that really happened, we have come, see, that's past tense. What's the evidence that we have come into that kind of relationship? Well, there's something that lasts. You don't run away from that. You can't get away from that. Thank God. I told you about the time in college when I tried for a few days and it didn't work and the Lord just, and I was so thankful because he did something. He put his seal on my heart when I could never have deserved such a thing. Praise God. I pray that that's true for everyone here, that there is such a definiteness in you and entering into a union with him, that there will be something that will stand because this world is going to get a whole lot darker before it's over. But Christ is with us and we're with us to the end. All right? And then he goes on through the example of how they were not able to enter in because of the heart condition.

And so therefore, chapter four, let's kind of move through this. Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest, see, this is how it connects with what Jesus said. We need to enter into a place where the issues are settled. I can have a rest in my heart that doesn't come from anything I get from this world. It comes from a relationship with him that is living and personal and real. All right. Since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. Do you see what he's really saying? That's the key to the whole book. This book is not about getting it and losing it because you don't measure up. This book is about entering in all the way. Don't stop short. And the only thing that would cause anybody to stop short is they're going to cling to something of their own life, their attachment to something in this world and refuse to let it go. Folks, if I'm going to be one with Jesus, I'm going to have to join him on the cross and renounce this life, this world, everything it stands for, and be willing to die. Because that's what I deserve. This life, the only thing that you can do with it is to kill it and replace it with the life that he gives. Thank God. And, of course, he goes on and talks about ... I just want to get through this, the essence of what he's saying, because it gets right back to what we were talking about earlier. All right? He's talking about how they didn't enter ... He comes down a little further, talks about how they didn't enter into the rest, and yet, the end of verse three, and yet his works have been finished since the creation of the world. What an awesome thing it is, how God deals with things.

He is so outside of time that everything that he has offered to us is already done. Even though Jesus pronounced the words, it is finished 2,000 years ago, it was done a long time before that, because Jesus went to the cross knowing exactly how it was going to come out. And that's what he desires, us to come to a place of total rest, where we surrender everything and believe in all that he has given us. Thank God. And so, I'll just come down to verse 10. For anyone who enters God's rest ... I hope that's everyone here. My God. That's what God wants. That's what Jesus wants. He doesn't want anybody to say, no, the 30 pieces of silver, that's what I want. My God. Anyone who enters God's rest also rests from their works. Praise God. We renounce ... I mean, trying to think that I can qualify myself is just self-righteousness. I'm thinking there's something good in me that can make me acceptable to God. That's a renunciation of every claim to goodness and a hundred percent trust in what he did. To him ... alone be the glory. And if you want to ever find rest for your soul, I mean the deep kind, you better find it here. You better look and say, Jesus paid it all and he paid it for me, just as has been said this morning. Oh God, don't anybody stop short of this. And that's why he says, let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest. Boy, that sounds like a contradiction. Stop working and make every effort. But the reality is your nature is not going to agree with this. Your old nature is not going to just say, praise God, let's just jump right in. That's wonderful. I get to die. It's going to fight all the way and we're going to have to be able to push through and say, no, I want that. And it doesn't matter what I have to give up. That's the end of that. I want him and I want him alone. And I'll tell you, don't let anything stop you from

