Carol Balizet Cult: 15. The Sabbath of Rest by Carol Balizet

https://web.archive.org/web/20050216174521/http://homeinzion.com/sabbath.html

The Sabbath of Rest

by Carol Balizet

Most people consider the sabbath keeping to be in a literal 24 hour day. Here is a different approach on how to rest on the Sabbath.

The rest of God

"And; on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work..." (Genesis 2:2)

If we connect the word "God;" and the word "rest;" in Scripture, we're almost always going to find a third word: "Sabbath;".; The word "Sabbath;" connotes the numeral "seven;", used to describe a specific period of time, which could be day, week, year, millennium. "Sabbath;" also conveys the concept of resting, of ceasing labor and effort and striving. This is a message, a theme, a principle, which runs throughout Scripture. On some "seventh;" period of time, God's people may, and they should, cease laboring and rest. Incidentally, it's interesting to note that the same admonitions about ceasing from work were given in conjunction with the feasts of Pentecost, Trumpets, Atonement and Tabernacles. (See Leviticus 23) But the primary commandment about resting concerns the Sabbath. Cease from your own labor and enter the rest of God.

Almost nobody has done it, but the Bible says that some must. It has to happen because God said it would. "Seeing; therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief... There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God." (Hebrews 4:6,9)This concept of "The; Sabbath Rest" is a clear parallel to what we have called The Third Realm. Let's take a brief look.

As with everything else in Christianity, most people consider this sabbath keeping as first and foremost a occurrence of the physical realm. They assume it's a literal 24 hour day; it's natural rest; it's mostly defined by the law, and it's something they do. And so what results is a duplicate, a simulation in the realm of the flesh, of the true, permanent rest - which is of course spiritual. They have the "type; and shadow" instead of the genuine. But there is a genuine rest. God says so. The concept of a sabbath rest began at creation and continues through till today. It is covered extensively in Judaism (I've read there are 1,583 commandments on this subject in their oral tradition), and keeping the Sabbath is one of the ten commandments. We're told - among other things - to "keep;", "honor;", "remember;", "sanctify;" and "call; a delight" this special day of rest in God.

There were six specific laws about the Sabbath under the Mosaic Code:

Restrictions on travel (Exodus 16:29).
Remembering the Sabbath to keep it holy (Exodus 20:8-11).
Ceasing from grievous, laborious work (Leviticus 23:3).
Allowing others to cease from such labor (Deuteronomy 5:14).
No unscrupulous commerce (Leviticus 25:14-17).
No kindling a fire (Exodus 35:3).

From these six ordinances grew a gigantic network of regulations and restrictions. Jesus was frequently rebuked for His failure to keep the Sabbath in a way that pleased the religious leaders of His day. His response was always to point out their failure to understand the principles which undergird the specifics of the law. They knew the statutes about the Sabbath rest; they didn't understand its heart.

Jesus corrected their viewpoint and the summary is given here: "And; he said unto them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath..." (Mark 2:27)

That is the undergirding principle; that is the heart of God's message about the Sabbath. The Sabbath is to serve us, not us the Sabbath. That day, that feast, that law, that whatever-you-want-to-call-it is not there to make demands on us. It's there to ease us of the burden of striving.

What does this mean? It means if we are "in; the Spirit" (and an example of this is John on Patmos in Revelation 1:10: "I; was in the Spirit on the Lord's day...") then we are in Christ, in the fullness of Jesus' completed work. It covers a multitude of factors, but let's just look at one, at "righteousness;".; If we are in Christ, in His rest, then we don't have to strive to become righteous, we are righteous! We can "...submit; ourselves unto the righteousness of God." (Romans 10:3)

Here are some more words on this subject: "For; he hath made him [to be] sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." (2 Corinthians 5:21) Or, "And; be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith..." (Phillipians 3:9) Or, even before the Cross, "...; No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper...This [is] the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness [is] of me, saith the Lord." (Isaiah 54:17)

We don't struggle and strain to "keep; the Sabbath".; In reality, the Sabbath keeps us! In righteousness, and in everything else, our Sabbath rest is the actuality of a completed work. The Atonement, the Cross, the obedience and submission of Jesus to the will of the Father, this "work;" was sufficient. It did everything that needed doing; not merely to set us free from sin's just punishment, but also from sin's dominion, and from the depths of our fallen nature.

