Our Rest Comes From Jesus

The rest that remains for the people of God.  

A. Therefore it remains that some must enter it: God did not create this place of rest in vain. If Israel (those to whom it was first preached) failed to enter because of disobedience, then someone else would enter into that rest.  

B. Today, if you will hear His voice: The appeal in Psalm 95:7-8 proves that there is a rest remaining for God’s people to enter, beyond the fulfillment under Joshua. If Joshua completely fulfilled the promise of rest, God’s appeal through David, saying “Today” makes no sense.  

C. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God: All this together proves the point that there is a rest for the people of God. This is a rest that is spiritual, yet patterned after the rest provided for Israel through Joshua.

 

• The mention of Joshua reminds us that the name “Jesus” is the same as “Joshua.” The second Joshua will finish what the first Joshua left unfinished. Jesus is greater than both Moses and the first Joshua.  


• This rest is in a person – in Jesus Christ, more than in doctrines and ideas. If you meet a troubled, crying child and try to comfort them and give them rest using ideas and logic, it won’t do much good. But when mommy comes, the child is happy again.  


• Those who preach this rest must possess it themselves. “Not long ago, one of our ministers was preaching upon salvation, and the work of the Spirit in the heart, when one of the congregation rose and asked him respectfully, ‘Sir, do you know all this by the report of others, or has this taken place in your own experience?’ The preacher was by no means put about by the question, but rather rejoiced in it; for he could honestly reply, ‘I have trusted Christ. I am saved, and I know and feel the peace which results there from.’ If he could not have made that solemn statement, he would have had no influence over the person who had put the question.” (Charles H. Spurgeon)    

Based on the Enduring Word Bible Commentary by David Guzik.