It is very difficult to know
exactly where to break in in this chapter, this 116th Psalm,
and I think probably I asked you to turn back there. If I
didn't, why I will at this time. But I want to speak this morning
primarily upon verse 7 and verse 8, where the psalmist says, Return
unto thy rest, O my soul, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully
with thee. For thou hast delivered my soul
from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. Now the subject then this morning
is returning unto our rest. You who have not believed in
our Lord Jesus Christ, then you have no rest to which you can
return. for you've never found any rest,
really, in this world. There is a measure of what men
call rest and contentment, I suppose, in this world, but it's very
short-lived, and certainly it is not that eternal rest which
we must find if we're going to spend eternity with our Lord. And so I exhort you this morning,
if you're not a believer, If you're not one who is in Christ,
if you do not hope in the Lord Jesus, if he's not your rest,
if he's not your Sabbath, you know the Sabbath is a day of
rest, but the Lord Jesus is our Sabbath. We have not necessarily
a day to keep, but a person to honor. Christ is our rest, and
those who have come to the Lord Jesus they have found the true
rest in him, rest for their soul, rest and contentment of heart,
knowing that in him they found all that God has demanded of
them. So may God grant you today, to
this day, to have grace to look unto Christ, that you may find
rest under your souls. Matthew 11 and 28 says, Come
unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest. I will give you rest. You can't
buy it. He won't just lend it to you,
but He will give it to you. He will not rent it to you, but
He'll give it to you. He said, I'll give you rest.
But we who believe in him do enter into rest. Now in the word
of God we are sometimes described as those who are pilgrimaging
and are journeying through this world, this wilderness
of sin. And we're towards Canaan. We're
pressing toward the promised land. And this type, I believe,
is quite allowable. We'll not press this too far,
but we believe it is allowable. God's people are on their way
to that land of Canaan, that land of which the land of Canaan
was a type. And we're on our way. In another
sense, we have already entered into our rest. We have already
entered into our rest. We're not just waiting until
we get to the land of Canaan. Some people may say, well, we
expect to find rest in eternity. We expect to find rest when we
get home with the Lord. Well, I certainly believe we'll
find it there too, but the scripture teaches that we have already,
if we're believers, entered into our rest. We've entered into
the Canaan of which our Joshua has given unto us. You know Moses
and the law could not lead the people of God into the promised
land. He was not able to do that, but
we have one. We know Joshua finally led the
people in, and Joshua, the word Joshua is Jesus, and Jesus is
the one who has led us into our rest, and we've already by faith
entered into that rest. Jesus has brought us in, and
we now have our portion and our inheritance in the covenant blessings
which God has provided for his people in his son, the Lord Jesus
Christ. We already have them. We have
them in possession in our hearts. We have them through faith because
the Lord Jesus has purchased them and he has given them unto
us. Now God's people, when they are
as they ought to be, and this is very important that you see
this, are in a state of rest even now. When God's people are
as they ought to be, are in a state of rest even now, meaning that
we have rest in our soul, that we're no longer disturbed about
our sin, we're no longer disturbed about eternity, we're no longer
disturbed about our sanctification in this life, we're not disturbed,
we're resting in the Lord our righteousness And we're fully
content and fully believing that our God is able to present us
with ecstatic joy to the Father with joy. And so we are content
and we are at rest even now. Now I do not mean that they'll
have rest so far as this world is concerned. That the people
of God will have rest as for as this war because the Bible
says in Malachi 2 10 that this is not your rest So as far as
the world is concerned, we still have our ups and downs. We still
have our upheavals We still have the plague of the flesh and we
still have in this world many many things that try our souls
even unto sometimes even unto despair and We have a great deal
of trouble in this world, and so we may have in this world
some unsettled situations because this is not our rest. This is
not our final resting place. The Bible says it's polluted,
and so therefore this world is not that which is our final rest. But in our souls, we do have
rest. And that is one of the covenant
blessings. I do mean, as Paul said in Romans
8 and 1, he says, there is therefore now no condemnation to them which
are in Christ Jesus. That's what I mean. I mean that
if you're in Christ, there's no judgment awaiting you and
there's no unrest as to your sin or as to your eternal blessing
in the future. And then also in Romans 5 and
1 it says being justified by faith we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ. So we have a peace, we have a
rest because we're trusting in the Lord. We're resting ourselves
and our souls upon his promises and that peace includes rest
and It includes especially that peace of God, which passeth all
understanding, which Paul says will keep your hearts and your
minds through Christ Jesus. So that's the rest that the Lord's
people have right now. We've entered in to our rest. If I'm addressing any who have
for a while lost the enjoyment of this blessed rest, and certainly
there are many, many of us that do from time to time. I was talking with a young fellow
the other evening who is a believer in Christ, and we were going
over some of the blessings of the gospel and some of the glorious
mercies that we find in Jesus Christ, our substitute, and he
said, you know, I forgot that. You know, I'd forgotten that.
