You said you wanted Money? Well, was not the comfort which you thought money could give you, just that freedom from care and anxiety which we call Rest?—was it not really for this, and not for the money itself, you longed?
And you wanted Health? Is it not just because health would give you rest from pain and from continual weariness that it seems to you the best of all things? Does not Health for you really mean Rest?
And is it not because there is something that you are always longing to know and understand that you desire so much to have Knowledge? Is not your wish for it founded on the feeling that God gave you a mind and understanding which can only be satisfied by learning and knowing. Do you not really desire knowledge that your intellect may have some firm standing ground?—that it too may have Rest?
And most of all do not you who long for Love, long for it because you feel that to have some one beside you to feel for you and help you, to pray with and work with you through all the labours of this life, is the nearest approach to Rest that we can have on earth, except that deepest Rest which comes through feeling the constant nearness of Him who loves most of all, who “will never leave thee nor forsake thee” (Heb. xiii. 5). If then we can but look forward to Rest, are we not sure of having all that we need?
And it is just this that is promised to us in the text we read at the beginning, “There remaineth a Rest for the people of God.” God knows so well all our wants, and knows so well what will best supply them, that all through the Bible you will find beautiful promises about Rest. Let us look at a few of them. Job in the midst of his great troubles speaks of the future life as that “where the weary are at Rest” (Job. iii. 17). The prophet Jeremiah promises to those who will hear God’s will and seek to do it, that they “shall find Rest for their souls” (Jer. vi. 16). Our Lord Jesus Christ knew well about this deepest want in our nature when He spoke that most beautiful of invitations to all who heard Him on earth, and to all who read His words now, “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly of heart: and ye shall find Rest unto your souls” (Matt. xi. 28, 29).
And the whole argument of the chapter from which the text we are talking about is taken, is this, “Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into His Rest, any of us should seem to come short of it” (Heb. iv. 1).
But now let us ask what is implied or meant by those last words about “coming short of it?” What is meant by our Lord’s telling people that they must “take His yoke upon them” and be “meek and lowly of heart” if they would find Rest? What is meant when Rest is promised specially to the “people of God”?[God”?]
Now, if we believe that God loves us as He does, quite infinitely—more than we can even understand—we may be quite sure that He will always give us every good thing that He can—that He will never put any limit to His promises if He can help it—that He would like to give Rest and all other good things to everyone if it were possible.
We must never doubt for one moment God’s willingness to give us all good things, and to do all for us that it is possible for love to do. Remember what Christ says about that, “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven know how to give good things to them that ask Him (Matt. vii. 11). And again, “I say not that I will pray the Father for you; for the Father himself loveth you” (John xvi. 26, 27). And St. Paul tells us that “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him freely give us all things?” (Rom. viii. 32).
So you see that we may be quite sure that if we do not get this great blessing, Rest, it will not be because God is not willing to give it to us.