Isaiah prophesied: "He; [the Father] shall see of the travail of his [Jesus] soul, [and] shall be satisfied." (Isaiah 53:11) And Jesus said: "...; It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost." (John 19:30)

What do we do if we dont do anything

Of course I'm emphasizing one side of a two-sided coin. We know this concept must be balanced with James' insistence on proving faith by works, and with Paul's repeated "God; forbid!" that we indulge in sin and thereby abuse grace. The kingdom of God is taken by violence; we don't walk, we run the race; we work out our salvation with fear and trembling; we are required to seek, study, pray, bear burdens for others, give, lay down our wills, suffer, witness, make disciples... I don't negate or deny any of that. That side of the coin is valid and undeniable. But so is the obverse of the coin, and it's so very often misunderstood that we need to emphasize it.

I don't mean that we sit on the couch and eat bonbons. Our faith is active, and God's children are workers, as well as servants, sons, and His Helpmeet. So don't discard all I'm saying because this seems unbalanced. We're all trying to find equilibrium here.

In the New Testament, the concept of "works;", of what we do, is fairly clear. The works God approves of are described as: mighty, good, wonderful, the same (as Jesus), greater (than Jesus), and of righteousness. The works we are not to do are described as: of darkness, of the law, of the flesh, of the Devil, unfruitful and dead. We are never supposed to do these things, Sabbath or not.

In the Old Testament, the Sabbath law told God's natural children to "labor;", Strong's #5647, for six days, and then to cease. In almost every case, the Bible says they should cease from all their labor. Occasionally, the "labor;" and the "works;" that they were are told to cease are described as "servile;", Strong's #5656, and it means labor performed by, and in the role of, servant, slave, captive. The meaning of the word "labor;" is almost identical to that of the word "servile;".; They're from the same root.

So where does this leave us? How do we fit these ideas into "The; work is done, believe only?" I think what is needed here is a clear understanding of what He did, and what is left as our part to make it applicable to our lives. He said this:

We don't have to do it, we have to receive it. And my own personal summary of this is: we must not take the initiative, we must not take the responsibility, we must not consider ourselves accountable for the outcome. The initiative, the responsibility and the outcome are up to God. We must do everything we do in response to Him. We must never fall into the pattern which produced Ishmael: the soul's "good; idea" (via Sarah) and the flesh's descent into cohabitation with strange flesh (via Abraham and Hagar). That pattern may produce something, but it is not God's best. We let the spirit control, refusing the counsel of our impatient, striving soul, and we wait.

We refuse to take the initiative. He is the Initiator and we are the inheritors. And likewise we refuse to take the responsibility. We are not accountable for anything but our own response to Him. He handles the "outworking; of the outcome" we stay at peace as we wait. A single example: We find ourselves in a financial tight; we need money soon, and we need a good deal of it. God has said He will meet our needs, and He wants us to walk in faith for this promise. He vastly prefers that we exercise faith in Him rather than go to the arm of flesh. So, we search the Scriptures to find out:

Exactly what has God promised?
Are we in sin, or are we unblessable, in this area?
What is He teaching us through this?

Then our role is to pray, praise, believe, speak the word of faith, bind and cast down any enemy agents, rejoice in the trial, etc. We do not take out a loan, or hint around for help. We do nothing at all (in addition to the pray, praise, believe, obey and such) unless God tells us to do it. That way He controls the answer and probably even more important, the timing of the answer. We battle unbelief, we inform Satan of our commitment, and hang on. We continue to ask: "Is; there anything I need to repent? Anything I need to give away? Anything my ancestors did I'm reaping? Have I stolen anything? Have I gone into debt despite your clear word not to? Is my attitude acceptable or do I envy others for their wealth?" We hang on. He's dealing with far, far more than a financial short-fall; He's dealing with the love of money (which is the root of all kinds of evil), with resentment and jealousy, with greed, with impatience - all kinds of things will be cleaned out of our souls because of this! And we absolutely force our souls to count it all joy, call it good, rejoice and be exceeding glad - because those are the means of victory. We may not be able to control our emotions, but we can control our words and our actions.

