Resting Places (Quality: Average)

[0:00] In the name of God, trusting to receive the Holy Ghost, let us read our text in the lesson, the second book of Samuel, chapter the seventh and verse the eighteenth.

[0:24] Second Samuel seven, eighty. Then went King David in and said before the Lord, and he said, Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house that thou hast brought me hither to?

[1:02] Do preliminary observations open the discourse. We have here narrated an occasion when King David, the king of Judah and Israel, knew a very wonderful and merciful season of respite from distresses and hostilities and anxieties and sorrows, and the term that describes the stance of his spirit is this very simple and beautiful and profound one, sat.

[2:09] He sat. The simple significance of that term in relation to a child of God, as described here, is a condition and a season of resting.

[2:39] And I want to ask you, as we open this afternoon, you know what it is to have a sweet resting place.

[2:56] You cannot rest unless you have a resting place. And blessed be God, there is for all his redeemed people, and they begin to know this here below by degrees and increasingly, that there is provided for them in God a glorious resting place.

[3:36] And in the holy activity of faith, they enter this resting place.

[3:48] They sit. It is a posture, a stance of body and ear of soul, chiefly, where they just peacefully, wonderfully rest.

[4:09] Well, I suppose that really is the subject matter, the focal point for our meditation today.

[4:27] Let me just then, before I come to the second observation, call over with this congregation, these sweet resting places for the family of God.

[4:44] Obviously, the very term rest holds a tremendous significance and inference.

[4:58] The inference is that this brief mortal life for the living family of God is one of warfare and conflict and much trial and temptation and many servile fears and craven fears and much opposition from within and without and with a heavy cross and, as it may seem sometimes, almost an impossibility to hold on your way or to continue in this heavenly race.

[5:48] very well. The Lord in his divine love, his amazing mercy, his rich grace, and in the sacred incarnation of his well-beloved, only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the rich pair of the Holy Spirit has given us to know, to receive a spiritual intelligence and then in the holy activity of faith to fly to and return to and run to and enter into that sweet resting place.

[6:49] He sat. He rested. As this central theme opens a little to my spirit, I shall, as I promised, call over with you a little of the divine table concerning resting places for the living family of God.

[7:17] Now, the first resting place or the resting place that the whole election of grace have ever been in and will eternally know is the great loving heart of God.

[7:43] Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. In his heart, they have a place established there by sovereign grace.

[7:57] the heart of God, what a resting place this is. If I go aside for a brief moment, and I may justly do that because our Savior did the same thing, we may elucidate the point by referring to very loving, devoted, affectionate parents.

[8:29] So, whether those children are five or twenty-five or fifty, so long as those dear parents are living, those children, the sons and daughters, know that they have a sweet resting place in the hearts of their dear parents.

[9:04] And obviously the same applies to the paternal home, a resting place. And why is the heart a resting place?

[9:18] Because of that wonderful love that is manifested and flows out into your person and into your spirit.

[9:34] And so, our dear Lord himself said, if ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him.

[9:57] My friend, if you come back to the preacher and say, very well, what infallible proof would I have?

[10:10] My heart is pain to know this, that I have my resting place in the great heart of God, whose nature and essence is love, ineffable love.

[10:29] My response to you is profoundly simple. It is this, the infallible proof is to know that by divine grace you have a new heart and the indwelling your heart is the Lord Jesus Christ himself by his spirit so that you descend into your soul and find the Savior there.

[11:13] You will think in a few months time of the nativity and the advent. You will think of the immaculate conception and virgin birth of our Savior.

[11:30] You will think of Bethlehem in the Holy Land. You will think of no room for them in the inn and how Mary brought him forth and laid him in a manger but the secret of the advent personally is to find the dear babe lying in your heart to find him there.

[12:09] And how many of you can echo by divine grace the sweet words of invitation and welcome come into my heart Lord Jesus there is room in my heart for thee grace will cause you to say that I am sure that you would enjoy heaven comments below if the dear Savior responded as he does and will to the invitation of faith and comes into your soul so that you know that he is in your heart.

