Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from “The Adult Sabbath School Guide” is titled “Restless and Rebellious”. A good study on the Children of Israel as they sought to enter The Promised Land. As the book of Hebrews states,
“For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest,’ although the works were finished from the foundation of the world” (Hebrews 3:16- 4:3).
Paul ties this “restless and rebellious” attitude exhibited by the Children of Israel… to us… all of us… in all ages. Especially to those who have responded to God’s call and who seek to be His true Israel. The issue for them and us is lack of faith. Lack of trust. And so we shall read in our lesson quarterly this week. It all boils-down to trusting God. Just as it was for the people of the Exodus and for all of us since Adam and Eve. And the question goes-on for each person in each generation since the beginning… “Who will you trust?”
Truly, we are all more-or-less like rebellious children who will not listen nor obey our all-wise and all-loving parents. Willful and selfish we are. Trusting our own faulty judgement and decisions. As Isaiah asked his people, “should not a people seek their God” (Isaiah 8:19)? And so we must be asked this, too. And as this week’s lesson shows us, not seeking our God leads us to be restless… and rebellious. “… the wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt” (Isaiah 57:20).
Let us not think that “rest” is the same as lack of strife. For it is not. In fact, belonging to Christ means we will have even more strife… for we do not “walk” as the world “walks”. As Jesus said, “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you” (John 15:18).
Also, it is not restlessness that leads to rebelliousness. Or strife that leads to faithlessness. It is the other way around. Our rebelliousness and following our own way leads to restlessness of heart and mind. And our faithlessness that leads to the turmoil of heart and mind and the striving within ourselves that is our restlessness. God’s rest is not contingent on circumstances but gives us peace and rest despite any circumstances. A rest of heart and mind even in the midst of strife, turmoil, hatred and adversity. The true rest that is “finished from the foundation of the world” (quoted above). A rest that is the fruit of trusting our God in all things… and living-out that trust. When in our hearts we realize this “rest” that is the fruit of faith; when that trust leads us to follow God in all things(obey), then we will occupy that “promised land”, even as we live in this world of sin and death.
With brotherly love,
Jim