The answer is up to Him, always. We don't invariably get what we ask for; but when we don't, we get something better. Let me repeat this: when we get God's will instead of our own, what we get is always better. It is almost always a cross, but the cross leads to the throne. Jesus yielded to the Father's will in the Garden of Gethsemane; He prayed but He got no release. Instead, He got a cup He didn't want to drink and a cross He didn't want to bear. But it was better.

And that is faith: to believe that when God overrides our will and requires the cup and the cross, it is always, unfailingly, inevitably better. No, it is best! Our loving Father knows that cups are bitter and nobody wants to drink them. He is well aware that crosses shame, hurt and kill us, but without them there is no glory, no throne. We must undergo this Via Dolorosa just as Jesus did, in order to sit with Him on the throne.

So we leave everything to His strategy, His design and His timing. We give Him full mastery over the details. No initiative, no responsibility (but to pray, praise, believe, obey and such) and no control over the end result. This is faith and this is the route to rest.

Because the waiting, the trusting even as time passes, the acute discomfort of not doing anything (except the praying, praising, believing, obeying and such) is good for us. If we can find spiritual rest in the midst of natural turmoil and affliction, with an anguished will, a soul in torment and a desperation in the flesh to have it over, and if we can call all this good - then we have touched the heart of God. And we are changed from glory to glory.

That glory is the hallmark, and the environment, of the sabbath rest.

The sabbath is a person

Jesus Christ is the Sabbath. All those types and shadows - the Jubilee year, the Promised Land beyond the Jordan River, the Holy of Holies, the Lamb that was slain, the Feasts - all these and more are reflections not merely of a religion, but of a Person. Jesus is these things. He didn't merely say, "I; am the One who shows the way; I am truthful; I give life." No, He personified these things and said, "I; am the Way, the Truth and the Life." He is not just reflected by these thing, or connected to them, or revealed by them - no, He embodies them. He is actually the Sacrificed Lamb, the Scapegoat, the Unleavened Bread, the Word which became flesh and dwelt among us, the final and eternal Feast of Tabernacles.

A Person, not a characteristic, an event, a condition, a sign or symbol, but a flesh and bone Man who is so real and genuine and authentic and substantial that everything else is ephemeral in comparison. He is our rest. Not a day or week or year or millennium, not a plot of ground, not a ritual, not a feast, not a dispensation, but a Being who is the totality of everything we need.

Rest amd peace: similar but not identical

In discussing the meanings of words, it's common to give definitions from a dictionary, but with words as familiar and simple as these two, it would be an insult. We all know what "rest;" and "peace;" mean. There is only one little aspect of their meanings I'd like to consider. The Lord has made it clear that we are to experience rest and peace. They are part of what He died to make available to us. They both imply a measure of tranquility, composure, a lack of effort or conflict. But they refer to two different parts of our beings. I think "peace;" is internal; it refers to the soul, the emotions, the thought life, the inner being. And "rest;" is physical; it alludes to activity. One is basically how we feel; the other is what we do - or what we don't do.

A route to peace

There are instructions in the Bible for appropriating both peace and rest. Since this is about rest, we'll give just one brief reference to what the Bible says about how we get peace, then move back to our subject of rest.

"Be; careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." (Phillipians 4:6,7) (Emphasis mine). We're worried, anxious, concerned about something? We have a four-step program into peace. We follow these instructions, and we have peace.

Prayer: "Fellowship;, talk, conversation, worship."
Supplication: "Expression; of want or need."
Thanksgiving: "A; good report; an expression of gratitude."
Request: "A; specific objective, a particular thing."

These are the steps to peace. Chronological, interdependent, sequential, simple.

There are other routes given in the Word, but this is one of my favorites. One thing I know: we usually don't get the full answer, the "specific; objective" or the "particular; thing" we've asked for, till after we get the peace. That's because a lack of peace shows we still feel some responsibility for the outworking of our prayer; we don't yet fully trust Him, so we move out in self effort. We must go beyond the place where we're still trying to answer our own prayers before we find peace. Peace, like rest, comes when we trust Him, not the flesh, not ourselves, not each other.

A route to rest

Now, how do we find rest? Are there any Scriptural routes given? I'm glad you asked. There are a couple of "Road; Maps to Rest" in the New Testament. The first and best known is: "Come; unto me, all [ye] that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find Rest unto your souls." (Matthew 11:28,29) Two stages here: the first is simply coming to Jesus; it means He will give us rest. We come, He gives. Uncomplicated.

