ENTERING INTO REST by I. E. Kimball

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 22, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 12.

ENTERING INTO REST.

By I. E. Kimball

BY ELDER I. E. KIMBALL.

THERE is a rest promised and a kingdom prepared for God's people from the foundation of the world. Thus "the works were finished from the foundation of the world." That kingdom and that rest have been preached from the very beginning, and the possibility of attaining them has ever been before God's elect.

In Hebrews 3 and 4 we have a revelation of the purposes of God concerning this rest, and how it may be attained. The experience of the children of Israel is there cited, warning us against their failure as seen in the wilderness, when they contended with God and saw his works forty years. Why was he grieved with them?—Because they would not learn his ways, and they sinned, and all because they "believed not." They had the promise of entering into God's rest, but they failed to attain to it. "So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief."

Then by the mouth of the prophet the Lord said: "To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness." The rest which the Israelites failed to take is still held before them; and that call "to-day" is still sounding throughout the earth. For the apostle says that if Joshua had given them the rest promised, then God would not afterward have spoken of another day as an acceptable time for entering into it. "There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God."

The seventh day of the creation is brought in as a pledge of this rest. It is a constant testimony that God had prepared that inheritance, the rest for his people, from the foundation of the world. It is, therefore, to the Christian a symbol of the eternal rest that remains, as anyone will see by a careful study of Heb. 4: 3-5. The Sabbath looks forward, therefore, to the finished work of redemption, when abundance of peace shall be given to the saints.

But might they have taken that rest in Joshua's day?—So says the Spirit; for "the power of God unto salvation" was then fully manifested. Had the children of Israel given themselves wholly over to God, had no Achan been allowed in the camp, the victory at Jericho would have been the victory all along the line. The seven nations who had filled their cup of iniquity, would have been destroyed totally from their midst, the power of God would have been published to all the world, the disobedient would have been finally destroyed, and Satan's kingdom thus come to an end. It would seem from this that what the Lord is able to accomplish in six thousand years by his people in their

weakness and transgressions and lack of faith, he would have accomplished even in the days of Joshua, through a people wholly sanctified to himself.

The prophets understood the power of God—the gospel—and exhorted the people to trust in God and to take what God had promised. We come down to Christ's first advent; then the full salvation of God was displayed. Why did not the people accept it? The wedding was at hand to be celebrated, all things were ready, and the call went out, "Come to the marriage." Matthew 22. But the bidden guests who had accepted the invitation were not now ready; the farm, the merchandise, the buying and selling, the marriage festivities in which they were indulging, made them forgetful of the marriage of the King's Son. Then the King "sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. . . . The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy."

Then the invitation is sent out to another people. Had the people of God retained the power of God with them, how soon might the wedding have been celebrated! But apostasy put the church back under the power of Satan, and the terrible scenes of the times of antichrist were the result.

But God looked down through these times and saw the work so long delayed, accomplished. Thus all the prophecies point to our time as that in which strife would be taken from off the earth, when God's people would return to their allegiance with all their heart, and, by taking hold of God's strength, bring in the long looked for rest.

But there is another sense in which we do enter into rest now, even as we enter the kingdom now; for when we get out from under Satan's power, we have got out of his kingdom, and have come under the power of Christ. Hence we "are translated into the kingdom of his [God's] dear Son." In just as full a sense as Satan has a kingdom here, Christ has one; and the power of Christ is manifest "over all the power of the enemy."

Now as God ceased from his temporal work after six days of toil, so "he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his." The Sabbath day simply interdicts our temporal employments, but God's works of providence, all spiritual work, goes on just the same. In this sense Christ said, "My Father worketh hitherto and I work." When we give up all work as of ourselves, and it is certainly manifest that Christ, who dwelleth in us, doeth the works, when, in the midst of the most severe labor for Christ, we are still at rest, for God is furnishing the wisdom and strength and is doing the works, then, even as Christ found rest in God, so our lives "are hid with Christ in God," and we have found rest from our own works. So we may press into this rest, so we may press into the kingdom, and the result will be that, by the power of God, unrest and strife will soon be taken from the earth, and the eternal rest of God's people be assured.

Enosburgh, Vt.