We were talking about our standing in Christ and and how that the
Lord Jesus had lived a perfect life under the law, and that
was a vicarious life. It was for me He did that, and
that I had kept the law of God perfectly in Him, and that the
law of God now was my friend because I was standing in Christ,
and the law could no longer condemn me because my life is hit with
God in Christ. and the law has nothing against
Christ, and I'm in Him, and He is looked upon by God as being
me, and therefore the law has nothing against me. It cannot
no longer condemn me. It can no longer do any harm
to me and to my soul." And he said, you know, I'd forgotten
that, and there were several things as we went along, he just
kept saying, you know, I'd lost track of that. And he just was
rejoicing in his heart because of the blessing of the gospel.
And so if I am today addressing any here who have lost the enjoyment
of this blessed rest, the message of the text is, return unto thy
rest, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee. Return
unto thy rest, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.
I think sometimes that one of the ways the Lord directs us
to a subject to preach on is when we feel the need so keenly
ourselves. And I certainly have felt in
the last few weeks the need to return unto my rest. because
of the various upheavals and the difficulties of life. And
here David, in this psalm, he said in verse 3, the sorrows
of death compassed me and the pains of hell got hold upon me. I found trouble and I found sorrow. And he said in verse 4, he said,
I beseech thee, deliver my soul. Gracious is the Lord, righteous
ye are, God is merciful. The Lord preserveth the simple.
I was brought low, and he helped me. I was brought low, and the
Lord helped me. And so the admonition is then,
return unto thy rest, O my soul. Many of the great truths of God,
you let them slip. Maybe this is the time when you
should return unto your rest. Now the first thing then for
us to remember is that the believer really does have down deep in
his soul, he has his rest. He has his rest. It's not that
we're without it. that we seemingly have lost the
enjoyment that we had before, we do have it. It is there. Return unto thy rest, O my soul. There is a position or an experience
in which the believer's heart is perfectly at rest. Now in 2 Corinthians chapter
13 and verse 14, I invite you to turn there and I'd like for
you to look at this verse and maybe keep your Bibles open there
for a little bit while we look at this verse. 2 Corinthians
chapter 13 and verse 14 where we read, the grace of the Lord
Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the
Holy Ghost be with you all. Amen. Now this is a verse of
scripture that Many, we call it the apostolic benediction,
and many are accustomed to dismiss their services or their assemblies
by reading or quoting this verse. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you
all. Amen. The soul has true rest
of heart who abides in the spirit of these words. Now let's look
at this and spend just a few moments here thinking about this
verse of scripture. First of all, the rest of the
heart comes to us through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, we generally speak of Christ
as being the second person of the Holy Trinity, but in this
benediction, the Lord Jesus is put first because to our experience,
he is first. To our experience, he's first.