"Taking; His yoke", which is a far deeper step than merely "coming; to Him", means we will find rest. We may need to do a bit of seeking before we find. But a more ardent relationship will produce a more profound rest.

Here's another way to rest in God, really the simplest of all: "For; he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God [did] from his. Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief... For we which have believed do enter into rest..." (Hebrews 4:11, 4:3) Three stages.

Believe
Cease our own labor
Labor to enter into "that;" rest

Believe

It sounds so simple: believe it's done, and quit trying to do it. And viola, what we have believed was done, and what we have quit trying to do, is revealed as having already been done, by Him. But simple as it sounds, it must be almost impossible because almost none of God's children, from the time of creation till now, have succeeded in doing it.

In the sight-realm, natural parallel of this "rest;" - the exodus of the children of Israel from bondage in the nation of Egypt to their dominion in the Promised Land - only two individuals made it all the way. Of the horde which left Egypt, and some estimates for that number run as high as 3,000,000, only two entered. What appalling odds! The overwhelming majority didn't believe and they didn't enter.

Why didn't they believe? God had done miracle after miracle in delivering them from their bondage: the plagues, the results of Pharaoh's hardened heart, the parting of the Red Sea, the promise of God that He would give them the land. (Exodus 3:7,8) In Exodus 14, right after their crossing the Red Sea, they had faith - briefly. "And; Israel saw that great work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians: and the people feared the Lord, and believed the Lord, and his servant Moses." (Exodus 14:31) They sang and danced and rejoiced and they believed! But it didn't last.

Numbers 13 and 14 tell the sad tale of the spies. Twelve men went out to survey and to evaluate things in this land which God had promised to give them. When they returned, two said "...; Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it." (Numbers 13:30) The other ten said God had lied; and no miracle of God, no word of promise, no experience of faith, none of these things could reverse the evil report of the ten spies.

Why didn't they believe? They listened to what men said, forgetting what God had said. Why didn't they believe? They looked at what they saw, instead of holding on to what God had said. Why didn't they believe? They gave way to fear, instead of trusting God. Fear, and the immediate return to self-reliance.

A New Testament parallel is: Jesus said - and He's quoted eleven times in the four Gospels: "I; will be put to death - killed - crucified - and I will die. And the third day I will rise again." And nobody believed Him! Not Peter, not Mary, not John - nobody! They knew Him well, they'd witnessed His raising the dead, and they knew He never lied, yet His resurrection - though He foretold it over and over - was so astonishingly unexpected that most didn't believe.

Today, God's spiritual children have the same reaction. It's quite similar even though it isn't a resurrection, and our "land;" isn't geographical; it's spiritual. Instead of specific geography and particular cities, our "Land; of Promise" includes provision, healing, protection, wisdom, fruit, power, love, peace, righteousness, and anything else we might need. God says we have these things. Instead of simply believing His word, we're often caught up trying to accomplish, to acquire, to develop, to achieve them ourselves. Or we go to each other and look for the fulfillment of God's promises through the "arm; of flesh" of others. Or we go to the world and use their pitiful, costly and dangerous counterfeits.

The same forces which defeated the faith of the children of Israel in the wilderness are our enemies, too. These are the things which frustrate and hinder our belief: The report of men. (We must believe what God says no matter what men say.) The evidence of our eyes. (We must believe as Moses did - "as; seeing Him who is invisible..." (Hebrews 11:27)

The soul's emotional distress. (Ignore it. We must conduct our lives based on our faith and our obedience - not on how we feel.)

The world says, "Seeing; is believing", but God says the opposite. "Believing; is seeing" in the Kingdom. And it can be the most difficult thing we've ever done. A couple of ideas which may help:

We choose to believe. Belief is often an act of the will.
We decide that God's word is true and that we will live our lives as though He told the truth.
We consider the Lord's goals, methods, purposes, time-frame and character, and we compare them to our own. Who knows best?

We consider the Lord's power, prerogative, wisdom, dominion, and compare them to our own. Who is better able to bring victory?

Cease from your labor

Sounds like heaven, doesn't it? If we rise above the legalistic approach to the Sabbath, the jots and tittles of "a; Sabbath's day journey" and lighting fires and such, and we focus on the "no; servile work" part, it sounds very appealing. To rest, and to have no accusations of laziness or dereliction of duty to mar our leisure, seems lovely to a nation of performers. So many of us are goal-oriented doers, worker-bees busily earning. Rest seems shameful, villainous.

