Rest in Inheritance

Let’s go on to the next one because it’s very close. What I’ve written here is Rest in Inheritance which isn’t a complete sentence but I think it expresses it. The thrust of Hebrews is always forward. And in that connection there are three key words: inheritance, rest, perfection [or completeness]. And that’s the thrust of Hebrews. It’s always moving forward. Right at the beginning when it speaks about Jesus it says God made him the heir of all things. And by him God created the universe. Notice the heir comes before creation. The end comes before the beginning. That’s the thrust of Hebrews, it’s this dealing with religious people who are getting bogged down in their religion. The aim of Hebrews is to blast them out of that and get them moving forward. Let us go on, let us go on, that’s the thing. But the goal is inheritance, rest, perfection. They’re intertwined, you cannot separate them. Your rest is only in your inheritance. And only in your inheritance and in rest can you find perfection, completeness, fulfillment.

Let’s look at a couple of scriptures about rest and inheritance which, to me, are very searching.

Deuteronomy 12:9:
“For as yet you have not come to the rest and the inheritance which the Lord your God is giving you.”
You can check on that all through Deuteronomy which is the book that’s preparing them to go into their inheritance. The word rest is never separated from the word inheritance. In other words, there is no rest for people of God outside of their inheritance. There is no rest for any of you as an individual outside of your inheritance. It’s only as you come into your inheritance that you will find true rest. Again in Deuteronomy 25:19:

“Therefore it shall be when the Lord your God has given you rest from your enemies all around in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance.”

We don’t need to complete the sentence but the rest is only in the inheritance. Maybe we should say that together. The rest is only in the inheritance. So if you are restless, you need to find your inheritance. You cannot settle down, God would not let them settle down anywhere on the journey until they came into their inheritance.

Going on into the New Covenant, in the New Testament, Hebrews 4:9. I pointed out that in Hebrews 3 and 4 the word rest occurs twelve times and it doesn’t occur elsewhere in Hebrews. It’s concentrated in these two chapters. And in chapter 4:9:

“There remains therefore a rest for the people of God.”

Most of your translations will say a sabbath rest. It means a keeping of the sabbath. As I said, I think earlier in one of these meetings, the devil can delay the fulfillment of God’s purposes but never ultimately frustrate them. So God patiently goes on saying someday, my people are going to enter into that rest. Under Joshua they failed. David then spoke about it in Psalm 95 and the writer of Hebrews says it’s still there waiting for the people of God. A Sabbath rest.

And in that connection I would like to say a little bit more about rest. I think this perhaps is an area in which most ministers come short of God’s purpose. It’s the area of rest. God said to Israel when they were disobedient under the Old Covenant, you didn’t give your land its Sabbath while you were in so I’m evicting you for seventy years and the land will get its Sabbath while you’re out of it. I said to many ministers, If you don’t take your Sabbath while you’re working, God will put you in hospital and you’ll take a whole three months of Sabbath without anything else.

Now, how do we take a Sabbath? This is a very interesting question and difficult one to answer. When Ruth and I are in Jerusalem—Jerusalem is about the only city in the world today, I think, where Sabbath is taken seriously. And as you know the Jewish day which is the right way, begins in the evening. One thing I’ll tell you is if you want a day of rest, start the previous evening. It’ll make it much more successful. God knew what he was doing when he said the evening and the morning is day one, day two and so on. Because by the beginning of the morning you’re already rested. If you start trying to rest then it will take you a long while to get into it. Well, in Jerusalem, all public transportation ceases at sundown on Friday and does not resume till Saturday. And all public construction on buildings and things ceases. There’s a kind of hush that comes over the city and it’s one of the most beautiful experiences that I’ve enjoyed. Ruth and I look forward to it. One of the lessons is that Sabbath only works if it’s communal. If you are resting and everybody around you is busy, you know, how much rest is there? You can get some but it’s not the same. So we’re jealous of our Sabbath in Israel. We almost count them up and look forward to them.

In this connection I would say myself that I believe God only gave the Sabbath as such as described in the Law of Moses only to Israel. The church has a Sabbath but it’s a different kind of Sabbath. God said at the end of Leviticus that the Sabbath would be a sign between him and Israel. And historically, the keeping of the Sabbath has kept the Jews a separate people more distinctively than any other single ordinance. In fact, if they had not observed the Sabbath I doubt whether there would be a discernible Jewish people in the earth today. It’s just to see God’s wisdom and his purposes worked out.