Now, you know that we're sinners by nature. And you know that
no man can come to God except he have a mediator, somebody
to stand between him and God. And so when we as sinners start
toward God, we've got to come first to who? We have to come
to the Lord Jesus Christ because he is the mediator and you can't
get to God until you get to him. And he's the one who can reach
out and take your hand as a guilty vile sinner and reach out with
the other hand and grasp the holy God of heaven and unite
us unto him. He's the one that can bring us
together with God. And the scripture says that no
man can come to the Father except by me, John 14 and 6. And the
way we got to the Father is through the Son. So to us, Christ is
first because that's the way that His grace works in us. Now when we've come to Him, we've
found His grace. And that grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and this is the foundation, this is the very foundation of
our rest, is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. This grace
covers all our sin. The grace of God covers all our
guilt, all of our sin. And the grace of God justifies
us in the sight of God. It gives us a standing. Mike
mentioned this when he prayed this morning, just as if we'd
never committed a sin before God. It gives us a right standing
before God. And if you're a sinner here today,
condemned in heart, because of the vileness and because of the
corruption of your own sin, because of the waywardness and the rebellion
of your own heart, there is a way that you can find acceptance
with God and have right standing with God, and that is through
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now then, When we have found
this grace, we have rest. We have rest because sin cannot
any longer disturb us, for it is drowned in the red sea of
his atoning sacrifice. So sin can't disturb us anymore.
We have found rest It cannot disturb us. Now listen to me.
If Jesus died for sin, and I was in him when he died, then his
death was my death to sin. And so I've died to sin. And
I'm alive now, but I'm alive in newness of life. I serve the
Lord God by the blessed Holy Spirit. And sin can no longer
disturb us. Now, not only that, but also
our necessities, whatever they be in this life, should not distress
us, for they're all supplied by God. God, through his grace,
supplies all the needs of his people. God is able to make all
grace, Paul said, abound toward you, that you, always having
all sufficiency, may be able to abound unto every good work. And in Philippians 4 and 19,
Paul said, but my God shall supply all of your need according to
his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. And so, beloved, when
we're talking about being on the foundation of God's grace,
we're talking about God's favor toward us, that favor being unmerited
on our part, but that favor so real that it covers our sin and
it also covers the necessities of life in that God gives us
all that we need. He provides for his people. He bestows upon his people all
they need. Nothing need perplex or afflict
as you believe what the Lord tells you in promise and precept
in his word. Now David said that he believed,
he believed God. He says, I believe and therefore
have I spoken. I've been saying what I've said
in the 116th Psalm because I believe what God said, therefore I speak. And if you believe what God says,
Then, beloved, you'll find a foundation for your rest. This, then, is
the first rest of the believer, which comes through the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, second, there's a further
rest for us who believe, and it's in the love of God. Notice
here in this verse, it says, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
and the love of God, and the love of God. Now, then, this
is a foundation For I rest, the love of God. Have you heard him
say, I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with
lovingkindness have I drawn thee? Or this, thou wast precious in
my sight, thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee, therefore
will I give men for thee, and people for thy life? Or this,
Fear not, for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy
name, thou art mine. When thou passest through the
waters, I will be with thee, and through the rivers they shall
not overflow thee. When thou walkest through the
fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle
upon thee, for I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel,
thy Savior. Oh, what a blessed rest! comes
to us and springs out of the electing love and the adopting
love of our Heavenly Father. Beloved, we've said it before,
we'll say it again, that if God loves you, you're well off. You're
well off. You can rest yourself in the
love of God. The love of God cannot be purchased.
The love of God is free, and God loves us freely, but the
love of God is found in the Lord Jesus Christ and in him alone. And if you want rest, find it
through the grace of God and through the everlasting love
of God our Father. Jesus said, he that loveth me
shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him and will
manifest myself to him. Now then, this gives us rest
with regard to our position here in this world. God loves us.
We're loved by God and we've been favored by his grace. And we ought not be troubled
by affliction because we know that whatever is sent to us is
sent to us in love and sent to us by and through the wisdom
of our God. Now, oftentimes we question that. Somebody said, well, you know,
I have had so many disappointments. And I suppose that many of us
could say that. So many disappointments in this
world. But do you know that the troubles and the afflictions
that are sent, the disappointments that come into our lives, are
sanctified by the God who loves us. And they're sent for the
good, the spiritual development of our lives. I was reading Thomas
Bradbury recently, and he made a statement which I wrote down,
which is one that I wanted to give you here this morning. He
said, all human disappointments will eventually result in the
display of the stability of all God's appointments and the perfection
of his wisdom and his prudence. Let me give that to you again.