Imagine - to have not working a virtue! What a delightful idea! The core of the message is: We don't have to labor; the work is done. We don't need to strive, to earn, to make it happen, because it has already happened! It is finished! Our role is that of believer, not of accomplisher. Believe only! We are healed. Our children are safe. We are blessed. We are protected. It all works for our good. God said it; we believe it; we shall see it. The veil between our physical infirmity and the totality of our healing, between what we see happening in our families and what God has pledged for our children, between what we experience in life and what God has promised us, is ripped open!!! This veil was rent from top to bottom at Calvary. (Matthew 27:51)

We rend it from bottom to top by what we believe.

But it looks like it's too late! This thing has been in a grave four days! One day past Resurrection! Too late even for God!!! Our hopes and prayers and faith notwithstanding, the thing we long for so desperately is in the grave, stinking, all cumbered about with grave clothes and lost. Jesus didn't show up in time and our hearts are broken. But if we believe, we shall see our dead walk out of the realm of death! Our hopes and dreams shall see life! Our families, our possessions, our finances, our bodies, our souls' restoration, all these and more, shall rise and come forth from the tomb if we believe! It's not too late - it's never too late. It's not up to us! He did it! We don't have to achieve anything, we have to believe.

Let's look at the story of Lazarus in John 11. Dead, in a tomb four days. Jesus showed up - finally! - and questioned both the sisters. Somebody would need to exercise some faith; did they believe? "Jesus; said, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world... And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go." (John 11:25-27, 43,44)

Lazarus walked out of the tomb. Death was swallowed up in victory - even then, before the Atonement, life prevailed. Our God can do anything, if we believe. But as it was with the natural promised land at the time of the Exodus, the "entering-in;" now, into the spiritual land, is based on believing. "...; they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief..." (Hebrews 4:6) The ball is in our court, so to speak. He's done His part. And we have the Bible. We can read. We can choose to believe.

This is probably the hardest thing God will ever require of us. It is diametrically opposed to the flesh, this believing what He has said over the evidence of our senses, over the condition of our circumstances, over the proof of our experience. The world locks up people who deny the evidence of their senses. (Or maybe today they just drug them.) Because this behavior always has been - and still is - considered an indication of mental illness. The church resents this mindset: "I; believe God's word more than I believe the what I see." This is called, among others things, not being balanced, tempting God, not showing wisdom, as well as several other more offensive terms. Very few want to stand in faith like this, because it's so radical and uncomfortable. Culty, even.

And Satan is furious. He brings out every weapon in his arsenal and batters us with doubt, with other attacks. He brings people to tell us how foolish we're being. He tries to bring us back to the position of believing the lie that "God; helps those who help themselves".; (No reference is given here because of course that's not in the Bible.) Satan wants us back in the striving, trying to do-it-ourselves mode, which of course will at best produce an Ishmael.

Remember: it's unbelief that keeps us striving, worrying, grieving, hopeless and defeated outside the Promised Land, outside the blessed Sabbath of His rest. But if we can hang in there, watching the time go by; hearing the slander and the assaults; keeping our attitude right by battling self-pity, anger, impatience, unbelief, fear; refusing to listen to the accuser tell us God is unfaithful (and it really does seem that God is on hiatus); if we can last till that fourth day, then glory abounds.

Either we win our victory, or we are rewarded beyond our comprehension for our faithful trust and endurance. And either way, we have learned something about the Rest of God, which has nothing whatsoever to do with circumstances. This is His rest:

We don't have to do it; God is the Achiever.
The problem isn't too big; God is omnipotent.
It isn't too late; God dwells in eternity.
It hasn't gone too far; God is Restorer.

Whatever we need, He is it. He is Savior, Lover, Wisdom, Healer, Provider, Protector, Husband, Father, Peace, Banner, Brother, Defender, Shepherd, Deliverer, Judge, Lord, King, Hiding Place, Kinsman Redeemer... In fact, He is everything!

Except Believer. That's our part.

Carol Balizet Cult

Wednesday, November 8, 2023

15. The Sabbath of Rest by Carol Balizet