Part 2.....

How can these two concepts be reconciled?

Perhaps they cannot be reconciled in the material world. But both of the concepts—that God is sovereign in the universe and His works have been finished already and now are being fashioned for us to see, and also that each individual must choose to accept God’s will in Christ for his life or to reject God’s will for his life—are taught throughout the Scriptures and are true and factual in the spirit realm.

The knowledge that God already has completed all things has a very practical effect on the overcomer. Such knowledge gives him rest from the tormenting driving of his own fears and feeling of duty and obligation, and enables him to settle back into the arms of God and allow Christ to build the Kingdom of God.

The concept of predestination and foreknowledge is that God knows what He is doing and has a special place in His Kingdom for each believer.

The fact that God knows what He is doing gives us rest in the security that the world and our personal life are not out of control but are being directed by the perfect wisdom and power of God, according to a master plan.

The fact that God has a special place in His Kingdom for each of us means we are to cease attempting to force our will, to direct our destiny, to cease striving to build our own kingdom, and instead to devote our days seeking the will of Christ for our life. We enter the rest of God when we turn over the remainder of our life to Christ and allow Him to perform what God has planned for us.

But, one may ask, is it possible for the believer to deviate from what God has determined?

We have our answer in the passage that we are studying. Israel refused to believe and obey God. As a result, God would not allow the people to enter the land of promise although He had promised the land to them. God suspended His promise to that generation, just as He changed what He had spoken concerning Eli, the priest (I Samuel 2:30).

The Scripture commands us to give diligence to make our calling and election sure (II Peter 1:10).

It is important to realize it is the "rest of God" we are entering. God is seeking a living temple for Himself, for His own pleasure and to accomplish His own purposes. We can be part of that rest only as we cease from our attempts to live our life in our own way and present our body to God as a living sacrifice, seeking His will. God is resting, having set in motion His eternal plan. We are to enter that rest, God’s rest.

The first concept that has to do with our being able to enter the rest of God is that God has a specific purpose and plan that have been completed already in God’s mind and vision.

The second concept that concerns our being able to enter the rest of God is that of the Jewish Sabbath day. What does the Sabbath day, the seventh day of the week, teach us about the rest of God?

To find the answer to this question, let us turn to Isaiah, Chapter 58, verses thirteen and fourteen. This passage was true for the Jew one day each week. The Christian keeps this Sabbath, this Divine rest, twenty-four hours of every day, seven days a week.

If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

This is the way the Christian saint is to live at all times. We are to cease seeking our own pleasure. We are to take pleasure in finding and doing the Lord’s will. We are to honor God always, not following our own path, not finding our own pleasure, not speaking our own words.

If we will keep this Sabbath, which is rest in God’s will, God will cause us to "ride on the high places of the earth." He will feed us "with the heritage of Jacob," our father.

Jacob was greatly blessed of the Lord in all areas and was preserved in the days of famine. If we will live in the Sabbath rest of God, if we will abide in Christ, in the center of God’s will, we will partake of the good things of the earth. We will be brought to fruitfulness, to dominion, to honor, to glory, as was Jacob. We will be delivered in the time of famine (see Psalms 37).

If there is any part of our time during which we are following our own path rather than seeking the will of Christ, we are falling short of the rest of God. Jesus always did the works of the Father and spoke as the Father gave Him the words. We are to always do what Christ is guiding us to do, and we are to speak as the Lord directs.

Most of us are imperfect in terms of abiding in Christ in all that we do and say at every moment. But this is the goal toward which we are to be pressing (John 6:57).

To enter the rest of God, we must understand that the creation of God, from Adam and Eve to the Lamb’s Wife, was finished from the creation of the world.

To enter the rest of God, we must give our life to Christ so that our pilgrimage on the earth becomes one long Sabbath day during which we think God’s thoughts, speak God’s words, and show in ourselves the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Sabbath rest of the Christian is the Life of Christ lived in and through us.

The third aspect of entering the rest of God is that of the land of promise. Satan and his spirits are now in possession of that which belongs by Divine assignment to Christ and His saints. The nations of the world, and the earth itself, are an important part of our inheritance. The only way in which Satan will be driven from our land of promise, our inheritance, is by war. It is Satan’s opinion, apparently, that the earth and its peoples are rightfully his.

To enter the rest of God, into the fullness of our inheritance in Christ, we must become warriors so we can drive out Satan. In the present hour, a spiritual enemy is dwelling in our land, our inheritance. The third and fourth chapters of Hebrews set forth Canaan, the land of promise, as a type of the rest of God. What does the land of promise teach us concerning entering the rest of God?

The example of the land of promise teaches us that we are to destroy the devil wherever he is entrenched in the good things that God has given to the saints. We are not to cease driving the devil from our inheritance, by the power of God, until the memory of the devil, of sin, of rebellion, has been destroyed from the creation. We can have no rest in our inheritance until God’s enemy has been driven from it. We enter our land, the rest of God, one step at a time.

And the Lord thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little: thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee. But the Lord thy God shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction, until they be destroyed (Deuteronomy 7:22,23).

All things were finished from the creation of the world. Therefore we are not to rush about attempting to save ourselves, or to build the Kingdom of God according to our own plan. Rather, we are to wait on God constantly so that we may know what it is He wants us to do—moment by moment.

Sometimes God must slow us down until we can understand what it is He desires. The first aspect of entering the rest of God is a deep realization that God has a plan of His own. Spiritual warfare always is conducted by the Lord Jesus Christ working through His Church. The war is fought according to the timing, the strategy, the tactics that come from God the Father, whose Kingdom it is that is being established. Each battle is won by the wisdom and power of the Holy Spirit.

The argument in verses seven and eight of the third chapter of Hebrews is that if the possession of Canaan, the land of promise, was the true rest of God, then David in the Book of Psalms—hundreds of years after Israel entered Canaan—would not have spoken of "another day."

Notice the profound and exacting manner in which the Holy Spirit guides the writer of the Book of Hebrews to interpret and apply the Old Testament Scriptures. The science of scriptural interpretation is termed hermeneutics. We can learn much about the discipline of hermeneutics by observing how the writers of the New Testament employed passages from the Old Testament.

The Book of Hebrews is an exhortation to Christian people to enter the "rest of God." We know that "there remains therefore a rest to the people of God" verse nine. We have said that the rest of God is the state of abiding in the center of God’s will in Christ.

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