If you’re not privileged to live in Jerusalem you can just you know, feel mildly envious but you can’t do much more about it than that because in contemporary America everything is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and the traffic never ceases, the people never begin to rest. It is the most restless society that has ever exited I would say. And it automatically infects us. Let me share a little about this because it’s been a real issue with me. I have preached to our own fellowship in Fort Lauderdale on how to observe a Sabbath as a community. And I think it’s a very desirable thing to do. In most, quote, Christian environments you more or less have to make it Sunday. But I would say begin Saturday evening. If you’re not familiar with Jewish culture the Sabbath is called the queen of the week. And Seventh Day Adventists as far as I know keep the Sabbath and hate it. The Jews love it, they welcome it. They treat it with honor. It’s the queen. They have the phrase in honor of the Sabbath. And they begin on Friday evening with a very well prepared evening meal. It’s the best meal of the week. Poor families can probably only have one good meal a week but it will always be the Friday evening meal. The person who bears the burden of the Sabbath is the wife and the mother. She has to get the house clean, the children clean, dressed up and ready. But, she’s also the queen of the Sabbath.

And again, I think, one tremendous source of strength for the Jewish people is that so much of their religion is centered in their homes and not just in their meeting place. The woman doesn’t have much to do in a synagogue. If she goes she sits separately and in some places behind some kind of a curtain. But in her home she’s the queen. And again, this has undoubtedly preserved the Jewish people and given them their closeness which has kept them in all the centuries of dispersion. The miracle of the preservation of the Jewish people is something you would do well to meditate on. My first wife was Danish and she used to say if you scattered the Danes among the nations of the world, in a 100 years you wouldn’t find a Dane anywhere in the world.

The Jewish people have been scattered 2000 years and emerge again a distinct, recognizable, separate people. When Balaam looked out over Israel and made his unwilling prophecy of blessing, he said this:

“The people, Israel, shall dwell alone, they shall not be reckoned among the nations.”

The highest will of God was for Israel to dwell alone in their own land. But even if they failed that the second remains true, they shall not be reckoned among the nations, the Gentiles. And wherever you go, any part of America, the Jewish people are still not reckoned amongst the nation. That’s a miracle. To me it’s one of the most wonderful confirmations of the accuracy and authority of God’s word. That it rules history.

That’s something we need to understand. It’s the word of God that rules history. God told Jeremiah, he said I will watch over my word to see that it’s fulfilled. Even if my people forget, even if they don’t believe, I will watch over my word to see that it’s fulfilled.

How do you deal with the telephone? The telephone and true rest are almost incompatible. If you haven’t a way of dealing with the telephone you’ll be a restless person—in America. Do you have the strength of character to unplug the phone? Praise God. Basically I don’t think you have much of a prayer life until you know how to deal with the telephone. Now I realize people who are in pastoral responsibility, somebody has got to be available. I think the best idea is have a pastor on duty one week at a time like a hospital has a doctor on duty. Anybody who wants anybody gets him. I will not let the telephone dictate to me. I’m not in pastoral ministry, I realize I have a difference.

Another thing we have observed in some of the fellowships that I’m related to is that the people that enjoy the Sabbath most are the children. They take to it the quickest and they’re disappointed if it isn’t observed. The children come into their own, too. They like to have an evening in which they have got to be really well dressed. And not to go out but to enjoy their home. How many children enjoy home today? I don’t think there are many. Their excitement is going out somewhere else. It says in Hebrews, “Let us labor to enter into that rest.” That’s so true. I mean, it’s the hardest working day of the week for the mother. She’s got to get everything ready to rest. She doesn’t have five minutes rest throughout the day because everything has got to be lined up because when the Sabbath horn sounds you’ve got to stop if you’re an Orthodox Jewess or Jew.

I was speaking in a meeting in London recently which was a Christian meeting organized by a group called Prayer for Israel. An Orthodox Jewess who was in charge of a hospital in Jerusalem for the mentally handicapped agreed to come and speak about her work. And it was held on a Saturday so she said, “I can’t travel on a Saturday” but she said, “I’ll reserve a room in a hotel near enough to the meeting place. I can walk there.” She did. You probably may not be aware but there are still Jewish people, multitudes of them and not just ultra-Orthodox that wear the special clothes who observe the Sabbath meticulously. In a certain sense, there is a certain kind of holiness about it. I’m not saying it’s the same as the holiness that comes through commitment to Jesus but I have met men and women in the ranks of Judaism who I would have to call, in a sense, holy people. The law for them is a sanctifying influence. I’m not suggesting that we follow that pattern, it’s not for us. It’s only for Israel. I’m sure that may trouble some of you, your theories or your theology, but the problem with the people who have that theory and that theology is that they don’t have any contact with Jews. I had all sorts of theories about Catholics until I met them. Then I discovered there were lots of Catholics who didn’t fit into my theories about Catholics at all.

