The Eternal Sabbath

The theme of the Book of Hebrews is the “rest of God.” The writer warns us not to come short of it. Perhaps the rest of God needs some explanation. It may be that some of the Lord’s flock do not know what the rest of God is, and so they would not know if they were coming short of it. Yet, the rest of God is the climax of our redemption, and is the emphasis of the Spirit of God in the present hour.

(2/3/2008) The Eternal Sabbath. The theme of the Book of Hebrews is the “rest of God.” The writer warns us not to come short of it. Perhaps the rest of God needs some explanation. It may be that some of the Lord’s flock do not know what the rest of God is, and so they would not know if they were coming short of it. Yet, the rest of God is the climax of our redemption, and is the emphasis of the Spirit of God in the present hour.

Saturday is the seventh day of the week, the Sabbath day. Along with circumcision, the Sabbath day is one of the most important of the Jewish observances. And, like circumcision, the Sabbath points to a spiritual fulfillment that is as superior to the Old Testament observance as our Lord Jesus Christ is superior to Adam, with respect to being the image of God.

The eternal Sabbath was proclaimed by the Prophet, Isaiah:

If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the LORD's holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, (Isaiah 58:13)

The Lord Jesus lives in the eternal Sabbath of God. He has no works, no words, no motivations of His own. The words Christ speaks are the words of God. The desires Christ has are the desires of God. The works Christ does are the works of God.

This is the rest of God. This is our goal: to live by the Life of Christ as He lives by the Life of the Father.

Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. (John 6:57)

“Feeding” on Christ means living by His body and blood. How do we do this? Every time we resist temptation, not yielding to it, we are fed with the body and blood of Christ in the spirit realm. This is the “hidden manna.” It is hidden to all except those who resist Satan and obey the Spirit of God.

Think for just a moment. In what way does Jesus Christ live because of the Father? Christ lives because of the Father in that it is the Life of the Father that is in Him, governing all that Christ is and does. Christ has no desires, words, motivations, or actions of Himself. All Christ is and does comes from the Father, is of the Father, and—we might say—indeed Is the Father, in this sense.

Now, precisely what is the rest mentioned in the fourth chapter of the Book of Hebrews, and is the primary thesis of Hebrews?

The rest of God, which we are make every effort to enter, is that place where it is Christ who is living in us. We live because of Christ. We are to have no desires, words, motivations, or actions of our own. We are to be living by His Life.

Let us point out that it is God’s rest. God rested on the seventh day, of which there is no evening or morning because it is without end, being an eternal rest.

God finished all His work through to the coming down to the new earth of the new Jerusalem. Our life was ordained at that time. We are not to seek our own destiny. We are to press into that which God ordained for us. His works have been finished from the beginning of the world. God is resting. We are to enter that rest, ceasing from our own works.

We are to live by the Life of Jesus Christ, just as was true of the Apostle Paul. We are to live in Christ and He in us. Only then will we bear eternal fruit.

When we seek to live by the Life of Jesus Christ there is a trap we must learn to avoid. This is the trap of passivity. We may decide that we are an “empty vessel” and wait for God to fill us. We will not be filled by the Lord, if we adopt this stance. We may be filled with some spirit, but it will not be the Spirit of the Lord. This is not the true rest. We are not to become “empty vessels!” Did the Apostles write about empty vessels? This is a trap, a false rest.

The true rest of God is entered as we rest from our own works and seek to find out what Christ wants of us.

There are three forces that keep us from the simplicity of walking hand in hand with the Lord Jesus. The first force is our love of the things of the world, our trust in the world for security and survival. As we pray and ask Christ, He will enable us to reject the values of the world and trust in God for our security and survival.

The second force that complicates our effort to walk hand in hand with the Lord consists of the various lusts and passions of our sinful nature, our flesh, our spirit, our human mind. These forces war against us and keep us subject to Satan and his demons.

We are to cleanse ourselves from these. We do this by walking as close to Jesus as we can. As we do, the Spirit of God will reveal the several elements of our sinful nature. As He does, we are to confess them to the Lord, and then renounce them with all of our strength. Then we are to draw near to Christ for forgiveness and cleansing. After that we are to turn away from our former patterns of behavior.

The third force that complicates our efforts to live in the rest of God is our self-will, self-love, self-determination, self-confidence, self-assurance, self, self, self! This is the most difficult victory to gain. How can we enter God’s Live when we are attempting to live our own.

I have been “in Pentecost” for sixty years. I have felt in my spirit the change that the Holy Spirit of God is bringing about in our day. He is urging us to press forward to the work of redemption that follows the baptism with the Holy Spirit. That new work (to most of us) is to learn to say, “Not my will but Yours be done” in every area of our life.

The way the Spirit enables us to get rid of our self-determination is to place us in a situation that we do not enjoy. If we are willing to have our desires deferred for many years, and remain faithfully in our prison, the self-will shall be burned out of us.

During the last few years I have been giving every decision to the Lord. I do not trust myself to know or do anything. I try not to assume anything. I ask the Lord about everything from what number to set my metronome on, when I am practicing Chopin, to what to feed the dog. When you get accustomed to asking Christ about the details, you are apt to ask Him when you come to big decisions.

If you are under the impression that Christ is not interested in what you eat for breakfast, you do not know the extent to which He wants to be involved in all you think, say, and do.

I wonder how many Christians of our day are willing to look up to Jesus and say, “Jesus, from now on I am going to accept you as my personal Lord. I am going to stop living my own life and look to you for every decision, every word, every action, from the least to the greatest. I am going to press into God’s rest every moment of every day and night for the rest of my life.”

The writer of the Book of Hebrews warns us of the peril of having started in Christ and then coming short of God’s rest; of not finishing the job.

This is the burden of the Lord today. The major work of the last century was the baptism with the Holy Spirit. The major work of the present century is that of entering the rest of God, the Life of Jesus Christ.

Now I ask you, as your friend. Are you going to continue doing and grasping you religious works, or are you willing to cease from your own striving and give every second of every day and night to the Lord Jesus so He can guide, strengthen, and bless you, and make you fruitful? What is it going to be? Your way or God’s way?

I have made my decision. Come on in. The water is just the right temperature. You can swim in it, if you want to, and become a tree of life on the bank of the River of Life.

Brother, Sister, the dead sea of mankind is waiting for your decision.