The Rest

[0:00] A Pastor's Reflections, The Rest, Exodus 16, 29 and 30. Abide you every man in his place. Let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.

[0:12] So the people rested on the seventh day. Psalms 37, 7. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him. Ephesians 2, 14.

[0:24] For he is our peace. I don't know of anyone who would refuse a chance to rest. In the physical, God has created us so that it is physically impossible to continue on in unceasing activity without periods of rest.

[0:41] We must either rest or die. As Israel journeys with God on their march of deliverance through the wilderness, God is teaching them some valuable lessons about who he is and who they now are in him.

[0:58] Israel has spent the last few centuries in Egypt as slaves. Rest was most certainly not a priority. As slaves, Israel was expected to work, not rest.

[1:10] To stay alive, they had to obey the demands of their taskmasters and keep on producing and working at the rate the Egyptians set for them. Having now been physically delivered from Egypt, Israel was still in the process of being delivered from the ideologies of their past life.

[1:29] For a people used to always working, rest did not come naturally. You and I have also lived our lives in Egypt. The Egypt that is this world.

[1:42] In the world, there is no place for rest. To make it in this world, we need to produce and progress. Those who get ahead are those who work when others are resting.

[1:54] In the world system, rest is most definitely not a priority. In God's economy, however, things are much different. Where we once worked to obtain, we are now told to rest in what another has obtained on our behalf.

[2:11] Where we once wore ourselves out to maintain our temporal treasures, we are now told to rest in eternal treasures, maintained at another's expense.

[2:22] God gives what the world cannot give, peace and rest. And he does it in a way that the world never would, freely.

[2:35] The next time you hear the still small voice of God offering you a rest, why not take it? Isaiah 28, 12.

[2:46] To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith you may cause the weary to rest, and this is the refreshing. Father, thank you for your unwearying love on my behalf.

[2:57] Thank you for the privilege of knowing what it is to rest in that love. In this weary world, help me to respond to your voice of rest. Amen.