We're in this world, we're afflicted, we don't understand why, we have
troubles we can't explain, and we have so many difficulties
that we don't hardly know how to get around them or get over
them, and we have so many, many sorrows, and emotionally sometimes
we're a wreck, and we wonder about them, and so we need to
consider this truth, and it's so important that we do that,
that the love of God controls all things toward his people. And all human disappointments,
he said, will eventually result in the display of the stability
of all God's appointments and the perfection of all of his
wisdom and prudence. And so as the Lord's people,
we can believe that and trust that and rest our souls in the
doing of it. Now then, we ought not be concerned
about the future, for it and all its concerns are in the hands
of this God of love, this God that controls all things. You
remember when David said, He said, my times are in your hands.
I preached a sermon here some time back on that verse of scripture,
my times are in thy hands. And there was a Mennonite fellow
that got a hold of it. And in his family, there had
been a death, an accidental death, they called it, up in Canada. logging accident. And so they
got a hold of that tape and between Fairfield, Montana and Calgary
or up in that area where they drove to the funeral, they played
that tape three times because it was a tape wherein we dealt
with the fact that our times are in God's hands. Our time
of birth, our time of life, who our parents were, all things
about our situation was in God's hands. The time of our death,
all in God's hands. The afflictions that come during
our stay in this world, all in God's hands. And so it was a
great blessing to that family to hear that tape, and they argued
about it a great deal. Some of the old preachers up
there listened to it also, some of the old Mennonite preachers.
And they said, that man is preaching the second blessing. But we cannot
deny that what he's preaching, it certainly is right. But he's preaching the second
blessing. I said there ain't no second blessing about it. It's just
the word of God. It's what the word of God teaches.
And then they come back and they had a big row in the church over
there on Fifth Lane because they didn't believe that a man could
preach. They didn't believe a man could preach and that knew anything.
You couldn't know anything unless you was a Mennonite. But they
all, they had a big row about it and these fellows said, He
preached the truth. And Mr. Bear said, he said, we
just could not believe that anybody could be, that somebody could
be preaching like that in our area. But we take note that he
had been here. Of course, he moved right after
that to Kentucky. But nevertheless, our times are
in God's hands. And if God loves his people,
and we know he does because he gave Christ for us, why then,
whatever comes to us, we're not to be concerned about the future,
because the Lord is going to provide for the future, and he's
going to take care of all of our needs and all of our situation.
The love of God will give you rest, and this rest that he gives
is wondrous rest, because the Lord never smote a child of his
except in love. and never even frowned on one
of his children, except in love, and never was God angry toward
any of his children, except in love, and never was God angry toward
any of his children, except in love, and never was God angry toward any of his children,
except in love, and never was God angry toward any of his children,
except in love, and never was God angry toward any of his children, except
in love, and never was God angry toward any of his children, except in love, and never was
God angry toward any of his children, except in love, and never was
God angry toward any of his children, except in love, and never was God angry toward
any of his children, except in love, and never was God angry toward
any of his children, except in love, and never was God angry toward any
of his children, except in love, and never was God angry toward any of his children, except
in love, and never was God angry toward any of his children, except in
love, and never was God angry toward any of his children, except in love And God loves
them exactly like he loves his son. Exactly. Because they're
in Christ. There's a union between you and
Christ. Christ is the head, you're the
body. And he loves you just like he
loves Christ. And so don't forget it. And all
that he, all that Christ has done, he has done for his people. Now then, this is that true rest. The believer has this true rest. He has this settled rest in his
soul. Now, there's a third thing that
we have here in this text over in 2 Corinthians chapter 13 and
that is the communion of the Holy Ghost. The communion of
the Holy Ghost. What does this have to do with
the rest that the people of God enjoy? Now, the Holy Spirit is
the comforter. He's the comforter, and we're
content to go or stay as the Spirit of God comforts us, blesses
us, helps us, is with us, and He favors our soul with many
visitations. The Holy Spirit comes and the
Holy Spirit enables us to receive the help and gives us the help
that God sends from heaven to our souls with many visitations. Let me illustrate this. The other
day I left Indiana on Tuesday and didn't get away until afternoon. And I had quite a time getting
away, leaving Gracie and Dave and Mark and all of them and
my grandson Stevie there. And I had a kind of a heavy heart
and was quite disturbed emotionally about it all and kind of had
a very heavy, heavy, heavy heart and I got up to Wisconsin where
Steve lives my oldest boy and we talked a little bit about
it and I told him I said it seemed me like that that all I've been
doing the last 20 years is saying goodbye just saying goodbye and
so went retired that evening with a very heavy heart and uh... woke up three o'clock in the
morning and the spirit of god came and visited my soul and
lifted the burden lifted the burden completely off and so
i was able to get up and go with a much lighter soul with more
rest more peace in my heart as i started this way and so the
lord does visit his people and the lord does come and the lord
by the holy spirit gives rest and you may be very distraught,
and you may feel very perplexed, you may feel very cast down,
but believe that the Spirit of God will come and lift you up. The Spirit of God will visit
you, and the communion of the Holy Ghost. My friend, once you've
had that, you will not be able to live without it in this world. His banner over me is love. His fruit is sweet to my taste.
