Hear the
words of the author of the book of Hebrews.
At the beginning of the fourth chapter they read, Since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of
you seem to have come short of it . . . But we who have believed do enter that
rest. Following this we are told, He has spoken in a certain place of the
seventh day in this way: And God rested on the seventh day from all His works.
For the
child born of God, there eventually will come faith; but at some time later,
FAITH will need to be expressed. It
takes but a small amount of faith for one brought up in the tenets of
Christianity, to believe that we can ask God to cause us to be born of His seed
– and it will be done. However, this is
not the same caliber of faith that is needed in order for the believer to enter
His rest.
There was a
day when God, after creating everything but one thing, said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to
Our likeness. It was done. The evening and the morning were the sixth
day. All of creation was finished. And on the seventh day God rested from all
His works. Do you know what? I believe that when God entered His Rest,
surely He entered it to stay. And no
power in the universe will ever bring Him out from it. I believe that when our God came into His
rest on the Seventh Day, that He entered an eternal rest. I’m sure that this is why the scriptures never
speak to us of an eighth day. It is
because He is forever at rest in the Seventh Day. Do not even the days of the week become a
witness to us in this matter? In the
world in which we live there runs seven days – one right after the other. However, when we get to the end of our
seventh day, it does not become eternal, as does our Maker’s seventh day. Instead we begin all over again with day
one. And so, round and round we go. Solomon knew of this concept: One generation passes away, and another generation
comes. The sun also rises, and the sun
goes down, and hastens to the place where it arose. The wind goes toward the south, and turns
around to the north; the wind whirls about continually, and comes again on its
circuit. And such are the seven days of the week.
So what’s
new? This is what’s new. One day we are going to join our King and
Creator in that eternal day of rest. But
actually we will be quite busy – and loving it; for His rest you see is going
to be within us. Still there is more good
news – this being that we do not have to wait to leave this world in order to
enter God’s rest. In the fourth chapter
of Hebrews we are informed both in verse one and verse six that we have been
invited even now to join our Lord and Saviour in this Rest. In fact, our Father in heaven really doesn’t
appreciate taking no for an answer.
After all, His Son had paid a tremendously heavy price, so that every
believer can even now come to abide in His Rest. So why is it that we choose the
alternative? The alternative is slave
labor – hard and cruel punishment put upon us by the enemy of our soul. And his favorite weapon is the lie. By way of the lie he causes us to worry; he causes
us to fear; through his deception we are convinced that we are useless, inferior,
undesirable, and the list goes on. To
live day after day, and to struggle beneath the weight of all of his lies,
becomes tremendously hard work. This is
the exact opposite of the life-style that we have been called to live.
In the book
of Hebrews, chapter seven, verse five, we read that those who have come to make
up the Hebrew nation have all come from the loins of Abraham. If this is true, then every man, woman and
child, that has ever walked upon our globe, have all come from the loins of Adam. Adam unarguably was created in the sixth day;
and so weren’t we all? It could then be
that on our darkest day, every one of us chose to eat of that tree. Still, the point I’d like to make is that man
was created of God in the last day of the works of His hands. Yet it was never the will of the Almighty for
us to remain in that day. Instead He has
called for us to cross over into the Eternal Rest of the Seventh Day. And in this do we rise to the highest heights
of the New Covenant of our God. It is
for this that the Son had died – so that Eternal Life in Him would be ours,
even as it is His. Now we have become
abandoned unto Him – our very Life being hidden away in His own. From the day of the flesh to the Day of the
Spirit has He brought us. The work has
been done. Now all of the universe is
made glad – and to this will there be no end.
J. Pecoraro
