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Mark 4:35-41
"Come
unto Me, . . . and I will give you rest," i.e., build you
up into a stable life in which there is neither weariness nor cessation
from activities. The Bible never glorifies our natural conception of
things; it does not use the words "rest" and "joy" and
"peace" as we use them, and our common-sense interpretation of
words must be keyed up to the way God uses them, otherwise we lose the
"humour" of God.
The incident recorded in Mark
4:35-41 is not an incident in the life of a man, but in the life of God as
Man. This Man asleep in the boat is God Incarnate. Jesus had said to the
disciples, "Let us go over unto the other
side", but when the storm arose, instead of relying upon
Him, they failed Him. The actual circumstances were so crushing that their
common sense was up in alarm, their panic carried them off their feet, and
in terror they awoke Him. When we are in fear, we can do nothing less than
pray to God, but our Lord has the right to expect of those who name His
Name and have His nature in them an understanding confidence in Him.
Instead of that, when we are at our wits’ end we go back to the
elementary prayers of those who do not know Him, and prove that we have
not the slightest atom of confidence in Him and in His government of the
world: He is asleep—the tiller is not in His hand, and we sit down in
nervous dread. God expects His children to be so confident in Him that in
a crisis they are the ones upon whom He can rely. A great point is reached
spiritually when we stop worrying God over personal matters or over any
matter. God expects of us the one thing that glorifies Him—and that is
to remain absolutely confident in Him, remembering what He has said
beforehand, and sure that His purposes will be fulfilled.
Always beware of the thing
that shuts you up but does not convince you—common sense will do that.
What is common sense worth in such a crisis as is symbolized here? It
simply disturbs God. In this incident our Lord answered the disciples’
cry, but He rebuked them for their lack of faith, "Why
are ye fearful? have ye not yet faith?" What a pang
must have shot through their hearts—"Missed it again!" And
what a pang will come through our hearts when we realize we have done the
same thing, when we might have produced downright joy in the heart of
Jesus by remaining absolutely confident in Him, no matter what was ahead.
The joy that a believer can give to God is the purest pleasure God ever
allows a saint, and it is very humiliating to realize how little joy we do
give Him. We put our trust in God up to a certain point, then we say,
"Now I must do my best." There are times when there is no human
best to be done, when the Divine best must be left to work, and God
expects those of us who know Him to be confident in His ability and power.
We have to learn what these fishermen learned, that the Carpenter of
Nazareth knew better than they did how to manage the boat. Is Jesus Christ
a Carpenter, or is He God to me? If He is only man, why let Him take the
tiller of the boat? Why pray to Him? But if He be God, then be heroic
enough to go to the breaking-point and not break in your confidence in
Him.
If we have faith at all it
must be faith in Almighty God; when He has said a thing, He will perform
it; we have to remain steadfastly obedient to Him. Are we learning to be
silent unto God, or are we worrying Him with needless prayers? In this
terrific crisis of war many of us have lost our wits, we see only breakers
ahead, with nothing for us to do but watch the whole thing go to ruin; and
yet He said—"Let us go over unto the other
side". Just as a general looks for the man who keeps his
head in the fight, so the Lord looks for the man who will keep his faith
in Him. "When the Son of man cometh, shall
He find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8). There is no more
glorious opportunity than the day in which we live for proving in personal
life and in every way that we are confident in God.
The stars do their work
without fuss; God does His work without fuss, and saints do their work
without fuss. The people who are always desperately active are a nuisance;
it is through the saints who are one with Him that God is doing things all
the time. The broken and the jaded and the twisted are being ministered to
by God through the saints who are not overcome by their own panic, who
because of their oneness with Him are absolutely at rest, consequently He
can work through them. A sanctified saint remains perfectly confident in
God, because sanctification is not something the Lord gives me, sanctification
is Himself in me. There is only one holiness, the holiness of
God, and only one sanctification, the sanctification that has its origin
in Jesus Christ. "But of Him are ye in
Christ Jesus, Who was made unto us . . . sanctification"
(1 Corinthians 1:30). A sanctified saint is at leisure from himself and
his own affairs, confident that God is bringing all things out well.
Spiritual realities can always be
counterfeited. "Rest in the Lord" can be turned into pious
"rust" in sentiment. What is all our talk about sanctification
going to amount to? It should amount to that rest in God which means a
oneness with Him such as Jesus had—not only blameless in God’s sight,
but a deep joy to Him. God grant we may be.
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The
Theology of Rest