We feel we're in the vestibule of the palace of the great king
when the communion, when we have the communion of the Holy Ghost. Do you know anything about what
I'm talking about? You know anything about that? Well, if you don't,
you stay on in the ways of the Lord and it won't be long before
you will enjoy the communion of the Holy Spirit, the communion
of God Almighty Himself in the Spirit. Well, it's a sad thing
to say, but the believer sometimes leaves that rest. They leave
it. He should not, but he does. Sometimes, let me just offer
a few thoughts on this. Sometimes we leave this through
affliction, and especially if these afflictions come from other
individuals. It's not easy to just accept
things that happen in this world, especially when there seems to
be malice, when there seems to be someone trying to hurt. And I had a real blessing last
Sunday. I preached for the Providence
Baptist Church there in Indianapolis, Brownsburg, I should say. And
my granddaughter, Erin, she sang a song. And she sang Romans 12,
20, 12, 21, I believe it is, where it says, be not overcome
of evil, but overcome evil with good. And it was a short song,
but it had a powerful message. Be not overcome of evil, but
overcome evil with good. And there's a great need for
us to, when there's things that would disturb our rest, and hurtful
things done to us by others, to take the way of the Word of
God and be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
And then if we had more confidence in our God, we would have less
confusion in our experiences. What I'm trying to say is that
we wouldn't be without this rest so much if we just believed God,
just trusted in the Lord. And then I think through a role
of submission to the will of God, we quarrel. with the infinite
love of God, we quarrel with the wisdom of God, we're suspect
to the grace of God, we dispute with God, and this, I believe,
is at least half of our trouble, is that we're just not submitted
to the hand of God like we ought to be. And this is the reason
why we need to come back to our rest. That's why we're away from
it and need to return to it. Some Christians lose their rest
through wanton contentment. We are happy sometimes until
we look around and see someone that's better off than we are.
Now until we are content with the Lord and what he appoints
for us, then we'll not have rest because God's not about to give
you anything except that which he deems to be best. and you
just must bring yourself to those circumstances and bring yourself
there and rest yourself in the Lord. Because your whining and
your complaining and your murmuring is not going to get something
from God that He didn't mean to give you. He loves you too
much to do that. He's not going to spoil you and
make a spoiled brat out of you. He's not going to do it. He loves
you too much. And so just give up the quarreling
and the pining and the carrying on and rest yourself in the Lord
your God. Now then frequently two Christians
lose their rest through allowing some conscious sin in their life,
through just taking away which is wrong. And the old Puritan
writer said sinning will make you leave off communing or else
communing will make you leave off the sinning. And so we have
a need to stay ourselves on the Lord and not take the way of
sin and evil. We are so prone to do that. We
must not follow Christ far off as Peter did. Sometimes we say,
well, we'll follow the Lord. We'll just follow him afar off. We just don't want to get too
close, you know. We'll just, I've been asked that. How long are the spokes on the
wheel, somebody said. In other words, here's a hub
and we ought to be there. That's where the Lord is. But
we're out here, the wheel's way out here. And how long is the
spokes? We want a wheel that's got real long spokes. Sure, we
want to still be connected. But we don't want to walk too
close. We want to walk afar off. as Peter did, and we can't do
that. If we grow coal, If we neglect
prayer, if we get worldly and carnal, then we'll soon find
that we're going to have to obey this admonition because our rest
is going to be gone. Some are like the hen that's
sitting on the eggs, and she loses some of them, but she can't
count, so it don't bother her any. It don't disturb her any
at all. But we're kind of like that.