[13:02] Well I did not anticipate when I opened this afternoon that the discourse would develop in this direction but I always prefer to speak rather spontaneously therefore let us take you take your examination now I was thinking and I am speaking to you rather personally but I was thinking about my dear friends and our dear friends at Brixton because I have known them for so very very long and I was thinking about them leaving the sacred tabernacle the place that has been made to some of us the house of God and the gate of heaven and going into the new battle and you may of course anticipate my observation it is this

[14:11] I thought well undoubtedly that dear little company of worshippers of spiritual people will take the saviour with them in their hearts when they go that's the secret see this is rest to be in the dear lord's heart and to know that he is in your heart I pause then again did you bring him in your heart with you today I should give you time to deeply consider it although you may be able sometimes to answer that and respond to it instantly I mean if the lord comes and just sheds abroad his love in your heart so that your cup runs over you will not delay in answering and responding in the affirmative but this is the proof of the ministry of the spirit and it is the great proof the infallible proof of a living religion it is not just the dogma it is not the officialdom it is not the formality it is to have the lord in your heart and this is the proof of the ministry of the spirit because christ is preached into your heart well this is a sweet thing to me i could well stay here all the time but i just go on a little further on this subject of sitting which in a resting place you see sitting sitting you're weary you sit you're frail you sit you have infirmities you sit there is decay of the body you sit you're pleased to sit down you've got a resting place now do you know what it is to sit for your whole person i prefer to say your whole person to find its repose in the lord sit you may say simple look at all these pews ah i want something that is divine ethereal your soul you may sit in a most wonderful chair you may sit in a suite or part of a suite that has cost perhaps a thousand pounds and you're not resting you may get onto a bed that has cost a thousand pounds no rest the whole thing is do you know what it is to need rest and do you know the place of rest and do you rest in him well i yes i just want to bring this in because it is in the same category when you're resting resting on that wonderful bed at night very comfortable bed or resting in a very well designed chair that is very suitable for your infirmities and so on now

[18:14] when you're resting your body is resting think of your savior who had not where to lay his precious head in the days of his humiliation give a thought and more than a thought to your blessed surety and substitute and dear redeemer who had not where to lay his precious head it will break your heart to put your head back on a comfortable pillow and think of him on calvary's cross oh let us adore him let us worship and praise him let us bless him and praise and adore him for his suffering shortish for all that he endured in his passion to redeem us from death and that he should wear a crown of thorns that we might be crowned with immortality and glory and light so before

[19:35] I pass I do want to say this it has given me considerable pleasure spiritually and as far as I know I must qualify the observation in this way it is the only place in the book of God that is obviously in the new testament where I find that love obviously did provide for him a pillow and that was in the ship and in that little ship when they were crossing over the inland sea of Galilee that little sea and there was a storm we see the deity and the sacred humanity of our saviour we see his holy humanity he was weary it was a sinless weariness but he was weary and he was asleep on a pillow not until probably the last year or two have I deeply thought of that pillow

[20:57] I said to myself trying to arrive at a deduction and who put the pillow there for our saviour obviously love did it I'm quite sure that his enemies didn't put a pillow there for him I'm very certain that his friends did and his dear head was resting on a pillow but that leads me to this observation surely there is a pillow now and that pillow is every loving gracious believing heart has a place for Christ to rest his head in your heart if you love him I well appreciate the fact that now he is in the day of his exaltation not the day of his humiliation but how wonderful to think that a loving heart is like a pillow for his dear head you take that home and think about it you think about it tonight when you go to bed and think about it often a sweet resting place and the church of God is a pillow for the

[22:32] Lord hath chosen Zion he hath desired it for his habitation this is my rest forever here will I dwell for I have desired it I will abundantly bless her provision I will satisfy her poor with bread how wonderful then to just look at the other side of the subject just as he gives his people a rest and a sacred resting place so he has a resting place in his dear people's hearts in Zion in the city of our solemnities a resting place this is my rest forever but I said amen you have enough to digest but I want now to just go on and speak a little more about these resting places for the family of

[23:52] God and all this has been a dilation on the word where sitting he sat before the Lord well what a glorious resting place is a precious crucified redeemer his riven sign oh my dove he says in the canticles thou art in the cliffs of the rock in the secret places of the stairs what a resting place and the dove flies to and rests in and makes her nest in the sides of the hole's mouth and that of course is a type of the ribbon sign of

