THE REST OF FAITH Part 2
The wisdom of the fathers
THE REST OP FAITH Hebrew 4.1-4 Part 3
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Unbelief closes the heart against God, withdraws the life from God's power; in the very nature of things unbelief renders the word of promise of none effect. A gospel of rest is preached to us as it was to them. We have in Scripture the most precious assurances of a rest for the soul to be found under the yoke of Jesus, of a peace of God which passes all under standing, of a peace and a joy in the soul which nothing can take away.
But when they are not believed they cannot be enjoyed: faith is in its very nature a resting in the promise and the promiser until He fulfil it in us. Only faith can enter into rest. The fulness of faith enters into the full rest. For we which have believed do enter into rest. It is not, shall enter. No. To-day, even as the Holy Ghost says, "To-day," now and here, we which have believed do enter into rest. It is with the rest of faith here as with what we heard of being partakers of Christ the blessing is enjoyed, if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm unto the end.
The initial faith, that passes out of Egypt through the Red Sea, must be held fast firm, then it comes to the fulness of faith that passes through Jordan into the land. Let every student of this Epistle realise how intensely personal its tone is, and with what urgency it appeals to us for faith, as the one thing needful in our dealings with the word of God. Without this the word cannot profit us. We may seek by thought and study to enter into the meaning of the promise God has sworn that we never shall enter into its possession, or into His rest, but by faith.
(from "The Holiest of All" by Andrew Murray)