We can lose our rest, and we're not bothered about it. But if
that be the case, then I question how much you ever knew about
this rest and how much this rest really meant to you. And last
of all, the believer, when he's gone away from his rest, what
he ought to do is he ought to return to it. He ought to return
to it. Now, look at this. Noah had a
dove, and he sent that dove out, and it came back to him. So you
ought to fly back to Christ return it once to your Noah the word
Noah his name means rest and the dove return and that's what
you ought to do you ought to fly back to Christ and Rest yourself
again. That's that's where you what
you ought to do why because it is quite certain that you're
never going to find any rest anywhere else and You're just
not going to find it in this world. What you're craving, down
deep in your soul. And if the Lords give you a craving
and put a desire in your heart, you're not going to find rest
anywhere else. So return unto the Lord. A man who knows not the Lord
Jesus can find no rest for his soul, and a believer, if he's
not resting, and if he's not trusting, and if he's not seeking
the Lord, he will not have any rest either. Now, if you have
eaten the bread of heaven, your mouth will never be satisfied
with the taste of the bread of this earth. You'll only be satisfied
when you partake of the bread of heaven. You might have been
satisfied with the world if you'd never known Christ, but you are
spoiled for that now. You're spoiled for this world.
If you've ever known Christ and the rest in him, then you'll
never be satisfied without it. Your ears have been tuned to
something better than the music of the world, and to you there
is only one rest, so come back to it. And you'll have to come
back to Him. The longer you stay away, the
more bitter will be your weeping and your mourning when you do
come back. You know too much, and you felt
too much ever to rest except in Christ, so do not attempt
to rest anywhere else. The poet said, what peaceful
hours I then enjoyed, how sweet their memory still, but now I
find an aching void the world can never fill. How true that
is. This rest, or this unrest that
some of us have experienced, it just puts us out of order
for everything. If you ever find somebody who you know to be a
believer and you just find them irritable and you just find them
in a frustrated state and you find them just complaining and
murmuring most of the time, they're just out of sorts. And the reason
is because they need to return to their rest. They've left their
rest. And this unrest can do no possible good. Somebody said,
well, I just kind of think that I may be just about as well off
being mean and sour and prickly as an old thorn as I would be
trying to be sweet and pleasant and being satisfied and content. But my friend, I never found
anybody yet who likes to be around people that are discontented,
bickering and fussing all the time, frustrated. Why don't you
come back to your rest? Well, why should we come back?
Well, here's the X, I don't have time to preach on it, but the
verse, the next verse there, verse eight says, for the Lord
hath dealt bountifully with thee. The Lord's dealt bountifully
with you, so return unto your rest. He's delivered your soul
from death. He's delivered your eyes from
tears. He's delivered your feet from
falling. And maybe sometime we'll get into that and talk a little
bit about that. I've kind of taken all my time
this morning and I do trust that the Lord has given you something
in your heart that you will begin to recognize what's happening. That if you do not have any peace,
if you got this unsettled condition, but yet there was a time when
things were different. That you'll see what David meant when he
said, return unto thy rest, O my soul. Return unto thy rest. It's time to do it. The Lord's
people need to grow up and seek the Lord and leave their circumstances
in God's hands. May God enable us to do it. May
God enable us to trust him and to rest ourselves. Can you do that? Can you rest
your whole case for time and eternity with your God. Can you do that? Well, that's
what David meant. May the Lord bless the hearing
of his word. Father, remember us. May this
message be blessed to the hearts of your people. We thank you
for delivering our soul from death, our eyes from tears, and
our feet from falling. If we've not fallen, it's only
be your grace. And we thank you, we thank you
and we praise you. Do thou accept our thanks, for
we offer it in the lovely name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.