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Sunday, March 1, 2015
He Will Give You Rest
We are all familiar with the
passage in Matthew where Yeshua tells us that he will give rest to those who
are weary and weighed down. This is a promise and a comfort to us when we are
faced with the burdens and responsibilities of this hectic, fast-paced lifestyle
of the twenty-first century. But, there is a deeper meaning in this passage and
an incredible promise. Let’s dig in a little deeper.
Matthew 11:28-30 NKJV 28
"Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you
rest. 29 "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and
lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 "For My yoke is
easy and My burden is light."
Yeshua’s words in this passage
are actually in a Hebrew poetic form called a chiasm. The individual thoughts
lead to an inward central theme and then back out again to end where it began.
This passage begins and ends with a burden and breaks down as shown:
A: Come to Me, all you who labor
and are heavy laden
B:
I will give you rest
C:
Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me
C:
for I am gentle and lowly in heart
B:
you will find rest for your souls
A: For My yoke is easy and My
burden is light
Before we get to the central
theme, we need to look at the outer layer and work our way in. Those who labor
and are heavy laden are to come to Yeshua. The word for labor is the Greek word
#2872 kopias which means to feel fatigue, to work hard, to labor with wearisome
effort. The phrase “heavy laden” is the Greek word #5412 phortizo meaning to be
loaded up. The noun “burden” in the second part of the outer layer is phortion
which is the noun form of the same Greek word phortizo. The heavy load in verse
28 becomes the light load in verse 30. But what is this heavy load that wearies
us? Let’s go back to the Bible to answer this! The first heavy load that
wearied man was the burden placed on Adam when he was expelled from the Garden
of Eden!
Genesis 3:17 NKJV 17 Then to Adam
He said, "Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten
from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat of it':
"Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it All the
days of your life.
The word toil is the Hebrew word
#6093 “itstsabon” meaning pain, labor, hardship, sorrow and toil. Instead of
eating from the trees of the Garden of Eden, especially the tree of life, which
freely gave their fruit for food, Adam had to labor to coax the ground to grow
plants to provide physical nourishment. But even that provided only temporary
nourishment; without the fruit from the tree of life, Adam was sentenced to
death. Our heaviest burden is the one we inherited from Adam; we labor to live
from day to day and there is no respite from our labor. Eventually, we will all
face death.
The promise of respite is the
next layer in; He will give us rest! When God brought the children of Israel
into the Promised Land, He said that He was giving them rest.
Joshua 1:13 NKJV 13
"Remember the word which Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you,
saying, 'The LORD your God is giving you rest and is giving you this land.'
Joshua 21:43-44 NKJV 43 So the
LORD gave to Israel all the land of which He had sworn to give to their
fathers, and they took possession of it and dwelt in it. 44 The LORD gave them
rest all around, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers. And not a
man of all their enemies stood against them; the LORD delivered all their
enemies into their hand.
Notice that the promised rest is
tied to the land! David wrote that there remains the promise of rest as long as
we don’t fall into the same rebellion as the children of Israel who all died in
the wilderness without receiving the promise.
Psalms 95:7-8 NKJV 7 For He is
our God, And we are the people of His pasture, And the sheep of His hand.
Today, if you will hear His voice: 8 "Do not harden your hearts, as in the
rebellion, As in the day of trial in the wilderness,
Psalms 95:11 NKJV 11 So I swore
in My wrath, 'They shall not enter My rest.'"
The writer of the book of Hebrews
confirms that rest is tied to more than the Promised Land referring to this
same Psalm of David.
Hebrews 4:8-9 NKJV 8 For if
Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another
day. 9 There remains therefore a rest for the people of God.
What is this rest spoken of by
David and the write of Hebrews? The word used for rest in Hebrews verse 9 is a
word that is used only here in scripture.
In fact, it is #4520 “Sabbatismos,” a Greek transliteration for “Sabbath rest.” In Judaic writing, the
Sabbath foreshadows the world to come; it is a day “which shall be all
Sabbath.”
The passage in Hebrews continues
to compare our rest with God’s Sabbath rest.
Hebrews 4:10 NKJV 10 For he who
has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from
His.
The rest we receive from Yeshua
is like that of God after He completed creation. We rest in the garden God
planted for us. We rest in the completed work of Yeshua our Messiah. The book
of Hebrews describes Yeshua’s qualifications and work concluding in chapter 11
that His work in regards to sin is finished, but there remains His return to
bring us to safety.
Hebrews 9:28 NKJV 28 so Christ
was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He
will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.
Hebrews 10:14 NKJV 14 For by one
offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.
At that time, we will experience
a day that is all Sabbath! All Rest! We who believe have assurance that we
enter that rest!
Hebrews 4:3 NKJV 3 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.
This, now, takes us to the center
of the passage in Matthew, “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am
gentle and lowly in heart.”
When we take on a yoke, we are
putting ourselves under the authority of the one who places the yoke. When the
children of Israel went into captivity in Babylon, God told them they are under
the yoke of Babylon.
Jeremiah 27:8 NKJV 8 'And it
shall be, that the nation and kingdom which will not serve Nebuchadnezzar the
king of Babylon, and which will not put its neck under the yoke of the king of
Babylon, that nation I will punish,' says the LORD, 'with the sword, the
famine, and the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand.
So, we are under the authority of
Yeshua and we are to learn from Him! Jeremiah tells us what we are to learn!
Jeremiah 6:16 NKJV 16 Thus says
the LORD: "Stand in the ways and see, And ask for the old paths, where the
good way is, And walk in it; Then you will find rest for your souls. But they
said, 'We will not walk in it.'
We are to learn to walk in the
old ways and, thus, find rest for our souls.
Jeremiah goes on to tell us what God meant when He said they wouldn’t
walk in His ways.
Jeremiah 6:19 NKJV 19 Hear, O
earth! Behold, I will certainly bring calamity on this people-The fruit of
their thoughts, Because they have not heeded My words, Nor My law, but rejected
it.
They wouldn’t walk according to
God’s Torah! The old ways are the ways of Torah. The Torah is the set of
instructions for those who put themselves under the authority of Yeshua on how
to love God and each other! David tells us that walking in Torah brings peace.
Psalms 119:165 NKJV 165 Great
peace have those who love Your law, And nothing causes them to stumble.
Now that we are saved, yoked to
Yeshua, the Torah tells us how to live a victorious spirit-filled life! The
apostle John tells us that loving God is not burdensome.
1 John 5:3 NKJV 3 For this is the
love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not
burdensome.
Our pride gets in the way,
though, of submitting to authority. We ask, why we should submit to Yeshua’s
authority. He tells us why; because He himself is humble. He is gentle and
lowly in heart! We are to submit because He submits
John tells us that those who are
in Him, who are yoked together with Him, walk the way He walked.
1 John 2:6 NKJV 6 He who says he
abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.
When we submit to Yeshua’s
authority, and learn from Him because He is humble, we find rest for our souls.
This is the central theme of this passage in Matthew. Yeshua, our humble
messiah, teaches us to walk in humility and submission by His own example. And
through His submission to the Father, submission even to death on the cross, we
have rest for our souls! And Yeshua’s yoke, His authority is easy to bear. His burden is not heavy, it is light! Yeshua
gives us rest both in this life and in the eternal life to come!
Shalom and be Blessed
Dan & Brenda Cathcart
Visit our web site @ www.MoedMinistries.com
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