The House Of God, The Place Of His Rest

by J. Miller | Category: God's Centre And Man's Centre | Dec 1963

God has ever had before His mind a place of rest among His people. Often His desire has been frustrated by His people, through ignorance of His will or through sinfulness and neglect on their part to maintain the standard of conduct that His presence called for. This state of things was perhaps never worse than in the dark days of the last of the kings of Judah, days in which Jeremiah the prophet lived. In the list of these kings, Manasseh, Amon, Josiah, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin and Zedekiah, Josiah was the one star among them who shed his light on the dark and turbulent waters of that period of departure from God. In contrast to Josiah, Jehoiachin his grandson, a lad of only eight (eighteen as given in 2 Kings 24.8) years of age, did not escape the plague of evil doing of those times, for he followed the evil ways of his fathers, though but a child in years.

"Jehoiachin was eight years old when he began to reign; and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem: and he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD. And at the return of the year king Nebuchadnezzar sent, and brought him to Babylon" (2 Chronicles 36.9, 10).

After him Zedekiah the son of Josiah the uncle of Jehoiachin was made king.

"And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD his God; he humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet speaking from the mouth of the LORD" (verse 12).

It is said that he also rebelled against king Nebuchadnezzar and he stiffened his neck, and hardened (strengthened, R.V.M.) his heart from turning unto the LORD.

In addition to the evil doings of the kings of Judah, we are told that "all the chiefs of the priests, and the people, trespassed very greatly after all the abominations of the heathen; and they polluted the house of the LORD" (verse 14). Besides, the LORD sent His messengers, "but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against His people, till there was no remedy" (verse 16).

It was in the sadness of these days that we hear God saying through Jeremiah,

"Oh that I hod in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave My people, and go from them I for they be all adulterers an assembly of treacherous men" (Jeremiah 9.2).

His house, the place of His rest, was polluted with the evils of heathen idolatry and the people had sunk into depths of moral depravity, treachery was rampant among them. Such as were godly could trust no one. God could not find such a company of wayfaring men as is pictured in the words of Jeremiah, so He brought the Chaldeans and put an end to the evils in Jerusalem. The beautiful temple which Solomon built and for which David his father took so much pleasure in providing the materials was left in ruins; all the precious metals and the copper the Chaldeans carried off to Babylon, and all that was consumable they burnt with fire.

Asaph in Psalm 74 seems with prophet's vision to see those days of ruin and desolation when he wrote,

"Lift up Thy fret unto the perpetual ruins,

All the evil that the enemy hath done in the sanctuary.

They seemed as men that lifted up

Axes upon a thicket of trees.

And now all the carved work thereof together

They break down with hatchet and hammers.

They have set Thy sanctuary on fire;

They have profaned the dwelling place of Thy name even to the ground.

They said in their heart, Let us make havoc of them altogether."

Had Asaph been present at the destruction of the temple by the Chaldeans, he could not have depicted the scene more correctly and vividly. Thus ended the house of God for close on a hundred years or thereby, till the returned Remnant from Babylon built again the house of God, and of their work God said through Haggai, "I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified" (Haggai 1.8). Our lives are not wasted nor our time squandered, if we are engaged in things that bring God pleasure. And it matters little how great our activity. and labour, if what we do is not according to God's will; such truly will be found vain. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, "Your labour is not vain in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 15.58). "In the Lord" signifies what is subject to His will.

The longing of God as expressed in Isaiah 66.1 as to His house, the place of God's rest-is referred to by Stephen at the close of his defence before the Jewish Council in Jerusalem on the day of his martyrdom.

"The heaven is My throne,

And the earth the footstool of My feet:

What manner of house will ye build Me? saith the Lord:

Or what is the place of My rest?

Did not My hand make all these things?" (Acts 7.49, 50).

Stephen had just said, "Howbeit the Most High dwelleth not in houses made with hands" (verse 48).

A new kind of house was now in being, composed of living stones builded together, as Peter writes,

"Ye also, as lining stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ"( 1 Peter 2.5).

This house is seen in Jerusalem, of which Stephen formed a part, comprised of those that received the word, were baptized and added together, and continued stedfastly in the apostles' teaching, and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and the prayers (Acts 2.41, 42).

It should be noted with care that what Isaiah wrote and what Stephen quoted is concerning God's house which He calls "the place of My rest". Rest here is from the Greek word Katapausis which means a place of rest, a dwelling or habitation.

The rests of Matthew 11.28-80 are Anapausis which means rest, repose, refreshment. First, there is the rest for the sinner in Christ, rest from labour and the burden of sin (verse 28). Then there is the rest in labour in the yoke of the Lord.

Katapausis is found in the New Testament only in Acts 7.49 and several times in Hebrews, chapters 3 and 4. In these chapters in Hebrews God's rest is referred to as His rest in the sabbath, a part of time, His rest in Canaan, a part of land, and His rest in His house. Of His New Testament house we read, "But Christ as a Son, over His house; whose house are we, if we hold fast our boldness and the glorying of our hope firm unto the end" (Hebrews 3.6). These words show the conditional character of continuing in God's house. God's house is not the Church which is Christ's Body; there are no conditions attached to continuing to be a member of that Body. Most of Hebrews 3 and 4 is taken up with warning those in God's house in the days of the apostles of the danger of falling away and repeating the folly of the numbered men of Israel who refused to enter God's rest in the land in which alone they could do the will of God and in no other land on earth.

Happy indeed are all those whose eyes have been opened to the truth of the place of God's rest today which is His house.

"Within Thy house, in number few,

We seek Thy grace, Thy will to do;

Lord, of ourselves we're very weak,

Thy help and strength we humbly seek."

J. Miller | Dec 1963
God's Centre And Man's Centre