But I want to come back to this theme of rest. Just as a matter of interest, I don’t want to embarrass anybody. How many people here are in a Christian community which does observe some kind of weekly Sabbath? That’s interesting. Let me ask you, are you happy about it? I would think so. But it’s very difficult to do it in America. I hope it will interest you to share a little bit of the Jewish attitude to the Sabbath. It’s mind expanding. First of all, they always point out the first thing God sanctified was not a place but time. And they talk about the Sabbath as a cathedral in time.

Another interesting thing is that when God told Israel how much he wanted of their material wealth he settled for 1/10. But when he told them how much he wanted of their time he demanded 1/7. And I think that is a principle, not the exact proportion, but the principle. God wants more of our time than our material wealth. Furthermore, how many of you would agree that it’s much easier to handle money than it is to handle time? That’s right. I really don’t believe the majority of Christians are at all successful in handling time. I think we’re going to have to learn that time has to be sanctified. That God requires time that’s been made holy. One of the root concepts of sanctification is setting something apart exclusively to God.

I do think somehow or other we have to learn to set time apart for God. And if you practice tithing, normally it’s the first 1/10, isn’t it? Before anything else. Well I think we have to see the same principle with time. The first time belongs to God. All else is secondary. Now how you do that I’m not going to try to tell you because it’s individual, it’s personal. But if you don’t grasp the principle you’re always going to be short of time. How many of us have ever had a struggle, Lord, if I give you a 1/10 of my rather small income I’m not going to have enough left. But it never has worked out that way, has it? And it’s the same with time. You say, God, I don’t have time. God says try giving me some and see what will happen with the rest.

Ruth and I have been concerned that we weren’t enjoying the fullness of health that we felt was our portion. We do pretty well as I think you can see. We have a very demanding schedule and we hardly ever fail to keep it. This past year I did have to cancel some commitments because of ill health but that’s the first time I’ve done it for probably fifteen years I would say. We began to seek God—and this is an example of praying things through before they happen—as to what way we could increase our enjoyment of health. I’ll share with you the two results that we felt the Lord gave us.

The first I will share is that I felt the Lord showed me that there can be in us a fifth column. Something that when the enemy comes from the outside, opens the door—you know what a fifth column is, do you? Let me tell you. I forget that some of you are not as old as I am. The phrase fifth column has got a very interesting history. It was coined in l936 when there was a civil war in Spain and in that situation a certain Spanish general was besieging a Spanish city and a second general came to him and said, "What is your plan to take this city?" And he said, "I have four columns attacking the city, one from the north, one from the south, one from the east, and one from the west." Then he paused and added, "but it’s my fifth column I’m expecting to take the city." The second general said, "Where is your fifth column?" And he said, "Inside the city." That was the origin of the phrase the fifth column.

Well then in World War II in certain countries, particularly France, where there was a government that cooperated with the Nazis, and it was led by Marshal Petain, he was considered to be a fifth columnist. And interestingly enough, at one point the German occupying commander demanded that all the newspapers print the photograph of Marshal Petain on the front page so they all did but they all put it in the fifth column. So that’s the concept. The fifth column is the force inside the city that will cooperate with the ones who are attacking from the outside.

Well I have realized for years that the problem with Christians is the fifth column. Whether it’s the church collectively or the individual. Jesus said the prince of this world comes and has nothing in me. There was no fifth column in Jesus, Satan could not defeat him. But it’s a very far reaching thing. And when I get into this I always wonder how I’m going to get out of it. This is recent, this is last year. I felt the Lord indicated that sometimes there is a fifth column within us that when sickness attacks from without, opens the door. See, in the ministry of deliverance I’ve learned there are certain demons that hold the doors open for others. I’ll tell you the names of two of them, resentment and self pity. Their job is to let others in. And if you don’t eliminate them, you haven’t solved the person’s problem.

As I began to deal with this issue in my own life I thought to myself, "I thought I have eliminated every fifth column." And believe me, that was a long process in my life because I had been deeply involved in yoga. And once you open up to the occult you don’t have any idea the ramifications that it will produce inside you.

But I felt I dealt with all those. I also dealt with depression. The first time I ever really came to grips personally with a demon, it was depression and I was delivered from it. But I still felt there was something and I felt that somehow it related to my father who is now no longer in this world. He was a good man, an army officer, a very upright, very honorable, but had a tremendous problem with depression himself. And when I was delivered from depression, it was very clear to me that it was through my father that I had come under that demon. My first wife Lydia said to me after my father died, she said, you’re a different person since your father died. Now I had never myself felt any different. But the Lord has been generally opening up to me the tremendous significance of inheritance. Our contemporary psychology and sociology has completely minimized it but it is now changing because it’s been faced with facts it cannot deny.