entering that rest so that no one will perish by following their example of unbelief. Praise God. There are other things that I guess I had other thoughts and maybe there for another time. But I believe with all my heart that God is reaching out to some, but to the rest of us, there is a different, there's another rest besides coming into a settled relationship with God. And that's where we learn how we learn from him, don't we? And we're entering into a rest. And I'll tell you, here's where the devil can get in. And we're going to have, we're going to go through our Christian lives with battles and self is going to rise up and want this and want that. And we're going to have to be safe, learn how to say no. And the devil is going to say, see, you never entered that rest or you wouldn't feel this way. That's why Jesus said, I'll give you rest. Then take my yoke and learn from me and you will find rest for your souls. You see, one is the relationship. The other is the outworking of that. As he begins to take this, take what would happen on the cross and actually put us to death. Do you know you and I need to be put to death every single day? I thank God that he knows how to do it. And then he's right there with us. But what a relationship he's talking about there, where there's a yoke. You know what a yoke does? In a farm, it connects two animals, so they work, they walk together, they work together. But this isn't just any yoke, this is his. That means when the life that to which he has called us, there's somebody who shares the burden of that. And the way to peace and rest in our lives is to walk in harmony with the one who is on the other side of that yoke. Because just as Jesus had a purpose for coming into this world and living here, so do we. And he is going to lead us step by step. And the closer we learn how to walk with him, we're going to embrace the things that kill us, kill the old man. All the Lord is doing is cutting the chains and cutting all the bonds and opening the prison doors. Every time something happens where we have to let go of self and agree with him, he's just setting the new life free. And there's more rest that comes as a result of that. Praise God. So there's a rest that we enter into, and there's a rest that comes as we learn from him. Praise God. You know, I thought of one scripture that was part of what was read last week, and we often read the end of Romans 8, all the glorious promises of what God has done and how the certainty of it, no one can separate us, no one can accuse us because God's declared us righteous. And Paul lists all the different things that can come along from this world that seem to threaten us, but all they're doing is

killing us. I mean, what can the devil do? If he were to march us up against a wall and shoot us, would that separate us from Christ if we know him? That's a one-way trip out of here. Praise God. But there's one thing that Paul says is interesting. He says we are accounted as what? Sheep. So if you know Christ today, every one of you is on God's accounting ledger as a sheep to be slaughtered. How's that? But if we understand what he's talking about, that God is going to take the reality of what happened to the cross, And we're going to participate it beyond even what Ben said. We're going to literally be willing to lay down our lives day by day and let Him begin to more and more come through us. And we're not alone. I can look over every time and see there's Jesus right there. Whatever He's called me to, whatever area of service, whatever my course of life is in this world, He's right there with me, beside me, bearing my burden, guiding me through it, giving me the strength to actually walk out the things that we were talking about this morning. Praise God. This is truly a finished work and yet here we are living it out today. May God increase our understanding, increase our understanding of the rest to which He has called us. I pray today that everyone here has found that rest. Jesus invites you. What are you going to do with that? Are you going to take the 30 pieces of silver and run? You're going to live your life and say, oh, I'd love the benefits of what Jesus offers but it's still my life. I got my plans, my ideas, my desires. Everything needs to be laid at the altar. It is just as serious as what Jesus gave up on the cross. He receives life that He got, human life that He got as a part of being born into this world.

He says, I know what this is worth, lay it down, kill it. I got another life, that's the one I want. That's what the gospel is about. So much of what is called Christianity is a superficial thing that never gets to these simple truths. It's a brand new life, a brand new destiny. We haven't said very much that, we haven't said many times, but I pray that God will touch somebody's heart. If you've never come, may God convict you until you can't say no. And for the rest of us, don't ever let the devil discourage you by the process. Death is at work, but life is in you, is in the purpose for which God has called you and me to live. He's made us members one of another so that we can live one for another and His life can come forth. He's going to have to account us as sheep for the slaughter. And we're going to have to learn to see all these things through His eyes. And I'll tell you, spiritual rest comes in greater and greater degrees. Thank God for all that He has done and given us in Christ. To Him alone be all the glory. This has been the Midnight Cry broadcast. If you would like a DVD or CD of today's message in its entirety, please request it by program number. While it is not required, a donation of $10 for DVDs and $5 for CDs is suggested to help with expenses. Also for those who request it, we will send you our quarterly publication, the Midnight Cry Messenger, free and postage paid. Send your requests to Midnight Cry Ministries, Post Office Box 685, Southern Pines, North Carolina, 28388. We invite you to join us again next week at the same time, and may God richly bless you until then.