[24:58] Emmanuel rock of ages cleft for me now a poor sinner guilty wretched vile undone filthy needing divine clemency mercy pardon peace cleansing finds this weak resting place by the revealing power of the holy spirit in the wounds of jesus in his ribbon side and remember that in relation to the account given us by st john of the soldier piercing his side and forth with their flowed out blood and water quite clearly the spear pierced the pericardium the heart that spear entered his heart now this is the resting place for the people of god i ask you if you feel your guilt and misery and ruin and wretchedness is there any other resting place for your guilty soul but the wounds of christ his rich atonement his vital shed rich atoning blood what a resting place david sat he knew what it was to sit to rest and if i just spit out a few synonymous words you take sit rest it means repose and it means eternal repose upon the bosom divine it is everlasting to rest your head upon his bosom to repose eternally upon him and in him rest now just a little further another sacred office new cabinet office character of the lord jesus is obviously foundation stone and if i use another term i could use that of bed now take stone this sure foundation this tried stone this precious stone that the father has laid in zion you will rest upon that rock there's nowhere else to rest i do not wish to name myself before you but i would like to reiterate this concerning resting upon the rock you see when the lord delivers your soul when he grants you forgiveness you'll have a most wonderful season of ecstasy of joy in resting in his bosom divine that i want to speak to you about such established christians who know

[28:59] the blessedness of the activity of faith even in the dark and who know what it is to find a proof of their establishment even in dark days and seasons now this i want to just name to you many years ago now in 1932 what is that 43 years ago i was back in my own city london doing a period of training in chelsea and in the clinics i contracted some virus and the end of it was after struggling for some time to carry on i was sent home with toxemia poisoning of the blood in fact my throat was almost closed and i felt that i should die now i have never forgotten that that season it was nearly two years after the lord had pardoned my sin experiment and as i lay on that bed down in sussex and i couldn't swallow a drop of water and with this terrible raging toxemia and of course long before m&b 693 and so on i thought i took a survey and i thought well it looks as if i shall die and i said to myself and how do you feel in relation to eternity and you know i could respond to that immediately i said blessed lord i have no great enjoyment now there is no ecstasy of joy in my breast i'm in affliction i'm in trial and i may well be coming into the swellings of jordan but i said this lord i can stretch my soul upon this rock and i feel my eternal safety and security in christ and i know i shall be with thee now that's establishment i put it to you people do you feel this degree of establishment so that there's a resting place and your soul by faith you stretch yourself upon that rock and know that it is well this is rest you rest in the being of god you rest in the glorious trinity the boundless love of the father the redeeming love of the son and the sanctifying love of the holy spirit one eternal ineffable love flowing from the throne of god now you rest in this you rest in his character you rest in his divine perfections his immutability his faithfulness the veracity of his word his eternity his love his mercy his justice you may say to me in his justice yes you'll rest in his justice do you know what it is to realize that justice is your

[32:59] friend that justice has received the full payment and therefore justice oh joining hand in hand with divine mercy they go to meet and kiss a weeping child what a rest you'll rest in the name of jesus you'll rest in his accomplished work of atonement you will rest in the promises and blessings of the new covenant of grace do you know this rest do you know i can feel this in my spirit if you get a sense of this you'll feel sometimes that the lord is wafting your mind to eternal rest you'll get a sense here of heaven how wonderful to open your eyes in eternal glory so he sat he rested i should say also to you and include this he rested in the decrees of god our brother rests in the decrees of god why is he here why is he pasted why did he come from cranbrook why has he been upheld because of the decrees of jehovah you see you rest in those divine decrees that remain unmoved you rest within the broad spectrum of the exceeding great and precious promises you rest in his faithfulness in his immutability in his love in his unfailing goodness in his grace all sufficient his mercy that endureth forever his love that is divine what a rest and you sit that is why you sit when the hands of

[35:28] Moses were heavy they brought a stone and he sat on it you can sit on these firm decrees on the character of God on his love on the foundation on the rock sit and Aaron and her held up his hands thanks be to God amen