But setting that aside, I’ve come to the conclusion that multitudes of people are in some way still under the power of inheritance from the past. I can say this safely here, being British and you people being American, there’s a tremendous kind of gloominess in the British inheritance. Britain is a country of old, musty churches, old haunted castles, ghosts and so on. Don’t underestimate ghosts. There are lots of them. And there’s a kind of an absence of joy. A great tendency towards pessimism. At any rate, as I prayed and sought God it seemed to me that there was some dark fountain in my inheritance which had never been sealed off. It was hard for me to accept that because of all that I’d been through in getting disconnected from the past. So I asked the Lord to show me and the word he gave me was pessimism. Well know I knew I’d been a pessimist but when I was delivered from depression the Lord showed me I could retrain my mind and I didn’t have to stay a pessimist. And I’m not a pessimist today, I’m an optimistic person. That’s a process of retraining. But I had an experience over the years when I would wake up in the morning with a sense of foreboding, something dark. Now I’ve learned how to deal with that. You begin to praise the Lord, quote scripture and you can dispel it. But the Lord really seemed to show me I didn’t need to wake up with that sense. And there was still I would call, a dark stream of pessimism flowing out of my inheritance. From my father, and not just from my father but from my total British inheritance. And so, very simply I renounced it and I cut it off and something happened very specific. And I don’t have that sense of foreboding. I knew how to handle it but I’ve often said to people sometimes we expend a lot of spiritual energy dealing with something that doesn’t need to be there. So I share that with you. Now how did I get that.

The second thing that God showed us about living in health is to move in rhythm with God. That God has a sense of rhythm. God is a musician. It’s not just a rock beat, there’s a whole lot of variety in the Lord’s tempo. And that success and health and the minimum wastage of energy comes in moving in rhythm with God. And that means among other things when God says rest, you rest. I’m not talking just about observing a day in the week because I’ve discovered if you’re getting tense and overworked, God may say take the evening off. And then you say, but God, I’ve got so much to do by such and such a time. Well, who knows best? Let me ask you this? Which takes more faith? To rest or to work? It’s easy to work, difficult to rest. I think probably the most challenging issue that I can put before you at the moment is that of rest. Bearing in mind that you can only rest in your inheritance. If you’re out of your inheritance you will know no real rest. But even in your inheritance it’s going to take faith.

Study the concept of Sabbath. I don’t believe Christians can observe the Sabbath because there’s only one way to observe the Sabbath if you’re going to and it’s the way Moses said. Moses said when he gave the law, don’t add to it, don’t take from it. You are not permitted to kindle fire, you are not permitted to carry a burden, you are not permitted to travel any distance . . . So don’t kid yourself if you’re observing the Sabbath, do it the complete job; otherwise, don’t do it at all. For a community to have a collective Sabbath I think is a beautiful thing if it works. But it’s not observing the law of Moses. It’s taking a principle and applying it by the leading of the Holy Spirit. But face the whole challenge of rest. Take a concordance, look up the word rest, follow it through. Look up the word Sabbath. God always said to Israel, I’ve given you my Sabbath. He never said I imposed on you. And Israel basically has always viewed the Sabbath as one of the most precious gifts that God ever gave them. So when God talks about rest, say thank you Lord, for this gift.

Don’t say, "How am I going to get my assignments complete?" God can inspire you. You may have a sermon to prepare, you rest and find that you can do it in one quarter of the time and do it better. The basis is faith. We who have believed enter into rest. If you don’t believe you never will enter into rest. And I would suggest this: cultivate sensing God’s rhythm in your life. Isaiah 40: those that wait upon the Lord do renew their strength. Our strength is not going to be sufficient. We’re going to have to draw on the Lord’s strength.

Where it says they shall renew their strength, the Hebrew says exchange strength. In other words, I believe we exchanged God’s strength for ours as we wait upon him. God’s people are a waiting people. I don’t know whether you have ever thought about that. It says in 1 Thessalonians 1:9–10:

“For they themselves declare concerning us, what manner of entry we had to you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven.”

I wonder if you’ve ever noticed that? The two marks of the Christian life, to serve God and to wait for his son. God’s people are a waiting people. We should be an expectant people. To him that expect him he will appear the second time. One of the things that distinguishes us from the people of the world is that we’re waiting for something. It’s not just serving. It’s serving and waiting.